Ramsey Campbell - The Face That Must Die

He sounded too polite, as though concealing a dislike of her. “You want the voters’ list,” she said, glancing at the table where the rude man sat. “Are you looking for a particular street?”

Never before had she seen such intense distrust peering from anyone’s eyes. She felt almost guilty. When he spoke, she could tell that he still didn’t trust her. “Aigburth Drive,” he said.

“ Why, I live there,” she would have said to many people – but she didn’t feel like saying so to him. She felt wickedly delighted that he’d come to the wrong library. “You want the voters’ list at Sefton Park,” she said.

His eyes pinched narrow. Surely he didn’t suspect her of lying. Maybe she was being paranoid, imagining suppressed violence in his voice as he said “You must have it here as well.”

“ I’m afraid not.” His continuing disbelief angered her. “If you’ll just come over here,” she said, “I’ll ask that gentleman to let you see our list.”

The rude man raised his head, hostile as a feeding animal. “No, no thank you,” the limping man said hastily. “It’s all right. Thank you for your help. You’ve been very helpful.”

He limped out. The doors swung back and forth, back and forth, closing their gap. What a weird character! Her anger faded quickly but not, she was pleased to find, before it had burned away the threat of depression. She joined her colleagues, who were muttering at stray books on the shelves. In an odd way, the incident of the limping man had cheered her up. She always enjoyed mysteries.

As he fled onto Lodge Lane, Horridge gasped with relief. The crowd within the bus shelter stared at him through apertures framed by claws of glass. The girl had seemed to know more than she should. What reason could there be for her to know?

He trudged unevenly, cursing his display of panic. The man at the table had looked like an official, but there had been no reason for him to notice Horridge. By fleeing, Horridge had drawn attention to himself – and he must be inconspicuous now.

He trudged. His leg throbbed, and felt swollen. His thigh felt as though burdened with a clinging child. The memory of his flight through the cinemas was aching there. He had to plod and sway like a drunkard. He couldn’t move faster than his doubts.

What had the girl been doing in that library? She wasn’t supposed to be there. She might almost have been planted there to send him on this trudge, to give his doubts more time to trouble him. She had seemed all too ready to tell him that she couldn’t help, without bothering to look in any index. How could she have known that he’d gone to that library so as to finish as quickly as possible what he had to do?

At last he managed to escape the faded street, the patrolling shoppers, the plague of shops that displayed dusty emptiness. At the roundabout he found he dared not pass the decayed house. He had to use the path just within the park, which followed the road but whose border of trees screened him from the house. He limped hastily by, distracting himself with a glimpse of a bench that had been turned to face away from the park, no doubt by vandals.

The lake was surrounded by fishermen, immobile as posts. If they’d nothing better to do they should go and clean up Cantril Farm, to make it fit for decent folk to live in. Why weren’t they at work? No wonder the Social Security were suspicious, with all these people who didn’t know right from wrong. But that was no reason to treat him as if he didn’t know how to behave. Babble, babble. Was his mind trying to distract him from his purpose too?

It seemed so, for his thoughts tried to fasten on Lark Lane, to slow him. How like a village it was: a butcher’s open-fronted shop with slabs, an old police station, an antique shop glowing brassily. It felt familiar, as though he had been here as a child – but he was sure he never had. Couldn’t he linger? A fish and chip shop said it was Chinese and English, which was a lie: it couldn’t be both. Enough chuntering. Get on with the job that must be done.

Behind the library counter stood a bearded youth with far too much hair. No, he wasn’t the goatish creature from the corrupt house. He tugged his beard as though ringing himself awake and said “Can I help you?”

Exactly the girl’s words. They were like automatons, not a pinch of character among them. “I want to consult the voters’ list, please.” Now that his request could be more specific he felt a little less uneasy.

“ What street do you want?”

He wouldn’t be caught like that twice. “I’ll find that out for myself, thank you.”

The youth groped out the list from beneath the counter. Through the dustily translucent plastic cover Horridge read AIGBURTH DRIVE, blurred as though drowned. He’d soon dredge it up. He sat as far as possible from the counter, in the junior wing. Surely the children wouldn’t spy on him: Britain wasn’t one of those countries yet, however many people wanted it to be. But he pretended to scrutinise several pages, in case anyone was watching. Only when his nervousness began to creep behind him, urging him to flee while he was still safe, did he turn to Aigburth Drive. He wasn’t safe – he hadn’t been since he had looked into the killer’s eyes. He must make himself safe.

An instinct surer than his thoughts directed him to the exact spot on the page. His gaze fastened on the number of the house: it appeared eight times, alongside eight names. Lurking among them, pretending to be like the rest, was the name.

Harty, Brendan Sean (Flat 1)

Lunt, Aneurin Cornelius (Flat 2)

Craig, Roy (Flat 3)

Adamson, Frances Sybil (Flat 4)

Day, Patricia Anne (Flat 5)

Shone, Susan Gloria (Flat 5)

Gardner, Peter David (Flat 6)

Gardner, Catherine Angela (Flat 6)

Alongside the listings, consecutive numbers counted the names. Somewhere on such a list, Horridge must be numbered. No time to brood on that now. The killer lived on the middle floor, and his flat must be one of the two middle numbers – which singled his name out at once.

Roy Craig

It lay there challenging him to see through its disguise. It sounded too masculine, too strong: that betrayed it – that, and the fact that “Roy” was a little like “gay”. That was what homosexuals called themselves, though Horridge was damned if he knew what they had to be gay about: it was an insult to the word.

Something else was struggling to emerge into his mind: a memory, a similarity – When he grasped it, he sniggered mirthlessly. Two children stared at him and hid, giggling. The name of the latest victim had been Roylance. That was no coincidence. Perhaps the killer’s guilty conscience had made him leave that clue for those who weren’t too blind to see.

He fumbled in his pockets. His pencil was shorter than his thumb, and as blunt. Still, it would write – but on what? He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by asking for paper. Disentangling his birth certificate from the rest of his documents, he printed Roy Craig’s name on the back. Then, from an obscure inkling that it might prove useful, he listed the names of the other tenants.

He stared at Craig’s name, hidden in the official list. Why didn’t it writhe maggot-like with shame? Let it stay as still as it liked – it couldn’t hide from him now. “Thank you very much,” he said at the counter, delighted with the way his politeness concealed his plan.

When he emerged, the cold seized him. His resolution began to shiver. He was provided with a telephone box too soon: a pair of them stood back to back not twenty paces from the library. He hadn’t thought out what to say. He mustn’t falter when he picked up the phone. Besides, the boxes stood between a Ladies’ and a bus queue. Suppose he were overheard?