The One Safe Place

by Ramsey Campbell

  A hiccup Marshall had been holding down exploded inside his lips, and he swallowed and stumbled to his feet, raising one hand rather than speak. The young men sniggered, and Marshall's parents turned their backs on them. "Go ahead, Marshall," his father said. "We're behind you."

  "That's the boy. This way," the woman urged with an ushering gesture that flapped her robe, and held open the door just long enough for his father to take over the hold before she bustled Marshall through a second door into the courtroom.

  The air was full of microphones. More than a dozen of them dangled from a wide sheet of translucent material backed by fluorescent lighting and held up by a lattice set in the high ceiling of the white room. One hung in front of Mr. Justice Melon, a papery-faced old man seated on a dais, who wore robes as red as a streetwalker's dress in a movie and a bib as well as a wig. He watched while Marshall was led to the witness stand, inside which were steps to climb. "Master Travis," he said then, "do you understand the meaning of an oath?"

  "Yes, it's swearing." Marshall put his hand over his mouth to straighten his face and keep in a hiccup. "Swearing you'll tell the truth."

  "Speak up a little if you would."

  Marshall pulled his hand away and leaned closer to his microphone. "Swearing."

  "As you say," the judge said after a momentary frown like folds in a sheet of tissue paper, and nodded to the robed woman. "Proceed."

  She looked up at Marshall, restricting a smile to her eyes. "Take the book in your right hand and repeat after me..."

  Marshall groped for the Bible and almost knocked it to the floor of the stand. His parents had sat on the foremost of several benches on the far side of the courtroom from the judge, and the three men had moved directly behind and above them. The men were staring at Marshall as though to tell him they had only to lean forward and—Then the policeman who'd been in the men's room sat behind them, and Marshall almost hiccupped with relief as he echoed the oath.

  As the woman returned to her bench he glanced around the courtroom. The jury of two more men than women seated on a pair of benches opposite him looked sympathetic, and the lawyer who'd been to Marshall's house did, while the other lawyer was murmuring to his assistant and not even looking at Marshall. Only where was the gunman, the intruder? Nowhere in sight, which seemed to mean he could be anywhere, especially behind Marshall, who had to swallow as the lawyer who'd already talked to him stood up. "Just tell the court your name," the lawyer said.

  The answer was threatening to be a hiccup. Marshall imagined the three men starting to grin beyond the edge of his vision, and his anger cleared his head and his voice. "Marshall Travis."

  "And you live..."

  Marshall told him where, and much else in the way of preamble before they came to the events of the twenty-first of June. He supposed the pace was meant to be helpful, but it gave him more time than he liked to wonder if the gunman would be produced for him to identify. Instead he was shown a photograph which he identified loudly, doing his best to ignore the impression that the face was multiplying at the corner of his right eye, and once he'd done that he didn't mind how much longer they talked; he was quite sorry when they finished. He was stepping back, not to walk down the steps but to shift his position, when the other lawyer said, "Just a few minutes, now."

  His hair was almost as white as his wig, Marshall saw as the lawyer strolled toward him, an expression of faint puzzlement on his round plump face. He touched his forehead just below the wig with two fingers pressed together, then raised them as though flicking away whatever question he'd thought of. "So, ah, Marshall. Am I allowed to call you that?"

  "It's my name."

  "We'll use it then, shall we? We're here for the same reason, to get at the truth. Of course you know that, being under oath. Will you do your best to help me understand a few points?"

  "I'll try."

  "Good fellow." He glanced at the stenographer, who was typing the transcript onto a prolonged sheet of paper with so little apparent effort that Marshall wondered what each key represented. "So here we have you coming home from school on the day in question. A good day as school days go?"

  "It was all right."

  "I remember being similarly enthusiastic at your age," said the lawyer in the direction of the jury, most of whom more or less smiled. "So about what time do you arrive home?"

  "When?"

  "I believe we're discussing the twenty-first of June."

  "Sure, but I thought you meant—"

  "Yes?"

  "Doesn't matter. I was home a bit after four."

  "A bit. You wouldn't like to be more precise."

  "Between ten and quarter past."

  "Well, that's almost a time check. I'm impressed. And do you always take your time?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You're let out of school at twenty to four, am I right? Does it always take you over half an hour to walk home?"

  "I didn't go straight home."

  "Ah, well, at your age..." The lawyer might have been contemplating further reminiscence, but asked, "What kept you?"

  "I tried to stop a fight in the schoolyard."

  "Admirable. Successfully?"

  "No, they were too..."

  "Do please go on."

  "You know, they couldn't see anything except wanting to hurt each other."

  "Well, we'll leave that. I see it distresses you. So then you hurried home."

  Marshall was annoyed both by being described as distressed when he wasn't aware of feeling so and by being made to sound as though he'd fled. "No, I had to buy a paper."

  "For your parents, was this? For yourself. Quite the reader. Was there some particular appeal?"

  "We were doing crime at school."

  "Studying it, that would be, I imagine. And was the paper of some use?"

  "Yes, a lot."

  "You were pleased to find so much crime in it."

  "Well, uh..."

  "No need to be ashamed. I'm sure we all appreciate that at your age crime can be exciting to read or think about. Do you remember anything specific from the paper?"

  The judge cleared his throat dryly and minutely as Marshall said, "It had a picture of the man who pulled a gun on my dad."

  Though the judge had seemed about to intervene, he began to leaf through papers on his wide desk. "You must be careful what you say, Marshall," the lawyer said. "Were you present when the alleged incident with the gun took place?"

  "No, but my dad told me—"

  "You must confine yourself to what you witnessed personally What were you planning to do when you got home that day?"

  "School homework."

  "Most conscientious. And after that?"

  "I don't know," Marshall said, beginning to grow bored. "Read a book, maybe. Watch a video."

  "You have a collection of those."

  "My parents do."

  "You might watch a film belonging to your parents," the lawyer said with the briefest glance toward them. "But you didn't do any of those things when you got home, did you? Why was that, if you can bear with me?"

  Marshall was sure the judge and jury wouldn't want to hear him go through all that again. "The man who—the man in that picture got into the house."

  "Which picture are we speaking of?"

  "The one in the paper and the photo—" Marshall hadn't realised until then that he didn't know what to call the judge. "The one his lord said I could look at," he said, feeling his mouth twist.

  "Just let me understand this," the lawyer said as though to draw attention to the verbal mess Marshall had made. "You arrive home and let yourself into the house."

  "Well—"

  "I believe that's what you told my learned friend."

  "Sure, but he made me. The man in the picture, he made me let him in."

  "Help me see this if you'll be so kind. Where was he when you first saw him?"

  "At the gate."

  "This would be your garden gate. The far side of it, would that be? At which po
int you were..."

  "Opening the door."

  "And what was your reaction to seeing him? Did you say anything to him?"

  "I—" Marshall wished this had come up earlier so that the other lawyer could have helped him deal with it. "I said 'Can I help you?'"

  The judge turned over a sheet of paper which Marshall couldn't help thinking had nothing to do with the case and peered across it at him. "Could you speak up a trifle?"

  Marshall clenched his fists below the top of the stand in order to control his mouth. " 'Can I help you?' "

  "Yes. Thank you." The lawyer let his gaze stray past him. "You told my learned friend you knew who my client was almost as soon as you saw him."

  "I did when I'd said that, what I said to him."

  "I see. Now he's still at the gate, is that so? About how far away would that be, would you say? As far as from you to the jury?"

  That seemed considerably farther than Marshall had been taking for granted. "Yes," he had to say, at once adding, "I could see him fine."

  "Very good. So let's see if we can get this clear. You're opening the door, and you believe you recognise the man your father described to you, and there's the width of this courtroom between you. Would you say that represents the situation accurately?"

  Why on earth did they need to go over this again? "Yes," Marshall said patiently.

  "What made you let him into the house?"

  Until that moment Marshall hadn't known that was the question he least wanted to be asked. His parents hadn't put it to him, but he'd demanded it of himself night after night while lying in bed. He'd let the man in to wait for his father, a thought which led to any amount of nightmares of what might have happened next, nightmares which wouldn't let him fall asleep. He was about to say, "I don't know," since he'd sworn to tell the truth, when the lawyer said, "Was he armed?"

  For an instant Marshall was tempted to agree, because that seemed capable of making the situation so much simpler. "No," he said.

  "Was anybody else about?"

  "No."

  "You're saying that all the neighbouring houses were empty at that time?"

  "I don't know," Marshall said, but the lawyer's patient puzzlement wouldn't accept that. "I don't suppose so."

  "I think we may assume that some of your neighbours might have been at home, would that be fair? About how many times did you call for help?"

  "None."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

  "None."

  "Let me understand this. You're alone with someone you have been led to believe threatened your father with violence and yet you don't call for help from any adults who might be within hearing distance. How high is your front garden fence?"

  "Huh?"

  "I'm sure the court heard the question. How high is your front garden fence?"

  "About so high," Marshall said, patting the Bible.

  The judge frowned, his eyes shrinking. "Please don't touch that."

  The lawyer paused—letting guilt gather on Marshall, it seemed to the boy—and said, "Can you vault that high at school?"

  "At school, sure, but there were flowers in the way."

  "Please don't anticipate my questions." The lawyer paused again, long enough for Marshall to wonder when the lawyer who was on his side was going to object or intervene or whatever they did in Britain. "Let us move on. You've allowed my client into your parents' house. Quite a large house, you told my learned friend. How many stories has it again?"

  The judge cleared his throat, but that was all. "Three," Marshall said.

  "Are there places you can hide in it?"

  "Some."

  "At the top of the building, perhaps?"

  "Maybe." Marshall wasn't sure where this was leading, and his uncertainty felt like a potential hiccup. "Not where the videos and books are."

  "We'll come to those. Do they occupy the whole of the top floor?"

  "No, there's the study and the guest room."

  The judge sat forward with a rustle of paper. "Mr. Keen..."

  "If you'll permit me, my lord, I intend to show the relevance."

  Wasn't the judge supposed to say "Please be quick" or "I advise you not to waste the court's time" or declare what he wouldn't allow in his courtroom? But he subsided with only a hint of a frown, and Marshall's hiccups felt more imminent. "Would I be correct in thinking your house is alarmed?" the lawyer said.

  Marshall grabbed his mouth to keep in the hiccup, and felt everyone in the court watching him. He must look as if he was trying not to laugh, and so he spoke too soon. "Yug."

  "Pardon me, that was..."

  This time the hiccup and the answer emerged simultaneously. "Yup."

  "I assume the alarm was functioning on the day we are discussing."

  "Yes," Marshall said, and hiccupped, at which point the judge canted his upper body toward him. "Would you like to excuse yourself for a few minutes?"

  Marshall didn't want to delay knowing where the lawyer was trying to lead him any longer than was absolutely necessary. "Could I have a glup, a glass of watup?"

  The judge raised his eyebrows at the request, then nodded to the woman who'd ushered Marshall into the courtroom. As she hurried out, Marshall seemed to feel everyone except himself relax. He turned his head on its unexpectedly stiff neck to look at the public gallery. His mother smiled encouragement, his father gave him two thumbs up, but all this was in the shadow of the three faces glaring at him from behind his parents, and he couldn't bring himself to meet any of those eyes. He stared at the Bible, more like a black box than a book, and hiccupped several times before the woman returned with a half-pint glass of water which she handed up to him.

  "Thup," Marshall said, and took a not noticeably cool mouthful. He held it in his mouth and felt it fail to work. He swallowed it for fear of spraying the Bible, and breathed in as hard as he could, and filled his mouth from the glass. Almost at once he was aware that the drink would be no match for the approaching hiccup, and restored the mouthful to the glass while the judge watched as though Marshall was botching an unimpressive magic trick. Marshall knew one certain cure for hiccups, but hadn't wanted to perform it in the courtroom; now he appeared to have no choice. He craned forward and began to drink out of the wrong side of the glass.

  "Please remove that," the judge said, and Marshall stooped until the glass was almost horizontal, and clung to it so hard he was afraid it might break. Water ran in and out of his mouth, and as he gulped it down he felt the hiccups succumb to his fear of having the glass taken away from him. When the woman reached over the top of the stand he jerked backward and tipped up the glass so as not to spill the last of its contents down himself, and splashed a line of drops like a trail of periods at the end of an unfinished sentence across the Bible which the woman was removing at the behest of the judge, who drew a sharp breath through his nose and expelled it at length before sitting back as if to leave Marshall at the mercy of his interrogator.

  The lawyer waited until the woman had carried off the glass, which Marshall nearly dropped in his haste to rid himself of it. "Have you a key to the alarm?"

  "Yes," Marshall said, feeling horribly unsure of himself.

  "So having admitted my client to the house, you turned off the alarm."

  "Yes, but I left the key in it."

  "Allow me to move on for a moment. Were you examined afterward?"

  "After..."

  "After the incident which you have alleged took place."

  Marshall felt as if something he couldn't identify had been snatched away from beneath him. "Examined, like how? Who by?"

  "I understand you live only a few minutes from one of our hospitals. Was it felt necessary to have your injuries looked at by a doctor?"

  "Which injuries?" Marshall instantly regretted having said, and interacted whatever the next question was. "He dragged me all over the house and snapped the buttons off my shirt."

  He'd been too ashamed to tell his parents that he'd thought the man
's knuckle at his back had been a gun, and how could he admit it in public—worse, in front of three of the man's relatives? The lawyer let him be helplessly quiet for several seconds, and then he said, "In the course of all this dragging, did you by any chance discuss your collection of video-cassettes with him?"

  "They aren't mine, I said before."

  "Quite so. Indeed, I should have realised you would hardly own a copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at your age, let alone the Marquis de Sade's—you can perhaps tell me if this is not the correct title—120 Days of Sodom."

  The judge lifted his head as though at an unwelcome smell. "Are these films legally available in Britain?"

  "Rest assured they aren't, my lord." As the judge nodded an acknowledgement, the lawyer swung toward Marshall. "But these were among the films you showed my client in your house."

  Marshall couldn't think for struggling to find a way around the terms of the oath. "I didn't show him, he got hold of them."

  "After you had shown him where they were kept."

  "They weren't upstairs, they were in the front room."

  "I see. Though if that is the kind of material which is left where anyone could see it..."

  A chair cantered backward, and the lawyer Marshall had thought was supposed to defend him stood up. "My lord, I really must—"

  "I share your doubts, Mr. Penman," the judge said, and Marshall wondered if it was part of the ritual that someone else had to raise them on his behalf. "Mr. Keen, I think the time has come for you to indicate where this is leading."

  "My lord, my client does not dispute that he gained entry to the house in order to confront Mr. Travis—unarmed, as I believe has been established. But he maintains that he was admitted to the house after expressing interest in the collection of videocassettes which, as you observed, are not legally obtainable in this country."

  "How could he have known they were there, Mr. Keen?"

  "Because our young witness and his mother who uses them as a teaching aid discussed them on television some weeks ago."