Trying not to smile too broadly, Creed took a quick, almost contemptuous, snap of the three men rolling around at his feet before slipping away.
He carefully eased the Suzuki into the narrow garage, flicking a lightswitch on the wall as he passed. The garage was L-shaped, so that once inside there was plenty of room to climb out from the jeep’s passenger side. It was here that Creed stored odd pieces of junk and machinery; there were shelves filled with tins of paint, most of them half-full or near-empty, brushes, tools, a box containing nuts, screws, nails, several outdated telephone directories and a car battery recharger. He also kept there, when they were not in the back of the jeep, his camera tripod and small aluminium stepladder, as well as two tungsten lamps and three rolls of coloured backdrops for occasional (very occasional) studio shots.
He turned off the headlights and engine and waited until a yawn had been fully expelled before climbing out and sliding back through the narrow gap between the rear end of the Suzuki and the garage wall to close the garage door. His head was throbbing again, although his fingers told him the swelling on his forehead was almost gone. Despite the headache, he chuckled to himself – and not for the first time over the last hour or so – wondering where Bluto was right now. Locked up, or still ringing round for a twenty-four-hour motor mechanic who knew how to pull a car door-lock without doing too much damage?
Creed had developed that night’s take himself at the Dispatch and had been delighted with the results. He did a ten-eight of the Fergie snap (actually she’d looked pretty good that night, trim and vivacious, but at the angle he’d caught her and wearing a ballgown that billowed from the waist down, the result was inevitable) and put it on Blythe’s desk in an envelope with the message ‘Make it a Krug – I earned it!’ pentelled on the flap. The deputy picture editor was more interested in the bundle of arms and legs on the pavement, and Creed had given him the full details over a plastic beaker of whisky from a bottle kept close at hand in a filing cabinet.
Creed was tired, hurting some, but content as he unlocked the door leading from the garage area to the ground floor office. He locked up behind him, mindful that the intruder had come through this way (as there was no obvious damage, the police thought he’d forgotten to secure both office and garage doors the night before).
He turned to see the red light on the answerphone glowing from the shadows.
Creed was in two minds whether or not to play back the messages; all he was in the mood for was a drink, a cigarette, and bed. But when you live alone it’s hard not to be curious about messages from the outside world.
He switched on a desk lamp and pressed PLAYBACK on the machine. There was only one message:
‘Er, Freddy, Freddy Squires here, Joe. I ran a check on that photograph you gave me today, you know – the nutter at the funeral? I think I said he looked familiar, and Wally Cole thought the same when I showed it to him. As Wally’s been snapping longer than anyone else on this earth I thought he might recollect something. Trouble is, it can’t be who we thought it was, although he’s a dead ringer. Talk to you tomorrow about it.’
The tape stopped, then rewound itself.
Creed flicked through a square leather-covered book on the desk and found the picture editor’s home number. He tapped out the digits and lit a smoke while he waited for the phone to be answered. Eventually it was, and the voice that growled down the line wasn’t happy.
‘Who is it?’
‘Fred, it’s me, Joe Creed.’
‘Are you kid—? D’you know what bloody time it is?’
‘Some of us are still working.’
‘Some of us have a bloody day job. What the fuck d’you want – and it’d better be good, son.’
‘You said the guy at Lily Neverless’ funeral looked like someone you know.’
‘What? I don’t believe it! You’re ringing at this time of . . . Joe, take a hike, will you?’
‘Come on, Fred, you’re awake now. It’s important.’
‘No it fucking isn’t, it isn’t important at all. We were wrong, it can’t be who we thought it was.’
‘Why? How d’you know?’
‘Because I took the trouble to search through our old files. Bloody hell, I wish I hadn’t bothered if this is what I get for my pains. He’s a dead ringer, all right, but the person Wally and I thought it was is long gone. He was hanged fifty-odd years ago.’
Click.
10
Creed felt shaky after he replaced the receiver, as if the news Squires had just imparted had some shocking significance. Which was ridiculous, of course. The man he’d photographed in the cemetery resembled someone who had been hanged over fifty-odd years ago. So what? He himself had a friend who was the spitting image of the Yorkshire Ripper. The deputy manager at his local Barclays could have doubled for Heinrich Himmler (their personalities were not dissimilar either). Everyone has his or her Doppelgänger, they say. And anyway, fifty years was a long time: a person would change considerably.
Creed shrugged. What the hell was he on about? There couldn’t possibly be any connection, unless . . . unless, of course, the crazyman was related to the hanged man. Now that might make an interesting angle. Then again, he, Creed, was a photographer, not a journalist: such stories weren’t really his department. Still, it was curious, no matter which way you hacked it. Why the obscene act over Lily Neverless’ remains – an act that had been almost like a ritual with its twice-around-the-grave routine? Weird, very, very weird.
Creed climbed the stairs and Grin joined him in the kitchen as he filled the kettle.
‘I hope you’ve been busy,’ said Creed grimly as the cat perched itself on the table and watched. ‘You’ve got a lot to make up for, pal.’ He leaned forward to show the cat the discoloration on his forehead.
The cat seemed pleased.
‘Okay, enough sarcasm. Go get mice.’ He swept Grin off the table with a firm hand, and the cat disappeared through the kitchen door with a flick of her tail.
Although tired, Creed was still on a slight high from that night’s main event. It’s a condition that goes with the job, usually when a ‘result’ has been achieved; entertainers and sportsmen have the same problem of bringing themselves down after a performance. Freddy Squires’ titbit was still bothering him, too.
Where had he put those shots of the loony? He glanced around the kitchen. No, he was sure he’d dropped the envelope on the coffee table in the lounge when he’d returned that afternoon.
But he didn’t find it there and nor was it anywhere else in the room. He checked the office downstairs and even searched the back of the jeep. He tried the two rooms at the top of the house. Not there. The envelope seemed to have vanished.
Creed descended the spiral staircase, both puzzled and agitated at the same time. The photographs couldn’t have just disappeared. And he was sure that he’d brought them back after leaving one with the picture editor. What was going on here?
He brewed tea and poured himself a stiff brandy as well. Sitting at the table he started rolling some cigarettes, dipping into his ‘shag’ tin and sprinkling tobacco on to the thin brown papers while he pondered. His fingers trembled as he worked, his thoughts far from the labour.
Somebody had got inside the house again. That was the only conclusion he could draw. He took a swallow of brandy, a sip of hot tea, then lit the first cigarette. But how? There were no signs of forced entry anywhere and he’d had to unlock both garage and office doors to get in a short while ago. It hit him with a jolt.
The girl, Cally. He had left her alone in the sitting room when he’d gone to get some wine, then again a little later when the phone had rung. The photographs had been in an envelope on the coffee table in front of her while he was downstairs in the office taking the call – Fix Features had been on the line wanting to arrange a shoot three weeks ahead. He’d been there for at least ten or fifteen minutes. Cally hadn’t stayed long after that, much to his disappointment, but he himself had had to get over to Gr
osvenor House. Christ, she could have easily slipped the envelope into her bag. No, no, that couldn’t be right. Why the hell would she take them?
He drank too much brandy this time and closed his eyes as the liquid burned a path through his chest. What reason could she have for stealing them? It didn’t make sense. She was a stranger . . . she was . . . a . . . stranger. Exactly. What the hell did he know about her? And when he thought about it, her reason for getting to know him was just a mite flimsy. Sure, would-be celebs and starlets often used him to promote themselves, giving him advance information on where they were going to be at such-and-such a time, inviting him to parties and other social events in the hope that they would be featured in the next day’s Diary or even news columns, but her approach was perhaps the most blatant he’d ever experienced. And because she was a looker, because she’d stirred his dick, he’d been suckered. Who was she, what was she?
He puffed at the cigarette, more mystified than angry. The thinking seemed to be making his headache worse.
Tomorrow he’d call her, find out what she was playing at. But what if he were wrong? What if she really was only interested in promoting her boss, this Daniel what-was-his-name? Then he’d feel a jerk, that was all. And not for the first time in his life. But the question still begged: Who had taken the photographs and why? The person who’d broken in last night? Maybe he had got in again, maybe he’d found a spare front door key that time and used it tonight. It still didn’t explain why, though.
Know that feeling of being watched, of eyes boring into the back of your neck? It could be in a bar, on a train, or in a crowded room – you just sense someone’s thoughts and gaze are directed at you and you alone. Creed had that feeling right then.
He’d taken another gulp of brandy and the glass was just leaving his lips, about two inches away, when his hand froze. For a moment he felt numbed. Smoke from the cigarette held in his other hand drifted up in a lazy stream creating a thin mist before him. It took a long time for him to turn and look towards the window.
Some of the brandy sprayed from his mouth, while the rest somehow lodged in his throat. He wheezed, coughed, did a half-retch. The chair he was sitting on flew backwards as he jumped up; he gripped the edges of the table to steady himself.
He didn’t want to look round at the window again, he didn’t want to see the terrible, cadaverous face that had been watching him from outside, but he forced himself to, because he knew it was beyond logic, that there really couldn’t be anyone out there, for the kitchen was above the garage and office, and nobody could look through the window at that height, and if they had a ladder he would have heard it scraping the wall or bumping the window-sill, so there couldn’t possibly be anyone out there, couldn’t possibly . . .
He forced himself to look again.
And there wasn’t anybody there at all. No thin and pitted, skull-like face, no glaring eyeballs set in the dark sunken sockets watching him. No one there at all.
He was suddenly aware that his feet were becoming wet and warm. His cup had been knocked over and spilt tea was trickling from the table in a steady stream. Quickly he righted the cup, then grabbed a dishcloth to mop up the spreading brown liquid. Only when that was done – and reluctantly at that – did he venture over to the window.
The cobblestone street below was empty, as you might expect at that time of night/morning. Plenty of shadows, though, plenty of places to hide. But no way could someone reach this floor. No way . . .
His headache had shifted, no longer pressuring his temples and the area just above the bridge of his nose; instead it seemed to be occupying a space high at the back of his head. Creed touched himself there, fingers probing his hair as though attempting to move the pain around. It wouldn’t budge. Delayed concussion? Was that the problem? Maybe he should have had a doctor examine him after all. Could concussion cause hallucinations? He had no idea.
He returned to the table and finished the last of the brandy. The face he’d seen – imagined he’d seen – at the window belonged to last night’s intruder, Mr Nosferatu. He shivered. A vampire could crawl up walls, couldn’t it?
Now basically – and you may already have gathered this – Creed was a down-to-earth non-believing feet-on-the-ground world-weary practising cynic. His firmest belief was that he, himself, existed, and he accepted that only because it required no act of faith on his part. He could sense, he could feel, he could see, he could hear, he could taste. He could even think. All this was irrefutable. As for anything else, then he really wasn’t that interested in the question, let alone the philosophy behind it. Was reality no more than an illusion of the mind? Was existence nothing more than an elaborate dream? Did an individual exist only because others perceived he or she to be? Creed really didn’t give a shit. I fornicate, therefore I am, was his credo. So, because his imagination had grown lazy with regard to such intangibles, it was obvious to him that the crack on the head that morning was playing silly buggers with his brain.
And maybe he was right.
Taking the half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray, he made the short trip down the hall to the bathroom. There he opened the medicine cabinet and reached in for a carton of paracetamols. He swallowed four, washing them down with water from the cold tap. The visage that stared back at him from the bathroom mirror was not encouraging. The eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, the skin was almost sallow in complexion, and the bruise on the forehead was a mushy kind of purple. He stuck out his tongue and at least that looked healthy enough.
Creed unzipped his fly and stood over the toilet, cigarette back where it belonged, drooping from the corner of his mouth. He watched the flow of urine, not with interest, merely to make sure it hit the target. Water in the bowl bubbled under the fall.
His hand touched the wall by his side to steady himself, for he had felt his body sway. He blinked, then felt his body move again. Christ, he’d be pissing on the floor at this rate. He steadied himself mentally this time and exerted muscle pressure to vacate his bladder more speedily.
Movement again, but this time he realised it wasn’t him. This time it had come from the toilet itself. The porcelain sides where the water lapped had seemed to move inwards for a fraction of a second. ‘Boy, you’re in trouble,’ Creed muttered to himself. He needed to lie down, to crawl into his pit and pull the cover over his head so that he could sleep this thing off. Oh Christ, there it goes again. The toilet bowl was moving, as though the sides themselves were flexing, contracting – breathing. The flow from his bladder was easing, becoming a trickle, and Creed tried to help it along. A spurt, nearly done. Thank—
Oh God, that wasn’t right. Something more was happening down there. The sides at the water’s edge appeared to be breaking out. The cigarette fell from his lips into the well with a plop and a fizz as the shiny-smooth rectangle beneath him shaped itself into a loose jagged oval. It flexed once more, became even more of an oval, its jagged edges forming into what . . . looked . . . like . . . oh shit . . . teeth . . .
He was looking down into a porcelain mouth!
Creed felt himself go weak at the knees.
But he jerked upright in absolute shock and stepped back when that tooth-edged, pissed-on mouth suddenly shot from the bottom of the toilet, glazed sides stretching as though elastic, and gnashed at the air where he had been standing a split-second before.
He screamed as water mixed with his own urine drenched him, and he fell backwards. The mouth reared over him on its long dripping neck, the snapping of its porcelain teeth loud and sharp in the tiled confines of the bathroom, before it abruptly disappeared back to where it belonged.
In a flurry of kicking legs, Creed pushed himself to the far end of the bathroom (which wasn’t very far at all) and lay there gawking and trembling, not comprehending what had happened, yet believing it implicitly. His clothing was soaked and his penis had shrivelled (understandably) into insignificance somewhere inside his trousers.
Oh dear God, what was happening to him? This
was insane, a nightmare, like a bad acid trip. Things like this couldn’t happen, they couldn’t be real. It was his head, it was all inside his head. He needed a doctor, he needed one very badly.
He forced himself on to one knee, eyes never leaving the toilet that stood impassive – impassive but waiting – at the other end of the bathroom. Using the edge of the bath for support, Creed reluctantly (knowing what had just happened couldn’t have happened at all) slid himself back towards the seat. He had hallucinated, he knew that; yet he had to be sure, he had to make certain, that nothing really lurked down there, no mouth, no teeth, nothing. That the whole thing had been a mind-joke.
He crept nearer, scarcely daring to breathe. Levering himself up into a shaky half-crouched position, he peered over the rim. There was only still water, slightly greenish, a cigarette butt floating on the surface, at the bottom.
Nevertheless he slammed down the toilet lid.
Creed sprawled on the floor for a while, trying to bring his senses together, his breathing now ragged. He didn’t feel well at all.
Gradually, reason infringed upon lunacy, as it usually, or at least, eventually, tends to do with the perfectly sane when something ridiculously illogical has happened. He should have had the bump seen to; it was as simple as that. Nobody could walk away from such a fall without suffering worse after-effects than a nasty headache. Brain cells had been jiggled, and this was the result. Probably, drinking alcohol that night hadn’t helped any. Moaning more from self-pity than pain, Creed crawled to the door and used the handle to pull himself erect.
His clothes were wet, but that didn’t surprise him: as far as he was concerned it was just another part of the illusion. Guided by the lights from the kitchen and the bathroom behind him, Creed lurched along the short hall and all but fell into the bedroom. A rest, he told himself. All I need is to get my head down for a few hours. Too late – too early – to call a doctor in. What would he tell me anyway? Take a couple of aspirins, that’s what he’d say. A good night’s sleep will do wonders. See me in surgery hours. Thanks a lot, Doc. Maybe I should call an ambulance. Yeah, maybe that’s the thing to do. Just . . . just rest for a moment, though. Just a little sleep . . .