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Books of Blood 6
Clive Barker
12/3/2002

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CONTENTS

THE
LAST ILLUSION

page 1

THE
LIFE OF DEATH

page 74

HOW
SPOILERS BLEED

page 122

TWILIGHT  AT THE TOWERS

page 165

THE
BOOK      OF   BLOOD

(a postscript)

ON JERUSALEM STREET

page 209

THE LAST ILLUSION

WHAT     HAPPENED
THEN  - when the magician,

having mesmerised the caged tiger, pulled
the

tasselled
cord that released a dozen swords upon
its

head -
was the subject of heated argument both in the

bar of
the theatre and later, when Swann's performance

was
over, on the sidewalk of 51st Street. Some claimed to

have
glimpsed the bottom of the cage opening in the split

second
that all other eyes were on the descending blades,

and
seen the tiger swiftly spirited away as the woman in

the red
dress took its place behind the lacquered bars.

Others
were just as adamant that the animal had never

been in
the cage to begin with, its presence merely a

projection
which had been extinguished as a mechanism

propelled
the woman from beneath the stage; this, of

course,
at such a speed that it deceived the eye of all but

those
swift and suspicious enough to catch it. And the

swords?
The nature of the trick which had transformed

them in
the mere seconds of their gleaming descent from

1

steel
to rose-petals was yet further fuel for debate. The

explanations
ranged from the prosaic to the elaborate,

but few
of the throng that left the theatre lacked some

theory.
Nor did the arguments  finish there, on
the

sidewalk.
They raged on, no doubt, in the apartments

and
restaurants of New York.

The pleasure to be had from Swann's illusions
was,

it
seemed, twofold. First: the spectacle of the trick

itself
- in the  breathless moment   when
disbelief

was,  if not suspended,  at least taken  on
tip-toe.

And  second, when the moment was over and logic

restored,
in the debate as to how the trick had been

achieved.

'How do you do it, Mr Swann?' Barbara
Bernstein

was
eager to know.

'It's magic,' Swann  replied. He had  invited her

backstage
to examine the tiger's cage for any sign of

fakery
in its construction; she had found none. She had

examined
the swords: they were lethal. And the petals,

fragrant.
Still she insisted:

'Yes, but really . . .' she leaned close to
him. 'You can

tell
me,' she said, 'I promise I won't breathe a word to a

soul.'

He
returned her a slow smile in place of a reply.

'Oh, I know. . .'she said,'you're going to
tell me that

you've
signed some kind of oath.'

That's right,' Swann said.

'- And
you're forbidden to give away any
trade

secrets.'

'The
intention is to give you pleasure,' he told her.

'Have I
failed in that?'

'Oh no,' she replied, without a moment's
hesitation.

'Everybody's
talking about the show. You're the toast

of New
York.'

'No,' he protested.

'Truly,' she said, 'I know people who would
give their

eye-teeth
to get into this theatre. And to have a guided

tour
backstage . . . well, I'll be the envy of everybody.'

'I'm
pleased,' he said, and touched her face. She had

clearly
been anticipating such a move on  his
part. It

would  be
something else for her to boast of: her

seduction
by the man critics had dubbed the Magus

of
Manhattan.

'I'd like to make love to you,' he whispered
to her.

'Here?' she said.

'No,' he
told her.  'Not within  ear-shot of the

tigers.'

She laughed. She preferred her lovers twenty
years

Swann's
junior - he looked, someone had observed,

like a
man in mourning  for his profile, but his
touch

promised
wit no boy could offer. She liked the tang of

dissolution
she sensed beneath his gentlemanly fagade.

Swann
was a dangerous man. If she turned him down

she
might never find another.

'We could go to a hotel,' she suggested.

'A hotel,' he said, 'is a good idea.'

A look of doubt had crossed her face.

'What about your wife . . .?' she said. 'We
might be

seen.'

He took her hand. 'Shall we be invisible,
then?'

Tm
serious.'

'So am
I,' he insisted. 'Take it from me; seeing is

not
believing. I should know. It's the cornerstone of

my  profession.' She did not look much reassured.
'If

anyone
recognises us,' he told her, Til simply tell them

their
eyes are playing tricks.'

She smiled at this, and he kissed her. She
returned the

kiss
with unquestionable fervour.

'Miraculous,' he said, when their mouths
parted.

'Shall
we go before the tigers gossip?'

He led her across the stage. The cleaners had
not yet

got
about their business, and there, lying on the boards,

was a
litter of rose-buds. Some had been trampled, a few

had
not. Swann took his hand from hers, and walked

across
to where the flowers lay.

She watched
him stoop to pluck a rose from the

ground,
enchanted by the gesture, but before he could

stand
upright again something in the air above him

caught
her eye. She looked up and her gaze met a slice

of
silver that was even now plunging towards him. She

made to
warn him, but the sword was quicker than her

tongue.
At the last possible moment he seemed to sense

the
danger he was in and looked round, the bud in his

hand,
as the point met his back. The sword's momentum

carried
it through his body to the hilt. Blood fled from

his
chest, and splashed the floor. He made no sound, but

fell
forward, forcing two-thirds of the sword's length out

of his
body again as he hit the stage.

She
would have screamed, but  that her
attention

was
claimed by a sound  from the clutter of
magical

apparatus
arrayed in the wings behind her, a muttered

growl
which was indisputably the voice of the tiger. She

froze.
There were probably instructions on how best to

stare
down rogue tigers, but as a Manhattanite born

and
bred they were techniques she wasn't acquainted

with.

'Swann?' she said, hoping this yet might be
some

baroque
illusion staged purely for her benefit. 'Swann.

Please
get up.'

But
the magician only lay where he had fallen, the

pool
spreading from beneath him.

'If this is a joke -' she said testily,'- I'm
not amused.'

When  he didn't rise to her remark she tried a
sweeter

tactic.
'Swann, my sweet, I'd like to go now, if you don't

mind.'

The growl came again. She didn't want to turn
and

seek
out its source, but equally she didn't want to be

sprung
upon from behind.

Cautiously she looked round. The wings were
in dark-

ness.
The clutter of properties kept her from working

out the
precise location of the beast. She could hear it

still,
however: its tread, its growl. Step by step, she

retreated
towards the apron of the stage. The closed

curtains
sealed her off from the auditorium, but she

hoped
she might scramble under them before the tiger

reached
her.

As she backed
against the heavy fabric, one of the

shadows
in the wings forsook its ambiguity, and the

animal
appeared.  It was not beautiful, as she
had

thought
it when behind bars. It was vast and lethal and

hungry.
She went down on her haunches and reached

for the
hem  of the curtain. The fabric was
heavily

weighted,
and  she had more  difficulty lifting it than

she'd
expected, but she had managed to slide halfway

under
the drape when, head and hands pressed to the

boards,
she sensed the thump of the tiger's advance.

An  instant later she felt the splash of its
breath on her

bare
back, and screamed as it hooked its talons into her

body
and hauled her from the sight of safety towards

its
steaming jaws.

Even then, she refused to give up her life.
She kicked

at it,
and tore out its fur in handfuls, and delivered a hail

of
punches to its snout. But her resistance was negligible

in the
face of  such authority; her  assault, for all its

ferocity,
did not slow the beast a jot. It ripped open her

body  with one casual clout. Mercifully, with that
first

wound  her senses gave up all claim to
verisimilitude,

and
took instead to preposterous invention. It seemed

to her
that she heard applause from somewhere, and

the
roar of an approving audience, and that in place

of the
blood that was surely springing from her body

there
came fountains of sparkling light. The agony her

nerve-endings
were  suffering didn't touch her at all.

Even
when  the animal had divided her into
three or

four
parts her head lay on its side at the edge of the

stage
and watched as her torso was mauled and her limbs

devoured.

And
all the while, when she wondered how all this

could
be possible - that her eyes could live to witness

this
last supper - the only reply she could think of was

Swann's:

'It's magic,' he'd said.

Indeed, she was thinking that very thing,
that this

must be
magic, when the tiger ambled across to her head,

and
swallowed it down in one bite.

Amongst  a certain set Harry D'Amour liked to believe

he
had  some small reputation - a coterie
which did

not,
alas, include his ex-wife, his creditors or those

anonymous  critics who regularly posted dogs' excrement

through
his office letterbox. But the woman who was on

the
phone now, her voice so full of grief she might have

been
crying for half a year, and was about to begin again,

she
knew him for the paragon he was.

'-1 need your help, Mr D'Amour; very badly.'

'I'm busy on several cases at the moment,' he
told her.

'Maybe
you could come to the office?'

'I can't leave the house,' the woman informed
him.

Til
explain everything. Please come.'

He  was
sorely tempted. But there were several out-

standing
cases, one of which, if not solved soon, might

end in
fratricide. He suggested she try elsewhere.

'I can't go to just anybody,' the woman
insisted.

'Why me?'

'I read about you. About what happened in
Brooklyn.'

Making
mention of his most conspicuous failure was

not the
surest method of securing his services, Harry

thought,
but  it certainly got his attention. What
had

happened  in Wyckoff
Street had begun innocently

enough,
with a husband who'd employed him to spy

on his
adulterous wife, and had ended on the top storey

of the
Lomax house with the world he thought he'd

known  turning inside out. When the body-count was

done,
and the surviving priests dispatched, he was left

with a
fear of stairs, and more questions than he'd ever

answer
this side of the family plot. He took no pleasure

in
being reminded of those terrors.

'I don't like to talk about Brooklyn,' he
said.

'Forgive me,' the  woman
replied, 'but I need

somebody  who
has experience with . . . with the

occult.'
She stopped speaking for a moment. He could

still
hear her breath down the line: soft, but erratic.

'I need you,' she said. He had already
decided, in that

pause
when only her fear had been audible, what reply

he
would make.

Til come.'

'I'm grateful to you,' she said. 'The house
is on East

61st
Street -' He scribbled down the details. Her last

words
were, 'Please hurry.' Then she put down the

phone.

He made some calls, in the vain hope of
placating two

of his
more excitable clients, then pulled on his jacket,

locked
the office, and started downstairs. The landing

and the
lobby smelt pungent. As he reached the front

door he
caught Chaplin, the janitor, emerging from the

basement.

'This place stinks,' he told the man.

'It's disinfectant.'

'It's cat's piss,' Harry said. 'Get something
done about

it,
will you? I've got a reputation to protect.'

7

He left the man laughing.

The  brownstone on
East 61st Street was in pristine

condition.
He stood on the scrubbed step, sweaty and

sour-breathed,
and felt like a slob. The expression on

the
face that met him when the door opened did nothing

to
dissuade him of that opinion.

'Yes?' it wanted to know.

'I'm Harry D'Amour,'  he said. 'I got a call.'

The man
nodded. 'You'd better come in,' he said

without
enthusiasm.

It was cooler in than out; and sweeter. The
place

reeked
of perfume. Harry followed the disapproving

face
down the hallway and into a large room, on the

other
side of which - across an oriental carpet that had

everything
woven  into its pattern but the price -
sat a

widow.  She didn't suit black; nor tears. She stood
up

and
offered her hand.

'Mr D'Amour?'

'Yes.'

'Valentin will get you something to drink if
you'd

like.'

'Please. Milk, if you have it.' His belly
had been

jittering
for the last hour; since her talk of Wyckoff

Street,
in fact.

Valentin retired from the room, not taking
his beady

eyes
off Harry until the last possible moment.

'Somebody
died,' said Harry, once the man had

gone.

'That's right,' the widow said, sitting down
again.

At her
invitation he sat opposite her, amongst enough

cushions
to furnish a harem. 'My husband.'

Tm
sorry.'

'There's no time to be sorry,' she said, her
every look

and
gesture betraying her words. He was glad of her

8

grief;
the tearstains and the fatigue blemished a beauty

which,
had he seen it unimpaired, might have rendered

him
dumb with admiration.

'They say that my husband's death was an
accident,'

she was
saying. 'I know it wasn't.'

'May I ask . . . your name?'

'I'm sorry. My name is Swann, Mr  D'Amour.

Dorothea
Swann. You may have heard of my husband?'

The
magician?'

'Illusionist,' she said.

'I read about it. Tragic.'

'Did you ever see his performance?'

Harry shook his head. 'I can't afford
Broadway, Mrs

Swann.'

'We were only over for three months, while
his show

ran. We
were going back in September . . .'

'Back?'

'To Hamburg,'
she said, 'I don't like this city. It's too

hot.
And too cruel.'

'Don't blame New   York,' he said. 'It can't help

itself.'

'Maybe,' she replied, nodding. 'Perhaps what
hap-

pened
to Swann would have happened anyway, wherever

we'd
been. People keep telling me: it was an accident.

That's
all. Just an accident.'

'But you don't believe it?'

Valentin had appeared with a glass of milk.
He set it

down on
the table in front of Harry. As he made to leave,

she
said: 'Valentin. The letter?'

He
looked at her strangely, almost as though she'd

said
something obscene.

'The letter,' she repeated.

He exited.

'You were saying -'

She frowned. 'What?'

'About it being an accident.'

'Oh yes. I lived with Swann seven and a half
years,

and I
got to understand him as well as anybody ever

could.
I learned to sense when he wanted me around,

and
when he didn't. When he didn't, I'd take myself off

somewhere
and let him have his privacy. Genius needs

privacy.
And he was a genius, you know. The greatest

illusionist
since Houdini.'

'Is that so?'

'I'd think sometimes - it was a kind of
miracle that he

let me
into his life . . .'

Harry wanted to say Swann would have been mad
not

to have
done so, but the comment was inappropriate.

She  didn't want blandishments; didn't need them.

Didn't
need anything, perhaps, but her husband alive

again.

'Now  I
think I didn't know him at all,' she went on,

'didn't
understand him. I think maybe it was another

trick.
Another part of his magic.'

'I called him a magician a while back,' Harry
said.

'You
corrected me.'

'So  I
did,' she said, conceding his point with an

apologetic
look. 'Forgive me. That was Swann talking.

He
hated to be called a magician. He said that was a word

that
had to be kept for miracle-workers.'

'And he was no miracle-worker?'

'He used to call himself the Great
Pretender,' she said.

The
thought made her smile.

Valentin had re-appeared, his lugubrious
features rife

with
suspicion. He carried an envelope, which he clearly

had  no desire to give up. Dorothea had to cross
the

carpet
and take it from his hands.

'Is this wise?' he said.

'Yes,' she told him.

He turned on his heel and made a smart
withdrawal.

10

'He's grief-stricken,' she said. 'Forgive  him
his

behaviour.
He was with Swann from the beginning of his

career.
I think he loved my husband as much as I did.'

She ran her linger down into the envelope and
pulled

the
letter out. The paper was pale yellow, and gossamer-

thin.

'A few hours after he died, this letter was
delivered

here by
hand,' she said. 'It was addressed to him. I

opened  it. I think you ought to read it.'

She passed it to him. The hand it was written
in was

solid
and unaffected.

Dorothea, he had written, if you are reading
this, then I

am
dead.

You
know  how   little store I set by dreams and

premonitions
and such; but for the last few days strange

thoughts
have just crept into my head, and  I have
the

suspicion
that death  is very close to me. If so,
so. There's

no help
for it. Don't waste time trying to puzzle out the whys

and
wherefores; they're old news now. Just know that I love

you,
and that I have always loved you in my way. I'm sorry

for
whatever unhappiness I've caused, or am causing now,

but it
was out of my hands.

I have some
instructions regarding the disposal of my

body.
Please adhere to them to the letter. Don't let anybody

try to
persuade you out of doing as I ask.

I want you to have my body watched night and
day

until
I'm cremated. Don't try and take my remains back to

Europe.
Have me cremated here, as soon as possible, then

throw
the ashes in the East River.

My
sweet darling, I'm afraid. Not of bad dreams, or of

what
might happen to me in this life, but of what my enemies

may  try to do once I'm dead. You know how critics
can be:

they
wait until you can't fight them back, then they start the

character
assassinations. It's too long a business to try and

explain
all of this, so I must simply trust you to do as I say.

11

Again, I love you, and I hope you never have
to read this

letter.

Your adoring,

Swann.'

'Some farewell note,' Harry commented when
he'd

read it
through twice. He folded it up and passed it

back to
the widow.

'I'd like you to stay with him,' she said.
'Corpse-sit,

if you
will. Just until all the legal formalities are dealt

with
and I can make arrangements for his cremation. It

shouldn't
take them long. I've got a lawyer working on

it
now.'

'Again: why me?'

She avoided his gaze. 'As he says in the
letter, he was

never
superstitious. But I am. I believe in omens. And

there
was an odd atmosphere about the place in the days

before
he died. As if we were watched.'

'You think he was murdered?'

She mused
on this, then said: 'I don't believe it was

an
accident.'

'These enemies he talks about...

'He was a great man. Much envied.'

'Professional jealousy? Is that a motive for
murder?'

'Anything
can  be a  motive, can't it?' she said.

'People
get killed for the colour of their eyes, don't

they?'

Harry was impressed. It had taken him twenty
years

to
learn how  arbitrary things were. She
spoke it as

conventional
wisdom.

'Where is your husband?' he asked her.

'Upstairs,' she said. 'I had the body brought
back

here,
where I could look after him. I can't pretend I

understand
what's going on, but I'm not going to risk

ignoring
his instructions.'

Harry nodded.

12

'Swann
was my  life,' she added softly,
apropos of

nothing;
and everything.

She took him upstairs. The perfume that had
met

him at
the door intensified. The master bedroom had

been
turned into a Chapel of Rest, knee-deep in sprays

and
wreaths of every shape and variety; their mingled

scents
verged on the hallucinogenic. In the midst of

this
abundance, the casket - an elaborate affair in black

and
silver - was mounted on trestles. The upper half

of the
lid stood open, the plush overlay folded back.

At
Dorothea's invitation he waded through the tributes

to view
the deceased. He liked Swann's face; it had

humour,
and a certain guile; it was even handsome in its

weary
way. More: it had inspired the love of Dorothea;

a face
could have few better recommendations. Harry

stood
waist-high in flowers and, absurd as it was, felt

a
twinge of envy for the love this man must have

enjoyed.

'Will you help me, Mr D'Amour?'

What
could he say but: 'Yes, of course I'll help.' That,

and:
'Call me Harry.'

He
would be missed at Wing's Pavilion tonight. He had

occupied
the best table there every Friday night for the

past
six and a half years, eating at one sitting enough

to
compensate for what his diet lacked in excellence

and  variety the other six days of  the week.
This

feast -
the best Chinese cuisine to be had  south
of

Canal
Street - came gratis, thanks to services he had

once
rendered the owner. Tonight the table would go

empty.

Not
that his stomach suffered. He had only been

sitting
with Swann an hour or so when Valentin came

up and
said:

'How do you like your steak?'

13

'Just shy of burned,' Harry replied.

Valentin was none too pleased by the
response. 'I hate

to
overcook good steak/ he said.

'And I hate the sight of blood,' Harry said,
'even if it

isn't
my own.'

The
chef clearly despaired of his guest's palate, and

turned
to go.

'Valentin?'

The man looked round.

'Is that your Christian name?' Harry asked.

'Christian names are for Christians,' came
the reply.

Harry nodded. 'You don't like my being here,
am I

right?'

Valentin made
no reply. His eyes had drifted past

Harry
to the open coffin.

'I'm not going to be here for long,' Harry
said, 'but

while I
am, can't we be friends?'

Valentin's gaze found him once more.

'I don't have any friends,' he said without
enmity or

self-pity.
'Not now.'

'OK.
I'm sorry.'

'What's to be sorry for?' Valentin wanted to
know.

'Swann's
dead. It's all over, bar the shouting.'

The
doleful face stoically refused tears. A stone would

weep
sooner, Harry guessed. But there was grief there,

and all
the more acute for being dumb.

'One question.'

'Only one?'

'Why
didn't you want me to read his letter?'

Valentin raised his eyebrows slightly; they
were fine

enough
to have been pencilled on. 'He wasn't insane,'

he
said. 'I didn't want you thinking he was a crazy man,

because
of what he wrote. What you read you keep to

yourself.
Swann was a legend. I don't want his memory

besmirched.'

14

'You should write a book,' Harry said. 'Tell
the whole

story
once and for all. You were with him a long time, I

hear.'

'Oh yes,' said Valentin. 'Long enough to know
better

than to
tell the truth.'

So saying he made an exit, leaving the
flowers to wilt,

and
Harry with more  puzzles on his hands
than he'd

begun
with.

Twenty
minutes later, Valentin brought up a tray of

food: a
large salad, bread, wine, and the steak. It was

one
degree short of charcoal.

'Just the way   I like it,' Harry said, and  set to

guzzling.

He didn't see Dorothea Swann, though God
knows

he
thought about her often enough. Every time he

heard a
whisper  on the stairs, or footsteps
along the

carpetted
landing, he hoped her face would appear at

the
door, an invitation on her lips. Not perhaps the

most
appropriate of thoughts, given the proximity of

her
husband's corpse, but what would the illusionist care

now? He
was dead and gone. If he had any generosity of

spirit
he wouldn't want to see his widow drown in her

grief.

Harry
drank  the half-carafe of wine
Valentin had

brought,
and when - three-quarters of an hour later -

the man
re-appeared with coffee and Calvados, he told

him to
leave the bottle.

Nightfall was near. The traffic was noisy on
Lexington

and
Third. Out of boredom he took to watching the

street
from the window. Two  lovers feuded
loudly

on the
sidewalk, and only stopped when a brunette

with a
hare-lip and a pekinese stood watching them

shamelessly.
There were  preparations for a party in

the
brownstone opposite: he watched a table lovingly

laid,
and candles lit. After a time the spying began to

15

depress
him, so he called Valentin and asked if there

was a
portable television he could have access to. No

sooner
said than provided, and for the next two hours

he sat
with the small black and white monitor on the

floor
amongst  the orchids and  the lilies, watching

whatever
mindless entertainment it offered, the silver

luminescence
flickering on the blooms like excitable

moonlight.

A  quarter
after midnight, with the party across the

street
in full swing, Valentin came up. 'You want a

night-cap?'
he asked.

'Sure.'

'Milk; or something stronger?'

'Something stronger.'

He produced
a bottle of fine cognac, and two glasses.

Together
they toasted the dead man.

'Mr Swann.'

'Mr Swann.'

'If you need anything more tonight,' Valentin
said,

'I'm in
the room directly above. Mrs Swann is down-

stairs,
so if you hear somebody moving about, don't

worry.
She doesn't sleep well these nights.'

'Who
does?' Harry replied.

Valentin left him to his vigil. Harry heard
the man's

tread
on the stairs, and then the creaking of floorboards

on the
level above. He  returned his attention
to the

television,
but he'd  lost the thread  of the
movie

he'd
been watching.  It was a long stretch
'til dawn;

meanwhile
New   York would be  having itself a fine

Friday
night: dancing, fighting, fooling around.

The
picture on the television set began to flicker. He

stood
up, and  started to walk across to the
set, but

he
never got there. Two steps from the chair where

he'd
been sitting the picture folded up and went out

altogether,
plunging the room into total darkness. Harry

16

briefly
had time to register that no light was finding its

way
through the windows from  the street.
Then the

insanity
began.

Something moved in the blackness: vague forms
rose

and
fell. It took him a moment to recognise them. The

flowers!
Invisible hands were tearing the wreaths and

tributes
apart, and tossing the blossoms up into the

air. He
followed their descent, but they didn't hit the

ground.
It seemed the floorboards had lost all faith in

themselves,
and disappeared, so the blossoms just kept

falling
- down, down - through the floor of the room

below,
and through the basement floor, away to God

alone
knew what destination. Fear gripped Harry, like

some
old dope-pusher promising a terrible high. Even

those
few boards that remained beneath his feet were

becoming
insubstantial. In seconds he would go the way

of the
blossoms.

He reeled around to locate the chair he'd got
up from

- some
fixed point in this vertiginous nightmare. The

chair
was still there; he could just discern its form in the

gloom.
With torn blossoms raining down upon him he

reached
for it, but even as his hand took hold of the arm,

the
floor beneath the chair gave up the ghost, and now,

by a
ghastly light that was thrown up from the pit that

yawned
beneath his feet, Harry saw it tumble away into

Hell,
turning over and over 'til it was pin-prick small.

Then it was gone; and the flowers were gone,
and the

walls
and the windows and every damn thing was gone

but
him.

Not quite everything. Swann's casket
remained, its

lid
still standing open, its overlay neatly turned back

like
the sheet on a child's bed. The trestle had gone,

as
had  the floor beneath the trestle. But
the casket

floated
in the dark air for all the world like some

morbid  illusion, while from the depths a rumbling

17

sound
accompanied  the trick like the roll of a
snare-

drum.

Harry
felt the last solidity failing beneath him; felt the

pit
call. Even as his feet left the ground, that ground

faded
to nothing, and for a terrifying moment he hung

over
the Gulfs, his hands seeking the lip of the casket.

His
right hand caught hold of one of the handles, and

closed
thankfully around it. His arm was almost jerked

from
its socket as it took his body-weight, but he flung

his
other arm up and found the casket-edge. Using it

as purchase,
he hauled himself up like a half-drowned

sailor.
It was a strange lifeboat, but then this was a

strange
sea. Infinitely deep, infinitely terrible.

Even as he laboured to secure himself a
better hand-

hold,
the casket shook, and Harry looked up to discover

that
the dead man was  sitting upright.
Swann's eyes

opened
wide. He  turned them on Harry; they were

far
from benign. The next moment the dead illusionist

was
scrambling to his feet - the floating casket rocking

ever
more violently with each movement. Once vertical,

Swann  proceeded to dislodge his guest by grinding
his

heel in
Harry's knuckles. Harry looked up at Swann,

begging
for him to stop.

The
Great Pretender was a sight to see. His eyes were

starting
from his sockets; his shirt was torn open to

display
the exit-wound  in his chest. It was
bleeding

afresh.
A rain of cold blood fell upon Harry's upturned

face.
And  still the heel ground at his hands.
Harry

felt
his grip slipping. Swann, sensing his approaching

triumph,
began to smile.

'Fall, boy!' he said. 'Fall!'

Harry
could take no more. In a frenzied effort to save

himself
he let go of the handle in his right hand, and

reached
up to snatch at Swann's trouser-leg. His fingers

found
the hem, and  he pulled. The smile
vanished

18

from
the illusionist's face as he felt his balance go. He

reached
behind him  to take hold of the casket
lid for

support,
but the gesture only tipped the casket further

over.
The plush cushion tumbled past Harry's head;

blossoms
followed.

Swann
howled in his fury and delivered a vicious kick

to
Harry's hand. It was an error. The casket tipped over

entirely
and pitched the man out. Harry had time to

glimpse
Swann's appalled face as the illusionist fell past

him.
Then he too lost his grip and tumbled after him.

The dark air whined past his ears. Beneath
him, the

Gulfs
spread their empty arms. And then, behind the

rushing
in his head, another sound: a human voice.

'Is he dead?' it inquired.

'No,' another voice replied, 'no, I don't
think so.

What's
his name, Dorothea?'

'D'Amour.'

'Mr D'Amour? Mr D'Amour?'

Harry's descent slowed somewhat. Beneath him,
the

Gulfs
roared their rage.

The voice came again, cultivated but
unmelodious.

'Mr
D'Amour.'

'Harry,' said Dorothea.

At that word, from that voice, he stopped
falling; felt

himself
borne up. He opened his eyes. He was lying on

a solid
floor, his head inches from the blank television

screen.
The flowers were all in place around the room,

Swann
in his casket, and God - if the rumours were to

be
believed - in his Heaven.

'I'm alive,' he said.

He
had  quite  an audience
for his  resurrection.

Dorothea  of course, and  two strangers. One, the

owner  of the voice he'd  first heard, stood close to

the
door. His features were unremarkable, except for

his
brows and lashes, which were pale to the point of

19

invisibility.
His female companion stood nearby. She

shared
with him  this distressing banality,
stripped bare

of any
feature that offered a clue to their natures.

'Help him up, angel,' the man said, and the
woman

bent to
comply. She was stronger than she looked,

readily
hauling Harry to his feet. He had vomited in

his
strange sleep. He felt dirty and ridiculous.

'What the hell happened?' he asked, as the
woman

escorted
him to the chair. He sat down.

'He tried to poison you,' the man said.

'Who did?'

'Valentin, of course.'

'Valentin?'

'He's gone,' Dorothea said. 'Just
disappeared.' She

was
shaking. 'I heard you call out, and came in here

to find
you on the floor. I thought you were going to

choke.'

'It's all right,' said the man, 'everything
is in order

now.'

'Yes,' said Dorothea, clearly reassured by
his bland

smile.
'This is the lawyer I was telling you about, Harry.

Mr  Butterfield.'

Harry
wiped his mouth. 'Please to meet you,' he

said.

'Why
don't we  all go downstairs?'
Butterfield said.

'And I
can pay Mr D'Amour what he's due.'

'It's all right,' Harry said, 'I never take
my  fee

until
the job's done.'

'But it is done,' Butterfield said. 'Your
services are no

longer
required here.'

Harry threw a glance at Dorothea. She was
plucking

a
withered anthurium from an otherwise healthy spray.

'I was contracted to stay with the body -'

'The arrangements for the disposal of Swann's
body

have
been made,' Butterfield returned. His courtesy was

20

only
just intact. 'Isn't that right, Dorothea?'

'It's the middle of the night,' Harry
protested. 'You

won't
get a cremation until tomorrow morning at the

earliest.'

Thank
you for your help,' Dorothea said. 'But I'm

sure
everything will be fine now that Mr Butterfield has

arrived.
Just fine.'

Butterfield turned to his companion.

'Why
don't you go out and find a cab for Mr

D'Amour?'
he said. Then, looking at Harry: 'We don't

want
you walking the streets, do we?'

All the
way downstairs, and in the hallway as Butterfield

paid
him off, Harry was willing Dorothea to contradict

the
lawyer and tell him she wanted Harry to stay. But

she
didn't even offer him a word of farewell as he was

ushered
out of the house. The two hundred
dollars

he'd
been given were, of course, more than adequate

recompense
for the few hours of idleness he'd spent

there,
but he would happily have burned all the bills

for one
sign that Dorothea gave a damn that they were

parting.
Quite clearly she did not. On past experience

it
would take his bruised ego a full twenty-four hours to

recover
from such indifference.

He got out of the cab on 3rd around 83rd
Street, and

walked
through to a bar on Lexington where he knew he

could
put half a bottle of bourbon between himself and

the
dreams he'd had.

It was well after one. The street was
deserted, except

for
him, and for the echo  his footsteps had
recently

acquired.
He turned the corner into Lexington, and

waited.
A few beats later, Valentin rounded the same

corner.
Harry took hold of him by his tie.

'Not a bad noose,' he said, hauling the man
off his

heels.

21

Valentin made no attempt to free himself.
'Thank God

you're
alive,' he said.

'No thanks to you,' Harry said. 'What did you
put in

the
drink?'

'Nothing,' Valentin insisted. 'Why should I?'

'So how come I found myself on the floor? How
come

the bad
dreams?'

'Butterfield,' Valentin said. 'Whatever you
dreamt, he

brought
with him, believe me. I panicked as soon as I

heard
him in the house, I admit it. I know I should

have
warned you, but I knew if I didn't get out quickly

I
wouldn't get out at all.'

'Are
you telling me he would have killed you?'

'Not personally; but yes.' Harry looked
incredulous.

'We go
way back, him and me.'

'He's welcome to you,' Harry said, letting go
of the

tie.
'I'm too damn tired to take any more of this shit.'

He
turned from Valentin and began to walk away.

'Wait -' said the other man, '- I know I
wasn't too

sweet
with you back at the house, but you've got to

understand,
things are going to get bad. For both of

us.'

'I thought you said it was all over bar the
shouting?'

'I thought it was. I thought we had it all
sewn up. Then

Butterfield
arrived and I realised how naive I was being.

They're
not going to let Swann rest in peace. Not now,

not
ever. We have to save him, D'Amour.'

Harry stopped walking and studied the man's
face.

To pass
him in the street, he mused, you wouldn't have

taken
him for a lunatic.

'Did Butterfield go upstairs?' Valentin
enquired.

'Yes he did. Why?'

'Do you remember if he approached the
casket?'

Harry shook his head.

'Good,' said Valentin. 'Then the defences are
holding,

22

which
gives us a little time. Swann was a fine tactician,

you
know. But he could be careless. That was how they

caught
him. Sheer carelessness. He knew they were

coming
for him. I told him outright, I said we should

cancel
the remaining performances and go home. At least

he had
some sanctuary there.'

'You think he was murdered?'

'Jesus Christ,' said Valentin, almost
despairing of

Harry,
'of course he was murdered.'

'So he's past saving, right? The man's dead.'

'Dead; yes. Past saving? no.'

'Do you talk gibberish to everyone?'

Valentin put his hand on Harry's shoulder,
'Oh no,'

he
said, with unfeigned sincerity. 'I don't trust anyone

the way
I trust you.'

'This is very sudden,' said Harry. 'May I ask
why?'

'Because you're in this up to your neck, the
way I am,'

Valentin
replied.

'No I'm
not,' said Harry, ,but Valentin ignored the

denial,
and went on with his talk. 'At the moment we

don't
know how  many of them there are, of
course.

They  might simply have sent Butterfield, but I
think

that's
unlikely.'

'Who's Butterfield with? The Mafia?'

'We should be so lucky,' said Valentin. He
reached

in his
pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. 'This

is the
woman Swann was with,' he said, 'the night at

the
theatre. It's possible she knows something of their

strength.'

There was a witness?'

'She didn't come forward, but yes, there was.
I was his

procurer
you see. I helped arrange his several adulteries,

so that
none ever embarrassed him. See if you can get

to her
-' He stopped abruptly. Somewhere close by,

music
was being played. It sounded like a drunken jazz

23

band
extemporising on bagpipes; a wheezing, rambling

cacophony.
Valentin's face instantly became a portrait of

distress.
'God help us . . .' he said softly, and began to

back
away from Harry.

'What's the problem?'

'Do you know how to pray?' Valentin asked him
as he

retreated
down 83rd Street. The volume of the music was

rising
with every interval.

'I haven't prayed in twenty years,' Harry
replied.

'Then learn,' came the response, and Valentin
turned

to run.

As he did so a ripple of darkness moved down
the

street
from the north, dimming the lustre of bar-signs

and
street-lamps as it came. Neon announcements

suddenly  guttered and died; there were protests out

of
upstairs windows  as  the lights failed and, as if

encouraged
by the curses, the music took on a fresh

and yet
more hectic rhythm. Above his head Harry

heard a
wailing sound, and looked up to see a ragged

silhouette
against the clouds which trailed tendrils like

a man
o' war as it descended upon the street, leaving the

stench
of rotting fish in its wake. Its target was clearly

Valentin.
He shouted above the wail and the music and

the
panic from the black-out, but no sooner had he yelled

than he
heard Valentin shout out from the darkness; a

pleading
cry that was rudely cut short.

He
stood in the murk, his feet unwilling to carry him

a step
nearer the place from which the plea had come.

The  smell still stung his nostrils; nosing it,
his nausea

returned.
And then, so did the lights; a wave of power

igniting
the lamps and the bar-signs as it washed back

down
the street. It reached Harry, and moved on to the

spot
where he had last seen Valentin. It was deserted;

indeed
the sidewalk was empty all the way down to the

next
intersection.

24

The drivelling jazz had stopped.

Eyes peeled for man, beast, or the remnants
of either,

Harry
wandered down the sidewalk. Twenty yards from

where
he had been standing the concrete was wet. Not

with
blood, he was pleased to see; the fluid was the colour

of
bile, and stank to high heaven. Amongst the splashes

were
several slivers of what might have been human

tissue.
Evidently Valentin had fought, and succeeded in

opening
a wound in his attacker. There were more traces

of the
blood further down the sidewalk, as if the injured

thing
had crawled some way before taking flight again.

With
Valentin, presumably. In the face of such strength

Harry
knew his meagre powers would have availed him

not at
all, but he felt guilty nevertheless. He'd heard the

cry -
seen the assailant swoop - and yet fear had sealed

his
soles to the ground.

He'd
last felt fear the equal of this in Wyckoff Street,

when
Mimi Lomax's demon-lover had finally thrown off

any
pretence to humanity. The room had filled with the

stink
of ether and human dirt, and the demon had stood

there
in its appalling nakedness and shown him scenes

that
had turned his bowels to water. They were with him

now,
those scenes. They would be with him forever.

He looked down  at die scrap of paper Valentin had

given
him: the name  and address had been
rapidly

scrawled,
but they were just decipherable.

A wise man, Harry reminded himself, would
screw

this
note up and throw it down into the gutter. But if

the
events in Wyckoff Street had taught him anything,

it was
that once touched by such malignancy as he had

seen
and dreamt  in the last few hours, there
could

be
no  casual disposal of it. He had  to follow it to

its
source, however repugnant that thought was, and

make
with it whatever bargains the strength of his hand

allowed.

25

There was
no good time to do business like this:

the
present would have to suffice. He walked back to

Lexington
and caught a cab to the address on the paper.

He got
no response from the bell marked Bernstein, but

roused
the doorman, and engaged in a frustrating debate

with
him through the glass door. The man was angry to

have
been raised at such an hour; Miss Bernstein was not

in her
apartment, he insisted, and remained untouched

even
when Harry intimated that there might be some

life-or-death
urgency in the matter. It was only when he

produced  his wallet that the fellow displayed the
least

flicker
of concern. Finally, he let Harry in.

'She's not up there,' he said, pocketing the
bills. 'She's

not
been in for days.'

Harry
took the elevator: his shins were aching, and

his
back too. He wanted sleep; bourbon, then sleep.

There
was no reply at the apartment as the doorman

had  predicted, but he  kept knocking,  and calling

her.

'Miss Bernstein? Are you there?'

There was no sign of life from within; not at
least, until

he
said:

'I want to talk about Swann.'

He
heard an intake of breath, close to the door.

'Is somebody there?' he asked. 'Please
answer. There's

nothing
to be afraid of.'

After several seconds a slurred and
melancholy voice

murmured:
'Swann's dead.'

At least she wasn't, Harry thought. Whatever
forces

had
snatched Valentin away, they had not yet reached

this
corner of Manhattan. 'May I talk to you?' he

requested.

'No,' she replied. Her voice was a candle
flame on the

verge
of extinction.

'Just a few questions, Barbara.'

26

'I'm in the tiger's belly,' the slow reply
came, 'and it

doesn't
want me to let you in.'

Perhaps they had got here before him.

'Can't you reach the door?' he coaxed her.
'It's not so

far.  . .'

'But it's eaten me,' she said.

'Try, Barbara. The tiger won't mind. Reach.'

There was silence from the other side of the
door, then

a
shuffling sound. Was she doing as he had requested?

It
seemed so. He heard her fingers fumbling with the

catch.

'That's it,' he encouraged her. 'Can you turn
it? Try

to turn
it.'

At the last instant he thought: suppose she's
telling the

truth,
and there is a tiger in there with her? It was too late

for
retreat, the door was opening. There was no animal

in the
hallway. Just a woman, and the smell of dirt. She

had
clearly neither washed nor changed her clothes since

fleeing
from the theatre. The evening gown she wore

was
soiled and torn, her skin was  grey with
grime.

He
stepped into the apartment. She moved down the

hallway
away from him, desperate to avoid his touch.

'It's all right,' he said, 'there's no tiger
here.'

Her wide eyes were almost empty; what presence

roved
there was lost to sanity.

'Oh
there is,' she said, Tm  in the
tiger. I'm in it

forever.'

As he had neither the time nor the skill
required to

dissuade
her from this madness, he decided it was wiser

to go
with it.

'How did you get there?' he asked her. 'Into
the tiger?

Was it
when you were with Swann?'

She nodded.

'You remember that, do you?'

'Oh yes.'

27

'What do you remember?'

'There was a sword; it fell. He was picking
up -' She

stopped
and frowned.

'Picking up what?'

She seemed suddenly more distracted than
ever. 'How

can you
hear me,' she wondered, 'when I'm in the tiger?

Are you
in the tiger too?

'Maybe I am,' he said, not wanting to analyse
the

metaphor
too closely.

'We're here forever, you know,' she informed
him.

'We'll
never be let out.'

'Who
told you that?'

She didn't reply, but cocked her head a
little.

'Can you hear?' she said.

'Hear?'

She took another step back down the hallway.
Harry

listened,
but he could hear nothing. The  growing

agitation
on Barbara's face was sufficient to send him

back to
the front door and open it, however. The elevator

was in
operation. He could hear its soft hum across the

landing.
Worse: the lights in the hallway and on the

stairs
were deteriorating; the bulbs losing power with

every
foot the elevator ascended.

He turned back into the apartment and went to
take

hold of
Barbara's wrist. She made no protest. Her eyes

were
fixed on the doorway through which she seemed to

know
her judgement would come.

'We'll take the stairs,' he told her, and led
her out on to

the
landing. The lights were within an ace of failing. He

glanced
up at the floor numbers being ticked off above

the
elevator doors. Was this the top floor they were on,

or one
shy of it? He couldn't remember, and there was

no time
to think before the lights went out entirely.

He
stumbled across the unfamiliar territory of the

landing
with the girl in tow, hoping to God he'd find

28

the
stairs before the elevator reached this floor. Barbara

wanted
to loiter, but he bullied her to pick up her pace.

As his
foot found the top stair the elevator finished its

ascent.

The doors hissed open, and a cold
fluorescence washed

the
landing. He couldn't see its source, nor did he wish

to, but
its effect was to reveal to the naked eye every stain

and
blemish, every sign of decay and creeping rot that the

paintwork
sought to camouflage. The show stole Harry's

attention
for a moment only, then he took a firmer hold

of the
woman's hand and  they began their
descent.

Barbara
was not interested in escape however, but in

events
on the landing. Thus occupied she tripped and fell

heavily
against Harry. The two would have toppled but

that he
caught hold of the banister. Angered, he turned

to her.
They were out of sight of the landing, but the light

crept
down the stairs and washed over Barbara's face.

Beneath
its uncharitable scrutiny Harry saw decay busy

in her.
Saw rot in her teeth, and the death in her skin and

hair
and nails. No doubt he would have appeared much

the
same to her, were she to have looked, but she was

still
staring back over her shoulder and up the stairs. The

light-source
was on the move. Voices accompanied it.

The door's open,' a woman said.

'What
are you waiting for?' a voice replied. It was

Butterfield.

Harry
held  both  breath and
wrist as  the light-

source
moved again, towards the door presumably,

and
then  was partially eclipsed as it
disappeared into

the
apartment.

'We have to be quick,' he told Barbara. She
went with

him
down three or four steps and then, without warning,

her
hand leapt for his face, nails opening his cheek. He

let go
of her hand to protect himself, and in that instant

she was
away - back up the stairs.

29

He cursed and stumbled in pursuit of her, but
her

former  sluggishness had  lifted; she was  startlingly

nimble.
By  the dregs of light from the landing
he

watched  her reach the top of the stairs and disappear

from
sight.

'Here I am,' she called out as she went.

He stood immobile on the stairway, unable to
decide

whether
to go or stay, and so unable to move at all. Ever

since
Wyckoff Street he'd hated stairs. Momentarily the

light
from above flared up, throwing the shadows of the

banisters
across him; then it died again. He put his hand

to his
face. She had raised weals, but there was little

blood.
What could he hope from her if he went to her

aid?
Only more of the same. She was a lost cause.

Even as he despaired of her he heard a sound
from

round
the corner at the head of the stairs; a soft sound

that
might have been either a footstep or a sigh. Had

she
escaped their influence after all? Or perhaps not

even
reached the apartment door, but thought better

of it
and about-turned? Even as he was weighing up the

odds he
heard her say:

'Help me ... The voice was a ghost of a
ghost; but it

was
indisputably her, and she was in terror.

He
reached for his .38, and started up the stairs again.

Even
before he had turned the corner he felt the nape of

his
neck itch as his hackles rose.

She was there. But so was the tiger. It stood
on the

landing,
mere feet from Harry, its body humming

with  latent power. Its eyes were  molten; its open

maw  impossibly large. And there, already in its
vast

throat,
was Barbara. He met her eyes out of the tiger's

mouth,
and saw a flicker of comprehension in them that

was
worse than any madness. Then the beast threw its

head
back  and forth to settle its prey in its
gut. She had

been
swallowed whole, apparently. There was no blood

30

on the
landing, nor about the tiger's muzzle; only the

appalling
sight of the girl's face disappearing down the

tunnel
of the animal's throat.

She loosed a final cry from the belly of the
thing, and

as it
rose it seemed to Harry that the beast attempted a

grin.
Its face crinkled up grotesquely, the eyes narrowing

like
those of a laughing Buddha, the lips peeling back to

expose
a sickle of brilliant teeth. Behind this display the

cry was
finally hushed. In that instant the tiger leapt.

Harry fired into its devouring bulk and as
the shot met

its
flesh the leer and the maw and the whole striped mass

of it
unwove in a single beat. Suddenly it was gone, and

there
was only a drizzle of pastel confetti spiralling down

around
him. The shot had aroused interest. There were

raised
voices in one or two of the apartments, and the

light
that had accompanied Butterfield from the elevator

was
brightening through the open door of the Bernstein

residence.
He was almost tempted to stay and see the

light-bringer,
but discretion bettered his curiosity, and

he
turned and made his descent, taking the stairs two and

three
at a time. The confetti tumbled after him, as if it

had a
life of its own. Barbara's life, perhaps; transformed

into
paper pieces and tossed away.

He reached the lobby breathless. The doorman
was

standing
there, staring up the stairs vacantly.

'Somebody get shot?' he enquired.

'No,' said Harry, 'eaten.'

As he
headed for the door he  heard the
elevator

start
to hum  as  it descended. Perhaps  merely
a

tenant,
coming down for a pre-dawn stroll. Perhaps

not.

He left the doorman as he had found him,
sullen and

confused,
and made his escape into the street, putting

two
block lengths between him  and the
apartment

building
before he stopped running. They did not bother

31

to come
after him. He was beneath their concern, most

likely.

So what was he to do now? Valentin was dead,
Barbara

Bernstein
too. He was none the wiser now than he'd been

at the
outset, except that he'd learned again the lesson

he'd
been taught in Wyckoff Street: that when dealing

with
the Gulfs it was wiser never to believe your eyes.

The
moment you trusted your senses, the moment you

believed
a tiger to be a tiger, you were half theirs.

Not  a
complicated lesson, but it seemed he had

forgotten
it, like a fool, and it had taken two deaths

to
teach it to him afresh. Maybe it would be simpler

to have
the rule tattooed on the back of his hand, so

that he
couldn't check the time without being reminded:

Never
believe your eyes.

The
principle was still fresh in his mind as he walked

back
towards his apartment and a man stepped out of the

doorway
and said:

'Harry.'

It looked like Valentin; a wounded Valentin,
a Valentin

who'd
been dismembered and sewn together again by

a
committee of blind surgeons, but the same man in

essence.
But then the tiger had looked like a tiger, hadn't

it?

'It's me,' he said.

'Oh no,' Harry said. 'Not this time.'

'What
are you talking about? It's Valentin.'

'So prove it.'

The other man looked puzzled. 'This is no
time for

games,'
he said, 'we're in desperate straits.'

Harry
took his .38 from his pocket and
pointed

at
Valentin's chest. 'Prove  it or I
shoot  you,' he

said.

'Are you out of your mind?'

'I saw you torn apart.'

32

'Not quite,' said Valentin. His left arm was
swathed

in
makeshift bandaging from fingertip to mid-bicep. 'It

was
touch and go . . .'he said,'. . . but everything has

its
Achilles' heel. It's just a question of finding the right

spot.'

Harry peered at the man. He wanted to believe
that

this
was indeed Valentin, but it was too incredible to

believe
that the frail form in front of him could have

survived
the monstrosity he'd seen on 83rd Street. No;

this
was another illusion. Like the tiger: paper and

malice.

The man
broke Harry's train of thought. 'Your

steak .
. .'he said.

'My steak?'

'You like it almost burned,' Valentin said.
'I pro-

tested,
remember?'

Harry remembered. 'Go on,' he said.

'And you said you hated the sight of blood.
Even, if it

wasn't
your own.'

'Yes,' said Harry. His doubts were lifting.
'That's

right.'

'You asked me to prove I'm Valentin. That's
the best

I can
do.' Harry was almost persuaded. 'In God's name,'

Valentin
said, 'do we have to debate this standing on the

street?'

'You'd better come in.'

The apartment was small, but tonight it felt
more

stifling
than ever. Valentin sat himself down with a

good
view  of the door. He refused spirits or
first-aid.

Harry
helped himself to bourbon. He was on his third

shot
when Valentin finally said:

'We have to go back to the house, Harry.'

'What?'

'We have to claim Swann's body before
Butterfield.'

'I did my best already. It's not my business
any more.'

33

'So you leave Swann to the Pit?' Valentin
said.

'She doesn't care, why should I?'

'You mean Dorothea? She doesn't know what
Swann

was
involved with. That's why she's so trusting. She has

suspicions
maybe,  but, insofar as it is possible to
be

guiltless
in all of this, she is.' He paused to adjust the

position
of his injured arm. 'She was a prostitute, you

know. I
don't suppose she told you that. Swann once

said to
me he married her because only prostitutes know

the
value of love.'

Harry let this apparent paradox go.

'Why
did she stay with him?' he asked. 'He wasn't

exactly
faithful, was he?'

'She loved him,' Valentin replied. 'It's not
unheard

of.'

'And you?'

'Oh  I
loved him too, in spite of his stupidities. That's

why we
have to help him. If Butterfield and his associates

get
their hands on Swann's mortal remains, there'll be all

Hell to
pay.'

'I know. I got a glimpse at the Bernstein
place.'

'What did you see?'

'Something
and nothing,' said Harry. 'A tiger, I

thought;
only it wasn't.'

'The old paraphernalia,' Valentin commented.

'And there was something else with
Butterfield. Some-

thing
that shed light: I didn't see what.'

'The Castrate,' Valentin muttered to himself,
clearly

discomfited.
'We'll have to be careful.'

He stood up, the movement causing him to
wince. 'I

think we
should be on our way, Harry.'

'Are you paying me for this?' Harry inquired,
'or am

I doing
it all for love?'

'You're doing it because of what happened at
Wyckoff

Street,'
came the softly-spoken reply. 'Because you lost

34

poor Mimi
Lomax to the Gulfs, and you don't want to

lose
Swann. That is, if you've not already done so.'

They
caught a cab on Madison Avenue and headed back

uptown
to 61st Street, keeping their silence as they rode.

Harry
had half a hundred questions to ask of Valentin.

Who  was Butterfield, for one, and what was
Swann's

crime
was that he be pursued to death and beyond? So

many  puzzles. But Valentin looked sick and unfit
for

plying
with questions. Besides, Harry sensed that the

more he
knew  the less enthusiastic he would be
about

the
journey they were now taking.

'We have perhaps one advantage -' Valentin
said as

they
approached 61st Street. 'They can't be expecting

this
frontal attack. Butterfield presumes I'm dead, and

probably
thinks you're hiding  your head  in mortal

terror.'

'I'm working on it.'

'You're not in danger,' Valentin replied, 'at
least not

the way
Swann is. If they were to take you apart limb by

limb it
would be nothing beside the torments they have

waiting
for the magician.'

'Illusionist,' Harry corrected him, but
Valentin shook

his
head.

'Magician he was; magician he will always
be.'

The
driver interrupted before Harry could quote

Dorothea
on the subject.

'What number you people want?' he said.

'Just drop us here on the right,' Valentin
instructed

him.
'And wait for us, understand?'

'Sure.'

Valentin turned  to
Harry. 'Give  the man   fifty

dollars.'

'Fifty?

'Do you want him to wait or not?'

35

Harry
counted four tens and  ten singles
into the

driver's
hand.

'You'd better keep the engine running,' he
said.

'Anything to oblige,' the driver grinned.

Harry
joined Valentin on the sidewalk and
they

walked
the twenty-five yards to the house. The street

was
still noisy, despite the hour: the party that Harry

had  seen in preparation half a night ago  was at its

height.
There was no sign of life at the Swann residence

however.

Perhaps they don't expect us, Harry thought.
Certainly

this
head-on assault was about the most foolhardy tactic

imaginable,
and as such might catch the enemy off-

guard.
But were such forces ever off-guard? Was there

ever a
minute in their maggoty lives when their eyelids

drooped
and sleep tamed them for a space? No. In

Harry's
experience it was only the good who needed

sleep;
iniquity and its practitioners were awake every

eager
moment, planning fresh felonies.

'How
do we get in?' he asked as they stood outside the

house.

'I have the key,' Valentin replied, and went
to the

door.

There was no retreat now. The key was turned,
the

door
was  open, and they were stepping out of
the

comparative
safety of the street. The house was as

dark
within as it had appeared from without. There

was no
sound of human presence on any of the floors.

Was  it possible that the defences Swann  had laid

around  his corpse had  indeed rebuffed Butterfield,

and  that he and his cohorts had retreated?
Valentin

quashed
such misplaced optimism almost immediately,

taking  hold of
Harry's arm  and  leaning
close to

whisper:

'They're here.'

36

This was not the time to ask Valentin how he
knew,

but
Harry made a mental note to enquire when, or rather

if,
they got out of the house with their tongues still in

their
heads.

Valentin was already on the stairs. Harry,
his eyes still

accustoming
themselves to the vestigial light that crept

in from
the street, crossed the hallway after him. The

other
man moved confidently in the gloom, and Harry

was
glad of it. Without Valentin plucking at his sleeve,

and
guiding him around the half-landing he might well

have
crippled himself.

Despite what Valentin had said, there was no
more

sound
or sight of occupancy up here than there had been

below,
but as they advanced towards the master bedroom

where
Swann lay, a rotten tooth in Harry's lower jaw that

had
lately been quiescent began to throb afresh, and

his
bowels ached to break wind. The anticipation was

crucifying.
He felt a barely suppressible urge to yell out,

and to
oblige the enemy to show its hand, if indeed it

had
hands to show.

Valentin had reached the door. He turned his
head in

Harry's
direction, and even in the murk it was apparent

that
fear was taking its toll on him too. His skin glistened;

he
stank of fresh sweat.

He pointed towards the door. Harry nodded. He
was

as
ready as he was ever going to be. Valentin reached

for the
door handle. The sound of the lock-mechanism

seemed
deafeningly loud, but it brought no response

from
anywhere in the house. The door swung open,

and the
heady scent of flowers met them. They had

begun
to decay in the forced heat of the house; there

was a
rankness beneath the perfume. More welcome than

the
scent was the light. The curtains in the room had

not
been entirely drawn, and the street-lamps described

the
interior: the flowers massed like clouds around the

37

casket;
the chair where Harry had sat, the Calvados

bottle
beside it; the mirror above the fireplace showing

the
room its secret self.

Valentin was
already moving  across to the
casket,

and  Harry
heard him  sigh as  he set eyes on  his

old
master. He  wasted  little time, but immediately

set
to  lifting the lower  half of the
casket lid. It

defeated
his single arm however and Harry went  to

his
assistance, eager to get the job done and be away.

Touching  the solid wood of the casket brought his

nightmare  back with
breath-snatching force: the Pit

opening  beneath him,
the illusionist rising from his

bed
like a sleeper unwillingly woken. There was no

such
spectacle now,  however. Indeed  a little life in

the
corpse might have made  the job easier.
Swann

was a
big man, and his limp body was uncooperative

to a
fault. The  simple act of lifting him
from  his

casket
took all their breath and attention. He came

at
last, though reluctantly, his long limbs flopping

about.

'Now  .
. .' said Valentin '. . . downstairs.'

As they moved
to the door something in the street

ignited,
or so it seemed, for the  interior
suddenly

brightened.
The light was not kind to their burden. It

revealed
the crudity of the cosmetics applied to Swann's

face,
and the burgeoning putrescence beneath. Harry

had  an instant only to appreciate these
felicities, and

then
the light brightened again, and he realised that it

wasn't
outside, but in.

He looked up at Valentin, and almost
despaired. The

luminescence
was even  less charitable to servant than

to
master; it seemed to strip the flesh from Valentin's

face.
Harry caught only a glimpse of what it revealed

beneath
- events stole his attention an instant later - but

he saw
enough to know that had Valentin not been his

38

accomplice
in this venture he might well have run from

him.

'Get him out of here!' Valentin yelled.

He let go of Swann's legs, leaving Harry to steer
Swann

single-handed.
The corpse proved recalcitrant however.

Harry
had only made two cursing steps towards the exit

when
things took a turn for the cataclysmic.

He heard Valentin unloose an oath, and looked
up

to see
that the mirror had  given up  all pretence to

reflection,
and that something was moving up from its

liquid
depths, bringing the light with it.

'What is it?' Harry breathed.

'The Castrate,' came the reply. 'Will you
go?'

There was
no  time to obey  Valentin's panicked

instruction
however, before the hidden thing broke the

plane
of the mirror and invaded the room. Harry had

been
wrong. It did not carry the light with it as it came:

it was
the light. Or rather, some holocaust blazed in

its
bowels, the glare of which escaped through the

creature's
body by whatever  route it could. It had

once
been human; a mountain of a man with the belly

and the
breasts of a neolithic Venus. But the fire in its

body
had twisted it out of true, breaking out through

its
palms and its navel, burning its mouth and nostrils

into
one ragged hole. It had, as its name implied, been

unsexed;
from  that hole too, light spilled. By
it, the

decay
of the flowers speeded into seconds. The blossoms

withered
and died. The room was filled in moments with

the
stench of rotting vegetable matter.

Harry heard Valentin call his name, once, and
again.

Only
then did he remember the body in his arms. He

dragged
his eyes from the hovering Castrato, and carried

Swann
another yard. The door was at his back, and

open.
He dragged his burden out into the landing as

the
Castrato kicked over the casket. He heard the din,

39

and
then shouts from Valentin. There followed another

terrible
commotion, and the high-pitched voice of the

Castrate,
talking through that hole in its face.

'Die and be happy,' it said, and a hail of
furniture was

flung
against the wall with such force chairs embedded

themselves
in the  plaster. Valentin had escaped the

assault
however, or so it seemed, for an instant later

Harry  heard the Castrato shriek. It was an
appalling

sound:
pitiful and revolting. He would have stopped his

ears,
but he had his hands full.

He had almost reached the top of the stairs.
Dragging

Swann  a few steps further he laid the body down.
The

Castrate's
light was not dimmed, despite its complaints;

it
still flickered on the bedroom wall like a midsummer

thunderstorm.
For the third time tonight - once on 83rd

Street,
and again on  the stairs of the Bernstein
place

-
Harry  hesitated. If he went back to help
Valentin

perhaps
there would be worse  sights to see than
ever

Wyckoff  Street had
offered. But there could be no

retreat
this time. Without Valentin he was  lost.
He

raced
back down the landing and flung open the door.

The air
was thick; the lamps rocking. In the middle oi

the
room hung  the Castrato, still defying
gravity. It had

hold of
Valentin by his hair. Its other hand was poised,

first
and middle fingers spread like twin horns, about to

stab
out its captive's eyes.

Harry pulled his .38 from his pocket, aimed,
and fired.

He had
always been a bad shot when given more than

a
moment  to take aim, but in extremis,
when instinct

governed
rational thought, he was not half bad. This

was
such an occasion. The bullet found the Castrate's

neck,
and opened another wound. More in surprise than

pain
perhaps, it let Valentin go. There was a leakage of

light
from the hole in its neck, and it put its hand to the

place.

40

Valentin was quickly on his feet.

'Again,' he called to Harry. 'Fire again!'

Harry
obeyed  the instruction. His
second  bullet

pierced
the  creature's chest, his third its
belly. This

last
wound seemed particularly traumatic; the distended

flesh,
ripe for bursting, broke - and the trickle of light

that
spilled from the wound rapidly became a flood as

the
abdomen split.

Again the Castrate howled, this time in
panic, and

lost
all control of its flight. It reeled like a pricked

balloon
towards the ceiling, its fat hands desperately

attempting
to stem the mutiny in its substance. But it

had
reached critical mass; there was no making good the

damage
done. Lumps of its flesh began to break from

it.
Valentin, either too stunned or too fascinated, stood

staring
up at the disintegration while rains of cooked

meat
fell around him. Harry took hold of him and hauled

him
back towards the door.

The Castrate was finally earning its name,
unloosing

a
desolate ear-piercing note. Harry didn't wait to watch

its
demise, but slammed the bedroom  door as the

voice
reached an awesome pitch, and the windows

smashed.

Valentin was grinning.

'Do you know what we did?' he said.

'Never mind. Let's just get the fuck out of
here.'

The sight of Swann's corpse at the top of the
stairs

seemed
to chasten Valentin. Harry instructed him to

assist,
and he did so as efficiently as his dazed condition

allowed.
Together they began  to escort the
illusionist

down  the stairs. As they reached the front door
there

was a
final shriek from above, as the Castrate came apart

at the
seams. Then silence.

The commotion
had not gone unnoticed. Revellers

had
appeared from  the house opposite, a
crowd of

41

late-night
pedestrians had assembled on the sidewalk.

'Some
party,' one of them said as the trio emerged.

Harry
had half expected the cab  to have
deserted

them,  but he
had  reckoned  without the driver's

curiosity.
The man was  out of his vehicle and
staring

up at
the first floor window.

'Does he need a hospital?' he asked as they
bundled

Swann
into the back of the cab.

'No,' Harry returned. 'He's about as good as
he's

going
to get.'

'Will you drive?' said Valentin.

'Sure. Just tell me where to.'

'Anywhere,' came the weary reply. 'Just get
out of

here.''

'Hold it a minute,' the driver said, 'I don't
want any

trouble.'

'Then
you'd better move,' said Valentin. The driver

met  his passenger's gaze. Whatever he saw there,
his

next
words were:

'I'm driving,' and they took off along East
61st like the

proverbial
bat out of hell.

'We
did  it, Harry,' Valentin said
when  they'd

been  travelling for a few minutes.  'We
got him

back.'

'And that thing? Tell me about it.'

'The
Castrato? What's to tell? Butterfield must have

left it
as a watchdog,   until he could  bring
in a

technician
to decode Swann's  defence mechanisms.

We  were lucky. It was in need of milking. That
makes

them  unstable.'

'How do you know so much about all of this?'

'It's a long story,' said Valentin. 'And not
for a cab

ride.'

'So what now?
We  can't drive round in circles
all

night.'

42

Valentin looked across at the body that sat
between

them,
prey to every whim of the cab's suspension and

road-menders'
craft. Gently, he put Swann's hands on

his lap.

'You're right of course,' he said. 'We  have
to

make  arrangements for the cremation, as swiftly as

possible.'

The
cab bounced  across a pot-hole.
Valentin's face

tightened.

'Are you in pain?' Harry asked him.

'I've been in worse.'

'We
could go back to my  apartment,
and rest

there.'

Valentin shook his head. 'Not very clever,'
he said,

'it's
the first place they'll look.'

'My offices, then -'

'The second place.'

'Well, Jesus, this cab's going to run
out  of gas

eventually.'

At this point the driver intervened.

'Say, did you people mention cremation?'

'Maybe,' Valentin replied.

'Only my brother-in-law's got a funeral
business out

in
Queens.'

'Is that so?' said Harry.

'Very reasonable rates. I can recommend him.
No

shit.'

'Could you contact him now? Valentin said.

'It's two in the morning.'

'We're in a hurry.'

The driver reached up and adjusted his
mirror; he was

looking
at Swann.

'You don't mind me asking, do you?' he said.
'But is

that a
body you got back there?'

'It is,' said Harry. 'And he's getting
impatient.'

43

The driver made a whooping sound. 'Shit!' he
said.

'I've
had a woman  drop twins in that seat;
I've had

whores
do business; I even had an alligator back there

one
time. But this beats them all!' He pondered for a

moment,
then said: 'You kill him, did you?'

'No,' said Harry.

'Guess we'd be heading for the East River if
you had,

eh?'

'That's right. We just want a decent
cremation. And

quickly.'

That's
understandable.'

'What's your name?' Harry asked him.

'Winston Jowitt. But everybody calls me
Byron. I'm

a poet,
see? Leastways, I am at weekends.'

'Byron.'

'See, any other driver would be freaked out,
right?

Finding
two guys with a body in the back seat. But the

way  I see it, it's all material.'

'For the poems.'

'Right,' said Byron. 'The Muse is a fickle
mistress.

You  have to take it where you find it, you know?

Speaking
of which, you gentlemen got any idea where

you
want to go?'

'Make
it your offices,' Valentin told Harry. 'And he

can
call his brother-in-law.'

'Good,' said Harry. Then, to Byron:

'Head west along 45th Street to 8th.'

'You got it,' said Byron, and the cab's speed
doubled

in the
space of twenty yards. 'Say,' he said, 'you fellows

fancy a
poem?'

'Now?' said Harry.

'I like to improvise,' Byron replied. 'Pick a
subject.

Any  subject.'

Valentin hugged his wounded arm close.
Quietly, he

said:
'How about the end of the world?'

44

'Good subject,' the poet replied, 'just give
me a minute

or
two.'

'So soon?' said Valentin.

They
took a circuitous route to the offices, while Byron

Jowitt
tried a selection of rhymes for Apocalypse. The

sleep-walkers
were out on 45th Street, in search of one

high or
another; some sat in the doorways, one lay

sprawled
across the sidewalk. None of them gave the

cab or
its occupants more  than the briefest
perusal.

Harry
unlocked the front door and he and Byron carried

Swann
up to the third floor.

The office was home from home: cramped and

chaotic.
They put Swann in the swivel chair behind the

furred
coffee cups and the alimony demands heaped on

the
desk. He looked easily the healthiest of the quartet.

Byron
was sweating like a bull after the climb; Harry

felt -
and surely looked - as though he hadn't slept in

sixty
days; Valentin sat slumped in the clients' chair,

so
drained of vitality he might have
been  at death's

door.

'You look terrible,' Harry told him.

'No matter,' he said. 'It'll all be done
soon.'

Harry turned to Byron.  'How
about calling this

brother-in-law
of yours?'

While
Byron  set to doing so, Harry
returned  his

attention
to Valentin.

'I've got a first-aid box somewhere about,'
he said.

'Shall
I bandage up that arm?'

'Thank you, but no. Like you, I hate the
sight of

blood.
Especially my own.'

Byron was
on the phone, chastising his brother-in-

law for
his ingratitude. 'What's your beef? I got you a

client!
I know the time, for Christ's sake, but business

is
business . . .'

45

'Tell him we'll pay double his normal rate,'
Valenun

said.

'You hear that, Mel? Twice your usual fee. So
get over

here,
will you?' He gave the address to his brother-in-

law,
and put down the receiver. 'He's coming over,' he

announced.

'Now?' said Harry.

'Now,' Byron glanced at his watch. 'My belly
thinks

my
throat's cut. How about we eat? You got an all night

place
near here?'

'There's one a block down from here.'

'You want food?' Byron asked Valentin.

'I don't think so,' he said. He was looking
worse by

the
moment.

'OK,' Byron said to Harry, 'just you and me
then. You

got ten
I could borrow?'

Harry
gave him  a bill, the keys to the
street door

and
an  order for doughnuts and coffee, and
Byron

went
on  his way. Only when  he'd gone did Harry

wish
he'd convinced  the poet to stave off his
hunger

pangs  a
while. The   office was  distressingly quiet

without
him:  Swann  in residence behind the desk,

Valentin
succumbing to sleep in the other chair. The

hush  brought to mind  another such silence, during

that
last, awesome night at the Lomax house when

Mimi's
demon-lover, wounded by Father Hesse, had

slipped
away into the walls for a while, and left them

waiting
and waiting, knowing it would come back but

not certain
of when or how.  Six hours they'd sat -

Mimi  occasionally breaking the silence with
laughter

or
gibberish - and the first Harry had known of its

return
was the smell of cooking excrement, and Mimi's

cry of
'Sodomite!' as Hesse surrendered to an act his

faith
had too long forbidden him. There had been no

more  silence then, not for a long space: only
Hesse's

46

cries,
and Harry's pleas for forgetfulness. They had all

gone
unanswered.

It seemed he could hear the demon's voice now;
its

demands,
its invitations. But no; it was only Valentin.

The
man  was tossing his head back and forth
in sleep,

his
face knotted up. Suddenly he started from his chair,

one
word on his lips:

'Swannl'

His
eyes opened,  and  as they
alighted on the

illusionist's
body, which was propped  in the  chair

opposite,
tears came uncontrollably, wracking him.

'He's dead,' he said, as though in his dream
he had

forgotten
that bitter fact. 'I failed him, D'Amour. That's

why
he's dead. Because of my negligence.'

'You're doing your best for him now,' Harry
said,

though
he knew the words were poor compensation.

'Nobody
could ask for a better friend.'

'I was never his friend,' Valentin said,
staring at the

corpse
with brimming eyes. 'I always hoped he'd one day

trust
me entirely. But he never did.'

'Why not?'

'He couldn't afford to trust anybody. Not in
his

situation.'
He wiped his cheeks with the back of his

hand.

'Maybe,' Harry said, 'it's about time you
told me what

all
this is about.'

'If you want to hear.'

'I want to hear.'

'Very well,' said Valentin. 'Thirty-two years
ago,

Swann  made a bargain with the Gulfs. He agreed to

be an
ambassador for them if they, in return, gave him

magic.'

'Magicr

'The ability to perform miracles. To
transform matter.

To
bewitch souls. Even to drive out God.'

47

'That's a miracle?'

'It's more difficult than you think,'
Valentin replied.

'So Swann was a genuine magician?'

'Indeed he was.'

'Then why didn't he use his powers?'

'He did,' Valentin replied. 'He used them
every night,

at
every performance.'

Harry was
baffled. 'I don't follow.'

'Nothing the Prince of Lies offers to
humankind

is of
the least value,' Valentin said, 'or it wouldn't

be
offered. Swann  didn't know that
when  he
first

made  his Covenant. But  he soon learned. Miracles

are
useless. Magic is a distraction from the real concerns.

It's
rhetoric. Melodrama.'

'So what exactly are the real concerns?'

'You
should know better than I,' Valentin replied.

'Fellowship,
maybe? Curiosity? Certainly it matters not

in the
least if water can be made into wine, or Lazarus to

live
another year.'

Harry saw the wisdom of this, but not how it
had

brought
the magician to Broadway. As it was, he didn't

need to
ask. Valentin had taken up  the story
afresh.

His
tears had cleared with the telling; some trace of

animation
had crept back into his features.

'It didn't take Swann long to realise he'd
sold his soul

for a
mess of pottage,' he explained. 'And when he did

he was
inconsolable. At least he was for a while. Then he

began
to contrive a revenge.'

'How?'

'By taking Hell's name in vain. By using the
magic

which
it boasted of as a trivial entertainment, degrading

the
power of the Gulfs by passing off their wonder-

working
as mere illusion. It was, you see, an act of heroic

perversity.
Every time a trick of Swann's was explained

away as
sleight-of-hand, the Gulfs squirmed.'

48

'Why didn't they kill him?' Harry said.

'Oh, they tried. Many times. But he had
allies. Agents

in
their camp who warned him of their plots against him.

He
escaped their retribution for years that way.'

'Until now?'

'Until now,' Valentin sighed. 'He was
careless, and

so was
I. Now he's dead, and the Gulfs are itching for

him.'

'I see.'

'But we were not entirely unprepared for this
event-

uality.
He had made his apologies to Heaven; and I dare

to hope
he's been forgiven his trespasses. Pray that he

has.
There's more than his salvation at stake tonight.'

'Yours too?'

'All of us who loved him are tainted,'
Valentin replied,

'but if
we can destroy his physical remains before the

Gulfs
claim them we may yet avoid the consequences of

his
Covenant.'

'Why
did you wait so long? Why  didn't
you just

cremate
him die day he died?'

Their lawyers are not fools. The Covenant
specifically

proscribes
a period of lying-in-state. If we had attempted

to
ignore that clause his soul would have been forfeited

automatically.'

'So when is this period up?'

'Three hours
ago, at midnight,' Valentin replied.

'That's
why  they're so desperate, you see. And
so

dangerous.'

Another
poem came to Byron Jowitt as he ambled back

up 8th.
Avenue, working his way through a tuna salad

sandwich.
His Muse was not to be rushed. Poems could

take as
long as five minutes to be finalised; longer if they

involved
a double rhyme. He didn't hurry on his journey

back to
the offices therefore, but wandered in a dreamy

49

sort of
mood, turning the lines every which way to make

them
fit. That way he hoped to arrive back with another

finished
poem. Two in one night was damn good going.

He  had
not perfected the final couplet however, by

the
time he reached the door. Operating on automatic

pilot
he fumbled in his pocket for the keys D'Amour

had
loaned him, and let himself in. He was about to

close
the door again when a woman stepped through the

gap,
smiling at him. She was a beauty, and Byron, being

a poet,
was a fool for beauty.

'Please,' she said to him, 'I need your
help.'

'What
can I do for you?' said Byron through a

mouthful
of food.

'Do you know a man by the name of D'Amour?
Harry

D'Amour?'

'Indeed I do. I'm going up to his place right
now.'

'Perhaps you could show me the way?' the
woman

asked
him, as Byron closed the door.

'Be my
pleasure,' he replied, and led her across the

lobby
to the bottom of the stairs.

'You know,
you're very sweet,' she told him; and

Byron
melted.

Valentin
stood at the window.

'Something wrong?' Harry asked.

'Just a feeling,' Valentin commented.   'I have a

suspicion
maybe the Devil's in Manhattan.'

'So what's new?'

'That maybe he's coming for us.' As if on cue
there

was a
knock at the door. Harry jumped. 'It's all right,'

Valentin
said, 'he never knocks.'

Harry
went to the door, feeling like a fool.

'Is that you, Byron?' he asked before
unlocking it.

'Please,' said a voice he thought he'd never
hear again.

'Helpme.
. .'

50

He opened the door. It was Dorothea, of
course. She

was
colourless as water, and as unpredictable. Even

before
Harry had invited her across the office threshold

a dozen
expressions, or hints of such, had crossed her

face:
anguish, suspicion, terror. And now, as her eyes

alighted
upon the body of her beloved Swann, relief and

gratitude.

'You do have him,' she said, stepping into
the office.

Harry closed the door. There was a chill from
up the

stairs.

Thank God. Thank God.' She took Harry's face
in her

hands
and kissed him lightly on the lips. Only then did

she
notice Valentin.

She dropped her hands.

'What's he doing here?' she asked.

'He's with me. With us.'

She looked doubtful. 'No,' she said.

'We can trust him.'

'I said no! Get him out, Harry.' There was a
cold fury

in her;
she shook with it. 'Get him outl'

Valentin stared at her, glassy-eyed. 'The
lady doth

protest
too much,' he murmured.

Dorothea
put her fingers to her lips as if to stifle any

further
outburst. 'I'm sorry,' she said, turning back to

Harry,
'but you must be told what this man is capable

of-'

'Without him your husband  would still be at the

house,
Mrs Swann,' Harry pointed out. 'He's the one

you
should be grateful to, not me.'

At
this, Dorothea's expression softened, through

bafflement
to a new gentility.

'Oh?' she said. Now she looked back at
Valentin. 'I'm

sorry.
When you ran from the house I assumed some

complicity
. . .'

'With whom?' Valentin inquired.

51

She made a tiny shake of her head; then said,
'Your

arm.
Are you hurt?'

'A minor injury,' he returned.

'I've already tried to get it rebandaged,'
Harry said.

'But
the bastard's too stubborn.'

'Stubborn I am,' Valentin replied, without
inflection,

'But we'll be finished here soon -' said
Harry.

Valentin broke  in. 'Don't
tell her anything,' he

snapped.

'I'm just going to explain about the
brother-in-law -'

Harry
said.

The
brother-in-law?' Dorothea said, sitting down.

The
sigh of her legs crossing was the most enchanting

sound
Harry had heard in twenty-four hours. 'Oh please

tell me
about the brother-in-law . . .'

Before Harry could open his mouth to speak,
Valentin

said:
'It's not her, Harry.'

The words, spoken without a trace of drama,
took a

few
seconds to make sense. Even when they did, their

lunacy
was  self-evident. Here she was in the
flesh,

perfect
in every detail.

'What are you talking about?' Harry said.

'How
much  more  plainly can I say it?' Valentin

replied.
'It's not her. It's a trick. An illusion. They

know  where we are, and they sent this up to spy
out

our
defences.'

Harry would have laughed, but that these
accusations

were
bringing tears to Dorothea's eyes.

'Stop it,' he told Valentin.

'No, Harry. You think for a moment. All the
traps

they've
laid, all the beasts they've mustered.
You

suppose
she  could have escaped that?' He  moved

away
from the window  towards Dorothea.
'Where's

Butterfield?'
he spat. 'Down the hall, waiting for your

signal?'

52

'Shut up,' said Harry.

'He's scared to come  up here
himself, isn't he?'

Valentin
went on. 'Scared of Swann,  scared of us,

probably,
after what we did to his gelding.'

Dorothea looked at Harry. 'Make him stop,' she
said.

Harry halted Valentin's advance with a hand
on his

bony
chest.

'You heard the lady,' he said.

'That's no lady,' Valentin replied, his eyes
blazing. 'I

don't
know what it is, but it's no lady.'

Dorothea stood up. 'I came here because I
hoped I'd

be
safe,' she said.

'You are safe,' Harry said.

'Not with him around, I'm not,' she replied,
looking

back at
Valentin. 'I think I'd be wiser going.'

Harry touched her arm.

'No,' he told her.

'Mr D'Amour,'
she  said sweetly, 'you've already

earned
your fee ten times over. Now I think it's time

/ took
responsibility for my husband.'

Harry scanned that mercurial face. There
wasn't a

trace
of deception in it.

'I have a car downstairs,' she said. 'I
wonder. . . could

you
carry him downstairs for me?'

Harry heard a noise like a cornered dog
behind him

and
turned to see Valentin standing beside Swann's

corpse.
He had  picked  up the
heavy-duty cigarette

lighter
from the desk, and was flicking it. Sparks came,

but no
flame.

'What the hell are you doing?' Harry
demanded.

Valentin didn't look at the speaker, but at
Dorothea.

'She knows,' he said.

He had got the knack of the lighter; the
flame flared

up.

Dorothea made a small, desperate sound.

53

'Please don't,' she said.

'We'll
all burn  with him   if necessary,' Valentin

said.

'He's insane,' Dorothea's tears had suddenly
gone.

'She's right,' Harry told Valentin, 'you're
acting like

a
madman.'

'And
you're a fool to fall for a few tears!' came the

reply.
'Can't you see that if she takes him we've lost

everything
we've fought for?'

'Don't listen,' she murmured. 'You know me,
Harry.

You
trust me.'

'What's
under that face of yours?' Valentin
said.

'What
are you? A Coprolite? Homunculus?'

The names meant nothing to Harry. All he knew
was

the
proximity of the woman at her side; her hand laid

upon
his arm.

'And what about you?' she said to Valentin.
Then,

more
softly, 'why don't you show us your wound?'

She forsook the shelter of Harry's side, and
crossed to

the
desk. The lighter flame guttered at her approach.

'Go on. . .' she said, her voice no louder
than a breath.

'. . .
I dare you.'

She glanced round at Harry. 'Ask him,
D'Amour,'

she
said. 'Ask him to show you what he's got hidden

under
the bandages.'

'What's she talking about?' Harry asked. The
glimmer

of
trepidation in Valentin's eyes was enough to convince

Harry
there was merit in Dorothea's request. 'Explain,'

he
said.

Valentin didn't get the chance however.
Distracted

by
Harry's demand he was easy prey when Dorothea

reached
across the desk and knocked the lighter from his

hand.
He bent to retrieve it, but she seized on the ad hoc

bundle
of bandaging and pulled. It tore, and fell away.

She stepped back. 'See?' she said.

54

Valentin stood revealed. The creature on 83rd
Street

had
torn the sham of humanity from his arm; the limb

beneath
was a mass of blue-black scales. Each digit of the

blistered
hand ended in a nail that opened and closed like

a
parrot's beak. He made no attempt to conceal the truth.

Shame
eclipsed every other response.

'I warned you,' she said, 'I warned you he
wasn't to be

trusted.'

Valentin stared at Harry. 'I have no
excuses,' he said.

'I only
ask you to believe that I want what's best for

Swann.'

'How can you?' Dorothea said. 'You're a
demon.'

'More
than that,' Valentin replied, 'I'm Swann's

Tempter.  His familiar; his creature. But I belong to

him
more  than I ever belonged to the Gulfs.
And I

will
defy them -' he looked at Dorothea, '- and their

agents.'

She turned to Harry. 'You have a gun,' she
said.

'Shoot
the filth. You mustn't suffer a thing like that to

live.'

Harry looked at the pustulent arm; at the
clacking

fingernails:
what further repugnance was there in wait

behind
the flesh facade?

'Shoot it,' the woman said.

He took his gun from his pocket. Valentin
seemed to

have
shrunk in the moments since the revelation of his

true
nature. Now he  leaned against the wall,
his face

slimy
with despair.

'Kill me then,' he said to Harry, 'kill me if
I revolt

you so
much. But Harry, I beg you, don't give Swann to

her.
Promise me that. Wait for the driver to come back,

and
dispose of the body by whatever means you can. Just

don't
give it to her!'

'Don't listen,' Dorothea said. 'He doesn't
care about

Swann
the way I do.'

55

Harry
raised the gun. Even looking straight at death,

Valentin
did not flinch.

'You've
failed, Judas,' she said to Valentin. 'The

magician's
mine.'

'What magician?' said Harry.

'Why
Swann,  of course!' she replied
lightly. 'How

many  magicians have you got up here?'

Harry dropped his bead on Valentin.

'He's an illusionist,' he said, 'you told me
that at the

very
beginning. Never call him a magician, you said.'

'Don't be pedantic,' she replied, trying to
laugh off her

faux
pas.

He
levelled the gun at her. She threw back her head

suddenly,
her face contracting, and unloosed a sound of

which,
had Harry not heard it from a human throat, he

would
not have believed the larynx capable. It rang down

the
corridor and the stairs, in search of some waiting

ear.

'Butterfield is here,' said Valentin flatly.

Harry nodded. In the same moment she came
towards

him,
her features grotesquely contorted. She was strong

and  quick; a blur of venom that took him
off-guard.

He   heard Valentin  tell him to kill her, before  she

transformed.
It took him  a moment  to grasp the

significance
of this, by which time she had her teeth

at his
throat. One of her hands was a cold vice around his

wrist;
he sensed strength in her sufficient to powder his

bones.
His fingers were already numbed by her grip; he

had no
time to do more than depress the trigger. The gun

went
off. Her breath on his throat seemed to gush from

her.
Then she loosed her hold on him, and staggered

back.
The shot had blown open her abdomen.

He
shook to see what he had done. The creature, for

all its
shriek, still resembled a woman he might have

loved.

56

'Good,' said Valentin, as the blood hit the
office floor

in
gouts. 'Now it must show itself.'

Hearing him, she shook her head. 'This is all
there is

to
show,' she said.

Harry threw the gun down. 'My God,' he said
softly,

'it's
her .

Dorothea grimaced. The blood continued to
come.

'Some
part of her,' she replied.

'Have you always been with them  then?' Valentin

asked.

'Of course not.'

'Why then?'

'Nowhere to go . . .' she said, her voice
fading by the

syllable.
'Nothing to believe in. All lies. Everything:

lies.'

'So you sided with Butterfield?'

'Better Hell,' she said, 'than a false
Heaven.'

'Who taught you that?' Harry murmured.

'Who do you think?' she replied, turning her
gaze on

him.
Though her strength was going out of her with the

blood,
her eyes still blazed. 'You're finished, D'Amour,'

she
said. 'You, and the demon, and Swann. There's

nobody
left to help you now.'

Despite the contempt in her words he couldn't
stand

and
watch  her  bleed to
death. Ignoring Valentin's

imperative
that he keep clear, he went across to her.

As he
stepped within range she lashed out at him with

astonishing
force. The blow blinded him a moment;

he fell
against the tall filing cabinet, which toppled

sideways.
He and it hit the ground together. It spilled

papers;
he, curses. He was vaguely aware that the woman

was
moving past him to escape, but he was too busy

keeping
his head from spinning to prevent her. When

equilibrium
returned she had gone, leaving her bloody

handprints
on wall and door.

57

Chaplin,
the janitor, was protective of his territory. The

basement
of the building was a private domain in which

he
sorted  through office trash, and fed his
beloved

furnace,
and  read aloud his favourite passages
from

the
Good  Book; all without fear of
interruption. His

bowels
- which were far from healthy - allowed him little

slumber.
A couple of hours a night, no more, which he

supplemented
with dozing through the day. It was not

so bad.
He had the seclusion of the basement to retire

to
whenever life upstairs became too demanding; and

the
forced heat would sometimes bring strange waking

dreams.

Was
this such a dream; this insipid fellow in his fine

suit?
If not, how had he gained access to the basement,

when  the door was locked and bolted? He asked no

questions
of the intruder. Something about the way

the man
stared at him baffled his tongue. 'Chaplin,' the

fellow
said, his thin lips barely moving, 'I'd like you to

open
the furnace.'

In other circumstances he might well have
picked up

his
shovel and clouted the stranger across the head. The

furnace
was his baby. He knew, as no-one else knew,

its
quirks and occasional petulance; he loved, as no-one

else
loved, the roar it gave when it was content; he did

not
take kindly to the proprietorial tone the man used.

But
he'd lost the will to resist. He picked up a rag and

opened  the peeling door, offering its hot heart to
this

man  as Lot had offered his daughters to the
stranger in

Sodom.

Butterfield smiled at the smell of heat
from  the

furnace.
From three floors above he heard the woman

crying
out for help; and then, a few moments later,

a shot.
She had failed. He had thought she would.

But her
life was forfeit anyway. There was no loss in

58

sending
her into the breach, in the slim chance that

she
might  have coaxed the body  from
its keepers.

It
would have saved  the inconvenience of a
full-scale

attack,
but no matter. To have Swann's soul was worth

any
effort. He had defiled the good name of the Prince

of
Lies. For that he would suffer as no other miscreant

magician
ever had. Beside Swann's punishment, Faust's

would
be an inconvenience, and Napoleon's a pleasure-

cruise.

As the echoes of the shot died above, he took
the

black
lacquer box from his jacket pocket. The janitor's

eyes
were turned heavenward. He too had heard the

shot.

'It was nothing,' Butterfield told him.
'Stoke the fire.'

Chaplin obeyed. The heat in the cramped
basement

rapidly
grew. The janitor began to sweat; his visitor did

not. He
stood mere feet from the open furnace door and

gazed
into the brightness with impassive features. At

last,
he seemed satisfied.

'Enough,' he said, and opened  the lacquer box.

Chaplin
thought he glimpsed movement in the box, as

though
it were full to the lid with maggots, but before

he had
a chance to look more closely both the box and

contents
were pitched into the flames.

'Close the door,' Butterfield said. Chaplin
obeyed.

'You
may  watch over them awhile, if it
pleases you.

They
need the heat. It makes them mighty.'

He
left the janitor to keep his vigil beside the furnace,

and
went  back up to the hallway. He had  left the

street
door open, and a pusher had come in out of

the
cold to do business with  a client. They
bartered

in the
shadows, until the pusher caught sight of the

lawyer.

'Don't mind me,' Butterfield said, and
started up the

stairs.
He found the widow Swann on the first landing.

59

She was
not quite dead, but he quickly finished the job

D'Amour  had started.

'We're
in trouble,' said Valentin. 'I hear noises down-

stairs.
Is there any other way out of here?'

Harry
sat on the floor, leaning against the toppled

cabinet,
and tried not to think of Dorothea's face as the

bullet
found her, or of the creature he was now reduced

to
needing.

'There's a fire escape,' he said, 'it runs
down to the

back of
the building.'

'Show me,' said Valentin, attempting to haul
him to

his
feet.

'Keep your hands off me!'

Valentin
withdrew, bruised  by the  rebuffal. 'I'm

sorry,'
he said. 'Maybe I shouldn't hope  for
your

acceptance.
But I do.'

Harry
said nothing, just got to his feet amongst the

litter
of reports and photographs. He'd had a dirty life:

spying
on  adulteries for vengeful spouses;
dredging

gutters
for lost children; keeping company with scum

because
it rose to the top, and the rest just drowned.

Could
Valentin's soul be much grimier?

'The fire escape's down the hall,' he said.

'We
can still get Swann out,' Valentin said. 'Still give

him a
decent cremation -' The demon's obsession with

his
master's dignity was chastening, in its way. 'But you

have to
help me, Harry.'

Til help you,' he said, avoiding sight of the
creature.

'Just
don't expect love and affection.'

If it were possible to hear a smile, that's
what he

heard.

They
want this over and done with before dawn,' the

demon
said.

'It can't be far from that now.'

60

'An hour, maybe,' Valentin replied. 'But it's
enough.

Either way, it's enough.'

The
sound of the furnace soothed Chaplin; its rumbles

and rattlings
were as familiar as the complaint of his

own
intestines. But there was another sound growing

behind
the door, the like of which he'd never heard

before. His mind made  foolish pictures to go with it.

Of pigs
laughing; of glass and barbed wire being ground

between
the teeth; of hoofed feet dancing on the door.

As the
noises grew so did his trepidation, but when he

went to
the basement door to summon help it was locked;

the key
had gone. And now, as if matters weren't bad

enough,
the light went out.

He began to fumble for a prayer -

'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us
sinners now

and at
the hour -'

But he stopped when a voice addressed him,
quite

clearly.

'Michelmas,' it said.

It was unmistakably his mother. And there
could

be no
doubt of its source, either. It came from the

furnace.

'Michelmas,' she demanded, 'are you going to
let me

cook in
here?'

It wasn't possible, of course, that she was
there in the

flesh:
she'd been dead thirteen long years. But some

phantom,
perhaps? He believed in phantoms. Indeed

he'd
seen them on occasion, coming and going from the

cinemas
on 42nd Street, arm in arm.

'Open up, Michelmas,' his mother told him, in
that

special
voice she used when she had some treat for him.

Like a
good child, he approached the door. He had never

felt
such heat off the furnace as he felt now; he could

smell
the hairs on his arms wither.

61

'Open the door,' Mother said again. There was
no

denying  her. Despite the searing air, he reached to

comply.

'That
fucking janitor,' said Harry, giving the sealed fire

escape
door a vengeful kick. 'This door's supposed to be

left
unlocked at all times.' He pulled at the chains that

were
wrapped  around the handles. 'We'll have
to take

the
stairs.'

There was a noise from back down the
corridor; a

roar in
the heating system which made the antiquated

radiators
rattle. At that moment, down in the basement,

Michelmas  Chaplin
was obeying  his mother, and

opening
the furnace door. A  scream  climbed from

below
as his face was blasted off. Then, the sound of

the
basement door being smashed open.

Harry looked at Valentin, his repugnance
moment-

arily
forgotten.

'We
shan't be taking the stairs,' the demon said.

Bellowings
and chatterings and  screechings
were

already
on the rise. Whatever had  found birth in
the

basement,
it was precocious.

'We have to find something to break down the
door,

Valentin
said, 'anything.'

Harry
tried to think his way through the adjacent

offices,
his mind's eye peeled for some tool that would

make  an
impression on either the fire door or the

substantial
chains which kept it closed. But there was

nothing
useful: only typewriters and filing cabinets.

'Think, man,' said Valentin.

He ransacked his memory. Some heavy-duty
instru-

ment
was  required. A crowbar; a hammer. An
axe!

There
was an agent called Shapiro on the floor below,

who  exclusively represented porno performers, one
of

whom  had attempted to blow his balls off the month

62

before.
She'd failed, but he'd boasted one day on the

stairs
that he had now purchased the biggest axe he could

find,
and would happily take the head off any client who

attempted
an attack upon his person.

The commotion from below was simmering down.

The
hush was, in its way, more distressing than the din

that
had preceded it.

'We haven't got much time,' the demon said.

Harry left him at the chained door. 'Can you
get

Swann?'
he said as he ran.

Til do my best.'

By the time Harry reached the top of the
stairs the

last
chatterings were dying away; as he began down

the
flight they ceased altogether. There was no way

now to
judge how close the enemy were. On the next

floor?
Round the next corner? He tried not to think of

them,
but his feverish imagination populated every dirty

shadow.

He reached the bottom of the flight without
incident,

however,
and slunk along the darkened second-floor

corridor
to Shapiro's office. Halfway to his destination,

he
heard a low hiss behind him. He looked over his

shoulder,
his body itching to run. One of the radiators,

heated
beyond its limits, had sprung a leak. Steam was

escaping
from its pipes, and hissing as it went. He let

his
heart climb down out of his mouth, and then hurried

on to
the door of Shapiro's office, praying that the man

hadn't
simply been shooting the breeze with his talk of

axes.
If so, they were done for. The office was locked,

of
course, but he elbowed the frosted glass out, and

reached
through to let himself in, fumbling for the light

switch.
The walls were plastered with photographs of

sex-goddesses.
They scarcely claimed Harry's attention;

his
panic fed upon itself with every heartbeat he spent

here.
Clumsily he scoured the office, turning furniture

63

over in
his impatience. But there was no sign of Shapiro's

axe.

Now,
another noise from below. It crept up the

staircase
and along the corridor in search of him - an

unearthly
cacophony like the one he'd heard on 83rd

Street.
It set his teeth on edge; the nerve of his rotting

molar
began to throb afresh. What did the music signal?

Their
advance?

In desperation he crossed to Shapiro's desk
to see if

the man
had any other item that might be pressed into

service,
and there tucked out of sight between desk and

wall,
he found the axe. He pulled it from hiding. As

Shapiro
had  boasted, it was hefty, its weight
the first

reassurance
Harry had felt in too long. He returned to

the
corridor. The steam from  the fractured
pipe had

thickened.
Through  its veils it was apparent that
the

concert
had taken on new fervour. The doleful wailing

rose
and fell, punctuated by some flaccid percussion.

He
braved the cloud of steam and hurried to the stairs.

As he
put his foot on the bottom step the music seemed to

catch
him by the back of the neck, and whisper: 'Listen'

in his
ear. He had no desire to listen; the music was vile.

But
somehow  - while he was distracted by
finding the

axe -
it had wormed its way into his skull. It drained his

limbs
of strength. In moments the axe began to seem an

impossible
burden.

'Come on down,' the music coaxed him, 'come
on down

and
join the band.'

Though
he tried to form the simple word 'No', the

music
was gaining influence upon him with every note

played.
He began to hear melodies in the caterwauling;

long
circuitous themes that made his blood sluggish and

his
thoughts idiot. He knew there was no pleasure to

be
had  at the music's source - that it
tempted him

only to
pain and desolation - yet he could not shake

64

its
delirium off. His feet began to move to the call of

the
pipers. He forgot Valentin, Swann and all ambition

for
escape, and instead began  to
descend  the stairs.

The
melody  became  more intricate. He could hear

voices
now, singing some charmless accompaniment

in a
language he didn't comprehend. From somewhere

above,
he heard his name called, but he ignored the

summons.
The  music clutched him close, and now -

as he
descended the next flight of stairs - the musicians

came
into view.

They
were brighter than he had
anticipated, and

more  various. More baroque  in their configurations

(the
manes, the multiple heads); more particular in their

decoration
(the suit of flayed faces; the rouged anus);

and,
his drugged eyes now stung to see, more atrocious

in
their choice of instruments. Such instruments! Byron

was
there, his bones  sucked clean  and drilled with

stops,
his bladder and lungs teased through
slashes

in his
body  as reservoirs for the piper's
breath. He

was
draped, inverted, across the musician's lap, and

even
now was  played upon - the sacs
ballooning, the

tongueless
head giving out a wheezing note. Dorothea

was
slumped beside him, no less transformed, the strings

of her
gut made taut between her splinted legs like an

obscene
lyre; her breasts drummed upon. There were

other
instruments too, men who had come off the street

and
fallen prey to the band. Even Chaplin was there,

much of
his flesh burned away, his rib-cage played upon

indifferently
well.

'I didn't take you for a music lover,'
Butterfield said,

drawing
upon a cigarette, and smiling in welcome. 'Put

down
your axe and join us.'

The word axe reminded Harry of the weight in
his

hands,
though he couldn't find his way through the bars

of
music to remember what it signified.

65

'Don't be afraid,' Butterfield said, 'you're
an innocent

in
this. We hold no grudge against you.'

'Dorothea . . .' he said.

'She was an innocent too,' said the lawyer,
'until we

showed
her some sights.'

Harry looked at the woman's body; at the
terrible

changes
that they had wrought upon her. Seeing them,

a
tremor began in him, and something came between

him
and  the music; the imminence of tears
blotted it

out.

'Put down the axe,' Butterfield told him.

But the sound of the concert could not
compete with

the
grief that was mounting in him. Butterfield seemed

to see
the change in his eyes; the disgust and anger

growing
there. He dropped  his half-smoked
cigarette

and
signalled for the music-making to stop.

'Must
it be death, then?' Butterfield said, but the

enquiry
was scarcely voiced before Harry started down

the
last few stairs towards him. He raised the axe and

swung
it at the lawyer but the blow was misplaced. The

blade
ploughed the plaster of the wall, missing its target

by a
foot.

At this eruption of violence the musicians
threw down

their
instruments and began across the lobby, trailing

their
coats and tails in blood and grease. Harry caught

their
advance from the corner of his eye. Behind the

horde,
still rooted in the shadows, was another form,

larger
than the largest of the mustered demons, from

which
there now came a thump that might have been

that of
a vast jack-hammer. He tried to make sense

of
sound or sight, but could do neither. There was

no time
for curiosity; the demons were almost upon

him.

Butterfield glanced round to encourage their
advance,

and
Harry - catching the moment - swung the axe a

66

second
time. The blow caught Butterfield's shoulder;

the arm
was instantly severed. The lawyer shrieked;

blood
sprayed the wall. There was no time for a third

blow,
however. The demons were reaching for him,

smiles
lethal.

He turned on the stairs, and began up them,
taking

the
steps two, three and four at a time. Butterfield

was
still shrieking below; from the flight above he

heard
Valentin calling his name. He had neither time

nor
breath to answer.

They were on his heels, their ascent a din of
grunts and

shouts
and beating wings. And behind it all, the jack-

hammer
thumped  its way to the bottom of the
flight,

its
noise more intimidating by far than the chatterings

of the
berserkers at his back. It was in his belly, that

thump;
in his bowels. Like death's heartbeat, steady and

irrevocable.

On the second landing he heard a whirring
sound

behind
him, and half turned to see a human-headed

moth  the size of a vulture climbing the air
towards

him.
He  met it with the axe blade, and hacked
it

down.
There was a cry of excitement from below as

the
body flapped down the stairs, its wings working

like
paddles. Harry sped up the remaining flight to

where
Valentin was  standing, listening. It
wasn't the

chatter
he was attending to, nor the cries of the lawyer;

it was
the jack-hammer.

'They brought the Raparee,' he said.

'I wounded Butterfield -'

'I heard. But that won't stop them.'

'We can still try the door.'

'I think we're too late, my friend.'

Wo!' said Harry, pushing past Valentin. The
demon

had
given up trying to drag Swann's body to the door,

and
had  laid the magician out in the middle
of the

67

corridor,
his hands crossed on his chest. In some last

mysterious
act of reverence he had set folded paper bowls

at
Swann's head and feet, and laid a tiny origami flower at

his
lips. Harry lingered only long enough to re-acquaint

himself
with the sweetness of Swann's expression, and

then
ran to the door and proceeded to hack at the chains.

It
would be a long job. The assault did more damage to

the axe
than to the steel links. He didn't dare give up,

however.
This was their only escape route now, other

than
flinging themselves to their deaths from one of the

windows.
That he would do, he decided, if the worst

came to
the worst. Jump and die, rather than be their

plaything.

His arms soon became numb with the repeated
blows.

It was
a lost cause; the chain was unimpaired. His despair

was  further fuelled by a cry from Valentin - a
high,

weeping
call that he could not leave unanswered. He

left
the fire door and returned past the body of Swann

to the
head of the stairs.

The demons had Valentin. They swarmed on him

like
wasps on  a sugar stick, tearing him
apart. For

the
briefest of moments  he  struggled free of their

rage,
and Harry saw the mask of humanity  in
rags

and  the truth glistening bloodily beneath. He was
as

vile as
those besetting him, but Harry went to his aid

anyway,
as much to wound the demons as to save their

prey.

The
wielded axe did damage  this way
and  that,

sending
Valentin's tormentors reeling back down the

stairs,
limbs lopped, faces opened. They did not all

bleed.
One  sliced belly spilled eggs in
thousands, one

wounded  head
gave birth to tiny eels, which fled to

the
ceiling and hung there by their lips. In the mel£e

he lost
sight of Valentin. Forgot about him, indeed,

until
he heard the jack-hammer again, and remembered

68

the
broken look on Valentin's face when he'd named

the
thing. He'd called it the Raparee, or something

like.

And now, as his memory shaped the word, it
came into

sight.
It shared no trait with its fellows; it had neither

wings
nor mane nor vanity. It seemed scarcely even to

be
flesh, but forged, an engine that needed only malice

to keep
its wheels turning.

At its appearance, the rest retreated,
leaving Harry at

the top
of the stairs in a litter of spawn. Its progress was

slow,
its half dozen limbs moving in oiled and elaborate

configurations
to pierce the walls of the staircase and so

haul
itself up. It brought to mind a man on crutches,

throwing
the sticks ahead of him and levering his weight

after,
but there was nothing invalid in the thunder of

its
body; no pain in the white eye that burned in his

sickle-head.

Harry thought he had known despair, but he
had not.

Only
now  did he taste its ash in his throat.
There was

only
the window left for him. That, and the welcoming

ground.
He backed  away from the top of the
stairs,

forsaking
the axe.

Valentin was in the corridor. He was not dead,
as

Harry
had presumed, but kneeling beside the corpse

of
Swann, his own body  drooling from a
hundred

wounds.
Now  he bent close to the magician.
Offering

his
apologies to his dead master, no doubt. But no.

There
was more  to it than that. He had the cigarette

lighter
in his hand, and was lighting a taper. Then,

murmuring  some prayer to himself as he went, he

lowered
the taper to the mouth of the magician. The

origami
flower caught and flared up. Its flame was

oddly
bright, and spread with supernatural efficiency

across
Swann's face and down his body. Valentin hauled

himself
to his feet, the firelight burnishing his scales. He

69

found
enough strength to incline his head to the body as

its
cremation began, and then his wounds overcame him.

He  fell backwards, and lay still. Harry watched
as the

flames
mounted. Clearly the body had been sprinkled

with
gasoline or something similar, for the fire raged up

in
moments, gold and green.

Suddenly, something took hold of his leg. He
looked

down  to  see
that a demon,  with  flesh like ripe

raspberries,
still had an appetite for him. Its tongue

was
coiled around Harry's shin; its claws reached for

his
groin. The assault made him forget the cremation

or the
Raparee. He bent to tear at the tongue with his

bare
hands, but its slickness confounded his attempts.

He
staggered back as the demon climbed his body, its

limbs
embracing him.

The struggle took them to the ground, and
they rolled

away
from the stairs, along the other arm of the corridor.

The
struggle was far from uneven; Harry's repugnance

was at
least the match of the demon's ardour. His torso

pressed
to the ground, he suddenly remembered the

Raparee.
Its advance reverberated in every board and

wall.

Now  it
came into sight at the top of the stairs, and

turned
its slow head towards Swann's funeral pyre. Even

from  this distance Harry could see that Valentin's
last-

ditch
attempts to destroy his master's body had failed.

The  fire had scarcely begun to devour the
magician.

They
would  have him still.

Eyes
on the  Raparee, Harry  neglected his more

intimate
enemy, and  it thrust a piece of flesh
into

his
mouth. His throat filled up with pungent fluid; he

felt
himself choking. Opening his mouth he bit down

hard
upon the organ, severing it. The demon did not

cry
out, but released sprays of scalding excrement from

pores
along its back, and disengaged itself. Harry spat its

70

muscle
out as the demon crawled away. Then he looked

back
towards the fire.

All other concerns were forgotten in the face
of what

he saw.

Swann had stood up.

He  was
burning  from head  to foot. His hair, his

clothes,
his skin. There was no part of him that was not

alight.
But he was standing, nevertheless, and raising his

hands
to his audience in welcome.

The Raparee had ceased its advance. It stood
a yard or

two
from Swann,  its limbs absolutely still,
as if it were

mesmerised
by this astonishing trick.

Harry saw another figure emerge from the head
of the

stairs.
It was Butterfield. His stump was roughly tied off;

a demon
supported his lop-sided body.

Tut out the fire,' demanded the lawyer of the
Raparee.

'It's
not so difficult.'

The creature did not move.

'Go on, said Butterfield. 'It's just a
trick of his. He's

dead,
damn you. It's just conjuring.'

'No,' said Harry.

Butterfield looked his way. The lawyer had
always

been
insipid. Now  he was  so pale his existence was

surely
in question.

'What do you know?' he said.

'It's not conjuring,' said Harry. 'It's
magic.'

Swann seemed to hear the word. His eyelids
fluttered

open,
and he slowly reached into his jacket and with a

flourish
produced a handkerchief. It too was on fire. It

too was
unconsumed. As he shook it out tiny bright birds

leapt
from its folds on humming wings. The Raparee was

entranced
by this sleight-of-hand. Its gaze followed the

illusory
birds as they rose and were dispersed, and in that

moment
the magician stepped forward and embraced the

engine.

71

It caught Swann's  fire immediately, the flames

spreading
over its flailing limbs. Though it fought

to work
itself free of the magician's hold, Swann was

not to
be denied. He clasped it closer than a long-lost

brother,
and would  not leave it be until the
creature

began
to wither in the heat. Once the decay began it

seemed
the Raparee was devoured in seconds, but it

was
difficult to be certain. The moment - as in the

best
performances - was held suspended. Did it last a

minute?
Two minutes? Five? Harry would never know.

Nor  did he care to analyse. Disbelief was for
cowards;

and
doubt  a fashion that crippled the spine.
He was

content
to watch - not knowing if Swann lived or died,

if
birds, fire, corridor or if he himself- Harry D'Amour

- were
real or illusory.

Finally, the Raparee was gone. Harry got to
his feet.

Swann  was also standing, but his farewell
performance

was
clearly over.

The
defeat of the Raparee had bested the courage of

the
horde. They had fled, leaving Butterfield alone at

the top
of the stairs.

'This won't
be forgotten, or forgiven,' he said to

Harry.
'There's no  rest for you. Ever. I am
your

enemy.'

'I hope so,' said Harry.

He looked back towards Swann, leaving
Butterfield to

his
retreat. The magician had laid himself down again.

His
eyes were closed, his hands replaced on his chest.

It was
as if he had never moved. But now the fire was

showing
its true teeth. Swann's flesh began to bubble,

his
clothes to peel off in smuts and smoke. It took a long

while
to do the job, but eventually the fire reduced the

man to
ash.

By that time it was after dawn, but today was
Sunday,

and
Harry knew  there would be no visitors to
interrupt

72

his
labours. He would have time  to gather up
the

remains;
to pound the boneshards and put them with

the
ashes in a carrier bag. Then he would go out and

find
himself a bridge or a dock, and put Swann into the

river.

There
was precious little of the magician left once

the
fire had done its work; and nothing that vaguely

resembled
a man.

Things came and went away; that was a kind of
magic.

And  in between?
Pursuits and conjurings; horrors,

guises.
The occasional joy.

That there was room for joy; ah! that was
magic too.

73

THE LIFE OF DEATH

THE    NEWSPAPER
WAS  the first edition of the day,

and Elaine devoured it from cover to cover
as she

sat in
the hospital waiting room. An animal thought to

be a
panther - which had terrorised the neighbourhood

of
Epping Forest for two months - had been shot and

found
to be a wild dog. Archaeologists in the Sudan

had
discovered bone fragments which they opined might

lead to
a complete reappraisal of Man's origins. A young

woman  who had once danced with minor royalty had

been
found murdered near Clapham; a solo round-the-

world
yachtsman was missing; recently excited hopes of

a cure
for the common cold had been dashed. She read

the
global bulletins and the trivia with equal fervour -

anything
to keep her mind off the examination ahead -

but
today's news seemed very like yesterday's; only the

names
had been changed.

Doctor Sennett informed her that she was
healing

well,
both  inside and  out, and
was  quite fit to

74

return
to her  full responsibilities whenever
she felt

psychologically
resilient enough. She should  make

another
appointment for the first week of the new

year,
he told her, and come back for a final examination

then.
She left him washing his hands of her.

The
thought of getting straight onto the bus and

heading
back to her rooms  was repugnant after so

much
time sitting and waiting. She would walk a stop

or two
along the route, she decided. The exercise would

be good
for her, and the December day, though far from

warm,
was bright.

Her plans proved over-ambitious however.
After only

a few
minutes of walking her lower abdomen began to

ache,
and she started to feel nauseous, so she turned

off the
main road to seek out a place where she could

rest
and drink some tea. She should eat too, she knew,

though
she had never had much appetite, and had less

still
since the operation. Her wanderings were rewarded.

She
found a small restaurant which, though it was twelve

fifty-five,
was not enjoying a roaring lunch-time trade. A

small
woman with unashamedly artificial red hair served

her tea
and a mushroom omelette. She did her best to

eat,
but didn't get very far. The waitress was plainly

concerned.

'Something wrong with the food?' she said,
somewhat

testily.

'Oh no,' Elaine reassured her. 'It's just
me.'

The waitress looked offended nevertheless.

Td
like some more tea though, if I may?' Elaine

said.

She pushed
the plate away from her, hoping the

waitress
would claim it soon. The sight of the meal

congealing
on the patternless plate was doing nothing

for her
mood. She hated this unwelcome sensitivity

in
herself: it was absurd that a plate of uneaten eggs

75

should
bring these doldrums on, but she couldn't help

herself.
She found everywhere little echoes of her own

loss.
In the death, by a benign November and then the

sudden
frosts, of the bulbs in her window-sill box; in the

thought
of the wild dog she'd read of that morning, shot

in
Epping Forest.

The
waitress returned with fresh tea, but failed to take

the
plate. Elaine called her back, requesting that she do

so.
Grudgingly, she obliged.

There
were no  customers left in the
place now,

other  than Elaine, and  the
waitress busied  herself

with
removing the lunchtime menus from the tables

and
replacing them with those for the evening. Elaine

sat
staring out of the window. Veils of blue-grey smoke

had
crept down the street in recent minutes, solidifying

the
sunlight.

'They're burning again,' the waitress said.
'Damn

smell
gets everywhere.'

'What are they burning?'

'Used to be the community centre. They're
knocking

it
down, and building a new one. It's a waste of tax-

payers'
money.'

The
smoke was indeed creeping into the restaurant.

Elaine
did not find it offensive; it was sweetly redolent

of
autumn, her favourite season. Intrigued, she finished

her
tea, paid for her meal, and then elected to wander

along
and find the source of the smoke. She didn't have

far to
walk. At the end of the street was a small square;

the
demolition site dominated it. There was one surprise

however.
The building that the waitress had described as

a
community centre was in fact a church; or had been.

The  lead and slates had already been stripped off
the

roof,
leaving the joists bare to the sky; the windows had

been
denuded of glass; the turf had gone from the lawn

at the
side of the building, and two trees had been felled

76

there.
It was their pyre which provided the tantalising

scent.

She doubted if the building had ever been
beautiful,

but
there was enough of its structure remaining for her

to
suppose it might have had charm. Its weathered stone

was
now  completely at variance with the
brick and

concrete
that surrounded it, but its besieged situation

(the
workmen labouring to undo it; the bulldozer on

hand,
hungry for rubble) gave it a certain glamour.

One or two of the workmen noticed her
standing

watching
them, but none made any move to stop her

as she
walked across the square to the front porch of

the
church and peered  inside. The interior,
stripped

of its
decorative stonework, of pulpit, pews, font and

the
rest, was simply a stone room, completely lacking

in
atmosphere or authority. Somebody, however, had

found a
source of interest here. At the far end of the

church
a man  stood with  his back to Elaine, staring

intently
at the ground. Hearing footsteps behind him

he
looked round guiltily.

'Oh,' he said. 'I won't be a moment.'

'It's all right -' Elaine said. 'I think
we're probably

both
trespassing.'

The man
nodded. He was dressed soberly - even

drearily
- but for his green bow-tie. His features, despite

the
garb and the grey hairs of a man in middle-age, were

curiously
unlined, as though neither smile nor frown

much  ruffled their perfect indifference.

'Sad, isn't it?' he said. 'Seeing a place
like this.'

'Did you know the church as it used to be?'

'I came in on occasion,' he said, 'but it was
never very

popular.'

'What's it called?'

'All Saints. It was  built in
the late seventeenth

century,
I believe. Are you fond of churches?'

77

'Not particularly. It was just that I saw the
smoke,

and . .
.'

'Everybody likes a demolition scene,' he
said.

'Yes,' she replied, 'I suppose that's true.'

'It's like watching a funeral. Better them
than us,

eh?'

She murmured
something in agreement, her mind

flitting
elsewhere. Back to the hospital. To her pain and

her
present healing. To her life saved only by losing the

capacity
for further life. Better them than us.

'My name's Kavanagh,' he said, covering the
short

distance
between them, his hand extended.

'How
do you do?' she said. Tm Elaine Rider.'

'Elaine,' he said. 'Charming.'

'Are you just taking a final look at the
place before it

comes
down?'

'That's right. I've been looking at the
inscriptions on

the
floor stones. Some of them are most eloquent.' He

brushed
a fragment of timber off one of the tablets

with
his foot. 'It seems such  a loss. I'm
sure they'll

just
smash the stones to smithereens when they start

to pull
the floor up -'

She looked down at the patchwork of tablets
beneath

her
feet. Not all were marked, and of those that were

many  simply carried names and dates. There were

some  inscriptions however. One, to the left of
where

Kavanagh  was standing, carried an all but eroded
relief

of
crossed shin-bones, like drum-sticks, and the abrupt

motto:
Redeem the time.

'I think there must have been a crypt under
here at

some
time,' Kavanagh said.

'Oh. I see. And these are the people who were
buried

there.'

'Well, I can't think of any  other reason for the

inscriptions,
can you? I was thinking of asking the work-

78

men  . . .' he paused in  mid-sentence,
'. . . you'll

probably
think this positively morbid of me ...

'What?'

'Well, just to preserve one or two of the
finer stones

from
being destroyed.'

'I don't think that's morbid,' she said.
They're very

beautiful.'

He was evidently encouraged by her response.
'Maybe

I
should speak with them now,' he said. 'Would you

excuse
me for a moment?'

He left her standing in the nave like a
forsaken bride,

while
he went out to quiz one of the workmen. She

wandered
down  to where the altar had been,
reading

the
names as she went. Who knew or cared about these

people's
resting places now? Dead two hundred years

and
more, and  gone away  not into loving posterity

but
into oblivion. And  suddenly  the unarticulated

hopes
for an  after-life she had nursed
through  her

thirty-four
years slipped away; she was  no  longer

weighed
down by some  vague ambition for heaven.

Ont  day, perhaps this day, she would  die, just as

these
people had  died, and  it wouldn't
matter  a

jot.
There was nothing to come,  nothing to
aspire

to,
nothing to dream  of. She  stood in a
patch of

smoke-thickened
sun, thinking of this, and was almost

happy.

Kavanagh
returned from  his exchanges with
the

foreman.

'There is indeed a crypt,' he said, 'but it
hasn't been

emptied
yet.'

'Oh.'

They were still underfoot, she thought. Dust
and

bones.

'Apparently they're having some  difficulty getting

into
it. All the entrances have been sealed up. That's

79

why  they're digging around the foundations. To
find

another
way in.'

'Are crypts normally sealed up?'

'Not as thoroughly as this one.'

'Maybe there was no more room,' she said.

Kavanagh took the comment quite seriously.
'Maybe,'

he
said.

'Will they give you one of the stones?'

He
shook his head. 'It's not up to them to say. These

are
just council lackeys. Apparently they have a firm of

professional
excavators to come in and shift the bodies

to
new  burial sites. It all has to be
done  with due

decorum.'

'Much
they care,' Elaine said, looking down at the

stones
again.

'I must
agree,' Kavanagh replied. 'It all seems in

excess
of the facts. But then perhaps we're not God-

fearing
enough.'

'Probably.'

'Anyhow, they told me to come back in a day
or two's

time,
and ask the removal men.'

She laughed at the thought of the dead moving
house;

packing
up  their goods and chattels. Kavanagh
was

pleased
to have  made  a joke, even
if it had been

unintentional.
Riding on  the crest of this success, he

said:
'I wonder, may I take you for a drink?'

'I wouldn't be very good company, I'm
afraid,' she

said.
'I'm really very tired.'

'We
could perhaps meet later,' he said.

She looked away from his eager face. He was
pleasant

enough,  in his uneventful way. She liked his green

bow-tie
-  surely a joke at the expense of his
own

drabness.  She
liked his  seriousness too.
But  she

couldn't
face the idea of drinking with him; at least

not
tonight. She made  her apologies, and
explained

80

that
she'd been ill recently and hadn't recovered her

stamina.

'Another night perhaps?' he enquired gently.
The

lack of
aggression in his courtship was persuasive, and

she
said:

That would be nice. Thank you.'

Before they parted they exchanged telephone
num-

bers.
He seemed charmingly excited by the thought of

their
meeting again; it made her feel, despite all that had

been
taken from her, that she still had her sex.

She returned to the flat to find both a
parcel from

Mitch
and a hungry cat on the doorstep. She fed the

demanding
animal, then made herself some coffee and

opened
the  parcel. In it, cocooned in several
layers

of
tissue paper, she found a silk scarf, chosen with

Mitch's
uncanny  eye for her taste. The note  along

with it
simply said: It's your colour. I love you. Mitch.

She
wanted to pick up the telephone on the spot and

talk to
him, but somehow  the thought of hearing

his
voice seemed dangerous. Too  close to the
hurt,

perhaps.
He would  ask her  how
she felt, and she

would
reply that she was well, and he  would
insist:

yes,
but really? And she would say: I'm empty; they

took
out half my innards, damn you, and I'll never

have
your  children or anybody  else's, so that's the

end of
that, isn't it? Even thinking about their talking

she
felt tears threaten, and in a fit of inexplicable rage

she
wrapped the scarf up in the desiccated paper and

buried
it at the back of her deepest drawer. Damn

him for
trying to make things better now, when at

the
time she'd most needed  him  all he'd talked of

was
fatherhood, and how her tumours would deny it

him.

It was a clear evening - the sky's cold skin
stretched

to
breaking point. She did not want to draw the curtains

81

in the
front room, even though passers-by would stare

in,
because the deepening blue was too fine to miss. So

she sat
at the window and watched the dark come. Only

when
the last change had been wrought did she close off

the
chill.

She had no appetite, but she made herself
some food

nevertheless,
and sat down to watch television as she ate.

The
food unfinished, she laid down her tray, and dozed,

the
programmes  filtering through to her
intermittently.

Some  witless comedian whose merest cough sent his

audience
into paroxysms; a natural history programme

on life
in the Serengeti; the news. She had read all that

she
needed to know that morning: the headlines hadn't

changed.

One
item, however,  did pique her  curiosity: an

interview
with the solo yachtsman, Michael May bury,

who  had been
picked up that day after two weeks

adrift
in the Pacific. The interview was being beamed

from
Australia, and the contact was bad; the image

of
Maybury's  bearded  and  sun-scorched face was

constantly
threatened with being  snowed  out. The

picture
mattered little: the account he gave of his failed

voyage
was  riveting in sound alone, and in
particular

an
event  that seemed to distress him afresh
even as

he told
it. He had been  becalmed, and as his
vessel

lacked
a motor had been  obliged to wait for
wind. It

had not
come. A  week had  gone by with his hardly

moving  a kilometre from  the same
spot of listless

ocean;
no bird or passing ship broke the monotony.

With  every hour that passed, his claustrophobia
grew,

and  on the eighth day it reached panic
proportions,

so  he let himself over  the side of the  yacht and

swam   away
from  the vessel, a life-line tied
about

his
middle, in order to escape the same few yards of

deck.
But once away from the yacht, and treading the

82

still,
warm water, he had no desire to go back. Why

not
untie the knot, he'd thought to himself, and float

away.

'What made you change your mind?' the
interviewer

asked.

Here May bury frowned. He had clearly reached
the

crux of
his story, but didn't want  to finish it.
The

interviewer
repeated the question.

At last, hesitantly, the sailor responded. 'I
looked

back at
the yacht,' he said, 'and I saw somebody on

the
deck.'

The interviewer, not certain that he'd heard
correctly,

said:
'Somebody on the deck?'

'That's right,' Maybury replied. 'Somebody
was

there.
I saw a figure quite clearly; moving around.'

'Did you . . . did you recognise this
stowaway?' the

question
came.

Maybury's face closed down, sensing that his
story

was
being treated with mild sarcasm.

'Who was it?' the interviewer pressed.

'I don't know,' Maybury said. 'Death, I
suppose.'

The questioner was momentarily lost for
words.

'But of course you returned to the
boat, eventually.'

'Of course.'

'And there was no sign of anybody?'

Maybury glanced up at the interviewer, and a
look of

contempt
crossed his face.

'I've survived, haven't I?' he said.

The interviewer mumbled something about  not

understanding
his point.

'I didn't drown,' Maybury said. 'I could have
died

then,
if I'd wanted  to. Slipped off the  rope and

drowned.'

'But you didn't. And the next day -'

The next day the wind picked up.'

83

'It's an extraordinary story,' the
interviewer said, con-

tent
that the stickiest part of the exchange was now safely

by-passed.
'You must be looking forward to seeing your

family
again for Christmas . . .'

Elaine didn't hear the final exchange of pleasantries.

Her
imagination was tied by a fine rope to the room

she was
sitting in; her fingers toyed with the knot. If

Death  could find a boat in the wastes of the
Pacific,

how
much  easier it must be to find her. To
sit with her,

perhaps,
as she slept. To watch her as she went about her

mourning.  She stood up and turned the television off.

The
flat was suddenly silent. She questioned the hush

impatiently,
but it held no sign of guests, welcome or

unwelcome.

As she listened, she could taste salt-water.
Ocean, no

doubt.

She  had
been  offered several refuges in
which  to

convalesce
when she came out of hospital. Her father

had
invited her up to Aberdeen; her sister Rachel had

made  several appeals for her to spend a few weeks

in
Buckinghamshire;  there had  even been
a pitiful

telephone
call from Mitch, in which he had talked of

their
holidaying together. She had rejected them
all,

telling
them that she wanted to re-establish the rhythm

of her
previous life as soon as possible: to return to her

job, to
her working colleagues and friends. In fact, her

reasons
had gone deeper than that. She had feared their

sympathies,
feared that she would be held too close in

their
affections and quickly come to rely upon them.

Her  streak of independence, which had first
brought

her to
this unfriendly city, was in studied defiance of

her
smothering appetite for security. If she gave in to

those
loving appeals she knew she would take root in

domestic
soil and not look up and out again for another

84

year.
In which time, what adventures might have passed

her by?

Instead she had returned to work as soon as
she felt

able,
hoping that although she had not taken on all her

former
responsibilities the familiar routines would help

her to
re-establish a normal life. But the sleight-of-hand

was not
entirely successful. Every few days something

would
happen - she would overhear some remark,

or
catch a look that she was not intended to see -

that
made  her realise she was being  treated with a

rehearsed
caution; that her colleagues viewed her as

being
fundamentally changed  by her illness. It
had

made
her angry. She'd wanted  to spit her
suspicions

in
their faces; tell them that she and her uterus were

not
synonymous, and that the removal of one did not

imply
the eclipse of the other.

But today, returning  to the office, she was  not

so
certain they weren't correct. She  felt
as though

she
hadn't slept in weeks, though  in fact
she was

sleeping
long and deeply every night. Her eyesight was

blurred,
and there was a curious remoteness about her

experiences
that day that she associated with extreme

fatigue,
as if she were drifting further and further from

the
work on her desk; from her sensations, from her

very
thoughts. Twice that morning she caught herself

speaking
and then wondered who  it was who was

conceiving
of these words. It certainly wasn't her; she

was too
busy listening.

And then, an hour after lunch, things had
suddenly

taken a
turn for the worse. She had been called into her

supervisor's
office and asked to sit down.

'Are you all right, Elaine?' Mr Chimes had
asked.

'Yes,' she'd told him. 'I'm fine.'

There's been some concern -'

'About what?'

85

Chimes
looked slightly embarrassed. 'Your beha-

viour,'
he finally said. 'Please don't think I'm prying,

Elaine.
It's just that if you need some further time to

recuperate
-'

'There's nothing wrong with me.'

'But your weeping -'

'What?'

'The way you've been crying today. It
concerns us.'

'Cry?' she'd said. 'I don't cry.'

The
supervisor seemed baffled. 'But you've been

crying
all day. You're crying now.'

Elaine put a tentative hand to her cheek. And
yes;

yes,
she was crying. Her cheek was wet. She'd stood

up,
shocked at her own conduct.

'I didn't ... I didn't know,' she said.
Though the

words
sounded preposterous, they were true. She hadn't

known.  Only now, with the fact pointed out, did she

taste
tears in her throat and sinuses; and with that taste

came a
memory of when this eccentricity had begun: in

front
of the television the night before.

'Why
don't you take the rest of the day off?'

'Yes.'

'Take the rest of the week if you'd like,'
Chimes said.

'You're
a valued member of staff, Elaine; I don't have to

tell
you that. We don't want you coming to any harm.'

This last remark struck home  with stinging force.

Did  they think she was verging on suicide; was
that

why  she was treated with kid gloves? They were
only

tears
she was shedding, for God's sake, and she was so

indifferent
to them she had not even known they were

falling.

'I'll go home,' she said. 'Thank you for your
. . .

concern.'

The
supervisor looked at her with some dismay. 'It

must
have been  a very traumatic experience,'
he said.

86

'We all
understand; we really do. If you feel you want

to talk
about it at any time -'

She declined, but thanked him  again and left the

office.

Face to face with herself in the mirror of
the women's

toilets
she realised just how bad she looked. Her skin

was
flushed, her eyes swollen. She did what she could

to
conceal the signs of this painless grief, then picked

up her
coat and started home. As  she reached
the

underground  station she knew that returning to the

empty
flat would  not be a  wise idea. She would

brood,
she would  sleep (so much sleep of late,
and

so
perfectly dreamless) but she would not improve her

mental
condition by either route. It was the bell of Holy

Innocents,
tolling in the clear afternoon, that reminded

her of
the smoke and the square and Mr Kavanagh.

There,
she decided, was a fit place for her to walk. She

could
enjoy the sunlight, and think. Maybe she would

meet
her admirer again.

She found her way back to All Saints easily
enough,

but
there was disappointment awaiting her. The demo-

lition
site had been cordoned off, the boundary marked

by a
row of posts - a red fluorescent ribbon looped

between
them. The site was guarded by no less than

four
policemen, who were ushering pedestrians towards

a
detour around the square. The workers and their

hammers  had been exiled from the shadows of All

Saints
and now  a very different selection of
people -

suited
and academic - occupied the zone beyond the

ribbon,
some in furrowed conversation, others standing

on the
muddy ground and staring up quizzically at the

derelict
church. The south transept and much of the area

around
it had been curtained off from public view by

an
arrangement of tarpaulins and black plastic sheeting.

Occasionally
somebody would emerge from behind this

87

veil
and consult with others on the site. All who did so,

she
noted, were wearing gloves; one or two were also

masked.
It was as though they were performing some

ad hoc
surgery in the shelter of the screen. A tumour,

perhaps,
in the bowels of All Saints.

She
approached one  of the officers.
'What's going

on?'

'The foundations are unstable,' he told her.
'Appar-

ently
the place could fall down at any moment.'

'Why
are they wearing masks?'

'It's just a precaution against the dust.'

She didn't argue, though this explanation
struck her

as
unlikely.

'If you want to get through to Temple Street
you'll

have to
go round the back,' the officer said.

What
she really wanted to do was to stand and watch

proceedings,
but the proximity of the uniformed quartet

intimidated
her, and she decided to give up and go

home.
As she began to make her way back to the main

road
she caught sight of a familiar figure crossing the end

of an
adjacent street. It was unmistakably Kavanagh.

She
called after him, though he had already disappeared,

and  was pleased to see him step back into view
and

return
a nod to her.

'Well, well -' he said as he came down to
meet her.

'I
didn't expect to see you again so soon.'

'I came to watch the rest of the demolition,'
she said.

His face was ruddy with the cold, and his
eyes were

shining.

Tm   so
pleased,' he said. 'Do you want to have some

afternoon
tea? There's a place just around the corner.'

Td
like that.'

As they walked she asked him if he knew what
was

going
on at All Saints.

'It's the crypt,' he said, confirming her
suspicions.

88

They opened it?'

'They certainly found a  way in. I was
here this

morning
-'

'About your stones?'

That's right. They  were already putting up  the

tarpaulins
then.'

'Some of them were wearing masks.'

'It won't smell very fresh down there. Not
after so

long.'

Thinking of the curtain of tarpaulin drawn
between

her and
the mystery within she said: 'I wonder what it's

like.'

'A wonderland,' Kavanagh replied.

It was an odd response, and she didn't query
it, at least

not on
the spot. But later, when they'd sat and talked

together
for an hour, and she felt easier with him, she

returned
to the comment.

'What you said about the crypt. . .'

'Yes?'

'About it being a wonderland.'

'Did I say that?' he replied, somewhat
sheepishly.

'What
must you think of me?'

'I was just puzzled. Wondered what you
meant.'

'I like places where the dead are,' he said.
'I always

have.
Cemeteries can be very beautiful, don't you think?

Mausoleums
and tombs; all the fine craftsmanship that

goes
into those places. Even the dead may sometimes

reward
closer scrutiny.' He looked at her to see if he

had
strayed beyond her taste threshold, but seeing that

she
only looked at him with quiet fascination, continued.

They  can be very beautiful on occasion. It's a
sort of a

glamour
they have. It's a shame it's wasted on morticians

and
funeral directors.' He made a small mischievous

grin.
'I'm sure there's much to be seen in that crypt.

Strange
sights. Wonderful sights.'

89

'I only ever saw one dead person. My
grandmother,

I was very
young at the time . . .'

'I trust it was a pivotal experience.'

'I don't think so. In fact I scarcely
remember it at all,

I only
remember how everybody cried.'

'Ah.'

He nodded sagely.

'So selfish,' he said. 'Don't you think?
Spoiling a

farewell
with snot and sobs.' Again, he looked at her

to
gauge the response; again he was satisfied that she

would  not take offence. 'We cry for ourselves,
don't

we? Not
for the dead. The dead are past caring.'

She made a small, soft: 'Yes,' and then, more
loudly:

'My
God, yes. That's right. Always for ourselves . . .'

'You see how much the dead can teach, just by
lying

there,
twiddling their thumb-bones?'

She laughed: he joined her in laughter. She
had mis-

judged  him on
that initial meeting, thinking his face

unused  to smiles; it was not. But his features, when

the
laughter died, swiftly regained that eerie quiescence

she had
first noticed.

When,
after a further half hour of his laconic remarks,

he told
her he had appointments to keep and had to be on

his
way, she thanked him for his company, and said:

'Nobody's made me laugh so much in weeks. I'm

grateful.'

'You should laugh,' he told her. 'It suits
you.' Then

added:
'You have beautiful teeth.'

She thought of this odd remark when he'd gone,

as she
did of a dozen  others he had made  through

the
afternoon. He was undoubtedly one of the most

off-beat
individuals she'd ever encountered, but he had

come  into her life - with his eagerness to talk of
crypts

and the
dead and  the beauty of her teeth - at
just the

right
moment. He was the perfect distraction from her

90

buried
sorrows, making her present aberrations seem

minor
stuff beside his own. When she started home she

was in
high spirits. If she had not known herself better

she
might have thought herself half in love with him.

On  the
journey back, and later that evening, she

thought
particularly of the joke he had made about

the
dead twiddling their thumb-bones, and that thought

led
inevitably to the mysteries that lay out of sight in

the
crypt. Her curiosity, once aroused, was not easily

silenced;
it grew on her steadily that she badly wanted

to slip
through that cordon of ribbon and see the burial

chamber
with her own eyes. It was a desire she would

never
previously have admitted to herself. (How many

times
had she walked from the site of an accident, telling

herself
to control the shameful inquisitiveness she felt?)

But
Kavanagh   had legitimised her appetite
with his

flagrant
enthusiasm for things funereal. Now, with the

taboo
shed, she wanted to go back to All Saints and look

Death
in its face, then next time she saw Kavanagh she

would
have some stories to tell of her own. The idea, no

sooner
budded, came to full flower, and in the middle of

the
evening she dressed for the street again and headed

back
towards the square.

She
didn't reach All Saints until well after eleven-

thirty,
but there were  still signs of activity
at the site.

Lights,
mounted  on stands and on the wall of the

church
itself, poured illumination on the scene. A trio

of
technicians, Kavanagh's so-called removal men, stood

outside
the tarpaulin shelter, their faces drawn with

fatigue,
their breath clouding the frosty air. She stayed

out of
sight and watched the scene. She was growing

steadily
colder, and her scars had begun to ache, but

it was
apparent that the night's work on the crypt was

more or
less over. After some brief exchange with the

police,
the technicians departed. They had extinguished

91

all but
one of the floodlights, leaving the site - church,

tarpaulin
and rimy mud - in grim chiaroscuro.

The
two officers who had been left on guard were

not
over-conscientious in their duties. What idiot, they

apparently
reasoned, would come grave-robbing at this

hour,
and in such temperatures? After a few minutes

keeping  a foot-stamping vigil they withdrew to the

relative
comfort of the workmen's hut. When they did

not
re-emerge, Elaine crept out of hiding and moved

as
cautiously as possible to the ribbon that divided one

zone
from the other. A radio had been turned on in

the
hut; its noise (music for lovers from dusk to dawn,

the
distant voice purred) covered her crackling advance

across
the frozen earth.

Once  beyond the cordon, and  into the forbidden

territory
beyond, she was not so hesitant. She swiftly

crossed
the hard ground, its wheel-ploughed furrows

like
concrete, into the lee of the church. The floodlight

was  dazzling; by it her breath appeared  as solid as

yesterday's
smoke had seemed. Behind her, the music

for
lovers murmured on. No one emerged from the hut

to
summon  her from her trespassing. No
alarm-bells

rang.
She  reached the edge of the tarpaulin
curtain

without
incident, and peered at the scene concealed

behind
it.

The demolition men, under very specific
instructions

to
judge by the care they had taken in their labours, had

dug
fully eight feet down the side of All Saints, exposing

the
foundations. In so doing they had uncovered an

entrance
to the burial-chamber which previous hands

had
been at pains to conceal. Not only had earth been

piled
up against the flank of the church to hide the

entrance,
but the crypt door had also been removed,

and
stone masons sealed the entire aperture up. This had

clearly
been done at some speed; their handiwork was

92

far
from ordered. They had simply filled the entrance

up with
any stone or brick that had come to hand,

and
plastered coarse mortar over their endeavours. Into

this
mortar - though the design had been spoiled by

the
excavations - some artisan had scrawled a six-foot

cross.

All their efforts in securing the crypt, and
marking

the
mortar to keep the godless out, had gone for nothing

however.
The seal had been broken - the mortar hacked

at, the
stones torn away. There was now a small hole in

the
middle of the doorway, large enough for one person

to gain
access to the interior. Elaine had no hesitation in

climbing
down the slope to the breached wall, and then

squirming
through.

She had predicted the darkness she met on the
other

side,
and had brought with her a cigarette lighter Mitch

had
given her three years ago. She flicked it on. The

flame
was small; she turned up the wick, and by the

swelling
light investigated the space ahead of her. It

was not
the crypt itself she had stepped into but a

narrow
vestibule of some kind: a yard or so in front

of her
was another wall, and another door. This one

had not
been  replaced with bricks, though into
its

solid
timbers a second cross had been gouged. She

approached
the door. The lock had been removed -

by the
investigators presumably - and the door then

held
shut again with a rope binding. This had been

done
quickly, by  tired fingers. She did not
find the

rope
difficult to untie, though it required both hands,

and so
had to be effected in the dark.

As she worked the knot free, she heard
voices. The

policemen
- damn  them - had  left the seclusion of

their
hut and come  out into the bitter night
to do

their
rounds. She let the rope be, and pressed herself

against
the inside wall of the vestibule. The officers'

93

voices
were becoming louder: talking of their children,

and the
escalating cost of Christmas joy. Now they were

within
yards of the crypt entrance, standing, or so she

guessed,
in the shelter of the tarpaulin. They made no

attempt
to descend the slope however, but finished their

cursory
inspection on the lip of the earthworks, then

turned
back. Their voices faded.

Satisfied that they were out of sight and
hearing of

her,
she reignited the flame and returned to the door. It

was
large and brutally heavy; her first attempt at hauling

it open
met with little success. She tried again, and this

time it
moved, grating across the grit on the vestibule

floor.
Once it was open the vital inches required for her

to
squeeze through she eased her straining. The lighter

guttered
as though a breath had blown from within; the

flame
briefly burned not yellow but electric blue. She

didn't
pause to admire it, but slid into the promised

wonderland.

Now
the flame fed - became livid - and for an instant

its
sudden brightness took her sight away. She pressed

the
corners of her eyes to clear them, and looked again.

So this was Death. There was none of the art
or the

glamour
Kavanagh  had talked of; no calm laying
out of

shrouded  beauties on cool marble sheets; no elaborate

reliquaries,
nor aphorisms on the nature of human

frailty:
not even names and dates. In most cases, the

corpses
lacked even coffins.

The
crypt was a  charnel-house. Bodies
had been

thrown  in heaps on every side; entire families
pressed

into
niches that were designed to hold a single casket,

dozens
more  left where hasty and careless hands
had

tossed
them. The scene - though absolutely still - was

rife
with panic. It was  there in the faces
that stared

from  the piles of dead: mouths wide in silent
protest,

sockets
in which eyes had withered gaping in shock at

94

such
treatment. It was there too in the way the system

of
burial had degenerated from the ordered arrangement

of
caskets at the far end of the crypt to the haphazard

piling
of crudely made coffins, their wood unplaned,

their
lids unmarked but for a scrawled cross, and thence

-
finally - to this hurried heaping of unhoused carcasses,

all
concern for dignity, perhaps even for the rites of

passage,
forgotten in the rising hysteria.

There had
been a disaster, of that she could have

no
doubt; a sudden influx of bodies - men, women,

children
(there was a baby at her feet who could not have

lived a
day) - who had died in such escalating numbers

that
there was not  even time  to close their eyelids

before
they were shunted away into this pit. Perhaps

the
coffin-makers had also died, and were thrown here

amongst
their clients; the shroud-sewers too, and the

priests.
All gone in one apocalyptic month (or week),

their
surviving relatives too shocked or too frightened

to
consider the niceties, but only eager to have the dead

thrust
out of sight where they would never have to look

on
their flesh again.

There was much  of that flesh still in evidence. The

sealing
of the crypt, closing it off from the decaying

air,
had kept the occupants intact. Now,  with
the

violation
of this secret chamber, the heat of decay

had
been rekindled, and the tissues were deteriorating

afresh.
Everywhere she saw rot at work, making sores

and
suppurations, blisters and pustules. She raised the

flame
to see better, though the stench of spoilage was

beginning
to crowd upon her  and make  her dizzy.

Everywhere  her eyes travelled she seemed to alight

upon
some  pitiful sight. Two children laid
together as

if
sleeping in each other's arms; a woman whose last act,

it
appeared, had been to paint her sickened face so as to

die
more fit for the marriage-bed than the grave.

95

She could not help but stare, though her
fascination

cheated
them of privacy. There was so much to see

and remember.
She could never be the same, could

she,
having viewed these scenes? One corpse - lying

half-hidden
beneath  another  - drew
her particular

attention:
a woman whose long chestnut-coloured hair

flowed
from her scalp so copiously Elaine envied it. She

moved  closer to get a better look, and then,
putting the

last of
her squeamishness to flight, took hold of the

body
thrown across the woman, and hauled it away.

The  flesh of the corpse was greasy to the touch,
and

left
her lingers stained, but she was  not
distressed.

The  uncovered
corpse lay with her legs wide, but

the
constant weight of her companion had bent them

into an
impossible configuration. The wound that had

killed
her had bloodied her thighs, and glued her skirt

to her
abdomen and groin. Had she miscarried, Elaine

wondered,
or had some disease devoured her there?

She
stared and stared, bending close to study the

faraway
look on the woman's rotted face. Such a place

to lie,
she thought, with your blood still shaming you.

She
would tell Kavanagh when next she saw him, how

wrong  he had been with his sentimental tales of
calm

beneath
the sod.

She had seen enough; more than enough. She
wiped

her
hands upon her coat and made her way back to the

door,
closing it behind her and knotting up the rope

again
as she had found it. Then she climbed the slope

into
the clean air. The policemen were nowhere in sight,

and she
slipped away unseen, like a shadow's shadow.

There
was nothing for her to feel, once she had mastered

her
initial disgust, and that twinge of pity she'd felt

seeing
the children and the woman with the chestnut

hair;
and even those responses - even the pity and the

96

repugnance
- were quite manageable. She had felt both

more
acutely seeing a dog run down by a car than she

had
standing in the crypt of All Saints, despite the horrid

displays
on every side. When she laid her head down

to
sleep that night, and realised that she was neither

trembling
nor nauseous, she felt strong. What was there

to fear
in all the world if the spectacle of mortality she

had
just witnessed could be borne so readily? She slept

deeply,
and woke refreshed.

She went back to work that morning,
apologising to

Chimes  for her behaviour of the previous day, and

reassuring
him that she was now feeling happier than

she'd
felt in months. In order to prove her rehabilitation

she
was  as gregarious as she could  be, striking up

conversations
with neglected acquaintances, and giving

her
smile a ready airing. This met with some initial

resistance;
she could sense her colleagues doubting that

this
bout of sunshine actually meant a summer. But

when
the mood was sustained throughout the day and

through
the day following, they began to respond more

readily.
By Thursday it was as though the tears of earlier

in the
week had never been shed. People told her how

well
she was looking. It was true; her mirror confirmed

the
rumours. Her eyes shone, her skin shone. She was

a
picture of vitality.

On Thursday
afternoon she was sitting at her desk,

working
through a backlog of inquiries, when one of

the
secretaries appeared from the corridor and began

to
babble. Somebody went to the woman's aid; through

the
sobs it was apparent she was talking about Bernice,

a woman
Elaine knew well enough to exchange smiles

with on
the stairs, but no better. There had been an

accident,
it seemed; the woman was  talking about

blood
on the  floor. Elaine got up and joined
those

who
were making  their way out to see what
the fuss

97

was
about. The supervisor was already standing outside

the
women's lavatories, vainly instructing the curious to

keep
clear. Somebody else - another witness, it seemed

- was
offering her account of events:

'She was just standing there, and suddenly
she started

to
shake. I thought she was having a fit. Blood started

to come
from her nose. Then from her mouth. Pouring

out.'

'There's nothing to see,' Chimes insisted.
'Please keep

back.'
But he was substantially ignored. Blankets were

being
brought to wrap around the woman, and as soon as

the
toilet door was opened again the sight-seers pressed

forward.
Elaine caught sight of a form moving about on

the
toilet floor as if convulsed by cramps; she had no

wish to
see any more. Leaving the others to throng the

corridor,
talking loudly of Bernice as if she were already

dead,
Elaine returned to her desk. She had so much to

do; so
many wasted, grieving days to catch up on. An

apt
phrase flitted into her head. Redeem the time. She

wrote
the three words on her notebook as a reminder.

Where  did they come from? She couldn't recall. It
didn't

matter.
Sometimes there was wisdom in forgetting.

Kavanagh  rang her that evening, and invited her out to

dinner
the following night. She had to decline, however,

eager
as she was to discuss her recent exploits, because a

small
party was being thrown by several of her friends,

to
celebrate her return to health. Would he care to join

them?  she asked. He thanked her for the invitation,

but
replied that large numbers of people had always

intimidated
him. She told him not to be foolish: that

her
circle would be pleased to meet him, and she to

show  him
off, but he replied he would only put in

an
appearance  if his ego felt the equal of
it, and that

if he
didn't show up he hoped she wouldn't offended.

98

She
soothed such fears. Before the conversation came

to an
end she slyly mentioned that next time they met

she had
a tale to tell.

The following day brought unhappy news.
Bernice

had
died in the early hours of Friday morning, without

ever
regaining consciousness. The cause of death was

as yet
unverified, but the office gossips concurred that

she had
never been a strong woman - always the first

amongst  the secretaries to catch a cold and the last

to
shake it off. There was also some  talk,
though

traded
less loudly, about her personal behaviour. She

had
been generous with her favours it appeared, and

injudicious
in her choice of partners. With  venereal

diseases
reaching epidemic proportions, was that not the

likeliest
explanation for the death?

The news, though it kept the rumourmongers in

business,
was not  good  for general morale. Two

girls
went sick that morning, and  at lunchtime
it

seemed
that Elaine was the  only member  of staff

with an
appetite. She compensated for the lack in her

colleagues,
however. She had a fierce hunger in her;

her
body almost seemed to ache for sustenance. It was

a good
feeling, after so many months of lassitude. When

she
looked around at the worn faces at the table she felt

utterly
apart from them: from their tittle-tattle and their

trivial
opinions, from the way their talk circled on the

suddenness
of Bernice's death as though they had not

given
the subject a moment's thought in years, and were

amazed
that their neglect had not rendered it extinct.

Elaine knew better. She had come close to
death so

often
in the recent past: during the months leading up

to her
hysterectomy, when the tumours had suddenly

doubled
in size as though sensing that they were plotted

against;
on the operating table, when twice the surgeons

thought
they'd lost her; and most recently, in the crypt,

99

face to
face with those gawping carcasses. Death was

everywhere.
That  they should be  so startled by its

entrance
into their charmless circle struck her as almost

comical.
She ate lustily, and let them talk in whispers.

They
gathered for her party at Reuben's house - Elaine,

Hermione,
Sam and Nellwyn, Josh and Sonja. It was a

good
night; a chance to pick up on how mutual friends

were
faring; how statuses and ambitions were on the

change.
Everyone  got drunk  very quickly; tongues

already
loosened by  familiarity became
progressively

looser.
Nellwyn led a tearful toast to Elaine; Josh and

Sonja
had a short but acrimonious exchange on the

subject
of evangelism; Reuben did his impersonations

of
fellow barristers. It was like old times, except that

memory  had yet to improve it. Kavanagh did not put

in an
appearance, and Elaine was glad of it. Despite her

protestations
when speaking to him she knew he would

have
felt out of place in such close-knit company.

About half past midnight, when the room had
settled

into a
number of quiet exchanges, Hermione mentioned

the
yachtsman. Though  she was almost across
the

room,
Elaine heard the sailor's name mentioned quite

distinctly.
She broke off her conversation with Nellwyn

and
picked her way through the sprawling limbs to join

Hermione
and Sam.

'I heard you talking about Maybury,' she
said.

'Yes,' said Hermione, 'Sam and I were just
saying how

strange
it all was -'

'I saw him on the news,' Elaine said.

'Sad story, isn't it?' Sam commented. 'The
way it

happened.'

'Why sad?'

'Him saying that: about Death being on the
boat with

him-'

100

'- And then dying,' Hermione said.

'Dying?' said Elaine. 'When was this?'

'It was in all the papers.'

'I haven't been concentrating that
much,'  Elaine

replied.
'What happened?'

'He was killed,' Sam said. 'They were taking
him to

the
airport to fly him home, and there was an accident.

He
was  killed just like that.' He snapped
his middle

finger
and thumb. 'Out like a light.'

'So sad,' said Hermione.

She glanced at Elaine, and a frown crept
across her

face.
The look baffled Elaine until - with that same

shock  of recognition she'd  felt in Chimes'   office,

discovering
her  tears -  she realized that  she was

smiling.

So the
sailor was dead.

When   the party broke up  in the early hours  of

Saturday
morning - when the embraces and the kisses

were
over and she was home again - she thought over

the
Maybury interview she'd heard, summoning a face

scorched
by the sun and  eyes peeled by the wastes

he'd
almost been lost to, thinking of his mixture of

detachment
and faint embarrassment as he'd told the

tale of
his stowaway. And, of course, those final words

of his,
when pressed to identify the stranger:

'Death, I suppose,' he'd said.

He'd been right.

She
woke up  late on Saturday morning,
without the

anticipated
hangover. There was a letter from Mi ten.

She
didn't open it, but left it on the mantelpiece for an

idle
moment later in the day. The first snow of winter

was in
the wind, though it was too wet to make any

serious
impression on the streets. The chill was biting

101

enough
however, to judge by the scowls on the faces

of
passers-by. She felt oddly immune from it, however.

Though  she had no heating on in the flat she walked

around
in her bathrobe, and barefoot, as though she

had a
fire stoked in her belly.

After coffee she went through to wash. There
was a

spider
clot of hair in the plug hole; she fished it out and

dropped
it down the lavatory, then returned to the sink.

Since
the removal of the dressings she had studiously

avoided
any close scrutiny of her body, but today her

qualms
and her vanity seemed to have disappeared. She

stripped
off her robe, and looked herself over critically.

She was pleased with what she saw. Her
breasts were

full
and dark, her skin had a pleasing sheen to it, her

pubic
hair had regrown more lushly than ever. The scars

themselves
still looked and felt tender, but her eyes read

their
lividness as a sign of her cunt's ambition, as though

any day
now her sex would grow from anus to navel (and

beyond
perhaps) opening her up; making her terrible.

It was paradoxical, surely, that it was only
now, when

the
surgeons had emptied her out, that she should feel

so
ripe, so resplendent. She stood for fully half an hour

in
front of the mirror admiring herself, her thoughts

drifting
off. Eventually she returned to the chore of

washing.
That done, she went back into the front room,

still
naked. She had no desire to conceal herself; quite

the
other way about. It was all she could do to prevent

herself
from stepping out into the snow and giving the

whole
street something to remember her by.

She
crossed to the window, thinking a dozen such

foolish
thoughts. The snow had thickened. Through

the flurries
she caught a movement in the alley between

the
houses opposite. Somebody was  there,
watching

her,
though she couldn't see who. She didn't mind.

She  stood peeping at the peeper, wondering  if he

102

would
have the courage to show himself, but he did

not.

She watched
for several minutes before she realised

that
her brazenness had frightened him away. Disap-

pointed,
she wandered back to the bedroom and got

dressed.
It was time she found herself something to

eat;
she had that familiar fierce hunger upon her. The

fridge
was practically empty. She would have to go out

and
stock up for the weekend.

Supermarkets were circuses, especially on a
Saturday,

but her
mood was far too buoyant to be depressed by

having
to make her way through the crowds. Today she

even
found some pleasure in these scenes of conspicuous

consumption;
in the trolleys and the baskets heaped high

with
foodstuffs, and the children greedy-eyed as they

approached
the confectionery, and tearful if denied it,

and the
wives weighing up the merits of a leg of mutton

while
their husbands watched the girls on the staff with

eyes no
less calculating.

She purchased twice as much food for the
weekend

as she
would normally have done in a full week, her

appetite
driven to distraction by the smells from the

delicatessen
and fresh meat counters. By the time she

reached
the house she was almost shaking with the

anticipation
of sustenance. As she put the bags down

on the
front step and fumbled for her keys she heard a

car
door slam behind her.

'Elaine?'

It was Hermione. The red wine she'd consumed
the

previous
night had left her looking blotchy and stale.

'Are you feeling all right?' Elaine asked.

'The point is, are you?' Hermione wanted to
know.

'Yes, I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be?'

Hermione
returned a harried look. 'Sonja's gone

down  with some
kind of food poisoning, and so's

103

Reuben.
I just came round to see that you were all

right.'

'As I say, fine.'

'I don't understand it.'

'What about Nellwyn and Dick?'

'I couldn't get an answer at their place. But
Reuben's

in a
bad  way. They've  taken him
into hospital for

tests.'

'Do you want to come in and have a cup of
coffee?'

'No
thanks, I've got to get back to see Sonja. I just

didn't
like to think of your being on your own if you'd

gone
down with it too.'

Elaine smiled. 'You're an angel,' she said,
and kissed

Hermione  on the cheek. The gesture seemed to startle

the
other woman. For some reason she stepped back,

the
kiss exchanged, staring at Elaine with a
vague

puzzlement
in her eyes.

'I must ... I must go,' she said, fixing her
face as

though
it would betray her.

Til
call you later in the day,' Elaine said, 'and find

out how
they're doing.'

'Fine.'

Hermione
turned away and crossed the pavement

to her
car. Though she made  a cursory attempt
to

conceal
the gesture, Elaine caught sight of her putting

her
fingers to the spot on her cheek where she had

been  kissed and scratching at it, as if to
eradicate the

contact.

It
was  not the season for flies, but those
that had

survived
the recent cold buzzed around in the kitchen

as
Elaine selected some bread, smoked ham, and garlic

sausage
from her purchases, and sat down to eat. She

was
ravenous. In five minutes or less she had devoured

the
meats, and made  substantial inroads into
the loaf,

104

and her
hunger was scarcely tamed. Settling to a dessert

of figs
and cheese, she thought of the paltry omelette

she'd
been unable  to finish that day after the
visit to

the
hospital. One thought led to another; from omelette

to
smoke to the square to Kavanagh to her most recent

visit
to the church, and thinking of the place she was

suddenly
seized by an enthusiasm  to see it one
final

time
before it was entirely levelled. She was probably

too
late already. The bodies would have been parcelled

up and
removed, the crypt decontaminated and scoured;

the
walls would be rubble. But she knew she would not

be
satisfied until she had seen it for herself.

Even after a meal which would have sickened
her with

its
excess a few days before, she felt light-headed as she

set out
for All Saints; almost as though she were drunk.

Not the
maudlin drunkenness she had been prone to

when
with Mitch, but a euphoria which made her feel

well-nigh
invulnerable, as if she had at last located some

bright
and incorruptible part of herself, and no harm

would
ever befall her again.

She had
prepared herself for finding All Saints in

ruins,
but she did not. The building still stood, its walls

untouched,
its beams still dividing the sky. Perhaps it

too
could not be toppled, she mused; perhaps she and

it were
twin immortals. The suspicion was reinforced

by the
gaggle of fresh worshippers the church
had

attracted.
The police guard had trebled since the day

she'd
been here, and the tarpaulin that had shielded

the
crypt entrance from sight was now  a vast
tent,

supported
by scaffolding, which entirely encompassed

the
flank of the building. The altar-servers, standing

in close
proximity to the tent, wore masks and gloves;

the
high priests - the chosen few who were
actually

allowed
into the Holy of Holies - were entirely garbed

in
protective suits.

105

She watched from  the cordon: the signs and genu-

flections
between the devotees; the sluicing down of the

suited
men as they emerged from behind the veil; the

fine
spray of fumigants which  filled the air
like bitter

incense.

Another onlooker was quizzing one of the
officers.

'Why
the suits?'

'In case it's contagious,' the reply came.

'After all these years?'

'They don't know what they've got in there.'

'Diseases don't last, do they?'

'It's a plague-pit,' the officer said.
'They're just being

cautious.'

Elaine listened to the exchange, and her
tongue itched

to
speak. She could save them their investigations with a

few
words. After all, she was living proof that whatever

pestilence
had destroyed the families in the crypt it was

no
longer virulent. She had breathed that air, she had

touched
that mouldy  flesh, and she felt
healthier now

than
she had in years. But they would not thank her for

her
revelations, would they? They were too engrossed

in
their rituals; perhaps even excited by the discovery

of such
horrors, their turmoil fuelled and fired by the

possibility
that this death was still living. She would

not be
so unsporting as to sour their enthusiasm with

a
confession of her own rare good health.

Instead she turned her back on the priests
and their

rites,
on the drizzle of incense in the air, and began to

walk
away from the square. As she looked up from her

thoughts
she glimpsed a familiar figure watching her

from
the corner of the adjacent street. He turned away

as she
glanced up, but it was undoubtedly Kavanagh.

She
called to him, and went to the corner, but he was

walking
smartly away from her, head bowed. Again she

called
after him, and now he turned - a patently false

106

look of
surprise pasted onto his face - and retrod his

escape-route
to greet her.

'Have you heard what  they've found?' she asked

him.

'Oh yes,' he replied. Despite the familiarity
they'd last

enjoyed
she was reminded now of her first impression

of him:
that he was not a man much conversant with

feeling.

'Now you'll never get your stones,' she said.

'I suppose not,' he replied, not overtly
concerned at

the
loss.

She wanted to tell him that she'd seen the
plague-pit

with
her own eyes, hoping the news would bring a gleam

to his
face, but the corner of this sunlit street was an

inappropriate
spot for such talk. Besides, it was almost

as if
he knew. He looked at her so oddly, the warmth of

their
previous meeting entirely gone.

'Why did you come back?' he asked her.

'Just to see,' she replied.

'I'm flattered.'

'Flattered?'

That my enthusiasm for mausoleums is
infectious.'

Still he watched her, and she, returning his
look, was

conscious
of how cold his eyes were, and how perfectly

shiny.
They might have been glass, she thought; and his

skin
suede-glued like a hood over the subtle architecture

of his
skull.

'I should go,' she said.

'Business or pleasure?'

'Neither,' she told him. 'One or two of my
friends are

ill.'

'Ah.'

She had the impression that he wanted to be
away;

that it
was only fear of foolishness that kept him from

running
from her.

107

'Perhaps I'll see you again,' she said.
'Sometime.'

'I'm sure,' he replied, gratefully taking his
cue and

retreating
along the street. 'And to your friends - my

best
regards.'

Even  if she wanted to pass Kavanagh's good wishes

along
to Reuben and Sonja, she could not have done

so.
Hermione did not answer the telephone, nor did

any of
the others. The closest she came was to leave a

message
with Reuben's answering service.

The
light-headedness she'd  felt
earlier in the day

developed
into a strange dreaminess as the afternoon

inched
towards evening. She ate again, but the feast did

nothing
to keep the fugue-state from deepening. She felt

quite
well; that sense of inviolability that had came upon

her was
still intact. But time and again as the day wore on

she
found herself standing on the threshold of a room not

knowing
why she had come there; or watching the light

dwindle
in the street outside without being quite certain

if she
was the viewer or the thing viewed. She was happy

with
her company though, as the flies were happy. They

kept
buzzing attendance even though the dark fell.

About seven in the evening she heard a car
draw up

outside,
and the bell rang. She went to the door of her

flat,
but couldn't muster the inquisitiveness to open it,

step
out into the hallway and admit callers. It would be

Hermione  again, most probably, and she didn't have

any
appetite for gloomy talk. Didn't want anybody's

company  in fact, but that of the flies.

The
callers insisted on the bell; the more they insisted

the
more determined she became not to reply. She slid

down  the wall beside the flat door and listened to
the

muted  debate that now began on the step. It wasn't

Hermione;
it was nobody she recognized. Now they

systematically
rang the bells of the flats above, until

108

Mr
Prudhoe came down  from the top flat,
talking to

himself
as he went, and opened the door to them. Of the

conversation
that followed she caught sufficient only to

grasp
the urgency of their mission, but her dishevelled

mind  hadn't the persistence to attend to the  details.

They
persuaded Prudhoe to allow them into the hallway.

They
approached the door of her flat and rapped upon

it,
calling her name. She didn't reply. They rapped

again,
exchanging words of frustration. She wondered

if they
could hear her smiling in the darkness. At last

- after
a further exchange with Prudhoe - they left her

to
herself.

She didn't know how long she sat on her
haunches

beside
the door, but when she stood up again her lower

limbs
were entirely numb, and she was hungry. She ate

voraciously,
more or less finishing off all the purchases

of that
morning. The flies seemed to have procreated

in the
intervening hours; they crawled on the table and

picked
at her slops. She let them eat. They too had their

lives
to live.

Finally she decided to take some air. No
sooner had

she
stepped out of her flat, however, than the vigilant

Prudhoe
was at the top of the stairs, and calling down

to her.

'Miss Rider. Wait a moment. I have a message
for

you.'

She contemplated closing the door on him, but
she

knew  he would
not rest until he had  delivered
his

communique.
He hurried down the stairs - a Cassandra

in shabby
slippers.

'There were policemen here,' he announced
before he

had
even reached the bottom step, 'they were looking for

you.'

'Oh,' she said. 'Did they say what they
wanted?'

To talk to you. Urgently. Two of your friends
-'

109

'What about them?'

'They died,' he said. 'This afternoon. They
have some

kind of
disease.'

He had a sheet of notepaper in his hand. This
he now

passed
over  to her, relinquishing his hold an
instant

before
she took it.

They
left that number for you  to
call,' he said.

'You've  to contact them  as soon
as possible.' His

message  delivered, he was already retiring up the
stairs

again.

Elaine looked down  at the sheet of paper, with its

scrawled
figures. By the time she'd read the seven digits,

Prudhoe
had disappeared.

She went
back into the flat. For some reason she

wasn't
thinking of Reuben or Sonja - who, it seemed,

she
would not see again - but of the sailor, Maybury,

who'd  seen Death and escaped it only to have it
follow

him  like a loyal dog, waiting its moment to leap
and

lick
his face. She sat beside the phone and stared at

the
numbers on the sheet, and then at the fingers that

held
the sheet and at the hands that held the fingers.

Was  the touch that hung so innocently at the end
of

her
arms now lethal? Was that what the detectives had

come to
tell her? That her friends were dead by her good

offices?
If so, how many others had she brushed against

and  breathed upon
in the days  since her
pestilential

education
at the crypt? In the street, in the bus, in the

supermarket:
at work, at play. She thought of Bernice,

lying
on the toilet floor, and of Hermione, rubbing the

spot
where she had been kissed as if knowing some

scourge
had been passed along to her. And suddenly

she
knew, knew in her marrow, that her pursuers were

right
in their suspicions, and that all these dreamy

days  she had
been  nurturing a  fatal child. Hence

her
hunger; hence the glow of fulfilment she felt.

110

She put down the note and sat in the
semi-darkness,

trying
to work out precisely the plague's location. Was it

her
fingertips; in her belly; in her eyes? None, and yet all

of
these. Her first assumption had been wrong. It wasn't

a child
at all: she didn't carry it in some particular cell.

It was
everywhere. She and it were synonymous. That

being
so, there could be no slicing out of the offending

part,
as they had sliced out her tumours and all that had

been
devoured by them. Not that she would escape their

attentions
for that fact. They had come looking for her,

hadn't
they, to take her back into the custody of sterile

rooms,
to deprive her of her opinions and dignity, to

make
her fit only for their loveless investigations. The

thought
revolted her;  she would  rather die as the

chestnut-haired
woman in the crypt had died, sprawled

in
agonies, than submit to them again. She tore up the

sheet
of paper and let the litter drop.

It was too late for solutions anyway. The
removal men

had
opened the door and found Death waiting on the

other
side, eager for daylight. She was its agent, and it

- in
its wisdom - had granted her immunity; had given

her
strength and a dreamy rapture; had taken her fear

away.
She, in return, had spread its word, and there

was no
undoing those labours: not now. All the dozens,

maybe
hundreds, of people whom she'd contaminated in

the
last few days would have gone back to their families

and
friends, to their work places and their places of

recreation,
and spread the word yet further. They would

have
passed its fatal promise to their children as they

tucked
them into bed, and to their mates in the act of

love.
Priests had no doubt given it with Communion;

shopkeepers
with change of a five-pound note.

While
she  was  thinking of
this - of the disease

spreading
like fire in tinder - the doorbell rang again.

They
had  come back for her. And, as before,
they

111

were
ringing the other bells in the house. She could hear

Prudhoe
coming downstairs. This time he would know

she was
in. He would tell them so. They would hammer

at the
door, and when she refused to answer -

As Prudhoe opened the front door she unlocked
the

back.
As she slipped into the yard she heard voices at the

flat
door, and then their rapping and their demands. She

unbolted
the yard gate and fled into the darkness of the

alley-way.
She already out of hearing range by the time

they
had beaten down the door.

She
wanted most of all to go back to All Saints, but she

knew  that such a tactic would only invite arrest.
They

would  expect her to follow that route, counting
upon

her
adherence to the first cause. But she wanted to see

Death's
face again, now more than ever. To speak with

it. To
debate its strategies. Their strategies. To ask why

it had
chosen her.

She emerged
from the alley-way and watched the

goings-on
at the front of the house from the corner

of the
street. This time there were more than
two

men;  she counted four at least, moving in and out
of

the house.
What  were they doing? Peeking  through

her
underwear  and  her love-letters, most probably,

examining  the sheets on her bed for stray hairs, and

the
mirror  for traces of her reflection. But
even  if

they
turned the flat upside-down, if they examined

every
print and pronoun, they wouldn't find the clues

they
sought. Let them search. The lover had escaped.

Only
her tear stains remained, and flies at the light bulb

to sing
her praises.

The  night was starry, but as she walked down to
the

centre
of  the city the brightness of the
Christmas

illuminations
festooning trees and buildings cancelled

112

out their light. Most of the stores were well
closed by

this hour, but a good number of
window-shoppers still

idled along the pavements. She soon tired of
the displays

however, of the baubles and the dummies, and
made

her way off the main road and  into the side streets.

It was darker here, which suited her
abstracted state

of mind. The sound of music and laughter
escaped

through open bar doors; an argument erupted in
an

upstairs gaming-room: blows were exchanged; in
one

doorway two lovers defied discretion; in
another, a man

pissed with the gusto of a horse.

It was
only now,  in the  relative hush of these

backwaters, that she  realised she was   not alone.

Footsteps
followed her, keeping a cautious distance, but

never
straying far. Had the trackers followed her? Were

they
hemming her in even now, preparing to snatch her

into
their closed order? If so, flight would only delay

the
inevitable. Better to confront them now, and dare

them to
come  within range of her pollution. She
slid

into
hiding, and listened as the footsteps approached,

then
stepped into view.

It was
not the law, but  Kavanagh.  Her  initial

shock
was almost immediately superseded by a sudden

comprehension
of why he had pursued her. She studied

him.
His skin was  pulled so tight over his
skull she

could
see the bone gleam in the dismal light. How, her

whirling
thoughts demanded, had she not recognised

him
sooner? Not realised at that first meeting, when

he'd
talked of the dead and their glamour, that he spoke

as
their Maker?

'I followed you,' he said.

'All the way from the house?'

He nodded.

'What
did they  tell you?' he asked  her. 'The

policemen.
What did they say?'

113

'Nothing I hadn't already guessed,' she
replied.

'You knew?'

'In a manner of speaking. I must have done,
in my

heart
of hearts. Remember our first conversation?'

He murmured that he did.

'All you said about Death. Such egotism.'

He grinned suddenly, showing more bone.

'Yes,' he said. 'What must you think of me?'

'It made a kind of sense to me, even then. I
didn't

know  why at the time. Didn't know what the future

would
bring -'

'What
does it bring?' he inquired of her softly.

She shrugged. 'Death's been waiting for me
all this

time,
am I right?'

'Oh yes,' he said, pleased by her
understanding of the

situation
between them. He took a step towards her, and

reached
to touch her face.

'You are remarkable,' he said.

'Not really.'

'But to be so unmoved by it all. So cold.'

'What's
to be afraid of?' she said. He stroked her

cheek.
She almost expected his hood of skin to come

unbuttoned  then, and the marbles that played in his

sockets
to tumble out and smash. But he kept his

disguise
intact, for appearance's sake.

'I want you,' he told her.

'Yes,' she said. Of course he did. It had
been in his

every
word from the beginning, but she hadn't had the

wit to
comprehend it. Every love story was - at the last

- a
story of death; this was what the poets insisted. Why

should
it be any less true the other way about?

They
could  not go back to his house;
the officers

would  be there too, he told her, for they must know

of the
romance between them. Nor, of course, could

they
return to her flat. So they found a small hotel in

114

the
vicinity and took a room there. Even in the dingy

lift he
took the liberty of stroking her hair, and then,

finding
her compliant, put his hand upon her breast.

The room was sparsely furnished, but was lent
some

measure
of charm by a splash of coloured lights from a

Christmas
tree in the street below. Her lover didn't take

his
eyes off her for a single moment, as if even now he

expected
her to turn tail and run at the merest flaw in

his
behaviour. He needn't have concerned himself; his

treatment
of her left little cause for complaint. His kisses

were
insistent but not overpowering; his undressing of

her -
except for the fumbling (a nice human touch, she

thought)
- was a model of finesse and sweet solemnity.

She was surprised that he had not known about
her

scar,
only because she had  become  to
believe this

intimacy
had begun on the operating table, when twice

she had
gone into his arms, and twice been denied

them  by the surgeon's bullying. But perhaps, being

no
sentimentalist, he had forgotten that first meeting.

Whatever
the reason, he looked to be upset when he

slipped
off her dress, and there was a trembling interval

when
she thought he would reject her. But the moment

passed,
and now he reached down to her abdomen and

ran his
fingers along the scar.

'It's beautiful,' he said.

She was happy.

'I almost died under the anaesthetic,' she
told him.

That would have been a waste,' he said,
reaching up

her
body and working at her breast. It seemed to arouse

him,
for his voice was more guttural when next he spoke.

'What
did they tell you?' he asked her, moving his hands

up the
soft channel behind her clavicle, and stroking her

there.
She had not been touched in months, except by

disinfected
hands; his delicacy woke shivers in her. She

was so
engrossed in pleasure that she failed to reply to

115

his
question. He asked again as he moved between her

legs.

'What did they tell you?'

Through
a haze of anticipation she said: 'They left a

number
for me to ring. So that I could be helped . . .'

'But you didn't want help?'

'No,' she breathed. 'Why should I?'

She half-saw his smile, though her eyes
wanted to

flicker
closed entirely. His  appearance  failed to stir

any
passion in her; indeed  there was
much  about

his
disguise (that absurd bow-tie, for one) which she

thought
ridiculous. With her eyes closed, however, she

could
forget such petty details; she could strip the hood

off and
imagine him pure. When she thought of him that

way her
mind pirouetted.

He
took his hands from her; she opened her eyes.

He was
fumbling with his belt. As he did so somebody

shouted
in the street outside. His head jerked in the

direction
of the window; his body tensed. She was

surprised
at his sudden concern.

'It's all right,' she said.

He leaned forward and put his hand to her throat.

'Be quiet,' he instructed.

She looked up into his face. He had begun to
sweat.

The
exchanges in the street went on for a few minutes

longer;
it was simply two late-night gamblers parting.

He
realized his error now.

'I thought I heard -'

'What?'

'- I thought I heard them calling my name.'

'Who
would do that?' she inquired fondly. 'Nobody

knows
we're here.'

He looked away from the window. All
purposefulness

had
abruptly drained from him; after the instant of fear

his
features had slackened. He looked almost stupid.

116

They
came close,' he said. 'But they never found

me.'

'Close?'

'Coming to you.' He laid his head on her
breasts. 'So

very
close,' he murmured. She could hear her pulse in

her
head. 'But I'm swift,' he said, 'and invisible.'

His hand strayed back down to her scar, and
further.

'And always neat,' he added.

She sighed as he stroked her.

They admire me for that, I'm sure. Don't you
think

they
must admire me? For being so neat?'

She remembered the chaos of the crypt; its
indignities,

its
disorders.

'Not always ... she said.

He stopped stroking her.

'Oh yes,' he said. 'Oh yes. I never spill
blood. That's

a rule
of mine. Never spill blood.'

She smiled at his boasts. She would tell him
now -

though
surely he already knew - about her visit to All

Saints,
and the handiwork of his that she'd seen there.

'Sometimes you can't help blood being spilt,'
she said,

'I
don't hold it against you.'

At these words, he began to tremble.

'What did they tell you about me? What
lies'?'

'Nothing,' she said, mystified by his
response. 'What

could
they know?'

'I'm a professional,' he said to her, his
hand moving

back up
to her face. She felt intentionality in him again.

A
seriousness in his weight as he pressed closer upon

her.

'I won't have them lie about me,' he said. 'I
won't

have
it.'

He lifted his head from her chest and looked
at her.

'All I do is stop the drummer,' he said.

The drummer?'

117

'I have to stop him cleanly. In his tracks.'

The wash of colours from the lights below
painted his

face
one moment red, the next green, the next yellow;

unadulterated
hues, as in a child's paint-box.

'I won't have them tell lies about me,' he said
again.

'To say
I spill blood.'

'They told me nothing,' she assured him. He
had

given
up his pillow entirely, and now moved to straddle

her.
His hands were done with tender touches.

'Shall I show you how clean I am?' he said:
'How

easily
I stop the drummer?'

Before she could reply, his hands closed
around her

neck.
She had no time even to gasp, let alone shout.

His
thumbs were expert; they found her windpipe and

pressed.
She heard the drummer quicken its rhythm

in her
ears. 'It's quick; and clean,' he was telling her,

the
colours still coming in predictable sequence. Red,

yellow,
green; red, yellow, green.

There
was  an  error here, she  knew;
a  terrible

misunderstanding  which she
couldn't quite fathom.

She
struggled to make some sense of it.

'I don't understand,' she tried to tell him,
but her

bruised
larynx could produce no more than a gargling

sound.

Too
late for excuses,' he said, shaking his head.

'You
came to me, remember? You want the drummer

stopped.
Why  else did you come?' His grip
tightened

yet
further. She had the sensation of her face swelling;

of the
blood throbbing to jump from her eyes.

'Don't you see that they came to warn you
about me?'

frowning
as he laboured. 'They came to seduce you away

from
me  by telling you I spilt blood.'

'No,' she squeezed  the
syllable out on her  last

breath,  but he
only pressed  harder  to cancel her

denial.

118

The drummer
was deafeningly loud now; though

Kavanagh's
mouth  still opened and closed she could

no longer
hear what he  was telling her. It
mattered

little.
She realised now that he was not Death; not the

clean-boned
guardian she'd waited for. In her eagerness,

she had
given herself into the hands of a common killer,

a
street-corner Cain. She wanted to spit contempt at

him,
but her consciousness was slipping, the room, the

lights,
the face all throbbing to the drummer's beat. And

then it
all stopped.

She looked down on the bed. Her body lay
sprawled

across
it. One desperate hand had clutched at the sheet,

and
clutched still, though there was no life left in it. Her

tongue
protruded, there was spittle on her blue lips. But

(as he
had promised) there was no blood.

She hovered,
her presence failing even to bring a

breeze
to the cobwebs  in this corner of the
ceiling,

and
watched while Kavanagh  observed the
rituals of

hi«
crime. He was bending over the body, whispering

in its
ear as he rearranged it on the tangled sheets. Then

he
unbuttoned himself and unveiled that bone whose

inflammation
was the sincerest form of flattery. What

followed
was comical in its gracelessness; as her body

was
comical, with its scars and its places where age

puckered
and plucked at it. She watched his ungainly

attempts
at congress quite remotely. His buttocks were

pale,
and imprinted with the marks his underwear had

left;
their motion put her in mind of a
mechanical

toy.

He
kissed her as he worked, and swallowed the

pestilence
with her spittle; his hands came off her body

gritty
with her contagious cells. He knew none of this, of

course.
He was perfectly innocent of what corruption he

embraced,
and took into himself with every uninspired

thrust.

119

At last, he finished. There was no gasp, no
cry. He

simply
stopped his clockwork motion and climbed off

her,
wiping himself with the edge of the sheet, and

buttoning
himself up again.

Guides were calling her. She had journeys to
make,

reunions
to look forward to. But she did not want to

go; at
least not yet. She  steered the vehicle
of her

spirit
to a fresh vantage-point, where she could better

see
Kavanagh's face. Her sight, or whatever sense this

condition
granted her, saw clearly how his features were

painted
over a groundwork of muscle, and how, beneath

that
intricate scheme, the bones sheened. Ah, the bone.

He was
not Death of course; and yet he was. He had the

face,
hadn't he? And one day, given decay's blessing,

he'd
show it. Such a pity that a scraping of flesh came

between
it and the naked eye.

Come
away, the voices insisted. She knew they could

not be
fobbed off very much longer. Indeed there were

some
amongst them she thought she knew. A moment,

she
pleaded, only a moment more.

Kavanagh
had finished his business at the murder-

scene.
He  checked his appearance in the
wardrobe

mirror,
then went to the door. She went with him,

intrigued
by the utter banality of his expression. He

slipped
out onto the silent landing and then down the

stairs,
waiting for a moment when the night-porter was

otherwise
engaged before stepping out into the street,

and
liberty.

Was it dawn that washed the sky, or the
illuminations?

Perhaps
she had watched him from  the corner of
the

room  longer than she'd thought - hours passing as

moments  in the state she had so recently achieved.

Only
at the last was she rewarded for her vigil, as a

look
she recognised crossed Kavanagh's face. Hunger!

The
man  was hungry. He would not die of the
plague,

120

any
more than she had. Its presence shone in him -

gave a
fresh lustre to his skin, and a new insistence to

his
belly.

He had come to her a minor murderer, and was
going

from
her as Death writ large. She laughed, seeing the

self-fulfilling
prophecy she had unwittingly engineered.

For an
instant his pace slowed, as if he might have heard

her.
But no; it was the drummer he was listening for,

beating
louder than ever in his ear and demanding, as

he
went, a new and deadly vigour in his every step.

121

HOW  SPOILERS

BLEED

LOCKE
RAISED HIS eyes to the trees. The wind was

moving in them, and the commotion of their
laden

branches
sounded like the river in full spate. One imper-

sonation
of many. When he had first come to the jungle

he had
been awed by the sheer multiplicity of beast and

blossom,
the relentless parade of life here. But he had

learned
better. This burgeoning diversity was a sham;

the
jungle pretending itself an artless garden. It was not.

Where  the untutored trespasser saw only a brilliant
show

of
natural splendours, Locke now recognised a subtle

conspiracy
at work, in which each thing mirrored some

other
thing. The  trees, the river; a blossom,
a bird.

In a
moth's wing, a monkey's eye; on a lizard's back,

sunlight
on stones. Round and round in a dizzying circle

of
impersonations, a hall of mirrors which confounded

the
senses and would, given time, rot reason altogether.

See us
now, he thought drunkenly as they stood around

Cherrick's
grave, look at how we play the game too.

We're
living; but we impersonate the dead better than

the
dead themselves.

122

The corpse had been one scab by the time
they'd

hoisted
it into a sack  and  carried it outside to this

miserable
plot behind Tetelman's house to bury. There

were
half a dozen other graves here. All Europeans, to

judge
by the names crudely burned into the wooden

crosses;
killed by snakes, or heat, or longing.

Tetelman attempted to say a brief prayer in
Spanish,

but the
roar of the trees, and the din of birds making

their
way home to their roosts before night came down,

all but
drowned him out. He gave up eventually, and

they
made   their way back  into the
cooler interior

of the
house, where  Stumpf  was sitting, drinking

brandy
and  staring inanely at the darkening
stain on

the
floorboards.

Outside, two of Tetelman's tamed  Indians were

shovelling
the rank jungle earth on top of Cherrick's

sack,
eager to be done  with the  work and
away

before
nightfall. Locke watched from  the window.

Tiie
grave-diggers didn't talk as they laboured, but

filled
the shallow grave up, then flattened the earth

as best
they  could  with the
leather-tough soles of

their
feet. As they did so the stamping of the ground

took on
a  rhythm. It occurred to Locke  that the

men  were probably the worse  for bad whisky; he

knew
few Indians who didn't drink like fishes. Now,

staggering
a little, they began to dance on Cherrick's

grave.

'Locke?'

Locke
woke. In the darkness, a cigarette glowed.

As the
smoker drew on it, and the tip burned more

intensely,
Stumpf s wasted features swam up out of the

night.

'Locke? Are you awake?'

'What do you want?'

123

'I can't sleep,' the mask replied, 'I've been
thinking.

The
supply plane comes in from Santarem the day after

tomorrow.
We could be back there in a few hours. Out

of all
this.'

'Sure.'

'I mean permanently,' Stumpf said. 'Away.'

'Permanently?'

Stumpf lit another cigarette from the embers
of his last

before
saying, 'I don't believe in curses. Don't think I

do.'

'Who
said anything about curses?'

'You
saw  Cherrick's body. What  happened
to

him  . . .'

'There's a disease,' said Locke, 'what's it
called? -

when  the blood doesn't set properly?'

'Haemophilia,' Stumpf replied. 'He didn't
have

haemophilia
and  we both  know
it. I've seen him

scratched
and cut dozens of times. He mended like

you or
I.'

Locke snatched at a mosquito that had
alighted on his

chest
and ground it out between thumb and forefinger.

'All right. Then what killed him?'

'You saw the wounds better than I did, but it
seemed

to
me  his skin just broke open as soon  as he was

touched.'

Locke nodded. 'That's the way it looked.'

'Maybe it's something he caught off the Indians.'

Locke took the point.'/ didn't touch any of
them,' he

said.

'Neither did I. But he did, remember?'

Locke remembered;  scenes like that weren't easy to

forget,
try as he  might.  'Christ,' he said, his voice

hushed.
'What a fucking situation.'

'I'm going back to Santarem. I don't want
them

coming
looking for me.'

124

'They're not going to.'

'How do you know? We screwed up back there.
We

could
have bribed them. Got them off the land some

other
way.'

'I doubt it. You heard what Tetelman said.
Ancestral

territories.'

'You can have my share of the land,' Stumpf
said, 'I

want no
part of it.'

'You mean it then? You're getting out?'

'I feel dirty. We're spoilers, Locke.'

'It's your funeral.'

'I mean it. I'm not like you. Never really
had the

stomach
for this kind of thing. Will you buy my third

off
me?'

'Depends on your price.'

'Whatever you want to give. It's yours.'

Confessional
over, Stumpf returned to his bed, and lay

down in
the darkness to finish off his cigarette. It would

soon be
light. Another jungle dawn: a precious interval,

all too
short, before the world began to sweat. How

he
hated the place. At least he hadn't touched
any

of the
Indians; hadn't  even been  within breathing

distance
of them.  Whatever  infection they'd passed

on to
Cherrick he could surely not be tainted. In less

than
forty-eight hours he would be away to Santarem,

and
then on  to some city, any city, where
the tribe

could
never follow. He'd already done  his penance,

hadn't
he? Paid for his greed and his arrogance with

the rot
in his abdomen  and  the terrors he knew

he
would  never quite shake off again. Let
that be

punishment
enough, he prayed, and slipped, before

the
monkeys  began to call up the day, into a
spoiler's

sleep.

A
gem-backed beetle, trapped beneath Stumpfs

125

mosquito
net, hummed  around in diminishing
circles,

looking
for some way out. It could find none. Eventually,

exhausted
by the search, it hovered over the sleeping

man,
then landed on his forehead. There it wandered,

drinking
at the pores. Beneath its imperceptible tread,

Stumpf
s skin opened and broke into a trail of tiny

wounds.

They
had come into the Indian hamlet at noon; the sun

a
basilisk's eye. At first they had thought the place

deserted.
Locke and Cherrick had advanced  into the

compound,
leaving the dysentery-ridden Stumpf in the

jeep,
out of the worst of the heat. It was Cherrick who

first
noticed the child. A pot-bellied boy of perhaps four

or
five, his face painted with thick bands of the scarlet

vegetable
dye urucu, had slipped out from his hiding

place
and come to peer at the trespassers, fearless in his

curiosity.
Cherrick stood still; Locke did the same. One

by one,
from the huts and from the shelter of the trees

around
the compound, the tribe appeared and stared,

like
the boy, at the newcomers. If there was a flicker

of
feeling on their broad, flat-nosed faces, Locke could

not
read it. These people - he thought of every Indian as

part of
one wretched tribe - were impossible to decipher;

deceit
was their only skill.

'What
are you doing here?' he said. The sun was

baking
the back of his neck. 'This is our land.'

The
boy still looked up at him. His almond eyes

refused
to fear.

'They don't understand you,' Cherrick said.

'Get the
Kraut out  here. Let him  explain it to

them.'

'He can't move.'

'Get him out here,' Locke said. 'I don't care
if he's shat

his
pants.'

126

Cherrick backed away down the track, leaving
Locke

standing
in the ring of huts. He looked from doorway

to
doorway, from tree to tree, trying to estimate the

numbers.
There were at most three dozen Indians, two-

thirds
of them women and children; descendants of the

great
peoples that had once roamed the Amazon Basin

in
their tens of thousands. Now those tribes were all but

decimated.
The forest in which they had prospered for

generations
was being levelled and burned; eight-lane

highways
were speeding through their hunting grounds.

All they
held sacred - the wilderness and their place in

its
system - was being trampled and trespassed: they

were
exiles in their own land. But still they declined to

pay
homage to their new masters, despite the rifles they

brought.
Only death would convince them  of
defeat,

Locke
mused.

Cherrick found Stumpf slumped in the front
seat of

the
jeep, his pasty features more wretched than ever.

'Locke wants you,' he said, shaking the
German out

of his
doze. 'The village is still occupied. You'll have

to
speak to them.'

Stumpf groaned. 'I can't move,' he said, Tm
dying-'

'Locke wants you dead or alive,' Cherrick
said. Their

fear of
Locke, which went unspoken, was perhaps one

of the
two things they had in common; that and greed.

'I feel awful,' Stumpf said.

'If I don't bring you, he'll only come  himself,'

Cherrick
pointed out. This was indisputable. Stumpf

threw
the other man a despairing glance, then nodded

his
jowly head. 'All right,' he said, 'help me.'

Cherrick had no wish to lay a hand on  Stumpf.

The  man
stank of his sickness; he seemed to be

oozing
the  contents of his gut  through
his pores;

his
skin had the lustre of rank meat. He
took the

outstretched
hand nevertheless. Without aid, Stumpf

127

would
never make  the hundred yards from jeep
to

compound.

Ahead, Locke was shouting.

'Get moving,' said Cherrick, hauling Stumpf
down

from
the front seat and towards the bawling voice. 'Let's

get it
over and done with.'

When
the two men returned into the circle of huts

the
scene had scarcely changed. Locke glanced around

at
Stumpf.

'We got trespassers,' he said.

'So I see,' Stumpf returned wearily.

'Tell them to get the fuck off our land,'
Locke said.

'Tell
them this is our territory: we bought it. Without

sitting
tenants.'

Stumpf
nodded, not meeting Locke's rabid eyes.

Sometimes
he hated the man almost as much as he

hated
himself.

'Go on
. . .' Locke said, and gestured for Cherrick

to
relinquish his support of Stumpf. This
he did.

The  German
stumbled forward, head bowed. He

took  several seconds to work   out his patter, then

raised
his head and  spoke  a few
wilting words in

bad
Portuguese. The pronouncement  was met
with

the
same blank looks as Locke's performance. Stumpf

tried
again, re-arranging his inadequate vocabulary to

try and
awake a flicker of understanding amongst these

savages.

The
boy who  had been so entertained
by Locke's

cavortings
now stood staring up at this third demon,

his
face wiped of smiles. This one was nowhere near as

comical
as the first. He was sick and haggard; he smelt

of
death. The boy held his nose to keep from inhaling

the
badness off the man.

Stumpf
peered through greasy eyes at his audience.

If they
did understand, and were  faking their
blank

128

incomprehension,
it was a flawless performance. His

limited
skills defeated, he turned giddily to Locke.

They
don't understand me,' he said.

Tell them again.'

'I don't think they speak Portuguese.'

Tell them anyway.'

Cherrick cocked his rifle. 'We don't have to
talk with

them,'
he said under his breath. They're on our land.

We're
within our rights -'

'No,' said Locke. There's no need for
shooting. Not

if we
can persuade them to go peacefully.'

They don't understand plain common sense,'
Cher-

rick
said. 'Look at them. They're animals. Living in

filth.'

Stumpf had begun to try and communicate
again,

this
time accompanying his hesitant words with a pitiful

mime.

Tell them
we've got  work to  do here,' Locke

prompted
him.

'I'm trying my best,' Stumpf replied testily.

'We've got papers.'

'I don't think they'd be much impressed,'
Stumpf

returned,
with a cautious sarcasm that was lost on the

other
man.

'Just tell them to move on. Find some other
piece of

land to
squat on.'

Watching Stumpf put these sentiments into
word and

sign-language,
Locke was already running through the

alternative
options available. Either the Indians - the

Txukahamei
or the Achual or whatever damn family it

was -
accepted their demands and moved on, or else they

would
have to enforce the edict. As Cherrick had said,

they
were within their rights. They had papers from

the
development authorities; they had maps marking

the
division between one territory and the next; they

129

had
every sanction from signature to bullet. He had no

active
desire to shed blood. The world was still too full

of
bleeding heart liberals and doe-eyed sentimentalists

to
make  genocide the most convenient
solution. But

the
gun  had been used  before, and would be used

again,
until every unwashed Indian had put on a pair

of
trousers and given up eating monkeys.

Indeed, the din of liberals notwithstanding,
the gun

had its
appeal. It was swift, and absolute. Once it had

had its
short, sharp say there was no danger of further

debate;
no chance that in ten years' time some mercenary

Indian
who'd found a copy of Marx in the gutter could

come  back claiming his tribal lands - oil,
minerals and

all.
Once gone, they were gone forever.

At the thought of these scarlet-faced savages
laid low,

Locke  felt his trigger-finger itch; physically
itch. Stumpf

had
finished his encore; it had met with no response.

Now  he groaned, and turned to Locke.

Tm
going  to be sick,' he said. His
face was bright

white;
the glamour of his skin made his small teeth look

dingy.

'Be my guest,' Locke replied.

'Please. I have to lie down. I don't
want  them

watching
me.'

Locke
shook his head. 'You don't move
'til they

listen.
If we don't get any joy from them, you're going

to see
something to be sick about.' Locke toyed with

the
stock of his rifle as he spoke, running a broken

thumb-nail
along the nicks in it. There were perhaps a

dozen;
each one a human grave. The jungle concealed

murder  so easily; it almost seemed, in its cryptic
fashion,

to
condone the crime.

Stumpf turned away from Locke and scanned the

mute
assembly. There were so many Indians here, he

thought,
and though he carried a pistol he was an inept

130

marksman.
Suppose they rushed Locke, Cherrick and

himself?
He would not survive. And yet, looking at the

Indians,
he could see no sign of aggression amongst

them.
Once they had been warriors; now? Like beaten

children,
sullen and wilfully stupid. There was some

trace
of beauty in one or two of the younger women;

their
skins, though grimy, were fine, their eyes black.

Had he
felt more healthy he might have been aroused by

their
nakedness, tempted to press his hands upon their

shiny
bodies. As it was their feigned incomprehension

merely
irritated him. They seemed,  in their
silence,

like
another species, as mysterious and unfathomable

as
mules or birds. Hadn't somebody in Uxituba told

him
that many  of these people didn't even
give their

children
proper names? That each was like a limb of

the
tribe, anonymous and therefore unfixable? He could

believe
that now, meeting the same dark stare in each

pair of
eyes; could believe that what they faced here was

not
three dozen individuals but a fluid system of hatred

made
flesh. It made him shudder to think of it.

Now,
for the first time since their appearance, one

of the
assembly moved.  He  was an
ancient; fully

thirty
years older than most  of the tribe. He,  like

the
rest, was all but naked.  The  sagging flesh of

his
limbs and  breasts resembled tanned  hide; his

step,
though the pale eyes suggested blindness, was

perfectly
confident. Once  standing in front
of  the

interlopers
he opened his mouth  -  there were
no

teeth
set in his rotted gums  -  and
spoke. What

emerged
from  his scraggy throat was not a
language

made  of words, but only of sound; a pot-pourri of

jungle
noises. There  was  no
discernible pattern to

the
outpouring, it was simply a display - awesome in

its way
- of impersonations. The man could murmur

like a
jaguar, screech like a parrot; he could find in

131

his
throat the splash of rain on orchids; the howl of

monkeys.

The sounds made Stumpf s gorge rise. The jungle

had
diseased him, dehydrated him and left him wrung

out.
Now  this rheumy-eyed stick-man was
vomiting

the
whole  odious place up at him. The  raw
heat

in the
circle of huts made Stumpf s head beat, and

he  was
sure, as  he  stood
listening to the  sage's

din,
that the old man  was  measuring the rhythm

of his
nonsense  to the  thud
at his temples and

wrists.

'What's he saying?' Locke demanded.

'What does it sound like?' Stumpf replied,
irritated by

Locke's  idiot questions. 'It's all noises.'

'The fucker's cursing us,' Cherrick said.

Stumpf looked round at the third man.
Cherrick's

eyes
were starting from his head.

'It's a curse,' he said to Stumpf.

Locke laughed, unmoved  by Cherrick's apprehen-

sion.
He pushed Stumpf out of the way so as to face

the old
man, whose song-speech had now lowered in

pitch;
it was almost lilting. He was singing twilight,

Stumpf  thought: that brief ambiguity between the

fierce
day and  the suffocating night. Yes, that
was

it.
He  could hear in  the song
the purr and  the

coo of
a drowsy  kingdom. It was so persuasive
he

wanted
to lie down on the spot where he stood, and

sleep.

Locke
broke the spell. 'What are you saying?' he spat

in the
tribesman's rnazy face. 'Talk sense!'

But the night-noises only whispered on, an
unbroken

stream.

'This is our village,' another voice now
broke in; the

man  spoke as if translating the elder's words.
Locke

snapped
round  to locate the speaker. He was a
thin

132

youth,
whose skin might once have been golden. 'Our

village.
Our land.'

'You speak English,' Locke said.

'Some,' the youth replied.

'Why
didn't you  answer  me
earlier?' Locke

demanded,  his fury exacerbated by the disinterest on
the

Indian's
face.

'Not my place to speak,' the man replied. 'He
is the

elder.'

'The Chief, you mean?'

'The Chief is dead. All his family is dead.
This is the

wisest
of us -'

'Then you tell him -'

'No need to tell,' the young man broke in.
'He under-

stands
you.'

'He speaks English too?'

'No,' the other replied, 'but he understands
you. You

are ...
transparent.'

Locke half-grasped that the youth was
implying an

insult
here, but wasn't quite certain. He gave Stumpf

a
puzzled look. The German shook his head. Locke

returned
his attention to the youth. 'Tell him anyway,'

he
said, 'tell all of them. This is our land. We bought

it.'

'The tribe has always lived here,' the reply
came.

'Not any longer,' Cherrick said.

'We've got papers -' Stumpf said mildly, still
hoping

that
the confrontation might end peacefully,'- from the

government.'

'We were here before the government,' the
tribesman

replied.

The old man had stopped talking the forest.
Perhaps,

Stumpf  thought, he's coming to the beginning of

another
day, and stopped. He was turning away now,

indifferent
to the presence of these unwelcome guests.

133

'Call him back,' Locke demanded, stabbing his
rifle

towards
the young tribesman. The gesture was unam-

biguous.
'Make him tell the rest of them they've got to

go-'

The young man seemed unimpressed by the
threat

of
Locke's rifle, however, and clearly unwilling to give

orders
to his elder, whatever the imperative. He simply

watched
the old man walk back towards the hut from

which
he had emerged. Around the compound, others

were
also turning away. The  old man's
withdrawal

apparently
signalled that the show was over.

'No\' said Cherrick, 'you're not listening.'
The colour

in his
cheeks had risen a tone; his voice, an octave. He

pushed
forward, rifle raised. 'You fucking scum!'

Despite
his  hysteria, he  was
rapidly  losing his

audience.
The old man had reached the doorway of

his
hut, and now bent his back and disappeared into

its
recesses; the few members of the tribe who were still

showing
some interest in proceedings were viewing the

Europeans  with a hint of pity for their lunacy. It only

enraged
Cherrick further.

'Listen to me!' he shrieked, sweat flicking
off his brow

as he
jerked his head at one retreating figure and then at

another.
'Listen, you bastards.'

'Easy . . .' said Stumpf.

The
appeal triggered Cherrick. Without warning he

raised
his rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the open door of

the hut
into which the old man had vanished and fired.

Birds
rose from the crowns of adjacent trees; dogs took

to
their heels. From within the hut came a tiny shriek,

not
like the old man's voice at all. As it sounded, Stumpf

fell to
his knees, hugging his belly, his gut in spasm.

Face to
the ground, he did not see the diminutive figure

emerge
from the hut and totter into the sunlight. Even

when  he did look up, and saw how the child with
the

134

scarlet
face clutched his belly, he hoped his eyes lied.

But
they did not. It was blood that came from between

the
child's tiny fingers, and death that had stricken his

face.
He fell forward on to the impacted earth of the

hut's
threshold, twitched, and died.

Somewhere amongst the huts a woman began to
sob

quietly.
For a moment the world spun on a pin-head,

balanced
exquisitely between silence and the cry that

must
break it, between a truce held and the coming

atrocity.

'You stupid bastard,' Locke murmured to
Cherrick.

Under
his condemnation, his voice trembled. 'Back off,'

he
said. 'Get up, Stumpf. We're not waiting. Get up and

come
now, or don't come at all.'

Stumpf
was still looking at the body of the child.

Suppressing
his moans, he got to his feet.

'Help me,' he said. Locke lent him an arm.
'Cover us,'

he said
to Cherrick.

The man
nodded, deathly-pale. Some of the tribe

had
turned their gaze on the Europeans' retreat, their

expressions,
despite this tragedy, as inscrutable as ever.

Only
the sobbing woman, presumably the dead child's

mother,
wove  between the silent figures, keening
her

grief.

Cherrick's rifle shook as he kept the
bridgehead.

He'd
done the mathematics; if it came to a head-on

collision
they had little chance of survival. But even

now,
with the enemy making  a getaway, there
was

no sign
of movement amongst the Indians. Just the

accusing
facts: the dead boy; the warm rifle. Cherrick

chanced
a look over his shoulder. Locke and Stumpf

were
already within twenty yards of the jeep, and there

was
still no move from the savages.

Then, as he looked back towards the compound,

it
seemed as though the tribe breathed together one

135

solid
breath, and  hearing that sound  Cherrick
felt

death
wedge  itself like a fish-bone in his
throat, too

deep to
be plucked  out by his fingers, too big
to be

shat.
It was just waiting there, lodged in his anatomy,

beyond
argument  or appeal. He was distracted
from

its
presence by a movement at the door of the hut.

Quite
ready to make the same mistake again, he took

firmer
hold of his rifle. The old man had re-appeared

at the
door. He stepped over the corpse of the boy,

which
was lying where it had toppled. Again, Cherrick

glanced
behind  him. Surely they were  at the jeep?

But
Stumpf  had stumbled; Locke was even now

dragging  him  to
his feet. Cherrick, seeing  the old

man  advancing towards him, took one cautious step

backwards,
followed by another. But the old man was

fearless.
He walked swiftly across the compound coming

to
stand so close to Cherrick, his body as vulnerable as

ever,
that the barrel of the rifle prodded his shrunken

belly.

There
was blood on both his hands, fresh enough

to run
down the man's arms when he displayed the

palms
for Cherrick's benefit. Had he touched the boy,

Cherrick
wondered, as he stepped out of the hut? If so,

it had
been an astonishing sleight-of-hand, for Cherrick

had
seen nothing. Trick or no trick, the significance of

the
display was perfectly apparent: he was being accused

of
murder. Cherrick wasn't about to be cowed, however.

He
stared back at the old man, matching defiance with

defiance.

But
the old bastard did nothing, except show his

bloody
palms, his eyes full of tears. Cherrick could feel

his
anger growing again. He poked the man's flesh with

his
finger.

'You don't frighten me,' he said, 'you
understand?

I'm not
a fool.'

136

As he spoke he seemed  to see a shifting in the old

man's
features. It was a trick of the sun, of course, or

of
bird-shadow, but there was, beneath the corruption

of age,
a hint of the child now dead at the hut door: the

tiny
mouth even seemed to smile. Then, as subtly as it

had
appeared, the illusion faded again.

Cherrick withdrew his hand from the old man's
chest,

narrowing
his eyes against further mirages. He then

renewed  his retreat. He had taken three steps only

when  something broke cover to his left. He swung

round,  raised his rifle and fired. A piebald pig,
one

of
several that had been grazing around the huts, was

checked  in its flight by the bullet, which struck it
in

the
neck. It seemed  to trip over itself, and
collapsed

headlong
in the dust.

Cherrick swung his rifle back towards the old
man.

But he
hadn't moved, except to open his mouth. His

palate
was making  the sound  of the dying pig. A

choking
squeal, pitiful and ridiculous, which followed

Cherrick
back up the path to the jeep. Locke had the

engine
running. 'Get in,' he said. Cherrick needed no

encouragement,
but flung himself into the front seat.

The
interior of the vehicle was filthy hot, and stank of

Stumpf
s bodily functions, but it was as near safety as

they'd
been in the last hour.

'It was a pig,' he said, 'I shot a pig.'

'I saw,' said Locke.

That
old bastard

He didn't finish. He was looking down at the
two

fingers
with which he had prodded the elder. 'I touched

him,'
he muttered, perplexed by what he saw. The

fingertips
were bloody, though the flesh he had laid

his
fingers upon had been clean.

Locke ignored Cherrick's confusion and backed
the

jeep up
to turn it around, then drove away from the

137

hamlet,
down a track that seemed to have become

choked
with foliage in the hour since they'd come up

it.
There was no discernible pursuit.

The
tiny trading post to the south of Averio was scant

of
civilisation, but it sufficed. There were white faces

here,
and clean water. Stumpf, whose condition had

deteriorated
on the  return journey, was  treated by

Dancy,
an Englishman who  had the manner of a

disenfranchised
earl and a face like hammered steak.

He  claimed to have been a doctor once upon a
sober

time,
and though he had no evidence of his qualifications

nobody  contested his right to deal with Stumpf. The

German  was
delirious, and on occasion violent, but

Dancy,
his small hands heavy with gold rings, seemed to

take a
positive delight in nursing his thrashing patient.

While Stumpf raved beneath his mosquito net,
Locke

and
Cherrick sat in the lamp-lit gloom and drank, then

told
the story of their encounter with the tribe. It was

Tetelman,
the owner of the trading post's stores, who

had
most to say when the report was finished. He knew

the
Indians well.

'I've been here years,' he said, feeding
nuts to the

mangy  monkey that scampered on his lap. 'I know

the way
these people think. They may act as though

they're
stupid; cowards even. Take it from me, they're

neither.'

Cherrick grunted. The quicksilver monkey
fixed him

with
vacant eyes. 'They didn't make a move on us,'

Cherrick
said, 'even though they outnumbered us ten

to one.
If that isn't cowardice, what is it?'

Tetelman
settled back in his creaking chair, throwing

the
animal off his lap. His face was raddled and used.

Only  his lips, constantly rewetted from his glass,
had

any
colour; he looked, thought Locke, like an old whore.

138

'Thirty
years ago,' Tetelman said, 'this whole territory

was
their homeland. Nobody wanted it; they went where

they
liked, did what they liked. As far as we whites were

concerned
the jungle was filthy and disease-infected: we

wanted
no part of it. And, of course, in some ways we

were
right. It is filthy and disease-infected; but it's also

got
reserves we now want badly: minerals, oil maybe:

power.'

'We paid for that land,' said Locke, his
fingers jittery

on the
cracked rim of his glass. 'It's all we've got now.'

Tetelman sneered. 'Paid?' he said. The monkey
chat-

tered
at his feet, apparently as amused by this claim as its

master.
'No. You just paid for a blind eye, so you could

take it
by force. You paid for the right to fuck up the

Indians
in any way you could. That's what your dollars

bought,
Mr Locke. The government of this country

is
counting off the months until every tribe on the

sub-continent
is wiped out by you  or your like. It's

no use
to play the outraged innocents. I've been here

too
long ...

Cherrick spat on to the bare floor.
Tetelman's speech

had
heated his blood.

'And so why'd you come here, if you're so
fucking

clever?'
he asked the trader.

'Same
reason as you,' Tetelman  replied
plainly,

staring
off into the trees beyond  the  plot of land

behind
the store. Their silhouettes shook against the

sky;
wind, or night-birds.

'What
reason's that?' Cherrick said, barely keeping

his
hostility in check.

'Greed,' Tetelman replied mildly, still
watching the

trees.
Something scampered across the low wooden roof.

The
monkey  at Tetelman's feet listened, head
cocked.

'I
thought I could make my fortune out here, the same

way you
do. I gave myself two years. Three at the most.

139

That
was the best part of two decades ago.' He frowned;

whatever
thoughts passed behind his eyes, they were

bitter.
'The jungle eats you up and spits you out, sooner

or
later.'

'Not me,' said Locke.

Tetelman turned his eyes on the man. They
were wet.

'Oh  yes,' he
said politely. 'Extinction's in the air,

Mr  Locke. I can smell it.' Then he turned back
to

looking
at the window.

Whatever was on the roof now had companions.

'They won't come  here, will they?' said Cherrick.

'They
won't follow us?'

The
question, spoken almost in a whisper, begged

for a
reply in the negative. Try as he might Cherrick

couldn't
dislodge the sights of the previous day. It wasn't

the
boy's corpse that so haunted him; that he could soon

learn
to forget. But the elder - with his shifting, sunlit

face -
and the palms raised as if to display some stigmata,

he was
not so forgettable.

'Don't fret,' Tetelman said, with a trace of
conde-

scension.
'Sometimes one or two of them will drift in

here
with a parrot to sell, or a few pots, but I've never

seen
them come here in any numbers. They don't like

it.
This is civilisation as far as they're concerned, and

it
intimidates them. Besides, they wouldn't harm my

guests.
They need me.'

'Need you?' said Locke; who could need this
wreck

of a
man?

'They use our medicines. Dancy supplies them.
And

blankets,
once in a while. As  I said, they're not
so

stupid.'

Next door, Stumpf had begun to howl. Dancy's
con-

soling
voice could be heard, attempting to talk down the

panic.
He was  plainly failing.

'Your friend's gone bad,' said Tetelman.

140

'No friend,' Cherrick replied.

'It rots,' Tetelman murmured, half to
himself.

'What does?'

The
soul.' The word was utterly out of place from

Tetelman's
whisky-glossed lips. 'It's like fruit, you see.

It
rots.'

Somehow
Stumpf s cries gave force to the observation.

It was
not the voice of a wholesome creature; there was

putrescence
in it.

More to direct his attention away from the
German's

din
than out of any real interest, Cherrick said: 'What

do they
give you for the medicine and the blankets?

Women?'

The
possibility clearly entertained Tetelman;  he

laughed,
his gold  teeth gleaming.  'I've no use for

women,'
he said. 'I've had the syph for too many years.'

He
clicked his fingers and the monkey clambered back

up on
to his lap. 'The soul,' he said, 'isn't the only thing

that
rots.'

'Well, what do you get from them then?' Locke
said.

'For
your supplies?'

'Artifacts,' Tetelman replied. 'Bowls, jugs,
mats. The

Americans
buy them off me, and sell them again in

Manhattan.
Everybody wants something made by an

extinct
tribe these days. Memento mori.'

'Extinct?' said Locke. The word had a
seductive ring;

it
sounded like life to him.

'Oh certainly,' said Tetelman. 'They're as
good as

gone.
If you  don't  wipe
them  out, they'll do it

themselves.'

'Suicide?' Locke said.

'In their fashion. They just lose heart. I've
seen it

happen
half a dozen times. A tribe loses its land, and

its
appetite for life goes with it. They stop taking care

of
themselves. The women don't get pregnant any more;

141

the
young men  take to drink, the old men
just starve

themselves
to death. In a year or two it's like they never

existed.'

Locke
swallowed the rest of his drink, silently saluting

the
fatal wisdom of these people. They knew when to

die,
which was more than could be said for some he'd

met.
The thought of their death-wish absolved him of

any
last vestiges of guilt. What was the gun in his hand,

except
an instrument of evolution?

On the
fourth day after their arrival at the post, Stumpf s

fever
abated, much to Dancy's disappointment. The

worst
of it's over,' he announced. 'Give him two more

days'
rest and you can get back to your labours.'

'What are your plans?' Tetelrnan wanted to
know.

Locke
was watching the rain from the verandah.

Sheets
of water  pouring from  clouds so low
they

brushed  the tree-tops. Then, just as suddenly as it

had
arrived, the downpour was gone, as though a tap

had
been turned off. Sun broke through; the jungle,

new-washed,
was steaming and sprouting and thriving

again.

'I don't know what we'll do,' said Locke.
'Maybe get

ourselves
some help and go back in there.'

'There are ways,' Tetelman said.

Cherrick, sitting beside the door to get the
benefit

of what
little breeze was available, picked up the glass

that
had scarcely been out of his hand in recent days,

and
filled it up again. 'No more guns,' he said. He

hadn't  touched
his rifle since they'd arrived at the

post;
in fact he kept from contact with anything but

a
bottle and his bed. His skin seemed to crawl and

creep
perpetually.

'No
need for guns,' Tetelman murmured. The

statement
hung on the air like an unfulfilled promise.

142

'Get rid of them without guns?' said Locke.
'If you

mean
waiting for them to die out naturally, I'm not that

patient.'

'No,' said Tetelman, 'we can be swifter than
that.'

'How?'

Tetelman gave the man a lazy look. 'They're
my

livelihood,'
he said, 'or part of it. You're asking me to

help
you make myself bankrupt.'

He not only looks like an old whore, Locke
thought,

he
thinks like one. 'What's it worth? Your wisdom?' he

asked.

'A cut of whatever you find on your land,'
Tetelman

replied.

Locke nodded. 'What have we got to lose?
Cherrick?

You  agree to cut him in?' Cherrick's consent was
a

shrug.
'All right,' Locke said, 'talk.'

'They need medicines,' Tetelman explained,
'because

they're
so susceptible to our diseases. A decent plague

can
wipe them out practically overnight.'

Locke thought about this, not looking at
Tetelman.

'One
fell swoop,' Tetelman continued. 'They've got

practically
no defences against certain bacteria. Never

had to
build up any resistance. The clap. Smallpox.

Even
measles.'

'How?' said Locke.

Another silence. Down the steps of the
verandah,

where  civilization finished, the jungle was
swelling to

meet
the sun. In the liquid heat plants blossomed and

rotted
and blossomed again.

'I asked how,' Locke said.

'Blankets,' Tetelman replied, 'dead men's
blankets.'

A  little before the dawn of the night after
Stumpf s

recovery,
Cherrick woke  suddenly, startled from
his

rest by
bad dreams. Outside it was pitch-dark; neither

143

moon  nor stars relieved the depth of the night.
But his

body-clock,
which his life as a mercenary had trained to

impressive
accuracy, told him that first light was not far

off,
and he had no wish to lay his head down again and

sleep.
Not with the old man waiting to be dreamt. It

wasn't
just the raised palms, the blood glistening, that

so
distressed Cherrick. It was the words he'd dreamt

coming
from the old man's toothless mouth which had

brought
on the cold sweat that now encased his body.

What
were  the words?  He
couldn't recall them

now,
but wanted  to; wanted the sentiments
dragged

into
wakefulness, where they could  be
dissected and

dismissed
as ridiculous. They wouldn't come though.

He lay
on his wretched cot, the dark wrapping him up

too
tightly for him to move, and suddenly the bloody

hands
were there, in front of him, suspended in the

pitch.
There was no  face, no sky, no tribe. Just
the

hands.

'Dreaming,' Cherrick told himself, but he
knew

better.

And
now, the voice. He was getting his wish; here

were
the words he had dreamt spoken. Few of them

made  sense. Cherrick lay like a newborn baby,
listening

to its
parents talk but unable to make any significance

of
their exchanges. He was ignorant, wasn't he? He

tasted  the
sourness  of  his stupidity
for the  first

time
since childhood. The voice made him fearful of

ambiguities
he had ridden roughshod over, of whispers

his
shouting life had rendered inaudible. He fumbled

for
comprehension, and was not entirely frustrated. The

man  was speaking of the world, and of exile from
the

world;
of being broken always by what one seeks to

possess.
Cherrick struggled, wishing he could stop the

voice
and ask for explanation. But it was already fading,

ushered
away by the wild address of parrots in the trees,

144

raucous
and gaudy voices erupting suddenly on every

side.
Through the mesh of Cherrick's mosquito net he

could
see the sky flaring through the branches.

He sat up. Hands and  voice had gone; and with

them
all but an irritating murmur of what he had

almost
understood. He had thrown off in sleep his single

sheet;
now he looked down at his body with distaste. His

back
and buttocks, and the underside of his thighs, felt

sore.
Too much sweating on coarse sheets, he thought.

Not for
the first time in recent days he remembered a

small
house in Bristol which he had once known as home.

The
noise of birds was filling his head. He hauled

himself
to the edge of the bed and pulled back the

mosquito
net. The crude weave  of the net seemed

to
scour the palm of his hand as he gripped it. He

disengaged
his hold, and  cursed to himself. There

was
again  today an  itch of tenderness  in his skin

that
he'd suffered since coming  to the post.
Even

the
soles of his feet, pressed on to the floor by the

weight
of his body, seemed to suffer each knot and

splinter.
He wanted to be away from this place, and

badly.

\ warm
trickle across his wrist caught his attention,

and he
was  startled to see a rivulet of blood
moving

down
his arm from his hand. There was a cut in the

cushion
of his thumb, where the mosquito net had

apparently
nicked his flesh. It was bleeding, though

not
copiously. He sucked at the cut, feeling again that

peculiar
sensitivity to touch that only drink, and that

in
abundance, dulled. Spitting out blood, he began to

dress.

The clothes he put on were a scourge to his
back.

His
sweat-stiffened shirt rubbed against his shoulders

and
neck; he seemed to feel every thread chafing his

145

nerve-endings.
The shirt might have been  sackcloth,

the way
it abraded him.

Next door, he heard Locke moving around.
Gingerly

finishing
his dressing, Cherrick went through to join

him.
Locke was sitting at the table by the window. He

was
poring over a map of Tetelman's, and drinking a

cup of
the bitter coffee Dancy was so fond of brewing,

which
he drank with a dollop of condensed milk. The

two men
had little to say to each other. Since the incident

in the
village all pretence to respect or friendship had

disappeared.
Locke now showed undisguised contempt

for his
sometime companion. The only fact that kept

them
together was the contract they and Stumpf had

signed.
Rather than breakfast on whisky, which he knew

Locke
would take as a further sign of his decay, Cherrick

poured
himself a slug of Dancy's emetic and went out to

look at
the morning.

He
felt strange. There was something about this

dawning
day which made him profoundly uneasy. He

knew  the dangers of courting unfounded fears, and
he

tried
to forbid them, but they were incontestable.

Was  it
simply exhaustion that made him so painfully

conscious
of his many discomforts this morning? Why

else
did he feel the pressure of his stinking clothes so

acutely?
The  rasp of his boot collar against the
jutting

bone of
his ankle, the rhythmical chafing of his trousers

against
his inside leg as he walked, even the grazing air

that
eddied around his exposed face and arms. The world

was
pressing on him - at least that was the sensation -

pressing
as though it wanted him out.

A large dragonfly, whining towards him on
iridescent

wings,
collided with his arm. The pain of the collision

caused
him to drop his mug. It didn't break, but rolled

off the
verandah and  was lost in the
undergrowth.

Angered,  Cherrick slapped the  insect off, leaving a

146

smear
of blood on his tattooed forearm to mark the

dragonfly's
demise. He wiped it off. It welled up again

on the
same spot, full and dark.

It wasn't the blood of the insect, he
realised, but his

own.
The dragonfly had cut him somehow, though he

had
felt nothing. Irritated, he peered more closely at his

punctured
skin. The wound was not significant, but it

was
painful.

From
inside he  could hear  Locke
talking. He

was
loudly  describing the inadequacy of his
fellow

adventures
to Tetelman.

'Stumpf s not fit for this kind of work,' he
was saying.

'And
Cherrick -'

'What about me?'

Cherrick stepped into the shabby interior,
wiping a

new
flow of blood from his arm.

Locke
didn't even bother  to look  up at
him.

'You're
paranoid,'  he  said plainly. 'Paranoid  and

unreliable.'

Cherrick was in no mood  for taking Locke's foul-

mouthing.
'Just because I killed some Indian brat,' he

said.
The more he brushed blood from his bitten arm,

the
more the place stung. 'You just didn't have the balls

to do
it yourself.'

Locke
still didn't bother to  look up   from
his

perusal
of the map.  Cherrick moved  across to the

table.

'Are you listening to me?' he demanded, and
added

force
to his question by slamming his fist down on

to the
table. On impact his hand simply burst open.

Blood
spurted  out in every direction,
spattering the

map.

Cherrick howled, and reeled backwards from
the

table
with blood  pouring from  a yawning
split in

the
side of his hand. The bone showed. Through

147

the
din  of pain in his head  he
could hear  a quiet

voice.
The words were inaudible, but he knew whose

they
were.

'I won't hear!' he said, shaking his head
like a dog with

a flea
in its ear. He staggered back against the wall, but

the
briefest of contacts was another agony. 7 won't hear,

damn
you!'

'What
the  hell's he talking about?'
Dancy  had

appeared  in the doorway, woken  by  the
cries, still

clutching
the Complete Works of Shelley Tetelman had

said he
could not sleep without.

Locke re-addressed the question to Cherrick,
who was

standing,
wild-eyed, in the corner of the room, blood

spitting
from between his fingers as he attempted to

staunch
his wounded hand. 'What are you saying?'

'He spoke to me,' Cherrick replied. 'The old
man.'

'What old man?' Tetelman asked.

'He
means  at the village,' Locke
said. Then, to

Cherrick,
'Is that what you mean?'

'He
wants us out. Exiles. Like them. Like them!'

Cherrick's
panic  was rapidly rising out of  anyone's

control,
least of all his own.

'The
man's got heat-stroke,' Dancy said, ever the

diagnostician.
Locke knew better.

'Your hand
needs bandaging . . .' he said, slowly

approaching
Cherrick.

'I heard him . . .' Cherrick muttered.

'I believe you. Just slow  down.
We  can  sort it

out.'

'No,' the other man  replied. 'It's pushing us out.

Everything
we touch. Everything we touch.'

He looked as though he was about to topple
over, and

Locke
reached for him. As his hands made contact with

Cherrick's
shoulders the flesh beneath  the shirt
split,

and
Locke's hands were instantly soaked in scarlet. He

148

withdrew
them,  appalled. Cherrick fell to his
knees,

which
in their turn became new wounds. He stared down

as his
shirt and trousers darkened. 'What's happening to

me?' he
wept.

Dancy moved towards him. 'Let me help.'

'No!
Don't touch me!' Cherrick pleaded, but Dancy

wasn't
to be denied his nursing.

'It's all right,' he said in his best bedside
manner.

It wasn't. Dancy's grip, intended only to
lift the man

from
his bleeding knees, opened new cuts wherever he

took hold.
Dancy felt the blood sprout beneath his hand,

felt
the flesh slip away from the bone. The sensation

bested
even his taste for agony. Like Locke, he forsook

the
lost man.

'He's rotting,' he murmured.

Cherrick's body had split now in a dozen or
more

places.
He tried to stand, half staggering to his feet only

to
collapse again, his flesh breaking open whenever he

touched
wall or chair or floor. There was no help for

him.
All the others could do was stand around like

spectators
at an execution, awaiting the final throes.

Even
Stumpf had roused himself from his bed and come

through
to see what all the shouting was about. He stood

leaning
against the door-lintel, his disease-thinned face

all
disbelief.

Another minute, and  blood-loss defeated Cherrick.

He
keeled over and sprawled, face down, across the

floor.
Dancy crossed back to him and crouched on his

haunches
beside his head.

'Is he dead?' Locke asked.

'Almost,' Dancy replied.

'Rotted,' said Tetelman, as though the word
explained

the
atrocity they had just witnessed. He had a crucifix in

his
hand, large and crudely carved. It looked like Indian

handiwork,
Locke thought. The Messiah impaled on the

149

tree
was sloe-eyed and indecently naked. He smiled,

despite
nail and thorn.

Dancy
touched Cherrick's body, letting the blood

come
with his touch, and turned the man over, then

leaned
in towards Cherrick's jittering face. The dying

man's
lips were moving, oh so slightly.

'What are you saying?' Dancy asked; he leaned
closer

still
to catch the man's words. Cherrick's mouth trailed

bloody
spittle, but no sound came.

Locke
stepped in, pushing Dancy aside. Flies were

already
flitting around Cherrick's face. Locke thrust his

bull-necked
head into Cherrick's view. 'You hear me?'

he
said.

The body grunted.

'You know me?'

Again, a grunt.

'You want to give me your share of the land?'

The grunt was lighter this time; almost a
sigh.

There's witnesses  here,' Locke said. 'Just say yes.

They'll
hear you. Just say yes.'

The
body was trying its best. It opened its mourh a

little
wider.

'Dancy -' said Locke. 'You hear what he
said?'

Dancy
could not  disguise his horror at
Locke's

insistence,
but he nodded.

'You're a witness.'

'If you must,' said the Englishman.

Deep
in his body Cherrick felt the fish-bone he'd first

choked
on in the village twist itself about one final time,

and
extinguish him.

'Did he say yes, Dancy?' Tetelman asked.

Dancy
felt the physical proximity of the brute kneeling

beside
him. He didn't know what the dead man had

said,
but what did it matter? Locke would have the

land
anyway, wouldn't he?

150

'He said yes.'

Locke stood up, and went in search of a fresh
cup of

coffee.

Without thinking, Dancy put his fingers on
Cherrick's

lids to
seal his empty gaze. Under that lightest of touches

the
lids broke open and blood tainted the tears that had

swelled
where Cherrick's sight had been.

They had buried him towards evening. The
corpse,

though
it had lain through the noon-heat in the coolest

part of
the store, amongst the dried goods, had begun

to
putrefy by the time it was sewn up in canvas for

the
burial. The night following, Stumpf had come to

Locke
and  offered him  the last third of the territory

to add
to Cherrick's share, and Locke, ever the realist,

had
accepted. The terms, which were punitive, had been

worked
out the next day. In the evening of that day, as

Stumpf
had hoped, the supply plane came in. Locke,

bored
with Tetelman's contemptuous looks, had also

elected
to fly back to Santarem, there to drink the jungle

out of
his system for a few days, and return refreshed. He

intended
to buy up fresh supplies, and, if possible, hire a

reliable
driver and gunman.

The flight was noisy, cramped and tedious;
the two

men
exchanged no words for its full duration. Stumpf

just
kept his eyes on the tracts of unfelled wilderness they

passed
over, though from one hour to the next the scene

scarcely
changed. A panorama of sable green, broken

on
occasion by a glint of water; perhaps a column of

blue
smoke rising here and there, where land was being

cleared;
little else.

At Santarem they parted with  a single handshake

which
left every nerve in Stumpf s hand scourged, and

an open
cut in the tender flesh between index finger and

thumb.

151

Santarem
wasn't Rio, Locke mused as he made his way

down to
a bar at the south end of the town, run by a

veteran
of Vietnam who had  a taste for ad hoc
animal

shows.
It was one of Locke's few certain pleasures, and

one he
never tired of, to watch a local woman, face dead

as a
cold manioc cake, submit to a dog or a donkey fora

few
grubby dollar bills. The women of Santarem were,

on the
whole, as unpalatable as the beer, but Locke had

no eye
for beauty in the opposite sex: it mattered only

that
their bodies be in reasonable working order, and

not
diseased. He found the bar, and settled down for

an
evening exchanging dirt with the American. When

he
tired of that - some time after midnight - he bought

a
bottle of whisky and went out looking for a face to

press
his heat upon.

The
woman  with the squint was about to
accede to a

particular
peccadillo of Locke's - one which she had

resolutely
refused until drunkenness persuaded ner to

abandon
what little hope of dignity she had - when there

came a
rap on the door.

'Fuck,' said Locke.

'Si,' said the woman. 'Fook. Fook.' It seemed
to be

the
only word she knew in anything resembling English.

Locke
ignored her and crawled drunkenly to the edge of

the
stained mattress. Again, the rap on the door.

'Who is it?' he said.

'Senhor Locke?' The voice from the hallway
was that

of a
young boy.

'Yes?' said Locke. His trousers had become
lost in the

tangle
of sheets. 'Yes? What do you want?'

'Mensagem,' the boy said. 'Urgente. Urgente.'

'For me?' He had found his trousers, and was
pulling

them  on. The woman,  not at all disgruntled by this

desertion,
watched him from  the head of the bed,

152

toying
with an empty  bottle. Buttoning up,
Locke

crossed
from bed to door, a matter of three steps. He

unlocked
it. The boy in the darkened hallway was of

Indian
extraction to judge by the blackness of his eyes,

and
that peculiar lustre his skin owned. He was dressed

in a
T-shirt bearing the Coca-Cola motif.

'Mensagem, Senhor Locke,' he said again, '. .
. do

hospital.'

The boy was staring past Locke at the woman
on the

bed. He
grinned from ear to ear at her cavortings.

'Hospital?' said Locke.

''Sim. Hospital Sacrado Coraqa de
Maria .'

It could only be Stumpf, Locke thought. Who
else did

he know
in this corner of Hell who'd call upon him?

Nobody.
He looked down at the leering child.

'Vem comigo,' the boy said, 'vem comigo.
Urgente.'

'No,' said Locke. 'I'm not coming. Not now.
You

understand?
Later. Later.'

The boy shrugged. '. . . Ta morrendo,' he
said.

'Dying?' said Locke.

'Sim. Ta morrendo.'

'Well, let him. Understand me? You go back,
and tell

him, I
won't come until I'm ready.'

Again, the boy shrugged. 'E meu dinheiro? he
said, as

Locke
went to close the door.

'You go to Hell,' Locke replied, and slammed
it in the

child's
face.

When, two hours and one ungainly act of
passionless

sex
later, Locke unlocked the door, he discovered that

the
child, by way of revenge, had defecated on
the

threshold.

The
hospital 'Sacrado Coraqa de Maria' was no place to

fall
ill; better, thought Locke, as he made his way down

the
dingy corridors, to die in your own bed with your

153

own
sweat for company than come here. The stench of

disinfectant
could not entirely mask the odour of human

pain.
The walls were ingrained with it; it formed a grease

on the
lamps, it slickened the unwashed floors. What

had
happened to Stumpf to bring him here? a bar-room

brawl,
an argument with a pimp about the price of a

woman?
The German was just damn fool enough to get

himself
stuck in the gut over something so petty. 'Senhor

Stumpf?'
he asked of a woman in white he accosted in the

corridor.
'I'm looking for Senhor Stumpf.'

The woman
shook her head, and pointed towards a

harried-looking
man further down the corridor, who

was
taking a moment  to light a small cigar.
He let

go the
nurse's arm and approached the fellow. He was

enveloped
in a stinking cloud of smoke.

'I'm looking for Senhor Stumpf,' he said.

The
man peered at him quizzically.

'You are Locke?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Ah.' He drew on the cigar. The pungency of
the

expelled
smoke would surely have brought on a relapse

in the
hardiest patient. Tm Doctor Edson
Costa,' the

man  said, offering his clammy hand to Locke.
'Your

friend
has been waiting for you to come all night.'

'What's wrong with him?'

'He's hurt his eye,' Edson Costa replied,
clearly indif-

ferent
to Stumpf s condition. 'And he has some minor

abrasions
on his hands and face. But he won't have

anyone
go near him. He doctored himself.'

'Why?' Locke asked.

The doctor looked flummoxed. 'He pays to go
in a

clean
room. Pays plenty. So I put him in. You want to

see
him? Maybe take him away?'

'Maybe,' said Locke, unenthusiastically.

'His head . . .' said the doctor. 'He has
delusions.'

154

Without offering further explanation, the man
led off

at a
considerable rate, trailing tobacco-smoke as he went.

The
route, that wound out of the main building and

across
a small internal courtyard, ended at a room with

a glass
partition in the door.

'Here,' said the doctor. 'Your friend. You
tell him,'

he said
as a parting snipe, 'he pay more, or tomorrow he

leaves.'

Locke peered through the glass partition. The
grubby-

white
room was empty, but for a bed and a small table,

lit by
the same dingy light that cursed every wretched

inch of
this establishment. Stumpf was not on the bed,

but
squatting on the floor in the corner of the room.

His
left eye was covered with a bulbous padding, held

in
place by a bandage ineptly wrapped around his head.

Locke was looking at the man for a good time
before

Stumpf
sensed that he was watched. He looked up

slowly.
His good eye, as if in compensation for the

loss of
its companion, seemed to have swelled to twice

its
natural size. It held enough fear for both it and its

twin;
indeed enough for a dozen eyes.

Cautiously, like a man whose bones are so
brittle he

fears
an injudicious breath will shatter them, Stumpf

edged
up  the wall, and  crossed to the  door. He

did not
open it, but addressed Locke  through the

glass.

'Why didn't you come?' he said.

Tm
here.'

'But sooner,' said Stumpf. His face was raw,
as if he'd

been
beaten. 'Sooner.'

'I had business,' Locke returned. 'What
happened to

you?'

'It's true, Locke,' the German said,
'everything is

true.'

'What are you talking about?'

155

'Tetelman told me. Cherrick's babblings.
About being

exiles.
It's true. They mean to drive us out.'

'We're not in the jungle now,' Locke said.
'You've got

nothing
to be afraid of here.'

'Oh yes,' said Stumpf, that wide eye wider
than ever.

'Oh
yes! I saw him -'

'Who?'

'The elder. From the village. He was here.'

'Ridiculous.'

'He was here, damn you,' Stumpf replied. 'He
was

standing
where you're standing. Looking at me through

the
glass.'

'You've been drinking too much.'

'It happened to Cherrick, and now it's
happening to

me.
They're making it impossible to live -'

Locke
snorted. Tm  not having any
problem,' he

said.

'They won't let you escape,' Stumpf said.
'None of

us'll
escape. Not unless we make amends.'

'You've got to vacate the room,' Locke said,
unwilling

to
countenance any more  of this drivel.
'I've been told

you've
got to get out by morning.'

'No,' said Stumpf. 'I can't leave. I can't
leave.'

'There's nothing to fear.'

'The dust,' said the German. The dust in the
air. It'll

cut me
up. I got a speck in my eye - just a speck - and the

next
thing my eye's bleeding as though it'll never stop. I

can't
hardly lie down, the sheet's like a bed of nails. The

soles
of my feet feel as if they're going to split. You've

got to
help me.'

'How?' said Locke.

'Pay them for the room. Pay them so I can
stay 'til you

can get
a specialist from Sao Luis. Then go back to the

village,
Locke. Go back and tell them. I don't want the

land.
Tell them I don't own it any longer.'

156

Til go back,' said Locke, 'but in my good
time.'

'You must go quickly,' said Stumpf. 'Tell
them to let

me be.'

Suddenly,
the expression on the partially-masked

face
changed, and Stumpf looked past Locke at some

spectacle
down the corridor. From his mouth, slack with

fear,
came the small word, 'Please.'

Locke, mystified by the man's expression,
turned.

The
corridor was empty, except for the fat moths that

were
besetting the bulb. 'There's nothing there -' he

said,
turning back to the door of Stumpf s room. The

wire-mesh
glass of the window bore the distinct imprint

of two
bloody palms.

'He's here,' the German was saying, staring
fixedly at

the
miracle of the bleeding glass. Locke didn't need to

ask
who. He raised his hand to touch the marks. The

handprints,
still wet, were on his side of the glass, not

on
Stumpf s.

'My God,' he breathed. How could anyone have

slipped
between him and the door and laid the prints

there,
sliding away again in the brief moment it had

taken
him  to glance behind him?  It defied reason.

Again
he looked back down  the corridor. It was
still

bereft
of visitors. Just the bulb - swinging slightly, as if

a
breeze of passage had caught it - and the moth's wings,

whispering.
'What's happening?' Locke breathed.

Stumpf, entranced by the handprints, touched
his

fingertips
lightly to the glass. On contact, his fingers

blossomed
blood, trails of which idled down the glass.

He  didn't remove his fingers, but stared through
at

Locke
with despair in his eye.

'See?' he said, very quietly.

'What
are you  playing at?' Locke said,
his voice

similarly
hushed. This is some kind of trick.'

'No.'

157

'You haven't got Cherrick's disease. You
can't have.

You
didn't touch them. We agreed, damn you,' he said,

more
heatedly. 'Cherrick touched them, we didn't.'

Stumpf looked back at Locke with something
close to

pity on
his face.

'We were wrong,' he said gently. His fingers,
which

he
had  now removed  from the glass, continued to

bleed,
dribbling across the backs of his hands
and

down
his arms. 'This isn't something you can beat into

submission,
Locke. It's out of our hands.' He raised his

bloody
fingers, smiling at his own word-play: 'See?' he

said.

The
German's   sudden, fatalistic calm
frightened

Locke.
He  reached for the handle of the door,
and

jiggled
it. The room was locked. The key was on the

inside,
where Stumpf had paid for it to be.

'Keep out,' Stumpf said. 'Keep away from me.'

His smile had vanished. Locke put his
shoulder to the

door.

'Keep out, I said,' Stumpf shouted, his voice
shrill. He

backed
away from the door as Locke took another lunge

at it.
Then, seeing that the lock must soon give, he raised

a cry
of alarm. Locke took no notice, but continued to

throw
himself at the door. There came the sound of wood

beginning
to splinter.

Somewhere
nearby Locke heard a woman's voice,

raised
in response to Stumpf s calls. No matter; he'd

have
his hands on the German before help could come,

and
then, by  Christ, he'd wipe every last
vestige of a

smile
from the bastard's lips. He threw himself against

the
door with increased fervour; again, and again. The

door
gave.

In the antiseptic cocoon of his room Stumpf
felt the

first
blast of unclean air from the outside world.
It

was  no more
than a  light breeze that invaded
his

158

makeshift
sanctuary, but it bore upon  its back the

debris
of the world. Soot  and seeds, flakes of
skin

itched
off a thousand scalps, fluff and sand and twists

of
hair; the bright dust from a moth's wing. Motes so

small
the human eye only glimpsed them in a shaft

of
white sunlight; each a tiny, whirling speck quite

harmless
to most living organisms. But this cloud was

lethal
to Stumpf; in seconds his body became a field of

tiny,
seeping wounds.

He screeched, and ran towards the door to
slam it

closed
again, flinging himself into a hail of minute razors,

each
lacerating him. Pressing against the door to prevent

Locke
from entering, his wounded hands erupted. He

was too
late to keep Locke out anyhow. The man had

pushed
the door wide, and was now stepping through,

his
every movement setting up further currents of air to

cut
Stumpf down. He snatched hold of the German's

wrist.
At his grip the skin opened as if beneath a knife.

Behind him, a woman loosed a cry of horror.
Locke,

realizing
that Stumpf was past recanting his laughter,

let the
man go. Adorned with cuts on every exposed

part of
his body, and gaining more by the moment,

Stumpf
stumbled back, blind, and fell beside the bed.

The
killing air still sliced him as he sank down; with each

agonised
shudder he woke new eddies and whirlpools to

open
him up.

Ashen, Locke retreated from where the body
lay, and

staggered
out into the corridor. A gaggle of onlookers

blocked
it; they parted, however, at his approach, too

intimidated
by his bulk and by the wild look on his

face to
challenge him. He retraced his steps through the

sickness-perfumed
maze, crossing the small courtyard

and
returning into the main building. He briefly caught

sight
of Edson Costa hurrying in pursuit, but did not

linger
for explanations.

159

In the vestibule, which, despite the late
hour was busy

with
victims of one kind or another, his harried gaze

alighted
on a small boy, perched on his mother's lap.

He  had injured his belly apparently. His shirt,
which

was too
large for him, was stained with blood; his face

with
tears. The mother did not look up as Locke moved

through
the throng. The child did however. He raised

his
head as if knowing that Locke was about to pass by,

and smiled
radiantly.

There
was nobody Locke knew at Tetelman's store; and

all the
information he could bully from the hired hands,

most of
whom were drunk to the point of being unable

to
stand, was that their masters had gone off into the

jungle
the previous day. Locke chased the most sober

of them
and persuaded him with threats to accompany

him
back to the village as translator. He had no real idea

of how
he would make his peace with the tribe. He was

only
certain that he had to argue his innocence. After

all, he
would plead, it hadn't been he who had fired the

killing
shot. There had been misunderstandings, to be

certain,
but he had not harmed the people in any way.

How  could they, in all conscience, conspire to
hurt him?

If they
should require some penance of him he was not

above
acceding to their demands. Indeed, might there

not be
some  satisfaction in the act? He had
seen so

much  suffering of late. He wanted to be cleansed
of it.

Anything
they asked, within reason, he would comply

with;
anything to avoid dying like the others. He'd even

give
back the land.

It was a rough ride, and his morose companion
com-

plained
often and incoherently. Locke turned a deaf ear.

There
was no time for loitering. Their noisy progress, the

jeep
engine complaining at every new acrobatic required

of it,
brought the jungle alive on every side, a repertoire

160

of
wails, whoops and screeches. It was an urgent, hungry

place,
Locke thought: and for the first time since setting

foot on
this sub-continent he loathed it with all his heart.

There
was no room here to make sense of events; the best

that
could be hoped was that one be allowed a niche to

breathe
awhile between one squalid flowering and the

next.

Half
an hour  before nightfall,
exhausted by  the

journey,
they  came  to the outskirts of the village.

The  place had altered not at all in the meagre
days

since
he'd last been here, but the ring of huts was

clearly
deserted. The doors gaped; the communal fires,

always
alight, were ashes. There was neither child nor

pig to
turn an eye towards him as he moved across the

compound.
When  he reached the centre of the ring
he

stood
still, looking about him for some clue as to what

had
happened there. He found none, however. Fatigue

irade
him foolhardy. Mustering his fractured strength,

he
shouted into the hush:

'Where are you?'

Two
brilliant red macaws, finger-winged, rose screech-

ing
from  the trees on the far side of the
village. A

few
moments  after, a figure emerged from the
thicket

of
balsa and jacaranda. It was not one of the tribe, but

Dancy.
He paused before stepping fully into sight; then,

recognising
Locke, a broad smile broke his face, and he

advanced
into the compound. Behind him, the foliage

shook
as others made their way through it. Tetelman was

there,
as were several Norwegians, led by a man called

Bj0rnstr0m,
whom Locke had encountered briefly at the

trading
post. His face, beneath a shock of sun-bleached

hair,
was like cooked lobster.

'My God,' said Tetelman, 'what are you doing
here?'

'I might ask you the same question,' Locke
replied

testily.

161

Bj0rnstr0m waved  down
the raised rifles of his three

companions  and strode forward, bearing a placatory

smile.

'Mr Locke,' the Norwegian said, extending a
leather-

gloved
hand. 'It is good we meet.'

Locke looked down  at the stained glove with disgust,

and  Bj0rnstr0m, flashing a self-admonishing look,

pulled
it off. The hand beneath was pristine.

'My
apologies,' he said. 'We've been working.'

'At what?' Locke  asked, the acid in his stomach

edging
its way up into the back of his throat.

Tetelman
spat. 'Indians,' he said.

'Where's the tribe?' Locke said.

Again, Tetelman: 'Bj0rnstr0m claims he's got
rights

to this
territory . . .'

'The tribe,' Locke insisted. 'Where are
they?'

The Norwegian
toyed with his glove.

'Did you buy them out, or what?' Locke asked.

'Not exactly,' Bj0rnstr0m replied. His
English, like

his
profile, was impeccable.

'Bring him
along,' Dancy  suggested with some

enthusiasm.
'Let him see for himself.'

Bj0rnstr0m nodded. 'Why not?' he said. 'Don't
touch

anything,
Mr Locke. And tell your carrier to stay where

he is.'

Dancy had already about turned, and was heading
into

the
thicket; now Bj0rnstr0m did the same, escorting

Locke
across the compound towards a corridor hacked

through
the heavy foliage. Locke could scarcely keep

pace;
his limbs were more reluctant with every step he

took.
The ground had been heavily trodden along this

track.
A litter of leaves and orchid blossoms had been

mashed  into the sodden soil.

They had dug a pit in a small clearing no
more than a

hundred
yards from the compound. It was not deep, this

162

pit,
nor was it very large. The mingled smells of lime and

petrol
cancelled out any other scent.

Tetelman, who
had reached the clearing ahead of

Locke,
hung  back from approaching  the lip of the

earthworks,
but Dancy was not so fastidious. He strode

around
the far side of the pit and beckoned to Locke to

view
the contents.

The tribe were putrefying already. They lay
where

they
had been thrown, in a jumble of breasts and

buttocks
and faces and limbs, their bodies tinged here

and
there with  purple and  black. Flies built helter-

skelters
in the air above them.

'An education,' Dancy commented.

Locke just looked on as Bj0rnstr0m moved
around the

other
side of the pit to join Dancy.

'All of them?' Locke asked.

The Norwegian nodded. 'One fell swoop,' he
said,

pronouncing
each word with unsettling precision.

'Blankets,' said Tetelman, naming  the murder

weapon.

'But so quickly . . .' Locke murmured.

'It's very efficient,' said Dancy. 'And  difficult to

prove.
Even if anybody ever asks.'

'Disease is natural,' Bj0rnstr0m observed.
'Yes? Like

the
trees.'

Locke slowly shook his head, his eyes
pricking.

'I hear good things of you,' Bj0rnstr0m said
to him.

'Perhaps
we can work together.'

Locke didn't even attempt to reply. Others of
the

Norwegian  party had laid down their rifles and were

now
getting back to work, moving the few bodies still

to be
pitched amongst their fellows from the forlorn

heap
beside the pit. Locke could see a child amongst the

tangle,
and an old man, whom even now the burial party

were
picking up. The  corpse looked jointless
as they

163

swung
it over the edge of the hole. It tumbled down the

shallow
incline and came to rest face up, its arms flung

up to
either side of its head in a gesture of submission,

or
expulsion. It was the elder of course, whom Cherrick

had
faced. His palms were still red. There was a neat

bullet-hole
in his temple. Disease and hopelessness had

not
been entirely efficient, apparently.

Locke
watched while the next of the bodies was

thrown
into the mass grave, and a third to follow that.

Bj0rnstr0m, lingering on the far side of the
pit, was

lighting
a cigarette. He caught Locke's eye.

'So it goes,' he said.

From behind Locke, Tetelman spoke.

'We thought you wouldn't come back,' he said,
per-

haps
attempting to excuse his alliance with Bj0rnstr0m.

'Stumpf is dead,' said Locke.

'Well,
even  less to divide  up,' Tetelman   said,

approaching
him  and laying a hand on his shoulder.

Locke
didn't reply; he just stared down amongst the

bodies,
which were now being covered with lime, only

slowly
registering the warmth that was running down

his
body from the spot where Tetelman had touched

him.
Disgusted, the man had removed his hand, and

was
staring at the growing bloodstain on Locke's shirt.

164

TWILIGHT
AT

THE TOWERS

THE   PHOTOGRAPHS OF Mironenko which Ballard had

been shown in Munich had proved far from
instructive.

Only
one or two pictured the KGB man full face; and of

the
others most were blurred and grainy, betraying their

furtive
origins. Ballard was not overmuch concerned. He

knew
from long and occasionally bitter experience that

the eye
was all too ready to be deceived; but there were

other
faculties - the remnants of senses modern life had

rendered
obsolete - which he had learned to call into

play,
enabling him to sniff out the least signs of betrayal.

These
were the talents he would use when he met with

Mironenko.
With them, he would root the truth from the

man.

The truth? Therein lay the conundrum of
course, for

in this
context wasn't sincerity a movable feast? Sergei

Zakharovich
Mironenko had been a Section Leader in

Directorate
S of the KGB  for eleven years, with
access

to the
most  privileged information on the
dispersal

of
Soviet Illegals in the West. In the
recent weeks,

however,
he had made  his disenchantment with his

165

present
masters, and his consequent  desire to
defect,

known  to the British Security Service. In return
for

the
elaborate efforts which would have to be made on

his
behalf he had volunteered to act as an agent within

the
KGB  for a period of three months, after
which time

he
would be taken into the bosom of democracy and

hidden
where his vengeful overlords would never find

him. It
had fallen to Ballard to meet the Russian face to

face,
in the hope of establishing whether Mironenko's

disaffection
from his ideology was real or faked. The

answer
would  not be  found on
Mironenko's lips,

Ballard
knew, but in some behavioural nuance which

only
instinct would comprehend.

Time was when Ballard would have found the
puzzle

fascinating;
that his every waking thought would have

circled
on the unravelling ahead. But such commitment

had  belonged to a man   convinced his actions had

some  significant effect upon the world. He was
wiser

now.
The agents of East and West went about their

secret
works  year in, year out. They  plotted; they

connived;
occasionally (though rarely) they shed blood.

There
were  debacles and trade-offs and minor
tactical

victories.
But in the end things were much the same as

ever.

This
city, for instance. Ballard had first come to

Berlin
in April of 1969. He'd been twenty-nine, fresh

from  years of intensive training, and ready to
live a

little.
But he had not felt easy here. He found
the

city
charmless; often bleak. It had taken
Odell, his

colleague
for  those first two years,  to prove
that

Berlin
was worthy  of his affections, and once
Ballard

fell he
was lost for life. Now he felt more at home

in this
divided city than he  ever had  in London.

Its
unease, its failed idealism, and - perhaps most

acutely
of all - its terrible isolation, matched his. He

166

and it,
maintaining a presence in a wasteland of dead

ambition.

He found Mironenko at the Germalde Galerie,
and

yes,
the photographs had lied. The Russian looked

older
than  his forty-six years, and sicker
than  he'd

appeared
in those filched portraits. Neither man made

any
sign of acknowledgement. They idled through the

collection
for a full half-hour, with Mironenko showing

acute,
and apparently genuine, interest in the work on

view.
Only when  both men  were
satisfied that they

were
not  being watched  did
the Russian quit the

building
and lead Ballard into the polite suburbs of

Dahlem  to a mutually agreed safe house. There, in

a small
and unheated kitchen, they sat down and

talked.

Mironenko's command  of English was uncertain, or

at
least appeared so, though Ballard had the impression

that
his struggles for sense were as much
tactical as

giammatical.
He might well have presented the same

facade
in the Russian's situation; it seldom hurt to

appear
less competent than one was. But despite the

difficulties
he had in expressing himself, Mironenko's

avowals
were unequivocal.

'I am no
longer a Communist,' he  stated
plainly,

'I have
not been a party-member - not here -' he put his

fist to
his chest'- for many years.'

He fetched an off-white handkerchief from his
coat

pocket,
pulled off one of his gloves, and plucked a bottle

of
tablets from the folds of the handkerchief.

'Forgive me,' he said as he shook tablets
from the

bottle.
'I have pains. In my head; in my hands.'

Ballard waited until he had swallowed the
medication

before
asking him, 'Why did you begin to doubt?'

The Russian pocketed the bottle and the
handker-

chief,
his wide face devoid of expression.

167

'How
does a man lose his ... his faith?' he said. 'Is it

that I
saw too much; or too little, perhaps?'

He
looked at Ballard's face to see if his hesitant words

had
made  sense. Finding no comprehension
there he

tried
again.

'I think the man who does not believe he is
lost, is

lost.'

The
paradox was  elegantly put;
Ballard's suspicion

as to
Mironenko's  true command   of English was

confirmed.

'Are you lost nozi ?' Ballard inquired.

Mironenko
didn't reply. He was  pulling his
other

glove
off and staring at his hands. The  pills
he had

swallowed
did not seem to be easing the ache he had

complained
of. He fisted and unfisted his hands like an

arthritis
sufferer testing the advance of his condition.

Not
looking up, he said:

'I was taught that the Party had solutions to
every-

thing.
That made me free from fear.'

'And now?'

'Now?' he said. 'Now I have strange thoughts.
They

come to
me from nowhere . . .'

'Go on,' said Ballard.

Mironenko made a tight smile. 'You must know
me

inside
out, yes? Even what I dream?'

'Yes,' said Ballard.

Mironenko nodded. 'It would be the same with
us,'

he
said. Then, after a pause: 'I've thought sometimes

I would
break open. Do you understand what I say?

I would
crack, because there is such rage inside me.

And  that makes me
afraid, Ballard. I think they will

see how
much  I hate them.' He looked up at his

interrogator.
'You must be  quick,' he said, 'or they

will
discover me. I try not to think of what they will

do.'
Again, he paused. All trace of the smile, however

168

humourless,
had gone. 'The Directorate has Sections

even I
don't have knowledge of. Special hospitals, where

nobody
can go. They have ways to break a man's soul

in
pieces.'

Ballard, ever the pragmatist, wondered if
Mironenko's

vocabulary
wasn't rather high-flown. In the hands of the

KGB  he doubted if he would be thinking of his
soul's

contentment.
After all, it was the body that had the

nerve-endings.

They  talked for an hour or more,  the conversation

moving
back  and forth between politics and
personal

reminiscence,
between trivia and confessional. At the

end of
the meeting  Ballard was in no doubt  as to

Mironenko's
antipathy to his masters. He was, as he

had
said, a man without faith.

The
following day Ballard met with Cripps in the

restaurant
at the Schweizerhof Hotel, and made his

verbal
report on Mironenko.

'He's ready and waiting. But he insists we be
quick

about
making up our minds.'

'I'm sure he does,' Cripps said. His glass
eye was

troubling
him today; the chilly air, he explained, made

it
sluggish. It moved fractionally more slowly than his

real
eye, and on occasion Cripps had to nudge it with

his
fingertip to get it moving.

'We're not going to rushed into any
decision,' Cripps

said.

'Where's the problem? I don't have any doubt
about

his
commitment; or his desperation.'

'So you
said,' Cripps replied. 'Would
you like

something
for dessert?'

'Do you doubt my appraisal? Is that what it
is?'

'Have something sweet to finish off, so that
I don't feel

an
utter reprobate.'

169

'You think I'm wrong about him, don't you?'
Ballard

pressed.
When   Cripps  didn't reply, Ballard  leaned

across
the table. 'You do, don't you?'

'I'm just saying there's reason for caution,'
Cripps

said.
'If we finally choose to take him on board the

Russians
are going to be very distressed. We have to be

sure
the deal's worth the bad weather that comes with

it.
Things are so dicey at the moment.'

'When
aren't they?' Ballard replied. 'Tell me a time

when
there wasn't some crisis in the offing?' He settled

back in
the chair and tried to read Cripps' face. His glass

eye
was, if anything, more candid than the real one.

'I'm sick of this damn game,' Ballard
muttered.

The glass eye roved. 'Because of the
Russian?'

'Maybe.'

'Believe me,' said Cripps, 'I've got good
reason to be

careful
with this man.'

'Name one.'

'There's nothing verified.'

'What have you got on him?' Ballard insisted.

'As I say, rumour,' Cripps replied.

'Why
wasn't I briefed about it?'

Cripps made
a tiny shake of his head. 'It's academic

now,'
he said. 'You've provided a good report. I just

want
you to understand that if things don't go the way

you
think they should it's not because your appraisals

aren't
trusted.'

'I see.'

'No you don't,' said Cripps. 'You're feeling
martyred;

and I
don't altogether blame you.'

'So what happens now? I'm supposed to forget
I ever

met the
man?'

'Wouldn't do any harm,' said Cripps. 'Out of
sight,

out of
mind.'

170

Clearly
Cripps didn't trust Ballard to take his own

advice.
Though Ballard made several discreet enquiries

about
the Mironenko case in the following week it was

plain
that his usual circle of contacts had been warned

to keep
their lips sealed.

As it was, the next news about the case
reached

Ballard
via the pages of the morning  papers, in
an

article
about a body found in a house near the station

on
Kaiser Damm. At the time of reading he had no way

of
knowing how the account tied up with Mironenko,

but
there was enough detail in the story to arouse his

interest.
For one, he had the suspicion that the house

named  in the article had been used by the Service
on

occasion;
for another, the article described how two

unidentified
men had almost been caught in the act

of
removing the body, further suggesting that this was

no
crime of passion.

About noon, he went to see Cripps at his
offices in the

hope of
coaxing him with some explanation, but Cripps

was not
available, nor would be, his secretary explained,

until
further notice; matters arising had taken him back

to
Munich.  Ballard left a message that he
wished to

speak
with him when he returned.

As  he
stepped  into the cold air again, he
realised

that
he'd gained an admirer;  a thin-faced
individual

whose  hair had retreated from  his brow, leaving a

ludicrous
forelock at the  high-water mark.  Ballard

knew  him  in
passing from  Cripps' entourage but

couldn't
put  a name   to the
face. It was swiftly

provided.

'Suckling,' the man said.

'Of course,' said Ballard. 'Hello.'

'I think maybe we should talk, if you have a
moment,'

the man
said. His voice was as pinched as his features;

Ballard
wanted none of his eossip. He was about to

171

refuse
the offer when Suckling said: 'I suppose you

heard
what happened to Cripps.'

Ballard shook his head. Suckling, delighted
to possess

this
nugget, said again: 'We should talk.'

They walked along the Kantstrasse towards the
Zoo.

The  street was busy with lunchtime pedestrians,
but

Ballard
scarcely noticed them. The story that Suckling

unfolded
as they walked demanded his full and absolute

attention.

It was simply told. Cripps, it appeared, had
made

an
arrangement to meet with Mironenko in order to

make  his own
assessment of the Russian's integrity.

The
house in Schoneberg chosen for the meeting had

been
used on several previous occasions, and had long

been
considered one of the safest locations in the city. It

had not
proved so the previous evening however. KGB

men  had apparently followed Mironenko to the
house,

and
then attempted to break the party up. There was

nobody  to testify to what had happened subsequently

- both
the men who had accompanied Cripps, one of

them  Ballard's old colleague Odell - were dead;
Cripps

himself
was in a coma.

'And Mironenko?' Ballard inquired.

Suckling shrugged. They  took him home
to the

Motherland,
presumably,' he said.

Ballard caught a whiff of deceit off the man.

Tm
touched that you're keeping me up to date,' he

said to
Suckling. 'But why?

'You and Odell were friends, weren't you?'
came the

reply.
'With Cripps out of the picture you don't have

many  of those left.'

'Is that so?'

'No offence intended,' Suckling said
hurriedly. 'But

you've
got a reputation as a maverick.'

'Get to the point,' said Ballard.

172

'There is no point,' Suckling protested. 'I
just thought

you
ought to know what had happened. I'm putting my

neck on
the line here.'

'Nice try,' said Ballard. He stopped walking.
Suckling

wandered
on a pace or two before turning to find Ballard

grinning
at him.

'Who sent you?'

'Nobody sent me,' Suckling said.

'Clever to send the court gossip. I almost
fell for it.

You're
very plausible.'

There wasn't enough  fat on Suckling's face to hide

the tic
in his cheek.

'What do they suspect me of? Do they think
I'm

conniving
with Mironenko, is that it? No, I don't think

they're
that stupid.'

Suckling shook his head, like a doctor in the
presence

of some
incurable disease. 'You like making enemies?'

he
said.

'Occupational hazard. I wouldn't lose any
sleep over

it. I
don't.'

'There's changes in the air,' Suckling said.
'I'd make

sure
you have your answers ready.'

'Fuck the answers,' Ballard said courteously.
'I think

it's
about time I worked out the right questions.'

Sending
Suckling to sound him out smacked of des-

peration.
They wanted inside information; but about

what?  Could
they seriously believe he had
some

involvement
with  Mironenko;  or worse, with  the

RGB   itself? He let his resentment subside; it
was

stirring
up too much mud, and he needed clear water

if he
was to find his way  free of this confusion.
In

one
regard, Suckling was perfectly correct: he did have

enemies,
and with Cripps indisposed he was vulnerable.

In such
circumstances there were two courses of action.

173

He
could return to London, and there lie low, or wait

around
in Berlin to see what manoeuvre they tried next.

He  decided on the latter. The charm of
hide-and-seek

was
rapidly wearing thin.

As he turned North onto Leibnizstrasse he
caught the

reflection
of a grey-coated man in a shop window. It was

a glimpse,
no more, but he had the feeling that he knew

the
fellow's face. Had they put a watch-dog onto him,

he
wondered? He  turned, and caught the
man's eye,

holding
it. The suspect seemed embarrassed, and looked

away. A
performance perhaps; and then again, perhaps

not. It
mattered little, Ballard thought. Let them watch

him all
they liked. He was guiltless. If indeed there was

such a
condition this side of insanity.

A
strange happiness had found Sergei Mironenko; hap-

piness
that came without rhyme or reason, and filled his

heart
up to overflowing.

Only
the previous day circumstances had seemed

unendurable.
The aching in his hands and head and

spine
had steadily worsened, and was now accompanied

by an
itch so demanding he'd had to snip his nails to the

flesh
to prevent himself doing serious damage. His body,

he had
concluded, was in revolt against him. It was that

thought
which he had tried to explain to Ballard: that he

was
divided from himself, and feared that he would soon

be torn
apart. But today the fear had gone.

Not so the pains. They were, if anything,
worse than

they'd
been yesterday. His sinews and ligaments ached

as if
they'd been exercised beyond the limits of their

design;
there were bruises at all his joints, where blood

had
broken  its banks beneath the skin. But
that sense

of
imminent  rebellion had disappeared, to
be replaced

with
a  dreamy
peacefulness. And at its heart, such

happiness.

174

When
he  tried to think back over
recent events,

to work
out what had  cued this transformation,
his

memory
played tricks. He had been called to meet with

Ballard's
superior; that he remembered. Whether he had

gone to
the meeting, he did not. The night was a blank.

Ballard would know how things stood, he reasoned.

He had
liked and trusted the Englishman from the

beginning,
sensing that despite the many differences

between
them they were more alike than not. If he let

his
instinct lead, he would find Ballard, of that he was

certain.
No doubt the Englishman would be surprised to

see
him; even angered at first. But when he told Ballard

of this
new-found happiness surely his trespasses would

be
forgiven?

Ballard
dined late, and drank  until later still
in The

Ring, a
small  transvestite bar which he had  been

first
taken to by Odell almost  two
decades  ago.

No  doubt his guide's intention had been  to prove

his
sophistication by showing his raw
colleague the

decadence
of Berlin, but Ballard, though he never felt

any
sexual frisson in the company of The Ring's clientele,

had
immediately felt at home here. His neutrality was

respected;
no attempts were made to solicit him. He

was
simply left to drink and watch the passing parade

of
genders.

Coming here tonight raised the ghost of Odell,
whose

name  would now
be scrubbed  from conversation

because
of his involvement with the Mironenko affair.

Ballard
had seen this process at work before. History

did not
forgive failure, unless it was so profound as to

achieve
a kind of grandeur. For the Odells of the world

-
ambitious men who had found themselves through

little
fault of their own in a cul-de-sac from which all

retreat
was barred - for such men there would be no

175

fine
words spoken nor medals struck. There would only

be
oblivion.

It made
him melancholy  to think of this,
and he

drank
heavily to keep his thoughts mellow, but when

- at
two in the morning - he stepped out on to the

street
his depression was only marginally dulled. The

good
burghers of Berlin were well a-bed; tomorrow was

another
working day. Only the sound of traffic from the

Kurfurstendamm   offered sign of life somewhere near.

He
made  his way towards it, his thoughts
fleecy.

Behind him, laughter. A young man -
glamorously

dressed
as a starlet - tottered along the pavement arm

in
arm  with his unsmiling  escort. Ballard recognised

the
transvestite as a regular at the bar; the client, to

judge
by his sober suit, was an out-of-towner slaking

his
thirst for boys dressed as girls behind his wife's back.

Ballard
picked up his pace. The young man's laughter,

its
musicality patently forced, set his teeth on edge.

He heard somebody running nearby; caught a
shadow

moving
out of the corner of his eye. His watch-dog, most

likely.
Though alcohol had blurred his instincts, he felt

some  anxiety surface, the root of which he
couldn't fix.

He  walked on. Featherlight tremors ran in his
scalp.

A few yards on, he realised that the
laughter from

the
street behind him  had  ceased. He glanced over

his
shoulder,  half-expecting to see the
boy  and his

customer
embracing. But both had disappeared; slipped

off
down one of the alleyways, no doubt, to conclude

their
contract in darkness. Somewhere near, a dog had

begun
to bark wildly. Ballard turned round to look back

the way
he'd come, daring the deserted street to display

its
secrets to him. Whatever was arousing the buzz in his

head
and the itch on his palms, it was no commonplace

anxiety.
There was something wrong  with the
street,

despite
its show of innocence; it hid terrors.

176

The bright lights of the Kurfurstendamm were
no

more
than three minutes' walk away, but he didn't want

to turn
his back on this mystery and take refuge there.

Instead
he proceeded to walk back the way he'd come,

slowly.
The dog had now ceased its alarm, and settled

into
silence; he had only his footsteps for company.

He reached the corner of the first alleyway
and peered

down
it. No light burned at window or doorway. He

could sense
no living presence in the gloom. He crossed

over
the alley and walked on to the next. A luxurious

stench
had crept into the air, which became more lavish

yet as
he approached the corner. As he breathed it in the

buzz in
his head deepened to a threat of thunder.

A
single light flickered in the throat of the alley, a

meagre
wash from an upper window. By it, he saw

the
body of the out-of-towner, lying sprawled on the

ground.
He  had
been so traumatically mutilated it

seemed
an attempt might have been made to turn him

inside
out. From the spilled innards, that ripe smell rose

in all
its complexity.

Ballard had seen violent death before, and
thought

himself
indifferent to the spectacle. But something here

in the
alley threw his calm into disarray. He felt his limbs

begin
to shake. And then, from beyond the throw of

light,
the boy spoke.

'In God's name  . . .' he said. His voice had lost

all
pretension to femininity; it was a murmur
of

undisguised
terror.

Ballard took a step down   the alley. Neither the

boy,
nor the reason for his whispered prayer, became

visible
until he had advanced ten yards. The boy was

half-slumped
against the wall amongst the refuse. His

sequins
and taffeta had been ripped from him; the body

was
pale and sexless. He seemed not to notice Ballard:

his
eyes were fixed on the deepest shadows.

177

The
shaking in  Ballard's limbs
worsened as he

followed
the boy's gaze; it was all he could do to prevent

his
teeth from chattering. Nevertheless he continued his

advance,
not for the boy's sake (heroism had little merit,

he'd
always been taught) but because he was curious,

more
than curious, eager, to see what manner of man

was
capable of such casual violence. To look into the

eyes of
such ferocity seemed at that moment the most

important
thing in all the world.

Now
the boy saw him, and muttered a pitiful appeal,

but
Ballard scarcely heard it. He felt other eyes upon

him,
and their touch was like a blow. The din in his head

took on
a sickening rhythm, like the sound of helicopter

rotors.
In mere seconds it mounted to a blinding roar.

Ballard pressed his hands to his eyes, and
stumbled

back
against the wall, dimly aware that the killer was

moving  out  of
hiding (refuse was overturned) and

making  his escape. He felt something brush against

him,
and  opened his eyes in time to glimpse
the

man  slipping away down the passageway. He seemed

somehow  misshapen; his back crooked, his head too

large.
Ballard loosed a shout after him, but the berserker

ran on,
pausing only to look down at the body before

racing
towards the street.

Ballard heaved himself off the wall and stood
upright.

The
noise in his head was diminishing somewhat; the

attendant
giddiness was passing.

Behind him, the boy had begun sobbing. 'Did
you

see?'
he said. 'Did you see?

'Who was it? Somebody you knew?'

The
boy stared at Ballard like a frightened doe, his

mascaraed
eyes huge.

'Somebody . . .?' he said.

Ballard was about to repeat the question when
there

came a
shriek of brakes, swiftly followed by the sound of

178

the
impact. Leaving the boy to pull his tattered trousseau

about
him, Ballard went back  into the street.
Voices

were
raised nearby; he hurried to their source. A large

car was
straddling the pavement, its headlights blazing.

The
driver was being helped from  his seat,
while his

passengers
- party-goers to judge by their dress and

drink-flushed
faces - stood and debated furiously as to

how the
accident had happened. One of the women was

talking
about an animal in the road, but another of the

passengers
corrected her. The body that lay in the gutter

where
it had been thrown was not that of an animal.

Ballard had seen little of the killer in the
alleyway but

he knew
instinctively that this was he. There was no sign

of the
malformation he thought he'd glimpsed, however;

just a
man dressed in a suit that had seen better days,

lying
face down in a patch of blood. The police had

already
arrived, and an officer shouted to him to stand

away
from the body, but Ballard ignored the instruction

and
went to steal a look at the dead man's face. There

was
nothing there of the ferocity he had hoped so much

to see.
But there was much he recognised nevertheless.

The man was Odell.

He  told the officers that he had seen nothing of
the

accident,
which was  essentially true, and
made  his

escape
from  the scene before events in the
adjacent

alley
were discovered.

It seemed every corner turned on his route
back to his

rooms
brought a fresh question. Chief amongst them:

why  he had been lied to about Odell's death? And

what
psychosis had seized the man  that made
him

capable
of the slaughter Ballard had witnessed? He

would  not get the answers to these questions from

his
sometime colleagues, that he knew. The only man

whom  he might have beguiled an answer from was

179

Cripps.
He remembered the debate they'd had about

Mironenko,  and Cripps' talk of 'reasons for caution'

when  dealing with the Russian. The Glass Eye had

known  then that there was something in the wind,

though
surely even he had not envisaged the scale of the

present
disaster. Two highly valued agents murdered;

Mironenko  missing, presumed dead; he himself - if

Suckling
was  to be believed - at death's door.
And

all
this begun with Sergei Zakharovich
Mironenko,

the
lost man  of Berlin. It seemed his
tragedy was

infectious.

Tomorrow,
Ballard decided, he would find Suckling

and
squeeze some answers from him. In the meantime,

his
head and his hands ached, and he wanted
sleep.

Fatigue
compromised sound judgement, and if ever

he
needed  that faculty it was now. But
despite his

exhaustion
sleep eluded him  for an hour  or more,

and
when  it came it was no comfort. He
dreamt

whispers;
and hard upon them, rising as if to drown

them
out, the roar of the helicopters. Twice he surfaced

from  sleep with his head pounding; twice a hunger

to
understand  what  the whispers were  telling him

drove
him  to the pillow again. When  he
woke  for

the
third time, the noise between his temples had

become  crippling; a thought-cancelling assault which

made   him
fear for  his sanity. Barely  able to see

the
room  through  the pain, he crawled  from his

bed.

'Please . . .'he murmured, as if there were
somebody

to help
him from his misery.

A cool voice answered him out of the
darkness:

'What do you want?'

He
didn't question the questioner; merely said:

'Take the pain away.'

'You can do that for yourself ,' the voice
told him.

180

He
leaned against the wall, nursing his splitting head,

tears
of agony coming and coming. 'I don't know how,'

he
said.

'Your dreams give you pain,' the voice
replied, 'so you

must
forget them. Do you understand? Forget them, and the

pain
will go.'

He understood the instruction, but not how to
realise

it. He
had no powers of government in sleep. He was

the
object of these whispers; not they his. But the voice

insisted.

'The dream means you harm, Bollard. You must
bury it.

Bury it
deep.'

'Bury it?'

'Make
an image of it, Ballard. Picture it in detail.'

He  did
as he was told. He imagined a burial party,

and a
box; and in the box, this dream. He made them

dig
deep, as the voice instructed him, so that he would

never
be able to disinter this hurtful thing again. But

even as
he imagined the box lowered into the pit he heard

its
boards creak. The dream would not lie down. It beat

against
confinement. The boards began to break.

'QuicklyV the voice said.

The
din of the rotors had risen to a terrifying pitch.

Blood
had begun to pour from his nostrils; he tasted salt

at the
back of his throat.

'Finish if!' the voice yelled above the
tumult. 'Cover it

upl'

Ballard looked into the grave. The box was
thrashing

from
side to side.

'Cover it, damn you!'

He
tried to make the burial party obey; tried to will

them to
pick up their shovels and bury the offending

thing
alive, but they would not. Instead they gazed into

the
grave as he did and watched as the contents of the

box
fought for light.

181

'No!' the voice demanded, its fury mounting.
'You

must not look!'

The
box  danced in the hole. The  lid splintered.

Briefly,
Ballard glimpsed something shining up between

the
boards.

'It will killyou!' the voice said, and as if
to prove its

point
the volume of the sound rose beyond the point

of
endurance, washing out burial party, box and all

in a
blaze of pain. Suddenly it seemed that what the

voice
said was true; that he was near to death. But it

wasn't
the dream that was conspiring to kill him, but

the
sentinel they had posted between him and it: this

skull-splintering
cacophony.

Only
now did he realise that he'd fallen on the floor,

prostrate
beneath this assault. Reaching out blindly he

found  the wall, and hauled himself towards it, the

machines  still thundering behind his eyes, the blood

hot on
his face.

He
stood up as best he could and began to move

towards
the bathroom. Behind him the voice, its tantrum

controlled,
began its exhortation afresh. It sounded so

intimate
that he looked round, fully expecting to see

the
speaker, and he was not disappointed. For a few

flickering
moments he seemed to be standing in a small,

windowless
room, its walls painted a uniform white. The

light
here was bright and dead, and in the centre of the

room  stood the face behind the voice, smiling.

'Your dreams give you pain,' he said. This
was the first

commandment   again. 'Bury them Ballard, and the pain

will
pass.'

Ballard wept
like a  child; this scrutiny
shamed

him.  He looked
away from  his tutor to bury his

tears.

'Trust us,' another voice said, close by.
'We're your

friends.'

182

He
didn't trust their fine words. The very pain they

claimed
to want to save him from was of their making; it

was a
stick to beat him with if the dreams came calling.

'We want to help you,' one or other of them
said.

'No . . .'he murmured. 'No damn you ... I
don't

... I
don't believe . . .'

The room flickered out, and he was in the
bedroom

again,
clinging to the wall like a climber to a cliff-face.

Before
they could come  for him with more  words,

more
pain, he edged his way to the bathroom door,

and
stumbled blindly towards the shower. There was a

moment  of panic while he located the taps; and then
the

water
came on at a rush. It was bitterly cold, but he put

his
head beneath it, while the onslaught of rotor-blades

tried
to shake the plates of his skull apart. Icy water

trekked
down his back, but he let the rain come down

on
him  in a torrent, and by degrees, the
helicopters

took
their leave. He didn't move, though his body

juddered
with cold, until the last of them had gone;

then he
sat on the edge of the bath, mopping water

from
his neck and face and body, and eventually, when

his
legs felt courageous enough, made his way back into

the
bedroom.

He lay down on the same crumpled sheets in
much

the
same  position as he'd lain in before;
yet nothing

was the
same. He  didn't know what had changed

in
him,  or how.  But  he
lay there without  sleep

disturbing
his serenity through the remaining hours

of the
night, trying to puzzle it out, and a little before

dawn he
remembered the words he had muttered in

the
face of the delusion. Simple words; but oh, their

power.

'I don't believe . . .'he said; and the
commandments

trembled.

183

It was
half an hour before noon when he arrived at the

small
book exporting firm which served Suckling for

cover.
He  felt quick-witted, despite the
disturbance

of the
night, and rapidly charmed his way past the

receptionist
and entered Suckling's office unannounced.

When   Suckling's eyes settled on his visitor he
started

from
his desk as if fired upon.

'Good morning,' said Ballard. 'I thought it
was time

we
talked.'

Suckling's eyes fled to the office-door,
which Ballard

had  left ajar.

'Sorry; is there a draught?' Ballard closed
the door

gently.
'I want to see Cripps,' he said.

Suckling waded through the sea of books and
manu-

scripts
that threatened to engulf his desk. 'Are you out

of your
mind, coming back here?'

Tell them I'm a friend of the family,'
Ballard offered.

'I can't believe you'd be so stupid.'

'Just point me to Cripps, and I'll be away.'

Suckling
ignored him  in favour of his
tirade. 'It's

taken
two years to establish my credentials here.'

Ballard laughed.

'I'm going to report this, damn you!'

'I think you
should,' said Ballard, turning up the

volume.
'In the meanwhile: where's Cripps?'

Suckling, apparently convinced that he was
faced with

a
lunatic, controlled his apoplexy. 'All right,' he said.

Til
have somebody call on you; take you to him.'

'Not
good  enough,' Ballard replied. He
crossed

to
Suckling  in two short strides and took
hold  of

him  by  his
lapel. He'd spent at most  three hours

with  Suckling in ten years, but he'd  scarcely passed

a  moment
in  his presence without itching
to do

what he
was doing now. Knocking the man's hands

away,  he
pushed  Suckling against the
book-lined

184

wall. A
stack of volumes, caught by Suckling's heel,

toppled.

'Once more,' Ballard said. The old man.'

'Take your fucking hands off me,' Suckling
said, his

fury
redoubled at being touched.

'Again,' said Ballard. 'Cripps.'

'I'll have you carpeted for this. I'll have
you our!'

Ballard leaned towards  the reddening
face, and

smiled.

'I'm out anyway. People have died, remember?

London  needs a sacrificial lamb, and I think I'm
it.'

Suckling's
face dropped. 'So I've got nothing to lose,

have
I?' There was no reply. Ballard pressed closer to

Suckling,
tightening his grip on the man. ''Have /?'

Suckling's courage failed him. 'Cripps is
dead,' he

said.

Ballard didn't release his hold. 'You said
the same

about
Odell -' he remarked. At the name, Suckling's

eyes
widened. '- And I saw him only last night,' Ballard

said,
'out on the town.'

'You saw Odell?'

'Oh yes.'

Mention of the dead man brought the scene in
the

alleyway
back to mind. The smell of the body; the boy's

sobs.
There were other faiths, thought Ballard, beyond

the one
he'd once shared with the creature beneath him.

Faiths
whose devotions were made in heat and blood,

whose
dogmas  were dreams. Where  better to baptise

himself
into that new faith than here, in the blood of

the
enemy?

Somewhere, at the very back of his head, he
could

hear
the helicopters, but he wouldn't let them take to

the
air. He was strong today; his head, his hands, all

strong.
When he drew his nails towards Suckling's eyes

the
blood came easily. He had a sudden vision of the face

185

beneath
the flesh; of Suckling's features stripped to the

essence.

'Sir?'

Ballard glanced over his shoulder. The
receptionist

was
standing at the open door.

'Oh. I'm sorry,' she said, preparing to
withdraw. To

judge
by her blushes she assumed this was a lover's tryst

she'd
walked in upon.

'Stay,' said Suckling. 'Mr  Ballard . . . was just

leaving.'

Ballard released his prey. There  would  be
other

opportunities
to have Suckling's life.

Til see you again,' he said.

Suckling drew a handkerchief from his top
pocket and

pressed
it to his face.

'Depend upon it,' he replied.

Now  they would come for him, he could have no
doubt

of
that. He was a rogue element, and they would strive

to
silence him as quickly as possible. The thought did

not
distress him. Whatever they had tried to make him

forget
with their brain-washing was more ambitious than

they
had anticipated; however deeply they had taught

him to
bury it, it was digging its way back to the surface.

He
couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was near. More

than
once on his way back to his rooms he imagined

eyes at
his back. Maybe he was still being tailed; but

his
instincts informed him otherwise. The presence he

felt
close-by - so near that it was sometimes at his

shoulder
- was perhaps simply another part of him. He

felt
protected by it, as by a local god.

He
had  half  expected there to  be  a
reception

committee
awaiting him at his rooms, but there was

nobody.
Either Suckling had been obliged to delay his

alarm-call,
or else the upper echelons were still debating

186

their
tactics. He pocketed those few keepsakes that he

wanted
to preserve from their calculating eyes, and left

the
building again without anyone making a move to

stop
him.

It felt good to be alive, despite the chill
that rendered

the
grim  streets grimmer  still. He decided, for no

particular
reason, to go to the zoo, which, though he

had
been visiting the city for two decades, he had never

done.
As he walked it occurred to him that he'd never

been as
free as he was now; that he had shed mastery

like an
old coat. No wonder they feared him. They had

good
reason.

Kantstrasse was busy, but he cut his way
through

the
pedestrians  easily, almost as if
they  sensed a

rare
certainty in him  and  gave
him  a wide  berth.

As he
approached the entrance to the zoo, however,

somebody
jostled him. He looked round to upbraid

the
fellow, but caught only the back of the man's

head as
he was submerged in the crowd heading onto

Hardenbergstrasse.
Suspecting an attempted theft, he

checked
his pockets, to find that a scrap of paper had

been
slipped into one. He knew better than to examine

it on
the spot, but casually glanced round again to see if

he
recognised the courier. The man had already slipped

away.

He
delayed his visit to the zoo and went instead to

the
Tiergarten, and there - in the wilds of the great

park -
found a place to read the message. It was from

Mironenko,  and it requested a meeting to talk of a

matter
of considerable urgency, naming  a house
in

Marienfelde
as a venue. Ballard memorised the details,

then
shredded the note.

It was
perfectly possible that the invitation was a

trap of
course, set either by his own  faction or
by

the
opposition. Perhaps a way to test his allegiance; or

187

to
manipulate him  into a situation in which
he could

be
easily despatched. Despite such doubts he had no

choice
but to go however, in the hope that this blind

date
was indeed with Mironenko.  Whatever  dangers

this
rendezvous brought, they were not so new. Indeed,

given
his long-held doubts of the efficacy of sight, hadn't

every
date he'd ever made been in some sense blind'?

By
early evening the damp air was thickening towards a

fog,
and by the time he stepped off the bus on Hildburg-

hauserstrasse
it had a good hold on the city, lending the

chill
new powers to discomfort.

Ballard went quickly through  the quiet streets. He

scarcely
knew  the district at all, but its
proximity to

the
Wall bled  it of what little charm it
might once

have
possessed. Many of the houses were unoccupied;

of
those that were not most were sealed off against the

night
and the cold and the lights that glared from the

watch-towers.
It was only with the aid of a map that he

located
the tiny street Mironenko's note had named.

No lights burned in the house. Ballard
knocked hard,

but
there was no answering footstep in the hall. He had

anticipated
several possible scenarios, but an absence of

response
at the house had not been amongst them. He

knocked
again; and again. It was only then that he heard

sounds
from within, and finally the door was opened to

him.
The hallway was painted grey and brown, and lit

only by
a bare bulb. The man  silhouetted against
this

drab
interior was not Mironenko.

'Yes?' he said. 'What do you want?' His
German was

spoken
with a distinct Muscovite inflection.

'I'm looking for a friend of mine,' Ballard
said.

The man, who was almost as broad as the
doorway he

stood
in, shook his head.

'There's nobody here,' he said. 'Only me.'

188

'I was told -'

'You must have the wrong house.'

No sooner had the doorkeeper made the remark
than

noise
erupted from down the dreary hallway. Furniture

was
being overturned; somebody had begun to shout.

The Russian looked over his shoulder and went
to

slam
the door in Ballard's face, but Ballard's foot was

there
to stop him. Taking  advantage of the
man's

divided
attention, Ballard put his shoulder to the door,

and
pushed. He was in the hallway - indeed he was

half-way
down it - before the Russian took a step in

pursuit.
The sound of demolition had escalated, and

was now
drowned out by the sound of a man squealing.

Ballard
followed the sound past the sovereignty of the

lone
bulb and into gloom at the back of the house. He

might
well have lost his way at that point but that a door

was
flung open ahead of him.

The
room  beyond  had
scarlet floorboards; they

glistened
as if freshly painted. And now the decorator

appeared
in person. His torso had been ripped open

from  neck to navel. He  pressed his hands  to the

breached
dam, but they were useless to stem the flood;

his
blood came in spurts, and with it, his innards. He

met  Ballard's gaze, his eyes full to overflowing
with

death,
but his body had not yet received the instruction

to lie
down and die; it juddered on in a pitiful attempt

to
escape the scene of execution behind him.

The
spectacle had brought Ballard to a halt, and the

Russian
from the door now took hold of him, and pulled

him
back into the hallway, shouting into his face. The

outburst,
in panicked Russian, was beyond Ballard, but

he
needed  no translation of the hands that
encircled

his
throat. The  Russian was  half his weight again,

and
had  the grip of an expert strangler, but
Ballard

felt
effortlessly the man's superior. He wrenched the

189

attacker's
hands from his neck, and struck him across

the
face. It was a fortuitous blow. The Russian fell back

against
the staircase, his shouts silenced.

Ballard looked back towards the scarlet room.
The

dead
man  had gone, though scraps of flesh had
been

left on
the threshold.

From
within, laughter.

Ballard turned to the Russian.

'What in God's name's going on?' he demanded,
but

the
other man simply stared through the open door.

Even as he spoke, the laughter stopped. A
shadow

moved  across the blood-splattered wall of the
interior,

and a
voice said:

'Ballard?'

There was a roughness there, as if the
speaker had

been
shouting all day and night, but it was the voice of

Mironenko.

'Don't stand out in the cold,' he said, 'come
on in.

And
bring Solomonov.'

The other man made  a bid for the front door, but

Ballard
had hold of him before he could take two steps.

'There's nothing to  be afraid of, Comrade,' said

Mironenko.
'The dog's gone.' Despite the reassurance,

Solomonov
began to sob as Ballard pressed him towards

the
open door.

Mironenko
was right; it was warmer inside. And

there
no sign of a dog. There was blood in abundance,

however.
The man  Ballard had last seen teetering
in the

doorway
had been dragged back into this abattoir while

he and
Solomonov had struggled. The body had been

treated
with astonishing barbarity. The head had been

smashed
open; the innards were a grim litter underfoot.

Squatting
in the shadowy  corner of  this terrible

room,  Mironenko. He
had  been mercilessly beaten

to
judge by the swelling about his head and upper

190

torso,
but his unshaven   face bore a  smile for his

saviour.

'I knew you'd come,' he  said. His gaze fell upon

Solomonov.
They followed me,' he said. 'They meant

to kill
me, I suppose. Is that what you
intended,

Comrade?'

Solomonov
shook with fear - his eyes flitting from the

bruised
moon of Mironenko's face to the pieces of gut

that
lay everywhere about - finding nowhere a place of

refuge.

'What stopped them?' Ballard asked.

Mironenko
stood up. Even this slow movement

caused
Solomonov to flinch.

'Tell Mr Ballard,' Mironenko prompted. 'Tell
him

what
happened.' Solomonov was too terrified to speak.

'He's
KGB,  of course,' Mironenko explained.
'Both

trusted
men. But not trusted enough to be warned,

poor
idiots. So they were sent to murder me with just

a gun
and a prayer.' He laughed at the thought. 'Neither

of
which were much use in the circumstances.'

'I beg you . . .' Solomonov murmured, '. . .
let me

go.
I'll say nothing.'

'You'll say what they want you to say,
Comrade, the

way
we  all must,' Mironenko replied. 'Isn't
that right,

Ballard?
All slaves of our faith?'

Ballard watched Mironenko's  face closely; there was

a
fullness there that could not be entirely explained by

the
bruising. The skin almost seemed to crawl.

'They have made us forgetful,' Mironenko
said.

'Of what?' Ballard enquired.

'Of ourselves,' came the reply, and with it
Mironenko

moved
from his murky corner and into the light.

What had Solomonov and his dead companion
done

to him?
His flesh was a mass of tiny contusions, and

there
were bloodied lumps at his neck and temples

191

which  Ballard might have taken for bruises but that

they palpitated,
as if something nested beneath the

skin.
Mironenko made no sign of discomfort however,

as he
reached out to Solomonov. At his touch the failed

assassin
lost control of his bladder, but Mironenko's

intentions
were not murderous. With eerie tenderness

he
stroked a tear from Solomonov's cheek. 'Go back to

them,'
he advised the trembling man. 'Tell them what

you've
seen.'

Solomonov
seemed scarcely to believe his ears, or else

suspected
- as did Ballard - that this forgiveness was a

sham,
and that any attempt to leave would invite fatal

consequences.

But Mironenko
pressed his point. 'Go on,' he said.

'Leave
us please. Or would you prefer to stay and eat?'

Solomonov
took a single, faltering step towards the

door.
When  no
blow came he  took a second step,

and a
third, and now he was  out of the door
and

away.

Tell them!' Mironenko shouted after him. The
front

door
slammed.

'Tell them what?' said Ballard.

'That I've remembered,' Mironenko said. 'That
I've

found
the skin they stole from me.'

For
the first time since entering this house, Ballard

began  to
feel queasy. It was  not  the blood
nor

the  bones underfoot, but  a look
in Mironenko's

eyes.
He'd   seen eyes  as bright once  before. But

where?

'You -' he said quietly, 'you did this.'

'Certainly,' Mironenko replied.

'How?' Ballard said. There was a familiar
thunder

climbing
from the back of his head. He tried to ignore

it, and
press some explanation from the Russian. 'How,

damn
you?'

192

'We are the same,' Mironenko replied. 'I
smell it in

you.'

'No,' said Ballard. The clamour was rising.

The
doctrines are just words. It's not what we're

taught
but what we know that matters. In our marrow;

in our
souls.'

He
had  talked of souls once before;
of places his

masters
had built in which a man  could be broken

apart.
At the time Ballard had thought such talk mere

extravagance;
now he wasn't so sure. What  was the

burial
party all about, if not the subjugation of some

secret
part of him? The marrow-part; the soul-part.

Before
Ballard could find  the words  to
express

himself,
Mironenko  froze, his eyes gleaming more

brightly
than ever.

'They're outside,' he said.

'Who are?'

The
Russian shrugged. 'Does it matter?' he said.

'Your
side or mine. Either one will silence us if they

can.'

That much was true.

'We must
be quick,' he said, and headed for the

hallway.
The front door stood ajar. Mironenko was

there
in moments.  Ballard followed. Together
they

slipped
out on to the street.

The
fog had thickened. It idled around the street-

lamps,
muddying their light, making every doorway a

hiding
place. Ballard didn't wait to tempt the pursuers

out
into the open, but followed Mironenko, who was

already
well ahead, swift despite his bulk. Ballard had to

pick up
his pace to keep the man in sight. One moment

he was
visible, the next the fog closed around him.

The
residential property they moved through now

gave
way to more anonymous  buildings,
warehouses

perhaps,
whose  walls stretched up into the murky

193

darkness
unbroken  by windows.  Ballard called after

him  to slow his crippling pace. The Russian  halted

and  turned back to Ballard, his outline wavering
in

the
besieged light. Was it a trick of the fog, or had

Mironenko's
condition deteriorated in the minutes since

they'd
left the house? His face seemed to be seeping; the

lumps
on his neck had swelled further.

'We
don't have to run,' Ballard said. 'They're not

following.'

'They're always following,' Mironenko
replied, and

as if
to give weight to the observation Ballard heard

fog-deadened
footsteps in a nearby street.

'No time to debate,' Mironenko murmured, and

turning
on his heel, he ran. In seconds, the fog had

spirited
him away again.

Ballard hesitated another moment. Incautious
as it

was, he
wanted to catch a glimpse of his pursuers so as

to know
them for the future. But now, as the soft pad

of
Mironenko's step diminished into silence, he realised

that
the other footsteps had also ceased. Did they know

he was
waiting for them? He held his breath, but there

was
neither sound nor sign of them. The delinquent fog

idled
on. He seemed to be alone in it. Reluctantly, he

gave up
waiting and went after the Russian at a run.

A few yards on the road divided. There was no
sign of

Mironenko  in either direction. Cursing his stupidity in

lingering
behind, Ballard followed the route which was

most
heavily shrouded in fog. The street was short, and

ended
at a wall lined with spikes, beyond which there

was a
park of some kind. The fog clung more tenaciously

to this
space of damp earth than it did to the street, and

Ballard
could see no more than four or five yards across

the
grass from where he stood. But he knew intuitively

that he
had chosen the right road; that Mironenko had

scaled
this wall and was waiting for him somewhere

194

close
by. Behind him, the fog kept its counsel. Either

their
pursuers had lost him, or their way, or both. He

hoisted
himself up on to the wall, avoiding the spikes by

a
whisper, and dropped down on the opposite side.

The
street had seemed pin-drop quiet, but it clearly

wasn't,
for it was quieter still inside the park. The fog

was
chillier here, and pressed more insistently upon him

as he
advanced across the wet grass. The wall behind

him -
his only point of anchorage in this wasteland -

became
a ghost of itself, then faded entirely. Committed

now, he
walked on a few more steps, not certain that

he was
even taking a straight route. Suddenly the fog

curtain
was drawn aside and he saw a figure waiting

for him
a few yards ahead. The bruises now twisted

his
face so badly Ballard would not have known it to be

Mironenko,  but that his eyes still burned so brightly.

The man
did not wait for Ballard, but turned again

and
loped off into insolidity, leaving the Englishman to

follow,
cursing both the chase and the quarry. As he did

so, he
felt a movement close by. His senses were useless

in the
clammy embrace of fog and night, but he saw with

that
other eye, heard with that other ear, and he knew

he was
not alone. Had Mironenko given up the race and

come
back to escort him? He spoke the man's name,

knowing
that in doing so he made his position apparent

to any
and all, but equally certain that whoever stalked

him
already knew precisely where he stood.

'Speak,' he said.

There was no reply out of the fog.

Then; movement.  The fog curled upon itself and

Ballard
glimpsed a form dividing the veils. Mironenko!

He  called after the man  again, taking several steps

through
the murk in pursuit and suddenly something

was
stepping out to meet him. He saw the phantom for a

moment
only; long enough to glimpse incandescent eyes

195

and
teeth grown so vast they wrenched the mouth into

a
permanent grimace. Of those facts - eyes and teeth -

he
was  certain. Of the other bizarrities -
the bristling

flesh,
the monstrous limbs - he was less sure. Maybe

his
mind, exhausted with so much noise and pain, was

finally
losing its grip on the real world; inventing terrors

to
frighten him back into ignorance.

'Damn
you,' he said, defying both the thunder that

was
coming to blind him again and the phantoms he

would
be blinded to. Almost as if to test his defiance,

the fog
up ahead shimmered and parted and something

that he
might have taken for human, but that it had its

belly
to the ground, slunk into view and out. To his

right,
he heard growls; to his left, another indeterminate

form
came and went. He was surrounded, it seemed, by

mad men
and wild dogs.

And Mironenko; where was he? Part of this
assembly,

or prey
to it? Hearing a half-word spoken behind him,

he
swung  round  to see a figure that was plausibly

that of
the Russian backing into the fog. This time

he
didn't walk in pursuit, he ran, and his speed was

rewarded.
The figure reappeared ahead of him, and

Ballard
stretched to snatch at the man's  jacket.
His

fingers
found purchase, and all at once Mironenko

was
reeling round, a growl in his throat, and Ballard

was  staring into a face that almost made  him
cry

out.
His mouth  was  a raw wound,
the teeth vast,

the
eyes slits of molten gold; the lumps at his neck

had  swelled and spread, so that the Russian's
head

was
no  longer raised above his body but part
of one

undivided
energy, head becoming torso without an axis

intervening.

'Ballard,' the beast smiled.

Its voice clung to coherence only with  the greatest

difficulty,
but Ballard heard the remnants of Mironenko

196

there.
The more he scanned the simmering flesh, the

more
appalled he became.

'Don't be afraid,' Mironenko said.

'What
disease is this?'

'The
only disease I ever suffered was forgetfulness,

and I'm
cured of that -' He grimaced as he spoke, as if

each
word was  shaped in contradiction to the
instincts

of his
throat.

Ballard touched his hand  to his head. Despite his

revolt
against the pain, the noise was rising and rising.

'. . . You remember too, don't you? You're
the

same.'

'No,' Ballard muttered.

Mironenko reached a spine-haired palm to
touch him.

'Don't
be afraid,' he said. 'You're not alone. There are

many  of us. Brothers and sisters.'

'I'm
not your brother,' Ballard said. The noise was

bad,
but the face of Mironenko was worse. Revolted,

he
turned his back on it, but the Russian only followed

him.

'Don't you taste freedom, Ballard? And life.
Just a

breath
away.' Ballard walked on, the blood beginning

to
creep from  his nostrils. He let it come.
'It only

hurts
for a while,' Mironenko said. 'Then the pain

goes .
. .'

Ballard kept
his head down,  eyes  to the earth.

Mironenko,
seeing that he was making little impression,

dropped
behind.

They
won't take you back!' he said. 'You've seen too

much.'

The
roar of helicopters did not entirely blot these

words
out. Ballard knew there was truth in them. His

step
faltered, and through the cacophony  he
heard

Mironenko
murmur:

'Look...'

197

Ahead, the fog had thinned somewhat, and the
park

wall
was visible through rags of mist. Behind him,

Mironenko's
voice had descended to a snarl.

'Look at what you are.'

The
rotors roared; Ballard's legs felt as though they

would
fold up beneath him. But he kept up his advance

towards
the wall. Within yards of it, Mironenko called

after
him again, but  this time the words  had fled

altogether.
There  was  only a
low  growl. Ballard

could
not resist looking; just once. He glanced over

his
shoulder.

Again the fog confounded him, but not
entirely. For

moments  that were both an age and yet too brief,
Ballard

saw the
thing that had been Mironenko in all its glory,

and at
the sight the rotors grew to screaming pitch. He

clamped
his hands to his face. As he did so a shot rang

out;
then another; then a volley of shots. He fell to the

ground,
as much  in weakness as in self-defence,
and

uncovered
his eyes to see several human figures moving

in the
fog. Though he had forgotten their pursuers, they

had not
forgotten him. They had traced him to the park,

and
stepped into the midst of this lunacy, and now men

and
half-men and things not men were lost in the fog,

and
there was bloody confusion on every side. He saw a

gunman  firing at a shadow, only to have an ally
appear

from
the fog with a bullet in his belly; saw a thing appear

on four
legs and flit from sight again on two; saw another

run by
carrying a human head by the hair, and laughing

from
its snouted face.

The turmoil spilled towards him. Fearing for
his life,

he
stood up and staggered back towards the wall. The

cries
and shots and snarls went on; he expected either

bullet
or beast to find him with  every step.
But he

reached
the wall alive, and attempted to scale it. His

co-ordination
had deserted him, however. He had no

198

choice
but to follow the wall along its length until he

reached
the gate.

Behind him the scenes of unmasking and
transform-

ation
and mistaken  identity went on. His
enfeebled

thoughts
turned briefly to Mironenko. Would he, or

any of
his tribe, survive this massacre?

'Ballard,' said a voice in the fog. He
couldn't see the

speaker,
although he recognised the voice. He'd heard

it in
his delusion, and it had told him lies.

He felt a pin-prick at his neck. The man had
come

from
behind, and was pressing a needle into him.

'Sleep,' the voice said. And with the words
came

oblivion.

At
first he couldn't remember the man's name. His mind

wandered  like a lost child, although his interrogator

would
time and again demand his attention, speaking

to him
as though  they were old friends. And
there

was
indeed something  familiar about his
errant eye,

that
went on its way so much more  slowly than
its

companion.
At last, the name came to him.

'You're Cripps,' he said.

'Of course I'm Cripps,' the man  replied. 'Is your

memory  playing tricks? Don't concern yourself. I've

given
you some suppressants, to keep you from losing

your
balance. Not that I think that's very likely. You've

fought
the good fight, Ballard, in spite of considerable

provocation.
When  I think of the way  Odell snap-

ped . .
.' He sighed. 'Do you remember last night at all?'

At
first his mind's eye was blind. But
then the

memories
began to come. Vague forms moving in a

fog.

'The park,' he said at last.

'I only just got you out. God knows how many
are

dead.'

199

'The other . . . the Russian . . . ?'

'Mironenko?' Cripps prompted. 'I don't know.
I'm

not in
charge any longer, you see; I just stepped in

to
salvage something if I could. London will need us

again,
sooner or later. Especially now they know the

Russians  have a
special corps like us. We'd  heard

rumours  of course; and then, after you'd met with

him,
began to wonder about Mironenko. That's why

I set
up the meeting. And of course when I saw him,

face to
face, I knew. There's something in the eyes.

Something
hungry.'

'I saw him change -'

'Yes,
it's quite a sight, isn't it? The
power  it

unleashes.
That's why we developed the programme,

you
see, to harness that power, to have it work for us.

But
it's difficult to control. It took years of suppression

therapy,
slowly burying the desire for transformation,

so that
what we  had left was a man  with a beast's

faculties.
A wolf in sheep's clothing. We thought we

had the
problem beaten; that if the belief systems didn't

keep
you subdued the pain response would. But we were

wrong.'
He stood up and crossed to the window. 'Now

we have
to start again.'

'Suckling said you'd been wounded.'

'No. Merely demoted. Ordered back to London.'

'But you're not going.'

'I will now; now that I've found you.' He
looked

round  at Ballard. 'You're my   vindication, Ballard.

You're  living proof that my  techniques are viable.

You  have full knowledge of your condition, yet
the

therapy  holds the leash.' He  turned
back to  the

window.  Rain lashed the glass. Ballard could almost

feel it
upon his head, upon  his back. Cool,
sweet

rain.
For a blissful moment he seemed to be running

in it,
close to  the ground,   and
the air was  full

200

of the
scents the downpour  had released from
the

pavements.

'Mironenko said -'

'Forget Mironenko,' Cripps told him. 'He's
dead.

You're
the last of the old order, Ballard. And the first

of the
new.'

Downstairs, a bell rang. Cripps peered out of
the

window  at the streets below.

'Well, well,' he said. 'A delegation, come to
beg us to

return.
I hope you're flattered.' He went to the door.

'Stay
here. We needn't show you off tonight. You're

weary.
Let them wait, eh? Let them sweat.' He left the

stale
room, closing the door behind him. Ballard heard

his
footsteps on the stairs. The bell was being rung a

second
time. He got up and crossed to the window.

The  weariness of the late afternoon light matched
his

weariness;
he  and his city were  still of one accord,

despite
the curse that was upon him. Below a man

emerged
from the back of the car and crossed to the

front
door. Even at this acute angle Ballard recognised

Suckling.

There were voices in the hallway; and with
Suckling's

appearance
the debate seemed to become more heated.

Ballard
went to the door, and listened, but his drug-

dulled
mind could make  little sense of the
argument.

He  prayed that Cripps would keep to his word,
and

not
allow them to peer at him. He didn't want to be a

beast
like Mironenko. It wasn't freedom, was it, to be

so
terrible? It was merely a different kind of tyranny.

But
then he didn't want to be the first of Cripps' heroic

new
order either. He belonged to nobody, he realised;

not
even himself. He was hopelessly lost. And yet hadn't

Mironenko  said at that first meeting that the man who

did not
believe himself lost, was lost? Perhaps better

that -
better to exist in the twilight between one state

201

and
another, to prosper as best he could by doubt and

ambiguity
- than to suffer the certainties of the tower.

The debate below was gaining in momentum.
Ballard

opened
the door so as to hear better. It was Suckling's

voice
that met him. The tone was waspish, but no less

threatening
for that.

'It's over . . .' he was telling Cripps '. .
. don't you

understand
plain English?' Cripps made an attempt to

protest,
but Suckling cut him short. 'Either you come

in a
gentlemanly fashion or Gideon and Sheppard carry

you
out. Which  is it to be?'

'What is this?' Cripps demanded. 'You're
nobody,

Suckling.
You're comic relief.'

'That was yesterday,' the man replied.
'There've been

some
changes made. Every dog has his day, isn't that

right?
You should know that better than anybody. I'd

get a
coat if I were you. It's raining.'

There was a short silence, then Cripps said:

'All right. I'll come.'

'Good man,' said Suckling sweetly. 'Gideon,
go check

upstairs.'

'I'm alone,' said Cripps.

'I believe you,' said Suckling. Then to
Gideon, 'Do it

anyway.'

Ballard heard somebody move across the
hallway, and

then a
sudden flurry of movement. Cripps was either

making  an escape-bid or attacking Suckling, one of
the

two.
Suckling shouted out; there was a scuffle. Then,

cutting
through the confusion, a single shot.

Cripps cried out, then came  the sound
of him

falling.

Now
Suckling's voice, thick with fury. 'Stupid,' he

said.
'Stupid.'

Cripps groaned something which Ballard didn't
catch.

Had  he asked to be dispatched, perhaps, for
Suckling

202

told
him: 'No. You're going back to London. Sheppard,

stop
him bleeding. Gideon; upstairs.'

Baliard backed away from  the head of the stairs as

Gideon  began his ascent. He felt sluggish and inept.

There
was no way out of this trap. They would corner

him and
exterminate him. He was a beast; a mad dog

in a
maze. If he'd only killed Suckling when he'd had

the
strength to do so. But then what good would that

have
done? The world was full of men like Suckling,

men  biding their time until they could show their
true

colours;
vile, soft, secret men. And suddenly the beast

seemed
to move in Baliard, and he thought of the park

and the
fog and the smile on the face of Mironenko, and

he felt
a surge of grief for something he'd never had:

the
life of a monster.

Gideon was almost at the top of the stairs.
Though

it
could only delay the inevitable by moments, Baliard

slipped
along the landing and opened the first door he

found.
It was the bathroom. There was a bolt on the

door,
which he slipped into place.

The sound of running water filled the room. A
piece

of
guttering had broken, and was delivering a torrent

of
rain-water onto the window-sill. The sound, and the

chill
of the bathroom, brought the night of delusions

back.
He remembered the pain and blood; remembered

the
shower - water beating on his skull, cleansing him

of the
taming pain. At the thought, four words came to

his
lips unbidden.

'I do not believe.'

He had been heard.

'There's somebody up here,' Gideon called.
The man

approached
the door, and beat on it. 'Open up!'

Baliard heard him quite clearly, but didn't
reply. His

throat
was burning, and the roar of rotors was growing

louder
again. He put his back to the door and despaired.

203

Suckling was up the stairs and at the door in
seconds.

'Who's
in there?' he demanded to know. 'Answer me!

Who's  in there?' Getting no response, he ordered
that

Cripps
be brought upstairs. There was more commotion

as the
order was obeyed.

'For the last time -' Suckling said.

The
pressure was building in Ballard's skull. This

time it
seemed the din had lethal intentions; his eyes

ached,
as if about to be blown from their sockets. He

caught
sight of something in the mirror above the sink;

something
with gleaming eyes, and again, the words

came -
'I do not believe' - but this time his throat, hot

with
other business, could barely pronounce them.

'Ballard,' said Suckling. There was triumph
in the

word.
'My God, we've got Ballard as well. This is our

lucky
day.'

No, thought the man in the mirror. There was
nobody

of that
name here. Nobody of any name at all, in fact,

for
weren't names the first act of faith, the first board

in the
box you buried freedom in? The thing he was

becoming
would not be named; nor boxed; nor buried.

Never
again.

For a moment
he lost sight of the bathroom, and

found
himself hovering above the grave they had made

him
dig, and in the depths the box danced as its contents

fought
its premature burial. He could hear the wood

splintering
- or was it the sound of the door being broken

down?

The
box-lid flew off. A rain of nails fell on the heads

of the
burial party. The noise in his head, as if knowing

that
its torments had proved fruitless, suddenly fled,

and
with it the delusion. He was back in the bathroom,

facing
the open door. The men who stared through at

him  had the faces of fools. Slack, and stupefied
with

shock -
seeing the way he was wrought.  Seeing
the

204

snout
of him, the hair of him, the golden eye and the

yellow
tooth of him. Their horror elated him.

'Kill it!' said Suckling, and pushed Gideon
into the

breach.
The man already had his gun from his pocket

and was
levelling it, but his trigger-finger was too slow.

The
beast snatched his hand and pulped the flesh around

the
steel. Gideon screamed, and stumbled away down

the
stairs, ignoring Suckling's shouts.

As the beast raised his hand to sniff the
blood on his

palm
there was a flash of fire, and he felt the blow to his

shoulder.
Sheppard had no chance to fire a second shot

however
before his prey was through the door and upon

him.
Forsaking his gun, he made  a futile bid
for the

stairs,
but the beast's hand unsealed the back of his head

in one
easy stroke. The gunman toppled forward, the

narrow
landing filling with the smell of him. Forgetting

his
other enemies, the beast fell upon the offal and ate.

Somebody
said: 'Ballard.'

The beast swallowed down the dead man's eyes
in one

gulp,
like prime oysters.

Again, those syllables. ''Ballard.' He would
have gone

on with
his meal, but that the sound of weeping pricked

his
ears. Dead to himself he was, but not to grief. He

dropped
the meat from his fingers and looked back along

the landing.

The man
who was crying only wept from one eye;

the
other gazed on, oddly untouched. But the pain in

the
living eye was profound indeed. It was despair, the

beast
knew; such suffering was too close to him for the

sweetness
of transformation to have erased it entirely.

The
weeping man  was locked in the arms of
another

man,  who had
his gun placed against the side of his

prisoner's
head.

'If you make another move,' the captor said,
Til blow

his
head off. Do you understand me?'

205

The beast wiped his mouth.

'Tell him, Cripps! He's your baby.  Make
him

understand.'

The one-eyed man tried to speak, but words
defeated

him.
Blood from the wound in his abdomen seeped

between
his fingers.

'Neither of you need die,' the captor said.
The beast

didn't
like the music of his voice; it was shrill and

deceitful.
'London would much  prefer to have you

alive.
So why don't you tell him, Cripps? Tell him I

mean
him no harm.'

The weeping man nodded.

'Ballard . . .'he murmured. His voice was
softer than

the
other. The beast listened.

'Tell me, Ballard -' he said,'- how does it
feel?'

The beast couldn't quite make sense of the
question.

'Please tell me. For curiosity's sake -'

'Damn
you -' said Suckling, pressing the gun into

Cripps'
flesh. 'This isn't a debating society.'

'Is it good?' Cripps asked, ignoring both man
and

gun.

'Shut up!'

'Answer me, Ballard. How does it feel?

As he stared into Cripps' despairing eyes the
meaning

of the
sounds he'd uttered came clear, the words falling

into
place like the pieces of a mosaic. 'Is it good?' the

man was
asking.

Ballard heard laughter in his throat, and
found the

syllables
there to reply.

'Yes,' he told the weeping man. 'Yes. It's
good.'

He had not finished his reply before Cripps'
hand sped

to
snatch at Suckling's. Whether he intended
suicide

or
escape nobody would ever know. The trigger-finger

twitched,
and a bullet flew up through Cripps' head and

spread
his despair across the ceiling. Suckling threw the

206

body
off, and went to level the gun, but the beast was

already
upon him.

Had  he
been more of a man, Ballard might have

thought
to make Suckling suffer, but he had no such

perverse
ambition. His only thought was to render the

enemy  extinct as efficiently as possible. Two sharp
and

lethal
blows did it. Once the man  was  dispatched,

Ballard
crossed over to where Cripps was  lying.
His

glass
eye had escaped destruction. It gazed on fixedly,

untouched
by the holocaust all around them. Unseating

it from
the maimed head, Ballard put in his pocket; then

he went
out into the rain.

It was dusk.
He did  not know  which district of

Berlin
he'd been brought to, but his impulses, freed

of
reason, led him via the back streets and shadows to

a
wasteland on the outskirts of the city, in the middle

of
which stood a solitary ruin. It was anybody's guess

as to
what  the building might once have
been  (an

abbatoir?
an opera-house?) but by some freak of fate

it had
escaped demolition, though every other building

had  been levelled for several hundred yards in
each

direction.
As he made his way across the weed-clogged

rubble
the wind changed direction by a few degrees and

carried
the scent of his tribe to him. There were many

there,
together in the shelter of the ruin. Some leaned

their
backs against the wall and shared a cigarette; some

were  perfect wolves, and haunted the darkness like

ghosts
with golden eyes; yet others might have passed

for
human  entirely, but for their trails.

Though
he feared that names would be forbidden

amongst
this clan, he asked two lovers who were rutting

in the
shelter of the wall if they knew of a man called

Mironenko.
The bitch had a smooth and hairless back,

and a
dozen full teats hanging from her belly.

'Listen,' she said.

207

Ballard listened, and heard somebody talking
in a

corner
of the ruin. The voice ebbed and flowed. He

followed
the sound across the roofless interior to where a

wolf
was standing, surrounded by an attentive audience,

an open
book in its front paws. At Ballard's approach

one or
two of the audience turned their luminous eyes

up to
him. The reader halted.

'Ssh!' said one, 'the Comrade is reading to
us.'

It was Mironenko who spoke. Ballard slipped
into the

ring of
listeners beside him, as the reader took up the

story
afresh.

'And God
blessed them, and God said unto them, Be

fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth . . .'

Ballard had heard the words before, but
tonight they

were
new.

'. . . and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of

the
sea, and over the fowl of the air . . .'

He
looked around the circle of listeners as the words

described
their familiar pattern.

'. . . and over every living thing that
moveth upon the

earth.''

Somewhere
near, a beast was crying.

208

THE
BOOK OF BLOOD

(A POSTCRIPT):

ON JERUSALEM

STREET

WYBURD
LOOKED AT the book, and the book looked

back. Everything he'd ever been told about the
boy

was
true.

'How did you get in?' McNeal wanted to know.
There

was
neither anger nor trepidation in his voice; only casual

curiosity.

'Over the wall,' Wyburd told him.

The book nodded. 'Come to see if the rumours
were

true?'

'Something like that.'

Amongst
connoisseurs of the bizarre, McNeal's story

was
told in reverential whispers. How the boy had passed

himself
off as a medium, inventing stories on behalf of

the
departed for his own profit; and how the dead had

finally
tired of his mockery, and broken into the living

world
to exact an immaculate revenge. They had written

209

upon
him; tattooed their true testaments upon his skin

so that
he would never  again take their grief in
vain.

They
had turned his body into a living book, a book

of
blood, every inch of which was minutely engraved

with
their histories.

Wyburd
was not a credulous man. He had never quite

believed
the story - until now. But here was living proof

of its
veracity, standing before him. There was no part

of
McNeaFs  exposed skin which was not
itching with

tiny
words. Though it was four years and more since the

ghosts
had come for him, the flesh still looked tender, as

though
the wounds would never entirely heal.

'Have you
seen enough?' the boy asked. 'There's

more.
He's covered from head to foot. Sometimes he

wonders  if they didn't write on the inside as well.'
He

sighed.
'Do you want a drink?'

Wyburd
nodded. Maybe  a throatful of
spirits would

stop
his hands from trembling.

McNeal
poured himself a glass of vodka, took a slug

from
it, then poured a second glass for his guest. As he

did so,
Wyburd saw that the boy's nape was as densely

inscribed
as his face and hands, the writing creeping up

into
his hair. Not even his scalp had escaped the authors'

attentions,
it seemed.

'Why
do you talk about yourself in the third person?'

he
asked McNeal,  as the boy returned with
the glass.

'Like
you weren't here . . .?'

The
boy?' McNeal  said. 'He isn't
here. He hasn't

been
here in a long time.'

He sat down; drank. Wyburd began to feel more
than

a
little uneasy. Was the boy simply mad, or playing some

damn-fool
game?

The boy swallowed another mouthful of vodka,
then

asked,
matter of factly: 'What's it worth to you?'

Wyburd
frowned. 'What's what worth?'

210

'His skin,' the boy prompted. 'That's what
you

came  for, isn't it?' Wyburd emptied his glass with

two
swallows, making no reply. McNeal shrugged.

'Everyone
has  the right to silence,' he said.
'Except

for the
boy of course. No silence for him.' He looked

down  at his hand, turning it over to appraise the
writing

on his
palm. 'The stories go on, night and day. Never

stop.
They tell themselves, you see. They bleed and

bleed.
You can never hush them; never heal them.'

He is mad, Wyburd thought, and somehow the
reali-

sation
made what he was about to do easier. Better to kill

a sick
animal than a healthy one.

'There's a road, you know . . .' the boy was
saying.

He
wasn't even looking at his executioner. 'A road the

dead go
down. He  saw it. Dark, strange road,
full of

people.
Not a day gone by when he hasn't . . . hasn't

wanted
to go back there.'

'Back?' said Wyburd, happy to keep the boy
talking.

His
hand  went  to his jacket pocket; to the knife. It

comforted
him in the presence of this lunacy.

'Nothing's enough,' McNeal said. 'Not love.
Not

music.
Nothing.'

Clasping the knife, Wyburd drew it from his
pocket.

The
boy's eyes found the blade, and warmed to the

sight.

'You never told him how much it was worth,'
he said.

'Two hundred thousand,' Wyburd replied.

'Anyone he knows?'

The
assassin shook his head. 'An exile,' he replied.

'In
Rio. A collector.'

'Of skins?'

'Of skins.'

The boy put down his glass. He murmured
something

Wyburd  didn't catch. Then, very quietly, he said:

'Be quick, and do it.'

211

He
juddered a little as the knife found his heart, but

Wyburd
was efficient. The moment had come and gone

before
the boy even knew it was happening, much less

felt
it. Then it was all over, for him at least. For Wyburd

the
real labour was only just beginning. It took him two

hours
to complete the flaying. When he was finished -

the
skin folded in fresh linen, and locked in the suitcase

he'd
brought for that very purpose - he was weary.

Tomorrow
he would fly to Rio, he thought as he left

the
house, and claim the rest of his payment. Then,

Florida.

He
spent the evening in the small apartment he'd

rented
for the tedious weeks of surveillance and planning

which
had preceded this afternoon's work. He was glad

to be
leaving. He had been lonely here, and anxious with

anticipation.
Now the job was done, and he could put

the
time behind him.

He
slept well, lulled to sleep by the imagined scent of

orange
groves.

It was not fruit he smelt when he woke,
however,

but
something savoury. The room was in darkness. He

reached
to his right, and fumbled for the lamp-switch,

but it
failed to come on.

Now  he
heard a heavy slopping sound from across the

room.
He sat up in bed, narrowing his eyes against the

dark,
but could see nothing. Swinging his legs over the

edge of
the bed, he went to stand up.

His first thought was that he'd left the
bathroom taps

on, and
had flooded the apartment. He was knee-deep

in warm
water. Confounded, he waded towards the door

and
reached for the main light-switch, flipping it on.

It was
not water he was standing in. Too cloying, too

precious;
too red.

He made a cry of disgust, and turned to haul
open the

door,
but it was locked, and there was no key. He beat

212

a
panicked fusillade upon the solid wood, and yelled for

help.
His appeals went unanswered.

Now  he
turned back into the room, the hot tide

eddying
about his thighs, and sought out the fountain-

head.

The suitcase. It sat where he had left it on
the bureau,

and
bled copiously from every seam; and from the locks;

and
from around the hinges - as if a hundred atrocities

were
being committed  within its confines, and
it could

not
contain the flood these acts had unleashed.

He watched the blood pouring out in steaming
abun-

dance.
In the scant seconds since he'd stepped from the

bed the
pool had deepened by several inches, and still the

deluge
came.

He tried the bathroom door, but that too was
locked

and
keyless. He tried the windows, but the shutters were

immovable.
The blood had reached his waist. Much of

the
furniture was floating. Knowing he was lost unless

he
attempted some direct action, he pressed through the

flood
towards the case, and put his hands upon the lid in

the
hope that he might yet stem the flow. It was a lost

cause.
At his touch the blood seemed to come with fresh

eagerness,
threatening to burst the seams.

The
stories go on, the boy had said. They bleed and

bleed.
And now he seemed to hear them in his head,

those
stories. Dozens of voices, each telling some tragic

tale.
The flood bore him up towards the ceiling. He

paddled
to keep his chin above the frothy tide, but in

minutes
there was barely an inch of air left at the top of

the
room. As even that margin narrowed, he added his

own
voice to the .cacophony, begging for the nightmare

to
stop. But the other voices drowned him out with

their
stories, and as he kissed the ceiling his breath ran

out.

213

The
dead have highways. They run, unerring lines of

ghost-trains,
of dream-carriages, across the wasteland

behind
our lives, bearing an endless traffic of departed

souls.
They have sign-posts, these highways, and bridges

and
lay-bys. They have turnpikes and intersections.

It was at one of thesejntersections that Leon
Wyburd

caught
sight of the man in the red suit. The throng

pressed
him forward, and it was only when he came

closer
that he realised his error. The man
was  not

wearing
a suit. He was not even wearing his skin. It

was not
the McNeal boy however; he had gone on from

this
point long since. It was another flayed man entirely.

Leon
fell in beside the man as he walked, as they talked

together.
The flayed man told him how he had come to

this
condition; of his brother-in-law's conspiracies, and

the
ingratitude of his daughter. Leon in turn told of his

last
moments.

It was
a great relief to tell the story. Not because

he
wanted to be remembered, but because the telling

relieved
him of the tale. It no longer belonged to him,

that
life, that death. He had better business, as did they

all.
Roads to travel; splendours to drink down. He felt

the
landscape widen. Felt the air brightening.

What
the boy had  said was true. The
dead have

highways.

Only
the living are lost.

214

eBook Info

Identifier:

HRRDUGGGGM

Title:

Books of Blood 6

Creator:

Clive Barker

Date:

12/3/2002