Herbert van Thai has compiled a number of anthologies which include some of the writings of James Agate, Ernest Newman and Hilaire Belloc as well as a volume on Victorian Travellers. He has also resuscitated the works of many neglected Victorian writers. In 1971 his autobiography, The Tops of the Mulberry Trees, was published, as well as The Music Lovers� Companion (with Gervase Hughes). He has also edited Thomas Adolphus Trollope�s autobiography and a two-volume work on Britain�s Prime Ministers.

I found him at last, seated at the far end of the heated plant house, a small man with white hair and bloodless features.

�Mr�Bloom?� I said. He had been so engrossed in watering an exquisite-looking cactus that he was unaware of my entry, and started up violently at the sound of my voice, spilling some of the liquid over his shoes.

�I�.�.�. I�.�.�.� he gasped. His watery eyes were dilated as they flashed from side to side in extreme agitation. He made a quick lunge and grasped a wicked-looking machete, the type used in South America to hack a path through impenetrable jungle.

He stood there facing me, brandishing the weapon above his head, with the look on his face of a man who knew he was facing insuperable odds but was going to die fighting. I involuntarily retreated a few paces, being taken by surprise at the sudden ferocity of this crazy old scarecrow of a man.

�Stand back!� he called. His voice was high-pitched and strident with an edge of panic. �Stay back! You�ll not take it from me!�

I realized at that moment that it was the large cactus that he was trying to protect, taking me for a thief.

�Mr�Bloom,� I said, �please calm yourself. I haven�t come to steal your plant. I am a reporter from Gardening Pride. I�ve come to interview you.� He hesitated for a moment, then let the machete drop to the floor with a clatter. He sank down on to his knees by the beautiful plant and I saw with surprise that he was crying.

I came forward and laid my hand on his shoulder.

�Mr�Bloom,� I said softly, �it often helps to tell someone of your troubles.� I stood there, feeling rather embarrassed to witness a grown man�s collapse into a state of tears. My eyes could not help gravitating towards that succulent. Never in all my years in horticulture had I seen one of such breathtaking beauty. It was about five feet tall, with a main trunk and two branches coming out from its sides like arms, while the brilliant colours in the blooms presented a profusion of exotic splendour that defied all description. Its fantastic kaleidoscope of colour was superb; out of this world, almost. I got the feeling that this plant was unique, but that there was also something not quite right about it.

�I must tell someone or go mad,� he said in a small, broken voice. He turned his head and looked up at me. �How old do you think I am?� I was quite startled at the question, which did not seem to bear any relevance to our conversation. He looked about seventy to me, but he had obviously been very ill, so he might have been only sixty-five. I did not see the point of the question, but decided to humour him. I said he looked about sixty.

�Sixty?� he sobbed, a look of torn anguish in his eyes. �Sixty? Do I look sixty? Do you know I am only thirty-five years old?� A chilled feeling came over me.

�I�m terribly sorry,� I stammered. �I had no intention�.�.�.� He smiled for the first time through his tears and some of the years fell away.

�Oh, I know I look old,� he said, �but I have had a lot of worry.� He looked at me again and I did not know whether to smile and acknowledge the joke or not.

He got up off his knees and turned towards the cactus again, laying a loving hand upon one of its fleshy limbs. He seemed to be trying to decide something of great importance to him. I saw his lips moving and heard a low mumble of sound, but could not catch any words. At last he turned round and looked at me.

�We�ve decided to tell you a story Mr�.�.�.�

�Curtis,� I volunteered. �James Curtis.�

�Well, Mr�Curtis, I hope you are an intelligent man, because I have a story that you must tell the world. A true story, but one so incredible that you will have great difficulty in making the sceptics believe.� He looked again, at the cactus, then turned back to me and said in a cold, flat voice, �Sit down, Mr�Curtis, and I will tell you a true tale of unparalleled horror.�

We were seated on iron chairs facing each other and a table stood between us supporting our drinks of iced coconut milk. I felt quite dwarfed and insignificant, surrounded as I was by the huge tropical plants and shrubs, their large fleshy green leaves and fibrous lineas dripping with moisture from the humid atmosphere. But in spite of the heat I felt myself already, unaccountably, begin to shiver.

�Do you believe in parallel worlds, Mr�Curtis?� He carried on before I could answer. �Just think of all the times in the past that we have reached a crucial point in history. A fork in the road, if you like. Which way to go? Left or right? The fate of the world could be entirely changed at that point.

�If the Germans had won the war, what then? If Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo? If Columbus had not discovered America? If there had been no gold for the Conquistadores? If Atlantis had not sunk beneath the waves when she did? If the giant reptiles had not all died out in the Cretaceous Period a hundred million years ago, but had lived on up to the present day? If you had not come to see me today?� He paused to give some weight to the meaning, but I felt I had not quite grasped the point. �I believe all these things did happen in parallel worlds to our own and are continuing even now. Like the spirit world, it is all around us, but on a different plane, and every now and then there is a breakthrough. Doors to the parallel worlds are opened for no apparent reason and beings from each side can cross the vortex. What then, Mr�Curtis?� He looked at me, and for the first time I noticed that his eyes were green.

I loosened my tie and ran my finger quickly round my collar, but said nothing. I could feel droplets of perspiration running down between my shoulder blades. He continued,

�And what if we go right back, Mr�Curtis, to the dawn of the world? The Pre-Cambrian Period it is called, when all life, animal and vegetable was only one-celled and started on an even footing. The Amoeba, the one-celled animal, still exists today as it did millions of years ago. A protozoa still stalking its prey of microbes and engulfing them, flowing round and devouring by absorption. And what of Clamidomonas, the swimming plant? It hunts down and devours its prey even today, as it has done through the aeons of time. Of course, it�s only microscopic, but does that make it any the less formidable to creatures of similar size?

�You as a horticulturist are quite familiar with Dionaea or, as it is more commonly known, the Venus Fly Trap. A carnivorous plant that catches and devours flies and insects in its jawlike petals.

�Under the sea we have animals that look and act like plants, and plants that to all outward observation one would think were animals.� He stopped and brushed his hand to one side as a gesture of dismissal. �But these things are only interesting to horticulturists such as you and me, Mr�Curtis. The world is not concerned with them for, as they so rightly say, they are either microscopic or they are very low in the family tree of life as we know it on this planet.�

He leaned across to me, placing his hands flat on the table between us. �Suppose there was a parallel world where, instead of animals, the plants had leaped forward in evolutionary supremacy? Suppose the animals, and I include man also, had been superseded in the intellectual race for superiority? Can you imagine a world like that, Mr�Curtis?�

The foliage seemed to be all around me, its heavy fronds malignant; listening to his words; waiting for my answer.

�Impossible, surely Mr�Bloom,� I whispered, taking out my handkerchief and mopping my brow. He leaned back and laughed mirthlessly and I heard a soft rustling all around me, as if the tangled dripping undergrowth had taken up the laughter.

�Impossible, you say, but I see in your eyes that already you are half convinced, and I have not yet told you my story!� He paused and became deadly serious again, and a bleak, haunted expression clouded his drawn features. �Believe me when I say that it is true, so hellishly true. I know it because I have not only seen it, I have actually been there!� He told me his story.

Eleven o�clock.

Being a person of regular habits and insisting that his wife be likewise, Mr�Nesbit prepared to venture forth into the November night. He donned Wellington boots, black plastic mackintosh and a flat checked cap. Mrs�Nesbit donned Wellington boots, blue plastic mackintosh and a tartan headscarf.

The reason for this nocturnal activity cavorted idiotically in the hall. Heinz the Dachshund, after a number of years, had also become a creature of habit, learning to associate the ritual garbing of master and mistress with a climactic emptying of bladder and bowels: his day�s enjoyable and satisfying finale.

Mrs�Nesbit eyed the undulating sausage dog with some distaste, for she was now certain that he was depositing hairs upon the hall carpet. Until her husband had summarily dismissed the cleaning woman for kicking Heinz, Mrs�Nesbit had no idea that the animal was shedding his coat upon the carpet in question. But since she had been doing the cleaning herself, she had noticed a quantity of hairs in the bag of the vacuum cleaner. After extensive investigation, during which she examined the cleaner bag as she finished each room, she was able to pinpoint the contaminated area. Every day she found a profusion of offensive tendrils in the bag after she had done the carpet in the hall. And the dog�s pre-walk prancings were to blame.

She had summoned sufficient courage to mention the matter to her husband�in a circumspect manner, of course: she had asked him whether dogs shed their summer coats, or did they merely grow additional hair during the winter months? Mr�Nesbit had deliberated at length before pronouncing that they just grew extra hair. Aware that her husband was a self-acknowledged expert on dogs and many other things besides, Mrs�Nesbit had thanked him and verified at the library that dogs did shed their summer coats. Furthermore, she continued to accumulate evidence in the cleaner bag to support the fact.

Now, whilst her husband ran through his nightly countdown: keys, torch, lead, collar�.�.�. she resolved to give Heinz a thorough brushing every day for, although this entailed more work, she did like to keep a clean house. She wondered whether all the nasty hairs on the hall carpet had provoked the cleaning woman into the paroxysm that culminated in the kicking of Heinz�s bottom.

Mr�Nesbit had long admired Dachshunds and in a burst of benevolence had finally purchased one. Not unnaturally, Mrs�Nesbit was required to feed and nurture the puppy (she still remembered with a barely repressed shudder the pools and piles�and the smell�Lord, the smell!) for Mr�Nesbit had made it plain that he had bought the dog, not only for his own delectation and delight, but to keep her company during the day. So thoughtful of him.

Watching Heinz disappear into the misty drive, she hoped as usual that he might get lost�not die, or anything inconvenient like that�just get lost. He made so much work. Mr�Nesbit made a lot of work, too, but that was different; she had married him of her own volition and she should have realized then that he would be a lot of work�.�.�. No, she didn�t ask for much (she hadn�t asked for Heinz), only that Heinz lose himself.

At the bottom of the drive they paused before the wrought-iron gates for Mr�Nesbit�s final deliberation of the day.

�I think he should have his lead on.� Then, as a democratic afterthought, �Don�t you?� Mrs�Nesbit knew that he required mild dissension to provide him with the satisfaction of overriding it. He also wanted time to survey the house from where he stood.

He was very proud of his house. Many times he had congratulated her on her rescue, by marriage, from a life of mediocrity, and told her how fortunate she was to live in such a nice house. It was a nice house, but it was too big, and big houses made so much work; especially now he had dispensed with the cleaning woman, refusing to employ another, as he feared for Heinz�s safety. Mrs�Nesbit was sure she would have been just as happy in a little terraced house in town. (In the country, people tread in such disgusting things.)

�There shouldn�t be any cars out here at this time of night, dear,� was her suitable diversity of opinion. She wished that, for once, he would let Heinz out into the lane without his lead.

�I�m not so sure�.�.�.� his words trailed off as though he were giving weighty consideration to her argument. He turned, as she knew he would, to look at the house behind them. �Don�t you think the house looks pleasant in the moonlight?� he said, as his gimlet eyes sucked in the mist-shrouded bulk of the building. Mrs�Nesbit made no reply�she knew that he didn�t require one. She watched his neat little moustache bristling with the pride of ownership. He looks like Hitler, she thought for the thousandth time, Hitler admiring the Berchtesgaden. His fingers caressed the scrolled ironwork of the gates behind him. The gates were almost his own handiwork, for he had designed them himself with loving care and a minute attention to detail. His own personally sculptured drawbridge�.�.�.

Mr�Nesbit turned briskly to the matter in hand:

�No, better safe than sorry. We�ll have his lead on, I think.� He waited, giving Mrs�Nesbit his full attention now; waited for her final contribution to the polemical charade.

�But if a car did come along, dear, it wouldn�t be going very fast, would it? With this mist about and the way the lane winds, only a lunatic would be driving fast.� Pathetic, but necessary, she thought.

�Can�t risk it. I�m where I am today because I�ve never taken risks. You know that.� A crushing, predictable conclusion beautifully illustrating his authoritativeness. She took the proffered collar and lead, bending with a small sigh to attach them to the frisking Heinz.

Satisfied that the lead was secure after a careful scrutiny by the light of the torch, Mr�Nesbit opened one of the gates, allowing Heinz and Mrs�Nesbit out before him; not for any reason of etiquette, but simply because he had insufficient time in which to get out before the enthusiastic Heinz had pulled his wife through the opening like a rag doll. She waited, her arm aching from the effort of restraining the dog, whilst Mr�Nesbit carefully closed the gate. Together they set off along the lane; he strutting in fine military manner, illuminating Heinz�s favourite places with the torch; she stumbling blindly along behind the dog with the lead chafing her hand. So much effort, so much work�.�.�.

Mrs�Nesbit saw the car hissing down the lane towards them. It was showing no lights and the dark shape of it seemed to stretch from hedge to hedge. She wondered whether she should tell Mr�Nesbit about it; after all, from his position in the middle of the lane he should be able to see it as well as she�.�.�.

He saw it. �Damned fool�s got no lights. What does he think he�s playing at?� He waved the torch imperiously. The car approached at undiminished speed, scything through the low-lying mist. �Keep the dog into the side,� he said, no doubt presuming that she had sufficient intelligence to do the same. �Good heavens, it�s a Rolls-Royce!� he bellowed. �You�d think the fellow would have more sense!�

To Mrs�Nesbit, crouched against the dripping hedge, it was obvious that the car was not going to stop before it reached her husband, who by now was roaring �Stop! Stop, I tell you!� and gesticulating wildly with the torch. King Canute (abridged version), she thought as he disappeared with a thud and a gurgle beneath the perpendicular radiator. Heinz, hearing his master in distress, leapt towards the last-known position of his voice. Such was the strength of his determination that he tore the lead from Mrs�Nesbit�s hand. He was just in time to vanish under a rear wheel.

She watched the vehicle draw sedately to a halt and was fascinated and relieved to see that it was a hearse; one of those pre-war models that used to exemplify quality in the far-off days of her childhood. It reversed slowly towards her and stopped a few feet from the sprawling figures of Heinz and her husband. On the gleaming bier in the back of the vehicle rested the unmistakable shape of a coffin.

Two men in funeral clothes and top hats climbed down from the front. One of them went quietly to the two bodies in the lane. The other came and stood beside her. Beneath the brim of the hat his face was one of perpetual suffering; thin and drawn and white in the moonlight.

�My dear,� he said, �please accept our heartfelt sympathy. It was�.�.�. unavoidable.� She nodded mutely and assumed a sad posture of weary fortitude.

The other man straightened from his examination of the bodies, and with a gesture of finality he removed his hat. His brilliant, bald head clashed incongruously with his sombre clothes. The man beside her also removed his hat to reveal a head not quite as bald as the other�s. From somewhere inside the hat he produced a card, which he handed to her before deferentially bowing his head in the presence of death. Mrs�Nesbit tilted the card slightly to catch the moonlight and read, through welling tears:

She burst into tears then, her body wracked by enormous sobs. The man put his hand on her heaving shoulder.

�Madam, the Grim Reaper visits all of us at some time, you know.� He handed her a clean white handkerchief smelling of after-shave lotion and formaldehyde.

�Fortunately I, Herbert Croaker, and my brother Horace are on hand to render you some assistance.�

For a few moments Mrs�Nesbit sobbed in the comforting and sympathetic crook of Herbert�s arm. Finally she blew her nose and composed herself as best she could.

�I�m very grateful. It�s�.�.�. it�s�.�.�.� she faltered, pointing sorrowfully at Mr�Nesbit and Heinz, �well, it�s such an awful mess.� She choked on a fresh deluge of tears.

�Leave it all to us,� said Herbert gently. He patted her arm reassuringly and walked over to join Horace. They held a short murmured conversation before opening the rear door of the hearse. Putting their hats side by side on the floor beneath the bier, they slid the coffin out and laid it on the tarmac next to Mr�Nesbit. With considerable self-control Mrs�Nesbit advanced to where the two men were now struggling with the lid of the coffin. She winced upon seeing, from the corner of her eye, the muddy red imprint of the tyre tread on her husband�s shirt front. That was a clean white shirt she had taken the trouble to iron that very morning�.�.�.

Herbert paused dramatically from his labours with the lid. �Screwdriver,� he said to Horace in a tone that suggested Divine Revelation. Hearing the Word, Horace exhaled to produce a prolonged �Aaaahhh�.�.�.� and strode purposefully to the front of the hearse. Herbert looked up apologetically:

�We�.�.�. er�.�.�. always put a couple in�.�.�. screws. It�.�.�. er�.�.�. prevents the lid falling off in transit.� He seemed a little uncomfortable at his divulgence of a professional secret. Mrs�Nesbit nodded understandingly. �Very practical,� she assured him. Horace returned with a yellow-handled screwdriver and a torch. He handed the torch to Herbert, who played the beam along the edge of the lid to reveal the first screw. Horace tackled it with a nice economy of movement�the credentials of a craftsman.

�What name is it, madam?� Herbert asked, as his beam sought the next screw for Horace.

�Nesbit,� she replied. Should she feel guilty for not providing his Christian name? Not really; after all, they hadn�t been that close�.�.�. She would have to consult his birth certificate.

�The deceased�he was your husband?�

�We�ve been married for twenty-five years.� She felt surprised that such an incredibly long time could be so adequately and succinctly described.

Horace removed the second screw and lifted the lid of the coffin. Mrs�Nesbit gasped when she saw the immaculate quilted lining inside.

�Won�t you ruin the material if you put the�my husband�.�.�.�

�This is our Rover general purpose model. It cleans up very well,� Herbert explained.

�Rather you than�� Mrs�Nesbit decided not to finish her attempt at a little brave humour.

She turned away whilst they manoeuvred Mr�Nesbit into the coffin. Horace spoke for the first time:

�Nice fit, Herbert; almost as if it was tailored for him.� His voice wasn�t as cultured as his brother�s. It was evident to Mrs�Nesbit that he was the artisan, master of the workshops; the sensitive and condolent Herbert would look after the administrative side of the business. Horace addressed her:

�He�s nice and comfortable now, Missus. Would you like to see him?�

�Not just now, thank you. Perhaps after you�ve�.�.�. you�ve�.�.�.�

�Yes, of course,� Herbert interjected tactfully.

She suddenly remembered Heinz, poor little Heinz. She turned, careful not to look at the coffin. �Can you take the dog as well? He loved his Heinz, you know.�

Herbert hesitated. �Uhmm�.�.�. it�s not very�.�.�. hygienic�.�.�.�

�I�m sure my husband wouldn�t mind, Mr�Croaker,� she said eagerly.

Herbert considered for a moment longer. �Very well, madam. Special circumstances. We don�t normally make a habit of it, though.� He signalled to Horace.

Once more Mrs�Nesbit turned away as Horace laid Heinz reverently on Mr�Nesbit�s feet. Horace secured the lid against any mishap and they nestled the coffin into the hearse. Herbert replaced his hat at a dignified angle.

�Thank you for your patronage, Mrs�Nesbit. Would you be so kind as to call on us in a day or so to discuss your requirements regarding your husband�s remains?�

�Yes I�� She broke off. Herbert and Horace cocked their heads towards her in unison, indicating their compliance to her every wish. �I�d like a nice send-off,� was all she could think of to say about her requirements. She looked tearfully at the bloodstained road. �I don�t know what I would have done without you�.�.�. such a dreadful mess.� Herbert drew himself up proudly:

�A creative funeral service is equipped for any eventuality, madam,� he intoned rather formally. He softened a little when she offered him his handkerchief: �No, no, it�s on the house. Good night.�

They climbed into the hearse. It whispered away into the night with the mist swirling eerily behind it.

Mrs�Nesbit stood for a long time staring red-eyed at the two dark blotches and the shattered torch. �So much work,� she muttered irritably to herself as she returned to the house for a broom and some hot water.

Shwartz was the most sophisticated computer in the history of the world. Even by twenty-first century standards, which were formidable, he was the greatest. The king. The champ. Nearly two thousand programmers at the Ministry of Computerization had spent four years just getting Shwartz together.

He was an impressive chap, standing fifteen feet by twelve and weighing a fraction under fifty tons. His outer casing was made of reinforced zinc plates, held together by rows of fancy brass rivets. For added protection he had been housed in a subterranean concrete bunker just under Piccadilly with an independent, self-generating electricity supply, air conditioning, and a twenty-four-hour armed guard. The latter was purely for ceremonial purposes because Shwartz could deal with every conceivable emergency.

All the other computers in Britain were linked to Shwartz. Their programs were scanned and monitored by him, and if they performed badly�or even just sluggishly�Shwartz would issue an instant rebuke on his built-in, six-thousand-characters-a-minute printer. If a hospital computer selected the wrong serum for a fully automated operation�admittedly a rare occurrence�Shwartz would spot the error in microseconds and issue an immediate correction before any damage was done.

Shwartz was all-seeing. All-powerful. And breathtakingly fast.

His memory was incredible. He could correctly answer two hundred examination questions on nuclear physics, marine biology and knitting in forty different languages simultaneously. At the same time he could send out detailed accounts to nine million householders for their quarterly rates, while composing an electric symphony that would have made Brahms seem like a gorilla with tin drum.

Everybody trusted Shwartz. The people looked upon him as their bastion against bureaucracy�and the politicians found it impossible to make major policy decisions without consulting him. His weather forecasting was spectacular, as was his inexhaustible supply of recipes for bored housewives. He could issue beautifully printed invitations on behalf of the Prime Minister to overseas Heads of State, and then carefully select the menus for the State Banquets, taking into account the visitor�s background, tastes, religion and politics.

People loved Shwartz. Elderly spinsters had been known to send him parcels containing fruit cake and woolly socks, while teenage girls frequently wrote him passionate letters. Shwartz always acknowledged these communications politely and instantly redirected the gifts to Oxfam or some other worthy cause.

Parliament passed a bill which allowed for a Shwartz ceremony to take place each year in Horse-Guards Parade, with the massed bands of the three Armed Services. Shwartz himself composed and selected the music. The Archbishop of Canterbury announced from the pulpit that Shwartz was the modern version of St�Paul, and Shwartz was so moved that he rewrote Onward, Christian Soldiers as a symphony for oboe and Malayan nose flute. �A charming touch,� The Times commented.

Shwartz also managed to correct the Guardian�s spelling mistakes, and they gave a lunch in his honour at the Connaught.

The British people entered a phase of unparalleled prosperity and regained their respect in the eyes of the world. Strikes were a thing of the past and the Prime Minister�s daughter married the son of the TUC�s General Secretary. Shwartz sent them a saucy telegram which was read out at the reception with much good-natured amusement.

It all reflected the benign�Shwartz era under which the nation prospered.

Then, quite suddenly, Shwartz began to behave erratically. There was no warning, no gradual decline in his efficiency. He just�well�started doing some rather odd things.

Everywhere he looked there was work to be done, fences to mend, fields to plough, hedges to cut back and a multitude of lesser chores long since neglected in favour of more pressing jobs. Despite the neglect there was an air of precision, of overall neatness, around the old farm, with its cobbled courtyard and ancient barn.

He surveyed the scene lazily, standing alone in the early morning August sunshine, sipping the sharp, sweet air, slightly drunk on its heady bouquet. Across the dappled, patchwork fields he could see the long, brown, furrowed earth as it dipped away beyond the hill, a dark scar in the north field; he knew there were many days of ploughing ahead.

The old barn door shuddered and splinters of wood cracked against the cobbles as he dragged it open, filling the barn with swirling beams of sunlight. He went first, to the bulky metal rat trap. It was tightly sprung but empty of last night�s bait. In his sudden, early morning anger he kicked out, spinning the trap across the barn. It made a sharp crack which disturbed the horses as it sprang shut.

He fed the restless horses, bringing a bale of fresh hay from the rear of the barn and dividing it between them. He had enough bales in the barn to last through the coming winter and he fed them generously, mindful of the work they would do that day. They were cart-horses, two big, grey beasts, gentle with age yet still strong enough to pull the iron plough. They replaced a broken tractor, its engine rusting away in the far corner of the barn. Progress matched with a failing economy provides many a poor substitute.

A voice called him back to the farmhouse, a nasal, childish whine. �Jed! Your breakfast�s ready, Jed.� The voice whined on. �Jed! Where are you, Jed? Your food�s on the table, Jed. When�s Mother coming home, Jed? When�s Mother coming home?� He was a pathetic figure. At twenty-eight, he was three years younger than his brother, Jed, with the same red-brown hair and wiry frame, but the resemblance stopped there. The speaker was a simpleton, almost mongol, with narrow eyes and a broad face. He stumbled across the courtyard towards the barn, his progress unstable and gauche. Jed came out to meet him.

�Jed? Jed?� the voice continued. �When�s Mother coming home?�

Jed watched his brother with compassion. There was no answer to his question, at least, none he could give which would make sense to the other�s simple brain. Their mother had died three years before; the doctor had said old age, but Jed knew better. She�d worked herself to an early death, bringing up three children single-handed, after their father had run off with another woman. Knowing no other life, the brothers had stayed on to nurse their land and to run the farm as best they could. But it wasn�t an easy life, least of all for Jed. His battle for survival did not end as the sun went down, did not end at the close of day. For him there was his brother, Matthew, a child in a man�s body, who needed watching over, needed love and friendship beyond belief. But most of all he needed the protection of Jed�s compassion to ward off the scorn and cruel contempt of Luke, the eldest brother.

Jed held his brother�s hand as they walked back for breakfast, thanking Matthew for his help in the clean, scrubbed kitchen. Finally, the first meal of the day over, Jed asked Matthew cautiously, �Where�s Luke today? Is he up yet?�

Matthew held his silence. Eyes wide and fearful, for even the mention of Luke�s name held untold terror. Jed shrugged. It didn�t matter. Luke did as he pleased, coming home at all hours, drunk and noisy, never helping on the farm, never lifting a finger to earn his keep. Matthew hated Luke, feared him as a child might fear the dark and deadly night. Yet Jed held no hate; in his compassion and fairness there was no room for it. Besides, they�d all loved one another many years ago and Jed lived on the hope provided by past memories.

Thoughts of the day�s work ahead drove Jed from the farmhouse out into the barn, where he made ready the horses for their toil. Matthew had wanted to go with him, pleading, whining like the child he was, yet Jed had been firm. There was a time when Matthew had helped him in the fields. He�d insisted on working the plough and Jed had allowed him to share the work. Everything had gone well for the first hour, with the men working well together. Then, slowly, Matthew had become bored, sullen, walking behind the plough, the leather straps across his thin shoulders dragging him on. He hadn�t taken up the slack, letting the horses have their way. The plough had begun to tilt in the hard, baked earth, twisting under him, turning over, the bright, sharp blade flashing in the sunlight. And then Matthew had gone down, stumbling forward, shouting, and the horses, frightened, ears forward, had rushed ahead, pulling Matthew over the deadly blade. Bright red blood had gushed forth, staining the earth crimson, and Jed had bandaged the raw, open wound as Matthew screamed continuously. So now Matthew stayed behind, watching Jed lead the two grey horses across the north field to where he�d left the plough.

There was plenty to do in the farmhouse and Matthew worked cheerfully, forgetting his brother�s refusal and busying himself with simple chores. He cleaned the kitchen, scrubbing the wooden table and sweeping the floor. He felt important, looking after the house in Jed�s absence. After finishing the kitchen he trudged upstairs, dragging the broom behind him. If nothing else, Matthew was more than able to keep the rooms tidy for, apart from the mess that Luke left behind him, there was very little to do. After making his own bed he went into Jed�s room, for they each had their own bedroom, and did the same for Jed. His progress was painfully slow, stopping every few minutes, staring off into space, lost within his own tragic fantasy. It was well past midday before he�d finished.

Jed called him down for lunch. He�d returned from his ploughing for a short rest and a bite to eat and Matthew, glad of his company, talked most of the time.

�I�ve been good, Jed. I�ve been very good.� He waved an arm around the kitchen. �I�ve cleaned up all the kitchen and my room and your room, Jed. I�ve cleaned your room, too. It wasn�t very dirty, though. Not like�.�.�.� he couldn�t bring himself to say Luke�s name out loud. A cold, invisible finger pressed down on his throat, making him swallow in discomfort. The familiar terror crept back into his very being.

Jed turned on him sharply. �Have you been in Luke�s room?� Silence. �Matthew, I�m asking you a question, now have you been in his room?� Matthew shook his head slowly. It hadn�t occurred to him to go into Luke�s room; for one thing, he never tidied Luke�s bedroom, and for another, there was no way of knowing if Luke was in there or not. He often came home in the early hours and slept the day away in a drunken stupor. Yet, now that Jed had asked him, Matthew began to feel curious; he wondered what Luke�s room would be like, for he had never seen it in over three years. The thought stayed with him long after Jed had gone back to work for the afternoon, nudging his curiosity into action.

Finally, silently, he crept back upstairs, fearful of what he would find. His curiosity was edged with fear. It was Luke he feared more than anything in the world, indeed, Luke was truly the only thing he feared. He did not reason out why he wanted to see Luke�s room, for that was beyond his comprehension. Yet he was dimly aware that if he were able to see the room, to stand alone and witness the way in which Luke lived, to come to terms with his brother�s possessions, then he would not be so frightened of him, for he would have scored, he would know a secret. The urge to desecrate that which he feared was strong within him.

He listened outside Luke�s door for a long time. Standing became tiresome and he slid down, squatting on his heels, arms wrapped around his shoulders, leaning against the door-frame. The room was silent. He moved slowly, standing up and turning the old wooden door-knob, pushing the door open by degrees. When the gap was wide enough, he peered round the edge of the door. The bed was empty, unmade. Confidence gave him courage and he pushed the door wide, yet still did not go into the room. He knew Luke�it could have been a trap. He squinted between the gap of the door and door-frame in case Luke was hiding behind the open door. He could see part of the unmade bed, a narrow strip of carpet, bare floorboards. The room was obviously empty. Nevertheless, he edged into it cautiously.

The first thing that struck his slow brain was the utter confusion within the small room. The furniture was thick with dust and clothes hung from every surface. There was a tall, dark wardrobe opposite the bed, its cracked door hanging open. Inside were dozens of empty bottles, and the smell of stale beer made Matthew feel sick. There was an overall stench of human sweat, for the windows were tight shut and the room was hot. The sheets on the bed were filthy, stained black and grey from human grime. Socks and underwear lay about the room in abundance, adding to the stench and squalor. On the small chest of drawers Matthew found an empty packet of contraceptives, yet he was unable to read and didn�t know what they were. An old glass ashtray was overflowing with cigarette ends, spilling ash across the top of the dusty drawers. Matthew walked round slowly, surveying the scene before him. The whole filthy mess served to confirm his hatred for Luke.

He opened the drawers of the chest one at a time, yet did not touch anything inside. They were full of books, magazines with lurid covers, some faded snapshots of Luke as a child, incongruous in their surroundings. He closed the drawers behind him. At the foot of the bed lay a box of matches, their bright packaging catching Matthew�s eye. He stooped down and picked them off the floor, studying them with childish delight. He opened the box�it was half full�and then went back to studying the picture on the front. It showed a ship with white billowing sails, in a blue sea. He couldn�t read the caption underneath, yet the picture held his attention. He decided, there and then, that he would own a ship like the one on the box when he grew up.

The sound of running water, splashing from the outside tap across the cobbles, made his heart race, beating fiercely within his chest. For he knew that Luke had returned. He hurried from the room, clutching the box of matches in his haste, unaware of anything save the desperate urge to escape the confines of this filthy hovel before Luke found him there. He pulled the door closed behind him and ran for the safety of his own bedroom. Before he could reach it, Luke�s voice boomed out from below.

�Matthew! Matthew! Damn you, Matthew, you answer me or else, you no-good idiot.� His voice sounded like a deep roar from the very bowels of the earth. Matthew froze, terrified of his brother�s fury.

�I know you�re up there, do you hear me? Matthew! You come down here and get me something to eat.� Luke was at the bottom of the stairs, yelling at the top of his voice. Matthew knew what would happen to him if he ignored his brother: one cannot ignore the very voice of Satan.

Matthew reached the top of the stairs, remembering the match-box almost too late.

�So there you are, you sly devil,� said Luke, as Matthew looked down on him, seconds after thrusting the match-box deep into his pocket. Matthew came slowly down the stairs, staying close to the wall as though there was not enough room on the whole staircase for his thin body. Luke urged him on, his thick, heavy voice echoing off the bare walls.

Luke was a giant of a man by anyone�s measure. Well over six feet tall with broad, heavy muscles, he expressed with his every movement the arrogance of strength. His hair was darker than his younger brother�s, the eyes more vivid, a pale blue, glazed now in perpetual drunkenness. He swayed slightly, lunging forward, catching Matthew round his thin wrist and dragging him down the stairs by sheer brute force.

�Lemme look at you, Matthew,� he teased, his words slurring against his wet mouth. �What you bin doing, eh? What you bin doing?�

�Nothing. I haven�t been doing nothing, Luke.� Matthew prayed for Jed to come and quieten Luke, for he was good at that. He used words, almost soothing Luke out of his drunkenness, and he would go quiet and climb the stairs to his own room. But Jed was out of sight of the farmhouse, beyond the ridge in the north field.

�Your whining gets on my nerves, Matthew. Now, shuddup and make me something to eat.� Luke swung his body round sharply, dragging Matthew round with him, slamming him up against the wall. Matthew fought to hold back the tears, for he knew he could expect no mercy from Luke. His lungs were empty, the breath forced out of them by the impact. He couldn�t speak, but nodded his head dumbly, hating Luke, fearing him, wishing him dead in his own, childish conception of death. Not the death he�d heard Jed speak of in regard to their mother, but a much more personal kind of death in which he, Matthew, could be the instrument of destruction.

He followed Luke back into the kitchen, warily, waiting for the next violent assault. He did not have the capacity to understand Luke�s hatred, but only knew that he hated Luke even more because he was unable to demonstrate his loathing. He went the long way round the kitchen table, avoiding Luke�s clutches, to prepare the other�s food. Despite his hatred, he made the meal with care, not wishing to give Luke reason to hit him once again. He slid the plate across the table to where Luke sat. It held chicken, cold but fresh, onions and a piece of cheese. On a side plate he laid out the bread, dry, for there was no butter.

Luke ate like a man starved, tearing the white meat from the bone, thrusting bread into his over-full mouth and watching Matthew all the time. When he�d finished with the chicken bone he threw it, deliberately, on to the kitchen floor. Matthew watched it fall.

�Pick it up.� It was a quiet menace from Luke.

Matthew shuffled forward, shaking now, for the act of picking up the bone would bring him close to Luke, and as he bent to retrieve it Luke shot up, knocking the carved wooden chair over behind him, swinging his foot hard under the squatting form that was Matthew. The foot caught, projecting its momentum forward, knocking Matthew down in a heap, rolling him across the hard kitchen floor. Luke could hardly contain his sadistic mirth, coughing and laughing, his whole body shaking from the uncontrollable effort. Matthew stayed where he was, lying like a whipped dog, whimpering with pain and humiliation.

It was but one of many such incidents that had taken place over the years. Luke despised Matthew for his weakness of mind and body, and the drink served to release his spite. He found pleasure in bullying, secure in the knowledge that Matthew would never strike back.

Luke was growing bored with his game now as the drink began to wear off and the beginnings of a headache unsettled him. There was a familiar noise outside in the yard, yet he couldn�t place it. Drumming, like a thousand tin soldiers. He lurched out of the kitchen into the afternoon heat to investigate.

The tap was on, just as he�d left it, spilling precious water in a fine spray across the cobbles, a large, muddy pool spreading around the base of the tap. He�d turned it on to wash the sweat and grime from his hands and face before calling Matthew to make him his dinner. He turned the tap off now, splashing about in the filthy water, still laughing quietly at the kick which had sent Matthew sprawling. The barn door was open in front of him and he could see inside quite clearly. As he stood there, rubbing the heat of the sun from the back of his neck, he became aware of a minute, a tiny stirring within the barn.

He waited, watching silently, seeing the movement again and again, yet failing to see what it was that moved. Then, suddenly, he knew. He saw the grey-brown body, the ringed, flickering tail as the rat nosed among the loose hay, unaware of being watched. Luke�s blood raced. He sensed another form of sport, equally if not more satisfying than the game with Matthew. For this game would be played to the death.

Cautiously, his drunkenness gone now, the headache forgotten, Luke moved towards the barn. The rat, engrossed in its search for food, remained unaware, and Luke reached the barn door undetected. His mind worked quickly, formulating a plan of attack. At that moment, Matthew opened the farmhouse door and stepped out into the courtyard. The door slammed shut behind him.

The rat, alerted, froze momentarily. It was many feet from the barn door, half concealed under the loose hay. Flight was still possible. Luke moved quickly, stepping into the barn, his huge bulk blocking off retreat. The rat moved then, darting into the shadow towards the horse-boxes, stark and empty with the horses away. Luke hissed his anger, swearing at Matthew, calling him over to help. Matthew came forward, uneasy, not knowing of the rat�s presence.

�Get in here!� Luke demanded. �There�s a rat in here somewhere. You�re going to help me kill it.�

Matthew flinched. He hated rats for the damage they did, for the trouble they caused Jed on the farm. Yet he detected a note of sadistic pleasure in the way Luke had spoken, knowing that Luke hated the rat for an entirely different reason. He hated it for being a rat, for just being born. He would kill it slowly, with excitement, savouring the moment of death in obscene pleasure. To Matthew the rat was vermin, an enemy of the farmer, to Luke it was an object of contempt, a victim in his gruesome game of death.

Between them, they closed the barn door, aware of the gaps along the bottom where the timber had rotted away with constant use. Luke waved Matthew towards the rear of the barn where the bales of hay were stacked, with familiar precision, almost to the roof.

�Matthew. Bring some bales down here. Lay them along the bottom of the door, close up so it can�t get through the holes.� Luke began his game.

Whilst Matthew dragged the bales across the floor, leaving a string of loose straw behind him, Luke traversed the barn, eyes accustomed to the dim gloom, looking for the rat. A long, iron bar stood against the wall of the barn alongside the horseboxes and, as Luke picked it up to use as a weapon, he saw the rat on the floor of the horse-box nearest him. It was huge, much bigger than he�d thought when he�d first seen it. A king rat�he remembered reading about them many years before. Big, powerful tyrants among the rodent family, vicious. A worthy opponent for Luke�s own viciousness.

Matthew had finished his task. The door was well sealed against retreat. He lagged back, not wishing to be involved in what was to come.

Luke held the iron rod at arm�s length, moving round into the mouth of the horse-box. The rat backed off, trapping itself in the corner. Luke bent slightly, keeping his feet well spaced to avoid falling and jabbed the iron rod forward towards the rat. He was sweating, the line of his brow soaked, spilling into his eyes. He raised his arm, wiping the sweat away. The rat took it as aggression and hissed dangerously. It reared up on its hind legs, top lip split tight back against its teeth, two rows of razor-sharp fangs. It gave off the scent of fear, catching Luke on the intake of breath, making him feel sick inside.

Again Luke jabbed with his iron rod, missing by inches and again the rat hissed its warning, yellow teeth sharp against its greying muzzle. Then, suddenly, it was down on all fours, darting across the back of the horse-box to the opposite corner as Luke swung the iron bar hard, ringing it loudly on the concrete floor. The noise echoed off the walls of the horse-box, making his ears tingle and vibrate. The rat made another turn, back to its original corner. This time Luke thrust forward, smashing the rod down hard, feeling the sting in his hand and arm as it hit the floor. The rat squealed as the rod severed its tail in half.

Back and forth across the horse-box darted the rat, twisting, turning, barely escaping Luke�s clumsy thrusts. The rod, inches from its skull, threatened death with every blow. Luke, angry, frustrated with his own inability more than with the rat�s skill, began to tire. The rod was heavy, his arm muscles ached, forcing him to back off, to rest a few moments. Yet he wouldn�t leave the horse-box, wouldn�t give the rat a chance to escape and hide in the bales of hay. He turned to face Matthew, having almost forgotten the other�s existence for a moment.

�Get me a box,� he gasped. �Anything that�s big enough to put over it. Move, you idiot! Do you want it to escape?�

As Matthew hunted round the barn, he admitted to himself that he did indeed want the rat to escape. He felt a deep pity for it, knowing how it felt to be the victim of Luke�s calculated anger. He found a cardboard box half buried in the corner of the barn, close to the door. He dragged it out, turning it over to check its strength. Jed had used it to store some small parts of the tractor engine long ago. He tipped them out across the floor, noticing for the first time the hole in the barn wall, by the floor, that the box had been covering up. He hoped it was big enough for the rat to escape through, if it got the chance.

�Hurry up, Matthew,� Luke barked.

Matthew handed the box over, feeling traitorous towards the rat. He stood closer now, as though his presence might give the rat added strength. Luke juggled with the box, holding it out easily in front of him, ready to drop it over the cornered rat. He poked his iron rod experimentally. The rat moved halfway across the stall, keeping close to the barn wall. Luke moved the box in slowly, nudging the rat with the rod. It backed up, not seeing the upturned box descending until too late. It tried to rush forward as Luke slammed the cardboard prison downwards, closing over the grey-brown mass. The rat had its head out, under the box and Luke fought to contain it, pushing it back with the pole. The rat scrabbled furiously at the sides of the cardboard, twisting over on its back. Luke could feel the soft insides as the edge of the box squeezed down its belly. One final thrust, cruel and stinging and the rat was trapped in the cardboard cage. It squealed continuously, running round and round, hurling itself against the sides in desperation. Luke held the box with his foot across the top.

Triumphant now, he looked up at Matthew. �I�ve got it, Matthew. I�ve got myself a rat. Now, Matthew, go over there,� he pointed back to where Matthew had found the box, �and bring me that can, near the tractor engine. Hurry, for God�s sake! It�s tearing the box with its teeth!�

Matthew hurried over, picking up the can. It had a lid screwed down and Matthew wondered what was in it. He brought it back to Luke.

�No. You hold it whilst I unscrew the lid.� Luke was still holding the iron bar. The lid gave slowly, rust peeling from it as Luke unscrewed, the muscles of his forearm glistening with sweat. As the lid came free, Matthew felt a strong, heady vapour in his nostrils, stinging slightly. It stirred a long-forgotten memory�the can, the vapour�and then he had it. Jed had used it several years ago, before the tractor broke down. It was fuel, like petrol, and Matthew remember something else. Jed had once used the fuel to light a bonfire, and angry flames had burst into life as the vapour ignited. And now he knew what Luke intended.

�No, Luke! You can�t. You mustn�t! Please, Luke, let it go. Please don�t kill it, Luke, please.� But Luke wasn�t listening, consumed in his lust to kill.

He lifted the iron rod and brought it down on top of the box, splitting a hole in the cardboard. He grabbed the open can from Matthew, handing him the iron rod to hold. The liquid glugged, splashing down upon the box, pouring in through the hole. The rat struggled more violently now, fighting for its life as the deadly liquid soaked through to its skin. Luke threw the can behind him, tumbling it over and over across the floor. Quickly, he pulled a box of matches from his pocket, keeping his foot firmly on the box. He fumbled to open the box, fingers heavy, clumsy from holding the rod.

And his clumsiness cost him his life, for he dropped the unopened box on the floor, out of reach. Matthew had his eyes screwed shut, not watching, ready to run from the barn at any second. Luke was screaming at him. The words reached Matthew�s brain without meaning.

�The matches, Matthew! For God�s sake give me the matches!� Luke was raging now, his face a mass of red veins, pulsing violently. Matthew heard him then, not thinking, acting on impulse, not questioning how Luke knew he had his matches. He pulled them from his pocket, the picture of the ship meaning nothing to him now. Luke snatched them from him, fumbling them open before he realized.

�These aren�t the same ones I dropped. Where did you get these from?� Matthew stood silently, head bent forward to hide his guilt. �You�ve stolen them, haven�t you?� Matthew nodded blindly. �Where from? Where did you steal them from? Damn you, Matthew. Where from?� Luke was screaming, rage tearing through him. �You�ve been in my room, you thief, you stole them from my room!� Matthew could only nod, not understanding anything any more.

In that moment of time, Luke forgot the rat, forgot his evil purpose in the barn. His whole vile temper turned, then, on his brother Matthew. He swung his fist hard, giving Matthew little time to ward off the blow. It was a hard, cruel swing which caught Matthew high across the back of his neck and shoulders, spinning him round across the barn, felling him to the solid, concrete floor. The iron rod clanged down beside him. Through his tears, Matthew felt the hard, vice-like grip of murderous intent take shape in his mind.

Luke watched him fall, clearing his head, turning back to the rat. His revenge on Matthew would wait. As he struck the match he didn�t see Matthew getting up, staggering forward, the iron bar raised above his head. Luke stepped back, into Matthew�s range, flicking the burning match into the corner of the horse-box. As the heady vapour whoofed into blazing, orange life, Matthew brought the iron rod down across Luke�s skull, the soft, sharp pop deadened by the fierce, crackling flames. Luke staggered, knees buckling under him, a stain of crimson blood pouring out across his head and neck, and then pitched slowly forward, face down on the concrete floor.

Matthew watched, head aching from Luke�s last blow. The fire began to spread, getting out of control. As Matthew turned to run for a water-hose, he saw a sight which made his blood run cold. The rat had overturned the box and had charged out, a raging ball of fire, smashing into Luke�s prostrate body, bouncing off, brushing against his, face, leaving a slur of burning flesh. The stench was overwhelming. It raced towards the rear of the barn, colliding with the bales of hay, setting them alight in a dozen places. Its eyes were boiled dry in their sockets, blinding the creature, its skin bulging as the heat began to boil its blood.

Matthew screamed, a high-pitched siren of terror and revulsion at this seething mass of incomprehensible life. He ran backwards, coughing from the smoke and flames, as the rat rushed towards him, the skin of its mouth burnt bare, teeth, locked together, grazing his leg as it passed, scrambling along the bales of hay near the door, some sixth sense directing it now towards the hole in the corner of the barn, near the rusty remains of the tractor. The acrid, blinding smoke swirled thicker, engulfing Matthew, filling his lungs, choking him. He staggered forward to the barn door, pushing for his life, falling headlong into the late afternoon sunshine as the door swung open. Grey smoke poured out through the door behind him.

He pulled himself up, moving back, away from the barn. Luke was dead, yet he could not grasp the terrible sight he�d seen within the barn. He felt no guilt, indeed he felt relief, that Luke had died when he�d struck him. A dense cloud of smoke swirled over the barn, blotting out the sun. And then Jed arrived, panting, sweat tsaining his entire body.

�Matthew! Matthew! What in the name of God has happened? How did it start, Matthew? What happened?�

Jed was shouting at the top of his lungs, swallowing deeply, in the burning hot air. Yet Matthew could not answer him as he stared down into the puddle around the outside tap, eyes wide, mouth beginning to foam as his jaw fell slack. With trembling hand he pointed down into the muddy water.

The rat was moving, swollen, burnt stubble splitting as the skin lifted from the bone, somehow still alive, crawling its blind and agonizing way up and out of the slimy water.

Somewhere, deep within the subsistent dimensions of animal space, lived Eddie Richardson. He was surrounded by countless millions of his own species and, yet, he was terribly alone. So alone, in fact, that he had not spoken to a single individual for the past three years. Ever since the accident that had robbed him of his identity, his personality and most of his physical being.

Eddie Richardson was human, yes, but he was also a monster created by science. The doctors had saved his life. They had given him legs of aluminium, hands moulded in green plastic, a body riddled with electrical circuits, resistors, capacitors, transistors. They had given him life. His scarred face had been restored beneath countless layers of skin grafts. His mind was constantly alert, as he tried in desperation to control his cumbersome form. He was human and, yet, he was only a machine. A living, breathing, eating, sleeping machine.

He could not run, dance, smoke or drink. He was incapable of clear speech. He could never again know the feeling of physical love or the joy of spiritual love.

Every month he had to return to the hospital so that they could stare into his plastic stomach, prod his transplanted heart and plug him into a computer to see that he was working correctly. They would oil his joints and polish his bodywork. He was human. They told him that as they soldered on some replacement transistors. They told him how much better he was looking as they pushed even more alkathene tubing into his tortured respiratory system. They told him how very lucky he was to be able to live. Live! Was this living? Or was it merely a latent death? He was human and, yet, he was not. He was a bloody machine and not a very good one at that. �Are you Frankenstein�s monster?� had asked the little girl at the clinic. He had not answered verbally. He just nodded his hinged cranium and forced a weak smile across his synthetic lips.

Three days ago, Eddie Richardson died. No one knew why he had died. Electrical failure? A blown fuse? It really didn�t matter. He had donated his few remaining organs for medical research and the rest of him was buried in Windmarsh Cemetery. On the tombstone was ironically written:

�Here lies Edward James Richardson�.�.�. Rust In Peace�.�.�.�

Anton Plotnikov was interested in werewolves.

He had been born of peasant stock in the Balkans, which undoubtedly stimulated this interest, but he had become a psychologist and therefore his interest took a scientific and rational turn, although traces of the ancient superstitions still lurked somewhere in his most primitive cells. Mainly, however, he sought scientific truth. Anton had left his unfortunate homeland after the last war and emigrated to England; took a well-paid job in research and married a passionate girl named Beta. They were reasonably happy. He bought, in due course, a fine house in the country and, with company funds, installed a small but efficient laboratory in the basement. It was understood that this laboratory would be used for the company�s profit, of course, but since Anton was a valuable and brilliant scientist he was allowed a measure of freedom. This suited Anton very well, for he was a man who saw that research must not be limited, and in his spare time (and a great deal of the company�s time, if truth be told) he began a comprehensive study of lycanthropy. This did not seem dishonest to Anton. His well-paid work involved investigation into the effects of chemical and glandular imbalance in mental disorders and Anton was convinced that the phenomenon of the werewolf was based on just that that there were scientific and medical grounds behind the legend. From time to time he reported on his work, being careful not to use the word werewolf but to mention only the chemical-psychological aspects in learned but vague terms. Since he was far more intelligent than the company men who read his reports, this worked out well enough. His work progressed. He began to spend more and more time in the laboratory and his wife, who was truly passionate, began to take a series of lovers. This suited her splendidly. Anton worked on a labour of love, Beta loved laboriously and even the company, due to recent research, prospered.

Ellen was the only child of a broken marriage. Her parents had parted when she was five, and for the next few years she spent most of her time at her kindergarten boarding school and the rest (except for three weeks with her mother at Eastbourne) in London with her father. She was very happy.

She loved both her father and his home with passion, enjoyed her school (which was a small private school near Cheltenham, run by two cosy, middle-aged women) very much indeed, but was rather scared of her mother.

She was a cheerful, willing child, polite, bright and sociable and, except with her mother, she found it very easy to get on with everyone around her.

When she was nine her mother married a Frenchman called Dr�Joubert, and went to live with him and his thirteen-year-old daughter Th�r�se in a tall, grey-shuttered, grim-looking house in the suburbs of Paris. The following Easter she sent for Ellen, in order to introduce her to her second papa, as she called him. The visit was not a success.

Dr�Joubert was a florid, paunchy man with spaniel eyes, sensual, rather slack red lips and a chin which was never properly shaved. He had pudgy, dirty hands, and his clothes were always slightly soiled. He bounced rather than walked, and had a high, nasal laugh. What her mother could see in him, Ellen couldn�t imagine, but there was no doubt that she was in love with him, and he with her.

Th�r�se was a heavy-faced, sulky-looking girl, with a large shapeless body and thick arms and legs. She was immensely vain and inordinately fond of clothes. She had immediately taken to her new maman, as indeed the new Madame Joubert had to her, and they had found a way of life completely congenial to them both. They got up in their dressing gowns to breakfast with the doctor, remaining thus clad nearly all morning. By noon they had managed to get dressed, and the doctor joined them for lunch, after which he returned to his surgery, and his womenfolk went out for an hour�s shopping. Exhausted by this, they retired for an afternoon siesta, then at half past five they began dressing again for the evening meal.

Ellen found the routine boring in the extreme. There was no one to play with, and all the books in the house were in French, so she couldn�t even read. She tried hard to like her new relatives, but found them rather repulsive, and her lack of French meant that she was excluded from most of the conversation. She counted the days until her return to England.

The doctor was evidently doing well in his profession, and from what little Ellen could gather from the family talk, she understood that his great ambition in life was to have a clinic named after him in the countryside in Provence, where he could give rest-cures for nervous (and rich) women. He was sure this would make his fortune. Madame Joubert and Th�r�se were sure that it would, too.

Th�r�se made no bones about the fact that she preferred the company of grown-ups to Ellen�s, that she thought of England as a barbaric country and of Ellen�s father as a monster. Occasionally she would question Ellen about her life, but always with contempt. �This house of yours in London, is it as big as ours?� she asked one day.

�It isn�t a house, it�s a ground-floor flat,� said Ellen. �It�s quite big, and there is a nice garden.�

�A flat? What is a flat?�

�An apartment.�

�I prefer a house.�

�Yes, houses are nice.�

�You have your own room?�

�Yes.�

�How many cars have you?�

�Two.�

�Do you have a Merc�des like Papa?�

�No.�

�Merc�des are the best cars in the world. Papa says so. This school of yours, is it a big school?�

�No, it�s small.�

�I should not like to go to a small school.� Th�r�se sounded scornful. �He is rich, your father?� she went on.

�Yes, I think so,� said Ellen. �We have a chauffeur, a cook and a daily maid.�

Th�r�se frowned. The Joubert household could only boast a femme de m�nage. �Then why did he leave your poor mother penniless?� she demanded.

Ellen tried hard not to lose her temper at this aspersion on her beloved father. She went scarlet, but said carefully, �I�m sure he gave Mummy money, He gives everyone money.�

�No, my new maman had no money when he left her for this other woman,� said Th�r�se. �None at all.�

�There is no other woman!� exclaimed Ellen. �What other woman? I don�t know what you mean!�

�Because you are too young to know,� replied Th�r�se calmly. �Your father has had many many women. They made your maman very unhappy. He also beat your maman, this rich father of yours.�

�Of course he didn�t!� said Ellen, tears of rage starting in her eyes. �He�s the kindest, sweetest man in the whole world.�

�Yes, he beat your maman,� stated Th�r�se aggressively. �Often and often. My papa says maman told him she had bruises all over her all the time.�

�It�s a lie!� said Ellen. �He didn�t. He wouldn�t hurt a fly.�

�We do not talk of flies, but of your maman,� said Th�r�se.

�Stop it! Stop it!� cried Ellen, shutting her eyes tightly, to avoid seeing the spiteful, triumphant face of her new stepsister. �I won�t listen.�

�He is a brute, your father, and dull, maman says. Too dull to make love properly. All he can do is to be unfaithful, and to hurt people. Also he drinks.�

Ellen felt a violent hatred for Th�r�se welling up inside her. �I won�t listen!� she sobbed. �I love my father. He is not like you say. I hate you! I hate you!� She suddenly lost control of herself. �I wish I could go back to him! I hate it here. I hate this house, I hate Dr�Joubert. I hate you and I hate my mother. You�re horrible all of you. Horrible! Horrible!�

�I shall tell what you say to our maman,� said Th�r�se, �and she will punish you.�

When Madame Joubert heard about Ellen�s outburst she became almost mad with fury. She shook the child until she was hysterical, she dispatched her to bed for two days, and sent up only bread and water to eat. She refused to talk to her when at last she allowed her downstairs, and she booked her return ticket to London immediately. Th�r�se was delighted. Dr�Joubert, too, seemed pleased, and Ellen herself was thankful to get home.

Two years later Ellen�s father was killed in a car accident, and to the child�s horror she was told she would be sent back to live with her mother. A second cousin whom she hardly knew broke the news to her. �But I can�t!� she said. �I hate my mother.�

�Now, now,� reproved the cousin. �That�s no way to talk. Your mother is your only close relative. Who else would take care of you?� So Ellen found herself in the grim, grey house near Paris again, and this time with a family that was actively hostile to her.

Her mother and Dr�Joubert, though they were by now much more prosperous, still looked very much the same, and Dr�Joubert had achieved his ambition of a clinic in Provence; but Th�r�se, at fifteen, had changed out of all recognition. She thought of herself as grown up, wore make-up and high-heeled shoes, and had her hair permed in Paris. Unfortunately, she looked no more attractive than she had before, but she had developed physically, and with her hair piled on top of her head and a couple of the local boys taking her out on dates, she was having the time of her life.

Ellen was by now, at eleven, an exceptionally pretty little girl, but this didn�t endear her to her relatives, and in fact it made Th�r�se dislike her more. None of the Jouberts had forgiven her for her behaviour two years ago, and she felt lonely and miserable nearly all the time. The death of her father had affected her a great deal, and she became pale, unsmiling and withdrawn. Her mother now made no secret of the fact that she detested her, and she and Th�r�se were scarcely civil to her. Dr�Joubert, however, surreptitiously pinched her bottom, overtly pinched her cheek, and showed alarming signs of physical attraction. She was sent to a local lyc�e, learnt French, and found that at school at any rate, life could be tolerable.

The years passed, and her prettiness became more pronounced. Th�r�se and her mother became more and more jealous, and Dr�Joubert more and more attracted. Finally, the inevitable happened, and one day when the other two women were out, the doctor tried to seduce her. She fought desperately, biting and kicking savagely, but in the middle of the struggle the door opened and Madame Joubert, who had returned unexpectedly, saw clearly what was happening. For days afterwards there were family quarrels. Ellen tried to justify herself, but this only enraged her mother more. Dr�Joubert put the blame on Ellen, saying that although when the time came she had fought, Ellen had been leading him on, and that he was only human and a man at that, which his wife seemed to feel was excuse enough. Th�r�se malevolently aided and abetted them both in their denunciations. Finally, a sort of peace settled, but an uneasy peace, which seemed to wait on events.

One evening Madame Joubert sent for Ellen to come to the drawing-room. It was a room she seldom entered these days, because she knew she was unwelcome. Besides, the room itself depressed her. It was high-ceilinged and painted in grey. The curtains were brown velvet, the furniture was dark-brown oak, and the loose covers on the sofa and armchairs were dark-brown linen. Dr�Joubert sat in the brown armchair to the right of the gas fire, his wife to the left, and Th�r�se sprawled on the sofa. Ellen chose a wooden chair between Th�r�se and her mother. She sat down in silence, with her hands folded in her lap. For a little while no one said anything. They all simply stared. And she was worth staring at, at seventeen. She had pale red-gold hair, which hung to her shoulders, blue eyes, a beautiful pink and white complexion, and her figure was exquisite.

At last Dr�Joubert cleared his throat. �Ellen, my child,� he said pompously, putting his fat hands together across his paunch, �we have decided that as a family, we are in some danger of becoming disorientated, unless we take firm steps to prevent it. Do you agree?�

�I don�t think I quite understand,� said Ellen anxiously.

�The point is,� broke in Madame Joubert impetuously, �you�re not happy here, and you�re breaking the family apart, so we want you to go.�

�I�m sorry,� said Ellen.

�It�s no good just being sorry!� snapped her mother. �Something has got be done.�

�Yes, Mother.�

�So we thought perhaps you might like to get a job away from here,� said Dr�Joubert smoothly. �Does that appeal?�

As this was exactly what Ellen had asked for, over and over again, only to be rebuffed, she said nothing.

�Would you like it?� persisted Dr�Joubert.

�What sort of job were you thinking of?� asked Ellen cautiously.

�I thought you might like to go to Provence and work in my clinic,� said Dr�Joubert. �That way we can keep our eye on you, although you wouldn�t be living here.�

Ellen thought rapidly. She had no wish to be anywhere where the predatory doctor could get her under his thumb, but her position at her mother�s house was becoming so intolerable that almost anywhere away from home would seem to be an advantage. �Thank you,� she said quietly. �That sounds very nice.�

The doctor�s eyes gleamed, and her mother and Th�r�se exchanged quick glances.

Three days later she was on her way. She was sent by herself, and carried with her a letter from the doctor to the head of the clinic.

The clinic was magnificent to look at. It was a large, castellated stone building, superbly set in rolling parklands. No one seemed to be about in the grounds, which struck her as odd, since it was a beautiful sunny day; there were no cars outside the front door, either. She paid off the taxi, which had been sent to meet her at the station, and rang the door-bell.

The door was opened by a man in a white waistcoat, who looked at her unemotionally. He was quite young, with slanting eyes, and black hair en brosse.

�I am Ellen Marley,� said Ellen.

The man went on looking at her, but said nothing. She stepped into the hall and he shut the door behind her, took her suitcase and beckoned to her to follow him. Rather surprised, Ellen did as she was told. She tried to engage him in conversation, but he paid no attention at all. He led her along the hall, up two flights of stairs, along a very long corridor to one of the towers which stood at the four corners of the building, and then climbed more stairs, until at last they came to a white door, marked �Matron. Private.� He then pantomimed to her to knock, and left her. Once again Ellen obeyed him, and knocked on the door.

A woman�s voice called, �Come in,� and she went in.

There were two people in the small, square room�the Matron, and a man in a white coat. The Matron was a beautiful, dark-haired woman in her early forties, with hard eyes and a cruel mouth. The man, who was introduced as Dr�Jamel, was in his fifties. He wore heavy-rimmed dark glasses, and had a long, pointed nose.

�Ah, mademoiselle,� he purred. �We were expecting you earlier.�

�The train was late. I�m so sorry,� apologized Ellen.

�You had a good journey?�

�Yes, thank you.�

�You have a letter for me, I believe?�

�Yes, Monsieur.� Ellen handed the letter to Dr�Jamel, who read it, then handed it to the Matron. She too read it, and returned it to the doctor. Ellen could now feel a strange undercurrent of excitement in the atmosphere.

�You read the letter, mademoiselle?�

�No,� said Ellen. The two of them glanced at one another.

�You know why you have come to us?�

�To work in the clinic�

Again they looked at one another.

�Did Dr�Joubert tell you what work you would be doing?�

�No. He just felt that I should like to go away from home for a little.�

�Of course. Will you go next door with Matron, please? I want you undressed for the examination.�

�What examination?�

�Everyone who comes here has an examination,� said the Doctor patiently. �It is what the clinic is for.�

�But I haven�t come as a patient.�

�Of course not,� said the Matron soothingly, and her hard eyes showed no sympathy.

�You have had nervous strain in your family, have you not, mademoiselle?� asked the doctor. �This letter says so.�

�I became upset, yes,� said Ellen, �but for a very good reason.�

�Of course. Of course.� Again the Matron sounded soothing, but again her expression was hard.

�Be off with you, then,� said the Doctor playfully. �I am a very busy man.�

�But I don�t want an examination!� exclaimed Ellen.

�You�ll have to learn to do what you�re told,� said the Matron. �If the Doctor says you are to have an examination, you must have one.� She opened the door behind her desk, and almost pushed Ellen into the room beyond, slamming the door behind her again. �Take off your things,� she said.

�I refuse,� said Ellen obstinately.

�I should advise you to obey,� said the Matron. �I am very strong, and these walls are thick.�

Ellen looked wildly round the room, hoping for escape, but there was none. �There must be some mistake,� she said desperately. �I have come here to work.�

�What mistake could there be?� asked the Matron. �I have read the letter myself.�

�What did it say?�

�It said we were to keep you until you had learnt to control yourself, and to obey orders,� said the Matron. �It said that we could treat you in any way we thought best. That�s what it said, so hurry up and get those clothes off.�

Ellen started to cry, which made the older woman impatient. �The quicker you get undressed, the quicker it will be over,� she said.

At last Ellen undressed, and lay miserably down on the bed as she was told.

After the Doctor had looked her over, and prodded her like a prize pig, he raped her, while the Matron looked on impassively.

Ellen was kept a prisoner in the room for several months. The Doctor had his way with her whenever he wanted and Ellen, sick with disgust and despair, lost weight, cried her eyes out, screamed, fought, bit, hammered at the walls, and refused to eat, until she began to lose her looks, and the doctor to lose interest. The Matron wrote long letters to Dr�Joubert, describing her �progress�, which the doctor read out to the rest of the family, once a week, before dinner.

Ellen, however, did not become subservient, and when another equally pretty young girl was sent to the clinic for �treatment�, she was moved away from Dr�Jamel in the tower to a foetid, windowless cell in the basement, where she was put at the disposal of Roger, the deaf-mute who had admitted her on arrival at the castle. Roger was a sadist, but even this couldn�t bring her to heel. Here she not only fought and kicked and tried to give as good as she got, but on the rare occasions that she saw either the Matron or Dr�Jamel, she threatened that if ever she escaped, she would see that the whole world knew of the infamy of the clinic, and of all who ran it. So, once again, the Matron wrote to the family.

When the time came, the whole Joubert family went down to Provence to fetch Ellen, first giving themselves two weeks� holiday in Antibes. They drove up to the castle in high spirits, looking brown and well, and Dr�Joubert left the women in the car outside the front door.

�I shan�t be long,� he said. �I have one or two things to see to. Don�t be too bored. Stretch your legs if you feel like it, and have a walk in the grounds.�

�We�re quite happy here,� said his wife. �I don�t feel like walking, do you, Th�r�se?�

�No, Maman.�

It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before Dr�Joubert reappeared, carrying a little suitcase in one hand, and propelling Ellen with the other. She had a thick black veil wound round her face, and she was tottering like a paralytic.

�My God! Whatever is the matter with her?� exclaimed Madame Joubert, when her husband and daughter reached the car.

�A little extra precaution we had to take when she had her �correction� operation,� replied the doctor, shaking his head sadly. �She�s a quite exceptionally obstinate girl.�

�But both her hands and her feet have been severed. And look at those awful tin things she is walking in,� went on his wife, horrified. �It�s terrible!�

�Yes, terrible,� agreed the doctor, �but we had to safeguard ourselves and the good name of the clinic, and she threatened to expose us. It was therefore necessary to see that she had no means of communication. With no hands or feet, she cannot send in a report to the authorities.�

�She can always talk!� exclaimed Madame Joubert. �I don�t understand.�

�What is a correction operation, Papa?� broke in Th�r�se eagerly. �What have you done to her?�

�Whatever faults that a patient who is sent to us suffers from, we have to take away the cause,� said Dr�Joubert sententiously.

�And what faults did Ellen suffer from?� asked Th�r�se, her eyes shining with anticipation.

�The clinic decided she suffered from pride and vanity,� replied the doctor.

�So?� asked Madame Joubert moistening her lips anxiously.

�I�ll take off her veil,� said Dr�Joubert. �Then you will understand. You must brace yourselves, I�m afraid. It is not pleasant but, as I said, before, it was necessary.�

He uncovered Ellen�s face, and both the women gasped. One of her eyes had been removed, and the socket sewn up. Her nose had been broken across her face, so that it now nearly touched her right cheek, and her left ear had been cut off. She looked hideous beyond belief.

�But Henri!� expostulated Madame Joubert, when she was able to speak again. �Surely this was injudicious? She can tell the world what you have done.�

�On the contrary, my dear!� replied Dr�Joubert waggishly. �To coin a phrase, the poor girl has lost her tongue.�

�You mean?� gasped his wife.

�Precisely. It has been�how shall we put it?�dispensed with.�

�You cut it out?�

�They cut it out, yes.�

Madame Joubert was sick on the floor of the car. Th�r�se laughed so heartily that her father presently joined in; one tear welled up in Ellen�s remaining eye, and fell with a splash on to her blouse.

Thin mist curled grey against the lush, green, open field as the morning sun rose slowly in a cloudless sky. It was to be a day of work, for the spider, at least. Spinning silken threads amid the early morning dew; and all, perhaps, to catch one single, lonely fly.

Which would die.

Yet for the naked girl, spreadeagled in the mist, morning had arrived too late. Strong fingers had sought her neck and throat that night gone by and the seeds of death sowed flowers on her open grave. Face up to the pale blue sky she lay, eyes open wide and backward turned as though searching for an answer within herself. The gentle swirling mist formed halos round her head.

Quite dead.

Then slowly, from dreamless sleep, the spider came awake. Uncurling from a little round ball, he stretched, eight black, hairy legs in sets of two. A big, full-bodied beast, full of overt caution whilst lacking the subtle finesse of fear. He looked around, four pairs of compound eyes feeding on the landscape. His web long gone, trampled beneath the thrashings of the night just passed. A web of steel that hadn�t seen the morning.

Or mourning.

A trickle of dew ran down the naked shoulder to disappear in the blades of grass. Those compound eyes caught the movement as instinct sent him forward; crashing over the broken terrain, he came scurrying through the mist. Up the blades of grass and over cold, damp flesh, hauling himself up till he reached her breast.

Or chest.

This place was right, raised above the ground to catch the passing trade. An elevated web. He moved sideways, crablike, down the gentle slope of breast to the neck and on up again, pausing at her open lips. Thick legs explored the soft, textured mouth, the enamel whiteness of her teeth, then moved on, shuffling at the cold orifice of her nostril, half in, half out.

Look out!

The shadow of a bird passed over, blotting out the sun. Yet the early bird catches the worm and the spider lived a little longer. He stayed put, like some thick blob of mucus. The bird soared higher, lost in the haze of the sun and on to pastures new. The spider crawled out on to her cheek, finding an open eye above. The lower lashes curled under, thick and strong. Each he carefully tested before weaving his silky thread around them, his spinnerets working hard to bridge the gap.

To set a trap.

Back and forth he trudged across her body, pulling tight his sticky threads round blades of grass and wild grown flowers, then back, once more, to face and eyes. He worked hard and fast, precision the virtue of his weaving. Whilst all the time his eyes kept watch to warn him of approaching danger. And then, at last, he had finished. The silvery web, glistening from his sticky secretion, was suspended like some safety net at a circus. He doubled back to sit in its centre, pulling in his legs and squatting like an ancient, ageless Buddha. Faking silent sleep or death and waiting for vibration.

Come to life from hibernation.

And all the time the sun beat down, warming up the prostrate body. A faint odour, of death itself, speckled the air and all the while the spider remained immobile as the fly came down to feed from the human form. It reached the web, overlooked in the headlong rush of greed. The taut threads quivered, sending vibrations back and forth to meet in the centre. The fly was fighting harder now, tearing threads to escape its hungry killer. Then the spider moved, fast and efficient, flashing along the radial spokes of the web, closing on his prey. The fight was savage, animal and insect locked in mortal combat. Until, at last, the spider closed his jaws around his prey, injecting the poison to paralyse him.

A death so slow.

Yet the battle was not over yet, for up above a bird wheeled across the pale blue sky. Sharp eyes watched from above, unsure of the human shape below. The spider saw his chance, dragging the fly across the broken web, down between the rise of breasts, spinning more thread to hide his victim. He pushed and pulled, seeking refuge as the bird moved closer, its wings swept back in graceful flight.

A deadly, feathered kite.

Frantic now, the spider stumbled forward, skirting the shallow, sunken navel, moving lower, the fly in tow. Even then, he almost missed the fibrous growth, doubling back, triumphant, towards it. He pulled his prize deeper into the course, textured strands, struggling to escape the daylight and the bird on high. And then the fibres parted, plunging down all soft and sloped.

Into which the spider groped.

Then crawling forward, his prey behind, he entered thankfully that dark and musky place. Deeper and deeper he pulled his foe, into those soft, surrounding walls. A place of silence to devour his prey. As dark as any tomb.

And safe as any mother�s womb.

Staring down at the ashtray, Paula Roberts crushed her cigarette out and immediately reached for another. She watched her hands as she lit it, aware of their unsteady trembling. She wondered if they would ever stop.

Slowly, she lowered them to the table, then gazed up at her husband.

It was quiet in the small kitchen. Only the dull humming of the refrigerator and the occasional clinking of Mike�s fork interrupted the intense silence.

Looking across the table at him, Paula wondered how he could just sit there, stuffing himself, and acting as if nothing were happening. He always seemed so calm and so unconcerned. The least he could do, she thought, was act as if he half believed her, instead of making her feel as though she should be locked away somewhere.

Paula sighed.

She didn�t know how much longer she could go on this way. Being afraid day after day, night after night. Watching, waiting, listening to every little sound, jumping at the slightest movement. It was enough to drive anyone insane.

She was afraid to go out of the flat, afraid to go to sleep, even afraid to move from one room to another. If only she had someone to talk to, she told herself, things wouldn�t be so bad. But she had no one. Not even her husband.

Suddenly she noticed he had finished eating.

�You want me to make some fresh coffee?� she asked, surprised at the weakness in her voice.

Mike looked up at her without expression.

�What did you say?� he asked.

�I said�do you want me to make you some more coffee?�

�No,� he mumbled, glancing at his watch. �I�m running late now.�

He gulped the last of his coffee, then rose slowly to his feet. He was a tall man with thick, dusty brown hair and a longish, good-looking face. His eyes were blue and alert and he looked much younger than his thirty-eight years. He retrieved his jacket from the back of his chair and pulled it on. He glanced around the kitchen, slapping his hands against his pockets.

�Have you seen my pipe?� he asked.

�It�s on the coffee table,� Paula answered coldly.

�Well�I guess I�d better be going.�

Paula gazed down at the table. Nervously, she began twisting her wedding ring around her finger. It was a wide, gold band with a single diamond in its centre.

�Can�t you stay home tonight?� she asked, almost in a whisper.

�No,� he said shortly. �You know I can�t. Mr�Dunninger wants those house plans finished by Friday. If I don�t have them ready by then, I�m out.�

There was a long pause.

�Listen,� Mike said, �you�ll be all right. Just try to get some rest and try not to think about�.�.�. anything.�

�You mean, try to keep my imagination from running away with me, don�t you?�

Mike sighed heavily.

�Don�t worry,� Paula said bitterly, �I�m not going to say anything else. It wouldn�t do me any good, anyway.�

Mike checked his watch again.

�We�ll talk about it tomorrow,� he said.

Paula looked up at him, tears forming in her eyes.

�You don�t believe me now�why should it be any different tomorrow?�

Mike dug a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs and tried to control the anger building up inside him.

�Look, Paula,��he tried to speak calmly��I�m getting sick and tired of all this. You�ve been moping around here for three weeks now, like some brainless zombie. I hardly even know you any more. When are you going to straighten up and forget all this nonsense?�

�Nonsense!� Paula cried. �I tell you that a man is going to kill me, and you call it nonsense!�

�Why should anyone want to kill you? There�s no reason�� Mike stopped abruptly and threw his hand up, like a policeman holding back the traffic. �Wait, I forgot�you said he was a cannibal, and a cannibal does need fresh meat��

�Stop it!� Paula broke in. �You make it sound as if it�s all a big joke. Something to laugh over with the boys at the office. But everything I told you is true. I saw it with my own eyes. You should be the one person that would believe me!�

Mike began pacing the floor. �Don�t start getting hateful,� he said.

�Well, I�m tired of you avoiding me all the time. You sit around here giving me those looks of yours, as if I�m out of my mind or something. Do you think I�m making all this up?�

�No, of course not. I just think you need a good rest. You�ve been cooped up in this flat too long and you�ve been watching too many of those film-of-the-week things on television. Like that one�what was it�a vampire loose in Las Vegas?�

�Oh, Mike�don�t be ridiculous!�

�Well, what you�re asking me to believe is just as preposterous.�

Mike crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and stood there, shaking his head slowly. �A cannibal next door. A man that kills dogs and cats, then eats them raw. It�s the craziest thing I�ve ever heard.�

�It�s not just animals!� Paula snapped. �It was at first, but now it�s humans too. I saw him kill that poor little boy�and then he�� Paula dropped her face into her hands and shuddered. �It was horrible. I�ll never forget it�never!�

Mike looked at her for a moment, then pulled his chair out and sat down. He rested his elbows on the table and massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

�Paula,� he said wearily, �the police have searched the entire building, and they found nothing. There wasn�t a hint that anyone had been over there. That block of flats has been condemned for years, and with all that dust there would have been footprints or something. But there weren�t any.�

Paula stared across the table at him, her bright green eyes filling with anger. She said nothing.

�About this boy you keep talking about,� Mike continued. �The police have no reports of any boy missing in the neighbourhood, or even close by. And they don�t think there�ll be one, either. Don�t you see�nothing you�ve said checks out. There�s nothing to back up your story.�

Paula bit her lower lip. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze back her tears. She tried to understand Mike�s attitude, but couldn�t. She had never seen him so short-tempered before, or so distant.

�Look, Paula,� he said, �why don�t you call Doctor Palmer tomorrow morning and make an appointment to��

�No!� Paula shouted. �I won�t call him�or anyone else. I�I don�t need that kind of help. If you won�t believe me, neither will anyone else. And I won�t be locked away like some wild animal.�

Mike shrugged and stood up. �Have it your own way,� he said. �I�ve got to go.�

Paula calmed herself long enough to light another cigarette. She looked up, gazing past him towards the window.

Mike drew a deep breath and headed for the living-room.

�Wait!� Paula said suddenly.

Mike stopped and stood with his back to her.

�What is it now?�

Paula took a long breath, then turned to face him.

�Would you go over there and check�just once more?� Her voice was a little calmer.

Mike turned round slowly.

�Paula, can�t you get it through��

�Please, just once more. I won�t ask you again, I promise.�

Mike was silent for a moment, then he said, �All right. But this is it.�

He crossed the kitchen, jerked the cabinet door open and brought out his flashlight. He checked it, then walked round the table and, without looking back, went out of the back door. On the way down the narrow staircase he thought about the way he�d been acting. He felt confused, and back there in the kitchen he�d felt a fleeting moment of compassion for Paula. Pangs of guilt began gnawing slowly at his mind. He suddenly found himself wondering if he could go through with it.

When he reached the foot of the stairs he opened the door and stepped out into the alley. He shivered suddenly, as a gust of icy wind licked at his face. It blew steadily for a few long moments, then stopped abruptly as if it had been shut off by a controlled switch.

Mike drew his shoulders up and, pursing his lips, he crossed the alley. He paused at the door of the old building then, turning his head, he glanced up at his kitchen window. Paula, as he had guessed, was standing there watching him.

He waved to her with his flashlight then, frowning, he pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside. He grimaced as the stale, musty air filled his nostrils. He switched on his flashlight and kicked the door shut with his foot.

He stood in the hallway for a moment, shining his light through the murky darkness around him. The place was even worse than he�d imagined. Old clothes, shoes, tin cans, glass and broken pieces of furniture lay scattered from one end of the hall to the other.

The ceiling was a river of cracks and the thin, drab walls were full of jagged holes, some small, some large enough for a man to crawl through. Every corner held a thick network of dusty grey cobwebs.

Mike aimed the light ahead of him and inched his way forward, carefully stepping over the debris. He wondered what Paula would say if she knew he�d lied about coming over here the first time. And that he had convinced the police there was no need to search the place. That Paula was ill, and just imagining things.

Mike shook the thoughts from his mind and climbed the stairs, shivering in the cold, damp air. He reached the first floor and moved slowly down the corridor. After a few feet, he stopped abruptly and stood rigid, listening.

Something moved ahead of him. He flashed the light at the floor and caught a glimpse of a huge rat as it scurried across the floor and disappeared behind an overturned chair. He released a long breath and stood still for several moments, listening to it scratching at the wall.

He knew now where all the holes came from. Uneasily he moved on, his light darting back and forth across the hall. There were several flats on each side, their doors standing open, a thin blanket of cobwebs covering their entrance. Except for one.

With reluctance, Mike moved forward and stepped through the door.

�Hey!� he called out, flashing the light around the room.

He listened, but there was only the deathlike silence.

Moving to the centre of the room, he called again.

�Mr�Jordan! It�s me�Mike Roberts�where are you?�

Silence.

Mike started to shout again, then he heard a faint rustling sound behind him. He whirled round, startled.

�What the hell�� He flashed the light into Jordan�s face. �Do you have to sneak up on me like that?�

Harvey Jordan stood in the beam of the flashlight, squinting up at him with cold, black eyes. He was an extremely short man with matted grey hair and grimy, tattered clothing. The light made his face look almost skeletal.

�I wasn�t sneaking up on you,� Jordan said hoarsely, �I was merely walking the way I always walk. I�m sorry if I scared you.� The old man�s thin lips wrinkled into a grin, revealing large yellowing teeth. �Would you mind taking that light off me.�

Mike lowered the light. �What do you do, live in the dark all the time?�

�I have some lanterns,� the old man said. �But, I don�t think it�d be wise to use them. Your wife is probably looking over here right now.�

Mike turned the light off and glanced out of the curtainless window. From where he stood he could see his living-room window clearly, but there was no sign of Paula. He turned his attention back into the room. It was so dark he could barely make out the stunted form of the old man in front of him.

�Did you wish to see me about something?� Jordan asked.

Grimacing, Mike backed a couple of steps. The old man�s breath was as repulsive as his appearance.

�No,� Mike said, �not really. My wife asked me to come over and look around again.�

�Again? Were you here before?�

�As far as my wife�s concerned, I was. She thinks I�ve searched this place from top to bottom.�

�How is she taking things?� Jordan asked.

Mike fished a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it, his eyes closing at the sudden glare of the fighter. �Just as I hoped she would,� he said, snapping the lighter shut.

�You don�t sound very enthusiastic about it. You�re not getting cold feet, are you?�

�I gave you the money, didn�t I?�

The old man chuckled softly. �Of course,� he said. �But that still doesn�t answer my question.�

Mike sighed. �No, I�m not getting cold feet. I�m just a little tired�that�s all.�

A long moment of silence followed. Outside, the wind tore at a loose shutter and rattled the window.

�What made you come up with such a wild idea?� Mike asked suddenly. �Why didn�t you use ghosts or something like that?�

Jordan laughed. �Ghosts? No�no. If you�re trying to drive someone insane, don�t use the old ghost routine. It�s too worn out. Seems like nowadays, everyone has seen a ghost or two. But how many people have seen a real live cannibal?�

Mike dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it out with the heel of his shoe.

�I guess you�re right,� he said. �It just sounds so ridiculous.�

�Precisely.�

Slowly, Mike began pacing the floor, the boards creaking and moaning under his feet. �I guess the crazier it sounds, the better it is,� he said.

The old man shuffled across the room and sat down on the dust-choked sofa. �I don�t think your wife could get anyone to believe her, do you?�

�No. All the neighbours avoid her as if she has the plague or something, and the police practically laughed in her face. What really gets her, though, is thinking that I don�t believe her.�

The old man chuckled again. �It won�t be long now,� he said.

Mike shivered and stuck his hands in his pockets. �How the hell do you stand it in this ice box?�

�I�m used to places like this,� Jordan mumbled. �I don�t think I�d feel at home anywhere else.�

�I don�t see how you could feel at home here.�

The old man didn�t reply.

�How much longer will this have to go on?� Mike asked impatiently.

�You should know the answer to that better than I.�

�Well,� Mike said, �she�s in pretty bad shape, I can tell you that.�

The old man coughed and cleared his throat. �Well then, one more night should do it. You�ll be rid of her by morning, I promise you.�

Mike stopped pacing. �You think they�ll commit her that soon?� he asked.

�They won�t have any choice,� Jordan replied.

Wearily, Mike crossed the room to the door and stood there, staring out into the gloomy corridor. He had expected things to be different, as far as his feelings were concerned. He was sad and depressed, when he should be feeling happy and relieved. Things were going just as he planned. Tomorrow he�d be free. Free to live his life the way he wanted to without having to answer to anyone for it. He could do what he wanted, go where he wanted, and see anyone he wanted without feeling like a criminal. But yet, he felt miserable.

Mike turned slowly and gazed down at the dim silhouette of the old man. �I guess I�d better go,� he said.

Jordan stood up, yawning. �Is there anything else on your mind?� he asked.

�No, I�ll see you tomorrow.�

�I�ll be here.�

Mike pulled his flashlight from his back pocket and went slowly down the corridor, his feet numbed by the coldness. He moved down the stairs and stepped outside, the huge door slamming behind him.

The air was sharp and cold, but it smelled good. Mike breathed deeply for several minutes, then stood there wondering whether to go back to his flat. No, there would be too many questions Paula would ask, he told himself. And he just wasn�t up to answering them. Frowning, he turned and walked down the alley towards his car.

�Don�t bring your own coat-hangers.� What a curious accompaniment to an invitation! It was true, Porson reflected, that one did sometimes receive some pretty eccentric injunctions�but they were usually either positive in form: �bring your Wellingtons�; �bring two empty milk bottles�; �bring a good supply of sealing-wax� (to recollect some recent examples)�or positive in intent: �don�t forget to bring your Wellingtons�, milk bottles or sealing-wax. This was certainly the first time he had received a positive prohibition with an invitation! What could it mean? Perhaps on a previous occasion the guests had been instructed to bring coat-hangers in the interests of some new and esoteric party game, which had then turned out a disastrous flop? Or perhaps Mrs�Rydall was planning some equally esoteric practical joke?

It hardly seemed likely from what he had seen of her. True, he had only met her a couple of times (at other people�s house-parties), and though he could imagine she might be eccentric, she had not struck him as inventively so. He remembered her as a rather stocky woman, with dark chestnut hair, streaked with grey and worried-looking eyes, who had nevertheless enjoyed such normal pursuits as bridge, golf, tennis, walks and picnics�and who had excused herself from the more unusual diversions like Blind Man�s Buff and Hide and Seek, adult versions of which had been all the rage during the past two years or so.

Perhaps the injunction was, for some reason, addressed specifically to him? But no�when he looked at the card again he saw that the words had been printed. Well then, perhaps the addition was merely intended to provide curiosity?

That, at any rate, was the effect it had on Porson, for he duly presented himself at Mrs�Rydall�s charming Georgian house on the Sussex downs, overlooking Brighton and the sea. Perhaps that was why everybody else had accepted the invitation too�somewhat to Mrs�Rydall�s embarrassment, it appeared, for she took Porson aside and said:

�I do hope you don�t mind�but would you be willing to share a room? There�s another bachelor of about your age coming�George Crittal�.�.�.�

�I don�t think I�ve met Mr�Crittal,� Porson replied rather doubtfully.

�No�he�s only just come back from South America. As a matter of fact I�ve never met him myself. But apparently he came originally from my part of the country�the same village in fact�and knows a number of people I used to know�.�.�. One of them rang me up and asked me to invite him.�

She laughed ruefully. �I didn�t really think he�d accept at such short notice�hence my difficulty over bedrooms.�

She was so charming and apologetic that Porson forgot his grumpiness.

�Don�t worry,� he said, �I�ll be glad to share a room with Mr�Crittal.�

�Good�and thank you! I�ll see it�s got ready for you. You wouldn�t mind waiting till after lunch?�

The excellence of that meal provided a more plausible reason for the readiness of Mrs�Rydall�s guests to accept her invitations. No one, at any rate, seemed to give a thought to the odd sentence. But Porson couldn�t resist mentioning it to his neighbour, an elderly man who was evidently an habitu�.

�Oh she always has that on her cards,� he said. �It�s a little fad of hers, you know�.�.�.�

�But why coat-hangers, of all things?�

�She doesn�t like people leaving them lying about�especially those ugly ones with hooks screwed in at the top�you know, they are always falling out!� And the old gentleman impatiently returned to his cold consomm�.

When George Crittal arrived, though, after the first course and a hasty introduction from Mrs�Rydall (she had kept the seat on Porson�s right vacant), the newcomer gave him a quick look and said: �So you fell for it too?�

�Fell for what?� Porson replied, rather irritated by the other�s manner.

�You know!� Crittal threw another quick look at him: one of a whole series, indeed, for throughout the remainder of the meal he kept darting glances at him, as if he found his presence both intriguing and droll. Crittal was a thickset man, obviously still young but with dashes of silver in his very black hair, almost as if someone had dabbed at his head with a paintbrush. The brush also seemed to have scattered flecks of silver�or, rather, quicksilver�into his dark eyes. He had a naturally swarthy complexion, which had been further darkened by tropical suns, and this made his strong, even teeth look unusually white and glistening.

After lunch Mrs�Rydall herself took them up to the room which had been prepared for them. It proved to be the last word in comfort and elegance�and a further explanation of the popularity of her house-parties.

By now Porson had forgotten the odd phrase in the invitation, and in any case as Mrs�Rydall had not referred to it, it would hardly have been polite to mention it. Crittal, however, had no such scruples. As soon as he was inside the door he turned to Mrs�Rydall, and said:

�I haven�t brought any coat-hangers!� And he actually gave Mrs�Rydall a nudge.

She looked startled, which was hardly surprising: during his long sojourn abroad George Crittal had evidently forgotten his party manners. But she quickly recovered herself, and with a smile went over to the built-in wardrobe and pressed a button. Immediately and without a sound the doors glided back, and just as soundlessly a long rod, rising at intervals into shoulder-shaped protuberances moulded of the same material as the rod so that the contraption was all of one piece, slid out.

With a crow of delight Crittal whipped off his jacket and draped it over one of the shoulder-shaped protuberances. He pressed the button; the rod withdrew into the wardrobe and the doors slid to.

�Oh, but that�s wonderful!� he cried. �What a lovely little gadget! I can�t wait to start unpacking! I shall really enjoy hanging my things up in there!� and uttering little cries of delight, he pressed the button again.

Mrs�Rydall turned to Porson and shrugged, as if to say: �What an excitable young man!� Aloud she said: �Well then, I�ll leave you to your unpacking, if you�re going to enjoy it so much!�

But before she reached the door Crittal emerged from the wardrobe, which he had entered in order to make a closer inspection and, running over to her, gave her another hearty nudge. �Wonderful! Wonderful!� he cried, in an exaggeratedly jocular tone of voice. �No hooks, eh? No hooks at all!�

Mrs�Rydall gave him a long look, then darted through the door, slamming it behind her.

�I say!� Porson remonstrated (he was rather a prim and proper young man) �you were being a bit familiar with the old girl, weren�t you?�

Crittal burst out laughing. �Oh, but she�s a real sport!� he cried. �This wardrobe�I ask you�isn�t it rich?�

�It�s not as unusual as all that,� Porson replied. �Lots of people nowadays go in for electric gadgets of this kind�and for the most extraordinary things! You should have been to some of the house-parties I have attended!� Then he added, with what was meant to be a touch of reproof: �But, of course, it�s a long time since you were in England.�

Crittal, however, was prowling round the room, rubbing his hands and chuckling. �Do you see?� he said. �The pictures are fastened flush to the wall?�

�Well, what of it?�

�And see? Behind the door here�it�s not a hook, but one of those smooth, curved plastic things, glued to the door!�

�Excuse me, I want to get on with my unpacking,� Porson said. He was beginning to regret that he had agreed to share a room with this very odd young man. Certainly, it wouldn�t do to encourage him.

After a while Crittal, too, began to take his clothes out of the rather battered suitcase he had brought with him. But he went on muttering to himself: �No hooks! No hooks at all!��and then, as he came across something in the bottom of his case, he let out a squeal of laughter, so shrill and sudden that Porson nearly jumped out of his skin. Crittal, however, didn�t show him what it was that had apparently so appealed to his sense of humour, but abruptly closed his case and pushed it under his bed.

During the rest of the day Porson took care to avoid his room-mate. This proved easy, as most of the guests accompanied their hostess on a ramble over the downs, while Crittal excused himself on the grounds of a feverish headache; he certainly looked tense and flushed. He didn�t appear at dinner, either, but when Porson went up to their room he found him sitting on the side of his bed.

�I say!� he exclaimed, the moment Porson had closed the door. �I�ve been exploring the place while you�ve been out!�

�What an extraordinary thing to do�in somebody else�s house,� Porson replied coldly.

�And do you know,� Crittal went on, ignoring the rebuke, �all the rooms have wardrobes like this!�

�So I would have supposed!�

�Yes, but everything you hang things on is made of plastic�and it�s all stuck on�nothing�s screwed!�

�What are you getting at?�

�Don�t you see? No hooks anywhere!�

�Look, Crittal,� Porson said in exasperation. �What the hell does it matter whether there are hooks or not?�

�Why, it means that Mrs�Rydall doesn�t like hooks, of course!�

�Why in God�s name should she like or dislike them? What does it matter? This is a well-run house, and the food is first-rate, and I wish you�d stop going on and on about this ridiculous business!�

�But doesn�t it strike you as odd that she should go to such pains to keep hooks out of the house?�

�No, it doesn�t!� Porson shouted. �Shut up about these stupid hooks! Why do you go on about them?�

�Oh, I don�t know,� Crittal replied. �It intrigues me, that�s all�.�.�.�

To Porson�s relief Crittal didn�t return to the subject, and the next morning his headache had apparently gone. He joined the rest of the guests in another ramble over the downs, and proved a perfectly amiable companion. Porson hoped that he had dropped his ridiculous fad.

But while, later in the day, they were changing for tennis Crittal, explaining that he had forgotten to unpack his shorts, pulled out his case from under the bed, opened it, rummaged about inside�and immediately began laughing in the immoderate manner Porson had found so distasteful the previous day.

�What is it now?� he asked irritably.

�It�s a good job I didn�t show Mrs�Rydall this!� He was gazing at something at the bottom of his case.

�What is it?�

Crittal took the object from the case and handed it to him. It was a hook�but a hook of quite monstrous size.

�Whatever is it?� Porson asked. �And why in God�s name have you brought it with you?�

�Oh, that�s an accident�I must have forgotten to take it out of the case before I packed again for this weekend. It�s one of a pair�.�.�.�

�But what is it? I�ve never seen such a big one!�

�It�s a hammock hook.�

�A what?�

�A hook for a hammock. I took the hammock and the other hook out, but I must have left this one behind.�

�Are you in the habit of carrying hammocks and their fittings about with you?� Porson asked, with heavy sarcasm.

�As a matter of fact I am, or at any rate I was,� the other replied. �In the part of Brazil where I was, you see, a hammock is so much cooler than a bed. Nearly everybody has one. In nearly all the best hotels you�ll find hooks like this screwed into the ceilings above the beds�so that you can sling your hammock if you prefer it�.�.�. Most people, though, also carry a pair of their own hooks about with them too�you often find yourself stranded in some shack, and then you make use of the beams and fit your hammock across the corner�.�.�.�

�Do you intend to use a hammock while you are in England?�

�Yes, I think so. I�m not really comfortable in a bed any more.�

Porson handed the hook back to him. Crittal regarded it thoughtfully. The odd lights had come back into his eyes, and he grinned, showing his extraordinarily white teeth.

�I tell you what!� he said, closing one eye in a grotesque wink. �I think I�ll show this to Mrs�Rydall!�

�That would be a very stupid thing to do!�

�Why?�

�Stupid and pointless!�

�I don�t know about that�.�.�.�

�Why, what would the point of it be?�

�It might tell us why Mrs�Rydall dislikes hooks so much!�

�I do wish you�d change the record!� Porson snapped and, picking up his racquet, he marched out of the room.

When he reached the tennis courts he found he was down to play Crittal, who joined him a few minutes later. Porson relieved some of his irritation by soundly trouncing his opponent. Crittal took his beating equably, and the two of them returned to the house together.

Porson was by now getting so used to his companion�s changes of mood that he was shocked, but not particularly surprised, when on the way down the corridor leading to their own room, Crittal opened one of the doors and, before Porson had time to resist, hustled him inside.

�This room�s quite a surprise,� Crittal said, holding on to his arm to prevent him from backing out. In spite of himself Porson looked round him with interest. Crittal was quite right: the room was surprising. Whereas all the others he had seen were typical guest-rooms, as impersonal as those of a hotel (though much more comfortable), this was very much lived-in. It was indeed as much a workroom as a bedroom. Although the furniture and appointments were of the greatest elegance, scraps of material and skeins of coloured silk were scattered about and the centre of the floor was occupied by a tailor�s dummy, the padded upper half studded with pins and surmounted by a knob of polished mahogany. The stand was hidden by what was obviously going to be a very beautiful evening skirt.

It came as quite a surprise to find that Mrs�Rydall (for this was obviously her room) should have had such an untidy hobby as dressmaking. It made her much more human, though, and a moment later his eye alighted on another object which made him warm towards her even more�a wig, carefully arranged on its block. The hair was of the same rich chestnut as that which graced Mrs�Rydall�s head�but without the dusting of grey. Presumably she disapproved of dyeing�but was soon to blossom out with a brand-new head of hair.

The sight of the wig made him feel guilty at thus intruding on her privacy, and he turned to Crittal. �Really, this is quite disgraceful!� he said. �What on earth possessed you to bring me in here?�

Crittal gazed round him in a dreamy, abstracted way. �No hooks, needless to say,� he said softly, and gave Porson a curiously deliberate grin, as if he were hugging some amusing secret to himself. �Not yet, anyway,� he added, moving over to the long window-box, and examining the ornaments on it. But a moment later he jumped back. �Mrs�Rydall�s coming in from the garden,� he announced. �Let�s beat it!�

Back in their own bedroom, they began to dress for dinner. Crittal�s mood seemed to have changed yet again. He seemed tense and restless, walking up and down the room, gnawing at his fingers, and every now and then cocking his head to one side, as if he were listening for something.

They had nearly finished dressing when a piercing scream came from somewhere close at hand, followed by the crash of breaking glass.

�Come on!� Crittal shouted. �It�s Mrs�Rydall!� and he rushed out of the room.

Porson stood shocked for a moment, then followed. The screams had changed to a wild, throaty sobbing. Doors along the corridor were opening, and worried-looking guests, in varying stages of undress, peered out. But as Porson reached Mrs�Rydall�s door it opened, and Crittal appeared. �It�s all right!� he called out. �It�s only a rat! I�ve dealt with it! Leave it to me!� The doors along the corridor gradually closed. Porson entered Mrs�Rydall�s room.

She was seated on a chair near the tailor�s dummy, her face buried in her hands, fighting to control her sobs. Splinters of glass lay on the carpet near the window, and one of the panes had a jagged hole in it.

�Where�s the rat?� Porson asked, peering round him. Crittal gave a bark of laughter, so unexpectedly loud that Mrs�Rydall lowered her hands and stared at him.

�There�s no rat,� Crittal said, in a more normal tone of voice. �But Mrs�Rydall didn�t want to be bothered by all those nosey-parkers, did you?�

Mrs�Rydall went on staring at him.

�But we know what it was, don�t we?� Crittal went on, in an indulgent voice, as if he were dealing with a frightened child. �You tell us all about it, eh? And you�ll feel much better!�

His eyes and teeth glistened. Mrs�Rydall could not seem to take her eyes from his face.

�It was�.�.�. it was a�.�.�.� she faltered.

�Come on now! You tell us!�

�It was a�.�.�. a hook!� Mrs�Rydall said in a whisper. Porson threw an angry glance at Crittal: it was only too clear where the hook had come from, and who had put it in Mrs�Rydall�s room. But Crittal was watching Mrs�Rydall: he was obviously having difficulty in keeping a straight face and his lips kept curving away from the white teeth. Porson found himself shuddering. The very fact that there was indeed a kind of grotesque comicality about the situation, and Mrs�Rydall�s remark, struck him as quite horrifying.

Crittal now drew up a stool and seated himself opposite Mrs�Rydall, his knees practically touching hers. He pulled her hands away from her face and, staring into her eyes, said coaxingly: �Come now, you tell us all about it!�

Mrs�Rydall trembled. With an exclamation of disgust Porson stepped forward, determined to remove Crittal from the room and to leave Mrs�Rydall in peace. But without taking her eyes off Crittal�s face she said, very quietly: �No, he�s quite right. I must tell someone. Listen, please listen!�

She swallowed. Her face was very pale, but her voice was steady when she started speaking again.

�It happened when I was eight years old. In Cruesdon�you know?� Crittal energetically nodded his head, and Porson remembered that Mrs�Rydall had told him that she and Crittal came from the same village.

�Well,� she went on, �there was a�.�.�. a creature we called Robbie. He was the village idiot, I suppose�though not the usual kind: his family, the Carters, were quite educated and well-to-do. But all of them were odd, very odd, on both sides of the family. One of the grandfathers committed suicide. Another had to be put away�he became quite mad, violent�.�.�. Robbie wasn�t violent, though�.�.�. poor Robbie! Poor Robbie!�

Mrs�Rydall stopped. �Go on! Go on!� Crittal prompted her.

�Yes, poor Robbie was harmless,� she went on. �Very gentle, really�but simple, you know, very simple�and rather frightening sometimes�for a child, I mean�with a big head that seemed to wobble, and big lips that were always dribbling�.�.�. It was tragic really because, you see, he loved children, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than playing with them. They treated him abominably, of course. Sometimes they would let him join in one of their games, and he would grin all over his face. Then they would either start tormenting him if he didn�t play the game properly�.�.�. or suddenly, for no reason at all, get frightened�.�.�. If he had been one of those big, clumsy dogs no one would have, minded the way he lolloped about or rolled over and over or dribbled�.�.�. But because he was human�.�.�.� Tears came into her eyes. �And he would do anything!� she cried. �Anything to please! He didn�t mind how much they hurt him�and sometimes they were really cruel�he�d just come bouncing back for more, only too happy to be taken notice of�.�.�. Well, one day I was in the churchyard�you know?� She looked at Crittal. �It�s a short cut to the upper end of the village.�

�Yes, yes, I remember!� Crittal replied, in a strange, jerky voice. �I used to play in that churchyard myself!�

�Well, Robbie was there�.�.�. He gave his funny little cry as soon as he saw me�it wasn�t really human, you know�more like the cry an animal gives when you unexpectedly pat it�or kick it�and came running over to me. I didn�t want to be bothered with him, so I told him�very crossly, I�m afraid�to go away. He looked at me with hurt eyes, mouth hanging open. Then he gave another little cry and grinned, as if he had suddenly thought of something that would please me. He dragged something out of his pocket�.�.�. It was a hook�.�.�.�

�Ah!� Crittal cried out, in a strange, almost exalted, voice, as if he had been vouchsafed some astonishing revelation. Mrs�Rydall closed her eyes. She looked ill and exhausted.

�I should rest if I were you,� Porson said, stepping forward again. �Really, you know, there�s no need to go on with this if it distresses you!�

Mrs�Rydall opened her eyes. �No,� she said. �I must be done with it. It will be a relief to get it off my mind.�

�Of course it will!� Crittal cried, in ringing tones. It was his turn to throw an indignant look at his room-mate. He was shifting to and fro on the stool, licking his lips as if they were dry, and apparently beside himself with impatience and an avid curiosity that struck Porson as indecent, and somehow disquieting.

�Yes, it was a hook.� Mrs�Rydall resumed her story, although her voice trembled, and she was evidently in great distress of mind. �A huge hook, like the one�.�.�. like the one�.�.�.�

�Like the one you found on the window-box,� Crittal interrupted eagerly.

�Yes,� Mrs�Rydall replied, giving him a puzzled look. �Yes, like the one I threw through the window just now�.�.�. Only rusty and dirty. Robbie must have picked it up somewhere�probably in the timberyard where he often used to play�.�.�. Anyway, he held the hook towards me, grinning all over his face.

�Oh he looked so pleased with himself! He thought he was giving me a present. Then when I shook my head and walked away, he started to trot after me, holding out the hook, with a pleading expression on his face. I quickened my pace too, and then as he got closer I darted behind one of the tombstones. He followed, and I dodged behind another tombstone. I was teasing him, of course�I�m afraid I was no better than the other children�.�.�. Well, he stopped for a moment, puzzled; then suddenly a beatific smile spread across his face, and he began to crow with delight, just like a baby when it�s given a rattle. He came running after me again, holding out the hook now and making scrabbling movements with it.

�At first I entered into the spirit of the thing. I had often played �catch� among the tombstones with my friends, and of course Robbie had watched us. Now, for the first time, he was being allowed to play too, and he was beside himself with joy, lurching from side to side, giggling and babbling incoherently. But he didn�t know when to stop. He became more and more excited. Once, when he nearly caught up with me, the hook caught in my hair; and then a few minutes later it scraped along my arm, causing qiute a nasty graze.

�Suddenly the fun had gone out of it�.�.�. You know how quickly one�s mood can change at that age; how close joy is to terror; how laughter can suddenly spill over into hysteria�.�.�. The game was over for me�but not for Robbie.

���Stop!� I called out. �Stop! Oh please stop, Robbie!� But he paid no attention. Still giggling in that high-pitched voice, he continued to come after me, brandishing the hook. I was sobbing and screaming now. Everything about him had become horrifying�the lolling head, the slobbering mouth�and that hook! Oh my God, that hook!�

Again Mrs�Rydall broke off and began rocking herself to and fro. Again Porson made to drag Crittal out of the room, but Mrs�Rydall held up her hand and gradually composed herself. Besides, it was difficult to dislodge Crittal from the stool: he had become astonishingly strong and heavy.

�I was becoming exhausted by now,� Mrs�Rydall began again, in a low voice. �I went on crying out to him to stop, begging, pleading, but still he came after me. And I became more and more panic-stricken. I tried to break away from the tombstones and make for the gate. But Robbie darted along the path and barred the way, with a cry of triumph, as if he had, for the first time in his life, scored a point in a game that was usually beyond him. Sobbing with exhaustion, I left the path and sought refuge among the tombstones again. Robbie came lurching after me, getting closer and closer�.�.�. Then I stumbled over something and fell. As I scrambled to my feet, Robbie was only a few feet away, his hand, holding the hook, upraised�.�.�.

�I found I had something in my hand, too. It was a grass-hook, which old Parkins, who looked after the churchyard, must have left lying about. Without really thinking what I was doing, and as Robbie�s hand descended, I struck out with the grass-hook�.�.�. It felt like�.�.�. it felt like a knife going through butter�.�.�. and the next moment there was a dull plop, and Robbie�s hand, with the hook still in it, was lying near my feet. There was blood among the grass blades, turning a rusty orange�.�.�. There were big spots of blood on my dress�.�.�. Blood was welling up from the stump of Robbie�s wrist�.�.�. I hadn�t thought�.�.�. I hadn�t realized�.�.�. It was only then that I remembered I had often seen Parkins honing the grass-hook on a stone�.�.�. honing it over and over until the blade was as sharp as a razor�.�.�.

�Everything seemed to have gone still. I just stood there, unable to move. And poor Robbie stared down at his stump. The expression on his face was one of such utter astonishment that it was almost ludicrous, and I nearly broke into a fit of hysterical laughter, until�.�.�. until my eyes alighted again on the hand�.�.�. lying so still�.�.�. lying in the grass�.�.�.

�After a while Robbie switched his eyes from the stump to my face. He looked puzzled, hurt, pleading�.�.�. He looked as if he was going to cry�not with the pain, but because he felt I had, as so often happened in his games with the village children, suddenly played a shabby trick on him. Then, when he saw the stricken expression on my own face, and heard me whisper, �I�m sorry, I�m sorry,� his face brightened. I wasn�t teasing him after all! I was sorry for him! I had enjoyed the game�.�.�. He began to smile. He waved his hand up and down playfully: further drops of blood, heavy�like rain after thunder�fell on to my dress�.�.�. And then, and then�.�.�.�

But Mrs�Rydall was shuddering violently. Her hands went up to her throat as if it were paining her. Porson hurried into the adjoining bathroom, and filled a tumbler with water. When he returned Crittal snatched it from his hands and held it to Mrs�Rydall�s lips. She drank greedily; then she sat for a few moments, staring in front of her. There were tears in her eyes.

�What happened next,� she said in a far-away voice, so soft that Porson had to lean forward in order to hear it. �What happened next was unbelievable, quite, quite fantastic�the sort of thing that might happen in a nightmare, but not�.�.�. not in real life. Robbie�s eyes alighted on the hand lying at his feet. Suddenly he bent down and, with his left hand, snatched the hook out of the dead fingers�.�.�. He straightened up and then�.�.�. Oh my God, can you believe it? He�.�.�. he began screwing the hook into his stump?�

Crittal held the glass to her lips again. She took a few sips, then continued, in the same low voice.

�He pushed the point of the hook into the stump, and began to turn it, exerting all his strength�.�.�. Thick, dark blood welled up, like�.�.�. like jelly that hasn�t set�.�.�. But he went on turning�.�.�. At the end of it his face was a pale, muddy colour, and there were great drops of perspiration on his forehead�.�.�. Then he raised his head and looked at me. The only word I can think of to describe the expression on his face is radiant!�.�.�. �Look!� he said, in a trembling voice, and then, ecstatically, �Look!��as if he had discovered some excitingly new and original way of pleasing me, of entertaining me�.�.�. Oh, now it�s the pity of it that moves me�but then it was pure horror! And a moment later he had raised the stump, with the screw stuck in it, and brandished it feebly in the air. Screaming, I fell back a few steps. With stump and hook raised aloft, still grinning delightedly, though he tottered as he walked and the blood was running down his arm, and the sleeve of his coat was heavy with it, he�.�.�. he came after me again!

�I shut my eyes, and the last thing I was aware of was the sound of my own screaming�.�.�. I seemed to fall into a pit of screaming�.�.�.

�When I came to I was lying in my own bed at home, and at first I thought it really had been a nightmare�.�.�.�

�Oh no, it was real! It was real!� Crittal interrupted, indignantly. She looked at him. �You heard about it, then?�

�Oh yes�.�.�. My family�.�.�. they used to talk about it sometimes�.�.�.�

�You probably know, then, that I was ill for quite a long time and my parents had to move�.�.�. I�ve never been back to Cruesdon�.�.�. My parents never talked about it�but I�ve never been able to forget�.�.�. I don�t know what happened to�.�.�. to�.�.�.�

�Robbie? They had to put him away�after he came out of hospital.�

�But why? He was harmless!� Mrs�Rydall cried.

�Oh yes�quite harmless. But about that time his mother went out of her mind�again, I mean�.�.�. for good. And there was no one left to look after Robbie.�

�Poor Robbie!�

�Poor Robbie!� Crittal echoed, almost in a mocking manner, and then added: �But, as you said, the whole family was odd, very odd!� For some reason the thought seemed to amuse him.

�So you see,� Mrs�Rydall said, in a much calmer tone of voice, �why I have this�.�.�. this obsession about hooks�and why, when I found one in this room I�.�.�. I reacted as I did!�

�Oh indeed! Indeed!� Crittal cried; his voice now sounded sympathetic, ingratiating. �I quite understand. A very nasty experience! But it will be better now, much better�.�.�. Don�t you feel better already?�

�Yes, I think I do,� Mrs�Rydall replied, trying to smile, though the expression on her face, Porson thought, was puzzled and somehow, what was it?�.�.�. Yes, wary�.�.�.

�I think you should have a rest now,� he said to her.

�I think I will,� Mrs�Rydall agreed, though her eyes were still fixed on Crittal. �I�ll have a couple of aspirins and try to have an early night�.�.�. Perhaps you�d be good enough to make some excuse for me at dinner?�

�Yes, of course,� Porson agreed, and this time he succeeded in jerking Crittal from his stool and propelling him through the door.

�You ought to be ashamed of yourself!� he said, when they had reached their own room. �Planting that damned hook on Mrs�Rydall�it was a disgusting thing to do!�

�I don�t see why,� Crittal replied, in a surprisingly mild voice. �It brought things to the surface�.�.�. A shock like that�it was just what she needed. Why, she said herself that she felt better for it!�

�Well, perhaps you�re right,� Porson acknowledged grudgingly. �But if I were you I should find that wretched hook of yours and put it away!�

�Oh that�s all right�it�s in the flower-bed under Mrs�Rydall�s window: I saw it there when I looked out.�

�See you get it then!� Crittal nodded. He seemed abstracted. �Yes, it�s brought all sorts of things to the surface!� he said, in a strangled kind of voice.

At dinner Porson made Mrs�Rydall�s apologies, as he had promised. He was unable to do more than pick at his food. Crittal, however, ate heartily, though to Porson�s surprise and relief he did not speak, and disappeared immediately the meal was over.

Porson did not see him again until he was already in bed, when Crittal entered the room�and placed the hook on the dressing-table, with a meaningful glance in Porson�s direction.

�Put it away!� Porson said sharply. Crittal nodded and, opening his suitcase, threw the hook into it. When he turned round his lips were parted in a grin; the white teeth glistened more noticeably than ever, and the curious flecks of light in his eyes were more pronounced. But Porson had had enough of Crittal for one day. He pointedly turned on his side�and fell asleep almost instantly.

He awoke with a start some three hours later. He sat up in bed. Had he heard a muffled scream somewhere near at hand, or had he merely dreamed it? He listened intently, his heart unaccountably thumping. He thought he could hear various dragging and bumping noises somewhere�such as might be caused by dragging some heavy object across the floor�a suitcase, for example.

The thought made him glance at Crittal�s bed. It was empty, but by an odd coincidence Crittal�s suitcase was placed on top of it: perhaps, Porson thought, he had subconsciously noted it out of the corner of his eye in the moment of waking.

He switched on his bedside light and got out of bed. The lid of Crittal�s suitcase was raised. Porson looked inside. There was no sign of the hook. What was Crittal up to now, he asked himself irritably, and with a sudden sinking of the heart. He noticed that there was a book at the bottom of the case. He took it out in order to make sure that the hook hadn�t been hidden beneath it. Before returning the book to the suitcase he absentmindedly opened it and glanced at the fly-leaf. George Crittal�s signature, in the same bold black ink and with the same flourishes which he had noticed in Mrs�Rydall�s visitors� book, sprawled right across the page�.�.�.

But just a minute�was the second name Crittal? He took the book under the light and examined the signature more closely. The first name was George all right�but the second looked more like�what was it? Yes, Carter�.�.�. Where had he heard that name recently?

Suddenly he remembered. Mrs�Rydall had mentioned it this afternoon when she was telling them that dreadful tale about Robbie and the hook�.�.�. Yes, of course! Carter was the name of Robbie�s family�poor Robbie�s second name in fact�the family which Mrs�Rydall had said was �odd��.�.�.

Porson froze. Was Crittal�s real name, then, Carter? He dismissed the thought. It would be too much of a coincidence�or, rather, the appearance of the name Carter in the book was a coincidence, but one of a perfectly harmless nature�.�.�. After, all, there were thousands of Carters in the world, and almost as many George Carters�.�.�. No doubt someone of that name had lent the book to Crittal�.�.�.

Where, though, was Crittal? Porson put the book on the case and hurried out of the room and down the corridor towards Mrs�Rydall�s room. He was filled with a sense of foreboding. When he reached Mrs�Rydall�s door he cautiously pushed it open and peered in. The room was dimly lit from a reading-lamp at the side of Mrs�Rydall�s bed, but the bed itself was empty. It had obviously been slept in recently, however, for the bedclothes were scattered on the floor.

He entered the room, clicking on the main switch as he did so, but nothing happened�presumably the bulb had failed. He peered round him in the dim light. There was no sign of Mrs�Rydall. One of the sheets, though, had been thrown over the tailor�s dummy, rising to a peak where the knob protruded from the padded torso. No doubt Mrs�Rydall had been unable to sleep and had been passing the time with her dressmaking. But where was she now? Well, perhaps she had gone to one of the other rooms to collect some further piece of material, or a reel of cotton, or a pair of scissors�Porson found this rationalistic approach somehow reassuring�.�.�. Though why, he asked himself, should he be in need of reassurance? There was nothing wrong about the room, was there?

He took another look round, and his eye alighted on a raffia wastepaper basket in the corner. For some reason Mrs�Rydall had thrown the wig into it. That, admittedly, was rather a curious thing for her to have done; but perhaps she had grown tired of it, or had experienced a reaction against the whole idea of a wig? He went over to take a closer look.

The wig seemed rather dusty. What was more curious, it appeared to have grey streaks in it. Perhaps some talcum powder or cigarette ash had got spilled on to it? Again his brain began frantically to search for explanation�.�.�. Anyway, he decided, it might be a good idea to retrieve the wig and put it on the dressing table.

He put out his hand and caught hold of the tumbled hair. To his astonishment, the wig did not come away. He gave a harder tug�and found he had lifted the whole wastepaper basket. It was extraordinarily heavy. He gave it a shake, and still the wig did not come away. Somehow it had got jammed into the basket�.�.�. unless�.�.�. It was then that he saw that the underside of the basket was sodden with something dark, something that dripped through the interstices�.�.�.

He let go of the basket as if it had electrocuted him. It fell on its side with a thud and rolled back into the corner, like some monstrous flower pot.

Porson�s knees were trembling. He felt he wanted to be sick. But his mind refused to take in the possible implications of what he had just experienced; it had gone numb, as if he were under an anaesthetic. �I must get out of here,� he thought, and turned in the direction of the door. As he did so his foot struck against something. He glanced down, and a thrill of horror shot through his whole body, nearly knocking him down. A dark torso was lying on the floor, half under the bed. Then he gave a huge sigh of relief. It was only the tailor�s dummy. Thank God! Everything was all right: he had been letting his imagination run away with him.

But halfway to the door he stopped. If the dummy was lying on the floor then�.�.�. then what was that in the centre of the room?

His limbs felt as if they had been turned to lead. His heart thudded as if someone was throwing a sledge-hammer against it. Somehow he forced himself to walk over to the shrouded object. He lifted his hand, slowly and laboriously. It seemed to take an age. Then, with a sudden, desperate movement, he snatched the sheet away. And as in one half of his mind he became aware that Crittal was standing in the doorway, head thrown back, teeth glistening, letting loose peal after peal of maniacal laughter, with the other half he took in the bloody headless body seated on the stool and, rammed into the neck, wedged tight with blood-soaked cotton-wool, a huge hook, like an obscene question-mark.

The dilapidated wooden gate had been replaced by a metal one, strong and trimly painted with red oxide.

Otherwise nothing had changed.

Simon closed the gate behind him and stood hot in the early afternoon sun, looking down the field towards the course of the river. From here one couldn�t tell that the blackthorns and brambles dividing this field from the one beyond concealed anything more interesting than a ditch. An astute observer would, perhaps get a hint of the river�s existence from the little cattle bridge that carved a tiny avenue through the matted undergrowth.

To Simon it all looked diminutive compared with the memory; as if he was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Maybe the enormity of the events that occurred here diminished the size of the surroundings but, on reflection, he knew that he was as familiar with these fields and that river as he was with the things that took place within their boundaries on that day so long ago. No, it was simpler than that, and he grinned at his unsophisticated logic; when you�re a child, you�re closer to the ground, therefore everything is bound to look bigger. It all looked small now solely because he himself had grown larger.

Earlier, he had stood on the crinkly stone bridge outside the village struggling with his indecisiveness; balancing the therapeutic motivation that had brought him two hundred miles against a fear of being overwhelmed, retarded by a flood of trauma-ridden memories. He had stared at the water for a long time, until his mind merged with the river, cascading into fragments, tumbling, twisting, pulling his subconscious inexorably downstream to that place two miles on�.�.�. When he had taken a tablet and given it time to transform the indecision into a firm resolve, he realized how ridiculous�cowardly even�it would be to come all this way only to give up two miles from his destination. Nevertheless, he had deliberately averted his gaze as the car approached the field, half hoping that it had altered out of recognition.

But it hadn�t changed. Places don�t change of their own volition; they have changes imposed upon them by people. He smiled wryly whilst developing the idea more tangibly. People change of their own volition, though; change of heart, change of mind, change of outlook�.�.�. Some, like himself, are changed by other people, complete strangers. Twenty-four years ago in this field, by this river, across in those woods, his whole life had been changed in the space of three hours. His friends asserted that it was a change for the better; better for them, maybe, because he swelled their numbers, strengthened their solidarity, helped provide them with the small luxury of group commiseration. But he couldn�t help pondering on what might have been�.�.�. Would he still have been living in that unhygienic, draughty old folly of a house in the village? How he�d loved that house, with its scatterbrained arrangement of unruly walls and labyrinthine corridors�.�.�. Would he have come fishing here for the brown trout every morning before he went to work, as his father used to? What job would he have been doing? Driving a tractor? Weaving baskets? Managing an estate? Making cider? Would he have been a vet or a doctor? Would his parents still have been alive, had they never moved on his behalf to undergo the strain of urban living and to breathe polluted city air?�.�.�. He felt curiously lost and sad, for conjecture had so many computations; so many happy variables of wish and memory that, by comparison, reality could be a state of bitter disillusionment. He tried to define the sad, lost feelings as self pity, but couldn�t quite manage it, so he screwed them up into a tight little ball and threw them back down into his mind for reprocessing into some other emotion. He waited, mentally breathless, for the anticipated turbulence that must accompany his return to this place.

Nothing happened.

His eyes wandered, unchecked now, down across the ragged grass to the darker green of the riverside undergrowth and overhanging willow trees, past the little cattle bridge and on to the far left-hand corner of the field. There it was. His own spot a few yards along from the big corner beech tree, where the float used to skim along on the fast-moving current and sweep into his favourite pool. Something glinted there now. Simon shaded his eyes and could make out the figure of a small boy, the sun flashing on the chrome fittings of his rod as he cast into the invisible river.

Oh, dear Christ, why is there a boy fishing in my spot?

Simon knew it would be hard now; hard to stand here and take all the burning recollections that this place could conjure up; hard to take it all without another tablet, now he�d seen the boy�.�.�.

He took another tablet and the memory came gently.

He came upon the great house quite by chance, having wandered across the fenlands of East Anglia all day, for he had no fixed destination and was content to keep moving, his head lowered, lost in some twilight world of his own. As the house was in a bad state of repair, the windows uncurtained, the front door open, he thought it must be deserted, and decided to make the place his hotel for the night.

The hall floor was paved with dead leaves, the walls festooned with cobwebs, but the house was not dead, for a hall table stood just inside the doorway, and a badly worn carpet covered the stairs; also, just as Herbert had unslung his haversack, there came the sound of approaching footsteps, and a tall, thickset man came out from one of the rooms.

�Hullo!� He stopped, staring at the stranger with small blue eyes. �Who are you?�

�Someone who has made a mistake,� Herbert smiled, and his lean, bronze face was transformed. �I thought the house was deserted. You must forgive me.�

�Natural enough mistake,� the big man grunted. �On holiday?�

�A rather prolonged one.�

The man nodded. �Thought so. You�re way off the beaten track, you know, miles from anywhere.�

It was Herbert�s turn to nod. �I find that a matter for satisfaction rather than alarm. I won�t intrude further; again accept my apologies.�

�Wait a moment,��the big man placed his hand on Herbert�s shoulder,��no need to hurry off. I mean, the sun will set shortly, and you�ll never find your way among these fens after dark. There�s plenty of room here. Stay the night.�

�You�re very kind,� Herbert said gravely. �Any corner will do.�

�We can do better than that. You�ll find the place is in an awful mess; just one servant and the family, but at least there�ll be a roof over your head.�

�An unexpected luxury,� Herbert commented dryly. �Again, thank you.�

�Nonsense.� The man turned, and began to lead his unexpected guest through a maze of rooms, some furnished, others not, but all with an atmosphere of sad neglect. They ascended some stairs, came up on to a small landing, then entered a long, dimly lit corridor. The big man spoke again. �By the way, my name is Carruthers. Stafford Carruthers. What�s yours?�

�Herbert.�

�Herbert�what?�

�Just Herbert. A man requires but a single handle.�

�True,� Stafford Carruthers nodded gravely. �And Herbert is so negative, it could be either a Christian or surname.�

He flung open a door which seemed to resent this liberty, for it groaned a protest, then switched on a ceiling light. The room smelt of dust and stale air; the bed was a great brass-railed monster, and age-blacked furniture lurked against unclean walls.

�Not what it was,� observed Carruthers cheerfully, �but it�s home. You won�t find any sheets on the bed, but there are plenty of blankets. A bathroom of sorts is two doors down, so as soon as you�ve freshened up, make your way down the stairs and turn left to the dining-room. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.�

He went, closing the door with a slam which made a framed print depicting a spectral Lazarus, emerging from a cave, tremble. Herbert unpacked his haversack: a clean shirt, a vest, a pair of linen pants, a tie, a pair of socks, a razor, a towel, a tube of brushless shaving cream, a bar of carbolic soap, and three handkerchiefs. Herbert laid out the entire collection of his worldly goods upon the bed and smiled.

Twenty minutes later, freshly bathed, shaved, and wearing his clean shirt, he went softly down the stairs, and turned left as Carruthers had instructed. Voices came from beyond an open doorway.

�You must be mad, Stafford.�

A woman was speaking in a cold, contemptuous tone; then Carruthers answered, blustering like a small boy trying to explain away a misdemeanour.

�The chap was lost, and I thought�.�.�. things being as they are�.�.�.�

The beautiful, cold voice interrupted: �Stafford, you have the mind of a five-year-old imbecile. Don�t you realize�.�.�.�

Another female voice broke in, an old voice, harsh, cultured, slow-speaking: �There is little point in heated discussion, Helen, and no foundation to your fears. The stranger will, since he is here, see, hear, and even possibly smell, but will not understand. Should truth be served up on his dinner plate, I doubt if he will recognize her. The situation will not be without its amusing side.�

�But surely,� the other feminine voice spoke again, �G.O. had better keep to his room.�

�Nonsense,� and the old voice broke into a little silvery laugh, like the wind blowing through slivers of steel; �let us carry on as usual. But should not this�this wanderer of the wastelands, have joined us by now?�

�I will fetch him,� said Carruthers, and Herbert turned quickly and tiptoed to the far end of the corridor.

�There you are,� Carruthers bellowed at him from the doorway, �didn�t lose your way, then?�

�Almost,� Herbert smiled. �I think I must have turned right instead of left. Found myself back in the main hall. I hope I have not kept you waiting.�

�Not at all.� Carruthers stood to one side for him to enter. �Come on in.�

Herbert walked past him and came into a large room, no less shabby than the rest of the house, but more lived in. There were cobwebs on the ceiling, but the furniture was free from dust, the brass fender was highly polished, and the dining table was covered by a white cloth. An, old woman was seated on a straight-backed armchair; a vision dressed in black satin and white lace, with a long, white, lined face, and a pair of shrewd blue eyes. Her white hair was piled high, and kept in position by a tortoiseshell comb, while her beringed hands rested on a black, silver-topped walking cane. A derisive smile parted her thin lips.

�So,� the harsh voice rang out, �our most unexpected guest.�

Herbert made an old-fashioned bow.

�I am grateful for your unexpected hospitality.�

�So you should be,� the old lady said in a genial tone. �You are the first guest this house has entertained for more years than I care to count. I am called Lady Carruthers. This is my daughter; my son you have already met.�

Herbert turned his attention to the tall, beautiful woman who stood by the fireplace, and he drank in the flawless perfection of her face and figure. At first he felt a pang of pity that such a lovely creature should be wasted in an out-of-the-way place like this, then he saw the cold arrogance that was reflected in the brilliance of her blue eyes, and the proud set of her shapely shoulders, and knew his compassion was misplaced.

�How nice to meet you, Mister�.�.�.?�

She had drawled the words, each one an ice-tipped barb; the final pause was a bottomless pit into which he was being invited to throw himself.

�Herbert.�

�Mr�Herbert,� she nodded, and her dark hair, black as starless space, danced a little jig. �It is like an exclamation mark, isn�t it? Like Charles or James.�

�Or Heathcliff,� observed Herbert.

�So, you read. Then tell me, Herbert, how you came to stumble upon our retreat.�

�It might be as well,� Lady Carruthers remarked caustically, �if the poor man sat down first. Also, dinner will spoil if we dilly-dally further. Stafford, ring the bell.�

She rose from her chair with some difficulty and, supported by her cane, hobbled to the table. Once there, she sank into a high-backed chair, then waved a hand.

�Mr�Herbert, you will kindly seat yourself on my left, Helen will sit opposite, and Stafford will take his usual place at the foot of the table.�

They were all seated at that long table, the old lady watching the three faces with, it seemed to Herbert, sardonic amusement; Helen stared at him, and Stafford in his isolated position was giving a fair imitation of a sulky child. Herbert at last became embarrassed by Helen�s unblinking stare, and glanced at her inquiringly. She smiled.

�And how did you stumble upon us, Herbert?�

�Quite by chance. I was just wandering.�

�How quaint.�

The two words were spoken in a tone of voice that suggested he had been doing something improper, and he felt a tinge of irritation.

�Where are you staying?� Lady Carruthers asked, then added, �When is that wretched creature going to serve dinner? Stafford, ring the bell again.�

Stafford sullenly left his chair and moved over to the bell cord; Lady Carruthers repeated her question.

�Where are you staying?�

�Nowhere,� he answered and watched Helen�s slim eyebrows rise.

�My dear man, do you mean to say you sleep�what is the expression? Sleep rough?�

He nodded gravely.

�Under hedges, hayricks, old houses. I was about to use yours as temporary accommodation when Mr�Carruthers found me.�

�What an original way to spend a holiday.� Helen appealed to her mother; Stafford was ignored, having resumed his seat looking more sulky than ever. �And so inexpensive.�

�Tell me, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers began, then stopped abruptly as the door was flung open, and a giant of a man appeared pushing a loaded food trolley. �Ah, dinner at last. Marvin, why the delay?�

The giant�Herbert estimated he was at least six foot six�had a completely bald head and lashless eyes; he blinked at his employer, then growled: �Stove not burning, me lady. Wind in wrong direction.�

�Then you should have allowed yourself more time. I hope the meat was well hung.�

�Yes, me lady. Well hung.�

�Good, well, hurry up and serve, we�re starving.�

Marvin lifted a huge meat dish from the trolley and deposited it upon the table in front of Stafford. Herbert found his mouth watering; roast leg of pork, the crackling brown and succulent. Stafford began to carve with workmanlike skill. Marvin then presented a dish of roast potatoes, another of green peas, and a sauceboat full to the brim with brown-red, steaming gravy.

�We live simply, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers remarked with considerable satisfaction, �but we live well. The manor has a few acres left, and we do our own slaughtering. The trouble is, Marvin is apt to serve meat too fresh. I keep stressing that the carcass should be hung for at least two days in a suitably cool place. Please hurry, Stafford, you�re not performing an operation.�

�My brother,� Helen explained, �was once a surgeon, Herbert, and he views all meat with a professional eye.�

�One could say,� Herbert remarked rather tactlessly, �that a butcher and a surgeon have much in common.�

Marvin placed a large, silver-covered dish upon the table, then looked inquiringly at Lady Carruthers. She nodded.

�Leave it. I�m sure he�ll be down presently.�

A very palatable white wine was served in tall green glasses, and for some time there was little conversation, only the rattle of cutlery on plates. The Carruthers, Herbert noticed, enjoyed their food to the point of gluttony. Lady Carruthers in particular wolfed down her meat with a certain amount of lip smacking which he found distasteful; she signalled imperiously for two fresh helpings.

�Is everything to your satisfaction, Mr�Herbert?� she inquired after a while.

�Splendid,� he replied with sincerity. �I must congratulate your cook.�

�Do you hear that, Marvin?� Lady Carruthers addressed the motionless manservant. �You are being congratulated.�

The man bowed his head in Herbert�s direction, but his face expressed neither pleasure nor indifference at this compliment.

�Where do you live, Mr�Herbert?� Lady Carruthers inquired, toying with the last scrap of meat on her plate.

�In whatever place is handy when the sun goes down.�

He was surprised at the interest his answer evoked; Lady Carruthers dropped her knife, Stafford looked at him over the remnants of the once succulent joint, and Helen allowed her beautiful mouth to fall open. She laughed once; a soft ripple of pure amusement.

�You mean�you are a tramp?�

�That would describe my position fairly accurately,� he admitted gravely.

�You actually tramp around with a little billy-can, and beg a pinch of tea?�

�Not beg,� he shook his head. �I work when the opportunity presents itself, and necessity dictates.�

�How absolutely fantastic. A gentleman of the road.�

�You don�t look like a tramp,� Lady Carruthers insisted; �neither do you talk like one.�

�How should a tramp look and speak?� he inquired. �Many famous people have followed my profession. George Borrow wrote two bestsellers as a result of his experiences; St�Francis was nothing more than a holy tramp. It is a traditional calling.�

�But,� there was the faintest suspicion of a flush on the old woman�s lined cheek, �you must have a family somewhere, who is deeply concerned about your wanderings.�

Herbert shook his head.

�I do assure you.� He paused. �There is no one�now.�

�How sad,� said Helen. �No one to welcome the wanderer home.�

�No one at all,� and there was a suggestion of bitterness in his voice. �Absolutely no one.�

There was a scratching sound that came from the closed door; a gentle rubbing, and the handle moved. Lady Carruthers asked:

�What have we for the second course, Marvin?�

�Savoury jelly, me lady.�

�Serve it.�

Marvin bent down and took up a dish from the lower tray of the food trolley, which he bore solemnly to the table and set down. The door began to creak slowly open.

�I fear, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, �that we all lack a sweet tooth. I trust this will be to your taste. Marvin�s savoury jellies are a great favourite with us all.�

Herbert did not answer, for his full attention was engaged in watching what came in through the door. A short, squat figure, clad in a sort of white nightgown that was drawn together at the neck by a broad tape, and draped down to a little above the carpet-slippered feet. The white hair was like a fiattened-out bird�s nest, thin and spikey; with a stomach-turning stab of horror, he realized there were no eyelids, just two small pools of black; neither was there a nose, only a pair of minute holes�nor ears. The face, so far as he could judge, was fleshless; a mere skull covered by loose skin which pulsated in and out when the creature breathed. It shuffled towards a chair which Marvin obligingly pulled back.

�Marvin broils the meat on a very low fire,� Lady Carruthers was saying, �so that there is a very slow simmering. The entire process takes some eight or nine hours. Then the essence is strained through a muslin cloth and allowed to set in a cool place. Try a small portion, Mr�Herbert, then give us your considered opinion.�

The creature, Herbert could not determine its sex, was staring at the silver-covered dish; Marvin raised the lid and skilfully forked a lump of raw meat on to a plate. Two hands crept up over the table edge and wormed their way towards the plate. The fingertips were gone, and Herbert could see white, jagged ends of bone�.�.�. He tore his eyes away.

�Stafford, serve Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers instructed.

�Really,� Herbert objected weakly, �I don�t think I could.�

�Just a mouthful,� she insisted gently.

The finger stubs had somehow wrapped themselves around the raw meat, and were pulling it upwards. The mouth hole was widening; two yellow fangs came into view, and Herbert stared down at the faintly trembling, pinkish-brown jelly.

�A big helping for me,� said Helen.

�Don�t be greedy,� admonished Lady Carruthers.

They gobbled their jelly: three two-legged animals, snorting, lips smacking, and the fourth, a creature, sank its two fangs into the raw meat and tore, before bolting the blood-rich flesh. The plates were clean, except Herbert�s, and three spoons were laid gently down; the creature gave a final gulp, then looked slowly round the table. The twin black pools were turned on Herbert, then became still.

�You must forgive us, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers was patting her lips with a napkin, �if our table manners leave a little to be desired, but we live isolated lives, and have grown perhaps somewhat lax.�

�You must feel quite at home,� Helen said. �It�s rather like a hobos� picnic.�

It was struggling to rise from its chair, slithering from side to side, clutching at the table with its finger stubs. It was up and moving along the table, its head turned so that the eyes never left Herbert�s face. Moving very slowly, walking with great effort.

�You must lead a varied life, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers was saying, �always on the move, meeting all kinds of picturesque people. I�m not at all sure I don�t envy you.�

�And women,� Helen breathed the words; �are there any women tramps?�

�None that I have ever met.� Herbert was aware it had now shuffled past Stafford and was coming down the table towards him. �It is hardly the life for a woman.�

�I don�t know,� Helen looked thoughtful. �There must be a great sense of freedom, out mere on the road. I mean,� she was watching Herbert, who was doing his best not to move, �you can leave your sins behind you.�

It was beside him now, and when at last he turned, he saw at close range the hideous, skin-covered skull, the lidless eyes, the gaping mouth hole, revealing a tongue that resembled a chewed piece of old leather. The eyes were studying his hand that rested on the table; a strange crooning sound emerged from somewhere in its throat, and a thin trickle of saliva drooled down over the pointed chin. A terrible stench cloyed his nostrils as a stubbed claw moved up, then slowly descended towards his hand.

�Marvin,� Lady Carruthers snapped.

With unhurried steps Marvin went over to his trolley and took up another dish, then with the same dignified gait walked round the table until he came to the creature, which was now leaning over Herbert as if it were trying to smell him. Marvin whipped off the dish cover and presented a gobbet of raw meat. This he took up fastidiously between thumb and forefinger and waved it gently before the creature�s face. It crooned again; the trickle of saliva widened into a stream, then it turned and, with Marvin backing away, followed him along the table and eventually out through the doorway. Herbert wiped his forehead with his napkin.

�I�m so sorry,� Lady Carruthers said softly, �but one must make allowances for the very, very old. Mustn�t one?�

He fell awake suddenly with the moonlight on his face, and lay perfectly still for a full minute, every sense alert. The second scream was muted, but high pitched, the result possibly of intense pain or great terror. It had a pig-like quality. Then from below came the sound of scuffling; a door crashed open, and a man�s voice was raised in anger. A little later heavy footsteps were heard running over the rough ground, and Herbert rose quickly and moved to the window.

A cloud veiled the moon but there was enough light for him to see Marvin pursuing a long, white figure that was crawling towards a gap in the tumble-down fencing where a gate had doubtless once stood. It was moving with great difficulty on short, thick legs, leaving a trail of blood on the dead grass, and emitting a series of high-pitched screams. Marvin was waving a large meat chopper, and a blue and white butcher�s apron flapped against his legs as he stumbled awkwardly after his escaping prey. The macabre chase disappeared behind a clump of bushes; there came one last high-pitched scream, then Marvin reappeared dragging a carcass by one short foreleg.

Herbert returned to his bed and fought down a renewed feeling of nausea. It would seem that the fellow had been killing a pig when, somehow, the animal had broken free but, and now Herbert shuddered, what kind of pig had no feet? He tried to construct a picture of the animal as he had seen it moving across the grass, and then the carcass that Marvin had dragged back from behind the bushes. It had been long and white; that much was certain, and the hindlegs very thick; the forelegs had not been so thick, but considerably shorter and�bloodstained. He stirred uneasily. Marvin�he accepted the knowledge with great reluctance�Marvin must have chopped off the feet prior to slaughtering. But why? Also, surely the animal should have bled to death within minutes, but Herbert had seen it crawling across the grass and, now he came to think more clearly, the hindlegs had been very thick, mere hams with stumps. His brain worried the problem for a long time until sleep crept up like a bare-footed burglar and robbed him of consciousness.

Darkness had turned out the moon, the house was a box lost in the maze of time and Herbert was a streak of light that had come out of the mist of yesteryear and would soon be extinguished in the blackness of tomorrow. As the night grew old silence crept hand-in-hand with its sister, fear, and they crouched by his bedside, painting horror pictures on the blank canvas of his sleeping brain.

He was wandering through a dark valley while far above fires shimmered fitfully from grey mountain-tops. Shapeless monsters slithered between rocks; aimless, blind creatures that reared up, their gaping mouths red caverns; Herbert sensed their hunger and screamed�only there was no sound in that place save the whisper of a cold wind flavoured by the stench of corruption.

He moved without effort; drifted over the rocks like a sheet of yesterday�s newspaper chased by the wind along a midnight street, while the mountain-top fires cast their baleful glow, making shadows dance, but never quite revealing the things that slid into crevices, or reared up from behind boulders. He came to the cavern. A great opening in the mountainside, a mouth of solid darkness, and that which was the essence of Herbert struggled like a fly caught in a spider�s web. For he knew. It was knowledge never to be translated into words or even thoughts; knowledge refined by millions of years so that now it was merely instinct. But he knew that in that cave, far back, lay the font of all knowledge and hence, all evil. Terror made him want to wake up, but at the same time there was a tiny wish that fluttered like a newly hatched fly, a perverted fear, that he might be forced to enter.

�There is no yesterday,� a voice whispered; �no today, no tomorrow.�

Something soft was pawing his body and at last his scream took on sound.

�Hush.� Helen was lying beside him, her white body a thing of wonder in the soft glow cast by the bedside lamp. �You�ll wake the entire house.�

He sat up and brushed the sweat from his eyes; his hand was trembling.

�What are you doing here?�

Her full lips parted: �What do you think? You were having a nightmare.�

�True,� he nodded, �I was.�

�That is not unusual.� She lay back and her pink-tipped breasts glimmered like distant fire-crested mountains. �One must expect nightmares in a place like this.� Her eyes twinkled with a mischievous light. �Do you know where you are?�

He wanted to say: �No.� �Where?� he asked.

�On the lower lip that borders the mouth of hell.�

�A very dramatic answer.� He managed to smile, and her long white legs moved very gently.

�All life is high drama and beneath every iceberg roars an unquenchable fire. Ask me some more questions.�

�Very well,� he moved a little nearer; �who is�what is�.�.�.?�

�That which came down to dinner?�

He nodded, and she gave a low, throaty chuckle.

�That must remain an enigma for the present. Let us say he�she�or it, once came to dinner and stayed.� She placed two fingers on his mouth and he felt the cool flesh gently caress his lips. �I know what you are going to ask. Where did it come from? Perhaps a hole in the ground, or a deep marsh, or maybe from the dark wastes of the human brain. From one, perhaps all, of these places. On the other hand, maybe it came from nowhere; has always been and always will be. Think about it. Ask me some more.�

�Why,� Herbert took a deep breath, �why does Marvin cut off the feet from pigs before he kills them?�

�Cut off�pigs?� She stared at him, her face a frozen mask of astonishment.

�I saw from the window.�

The laugh started as a low gurgle somewhere deep down in that long white throat, then bubbled up into a cascade of rippling laughter.

�Don�t.� He seized those white shoulders and shook her. �What�s so damn funny?�

The long fingers were now worming their way through his hair and he was being drawn down. �The hair is grey,� her whisper came to him across a great divide where the shapeless things writhed in semi-darkness, �but you are so young. You understand so little.�

Their bodies met, fused into one and fear took wing like a vulture disturbed at meat, and waited for sanity to return.

Sunlight had slaughtered darkness when he rose up out of the sleep that succeeds complete exhaustion and in that half-clad moment which separates life from death, clawed the empty pillow next to his head and muttered: �Why, why?� Then full consciousness exploded upon his brain and he sat up.

He must not think�not yet.

First dress, then go out into the corridor, then walk as though he still had freedom of movement to the bathroom, there wash the body; the fit, healthy body, then shave, return to the bedroom, finish dressing, comb the hair�now think, but slowly. Think slowly.

One fact out-shouldered all others; towered up like a colossus among pygmies. He was no longer free. An invisible wall surrounded the house, weightless chains hung from his wrists, a lashless whip hung limply over his back; his five senses had united in rebellion and made him a prisoner.

The imprint of her body was still on the bed, her perfume still cloyed his nostrils, the vision of her breasts, thighs, insatiable lips, would never, so long as his brain functioned, be erased. And memory�he groaned aloud.

There was a tap on his door; then it opened and Stafford Carruthers stood in the entrance, bluff, hearty, a middle-aged schoolboy looking for a holiday.

�Up and dressed? Good man. Breakfast�ll soon be ready. I say, you look a bit under the weather.�

His small blue eyes flashed a single inquiring glance at the tumbled blankets, the two rumpled pillows, then were quickly veiled by lowered lids.

�I guess you�ll be staying for a bit, old man,� he said.

The breakfast table was no less elaborately set than it had been for dinner the night before; Lady Carruthers was already seated in her high-backed chair.

�Good morning, Mr�Herbert. I trust you spent a pleasant night.�

Her voice held the right polite tone of inquiry and her face bore the correct expression of superficial concern, but the word �pleasant� had an ironic ring.

�Good morning, Lady Carruthers; thank you, I slept well, as indeed, I trust, did you.�

�I sleep fitfully.� She waved a hand as though stressing the matter was of no importance. �Please, take your seat, we are ready to start. Stafford where is that wretched girl?�

�She went out early,� Stafford replied in that half-sulky tone he used when addressing his mother. �She said not to wait breakfast for her.�

�Indeed,��the old lady flapped open a napkin��I expect my children to be present at mealtimes. Stafford, ring for Marvin.� She turned to Herbert. �I understand you intend staying over for a few days.�

He felt the blood race up to his face and his heart began to pound.

�I cannot remember being invited.�

�Goodness, man, we thought you took that for granted. In fact I�m certain someone, perhaps Helen, told me you were. In any case, you are, so let�s hear no more about it.�

�Thank you,� Herbert began, but she cut him short by another abrupt wave of the hand.

�Fiddlesticks. Ah, Marvin with the trolley. What have we this morning?�

Marvin began to load dishes on to the table, his face set in its usual expressionless mould but, and Herbert shuddered, there was blood under his fingernails.

�Devilled kidneys, me lady, braised liver, sweetbreads and toast. Also, enriched coffee.�

�Help yourself, Mr�Herbert,� Lady Carruthers instructed.

Herbert took kidneys, toast and a cup of coffee that Marvin poured from an earthenware pot. It tasted sweet and had a slightly red, brownish colour. He found it to be extremely palatable and requested a second cup. Lady Carruthers, who was wolfing down a full plate of kidneys, sweetbreads and liver, smiled a tribute to his appreciation.

�I�ll warrant,��she corrected herself,��I�ll wager you�ve never tasted coffee like that before, Mr�Herbert. It is enriched with natural juices. We are great believers in natural foods; that which made our forefathers strong, makes us what we are. Heed my advice, Mr�Herbert, eat fresh meat, properly hung, drink natural juices and, barring accidents, Father Time will pass you by.�

The meal proceeded without further conversation until Lady Carruthers folded up her napkin and said: �If you have finished, I would suggest you go for a walk or something. Find Helen�she�s around somewhere.�

He wandered round that great house, opening doors, peering into empty rooms, and he had the impression she had just preceded him by a few seconds; once he caught a glimpse of a white dress disappearing round a corner, but when he reached the spot there was no one in sight. He walked for a long time, lost in a maze of passages, opened innumerable doors, disturbed a carpet of dust, and it seemed to his fevered imagination that the house was a dead body and that he was adrift in its empty veins and arteries.

He came into the long picture gallery. The double doors creaked open at his touch; there was a desert of floor, one wall broken by windows, a small door at the far end and gilt framed pictures waiting to meet him. He paused before each one like a tourist absorbing his mead of culture; four centuries of Carruthers stared back, iron-faced, steel-eyed, their attire changing as one generation succeeded another; otherwise they shared a family set of features. Lady Carruthers�s nose, Stafford�s small eyes, or Helen�s beautiful ones, add a periwig, take away a cloak, here was little to differentiate the quick from the dead.

One portrait in particular arrested Herbert�s attention: a man standing beside a table. His black hair was long, his eyes black, lifelike, the face round and swarthy, and he seemed to be watching Herbert with sardonic amusement. The short blue cloak was trimmed with silver lace, the doublet and hose bright scarlet, as were the thigh-high boots. Herbert read the faded inscription etched on an age-green brass plaque fastened to the frame base.

The man depicted must have been at least forty years of age, so the picture had been painted around 1668. Restoration period, Herbert reflected, the Fire of London and the Great Plague but a few years behind. Those eyes might well have seen old St�Paul�s burn, seen the death carts trundle down Cheapside, and much else. Then he noticed another item that, due to his interest in the man, had so far escaped his attention. On the table was a bowl full of raw meat. He moved a step nearer and examined the painting with greater care. Bright red meat, chopped into small cubes, each rimmed with white fat, gleaming with a red sheen as though it had been freshly slaughtered. There was another point; Sir Gore�s lips had been painted to match the meat. The same juicy redness; slightly parted, revealing ivory-white teeth; his cheeks were replete, slightly veined, plump, a little short of bloated.

A sound made him turn his head. What was it? He stood rigid before the portrait, his head slightly on one side, listening, his brain attuned to savour any further sound so as to give it a rational explanation. There it was again. A shuffling, a slow edging forward, feet never leaving the dust-muffled floor; harsh breathing, age-withered lungs drawing air in, blowing out; occasionally the breathing descended to a huskier harshness�it crooned. Herbert gave one more glance at the portrait of Sir Gore, the bowl of red meat, then he backed away, suddenly cold, numb, faintly sick.

The shuffling came to the great double doors, both wide open; a rat ran across the floor and disappeared into a hole in the wainscoting�and then it came in. The flattened, bird�s-nest white hair, the lidless eyes, the gaping mouth-hole which now emitted a continuous crooning dirge, the hideous hands outstretched, the black eye-pools glittering when the sun cast a golden beam through dust-grimed windows.

It stopped and for a full minute stared at Herbert, then the head came up, the two yellow fangs were bared and it howled. A long screeching howl; a strange twitching seemed to be taking place under that sacklike robe, then it broke into a shuffling run, moving at terrifying speed, the arms now stretched out still, like dead branches, the finger stubs arched. Herbert leapt to his left; the creature instantly changed direction and before he could move again his right hand was clutched by those claws and pulled up to the gaping mouth-hole. The shortened finger felt like cold steel, the head was thrust well back, the mouth wide open. He had a momentary glimpse of blackened gums, notched bone, broken by two eye-teeth; he was reminded of a snake preparing to strike.

�Stop.�

A voice came from behind; soft, barely above a whisper, but the creature heard it, became a rigid effigy of a nightmare frozen by death. The mouth-hole remained open, the eye-pools looked down over the crater-pitted cheeks, and slowly the mutilated fingers loosened their grip. Helen glided forward and spoke in a hurried, urgent undertone.

�Go bad. Go. Go bad.�

The arms dropped, disappeared into the folds of that sacklike robe, the eye-pools leaked over and spilt two riverlets of moisture down the upturned face.

�Go,� Helen repeated, �presently. Keep fresh, long time. Strong. Heal. Go.�

It went. Like a wronged child, a dog deprived of a long-awaited bone, a hyena driven from its offal. Shuffling back towards the door, head down, shoulders shaking, the picture of infantile, grotesque grief.

Helen�s lovely face was lit by a gentle smile.

�I am so sorry, that must have been an alarming experience for you.�

�The understatement of all time.� He rubbed his wrist. �I�ve never been so terrified in all my life. You must tell me�what�who is it?�

�I�ve told you all I can. You can see it is very old and very small.�

�And very horrible.�

She laid a hand upon his arm and he began to tremble, but this time not with fear.

�Terror comes in small packages.�

He buried his face in her hair. �Helen, I have never known fear before, not real fear. This house is saturated with horror, come away. Let me take you away.�

�To wander?� she laughed softly. �To tramp, sleep in ditches, beg a pinch of tea for our billy-cans?�

�No,� he clutched her shoulders, �I can go back. There is money if I want it, friends who will help me. You would want for nothing, I swear. Come with me.�

The mocking smile died very slowly, the clear dark eyes became troubled; a bewildered expression flashed across her face, then she shook her head.

�I cannot. Impossible.�

�Why?� The question was a cry, almost a call for help.

�Because,� the smile came back and she pushed him abruptly away, �I would die were I to leave this house.�

�Nonsense.�

�Not nonsense. The house has windows, doors, furniture and us. You might as well ask a tree to pull up its roots and walk beside you. But you can go. There is nothing to keep you.�

�You know there is.�

He snapped out the words, his anger real, and for a second he hated her beauty, the mocking eyes, the white flesh, the power she held over him.

�Yes,� she nodded, �I know. How do you like our family?�

�What?�

�Our family.� She raised her hand in a gesture that embraced the entire gallery. �The long dead.� She moved over to the portrait of Sir Gore. �This one interests you, doesn�t he? And so he should. The portrait was painted by Antonio Gelleni, the so-called mad artist of Charles�s court. A genius who painted people as they were, not as they appeared. Sir Gore liked that. He wore his evil proudly, like a badge of honour. Look at those eyes, can�t you see the knowledge peering out from them? And see, the mouth is slightly open as though he were about to tell you some awful, obscene secret that would burn up your poor little soul with terror and send it puffing up the chimney like a ball of black smoke. And the hands�.�.�.�

She was becoming excited, her eyes shining.

�.�.�.�long-fingered, slightly red and they are strong, you can see that, can�t you? Strong enough to rip flesh from bone, tear the heart from your breast�.�.�.�

�No,� he placed both hands over his ears. �For God�s sake stop.�

�Poor boy.� She kissed him and her lips were warm and moist. �I�ve frightened you. I shouldn�t have done that, Mother would be so angry. But I get so excited when I think of him as he was. But come,� she took his arm and began to steer him towards the doors, �I�ll show you what remains of the garden, then open up the old library; then if you are very good, perhaps we�ll have time to be very bad.�

In a little while Herbert had forgotten his fear and was once again almost happy.

They went for a walk just before dinner, to work up an appetite, Helen said and he smiled indulgently when he saw her look of anticipation.

�You are a glutton. Your entire family are; I wonder you aren�t all fat.�

She hugged his arm with both hands.

�Because we eat mainly meat. Lots of nice protein.�

They walked some hundred yards and then Helen steered him round so that the house was always in view.

�Why can�t we walk straight on?� he asked.

�Because,� she looked fearfully at the boundless heath that stretched out to the horizon, �as I told you, I can�t leave the house. Out there I�d die.�

�Good heavens,� he laughed, �you can�t believe that.�

�I know it,� she nodded gravely. �You can go, but I cannot.�

�Then it looks as if we are both stuck with the house for ever, unless your mother kicks me out and she�s bound to sooner or later.�

She seemed to think this very funny and laughed, still gripping his arm with both hands.

�Well, I can�t see her giving me board and keep indefinitely,� Herbert insisted, �and I wouldn�t expect her to, either.�

�She will,� the fit of laughter had passed, and now there was a haunted look in her eyes. �She�ll insist that you stay. Why did you come, the others did not matter?�

�Others?� he frowned. �I thought no stranger had come this way for years.�

�They haven�t,� she shook her head; �the grocery man�.�.�. Let�s go back.�

�You mean the grocery man brings people to the house?� Herbert demanded.

�I didn�t say that,� her face was pale, her eyes terrified. �I just said the grocery man. Don�t go putting words into my mouth. I meant he was the only stranger to visit us in years.�

�But you said the others did not matter.� The fear was back,�sitting on his shoulders, gibbering in his ear. �You implied your mother insisted �the others� stayed too.�

�Did I?� she twisted her lips into a grotesque grimace. �Well, what of it? Will you sleep better tonight believing that?�

Suddenly she changed; flung her arms round his neck and placed her cold cheek next to his. �If only you had a family, someone who expected you. Run, keep running, don�t look back. Don�t you see, this is a moment of sanity? Once back in the house and I�ll never let you go.�

�I ask for nothing more,� he said gravely.

�You are mad. Mad.� She broke away and ran towards the house, her glorious hair streaming like a pall of black velvet in the wind.

Herbert stood alone, looked up at the sky where low-lying cloud flew with misty wings, saw the wild moorland, a desert of grass and stunted bushes that mourned the passing of summer, then listened to the wind�s familiar cry. He turned and saw the house. The windows were eyes that mocked him, the open doors, parted lips�.�.�. He started to walk towards the house; after a while he ran and his friend the wind seemed to wail its grief.

The grocery man came just before dinner.

Herbert saw the plain, rather shabby van from his bedroom window and watched Marvin help a little bald-headed man carry cartons into the house. Then Marvin returned alone and peered inquiringly into the van�s interior; his investigation seemed to cause annoyance, for he called out and Herbert caught the word: �Where.�

The little man came back into view, his hands outstretched like one who is explaining his helplessness due to circumstance. Then Marvin roared his rage again. �You explain to her ladyship.�

Both men disappeared into the house and Herbert, remembering Helen�s reference to the grocery man, went out into the corridor and crept down the stairs. The dining-room door was closed and he could hear the murmur of voices that occasionally rose and gave him a few words; a tantalizing morsel lacking continuity.

The little man, high-pitched, pleading an excuse:

�It�s so difficult, me lady. You always said be careful and I�ve got meself to think of.�

Then Lady Carruthers�s low, cultivated old voice, the words indistinguishable but conveying an undertone of cold menace that made the man behind the door shiver. Suddenly Stafford�s deep baritone rang out.

�You�re fast enough to take our money. A bloody fortune over the years.�

�I�ve done me best, squire. So �elp me I have. But the really safe ones are scarce.�

�Hell, man,� Stafford sounded so unlike his usual self, �our demands are not great; the last consignment was three months old before Marvin here finished it off, and then only through stupidity.�

Lady Carruthers broke in again, quelling what was clearly developing into mutual recriminations, for even Marvin was rumbling a half-angry excuse for some implied fault.

Herbert vainly flattened his ear against the door, for that low, even tone never rose. The grocery man interrupted now and again with an: �Understand, me lady�: �Three months should be all right, me lady�. Once he even permitted himself a low, respectful laugh: �Winter is always a more fruitful time, me lady.�

A sound of footsteps came towards the door and Herbert ran on tiptoe along the passage, turned left and raced for the stairs. On the first landing he waited and presently heard Marvin and the little man pass below. The grocery man was still trying to explain something away, his voice plaintive, as though he had been unjustly accused of some lapse of duty.

�They don�t understand, Marvin, it�s so difficult out there. It ain�t like it used to be. Everybody has got papers.�

Marvin made an unintelligible rumble.

�Where there�s papers there�s trouble.� The little man�s voice went on, but now it was drawing away, going towards the front door and Herbert had to strain his ears to catch the last few words. �We don�t want no questions asked.�

He stood rigid on that cold landing and allowed a small, impossible suspicion to whisper its horrifying suggestion into the empty caverns of his mind. For a while he stood so petrified by rising terror that his very brain refused to function, then gradually it accepted the possibility of the seemingly impossible being a fact. But he had to know; was forced by an urge stronger than fear, to find evidence that must surely disprove the monstrous suggestion his reason had put forth.

Minutes passed, Marvin came back into the main hall, closed the door; Stafford called front the dining-room: �Marvin, come in here.� Marvin, without saying a word, obeyed. The dining-room door closed behind him and there was the sound of raised voices, a disagreement in which Helen appeared to be taking a leading part.

It took some time for Herbert to find the kitchen, for every door to the lower regions seemed to be locked, a precaution that Marvin doubtless took whenever he came upstairs, and the precious minutes were passing. Once he by chance wandered into the portrait gallery and there, before the picture of Sir Gore, was the shrivelled figure of the Thing, gazing up at the painted features with lidless eyes. It was moaning softly and Herbert fled, tore down the nearest stairs and out through the front door. Eventually he found an open window, climbed into a small, empty room and there began his search in earnest for the truth.

Long dark passages; warped, dust-grimed doors that whimpered when opened; musty little rooms mostly devoid of furniture; a prevailing smell of long-dead cooking, the occasional startled rat, its fur sleek, its body plump from good living, and horror that lurked behind the right shoulder, ever ready to disappear should one�s head be turned, but always present. Herbert�s eyes became a camera, his brain a white screen on which pictures flickered and constantly changed as he drew nearer to his goal.

A fire was spluttering, he could hear it�only one more door to open�a saucepan was rattling its lid as though demanding attention. Herbert�s right hand was a five-fingered beast that insisted on turning a handle and his entire arm refused to heed his silent protest and pushed open the door. The kitchen door.

A large, stone-paved room, a long, well-scrubbed table in the centre, a black iron range on the far side, its hot plates cherry-red; a great Welsh dresser by the left wall; on a rack over the mantelpiece an array of butcher�s knives, a saw�nothing more.

Herbert moved soft-footed to the iron range. Three saucepans were now raising their lids, potatoes, carrots, greenstuff; he bent down�a roast was browning nicely in the oven; nothing sinister. The place was neat, clean, displaying all the signs of a well-run kitchen, and Herbert began to breathe more easily. He wandered round the kitchen, opened a cupboard door and saw rows of pickling jars, each packed with bright pink meat nestling in white vinegar. He examined each jar carefully. The raw meat had been scraped and was pink, as though all the blood had been drawn away, but in one jar, one piece of meat looked familiar. A small, chubby, succulent morsel, shaped�Herbert drew away, his eyes widening�shaped like a big toe.

Horror rushed into the kitchen, came out of the walls, shrieked with chattering teeth from the rattling saucepan lids, sputtered from the oven. A brine tub. It was standing by the left wall, the rim cutting into the back of Herbert�s legs; black, three-quarters full of clear water, three heads, shaven, (or had they been plucked?) dead white, grinning, and most certainly human. Herbert giggled. Perhaps Marvin would make some brawn.

He fled to the nearest door; threw it open; the room was dark, switch�where was the switch? He found it, light exploded. An operating theatre. A long white table complete with straps; the walls lined with glass-fronted cases; knives, syringes, saws, bottles, rolls of bandages, the smell of antiseptic. There was something hanging on the wall: �Oh, God, let not my eyes see, let my reason fail, give me the blessed relief of madness, let me be blotted out.�

The arms had gone, so had the legs, it was a cocoon of bandages, the gaping mouth bright-red with dried blood�no tongue, the brown eyes rolled from side to side.

Herbert heard the stepfall behind him, heard the growl of rage, but before Marvin�s giant fist clubbed him into unconsciousness, he managed a gurgling chuckle.

�The meat is well hung.�

He came back to consciousness with great reluctance, fighting to keep his brain dead, but his eyes opened and there was Helen looking down at him. Her face was so lovely, so sad, and a rush of lust-tinted tenderness flooded his newly awakened senses. She bent down and kissed him full on the lips, and her tears wetted his face.

�My poor darling.�

Her soft lips crept round his face, his nose, nuzzled his ears, while her shoulders shook; her long black hair smelt clean, wind clean. She straightened up, smiling, beautiful, gentle, the dream-woman who haunts the mist of yesteryear.

�You should have run when I told you. But never mind, it is better this way. Now we will never be parted, you will be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, your life force will mingle with mine, and we will walk down through the centuries together.�

�Why?�

�Such a short word.� She sighed. �But it has no answer. The tree asks �why�, when its leaves turn brown and fall. The rabbit asks �why� when the ferret sinks home its fangs, but there is no answer. Perhaps it is because the earth needs leaves so it can be replenished, and the ferret also requires food. We are the earth, the ferret, we need food. Special food in which the life force is still strong.�

Herbert began to struggle but the straps held him firm, and Helen�s smile died, to be replaced by a look of concern, even anguish.

�Please, you�ll hurt yourself.�

�You�re not carving me up,� his voice rose to a scream. �I�ll not finish up like that�.�.�.�

He turned. The creature on the wall hung limp in its cradle of straps, the head slumped forward on the bandaged chest. Helen shook her head sadly.

�It died. But it lasted well, considering. Did you realize how much the human body can lose and still function? Legs, arms, three-quarters of the liver, one kidney, one and two-thirds of the lungs, most of the stomach�.�.�.�

Herbert screamed.

Silently Helen took up a syringe and plunged it into Herbert�s arm; just before he fell into a pit of roaring darkness, he had a glimpse of Stafford in the doorway. He was dressed in white, and his heavy face wore a satisfied grin.

When he came up out of the darkness for a second time, he was alone. The mutilated corpse no longer draped the wall, every bottle was in its place, there was such an atmosphere of cleanliness, of hygienic serenity, that for a moment, before memory returned, Herbert imagined he must have been miraculously transported to a hospital. Then he remembered and began to struggle.

Broad straps bound him to the table; one across the chest, another over the waist, while a third confined his legs. His right arm ached and was slightly numb; his left was completely devoid of feeling, save for a faint burning sensation just above the elbow. In fact, as full consciousness returned, he became aware of a battling army of pains, each one claiming supremacy. Somewhere at the back of his skull a little man was wielding a pick-axe, and the dull burning ache in his left arm was doing it very best to become a furnace. He wriggled the right arm then braced his legs; finally he strained his upper regions and that damnable spot, just above the left elbow, sent out tentacles of fire.

�I�m so damn weak,� he muttered, then remembered what had hung on the wall and redoubled his efforts. The straps were not new, hell alone knew how many bodies had battled against their confining grip, and presently he heard a short ripping sound before his right arm struggled free.

He lay still for at least five minutes, carefully conserving his strength, then slowly sat up, looking intently at the belt that pinioned his waist, seeking the buckle. It was a little below table-level, within reach of his right hand, and he fumbled, jerked, then was free, except for the leg straps. He need now only twist one ankle, press down on the table with both hands, and pull. No further action was to be considered yet, just pull and free his legs.

His right hand flattened itself upon the table, but his left refused to acknowledge the brain�s command. Reason put forward an instant monstrous suggestion, but Herbert smothered it with a screamed denial.

�No-o-o�.�.�.�

The single, drawn-out word smashed the silence into a thousand splinters of tortured sound. His head came round very slowly, the eyelids tried to close, and for a century-imprisoned minute he existed in a limbo of blessed ignorance.

The left arm stopped short of the elbow; a grotesque stump swathed in bandages�his friendly, helpful arm had gone for ever. He began to cry, mourning his great loss, recalling a happy past when it had been with him, vainly willing it to come back. There was no great pain so long as he did not try to move that stump; a local anaesthetic, no doubt, that would shortly wear off. Then reason whispered again and he struggled to free his feet. Today the left arm, tomorrow the right, then left leg, then right. Kidney, three-quarters liver, tongue, lungs. Surely not his lungs. Lady Carruthers was too fastidious to dine off lights�cats� food.

He was on his feet now, swaying like a wind-drunk tree; the floor tried to hit him, but no, he�d stay upright, for a little while.

�Serve me up with two veg, would you?� he heard a voice shout, �rare done and don�t forget the gravy.�

Some lovely knives lay in a neat row behind a glass-panelled door; one had taken away friend arm, so now it would return the favour. Take away somebody�s friend head, go into somebody�s friend stomach, seek out somebody�s friend heart. The glass made a pretty sound as it clattered to the floor, and the knife was so beautiful, so sharp, so loving.

�Let me serve you,� it said, winking slyly. �I�ll sliver and slice, and make all things nice.�

The door wasn�t locked. Good�good. They thought he was trussed up snug as a joint in the oven, and the kitchen was empty; so was the passage beyond. Careful now, don�t bump the stump, pick your feet up, don�t reel about like a headless chicken, that�s better, much better. To the dining-room you are going, my lad, dinner served up on two legs; sirloin, rump, liver, lights, one hand down and one with a knife. Stairs! A problem here. Must make no noise. Up you go, one hand full, the other gone, can�t hold on to the banisters.

Herbert almost shrieked when he stumbled and the raw stump was jolted against the wall. He crouched on the stairs and waited for the agony to subside. Upwards again. Make it. Now turn left, into the corridor, the dining-room door is there, at the far end, see�a light strip? Voices! Cutlery rattling on plates! The family are at table.

The door was coming near, the walls were sliding by, voices were growing louder.

Put knife between teeth. Good boy, clever. Right hand, only hand, on door handle, twist�push. Push. It�s opening. At last�.�.�. Take knife from between teeth, they haven�t seen you yet�.�.�. Hold knife in hand, now forward.

Lady Carruthers looked up, a dawning expression of polite surprise on her face, a glass of wine halfway to her lips. Stafford looked back over one shoulder, his eyes wide with astonishment; Helen half rose from her chair; beautiful, an expression of playful annoyance on her face. The wife-mother whose child has wandered down from its warm bed.

�Oh, Herbert, you naughty boy.�

Marvin stood by the wall, his face expressionless, the perfect servant waiting for orders. The Thing was at table. It was eating.

Herbert continued to move forward. He passed down the right hand side of the table and looked down over the Thing�s shoulder. It was gnawing a bone.

Sanity flared up into a last bright flame. His eyes saw, his ears heard and his brain understood.

�Marvin,� Lady Carruthers spoke quietly.

�Me lady?�

�Take it back to the kitchen.�

�Very well, me lady.�

A great arm encircled Herbert�s waist and he was being dragged back to the door; back to the butcher�s shop, back to the black hell of insanity. But that was not important. He must tell them, make them understand. The knife fell from his limp fingers.

�That,� he pointed at the feeding Thing, �that�.�.�. that�.�.�. is�.�.�. eating MY BLOODY HAND.�

From over a great gulf, Lady Carruthers�s voice came to him, low, cultured, reasonable.

�Naturally. Sir Gore likes his meat fresh, and�.�.�.� A slight pause, the merest suspicion of a chuckle. �Unhung.�