Thomas Cook - Instruments of Night

When he’d finished, it was still light enough for him to go outside again, but he remained indoors by the window, watching the evening’s darkness descend upon the pond. For a time he thought of going to bed, but he’d slept so fitfully the night before, hearing footsteps outside his window though none were there, feeling the breeze from the nearby pond like a cold breath. There were even moments when he’d felt sure he’d heard distant voices, low, muffled, steeped in maliciousness and conspiracy. He’d long ago recognized such things as auditory hallucinations. They were sounds that he imagined, or, if real, to which he gave a dark, nearly paranoid intent. In the past few months, he’d begun to wonder if his mind might soon add visual hallucinations as well, plague him with the same false visions Slovak had already begun to see in his own room at night: shadows slipping silently across the bare wall, a bloody ooze flowing slowly from beneath his closet door, a tiny arm dangling from a half-closed bureau drawer, its decaying fingers dripping a greenish slime.

He stood abruptly, bent on getting away from Slovak’s disordered visions, walked out onto the porch and stood behind its gray metal screen.

For a time, everything remained silent and motionless. Then Graves noticed a subtle movement at the water’s edge.

She was standing by the canal, staring down at the gently flowing water, tall, slim, her white hair loose, falling over her shoulders, a figure he at once recognized as Allison Davies. She was dressed in a long nightgown, its hem sweeping over the ground as she drifted slowly along the edge of the channel. For a moment she stopped and lifted her head abruptly, as if something had occurred to her. Then she lowered it again, turned, and made her way toward the boathouse. She’d almost reached it, when a man suddenly came out from behind it, his hair as white as Miss Davies’, his body wrapped in a checkered housecoat.

It was Saunders. Graves continued to watch as he walked directly to his employer and stopped in front of her, as if to block her way. They seemed to speak a few words, then Miss Davies nodded and headed back up the walkway to the house while Saunders remained near the boathouse, watching her until she reached the door, paused briefly, then went inside her home.

Saunders lingered a moment longer by the water, still staring toward the great house, his back both to Graves and to the dark grounds that separated them. Then, as if his duty had been done, he returned to the boathouse and disappeared inside.

After that the grounds remained motionless and deserted. But Graves lingered on the porch, peering out over the lake, oddly disturbed by the scene he’d just witnessed, peaceful though it was, quiet, tender, and yet, as the grim engine of his brain forever insisted, perhaps not entirely innocent.

Saunders arrived promptly at nine-thirty the next morning. Graves was already packed and waiting.

“Did you sleep well, sir?”

“I suppose,” Graves answered.

On the way back to Britanny Falls, Saunders talked of nothing but the coming summer. “It’s really nice here in the summer. Riverwood has everything anybody could want.” He glanced toward Graves. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy your stay.”

“I haven’t decided if I’m coming back for the summer,” Graves told him.

Saunders nodded, but said nothing.

“Miss Davies went for a late walk last night,” Graves added as casually as he could.

Saunders’ eyes lifted toward the rear view mirror. “Miss Davies has trouble sleeping sometimes. Takes walks to relax.” A beat passed before he added, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Graves, I keep a lookout for her. It’s easy for me to do it from my own place. From the boathouse, I mean.”

“You live in the boathouse?”

“In what used to be the boathouse. It was converted into a regular house quite a few years ago. Anyway, from my bedroom window I can keep an eye on the house and grounds.” Saunders appeared to consider his next words. “That’s where she’s taken to walking lately. Along the edge of the canal. I mean, since she started thinking about what happened to Faye Harrison.”

“Did you see Faye the day she disappeared?” Graves asked.

“Yes, I did. She came around the side of the house, then headed across the lawn toward the woods. That was the last anybody saw of her. Except for that kid.”

“What kid?”

“A local kid,” Saunders answered. “He saw Faye walking in the woods near Indian Rock. It’s all in the old newspaper clippings Miss Davies has back at the main house. The ones you’ll be reading through if you decide to come back.”

They’d reached the main street of Britanny Falls. Saunders guided the Volvo over to the curb, but did not get out. Instead, he turned to face Graves in the backseat. “Well, good-bye, Mr. Graves,” he said with his quick smile. “Hope you come back for the summer.”

Perhaps because of his natural suspiciousness, the veil of malicious motive and secret conclave that colored everything, Graves was not at all certain that Saunders hoped for any such return.

When the bus reached New York two hours later, Graves walked to the nearest station and took the subway to his apartment. An envelope waited for him just as Miss Davies had said it would.

“Something for you, Mr. Graves.” The doorman drew it from a stack of others on his desk.

Graves took the envelope from him and went upstairs. But instead of opening it, he walked directly to his desk and sat down at his typewriter, feeling oddly guilty that he’d left Slovak on the rooftop ledge for so long, now eager to get him off it somehow.

He read through the last scene he’d written before leaving for Riverwood. At the end of it, Slovak stood at the far corner of the building, the vast city stretching out behind him, its spires and smokestacks charred black against a “bloodred dawn.”

Graves stared at the word “bloodred” for a moment, decided it was lurid, and considered changing the color of the sunrise first to wine, then to burgundy. But these words seemed too soft. Too romantic. And so he decided to eliminate color altogether, so that with the rapid addition of a row of x’s Slovak now stood with his back to a jagged cityscape, the buildings in a black silhouette against a background whose exact shading the reader could provide.

With that decision, Graves began to type again:

“At last,” Kessler said. He was grinning maliciously, his teeth broken and crazily slanted, a mouthful of desecrated tombstones. “At last I am bored enough to kill you.”

Slovak wondered if he might yet deny Kessler that final victory. Glancing over the side of the building, he calculated the speed of his fall, the force of the impact. He imagined the sound of his bones as they struck the street below, sensed the sweetness of oblivion.

“Good-bye,” Kessler told him.

Slovak said nothing, but merely stared silently into his eyes.

Kessler squared himself, took the pistol in both hands, and steadied his aim. “Yours was a heart I truly loved to break,” he murmured as he drew back the cock and slowly began to squeeze the trigger.

Now what?

Graves stared at the page, his fingers still on the typewriter keys as he struggled to find some way for his hero to get out of his predicament. This was the part he hated-the working out of the physical details, when it was the hearts and minds he really cared about. Still, it couldn’t be avoided. Slovak must escape if the series was to continue. The only question was by what means.

Graves considered the possibilities. The first to occur to him was that Slovak could go over the side of the building just as Kessler pulled the trigger. Then he could grab the railing of the fire escape and swing to safety on the landing below.