Ancient Images Part 3

The impact shattered the windscreen and crumpled the bonnet like tin, but he was gripping the wheel so hard in his panic that he wasn't flung out of the car. Gla.s.s showered his neck and chest. When he tried to brush away the fragments he found he couldn't use his hands, which felt like bruises swelling hugely at the ends of his broken wrists. He couldn't use them to let himself out of the vehicle before it burst into flames as he feared it was about to. He jammed one knee under the door handle and shoved, and the door fell open so quickly that he almost sprawled headlong in the undergrowth. 47 He staggered alongside the car toward the road, every movement discovering new bruises and injuries that might be worse. The pain, and the shock of the crash, had almost closed his mind down. The wood seemed both darker and remote from him. All he knew was that he needed help, and the nearest place to find it was the inn he had pa.s.sed on his way from the town to the wood.

Either he'd forgotten what had caused the crash or his mind was refusing to accept it. The accident, and the way it had wrecked his body, was all he could try to cope with. When the figure reared up to meet him from behind the car, his mind was as unable to grasp it as his body was incapable of defending itself. He stood there almost pa.s.sively, gazing at a face that had no right to be called one, while the long blackened fingernails reached for his throat and finished what the fragments of gla.s.s had begun. 48 Sandy ate dinner with Graham's diary propped in front of her. Halfway through the Greek salad she remembered what he'd told her at her party that had filled all her rooms and almost driven out the cats. "The hunt's begun," he'd said, "and I can thank one of your profession." He'd tracked down the a.s.sistant editor of Tower Tower of of Fear. Fear. The editor's name was Norman Ross, she remembered now, and there it was on the second page of the notebook. The editor's name was Norman Ross, she remembered now, and there it was on the second page of the notebook.

He lived outside Lincoln. She took the phone to the window seat and gazed down at the dark that was climbing the trees. Bogart and Bacall prowled the far side of the room while she tried to think of her best approach. "You aren't helping," she informed them, and b.u.t.toned the number.

The bell sounded unreal, more like a recording. A child's voice interrupted it and gabbled the number. "Who's there?"

"May I speak to Norman Ross?"

The receiver was dropped with a clatter. "It's a lady for Grandpa."

What Sandy guessed was a large family greeted this with ribald encouragement, in the midst of which a man said "Never drop the phone like that." Seconds later he was at the mouthpiece. "Who's speaking, please?" drop the phone like that." Seconds later he was at the mouthpiece. "Who's speaking, please?"

"I'm a friend and colleague of Graham Nolan's."

"Sorry, doesn't mean a thing."

"This is Mr. Ross, is it?" 49 "It is, yes," he said as if she had threatened his manhood. "What are you selling?"

"I'm buying," she said, and wondered how much might be involved: presumably one of the film archives would pay. "I wanted to ask you about a film you worked on."

"Which film?"

"The one with Karloff and Lugosi."

"That thing again?" His response was so sharp it made the microphone buzz waspishly. "Yes, I know who your friend was now. You're wasting your time, I'm afraid. My father isn't well, and in any case he wouldn't be able to help."

Because of his irritability she had a.s.sumed he was the old man. "He did help Graham Nolan, I believe. All I want is to ask your father what he told Graham. I can't ask him, you see. He was killed."

"That's most regrettable, but still the answer's no. I won't have my father troubled. He's nervous enough as it is."

"I'm a film editor too. Perhaps when he's feeling better we could at least talk about his work."

"I doubt he would want to."

"May I give you my number in case he changes his mind?"

"If you must," he said, and interrupted her as soon as she had said it and her name. "I wish you people would let this wretched film stay buried. Isn't there already enough horror in the world?"

If his father had overheard that, she hoped he disagreed. "Do settle down," she pleaded with the cats. She must stop saying Graham had been killed; she had seen him jump. She tried some more early entries in the notebook, but these old folk seemed to go to bed early, and the retirement home in Birmingham was un.o.btainable. She felt dissatisfied, on 50 edge. Placing the phone well out of reach, she read Umberto Eco until she was tired enough for bed.

In the middle of the night she had to grope her way to the toilet, half asleep. She was in bed again before she realized that she had been creeping through her own rooms as if she mustn't let herself be heard. She a.s.sumed she had still been in a dream, though one that she couldn't remember. The stealthy creaking of the trees beyond her window lulled her to sleep.

The more she knew about the people Graham had approached, the easier it ought to be for her to get something out of them. In the morning she called Roger and read him all the names. "Were you still thinking of visiting?" he said, sounding ready to be disappointed.

"Absolutely."

"Can you stand a takeout meal if it's with some good wine?"

"I hope you aren't planning to get me drunk."

"No, not at all," he said, so solemnly that she had to make sure he knew she was teasing him.

She was still unable to raise any numbers from Graham's book. When she took the cats out they stayed together on the paths. Once she faltered, thinking that she saw a pair of eyes watching from among a knot of roots: pale eyes, empty of pupils. They were toadstools, she realized when she ventured closer. She kicked them to pieces, releasing a doughy smell.

She thought she knew what made her feel eyed that night--not that it was worth bothering about, she told herself. Nevertheless she rose early to buy the Daily Daily Friend, Friend, and turned past the latest diatribe against Enoch's Army to Stilwell's film review. and turned past the latest diatribe against Enoch's Army to Stilwell's film review.

"Spoofy schlock that tries to shock but turns out more yucky than yuk-yuk" was his comment on the vampire film. "Worse news is another friend of Graham Nolan's is trying to dig up the film that never was. She cuts films for 51 Metropolitan, so I shouldn't think any film buff would let her have it even if it existed, but advertisers might think their money could be spent on more worthwhile things. As far as this column's concerned, the subject is now closed."

She was alive to defend herself, unlike Graham. All the same, she was dismayed to notice how many people in the Underground were reading the Friend. Friend. At least n.o.body at Metropolitan seemed to be. The day proved too busy to let her call Stilwell or his editor, and in any case what was the use? Tracking down the film was the way to make Stilwell eat his words. At least n.o.body at Metropolitan seemed to be. The day proved too busy to let her call Stilwell or his editor, and in any case what was the use? Tracking down the film was the way to make Stilwell eat his words.

There was research she could do on her way to Roger's. During one of her Sunday afternoon strolls around her district she'd noticed a fantasy bookshop on Holloway Road. She went straight from work.

The shop felt like stepping back into the fifties. Bookshelves of various designs held magazines and paperbacks that grew paler toward the window. An intense young man who looked as if he'd starved himself to buy a handful of the rarities stored out of reach of the sunlight pushed past her and left her alone with the stocky Scottish proprietor. "Nearly closing," the proprietor said.

"Do you have a Victorian ghost story called 'The Lofty Place'?"

His lanky partner came out of a back room, and both men laughed politely. "I wish we had," the Scotsman said. "That'd buy us a few beers."

"It's a legend," his partner said. "It only ever appeared in one book, m's the pity. Conan Doyle admired it, so did Montague Summers."

"Who was the last one?" Sandy said.

"A clergyman friend of Aleister Crowley's, and an anthologist." The lanky man went to the shelves and selected a fat book printed 12/6 on its yellow jacket. Among the stories cited in Summers' introduction but not included in the anthology was "The Lofty Place" by F. X. 52 Faversham, "in which a t.i.tled British family seeks to build a G.o.d-like vantage but is punished down the generations for its hubris, and which may be favourably compared to Mr. Blackwood in its sense of landscape, and touches on the darker sources of English tradition." None of that seemed to help. "Can I leave you my number in case you find a copy?" Sandy said.

"If you like, but we've never seen one in all our years of bookselling. Maybe the darker sources of English tradition don't like to be touched."

She gathered the Scotsman was joking, since his partner chortled. She left her number with them and made her way along Holloway Road into Islington. Upper Street and some of the side roads were dug up, smelling of uncovered earth, but the area seemed more gentrified than ever. A Jaguar was parked at the corner of the street off which Roger lived in stables converted into flats.

Cobblestones led under an arch and past a long communal garden. Roger's flat was halfway along, opposite a path boxed in by shrubs. She'd hardly rung the bell when he opened the door. He was struggling to unb.u.t.ton the collar of his shirt, until she did it for him. "Excuse the mess," he mumbled.

In fact the main room, which turned into a dining kitchen on the far side of a counter, was compact and almost obsessively neat. Shelves on one side of the electric fire held books; their twins held videoca.s.settes. Two identical armchairs faced the television, which stood in front of a wall papered with posters for silent films. Roger s.n.a.t.c.hed a necktie off the floor, and she realized that had been the mess. He must have been undecided how to dress for her. "You look smart," he said.

"This is just what I wear for work," she said, slipping off her denim jacket.

"Well, you always do."

He was in the bedroom, hanging up his tie, moving 53 rapidly as if he could outrun his awkwardness. "I brought some Australian wine for you to try," she said.

"I got Californian. Once you wouldn't have drunk either, right? Now they've earned their reputations." He opened her bottle and filled their gla.s.ses. "Here's to reputations."

"Reputations. Let's hope mine survives."

"Any reason why it shouldn't?"

"I can take care of myself, don't worry," she said smiling. "I meant Stilwell's little sally in the newspaper today."

"How come? He didn't say anything about you."

"He certainly did," Sandy said, grabbing her handbag.

Roger frowned at the torn page and then rescued his copy of the paper from the kitchen bin, leafing gingerly through the stained pages until he found Stilwell's piece. "See, they've edited that out of the later edition. Not so many people will have read that garbage about you after all."

"Why would it have been edited?"

"Maybe he had second thoughts."

"Maybe," she said, but she felt dissatisfied. Roger interrupted her speculations. "Take a look at the menu and I'll summon the feast," he said.

Dinner arrived twenty minues later, and they moved to the far side of the counter, the only area of the flat which didn't refer in some way to the cinema. "You really care about films, don't you?" she said.

"Don't you?"

"Of course, when I'm working on them. But it's Graham's name I want to save more than this film."

"I guess quite a few people would be happy if you were to save both. I know I would," he added to soften any hint of rebuke.

"Tell me about yourself."

"What do you want to hear? Grew up with the ambition to do something for Disney, and I got to play a mouse at 54 Disneyland one summer while I was at UCLA. A hundred in the shade some days, and kids tromping on my feet while they had their picture taken. I could have used some Disney animation by the end of the day myself. Next year I did movie reviews for a UCLA magazine, only I got barred from the trade shows because there was one guy who always came in after the movie had begun and one time I told him the male lead's girlfriend had just been murdered, so he reviewed it as an understated suspense story. Actually, it played better that way."

"So that was how you got into films."

"Well, more like hung around the edge of the frame. I graduated from UCLA and then I toured Hollywood with three unfilmed scripts. Lots of lunches and some invitations to try writing something else, and nearly a couple of options. Then a friend of mine landed me a continuity job on an independent movie, and one job led to another, and that's how I got to work with Orson Welles on his last film."

He was talking at full speed, no longer aware of the curl wagging over his forehead as enthusiasm carried him out of reach of his self-consciousness. "Which you wrote your first book about," she said.

"I thought someone should. It isn't every day you get to watch a genius at work. And then the book did so well the publishers came to me for another, and over a particularly drunken lunch I said I'd write a book about shower scenes in the movies."

"A whole book?"

"Yeah, that's what I I thought when I sobered up. So I wrote about persistent images in the movies, starting with how if you don't end up dead in any shower you take since thought when I sobered up. So I wrote about persistent images in the movies, starting with how if you don't end up dead in any shower you take since Psycho Psycho you can guarantee someone will leap in pretending to be the monster." you can guarantee someone will leap in pretending to be the monster."

"I'm waiting for the person in the shower to turn the heat up all the way and let him have it in the face."

"I wish I'd known you then, I'd have used that. So I 55 wrote about how if you're shown a newspaper headline in a movie, chances are the story underneath is about something else entirely."

"Or whenever anyone walks past someone reading a newspaper you know the one who's reading will follow them."

"Or whenever someone's reading a book they always hold it as if they're advertising the cover."

"Or whenever someone talking on the phone is cut off they always jiggle the rest as if that will somehow bring the callback."

"Or if someone refuses at the top of their voice to do something, the next thing you'll see is them doing it. Like, you know, a woman saying on no account will she stay the night."

"Why, have you had that problem?"

"Well, you know, now and then, mostly then, I guess." He reached for the Californian Chablis and stared hard at her gla.s.s while he filled it. "That wasn't meant to be a sly pa.s.s just now, you understand."

"I didn't think it was sly."

"Good, okay. So you see another reason I was p.i.s.sed at Stilwell. I believe you can both be serious about movies and have fun speculating about ways to read them. Say, listen, I nearly forgot," he said, and stood up so quickly she felt rebuffed. "I got these for you."

They were photocopies of entries in reference books for three of the names from Graham's notebook. "These look pretty old," she said.

"The British Film Inst.i.tute was the only place that had them. None of these guys worked in movies very long after they made Tower Tower of of Fear." Fear."

"But they would only have been young then. Why was that, do you think?"

"Another mystery for you to solve. Or for us, if you like." 56 "I'd be glad of any help."

"Fine. Well, I think I've shown you all I have to offer. Maybe you can use a coffee?"

"I wouldn't mind." If he didn't care enough to make a move, nor did she. Maybe he'd seen too many films to be able to act spontaneously in real life. She drank the coffee stiffly, feeling frustratingly English and prim, and said, "Thanks for the evening. I enjoyed it and I learned a few things."

"Let's stay in touch," he said, "for Graham's sake," and his pause made her so breathless it was infuriating, all the more so because she couldn't tell whether or not he intended it to mean anything. She thought it unwise to kiss him goodnight: she patted his cheek on her way out instead.

After the compactness of the flat, the vastness of the sky, blinking minutely down at her, came as a shock. His closing door took in the light from his hallway; darkness crouched forward on the path between the shrubs. Echoes dogged her as she hurried across the cobblestones. The furniture that sat outside shops in the daytime had been locked away; chairs perched on shadowy chairs beyond plate gla.s.s. As she made for her platform at Highbury & Islington, she glimpsed a man who must be very drunk further along the tiled ramp, crawling upward to ground level. A train with a few snoozers propped in it took her to Highgate, and she jogged up Muswell Hill. She came in sight of home, and screwed up her eyes. She didn't recall leaving the top of the window of the main room open so wide.

The strip of darkness might be a shadow. High up in the house next to hers, a dog was barking as if it might continue until it lost its voice. She let herself into her building and ran upstairs. The time switch popped out of its socket as she sc.r.a.ped her key into her lock, and the night leaped through the skylight at her. She stuck her hand into the dark and groped for the switch in her hall. Her fingernails scratched the plastic, the b.u.t.ton snapped down. 57 She'd thought the apprehension she had felt as the time switch left her in the dark would vanish once she switched on her own light, but the silence of the rooms seemed ominously unfamiliar. She eased the door shut, holding the k.n.o.b of the latch between finger and thumb, and dug out of her handbag the whistle that was supposed to deafen any attacker. She pointed it ahead of her, finger twitching on the b.u.t.ton, as she tiptoed along the hall.

She pushed open the bathroom door and tugged the light cord just in time to see a movement so small it seemed stealthy. It was a drop of water losing its grip on the bathroom tap. She crept into her bedroom, where the reflection of the shaded lamp sprang into the gap between the curtains. She tiptoed down the hall to the door of the main room and flung it open, punched the light switch, leveled the tube at the room.

A smell made her hesitate on the threshold, a faint stench reminiscent of stale food. Papers and the contents of her wastepaper basket were strewn around the couch: the cats had been having a fine time, apparently. The window in the gable end was open wider than she had left it. She tiptoed quickly to the kitchen doorway. Either the smell had lodged in her nostrils or it was stronger in the kitchen. The fluorescent tube jerked alight. The only food to be seen was in the two bowls on the floor--but where were the cats?

"Bogart," she called, "Bac--was and drew a breath that made her teeth ache. Graham's notebook, which she had left on the couch, lay on the carpet beneath the open window, or at least the cover did. The remains of the pages, shredded and chewed, were scattered over the floor.

Her fists clenched, almost setting off the whistle until she threw it on the couch. "You little b.u.g.g.e.rs," she whispered, "where are you hiding? Come out or I--was She glared at the window, and saw that the top of the sash was marked by claws that had sc.r.a.ped off paint. She shoved the 58 lower sash up and leaned out, her shadow lurching across the lit treetops as she tried to see past them into the gloom. She was still straining her eyes when the doorbell rang.

She dashed along the hall and slapped the b.u.t.ton of the intercom. "Yes? What?"

"I'm not disturbing you, am I? I saw your light go on."

She vaguely recognized the man's voice. "Who is this?"

"I live across the road. We've said good morning. I drive the Rover."

"Oh yes, all right," she said, furiously impatient, mostly with herself. "Well?"

"You're the lady with the cats."

Something in his tone made her catch her breath. "Yes?"

"Do you mind coming down? I'd rather not--you know."

She suspected that she did. She went downstairs apprehensively and opened the front door. He was tall and in his forties, and already pregnant with beer. He was rubbing his hands back over his hair so hard it tugged his forehead smooth. "Sorry," he said at once. "I was on the main road, not doing more than the limit, honestly. They ran out in front of me. I'd have had a bus up my rear if I'd braked. I found the address on the collars and I didn't know if you'd want to-- There you are, anyway."

She thought he was staring at his toes, embarra.s.sed by the threat of her reaction, until she saw that he was eyeing what he'd laid neatly on the doorstep: two plastic bags full of fur and blood. 59 The cat food must have been tainted, she thought. She'd smelled it in her rooms, the smell of what had driven the cats mad. The owner of the Rover had crossed the street now, walking slowly as if that were apologetic or respectful, leaving her to gaze at the bags. She didn't think she could bear to open them. She carried them to the back garden and took a spade out of the communal shed.