The Face That Must Die

by Ramsey Campbell

  His fury grew cold and purposeful. This time she’d gone too far. She hadn’t seen him yet. He felt almost detached as he observed her, peering about from beneath her black cap like an executioner’s. He grinned as he reached in his pocket. That cap was appropriate, but not in a way she would enjoy.

  She passed without noticing him. As she neared the blurred mouth of the subway, he moved, making sure he was audible. He heard her falter, then hurry after him. Although the vicious ache of his leg was stoking his fury, he grinned as he limped as quickly as he could towards the execution yard.

  ***

  Chapter XXIV

  Cathy picked herself up. The front of her body throbbed like a single bruise. Her breath, when she managed to catch it, joined in. Beyond the obelisk the limping footsteps faded.

  That would teach her to chase people. But her fall had angered her. Was she really going to let a little fall deter her? He could at least have come back to see whether she was all right. She strode past the obelisk, ignoring her bruises. She had to go this way to catch a bus to the house for sale.

  She reached the bus just as the doors were closing. The driver winked at her, and waited. The poles of the aisle were cold in her hands. Below her heads were displayed, swaying slightly. Was that the detective, sitting with his back to her? She couldn’t speak to him. What on earth could she say among all these people?

  Fog flooded by. Beginnings of streets emerged momentarily. The man who sat beside her left the bus; someone else trapped her next to the window. She turned her head gingerly to watch the aisle. If that were the detective, what could she do?

  When he stood up, she did nothing. She felt rather childish and silly. Well, the bus would take her to the attractive terraced house; that was why she’d boarded it, not to chase him. God, he was looking! Acutely embarrassed, she turned hastily to the window.

  His face floated off into the murk. It had all been fun in a peculiar way, despite her bruises. What would Peter say? “Yeah? What happened then? Jesus, you mean you let him go?” Or perhaps he would say “Good job you didn’t catch him. We don’t want to get involved with the law.” Abruptly she stood and grabbed the bell-pull.

  She hurried back towards West Derby Road. Ahead the traffic lights seemed hardly to inch towards her, as though they and she were drowned in mud. They changed, and released a herd of slow buses. There he was – climbing into a lighted entrance.

  Before she could reach the stop the bus closed, and carried his illuminated head away. A second bus was waiting for the space. She jumped aboard, though her bruises complained.

  Although she didn’t like the smoke, she sat upstairs, the better to observe her quarry. She grabbed the front seat, like a child eager to see everything. Her excitement was almost embarrassing. She’d never done anything like this before.

  Every glimpse that the fog doled out was vivid: rugby posts on a playing field, tall thin white letter Hs left over from a giant’s alphabet; a little railway station which was now the Two Acres Poultry Farm. Crowds of housewives boarded at Tuebrook and West Derby Village, but the detective didn’t use them as cover to sneak away.

  The bus was full of greetings and chat. All the housewives must be from Cantril Farm, and must prefer to journey to these shopping areas. She enjoyed the slow pursuit, almost laughing; it was like a parody of a car chase. “Follow that bus!” she giggled to herself.

  All at once the landscape became greyer. Tower blocks loomed as though embodying the fog. Long featureless walls crammed with windows dawdled by. Even the colours of curtains were obscured by fog. Housewives called goodbye. Gazing about, Cathy didn’t wonder they preferred to shop elsewhere.

  She sat forward as though to watch the climax of a film. There couldn’t be many stops before the terminus. On the single road, people trudged beside the high curbs, along the paths of yellow lines. Her bus halted, blocked by its leader. Among the women emerging from the bus ahead and descending into the subway, she saw the detective.

  She clattered downstairs. Oh, don’t let her lose him! “You’ll forget your head one of these days,” the driver remarked, opening the doors for her. The bus drew away its light; the chill of the fog seized her. When the sounds of the bus had retreated, she found she couldn’t hear the limping.

  Wasn’t this a bit ridiculous? How far was she going to chase the poor man? Was she really going to trudge about this unfamiliar foggy place in search of him? It would be frustrating to have come so far for nothing. She thought of the unpleasantness that was seeping into the house on Aigburth Drive. If he could do something about that, he was worth chasing. Though she felt absurd, she hurried into the subway.

  On the far side was silence. The walk climbed into the fog. It looked as likely a direction as any. She hurried past concrete yards and patches of grass soaked with grey. Only fog kept her company.

  Within minutes she was lost. High identical walls full of flats surrounded her. A notice she’d hoped was the name of the block, or even a direction, proved to say ALL BALL GAMES PROHIBITED. Otherwise the walls were a mess of painted names. Paths led onto tufted mud in which lurked puddles and glass.

  When she heard a bus on the main road, she headed back. There was no point in straying further. What a disappointing end to her adventure! She slithered down towards the subway, looking for steps that would take her to the outward bus stop.

  Then she heard the limping. It began abruptly, surprisingly close. She whirled, and saw him in a concrete tributary. Was he lost too? He disappeared at once into the fog, but she could hear him clearly. She hurried in pursuit.

  The limping echoed in a passage. She managed to distinguish the entrance, though the gap looked almost as solid as the framing wall, with fog. Beyond it, she found herself in what seemed to be a wide deserted yard within a square of tenements.

  Oh, don’t say she’d lost him! Entrances gaped in the tenements, revealing stone stairs wet with fog. He could have vanished into any opening. She held her breath, though it tasted of the murk.

  She heard something. Footsteps? Yes, though they were faint – shuffling. They were advancing towards her, slowly and unevenly. Unevenly! It must be the detective. How would he react when he saw her? While she pondered that, he might elude her yet again. She ran on tiptoe towards the shuffling.

  Fog blanked her vision, and robbed her of any sense of distance. How near was the shuffling now? Surely he ought to be visible. She was certain she would jump when they came face to face – and so would he, no doubt, poor man. The thought made her tense, and distracted her. She almost collided with the dim shapeless figure when it shuffled into view.

  Cathy gasped. It was an old woman in bedraggled carpet slippers. Her bare legs were red and thickly veined. She shrank back as though Cathy were a mugger.

  “ I’m sorry,” Cathy blurted. “I thought – ” She couldn’t say more for choking on her mirth.

  “ I should think so.” The old woman shuffled past, staring: her vacant gums smoked. “Just about think so too,” she muttered.

  All at once Cathy heard the limping. It was on the far side of the yard, and retreating rapidly. For a few steps it echoed in a passage. She ran towards the sound. Obstacles seemed to menace her, but they were fog.

  She found the passage quickly, and ran through. Footsteps came at her from the obscurity – her own echoes. Outside, a path dissolved into fog. On one side stretched a fence, on the other was a rank of two-storey flats that protruded boxily into tiny concrete yards. The prospect resembled an H with its top legs missing, repeated again and again.

  The limping stopped. How far ahead? She ran faster than her doubts. Passages gaped between flats; windows dull as fog stood above them. Fancy having a hole where your ground floor ought to be!

  Was he in one of the passages? She dodged towards each, then veered away. She had to go deep in each shadowy blurred gap before she could be sure. Oh, please don’t let him have hidden in his flat after all this – There he was, in a passage!

  It w
as a dangling shirt that swung its arms as she ran at it.

  When she reached the end of the fence, she gave up. Beyond the fence, another passage led out to wide murk. She stood beside a torn poster. AY NO T A BLACK ITAIN, it said. She stared at the flats opposite. A door which looked hardly coloured lurked beneath glistening stone steps.

  She was dismally fascinated. Anyone who passed could bang on the windows or the walls: no doubt children did. She couldn’t have borne living in such a place. It must be like a cage. She would have gone mad.

  ***

  Chapter XXV

  So now she knew where he lived. He spied on her through a crack between the curtains. He ought to have killed the old woman as well, instead of letting her presence deter him. At last the girl slunk into the fog. She must have been making sure that he knew he was trapped.

  Would she send the police for him? Let them come – he’d make some cuts in the police force. His joke failed to sustain him. He felt shrunken, a rat in a trap; his mind felt crushed. He would flee, except that there was nowhere to go besides the fog.

  He sat in the centre of the anonymous room, facing the door, razor in hand. He listened to the radio. It might warn him, or help him somehow; surely his luck hadn’t deserted him entirely. The gathering night robbed him of the room. He found himself listening for words, he didn’t know which, that would tell him what to do. There must be someone on his side. Blurred stations drifted behind the newsreader’s voice. Horridge sat forward; the blade clicked. What was that about conspiracy?

  But the blurred voice had gone. Oh yes, he knew about conspiracies; the world was full of them. Even presidents could be involved in them, which showed that anyone might be. Sometimes the plotters were careless enough to be found out, but what of those who weren’t? What about those homosexuals and their dupes, conspiring against him?

  When he switched on the light the walls didn’t retreat far. He shut off the radio, which was trying to distress him. He couldn’t bear waiting; the room seemed like a condemned cell. Where could he hide? Where might the police not look for him?

  Yes, of course. He never went to the pub – but he could pretend to be one of the herd. Why, that would make him seem normal by their standards; he would be unobtrusive there. He transferred his documents into his raincoat, in case the police broke in, and left.

  Men were tramping along the path. Were they going to the pub? They looked brainless enough – too brainless to conspire against him. He followed them, so as not to be alone in the fog.

  He’d judged their destination rightly. Already the pub was crowded. Addicts, all of them – but at least the sots would be too befuddled to plot against him. He reached the bar at last and bought himself a lemonade, despite the barmaid’s faint amused contempt. She was there to serve, not to have opinions.

  On his way to an empty table, he stooped to pat a dog: some animals were trustworthy, unlike human beings. Then he saw it was a blind man’s dog. Wasn’t its owner watching him? Horridge restrained himself from snatching the dark glasses and hurried to his table.

  He surveyed the enemy. A few people sat alone, drinking morosely. Mightn’t they be connected, perhaps communicating by signs? They looked secretive enough. Whenever he caught one of them gazing, the gazer glanced quickly away. Were they homosexuals, or police? He suspected there wasn’t much difference.

  Whenever he sipped his lemonade or moved in any way, there came a burst of laughter. Of course it was never from the same direction. They wouldn’t affect him with such a cheap trick – nor with the remarks he could almost hear. Was someone talking in a foreign language? Was it Russian? The dim light seemed to hold him fast, like amber.

  He watched the television perched above the bar. Tobacco smoke befogged its screen. Policemen beat up criminals; an orchestra urged them on. “Step into a dream and leave reality behind,” sang an advertisement for a holiday camp. Oh yes, that was what they’d like everyone to do – but they wouldn’t cloud his mind, not with drugs or anything else.

  Behind him a workman was talking about “doing a foreigner.” That didn’t mean getting rid of an immigrant; it meant sneaking away from your job to do work while your employer wasn’t watching. It showed how foreigners weren’t to be trusted. Someone sat down opposite Horridge.

  He glanced at the man, ready to glare him away. Company would distract and discomfort him. It was Mr Fearon the key-cutter, gazing curiously at him. “I never knew you came here,” the old man said.

  “ Didn’t you?” Horridge managed to speak coolly, though his heart was frantic to escape.

  “ I don’t see the point in coming here, lad, if you’re going to drink that stuff.”

  Did the lemonade make Horridge look effeminate? It might draw attention to him. He rose angrily and struggled to the bar to demand a pint of beer. On the television screen, a beer glass jerked itself thicker and taller, growing gigantic; its cap of froth bulged. “Big head,” a male chorus praised it. “The body that satisfies – it can’t be modest no matter how it tries.” How could they get away with broadcasting such filth?

  Though he would have preferred to avoid the old man, he had to return to his place; no other seat was empty. The drinkers who pretended to be alone were still spying. Mr Fearon nodded approvingly at the beer. “That’s right, lad. That’s what you need.”

  “ I don’t need it at all.”

  “ You’re a bit on edge, aren’t you?” The old man seemed to lose interest in him, and gazed at the News. The newsreader muttered amid the uproar. At last Mr Fearon said “I see they’ve caught that murderer.”

  Horridge spoke sharply, to cut through the dizziness that had spread from his mouthful of beer. “Which murderer?”

  “ Which one?” The old man gazed quizzically at him, as though amused by his sharpness. “Which one do you mean?”

  Oh no, Horridge wasn’t caught so easily. They both knew perfectly well whom they meant. He gulped his beer, for the old man had been staring at it, making out that he intended to hold it untouched all night.

  “ You’d call him a murderer, would you?” Horridge said.

  “ Wouldn’t you?”

  He’d had enough of this game of questions. It was time someone had the courage to state a few facts. Deep in the uproar a voice was babbling like a madman’s, but that wouldn’t make Horridge crack. “I’d call him a guardian of the law,” he said. “Someone who stands up for what he knows is right. If the law won’t deal with corruption, someone must. A few more like him and the world would be a lot cleaner.”

  He was saying too much. Shut up, he screamed at himself, shut up! But the old man appeared not to be listening; he was staring past Horridge at the television. Giddy with suspicion, Horridge turned. The newsreader’s face was staring straight at him.

  The man looked down, pretending to read his script – too late. They were using the television to watch Horridge. It must be easy, with all these bugging devices. And by God, Mr Fearon was in league with them – the old man had been pumping him to make him talk! Before he could restrain himself, his hand plunged into his coat pocket.

  He gasped. Oh God, his birth certificate had the names written on it. If they caught him now, that would be evidence against him. He lurched to his feet and stumbled away; his head felt sodden with beer. “Too much for you?” Mr Fearon said.

  As Horridge dodged between the stools that barred his way everywhere, as he battled his way through the hubbub that clung to him, he saw his grandfather entering the pub. The old face was strong and calm as a rock. Horridge ran to him, kicking aside a stool. His luck hadn’t changed, he was saved. But it was an old drunkard, his cheeks redly laced.

  Horridge staggered into the night. His head was unsteady and brimming; fog had seeped into his skull. By an irony which amused him not at all, his drunkenness helped him find his way home; he kept tramping doggedly until he saw the notice, torn now.

  When he opened the door he heard them waiting for him in the dark, muttering. It took him minu
tes to ease the door shut, and to bare the razor-blade. It was only the voice of the plumbing, the incoherent voice of a madman locked in darkness. It wouldn’t send him mad, they needn’t bother trying.

  He felt his documents hanging on him. He had nothing with which to rub out the names. Gardner, Peter David. Gardner, Catherine Angela. He snarled at them: no doubt they too would like to see him locked up. He hid the documents in the wardrobe, and felt slightly less endangered.

  Before he touched the radio, his hand drooped. Might they be using the radio to listen to him? Could they do so even when it was supposed to be switched off? He stood in the bare cell. His mind felt hollow. The blade snatched at the light, dulled, snatched. He stared at the razor as if it might direct him.

  ***

  Chapter XXVI

  “ Where were you?” Peter demanded.

  Should she tell him? Her tale would sound absurd. Even if she held his attention, the ending would hardly be worth it. “Looking at houses,” she said.

  He turned back to The Incredible Hulk. “There’s one I haven’t looked at yet,” she said. “Come and see it now.”

  Might her chase have allowed someone else to beat them to it? Her frustration made her persuasive. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled at last.

  The fog was lifting intermittently. The van sped through its gaps. People were coming home from work; she watched houses light up. Pavements glistened like tar beneath streetlamps.

  As she’d thought, the house was near the football ground. Dead floodlights towered above the tiers of seats. On the corner of the side street, a window was blocked by ripples of tin like a Venetian blind – but on the upper storey, light shone through curtains. She knew how it felt to live over emptiness.