by Jack Gerson
Something following him.
Something sent by Drexel. Something raised up by Drexel.
As he ran he was aware that he was now covered in perspiration, his shirt clinging to his spine. And yet he was cold, ice cold, and, if he stopped running, he knew he would be unable to control the trembling, the muscular spasms that were threatening to twist his arms and legs.
Before, there had been a time like this.
It was a fleeting thought and he dismissed it. There had been nothing like this in his experience, nothing, he insisted to himself, suddenly wondering where the thought had come from.
He was gulping air now and his lungs were areas of pain that threatened to burst inside his chest. He knew raw fear was the only thing that kept him going; fear with a knife edge in the brain; terror of something- inexplicably horrible that he could not define; yet of which he had an awareness that forced him on.
Then at once, as the pulsating sound seemed to rise and be about to split his ear drums, ahead of him he saw the lights of a busier street and dimly the sound of traffic. And, at the edge of the kerb some yards ahead another light reflecting through the glass of a telephone kiosk.
His cut, muddied hand forced the door of the kiosk open as he reached it and he threw himself inside. The small oblong of mirror above the telephone reflected a face, wild-eyed, one cheek smudged with brown mud, and hair awry, falling over a shining damp forehead.
He sagged against one wall of the kiosk, gulping air. The lit telephone box gave him reassurance, a feeling of relief at the familiar surroundings and the mechanisms of communication in front of him. This sense of relief relaxed his body, the adrenaline seeping out of his bloodstream.
But it was not over.
As he raised his head he saw that the street lights were becoming obscured, that a mist was thickening as it swirled around the telephone box. The light above him in the box went out. The darkness and the mist outside seemed, in what faint light filtered through to Crane, to cling and form into swirling shapes that clawed at the glass.
Crane reached out and felt the metallic cold, of the instruments of the box. Again his hand trembled as he tried to dig into the metal, to hold it as strongly as he felt he was endeavouring to hold onto his sanity. He shut his eyes as if in doing so he not only shut out but eradicated everything outside the box.
The blackness pressing on his eyelids, the pressure pounding through his head creating areas of pain at the back of his skull. He shook his head from side to side trying to shake off the pain, perhaps dissipate everything that was pressing in upon him.
Whiteness!
Across the retina of the eye a flash of pure pristine whiteness. A spreading across the blackness. And then slashed across the white there came a vicious splash of red, an uneven shape, almost flowing in its own liquidity.
Red to scarlet.
Colour related to emotional feeling. And a different variety of fear, a dread and an anticipation, but what Crane did not know. To dispel this he opened his eyes.
The light shone from the ceiling of the telephone box, from a small, dusty bulb. Outside he could see the lights from the main street. And looking back down the entire length of the Grassmarket its street lamps shone yellow on the cobbles. The sounds of traffic, not far distant, came to his ears. And with it a sense of relief flooding through him.
Before he left the telephone box he caught a second glimpse of himself in the mirror. His cheek was still darkened by mud, his hair still awry, but the wild-eyed look had gone. In its place was a pale hollow face, dark tight lines under and at the side of the eyes. There had been a change and not only in his physical appearance. He not only looked exhausted and ill but within him he could feel that uncertainties had been planted and questions were there that he would have to ask himself.
Finding a cruising taxi, Crane sat hunched in the back still finding himself trembling every now and then as it took him back to Michael's flat. Once in the flat he threw himself on the bed and lay staring up at the ceiling. He lay for some time, eyes open, trying to calm himself.
He knew the self-assurance he had cultivated over the years had been badly shaken. Before, during his investigations for his series, he had occasionally been surprised, at times mystified, by some of the things he had seen. But never before had he experienced anything resembling what had happened in the Grassmarket.
Hallucination? Very possibly. Some form of hypnotism, yes, also possible. But the depths of his terror had shaken him as never before.
Never before?
Twice the words had gone through his head, twice he had felt uneasy about those two words. There was a trace of memory, an incident, half forgotten, buried in his subconscious.
He continued to stare at the ceiling. There was something not right about the ceiling, something missing. There should be a crack at the cornice running out toward the centre. Yet there was no crack. The trace of memory again, somewhere back, far back in the past. Somewhere he did not really want to remember.
With an effort he rose from the bed, his muscles stiff and painful. Going to the kitchen he made himself a cup of coffee and took it into the sitting room. In a corner under the window was Michael's battered record player and a pile of LPs. Raking through the jazz and pop labels he finally came upon the LP of Bach's Toccata and Fugue he had given Michael as part of a Christmas present two years before. Crane smiled, a small smile, the first since he had left Drexel's shop. The record had been an attempt to improve his younger brother's musical taste. It had not been successful. The LP looked as if it had never been taken from its sleeve.
With Bach softly sounding in the background Crane sat, sipping his coffee. He was now beginning to calm down. He looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was past two o'clock in the morning. He knew he should try to sleep but he felt almost afraid of sleep. Hamlet, he thought. What dreams may come?
He stirred and his arm brushed the pile of newspaper clippings sent to him by Crombie. He thought, what has happened to Margaret Christie? And why had Drexel seemed startled at his mentioning her disappearance.
Rising he took a notebook from his suitcase and decided he would make notes from the newspaper stories. There might be something he'd missed, something in one paper that, linked with the story in another, might reveal some overlooked clue.
In half an hour he had covered two pages of the notebook with his neat, precise handwriting. He studied what he had written. The story was there as far as the Press had told it. Nothing indicated any link with Drexel. Nothing revealed any motive as to why Margaret Christie should walk out of her house on a Sunday morning and never be seen again.
He sat staring at the next page. Nothing more to write. Nothing more to say. The page swam in front of his eyes. God, he thought, you're tired, exhausted. Enough for today, you should sleep.
The hand holding the pen trembled. He watched it tremble above the white page and then come down on the whiteness, a thick black line curling away from him. He turned the line back towards himself, weaving it in and out of the upward stroke. He'd always been an inveterate doodler, mostly of curved, ornate abstractions.
His eyes wandered onto the press clippings. Margaret Christie's face stared up at him. It seemed to become larger until he could imagine he saw every black dot that made up the photograph; until he could see the texture of the newsprint, the fibres of the paper.
He blinked.
Something else.
A narrow street, even narrower than the street in which he had found Drexel's shop. It was a different, strange street he had never seen before. And it was gone as quickly as it had imprinted itself on the retina of the eye. It was gone, then it was there, and gone again.
A picture at the edge of the eye.
He was still staring at Margaret Christie's picture. He took a deep breath and exhaled, a long gasping sigh. Not more hallucinations, he couldn't take more tonight. Yet this was different. It came, not from an outside source but from within himself.
&n
bsp; The street again, less distinct, a picture fading, disappearing, even merging into the newspaper and the photograph of the missing woman. He rubbed his eyes and sat motionless, waiting for it to recur.
Five minutes passed. No recurrence, nothing but the newspaper and the woman's face. He suddenly realised he was tense again, every muscle in the body taut. He relaxed, this time without effort.
He found he was still clutching the pen over the notebook and his fingers were beginning to feel cramped. He threw the pen down onto the table at his side and stood up. He must go to bed, he had to sleep, his eyelids were heavy.
Again as he rose he caught something at the corner of his eye. This time it was no hallucination. On the notebook, under the ornate doodle he had written and underlined two words.
'Fellgate. Cochrane's.'
Under the two words he had drawn a large eye.
He stared down at the notebook. The words were in his handwriting and yet he was not conscious of having written them; nor was he aware of having drawn the eye. Yet in its flamboyance it resembled the lines of the doodled scrawl above it. He had written the words, drawn the eye while he had been sitting, preoccupied with a recurrent image he could not explain.
Too tired. Think about it tomorrow. Not tonight, not now. He had to sleep, even if sleep meant dreams he did not want to contemplate.
He went into the bedroom, undressed and fell into Michael's bed. He switched out the light by the bed and the instant his head touched the pillow he was asleep.
There were no dreams.
SIX
The telephone rang.
Crane stirred in his sleep and turned towards the wall. The telephone rang again and with an effort he forced open his eyes. He had omitted to close the curtains of the room when he had fallen into bed and now daylight splashed the walls and struck his eyes sending a stab of pain through his head.
Sliding from the bed he stood swaying for a moment against the insistent ringing of the telephone. As he looked around the bedroom, still dazed from sleep, he felt a sense of relief, a reaction, puzzling at first. Then he knew it was a realisation that the night was over and he had slept without dreaming. A deeply submerged sleep, it had been below and beyond dreams.
The telephone continued to ring. In the sitting room, Crane sank into the armchair and lifted the receiver.
The voice at the other end of the line was laughing.
'I hope I've wakened you. Since you haven't shown any signs of phoning me I decided I'd better phone you.'
'Julia! I'm sorry. I didn't get in till rather late...'
'The Student Prince's return to Heidelberg? Looking up old flames?'
'Not quite. I had dinner with Anne and two of her friends and then I saw Drexel...'
Her voice became serious. 'How was it? What happened?'
Crane hesitated. He wanted to talk about his experience the previous night and yet he didn't want to worry Julia. 'It was... interesting,' he replied finally.
'Well, that's something.' Her voice seemed to relax. 'Glad you saw Anne. Now when are you coming home?'
'Listen, I think I'll stay up here a bit longer. Some things have come up that are pretty unusual.'
'Tell me,' Julia asked, a nervous quality in her voice which momentarily puzzled him.
'It's a little difficult to explain on the phone,' he replied, dismissing his concern as imagination. 'Tell you when I see you.'
There was a crackling sound on the line and for a moment he missed her reply and had to shout for her to repeat it.
'Tell me tonight. I've found someone to feed that damn computer for a couple of days while I take on a real man...'
'You mean you're coming up?'
'Unless you want me to look for another man down here. What do you think? Not a good idea?'
He wanted her with him, he wanted to feel the security of being with her. He needed that security. Yet he found himself muttering that he didn't know. He was frightened of another episode like that of the previous night. He didn't want to expose Julia to any such experience.
'You did ask me,' she reminded him with a trace of pique.
'Yes, but... but that was before...' he found himself stammering. 'And I am going to be pretty tied up.'
'I'm not usually any trouble. I shall feed you, pander to your wants and remain unobtrusive against the flow of work. Anyway I want to see Anne. I shall keep out of your way. Except late at night. Promise.'
Crane found himself smiling. He did want her with him.
'But it would be nice,' she went on, 'if you could meet me at the station. About seven this evening?'
He gave in. 'I'll do better than that. Take you to dinner. Some place special. See you tonight.'
'Love you,' she said. 'Bye!'
He waited until he heard the click of the receiver at the other end of the line before he hung up. He smiled wryly to himself. Another sign of his newly discovered insecurity.
His head slumped at the thought and he found himself staring at his notebook.
fellgate.
cochrane's.
And below the drawing of the eye.
Fellgate struck a chord. A place? A district in Edinburgh? It could be a memory from his student days. Perhaps a name registered in his subconscious. But how to find out?
Crane reached out and lifted the telephone.
An hour later he was sitting in Anne's kitchen while she poured two large mugs of coffee.
'Fellgate?' he said. 'Somewhere in Edinburgh? A district?' '
'You mean like Morningside? No. Not actually a district. But there is a lane, off the old town, I think. Opens out into a close. That's the Fellgate. Only one I know.' She placed his mug of coffee in front of him.
'And Cochrane?'
Anne shrugged. 'Doesn't mean anything. Common enough name.'
She sat down facing him across the table. 'What does it all mean, Tom?'
Crane ignored the question. 'A billboard or a pub sign with a giant eye on it, does that mean anything?'
'Sorry, no.'
Crane cradled the mug of coffee in his hands. He stared into space.
'Tom, I'm delighted to see you,' Anne smiled. 'Even at eight-thirty in the morning. But what is this all about?'
'I wish I knew,' he sighed. 'Last night I had a pretty strange time after I saw Drexel. He said I would have some kind of experience and I did.'
'What happened?'
He wanted to avoid the memory. 'Oh, I suppose I thought I saw things. But what really worried Drexel was this missing Christie woman. When I asked him if he could, as a clairvoyant, find her, he said I didn't need his help. I could do it myself. I thought at first he meant straightforward investigation. Now I'm not so sure.'
'The things you thought you saw,' interjected Anne. 'Could be auto-suggestion, a touch of hypnotism. In fact I don't think it could be anything else.'
Crane gave a wry smile. I haven't described them and you haven't experienced them.'
'AH right. But forget them, Drexel is playing games. But what do you think now he meant when he said you could find the woman yourself?'
Crane didn't reply at once. He took a sip of hot coffee, staring at her over the rim of the mug.
Then he broke the silence. 'It wasn't just what Drexel said. Your friend, Martindale, he said something about a compulsion to write my articles on the unknown, on the occult. An inner compulsion.'
'Oh, Roy talks too much,' Anne dismissed his statement abruptly.
'Yes but there is something,' Crane insisted, and felt a vague surprise that his hand was trembling. 'The eye I drew, the two words, Fellgate and Cochrane, I don't remember writing them. But I did. And the street I saw last night in Michael's room... I saw it quite clearly. And I was looking at a newspaper photograph of... of the woman, Margaret Christie.'
Another sip of coffee. He wanted someone to understand, to help him understand.
'That's why I phoned you this morning,' he went on. 'I wanted to know if Fellgate and Cochrane and the "ey
e" meant anything.'
Anne shrugged. 'As I said, Fellgate is the only one I recognise. And, Tom, you could have passed a street sign for Fellgate. Registered it subconsciously.'
'I'm sure, Anne, I saw the name for the first time when I wrote it down last night.'
Shifting uneasily in her seat, Anne passed a hand across her brow. She seemed to Crane to be uncertain of how to take what he had told her. But, after a moment, she finally came to a decision.
'All right. You saw it,' she said. 'And all the other things. In the mind's eye, let's say. And you tie it up with the disappearance of this woman. A woman you don't know anything about.'
Crane nodded. 'That's right.'
'Very well,' she went on. 'There are a number of gaping holes in the logic of all this but I've said I accept it. So there's one thing to do. We'll go to Fellgate.'
'Anne, you don't have to...'
'I've got a quiet morning at the lab. They won't miss me. And I must admit you've stirred my curiosity. Anyway it's easier to take you to Fellgate than describe how to get there.'
They used Crane's car. Twenty minutes later they parked it in a side street in the old town and walked up an incline. Paving turned to cobbles. And then Crane looked up and saw the metal street sign, 'Fellgate Close'.
It was narrower than the lane leading to Drexel's shop and the buildings might have been even older. They clung together as if the stone was as desperate for company as the architects had been for space. Unlike the Royal Mile the surfaces of the stone had not been renewed or treated in any way. The walls of the buildings arched towards each other as they rose into the air.
Anne and Crane walked slowly, eyes alert, each taking a side of the Close. Crane studied the graffiti scrawled on sections of the wall, hopeful that he might see the "eye" or the name, Cochrane, but' with no success, Anne moved quicker past the bare walls of the entrance and under an arch. Here the Close opened out as if the entrance was the neck of a bottle and they were now into the body.