The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Dark Terrors 05]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  ‘Quite, sure.’ Cynthia collected herself, straightened her spine. ‘How dreadful. Do you suppose the same person . . .?’ She shuddered eloquently, pressing a handkerchief to her lips.

  The female detective shrugged. ‘It was several years ago. Perhaps, as my colleague said, a coincidence.’

  * * * *

  Numbed and troubled by this ghastly event in her life, Cynthia Peeling started sleeping badly. She had horrifying and revolting dreams, which left a sour taste in her mouth, but the details of which she had difficulty recalling. The only one she could remember was that in which she had witnessed a coarse and brazen Emma Tizard violently making love with Mr Peeling. To make it worse, Cynthia had enjoyed the dream. Her waking self found sex rather ridiculous and unnecessarily messy. Rodney Peeling had been puzzled by the peculiar looks his wife had given him over breakfast on Thursday morning.

  The police could not solve the mystery of Emma’s death. During the next week, television reconstructions of Emma’s supposed last movements, and flashes of telephone numbers which people could contact to give information served only to remind Cynthia of the grotesque horror of her neighbour’s murder. The tabloid press found out about the occult angle, and lurid headlines suggested the dead girl’s involvement in Satanism, inferring she had been the victim of a ritual killing. Everyone on the estate who had known Emma agreed that the occult stories were rubbish.

  * * * *

  The day of the funeral dawned unexpectedly dull and overcast, after a week of sunshine. A sizeable group of Willowdale Farm residents gathered in cars around Wren’s Nest to escort the funeral cortege to the crematorium. Emma’s mother and father, who introduced themselves as Ruby and Steven, had arrived the night before. Ruby Tizard was a frumpy sparrow of a creature who wore grandmotherly hats. The Peelings had kindly offered them accommodation for the night, because Mrs Tizard was obviously too upset to spend it in her dead daughter’s bed, the only one available in Wren’s Nest. The Tizards were strangely reluctant to enter the bungalow at all. Cynthia supposed that was because of their grief, and was sorry she couldn’t offer them more comfort. She wondered whether she should comment on the newspaper stories, and make it clear how wrong they were, but decided it was too soon to broach such an intimate subject.

  To make things worse, the funeral, which should have been a dignified occasion, was fraught with minor mishaps and irritations. The minister whom the Tizards had especially wanted to lead the service telephoned at the last minute to tell them with unctuous apology that a family emergency prevented him travelling south. A quick replacement from the local church proved unsatisfactory, since the man knew nothing of Emma, save what he’d read in the papers, which didn’t give him much scope for a moving, personal sermon. As he swayed before the congregation, singing the praises of a girl he’d never met, the lights in the chapel flickered, threatening a total failure that never quite happened and the public address system, which should have carried his voice to the furthest ear, spluttered and buzzed, reducing the earnest tones to a wobbling fart. Halfway through the service, Lily Treen’s young son began to scream inexplicably. When Lily took him into the hall outside, he threw up with gusto on to the marble tiles. Everybody must have heard. Mrs Tizard began to cry. Afterwards, when questioned and consequently disbelieved, the child gabbled incoherently about a nasty lady who had put out her tongue at him. From what the adults could gather, the tongue had been black

  * * * *

  The following morning, Cynthia Peeling offered to accompany the Tizards to Wren’s Nest to look over Emma’s belongings, so they could decide what they wanted to keep once the police had finished with everything. Cynthia thought this was the most forlorn and depressing of post mortem tasks.

  Mr Tizard opened the front door of Wren’s Nest and the three of them shuffled inside. This was only the third time Cynthia had ever set foot in the place. Emma had often popped over to share a quick coffee with her neighbour, especially in the summer, but reciprocal invitations had been non-existent. It certainly couldn’t have been because Emma was ashamed of her home. The walls were papered in the most modern, expensive prints that money could buy and the furnishings bore the stamp of a top interior design house.

  ‘What a peculiar smell!’ Mr Tizard exclaimed as he went into the lounge. Cynthia Peeling followed him and sniffed.

  ‘What is it?’ queried Emma’s mother querulously from the hall.

  ‘Nothing alarming!’ Cynthia was conscious of her voice being too loud and jolly. ‘Some kind of perfume. A bit stale, that’s all. The windows have been closed.’ The smell was strange. It caught at the back of the throat, half pleasant, half noxious. Had Emma Tizard been burning incense of some kind? Cynthia firmly dismissed a rising sense of unease.

  ‘She was such a tidy girl,’ Mrs Tizard said, standing pathetically in the doorway, holding her handbag in front of her. The place didn’t look lived in. No ornaments, no books, no magazines, no sense at all of occupation.

  It looks like a show home, Cynthia thought. She examined the gleaming hi-fi system and television. It appeared they had never been used.

  ‘I don’t think she lived in this room much,’ Cynthia said.

  Moving close together, the three of them advanced into the dining-room. Here, the same clinical tidiness prevailed. In a drawer, Mr Tizard discovered a stainless steel cutlery set still wrapped in plastic. ‘Emma didn’t entertain much, it seems,’ he said.

  ‘No, she never brought friends home, not that we saw,’ Cynthia Peeling said. She eased herself past the Tizards and went quickly through the dove grey and pale lemon kitchen that bristled with factory-new appliances. ‘Perhaps we’ll find more sense of her in her workroom.’

  * * * *

  When Cynthia opened the door to Emma’s workroom, all three of them uttered shocked sounds. Not because of anything unpleasant exactly, but just because of the contrast between the workroom and the rest of Emma’s home. There was a choking stench of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol. Thick blue velvet curtains were drawn across the window. Cynthia quickly went to open it, craving fresh air. She threw back the curtains. Beyond them, the window was frosted. It was not a big room, perhaps partitioned off from the bathroom. There was barely space for the large, ancient desk under the window and the huge cupboard against the far wall. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, apart from a place opposite the door where a huge, gilt-framed mirror hung. Papers were strewn everywhere; ashtrays overflowed on to elderly coffee-mug rings; an easel stood folded in a corner draped with rags. Empty gaps in the clutter suggested items which had been taken away by the police.

  ’Yes, well, I certainly think we have a sense of Emma here,’ Mr Tizard said dryly.

  ‘You think so?’ Cynthia Peeling was not so sure. What they had found here had little link with the girl she’d thought Emma to be. It was so sloppy, almost aggressively so. Books leaned everywhere on the shelves; there were volumes on mysticism, erotica, occultism and a pile of cheap, tawdry novels. Cynthia shook her head. She picked up a small book that had been lying open on the desk. A chapter entitled ‘Higher Levels of Awareness’ had been heavily underlined in places. ‘Polarity disposition. Ritual dissimulation and embodiment.’ It made no sense but still disturbed her, made her skin prickle. Unpleasant thoughts were starting to form and, superstitiously, Cynthia had no wish to think ill of the dead.

  Mrs Tizard was collecting up a selection of gin bottles from the floor. Her mouth had become a thin, disapproving line. Cynthia had no wish to speak to her.

  ‘Well,’ Cynthia said to Mr Tizard, hating the brightness in her voice, ‘it would appear Emma lived mostly in this room. I told you she worked very hard. It’s not really surprising that she allowed the place to get a bit messy.’

  Mr Tizard didn’t respond. He had picked up a sheaf of sketches and was impatiently leafing through them. ‘Do you know this man?’ He thrust a sketch into Cynthia’s hands.

  ‘Er . . . no. I don’t think so,’ she repli
ed, feeling heat suffuse her face. The subject of the drawing was naked, sporting an undisguised erection. She dropped the paper quickly on to the desk. Mr Tizard had slumped heavily into the swivel chair in front of the desk. Cynthia empathized with what he must be feeling. She started to tidy the scattered papers into one pile. Apart from reams of illegible notes, there must have been hundreds of sketches and water-colours, many of them depicting the same naked man. Some of his poses were so explicit, Cynthia had to keep averting her eyes while tidying them. She was also distressed to find his face becoming more and more familiar to her. Could it be Michael Homey? No, of course not, and yet she’d seen no other man with whom Emma had had any connection. Apart from these disturbingly erotic sketches, there were also many water-colours similar to the one Emma had given to Cynthia; strange, unearthly landscapes in flowing, muted colours; ethereal beings floating in clouds that looked like palaces. Holding them up one by one, Cynthia was tempted to keep some of these for herself. Emma Tizard had been unbelievably talented. Then Cynthia came upon a series of violent, horrifying scenes, where grinning demonic shapes inflicted torture on bodies that spouted blood, and in some cases, entrails. She glanced through them with horrified fascination. No one had spoken in the room for several minutes. Mrs Tizard opened the cupboard. She uttered a dismal squeak and Cynthia turned round.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I ... I don’t know. Not really.’ The door swung back and forth. A yellowed skull, perhaps of a ram or goat, was the first thing to catch Cynthia’s eye. Everything else in the cupboard looked as if it belonged to a mediaeval apothecary. There were jars of roots and powders, an ornate, spired incense burner (that explained the smell), curly-handled knives, an abundance of other strange paraphernalia. A bizarre diagram, surrounded by what appeared to be foreign words, was scrawled in chalk on the back of the cupboard. ‘Why?’ Mrs Tizard said, weakly. ‘Why?’

  Mr Tizard led her quickly from the house.

  In the comfort of Cynthia’s front room, Mrs Tizard announced that as soon as the police had finished with her daughter’s belongings, she wanted the lot burned. There was nothing of Emma there that she wished to keep. To lose a daughter under such awful circumstances was bad enough, but to discover she had some kind of weird alter ego was even worse. Cynthia was now convinced that sweet, innocent Emma had become unwittingly involved with unsavoury characters, who had undoubtedly been instrumental in her death. An ingrained sense of decency, along with her superstitious dread, made her feel that no one but the three of them should ever know exactly what had been found in Wren’s Nest. Let it be burned and forgotten. Nobody could do anything about it now.

  * * * *

  Some weeks later, after the inquest had taken place, and press interest had died down, Mr Tizard came down alone to see to the disposal of Emma’s belongings. The police had come up with no further leads, and it seemed the murder would remain a mystery for ever. The Tizards had put Wren’s Nest on the market. Obeying, or agreeing with, his wife’s desires, Mr Tizard packed everything, including Emma’s smart, expensive clothes, into plastic bin liners. Cynthia Peeling drove him in her estate car up to the borough dump and disposed of the lot. It was late afternoon by the time the job was finished. Cynthia was in two minds about what they were doing. She couldn’t help feeling it was wrong that all Emma’s beautiful clothes and the more expensive of her books had been destroyed, yet she must respect the parents’ wishes, and part of her could understand why they felt the need to dispose of everything so finally. However, what really went against the grain was throwing all Emma’s drawings and paintings into a skip along with other paper rubbish. Whatever the Tizards might think of the subject matter, Emma had been a superb artist and her work deserved to survive her death. For this reason, Cynthia surreptitiously rolled up about two dozen of Emma’s paintings and stowed them in her bedroom while Mr Tizard was occupied elsewhere. Why she also pocketed the book that had been lying open on Emma’s desk, she didn’t consciously examine.

  Cynthia was relieved when Mr Tizard told her he was going home that evening. She quickly agreed to keep the keys for Wren’s Nest and to show prospective buyers round it. For some reason, Mrs Tizard hadn’t wanted to leave them with an estate agent. As she drove him to the station, Cynthia took the opportunity to direct a few more questions at Mr Tizard. They had been forming in her mind all day. She didn’t normally like to pry into other people’s affairs, but felt she just couldn’t exist if her questions weren’t answered.

  ‘What was Emma like?’ she asked. ‘When she was a child, what was she really like?’

  ‘You’ve lived next door to her for two years,’ Mr Tizard answered. ‘You’ve probably seen more of her than we have. She left home at eighteen, went away to college. We only got about two visits a year out of her after that. Sometimes she asked for money, but it was always paid back.’

  ‘But as a child...?’

  ‘She was a very private girl,’ Mr Tizard answered. ‘Quiet, well-behaved.’ There were a few moments’ silence. ‘I don’t think we ever knew her.’

  ‘What about boyfriends? She was such an attractive girl. She must have had boyfriends.’

  ‘Not that we knew of. Did you ever see her with a man?’

  Cynthia shook her head, quickly passing to the next subject, thinking of the drawings they’d seen. ‘And the girl she lived with in London, the one who disappeared, did you know about that?’

  ‘Emma came home for a couple of days after that. I think she was quite upset. She slept most of the time. Never spoke much about it though.’

  Could a parent really know so little of their child?

  * * * *

  That night, Cynthia lay awake in bed next to her snoring husband thinking about Emma Tizard. Had it really been Emma who’d lived in that workroom? Cynthia had never seen Emma smoke and she’d always politely refused any alcoholic drinks at the Peelings’. Gin bottles and overflowing ashtrays? It didn’t seem real.

  Cynthia tried to sleep. Dream fragments swooped around her, all of Emma. Emma laughing, her long red hair blowing in an angry wind. Emma hunched over her work table, frowning in concentration, one hand plunged into her hair, the other lovingly shading in an outline of male genitalia. And there was Emma, naked, arms raised to the sky, dancing herself to a frenzy beneath a full, pale moon. Now she and Emma were walking arm in arm through a park, Emma chatting girlishly, no longer shy or withdrawn. ‘Of course, it takes so long and there are always errors,’ she was saying, ‘but it doesn’t matter, the result is always the same.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Cynthia said.

  ‘Of course you don’t, you’re so fucking normal! Frigid bitch!’ And Emma was laughing at her.

  Cynthia woke up, panting. She felt that a noise must have awoken her but could hear nothing. There was a movement in the corner of the room, in the shadows, where Cynthia’s plump, decorative armchair stood; the chair behind which she had stowed Emma’s paintings. Cynthia blinked. Was someone sitting there? A movement, a shift of moonlight. Someone rose, snake-like, from the chair and came towards the bed. It was Emma Tizard herself! The witch Emma, the secret Emma, and possibly a vengeful Emma. Cynthia could make no sound. She couldn’t see Emma’s face, but the hair was unmistakable, not bound, not plaited, but loose and glorious in the half-light. The figure moved to the dressing table and picked up the photograph of Cynthia’s son, Richard. Cynthia saw the pale flesh, the long fingers, the perfect unvarnished nails. Emma looked at the photograph and chuckled. She turned to Cynthia. ‘What a white little worm. Bet he’s a lousy fuck,’ she said.

  Cynthia Peeling could not scream, but her muffled, petrified squeaks woke her husband. He turned on the bedside light. ‘Cyn, what’s the matter love?’ He shook her. ‘Wake up! Cyn!’ She opened her eyes puffing and gasping, as if she’d been drowning. The bottom sheet had come untucked and had wrapped itself around her hot legs.

  ‘She!’ Cynthia gasped, unable to say the name. ‘The dead girl from next do
or. My God, Rod, she was here!’

  Rodney put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Come on, love, bad dream, that’s all.’ He made soothing noises and arranged the pillows under her head. ‘Get back to sleep. You’ll soon forget.’

  Cynthia felt her breathing slow down. She closed her eyes. No one could ever have called her an imaginative person. She did not believe in ghosts and thought witchcraft was an excuse for bizarre sexual practices, but if her husband had known what was going through her head at that moment, he would have thought her a stranger.

  * * * *

  Next morning, once Rodney had gone to work, Cynthia had to go into the lounge and draw the curtains on the window that overlooked Wren’s Nest. She thought with dread of the rolled-up paintings behind her chair in the bedroom, and the little book in her dressing-table drawer. However, by lunch-time, she’d managed to pull herself together and examine rationally the way she was feeling. She drank a glass of milk and made herself a salad sandwich. It’s over now, she thought, We will never know what happened to Emma Tizard or find out any of her secrets, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know.