Black Rock Page 15
And found herself talking to a woman who sounded very old and very deaf. ‘Who’s that?’ the woman demanded in a scratchy voice.
‘I may have got the wrong number,’ S’n’J said. ‘I wanted James.’
‘What say, dear?’ the woman grated.
‘James,’ S’n’J said, raising her voice while her mind told her that this was either another of Peter Perfect’s mind-fuck tricks or a CO-provoked episode.
It could simply be an innocent little old deaf lady answering a wrong number of course, but she doubted it. She doubted everything now.
‘I’m having trouble hearing you. Could you say that again? You’re very faint you know,’ the woman said.
You couldn’t have spoken a truer word, S’n’J thought. I am feeling very faint. Any more tricks and I may be on the floor unconscious again.
‘James,’ S’n’J repeated, as loud and clear as she could. James hadn’t mentioned a grandmother, but, she supposed, he was still living with his parents and there was a chance that this was the parent of one of them.
‘No James here,’ the old woman finally croaked. ‘What a day for wrong numbers! Had someone earlier wanted the police. No police here. No James neither. Sorry love, this is Maida Vale Two Seven Five. Mrs King.’
And before S’n’J could say anything, Mrs King broke the connection.
She redialled, wondering what kind of a number ‘Maida Vale 275’ was.
‘Hi, who’s calling “Air Your Views” on Two Seven Five FM?’ an enthusiastic male voice enquired.
‘I’m sorry, I think I have the wrong number,’ S’n’J said.
‘A wrooooonnnng nuuumber!’ the voice shouted in delight. ‘Well, you’re live on the air throughout Cornwall, my darling, and tonight we’re discussing the supernatural and while you’re on the line I’d like to know your views on ghosts. Tell me, my darling, have you recently had any strange and eerie experiences?’
S’n’J slammed the phone back in its cradle.
‘stop it!’ she shouted. ‘I don’t know who you are or why you’re doing this to me, but I want you to stop it!’
And it did stop. The next time she dialled she got through to James’ home and James answered the phone.
Why this simple thing should seem like a magnificent triumph to her, S’n’J didn’t know. All she’d done was make a phone call, after all.
‘Hello, who am I speaking to?’ she asked, just to be sure that she was speaking to James and not merely someone who sounded like him.
‘James,’ he said. ‘James Green. Who’s that?’
S’n’J realized she was about to say ‘Snowy’ and redirected her mouth. The resultant word sounded like, ‘Sneejay’.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s Sarah-Jane Dresden. You fixed my exhaust this afternoon. We arranged…’ she tailed off, because she was going to sound very stupid indeed if she had only imagined fixing up a date with him.
‘A date for tomorrow,’ James said and there was a kind of heavy, beaten tone to his voice as if he only now saw that a cruel joke had been played upon him. ‘And you’re ringing to say you can’t make it. Am I right?’
S’n’J shook her head, hard. Then realized that James couldn’t see that and quickly said, ‘No, not at all. It’s just that I’m feeling a little strange and…’
‘You don’t think you’ll be well enough tomorrow.’
‘Listen James. I do want to go out with you and I will go out with you tomorrow. But I’m feeling a bit scared, to tell you the truth. I’m on my own and worried and if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like you to come over now.’
Silence.
He thinks you’re crazy now, she assured herself. You turn up at the garage barefoot and with pink goo across the front of your car, act dazed, then you ask him out. Tomorrow. Now you’ve just told him you’re scared. Why don’t you just tell him you’re not quite all there, save him wondering.
S’n’J spoke into the silence, ‘Only I think I need to be with someone…’ She was floundering now, running out of words. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought you might, perhaps… look after me for a bit… kind of… sit with me and talk or… something.’
If that doesn’t put him off, nothing will, she told herself. Guys his age don’t go anywhere unless there’s a chance they’re going to get laid. They certainly don’t put themselves out on a Friday night to go and sit with a mad woman.
‘Can I call you Sarah-Jane?’ James asked, hesitantly. His tone sounded official. Not cheery like his tone at work, but more that of a nervous policeman.
‘If you like,’ S’n’J replied, frowning. ‘Or S’n’J, or Drezy.’
‘Okay,’ he said, sounding relieved to have overcome what for him had apparently been a major obstacle. He took a deep breath. ‘Well, I think that what you’re trying to tell me is that you’re insecure and you want looking after, and you want me to do it, but that I shouldn’t get the idea there’s going to be any funny business. Is that right?’
‘Roughly,’ S’n’J said.
‘And you don’t think I’ll go for it. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because of this afternoon, right? Because you think I think you’re nuts. Is that about the size of it?’
‘That’s a perfect fit,’ S’n’J said.
Somewhere during the last two or three exchanges James had suddenly gained confidence and his interrogation had become playful, coquettish even, and the effect was identical to the one he’d had on her this afternoon. The dark clouds inside her head began to break and sunbeams poured through the gaps. If James hadn’t had more women than she’d had hot dinners she would have been surprised. He could charm the pants off her in no time at all. He would come over. She knew that now.
‘Well, I do think you’re nuts,’ James said. ‘I also think you’re very attractive. And charming. And I’d love to come over. And don’t worry, I guarantee I won’t pounce on you. Not today anyway. I’ll make you cups of tea instead. Deal?’
‘Thanks James,’ she said.
‘S’OK,’ he replied. ‘We’re not all thugs, us tyre and exhaust fitters. Some of us are a bit edu-me-cated. Some of us are quite sensitive too. Anyway, it’s all part of the after sales service.’
‘I’ll bet it is,’ she said.
‘I’ll look forward to seeing you, Miss Mental,’ he said. ‘Be about an hour, OK?’
All she had to do now was wait. S’n’J went back into the lounge and turned on the television.
An old black and white film was showing. About a haunted house, apparently.
S’n’J was now calm enough not to believe that someone had arranged this especially for her, but nevertheless she turned the television off again. However, she wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid seeing a long shot of the haunted house in question. It didn’t look unlike Black Rock.
Thinking nothing, Sarah-Jane sipped at her whisky and waited for James. Withi
n five minutes she was asleep.
S’n’J woke up smiling. As far as she could tell, her nap had been populated with only good dreams.
She was certain that a noise from out in the hall had woken her, which meant she hadn’t been asleep that deeply. An explosion wouldn’t have brought her out of her normal sleeping mode. As Martin would say, this girl could sleep for her country. And probably win an Olympic gold, too.
That’ll be James, she told herself, sitting up and wiping her eyes. The noise had sounded like the letter-box flap being used as a knocker.
She stood up, checked her face in the mirror over the fireplace, told herself that she looked dreadful and went to answer the door, wondering why James hadn’t knocked a second time.
She found out as soon as she went out into the hall. James hadn’t knocked a second time because James hadn’t got here yet. And the rattling sound had come from someone using the letter box for its proper purpose.
There was another buff A4 envelope on the mat.
‘You bastard!’ S’n’J hissed and ran to the door, opened it and charged outside, then down the hall to the stairs, wishing she’d picked up her rolling-pin on the way out, for use when she caught up with Mr Clever Clogs Peter Perfect or whoever the hell he was.
Getting to the bottom of the stairs at the speed she was travelling without her legs becoming entangled was something she would have bet against, but her anger had seemingly filled her with the agility and grace of a predator.
At the foot of the stairs, she grabbed hold of the banister post and swung herself round to face the building’s front door, which was just swinging to a close.
Got you, you shithead! she thought, dashing outside.
It wasn’t just raining like it had been earlier; water was now hammering down as if it was being blasted out of the sky with dynamite. The gutters were fast-flowing rivers and the man-hole covers spouted fountains. The road was empty of moving traffic. S’n’J squinted against the blinding rain and could see no one on foot on either side of the road.
Which meant that he’d already got into his car.
There were four parked cars besides her own Sierra. S’n’J ran to the first one - a Renault - and before she realized it was empty had already yanked on the door hard enough to set off its burglar alarm.
The next two cars were empty too.
He wouldn’t have parked this far away and walked. Not in this weather! S’n’J told herself as she pelted towards the next car. This too was empty.
Fifty yards ahead of her the last car’s engine started.
‘Got you!’ she hissed and increased her pace until her legs screamed.
The car’s wipers began to work and its headlights came on.
It was going to be close. Very close.
But she would make it. She knew without a shadow of a doubt. The game was up for Mr Peter Pisshead. He wouldn’t be terrorizing her any more after this.
If, as S’n’J would tell herself later, she had felt a little less like a Terminator Unit and a little more like herself, she would doubtless have saved herself a great deal of pain. This could have been accomplished by the simple act of remembering the hole in the paving slabs. It wasn’t a deep hole, just a two-inch indentation where a section had broken off, but she had turned her ankle in it twice before.
And now, as she slowed to yank open the car door before it drove away, she did it for a third time.
This time it felt as if her right leg had been removed and replaced with a bolt of lightning. She skewed sideways, fell on her right shoulder, twisted and curled, and her legs sailed over her head and flipped her over. When the blur of movement had finished, S’n’J was kneeling on the wet pavement beside the driver’s door of the car, facing the direction from which she had come. Her knees had taken most of the force of the fall and they felt as if they had smashed into a thousand pieces. And as any IRA ‘Correction’ team would have been glad to tell her, injured kneecaps provided more agonizing pain than almost any other part of the body.
But she wasn’t going to let anything stop her. She scrambled to her feet, yanked open the car door, flung herself inside, grabbed Peter Perfect by the throat and began to throttle him.
It was a good five seconds before she realized that Peter Perfect was not Peter Perfect at all, or even male. The person currently struggling to break the stranglehold on her neck was a middle-aged woman.
S’n’J let go. The woman cringed.
‘Did you just deliver a letter for anyone?’ S’n’J demanded.
The woman shook her head.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Visiting my daughter,’ the woman said in a terrified voice. ‘Let me go! I’ll get the police.’
‘I am the police,’ S’n’J said quickly. ‘Where does your daughter live?’
The woman pointed across the street. ‘Over there,’ she said.
S’n’J nodded. She doubted very much that this was her author, or his postwoman. ‘OK. I’m sorry about attacking you. I thought you were someone else,’ she said, thinking frantically. ‘We’re acting on a tip-off. We’re after a drugs courier and we thought it was you. We didn’t see you get in the car. Are you all right? Do you want me to take you to the hospital?’
The woman nodded then shook her head. S’n’J assumed this meant yes she was all right and no she didn’t want to be driven to the hospital.
‘Can I go now?’ the woman said.
‘Yes,’ S’n’J said. She stepped back, closed the car door and the woman drove away.
She stood watching the car for a few seconds, not believing any of this had happened. She might have run down the road and fallen, but surely you couldn’t half strangle a woman then make her believe you were a cop. Not that easily.
Getting back wasn’t easy. Her ankle was badly twisted and her kneecaps shot pain into her that reached right up to her groin and down to her toes. S’n’J limped.
The question, How could he have got away so easily? had an answer so simple that even through the pain, she found it and had filed it away long before she reached the top of the stairs to her flat.
He’d suckered her, that was how. He’d run downstairs, opened the front door for effect, then retreated back down the ground-floor hallway - and had probably hidden amongst the junk that was stored beneath the stairs. He’d been clever enough to realize that she would give chase and also that when she saw the door closing she would assume he’d gone through it. He’d probably gone out afterwards, seen which direction she’d gone and set off the other way.
Well then, how come he didn’t leave any wet footprints on the floor? She wasn’t up to figuring that out right now. She entered her flat, closed the door and picked up the new envelope. The writing on the front of it was in the same hand as the corrections on the earlier pages; it was written with an HB pencil and said: Forgot this earlier. Sorry.
S’n’J turned the enve�
�lope over. There was a further message written on the back: See how easy it is to tell lies? See what power it gives?
This might have been a reference to what was contained within the envelope - Steve Byrne often did this when he sent in his completed manuscripts to Martin. On the box, he either wrote shout lines - the kind of thing that got put on the front of paperbacks (Visions of blood lust danced in his head, was S’n’J’s all-time favourite) or quotes from the story.
This might have been a story quote, but she doubted it. It looked more like a reference to what she had just done in the street.
Telling herself that this was impossible would have seemed a little like standing on the tilting deck of the Titanic and telling it, even as it slid beneath the waves, that it was unsinkable.
It wasn’t until S’n’J got into the bathroom, still carrying the envelope and it wasn’t until the bath was half-full, that she discovered she intended to have a hot foamy soak while she read the next instalment of Black Rock.
She was disgusted with herself, but there was nothing^ she could do about it. The story was an itch that needed to be scratched. She had to know what happened next.
You fool, you don’t have to know at all, her Girl Guide voice told her.
The voice was right. Up to a point. But no matter how disgusted she felt with herself, the urge to know what was on the pages would not go away until it got what it wanted.
So she climbed into the bath, opened the envelope, pulled out Chapter Three and lay back in the steaming water promising herself that if things got out of hand she would stop immediately. Promising herself that she would only read for ten minutes anyway in order to be dry and dressed by the time James arrived.
Twenty minutes later, she had broken both of these promises.