Ramsey Campbell - The Face That Must Die

Why was the man so impatient? She remembered what Roy had said about the police visit. Did this man have something to do with the persecution? “If you want Roy Craig,” she said, “he’s out.”

He didn’t turn, though his shoulder blades drew together beneath the grey dilapidated coat, making her think again of a bird. She must have startled him. Had she mistaken the bell he was ringing? “Are you a friend of Roy Craig’s?” she said.

Was he deaf? Had it been the intrusive breeze rather than her voice that had made his shoulders move? He seemed unaware of her. He stood motionless, his right hand bulging his coat pocket. Ought she to touch his shoulder? Somehow she must make her presence known.

Then he began to turn. He looked stiff as a dummy on a turntable. She was fascinated, and at the same time rather unnerved. Here came his face on his pivoting body: fortyish, bland and scrubbed, with protruding ears. Here came his eyes to stare fixedly at her. They were an astonishing baby blue.

His stare abashed her. It and his face were secret as a baby’s. Why didn’t she advance to the front door, or stand aside to let him out of the porch? The grip of his stare was forcing her to speak, yet she didn’t know what to say. She had never in her life felt so uncomfortable.

“ I’m sorry,” she managed to stammer. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sure you’ve a good reason to be here.”

A faint smile crept over his face, but left his eyes untouched; if anything, their scrutiny grew sharper. An insight seized her. She blurted “You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”

His face stiffened. His hand moved in his pocket like a Hollywood detective’s. He looked to be struggling to control his face. What could be trying to emerge? All at once a grin tugged his mouth wide. His eyes twinkled as though she were a favourite child. “Not quite,” he said.

She remembered what she’d meant to suggest to Roy, that he ought to hire – “You’re a private detective,” she said.

“ That’s it. You’ve got me.” His voice was light; the constant nimble changes of its tone made her think of a ballerina’s footwork. She heard how she had delighted him. “What a perceptive woman you are,” he said.

“ I have to be. I’m an artist.” For a moment, without any definable reason, she was uncomfortably suspicious of him. She’d told him what he was, instead of making him tell her. “Roy has told me all about the reason he’s hired you,” she said carefully. “We often talk. He lives just across the landing.”

“ Of course, the artist. Miss Frances Adamson, I believe.”

She was enormously relieved: she could trust him. “Most of my friends call me Fanny,” she said, “but Roy thinks it’s rude.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled to himself. She noticed that his visible hand was trembling. And his shoulders had tried to shrug off the draught. “Sorry,” she said, closing them both into the porch. “It must be a cold job sometimes.”

“ I suppose so.” He was staring at the door as though she might have locked him in. “But the suffering’s worthwhile.”

“ I’m just going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

Roy believed that it had been someone in the house who had called the police, because they didn’t like his living there. She found herself growing suspicious of people she’d taken for granted, and that distressed her. Perhaps the detective could prove their suspicions wrong, and rid her of her paranoia.

He was staring at the door. His hand stirred in his pocket. Remembering bad films, she had to suppress a giggle. Suddenly he smiled at her, eyes wide. “Thank you,” he said. “That would be very useful.”

In the hall she noticed he was limping slightly. His glance seemed to challenge her. “Is that real?” she blurted.

“ What do you think?”

When he walked upstairs ahead of her, slowly as a mannequin, the limp had vanished. “No,” she said admiringly. It was a subtle way for him to look less like a detective.

She unlocked her flat. God, this was what you called an exhibition. Still, no doubt van Gogh hadn’t been the tidiest person in the world, dropping ears everywhere. The floor was scattered with magazines and newspapers from which she’d clipped images. Lumps of modelling clay with which she’d been experimenting occupied a sheet of plastic on the table. She threw her keys beside them.

The postcard on the mantelpiece nagged at her. “See you on Jan 15.” Perhaps they would; she hadn’t yet decided. Her exhibition wouldn’t be over by then – but people came to look at her paintings, not at her. Why should she deny herself a week in Wales just to oblige people who didn’t really like her work?

No time for reflection now. She had a visitor. “Take your coat off,” she suggested.

“ No, thank you.” He was glancing everywhere in the room – his was a full-time job, like hers. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“ Oh, nothing. Just clay for shaping. Sometimes I feel I’d like to work in clay, but I’m not very good.”

“ Aren’t you?” His tone sounded satirical.

“ Well, I don’t mean as an artist,” she said. Was she defending herself unnecessarily? “I have an exhibition running at the moment. Though I’m not sure what that proves.” Her intermittent self-deprecation and his wide-eyed gaze were making her chatter. “I want to appeal to the underprivileged, you see. But all I seem to get is the usual gallery crowd.”

“ And what kind of people are they?”

She’d said too much; she didn’t want to sound completely ungrateful for her audience. “Oh, just the sort of people who visit galleries.”

He grinned faintly. Of course, as a detective he must be amused by her apparent inability to describe people. Did he really think that as an artist she wouldn’t have an eye for people? She couldn’t be bothered to start an argument. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said.

When she returned, he was handling a lump of clay. No wonder he was a detective – he had to use his curiosity somehow! “Did you do that?” he said over his shoulder as soon as she came in.

He jerked his head towards the metal bird. He sounded almost accusing. “No,” she said wistfully. “A friend.” Tony had sculpted it especially for her, and she treasured it – but at the same time it helped remind her that two artists couldn’t live comfortably together, not in her experience.

The detective’s voice brought her out of her memories. “Damnation,” he muttered without turning. “I’ve got your clay under my nails. May I wash my hands?”

“ Of course you can. There’s soap in the kitchen.”

He went slowly, as though still parading the absence of his limp. “Can you find it?” she called. “Just by the knives in the sink.”

Receiving no reply, she was making to show him when he said beyond the door “Have I dropped my notebook out there?”

She searched the floor. Anything could hide amid the collage of her flat. “I don’t think so,” she called at last. “What does it look like?”

He emerged, and went to the table. “Here it is,” he said. Her view was blocked, but she saw him slip an object into his pocket.

She brought him tea, milked and sugared. Four spoonfuls! What a sweet tooth! It was like one of the inevitable idiosyncrasies novelists gave their detectives. She headed at once for the subject she wanted to discuss. “Isn’t it dreadful, playing a trick like that on Roy,” she said.

“ You wouldn’t think there’d be such bigotry these days.”

“ You’d be surprised how some people still feel.”

“ Of course the police didn’t think he had anything to do with these murders, but having them check was upsetting enough.”