The Collected Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell Part 38

Beneath the debris a pit had been dug. Parts of its earth walls had collapsed, but protruding from the fallen soil he could see bones. They looked too large for an animal's. In the centre of the pit, sprinkled with earth, lay a cat. Little of it remained, except for its skin and bones; its skin was covered with deep pockmarks. But its eyes seemed to move feebly.

Appalled, he stooped. He had no idea what to do. He never knew, for the walls of the pit were s.h.i.+fting. Soil trickled scattering as a face the size of his fist emerged. There were several; their limbless bodies squirmed from the earth all around the pit. From toothless mouths, their sharp tongues flickered out towards the cat. As he fled they began wailing dreadfully.

He chased the light towards the steps. He fell, cutting his knees. He thought the face with its gleaming eyes would meet him in the hall. He ran from the cellar, flailing his flashlight at the air. As he stumbled down the street he could still see the faces that had crawled from the soil: rudimentary beneath translucent skin, but beginning to be human. He leaned against his gatepost in the lamplight, retching. Images and memories tumbled disordered through his mind. The face crawling over the roofs. Only seen at night. Vampire. The fluttering at the window. Her terror at the hedge full of spiders. Calyptra, what was it, Calyptra eustrigata. Vampire moth.

Vague though they were, the implications terrified him. He fled into his building, but halted fearfully on the stairs. The things must be destroyed: to delay would be insane. Suppose their hunger brought them crawling out of the cellar tonight, towards his flat-Absurd though it must be, he couldn't forget that they might have seen his face.

He stood giggling, dismayed. Whom did you call in these circ.u.mstances? The police, an exterminator? Nothing would relieve his horror until he saw the brood destroyed, and the only way to see that was to do the job himself. Burn. Petrol. He dawdled on the stairs, delaying, thinking he knew none of the other tenants from whom to borrow the fuel.

He ran to the nearby garage. "Have you got any petrol?"

The man glared at him, suspecting a joke. "You'd be surprised. How much do you want?"

How much indeed! He restrained his giggling. Perhaps he should ask the man's advice! Excuse me, how much petrol do you need for-"A gallon," he stammered.

As soon as he reached the back street he switched on his flashlight. Crowds of rubble lined the pavements. Far above the dark house he saw his orange light. He stepped over the debris into the hall. The swaying light brought the face forward to meet him. Of course the hall was empty.

He forced himself forward. Plucked by the flashlight, the cellar door flapped soundlessly. Couldn't he just set fire to the house? But that might leave the brood untouched. Don't think, go down quickly. Above the stairs the stain loomed.

In the cellar nothing had changed. The bag gaped, the clothes lay emptied. Struggling to unscrew the cap of the petrol can, he almost dropped the flashlight. He kicked wood into the pit and began to pour the petrol. At once he heard the wailing beneath him. "Shut up!" he screamed, to drown out the sound. "Shut up! Shut up!"

The can took its time in gulping itself empty; the petrol seemed thick as oil. He hurled the can clattering away, and ran to the steps. He fumbled with matches, gripping the flashlight between his knees. As he threw them, the lit matches went out. Not until he ventured back to the pit, clutching a ball of paper from his pocket, did he succeed in making a flame that reached his goal. There was a whoof of fire, and a chorus of interminable feeble shrieking.

As he clambered sickened towards the hall, he heard a fluttering above him. Wallpaper, stirring in a wind: it sounded moist. But there was no wind, for the air clung clammily to him. He slithered over the rubble into the hall, darting his light about. Something white bulked at the top of the stairs.

It was another torn bag. He hadn't been able to see it before. It slumped emptily. Beside it the stain spread over the wall. That stain was too symmetrical; it resembled an inverted coat. Momentarily he thought the paper was drooping, tugged perhaps by his unsteady light, for the stain had begun to creep down towards him. Eyes glared at him from its dangling face. Though the face was upside-down he knew it at once. From its gargoyle mouth a tongue reached for him.

He whirled to flee. But the darkness that filled the front door was more than night, for it was advancing audibly. He stumbled, panicking, and rubble slipped from beneath his feet. He fell from the cellar steps, onto piled stone. Though he felt almost no pain, he heard his spine break.

His mind writhed helplessly. His body refused to heed it in any way, and lay on the rubble, trapping him. He could hear cars on the avenue, radio sets and the sounds of cutlery in flats, distant and indifferent. The cries were petering out now. He tried to scream, but only his eyes could move. As they struggled, he glimpsed through a slit in the cellar wall the orange light in his kitchen.

His flashlight lay on the steps, dimmed by its fall. Before long a rustling darkness came slowly down the steps, blotting out the light. He heard sounds in the dark, and something that was not flesh nestled against him. His throat managed a choked shriek that was almost inaudible, even to him. Eventually the face crawled away towards the hall, and the light returned. From the corner of his eye he could see what surrounded him. They were round, still, practically featureless: as yet, hardly even alive.

Hearing Is Believing (1981).

I.

Suddenly he wasn't on the bus home after a frustrating day at work, but in Greece, in a taverna by the sea. The sky was a block of solid blue; over the plucking of bouzoukis he heard people smas.h.i.+ng their empty gla.s.ses. Now sunset was turning the sea into lava, and someone like Anthony Quinn was dancing, arms outstretched, at the edge of the taverna, where waves lapped the stones.

Wells emerged from the daydream several streets nearer home. If he couldn't recall having pa.s.sed through them, that was hardly surprising; beyond the streaming windows of the bus all the streets looked half-erased by rain, smudges and blotches of dull colour. Around him people coughed and sputtered with February chills. No wonder he preferred to antic.i.p.ate his trip to Greece, the Greece of a film in which a tyc.o.o.n married an American president's widow.

He ran home as though he were trying to b.u.t.t the rain aside. The pavements were quivering mirrors of slate. At the top of the hill, rain scrambled over the ruin of the factory. Last week he'd seen the hundred-foot chimney standing for an instant on an explosion of dust before buckling, keeling over, taking with it two hundred jobs.

His house sounded hollow. Except for his bedroom and the living-room, most of it was uncarpeted. Bare scruffy plaster overlooked the stairs, littered the boards of the spare room. That was the way his father had left the house, which was still preferable to Wells's old flat-more of an investment, for one thing. Soon Wells must get on with decorating.

But not tonight: he'd already done enough work for one day, if not for several. When he'd eaten dinner the living-room fire was blazing; flames s.n.a.t.c.hed at the fur of soot on the back of the chimney. Most of his furniture was crowded into the room, including the Yamaha stereo system, the most expensive item in the house.

He sat with a large Scotch while something by Delius wandered, gentle and vague as the firelight. The coughs of the audience were so far back in the stereo arc that they seemed embedded in the wall. At the end of the music, the applause made the room sound huge and deep. He could almost see the flock of hands fly up clapping.

A soprano began singing German, which Wells neither understood nor found evocative. He imagined the conductor's black-and-white plumage, his gestures at the singer as part of an elaborate mating ritual. Eventually Wells got up and fiddled with the dial. Here was a police call, here was a burst of Chinese, here was a message from a s.h.i.+p out on the Irish Sea. And here was someone whispering beside him, so close that he started back, and the rain came pouring in through the roof.

The voice had a background of rain, that was all. There were two voices, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the downpour. He couldn't understand what they were saying; even the sound of the language was unfamiliar-not Eastern European, not an Oriental language. Yet he was so impressed by the vividness of the stereo that he sat down to listen.

The two men were in a street, for he could hear the gurgle of roadside drains. It must be dark, for the men were picking their way very hesitantly. Sometimes they slipped-rubble clinked underfoot-and he didn't need to understand the language to know they were cursing.

For a while he listened to the street sounds: the shrill incessant hiss of rain on stone, rain splas.h.i.+ng jerkily from broken gutters, dripping on fragments of windows in the houses which loomed close on both sides. It was better than sitting before the fire and listening to a storm outside-or at least it would have been, except that he wished he knew why the men were afraid.

It unnerved him. Had they fled into this area to hide? Surely they would be more conspicuous amid the derelict streets, unless everywhere was like this. Or were they searching for something of which they were afraid? They had lowered their voices; they were certainly afraid that something would hear them, even through the clamour of rain. Wells found himself listening uneasily for some hint that it was near, listening so intently that at first he didn't realise that the men had fallen silent and were listening too.

For a while he could hear only the babble of rain and drains and rubble. The other sound was so similar that at first he couldn't be sure it was there. But yes, there was another sound: in the distance a great deal of rubble was s.h.i.+fting. If something was pus.h.i.+ng it out of the way, that something was unhurried and very large. Surely the sound that accompanied it must be a quirk of the storm-surely it couldn't be breathing.

The men had heard it now. He could tell from their voices that they knew what it was-but why was he so much on edge because he couldn't understand? They dodged to the left, gasping as they stumbled over rubble. Now they were struggling with a door that sc.r.a.ped reluctantly back and forth in a heap of fallen masonry. At last rusty hinges gave way, and the door fell.

What use was it to take refuge here, when they'd made so much noise? Perhaps they were hoping to hide as they fled desperately from room to room. Now that they were in the house they sounded closer to him; everything did-the splat, splat of rain on linoleum in one large room, the dull plump of a drip on carpet in another. There must be very little left of the roof.

Now the men were running upstairs, their feet squelching on the stair carpet. They ran the length of a room that sounded enormous; he heard them splas.h.i.+ng heedlessly through puddles. Now they were cowering in the corner to his left, where the light of his fire couldn't reach. He would have switched on the overhead light, except that would have been absurd.

In any case, there was no time. Something had hurled the front door aside and squeezed through the doorway into the house. It started upstairs at once, its sides wallowing against the staircase walls; three or four stairs creaked simultaneously. The breathing of the men began to shudder.

When it reached the top of the stairs it halted. Was it peering into the room? Wells could hear its breathing clearly now, thick and slow and composed of more than one sound, as if it came from several mouths. In the corner beyond the firelight the men were straining not to breathe.

A moment later they were screaming. Though nothing had squeezed through the doorway, Wells heard them dragged onto the landing. Their screams went downstairs as the creaking did, and out of the house. Had their captor's arms been able to reach the length of the room?

Wells sat listening reluctantly for something else to happen. Rain shrilled monotonously outside the house, dripped quicker and quicker on linoleum, sodden carpets, bare boards. That was all, but it went on and on, seemingly for half an hour. How much longer, for G.o.d's sake? As long as he was fool enough to leave it on, perhaps. He switched off the stereo and went to bed, only to lie there imagining unlit streets where some of the dim heaps weren't rubble. He couldn't switch off the rain outside his house.

Next morning he was glad to reach the office, where he could revive his imagination with the Greek travel poster above his desk, and joke with his colleagues until it was time to let the queue in out of the drizzle. Many of the waiting faces were depressingly familiar. Those who meant to plead more social security out of him were far easier to cope with than the growing number of young people who were sure he could find them a job. He hadn't grown used to seeing hope die in their eyes.

One of them was reading "the novel that proves there is life after death." Perhaps she'd grown so hopeless that she would believe anything that seemed to offer hope. He'd heard his colleagues seriously wondering whether G.o.d had been an astronaut, he'd seen them gasping at books "more hideously frightening than The Exorcist because everything actually happened." It seemed that any nonsense could find believers these days.

The bus home was full of tobacco smoke, another stale solution. The faces of the riders looked dispirited, apathetic, tired of working to keep up with inflation and taxes. A Jewish shop daubed with a swastika sailed by; the bus was plastered with National Front slogans, no doubt by the same people responsible for the swastika. If that could seem acceptable to some people, what solutions could be found in a worse world?

As soon as he reached home he switched on the tuner. Music would make the house sound more welcoming. He'd left the dial tuned to the station he had listened to last night, and the speakers greeted him with a rush of static. He had begun to alter the tuning when he realised what was wrong. The sound wasn't static, but rain.

There was no mistaking it once he heard its sounds on floorboards and linoleum; he could even hear plaster falling in the derelict house. Who on earth could be broadcasting this? He didn't care if he never found out who or why. He had to turn the k.n.o.b some way before he lost the station.

That night he listened to records, since static kept seeping into the broadcasts he wanted to hear. Did the music sound thinner than it used to sound at the flat? A dripping tap made the house seem emptier. Perhaps the acoustics would improve once he improved the house. When he went upstairs to bed, remembering the months he'd lived here after his mother had died, during which he'd given up trying to persuade his father to let him redecorate- "Leave that, I like it as it is"-the dripping tap, whichever it had been, had stopped.

In the morning he felt robbed of sleep. Either a dream or the unnatural cold had kept waking him. Perhaps there was a draught that he would have to trace; he wasn't yet familiar with the house. Still, there were places where his life would seem luxurious.

One of his colleagues was reading a novel about an African state where all the workers were zombies. "That's what we need here," he grumbled. "No more strikes, no more unemployment, no more inflation."

"I hope you're joking," Wells said.

"Not at all. It sounds like paradise compared to this country. If someone took charge now I wouldn't care who it was."

Suddenly Wells remembered his dream: he had been here at his desk and everyone around him had been speaking English, yet he couldn't understand a word. He felt uncomfortable, vulnerable, and at lunchtime he went strolling to avoid more of that sort of thing. It didn't matter where he went- anywhere but here. Before long he saw the sky above the Mediterranean, two shades of piercing blue divided by the razor of the horizon. When he returned to the grey streets he found he was late for work; he couldn't recall having wandered so far.

After dinner he found a broadcast of Greek music. A large Scotch and the firelight helped him drift. Soon the lapping of flames, and their warmth, seemed very like Greek sun and sea-though as he began to doze, losing fragments of the music, the wavering of shadows on the walls made them look to be streaming. Perhaps that was why he dreamed he was sitting in a rainstorm. But when he woke, the rain was in the room.

Of course it was just the sound, coming from the speakers. Had the broadcast slipped awry, into static? He thought he could hear water splas.h.i.+ng into puddles on linoleum, yet the dial on the waveband was inches away from the broadcast of two nights ago. He had to turn the k.n.o.b still further before the noise faded.

He slapped the tuner's switch irritably, then stumped upstairs to bed. At least he might get a good night's sleep, if he didn't lie there brooding about the stereo. He'd paid enough for it; the shop could d.a.m.n well make it right. Tonight his bedroom seemed even colder, and damp. Still, the whisky kept him warm, and drowned his thoughts. Soon he was asleep.

When he woke, the first thing he heard was the s.h.i.+fting of rubble. Something must be up the hill, in the ruined factory-a pack of dogs, perhaps, though it sounded larger. Or were the sounds downstairs, in his house? Certainly the sound of rain was.

He hadn't unplugged the stereo. His drowsy swipe must not have switched it off properly. Impatient to deal with it before he woke fully and couldn't get back to sleep, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. As soon as his bare feet touched the floor he cried out, recoiling.

He writhed on the bed, trying to twist the agony out of his foot. He had cramp, that was all; the floor hadn't really felt like drowned linoleum. When he peered at it, the carpet looked exactly as it should.

He stormed downstairs. The dark, or his inability to wake, made the empty rooms look impossibly large. The plaster above the staircase looked not only bare but glistening. Ignoring all this, he strode into the living-room. The stereo dial was lit. The room was crowded with sound, a chorus of rain in a derelict house. In the distance there was another sound, a chanting of voices that sounded wors.h.i.+pful, terrified, desperate for mercy. That dismayed him more than anything else he'd heard. He pulled the plug from the wall socket and made himself go straight back to bed, where he lay sleepless for a long time. Somewhere in the house a tap was dripping.

Lack of sleep kept him on edge at work. He could hardly face the youngest of his clients. Though she had failed at interview after interview, she was almost superst.i.tiously convinced that she would find a job. "Why can't I have one of the strikers' jobs?" she demanded, and he couldn't answer. He sent her to another interview, and wished her luck. He couldn't rob her of her faith, which must be all that kept her going.

He was glad he'd reached the weekend. When he arrived home, having visited Greece on the way, he made a leisurely dinner, then sat by the fire and listened to records. Somehow he didn't want to use the radio.

He couldn't relax. Of course it was only the play of firelight and shadow, but the room seemed to tremble on the edge of total darkness. As he drank more whisky in search of calm, he felt that the music was straining to reach him, drifting away. In the quieter pa.s.sages he was distracted by the irregular dripping of a tap, he couldn't tell which. When he felt he might be able to sleep, he trudged upstairs. Tomorrow he would go walking in the country, or take the tuner back to the shop, or both.

But on Sat.u.r.day it was raining. Perhaps that was just as well; he'd dreamed he was walking in the country, only to realise that the walk was a daydream that had lured him somewhere different and far worse. He lay in bed watching the sunlight, which was rediscovering the pattern of the ancient wallpaper. Then he flung himself out of bed, for the rain he could hear was not outside the house.

Though the stereo wasn't plugged in, the sounds filled the speakers: a gust of wind splattered rain across sagging wallpaper, waterlogged plaster collapsed, a prolonged juicy noise. He dismantled the stereo, which fell silent as soon as he unplugged the speakers, then he stormed out to find a taxi.

At last he found one, speeding down the terraced slope as if it wasn't worth stopping. It took him back to his house, where the driver stared into s.p.a.ce while Wells manhandled the stereo into the taxi. By the time Wells reached the shop he was ready to lose his temper, especially when the engineer returned a few minutes later and told him that nothing was wrong.

Wells controlled himself and insisted on being taken into the repair shop. "This is what's wrong," he said, tuning the stereo to the unidentifiable station. The engineer gazed at him, smugly patient, and Wells could only look away, for Radio Prague came through loud and clear, with no background noise at all.

Wells roamed the shop rather desperately, tuning stereos in an attempt to find the rain. The engineer took pity on him, or determined to get rid of him. "It may be a freak reception. You may only be able to pick it up in the area where you live."

At once Wells felt much better. He'd heard of odder things, of broadcasts that possessed people's hearing-aids, telephones, even refrigerators. To the engineer's disgust, he left the stereo to be overhauled; then he went strolling in the hills, where spring was just beginning. The moist gra.s.s was flecked with rainbows, the sun seemed almost as bright as Greece.

That night he was surprised how alone he felt without the stereo. It must be its absence which made the house seem still emptier. At least he could relax with a book, if only he could locate the dripping tap. Perhaps it was in the bathroom, where the light-bulb-years old, no doubt-had failed. The bathroom walls glistened in the dark.

Soon he went to bed, for he was s.h.i.+vering. No doubt the cold and the damp would get worse until he attended to them. In bed his introverted warmth lulled him. A slide show of Greek landscapes played in his head. Starts of sleep interrupted the slides.

When uninterrupted sleep came it was darker, so that he couldn't see his way on the street along which he was creeping. At least the rain had stopped, and there was silence except for the m.u.f.fled drumming of his heart. When his feet slipped on rubble, the shrill clatter sounded vindictively loud. His panic had made him forget what he mustn't do. There was a car a few yards ahead of him, a vague hump in the darkness; if he crouched behind that he might be safe. But he lost his balance as he reached it, and tried to support himself against its blubbery side. No, it wasn't a car, for something like a head rose out of it at once, panting thickly. The shapes that came scrabbling out of the houses beyond the rubbly gardens on both sides must have been its hands.

He woke and tried to stop s.h.i.+vering. No point in opening his eyes; that would only hold him back from sleep. But why was it so cold in the room? Why were the bedclothes clinging to him like wallpaper? Perhaps his sense that something was wrong was another reason to s.h.i.+ver. When at last he forced his eyes open he saw the night sky, hardly relieved by a handful of stars, above him where the roof should be.

He couldn't think, because that would paralyse him. He thrust his feet into shoes, which were already soaking. He dragged his sodden jacket and trousers on over his pyjamas, then he fled. Now he could hear the rain, the lingering drops that splashed on linoleum, carpet, bare boards. On the stairs he almost fell headlong, for they were covered with fallen plaster. His sounds echoed in all the derelict rooms.

At last he reached the front door, which appeared still to be his, unlike the house. The street was dark; perhaps vandals had put out the lamp. He reeled out into the darkness, for he couldn't bear to stay in the house. He had still forgotten what he mustn't do; he slammed the front door behind him.

He heard rubble falling. When he grabbed at the door, it was already blocked from within. It lurched when he threw himself against it, but that was all; even though it was off its hinges, it was immovable. He mustn't waste time in struggling with it, but what else could he do? At one end of the unknown street, amid a chorus of unhurried breathing, something was feeling for him along the broken facades.

Again (1981).

Before long Bryant tired of the Wirral Way. He'd come to the nature trail because he'd exhausted the Liverpool parks, only to find that nature was too relentless for him. No doubt the trail would mean more to a botanist, but to Bryant it looked exactly like what it was: an overgrown railway divested of its line. Sometimes it led beneath bridges hollow as whistles, and then it seemed to trap him between the banks for miles. When it rose to ground level it was only to show him fields too lush for comfort, hedges, trees, green so unrelieved that its shades blurred into a single oppressive ma.s.s.

He wasn't sure what eventually made the miniature valley intolerable. Children went hooting like derailed trains across his path, huge dogs came snuffling out of the undergrowth to leap on him and smear his face, but the worst annoyances were the flies, brought out all at once by the late June day, the first hot day of the year. They blotched his vision like eyestrain, their incessant buzzing seemed to m.u.f.fle all his senses. When he heard lorries somewhere above him he scrambled up the first break he could find in the brambles, without waiting for the next official exit from the trail.

By the time he realised that the path led nowhere in particular, he had already crossed three fields. It seemed best to go on, even though the sound he'd taken for lorries proved, now that he was in the open, to be distant tractors. He didn't think he could find his way back even if he wanted to. Surely he would reach a road eventually.

Once he'd trudged around several more fields he wasn't so sure. He felt sticky, hemmed in by buzzing and green-a fly in a fly-trap. There was nothing else beneath the unrelenting cloudless sky except a bungalow three fields and a copse away to his left. Perhaps he could get a drink there while asking the way to the road.

The bungalow was difficult to reach. Once he had to retrace his journey around three sides of a field, when he'd approached close enough to see that the garden which surrounded the house looked at least as overgrown as the railway had been. Nevertheless someone was standing in front of the bungalow, knee-deep in gra.s.s-a woman with white shoulders, standing quite still. He hurried round the maze of fences and hedges, looking for his way to her. He'd come quite close before he saw how old and pale she was. She was supporting herself with one hand on a disused bird-table, and for a moment he thought the shoulders of her ankle-length caftan were white with droppings, as the table was. He shook his head vigorously, to clear it of the heat, and saw at once that it was long white hair that trailed raggedly over her shoulders, for it stirred a little as she beckoned to him.

At least, he a.s.sumed she was beckoning. When he reached her, after he'd lifted the gate clear of the weedy path, she was still flapping her hands, but now to brush away flies, which seemed even fonder of her than they had been of him. Her eyes looked glazed and empty; for a moment he was tempted to sneak away. Then they gazed at him, and they were so pleading that he had to go to her, to see what was wrong.

She must have been pretty when she was younger. Now her long arms and heart-shaped face were bony, the skin withered tight on them, but she might still be attractive if her complexion weren't so grey. Perhaps the heat was affecting her-she was clutching the bird-table as though she would fall if she relaxed her grip-but then why didn't she go in the house? Then he realised that must be why she needed him, for she was pointing shakily with her free hand at the bungalow. Her nails were very long. "Can you get in?" she said.

Her voice was disconcerting: little more than a breath, hardly there at all. No doubt that was also the fault of the heat. "I'll try," he said, and she made for the house at once, past a tangle of roses and a rockery so overgrown it looked like a distant mountain in a jungle.

She had to stop breathlessly before she reached the bungalow. He carried on, since she was pointing feebly at the open kitchen window. As he pa.s.sed her he found she was doused in perfume, so heavily that even in the open it was cloying. Surely she was in her seventies? He felt shocked, though he knew that was narrow-minded. Perhaps it was the perfume that attracted the flies to her.

The kitchen window was too high for him to reach unaided. Presumably she felt it was safe to leave open while she was away from the house. He went round the far side of the bungalow to the open garage, where a dusty car was baking amid the stink of hot metal and oil. There he found a toolbox, which he dragged round to the window.

When he stood the rectangular box on end and levered himself up, he wasn't sure he could squeeze through. He unhooked the transom and managed to wriggle his shoulders through the opening. He thrust himself forward, the unhooked bar b.u.mping along his spine, until his hips wedged in the frame. He was stuck in midair, above a greyish kitchen that smelled stale, dangling like the string of plastic onions on the far wall. He was unable to drag himself forward or back.

All at once her hands grabbed his thighs, thrusting up towards his b.u.t.tocks. She must have clambered on the toolbox. No doubt she was anxious to get him into the house, but her sudden desperate strength made him uneasy, not least because he felt almost a.s.saulted. Nevertheless she'd given him the chance to squirm his hips, and he was through. He lowered himself awkwardly, head first, clinging to the edge of the sink while he swung his feet down before letting himself drop.

He made for the door at once. Though the kitchen was almost bare, it smelled worse than stale. In the sink a couple of plates protruded from water the colour of lard, where several dead flies were floating. Flies crawled over smeary milk-bottles on the windowsill or b.u.mbled at the window, as eager to find the way out as he was. He thought he'd found it, but the door was mortise-locked, with a broken key that was jammed in the hole.

He tried to turn the key, until he was sure it was no use. Not only was its stem snapped close to the lock, the key was wedged in the mechanism. He hurried out of the kitchen to the front door, which was in the wall at right angles to the jammed door. The front door was mortise-locked as well.

As he returned to the kitchen window he b.u.mped into the refrigerator. It mustn't have been quite shut, for it swung wide open-not that it mattered, since the refrigerator was empty except for a torpid fly. She must have gone out to buy provisions-presumably her shopping was somewhere in the undergrowth. "Can you tell me where the key is?" he said patiently.

She was clinging to the outer sill, and seemed to be trying to save her breath. From the movements of her lips he gathered she was saying "Look around."

There was nothing in the kitchen cupboards except a few cans of baked beans and meat, their labels peeling. He went back to the front hall, which was cramped, hot, almost airless. Even here he wasn't free of the buzzing of flies, though he couldn't see them. Opposite the front door was a cupboard hiding mops and brushes senile with dust. He opened the fourth door off the hall, into the living-room.

The long room smelled as if it hadn't been opened for months, and looked like a parody of middle-cla.s.s taste. Silver-plated cannon challenged each other across the length of the pebble-dashed mantelpiece, on either side of which were portraits of the royal family. Here was a cabinet full of dolls of all nations, here was a bookcase of Reader'so Digest Condensed Books. A personalised bullfight poster was pinned to one wall, a ten-gallon hat to another. With so much in it, it seemed odd that the room felt disused.

He began to search, trying to ignore the noise of flies-it was somewhere further into the house, and sounded disconcertingly like someone groaning. The key wasn't on the obese purple suite or down the sides of the cus.h.i.+ons; it wasn't on the small table piled with copies of Contact, which for a moment, giggling, he took to be a s.e.xual contact magazine. The key wasn't under the bright green rug, nor on any of the shelves. The dolls gazed unhelpfully at him.

He was holding his breath, both because the unpleasant smell he'd a.s.sociated with the kitchen seemed even stronger in here and because every one of his movements stirred up dust. The entire room was pale with it; no wonder the dolls' eyelashes were so thick. She must no longer have the energy to clean the house. Now he had finished searching, and it looked as if he would have to venture deeper into the house, where the flies seemed to be so abundant. He was at the far door when he glanced back. Was that the key beneath the pile of magazines?

He had only begun to tug the metal object free when he saw it was a pen, but the magazines were already toppling. As they spilled over the floor, some of them opened at photographs: people tied up tortuously, a plump woman wearing a suspender belt and flouris.h.i.+ng a whip.