Ramsey Campbell - The Face That Must Die

It was as though she were making herself heavy. He could scarcely move her; her grossness disgusted him. Her head lolled back, staining his overall. Once, when he tried to shift his grip, one of her breasts flopped into his hand. He recoiled shuddering, and with an effort fuelled by panic flung her into the wardrobe.

Then he realised that he had felt a pulse in her breast.

He picked up the metal bird, and closed his eyes. It had to be done. In any case, she was corrupt: she believed that everyone, including him, was homosexual. God only knew what she and Craig had done together.

He opened his eyes minutely, to see exactly where her head was. Then he struck until his arm was tired. He could tell he’d done enough, by a change in the quality of the blows. That dismayed him, but it was easy not to think about it. He threw the metal bird into the wardrobe without looking.

Beneath the scattered stained newspapers the floor was clean. He bundled the papers together with the overall and hurled the bundle into the wardrobe. The snap of the doors sounded final, satisfying.

He patrolled carefully. The knives. The spoons. The taps. The kitchen door and handle. Couldn’t he take his time now, to be thoroughly convinced that he’d missed nothing? But the wardrobe disturbed him indefinably. It looked exactly like an ordinary wardrobe. You couldn’t trust appearances.

At least he’d left no prints in there; the metal bird must be too rough to take them. He wiped the other places that he’d listed, and shied the tea-towel into the kitchen. On the landing, he scrubbed the doorknob with his handkerchief.

Aigburth Drive was deserted. Nobody was spying from behind the trees. Horridge strolled down to the lake and enjoyed the still reflections. He’d intended them to calm him; but once he had left the wardrobe behind he had grown quickly peaceful, without external help. He felt relieved that he had done all he needed to do. He felt invulnerable.

When he emerged from the park, the house no longer looked unnaturally alive. Whatever had possessed it had been exorcised. It was quiet now, just another aging house. Still there was no sign of watchers. The police had missed their last chance to capture him. He strolled away delighted, hardly limping.

A van large as a room stood outside the house. Men were furnishing the van from Mr Harty’s flat. “Are you going tonight?” Cathy asked him. Her own plaintiveness dismayed her.

“ Yes, I am.”

Peter dropped the shopping bag about which he’d been complaining mutely all the way from Lodge Lane. “You’ve found somewhere better then, have you?”

“ I’m afraid that anywhere else would be better now, so far as I’m concerned. But yes, I’m going to a pleasant flat. I should think about a move yourselves if I were you.”

“ Sometime,” Peter muttered, stooping reluctantly to the bag.

The van was growling, eager for its run. “Goodbye, Mrs Gardner, Mr Gardner,” Mr Harty said.

Echoes seemed to be invading the stairs. It was as though a plague of desertion were spreading through the house. At least Fanny wasn’t gone forever. Halfway up the stairs, intuition too vague to define halted Cathy. Had Fanny returned? There was nothing to hear, and she couldn’t knock while Peter was watching: that would need too much explanation.

As she unpacked the shopping she said “I want to see Frank and Angie.”

“ When?” He tried not to hear by making plastic crackle.

“ Tonight.”

“ Oh come on. Jesus Christ, we only saw them on New Year’s Eve.”

“ I thought you quite liked them.”

“ What? I can stand them sometimes, when I have to. They’d be all right if they were younger, maybe. I mean, we might just as well go to your mother’s.”

Her mother had rung her today, in case she needed reassurance. Cathy would have liked to visit her, but her concern would only annoy Peter. Besides, she didn’t think much of him at the best of times; neither she nor Cathy’s father nor Lewis had liked him – he resembled none of them. Was that why Cathy had married him?

“ I’m not going to argue,” she said. “I want to go. I want to talk.”

Irritability roughened his voice; he must have a cannabis hangover. “So talk to me, for Christ’s sake.”

How? Their private language had died, and very little had replaced it. “I rang Angie this afternoon,” she said. “They’re expecting us.”

He gobbled his dinner without comment. When she washed up he wiped a few plates and smoked a joint. Before he could roll another she said “I want to go now.”

She drove the van past Penny Lane. Boys stood eating out of newspapers. Beside her, Peter swayed like a bag of shopping. It was a good job that he couldn’t drive. On Allerton Road couples were window-shopping; a young man staggered out of a wine store, bearing a carton of bottles of spirits to his sports car. Shops or petitions barred pubs from the area.

Queens Drive was an avenue of trees and sodium lamp-standards. The Halliwells’ Cortina occupied their driveway. Each semi-detached house was guarded by a large car.

The doorbell chimed a half-hour. Soon Angie appeared in a long dress entwined with cotton vines. The hall walls were crowded: a nostalgic pub mirror, Frank in an old school photograph, the Desiderata: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…”

Angie finished massaging Frank’s neck. “I didn’t know you had massage parlours round here,” Peter said. He stood frowning at Angie’s Royal Family portrait album, at the very fat new leather suite. When he sat down, his chair was audibly rude to him.

Frank opened the flap of the bar counter: homemade, of glossy pine. “Cathy, what would you like to drink?”

“ A huge gin and tonic.”

“ Peter?”

“ What, a little drinkie?” His tone stopped just short of mocking. “Beer’s all right,” he said.

“ I know what you want,” Frank told his wife, pouring tequila. “Et pour moi – le vin!” he announced gravely.

Unbuttoning his waistcoat, he sank into his chair, which humphed. “I hear you’re thinking of buying a house,” he said to Peter.

“ You hear wrong.”

“ That isn’t what I said, Frank. He knows what computers are talking about but doesn’t understand me,” Angie complained.

“ Sorry, sorry. Still, it’s worth thinking about,” Frank said. “Apart from all the other advantages, property is an investment.”

“ Don’t give me that stuff, brother. I’ve had one capitalist at me today already.”

Cathy shifted uneasily; her chair made sure that everyone noticed. “How about you?” Frank asked her. “How do you feel?”

“ I’d like to move soon. I want a house before we have children.”

“ Mm.” His eyes flickered: he didn’t want Angie reminded of their barrenness. “That looked a promising house we passed the other night,” he said to Angie. “In that road.”

“ Which road?”

“ Er – oh, you know.”

“ I don’t.”

“ Of course you do. You know.”

“ Which one?”

“ You know.” He was almost squeaking – he sounded like a man determined to overcome a language barrier by shouting, anything to steer them away from the subject of children.

“ Husbands.” Angie’s grimace was gentle. Had she known what he was doing? She was glancing about at her collection of elaborately ethnic dolls, most of which he’d bought. One, which was shaped like a fat skittle, unscrewed to yield up a smaller which unscrewed too, until a whole family emerged.

Peter looked bored, excluded. “When are you finishing work?” Angie asked him.

“ Tomorrow.”