Under a Watchful Eye

by Adam Nevill

  At the edge of his vision a figure joined him on the bench, a rustle of a yellow waterproof coat announcing someone’s arrival.

  Unusual for someone to join him there, because he rarely saw anyone use the bench, and the enclosed nature of the walled terrace also suggested the existing occupant’s desire for seclusion.

  Shielded by sunglasses, Seb’s eyes remained fixed upon the sky. Pulling heavily on his electronic cigarette, he released a cloud of blueberry vapour to engulf his head like a smokescreen.

  A blob of yellow Gore-Tex and a pale head intruded into his view of the glittering horizon. ‘You must get inspired here.’

  The voice startled him. A female voice, one slightly juvenile from a touch of excitation, as if altered by a trace of helium. Cartoon voice, he thought unkindly.

  When Seb turned his head, the woman was looking out towards the quay and appeared distracted. He didn’t consider himself famous and, despite appearing on television a few times, he’d never been recognized in public. His likeness was only familiar to those in the genre-fiction world. He wondered if the woman was even addressing him as an author.

  ‘It would be a dull mind that this view failed to move,’ he said, trying to sound good natured, though what he said was stiffer with a challenge than he’d intended. He kept the stranger in his peripheral vision.

  ‘Still special to you.’

  He found her familiarity irksome. The tone wasn’t so much rude as subtly challenging, slightly arch, and perhaps judgemental.

  ‘Of course.’ Seb frowned, hoping to compel the woman to explain her comment about inspiration, which now suggested both a general statement about the view, and something uncomfortably intimate that might threaten the bounds of small talk with a stranger.

  The profile of her round face broke into a smile. ‘I suppose that it might be dull to someone who looks at brighter light.’

  An unpleasant sentiment, considering recent events. Now she had his full attention.

  Her plump face was made unusually smooth by a lack of colour and conjured infantile associations. It also made her age hard to gauge. Maybe she had one of those faces that never relinquished a younger self, permanently trapped in surprise by the ageing process around the core expressions.

  He suspected her eyes conveyed an amusement at his expense. They were startling in their size, intensity and unusual colour. So pale was the iris, the faded blue was in danger of vanishing into the white sclera.

  She wore no make-up and her white eyebrows were thick and untrimmed. Her top lip was also furred with the white hair of her unkempt eyebrows. The only colour in her face was the shiny skin beneath the eczema covering her eyelids.

  And now he’d taken a closer look at her, he came to believe that too much hair sprouted from the top of her head, as if every square inch of her scalp was overburdened with an excess of hair follicles, producing the pale thatch. He’d not seen the hairstyle on an adult before. It made him think of a Saxon helmet cut from a bushel of straw.

  The fringe was slightly asymmetrical too, as if cut in a straight line with a ruler that had slipped at the final moment when the scissors closed. At the back and sides, the length had been messily cropped into a crude attempt at a bob. The style might have been evidence of an individual’s lack of interest in fashion, or a sign of a personality disorder.

  Seb was no expert on hairstyles, but the chance of it being in vogue was undermined by the unflattering statement her clothing made. What looked like a man’s padded raincoat had been complemented with corduroy jeans in poor condition. Her outfit covered a bulbous torso carried atop broad hips. Battered grey hiking boots concealed feet small enough to be ridiculous.

  Seb cleared his throat. ‘I’ve never heard that said about a beautiful day before.’

  This clearly pleased the odd figure. The movement of her body on the bench made Seb restrain himself from recoiling, and he found it necessary to breathe through his mouth. The rustling of her coat had disinterred a miasma imprisoned from a place that was damp. The odour that impregnated her clothing not only carried the scent of neglect but was thickened with a hormonal fragrance; a taint of oils and secretions that should have been washed away. Seb knew where he’d smelled similar before.

  The woman’s eager face maintained a grin lit with expectation. She seemed pleased with herself.

  Seb moistened his mouth. ‘Do you know me?’

  The woman shook her head emphatically. Another gesture that suggested a strange immaturity. ‘No, but I’d like to.’ As she spoke, Seb was stricken by a glimpse of an incomplete set of yellow-brown teeth.

  ‘What . . .’ He was no longer sure of the question he wanted to ask.

  The woman laughed.

  ‘You’ve read my books then?’

  A rapid nodding made the longer strands of her thatch sway. The bleached eyes widened with excitement and added weight to his suspicion that the woman was unstable.

  ‘So, what can I do for you?’ Seb suffered the uneasy feeling that interaction would lead to some kind of entrapment. ‘And how did you know I’d be here? Did you follow me?’

  ‘I came to extend an invitation. We’d like you to take part in something. An event.’

  ‘We? I’m sorry, but who are you?’

  Another two questions she didn’t answer. She remained committed to extracting a response to her invitation that he was clearly disinclined to give. She issued more of the irritating giggling. But a small hand was tentatively extended towards him. The fingernails were chewed back to tiny half-moons of pearly cartilage, embedded inside red nail beds. They looked sore and gnawed rather than bitten. Her fingertips were also wet from a recent trip to her mouth. Seb hoped she would drop the little hand. He had no intention of touching it.

  ‘I belong to a group that appreciates ideas. Shall we say, ideas that reach into unusual places. Even if most books are always wide of the mark.’ Again the giggle and Seb was sure she was referring to his books. ‘You’d be amongst friends, Sebastian.’ Her hand remained poised in the narrowing gap between their bodies.

  Never fond of public speaking, to which he found himself emotionally unsuited, Seb still occasionally took part in literary events, though he’d never been approached like this before.

  And that smell.

  ‘Is that so? I’m a little busy right now. New book.’

  ‘New book! How exciting. That’s precisely what we want to hear about. Your plans. What’s it about? We’d love to know.’ The surprise in her voice was forced, the curiosity insincere. He knew she had no real interest in anything he had written. This was someone who wanted something from him.

  ‘I never discuss the details of works-in-progress.’

  ‘A secret! A shame. What a shame.’ She’d phrased this as if his refusal to open up was to his disadvantage.

  ‘For who, me?’

  ‘Don’t you like to meet your readers?’

  ‘I always have time for genuine readers. So why don’t you send me your details by email. You’ll find an address on my website.’

  Her eyes became busy with mischief and she wrinkled her nose in disappointment.

  ‘You are enquiring about a reading? A talk?’

  ‘Mmm. That sort of thing, yes,’ she said, but only after a pause as if the idea was only being recognized as a possibility because he’d just suggested it.

  ‘You don’t seem so sure.’

  ‘Having you with us is the main thing. The rest can take its course. I think the best connections are made that way, don’t you?’ The unnerving stare was now offset by astigmatism in her left eye, the effect suggesting mania more than a misshapen eyeball.

  It was time to close the conversation. Seb slipped his unread book inside his rucksack. ‘As I say, best to send an email.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of people there. We’re a big group. There was a lot of excitement when we learned that you were a local writer. Perfect, we thought. And so close. Why not ask him to come a bit closer?’

&nbs
p; ‘Local?’ As strange as the baffling figure was, Seb wondered if he were being paranoid. He’d never seen her before, or knew of any local reader groups, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. ‘I’ll take a look at my diary. Anyway, must get on.’ Seb stood up.

  ‘He’ll be there,’ she said, and suppressed a giggle.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘And him.’ The woman gazed beatifically into the distance. Seb followed her eyes to the far side of the docks. And within the distant panorama of holidaymakers spread out before the pubs, gift shops, restaurants and slowly moving traffic on Quay Street, his eyes located an utterly motionless figure, dressed in black.

  Across that airy gulf, spiked with masts and busy with wheeling gulls, he was being watched by that distant smudge of face, a bone-white face. The shoulders of the figure were slumped as if the man was in a deep despair.

  Within the projected gaze came a flood of sadness, accompanied by fear. And Seb knew that he was looking at a distant apparition of Ewan, though one much worsened by recent tragedy.

  ‘Who?’ Seb’s voice came out of his panic.

  The cooling of the air and the dimming of the sunlight was sudden. The sounds of the harbour vanished as if his ears had suddenly been crammed with the foam plugs that he used on trains and planes. A shadow filled his eyes. The world around him became far less distinct, as if it had been engulfed by a pall of unnatural dusk, or cast into shadow by a strange occultation of the sun. But at the corner of his vision, the light suggested a painful and blinding contrast. Seb clutched at the railings.

  ‘You’ll receive a warm welcome. This is a wonderful opportunity.’

  Struggling to catch his breath, Seb closed his eyes, then blinked and peered again to Quay Street.

  The lone figure was gone from where it had stood so forlorn and abject.

  Near gasping for breath, Seb slumped at the railing and let the remainder of the spell pass.

  When he looked about himself the woman in the yellow raincoat was already on King Street and moving away in the direction of Berry Head. He could see the top of her messy head as it passed between the flowers and gaps in the hedgerow. The last he heard from her was a muted giggle, as if she was sharing a joke with someone who walked beside her.

  16

  A Dark, Slowly Flowing Flood

  Hello Mr Logan

  Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been away, but it’s not every day a renowned horror writer writes to me about my book! I’m amazed you’ve even heard of Theophanic Mutations. I was in two minds whether to reply to the email because I assumed it must be fake. I checked your website and saw that this email address matches the one on your contact page.

  What’s equally surprising is that you have SPR files. You’ll know from my book that I was only able to track down three people who had an involvement with the organization, and who actually knew Hazzard, and they all attested to the fastidious record-keeping that went on at Hunter’s Tor Hall, and also confirmed the presence of a large archive. But where the ‘library’ eventually went to is a mystery.

  Your revelation has come over a decade too late, though! I did my best with what little information I could find at the time I was researching the book, but it was scant. Unfortunately, all three of my contacts have since passed away (they were elderly when I interviewed them).

  If I’m honest, there was never a great deal of interest from publishers for the material, which is why I went with an indie press. Even though the SPR was new ground, I never found enough to justify an entire book dedicated to the organization. That’s why the SPR only forms one third of Mutations. My efforts to publicize the book were not helped either by Hazzard’s collections being out of print. But I still wish I’d had access to your files!

  I assume you’ve been out to their old HQ? It’s in Devon. Your website says that’s where you live. Am I right in thinking that you’re researching a new book and thinking about basing something on them? I’d like to read that. But for verisimilitude, you’d have to make it very weird indeed.

  If our paths ever cross, I’d like to see those files, and also learn how you came into possession of them.

  Best

  Mark Fry

  The message had been sent earlier in the day, but while so shaken after the encounter on King Street, Seb had not checked his messages until the early evening.

  And it was not over. Ewan’s passing had not called time on his unwitting and unwilling association with whatever his old housemate had been involved in. Even worse, he was being pursued again. He must have been followed to that bench on King Street, and that odd creature probably knew where he lived too.

  So was she and Ewan part of the degenerate dregs of whatever Hazzard had started in the sixties?

  Hazzard was long gone, but if a relic of the SPR still existed, it would also explain Ewan’s possession of their official files.

  Seb feared there might be more of them too, and perhaps watching the house. Do they even need to be physically present?

  They had also murdered Ewan, in effect, by using an assassin that left no evidence beyond what was etched into a victim’s death mask.

  What did they want with him?

  Ghost-writing Ewan’s manifesto was off the table, and it was hard to imagine a reading and Q&A sufficing to keep them away. Much more was involved. The woman on King Street had mentioned an event, a meeting.

  I think you’re fucked, that’s what Ewan had said.

  Had the woman also implied that Seb would meet ‘Him’ too, before Ewan’s dreadful form had appeared on the quay? Him? Who was ‘Him’? Hazzard? He had been dead for decades, but considering what Seb had seen in the last few weeks, any assurance offered by a death notice was disputable.

  How had this happened, so quickly?

  He didn’t know what to do, or where to go. And the SPR was in Devon. Mark Fry had said so. There was even the mention of a house in the email: Hunter’s Tor, their ‘old HQ’.

  Where the hell is it? Seb used combinations of keywords to squeeze something, anything at all, out of the internet, but came away with nothing.

  If the author Mark Fry could tell him where the building was, he’d have a start at confirming the group’s persisting existence. Maybe this Fry could tell him other things too. If anyone could explain the peril that he was currently in, then it was this connoisseur of the weird and esoteric. Forewarned was forearmed.

  Seb replied to the email.

  Mr Fry

  Thank you so much for your message. This might sound unusual, but could we speak today?

  Seb added his phone number to the mail.

  This is a matter of urgency and I would be enormously grateful for any time you could spare to clear a few things up. Afraid I haven’t read your book yet (it’s still on order from the States), and I had no idea until I read your mail that the SPR were based in Devon. Whereabouts? Can you tell me? This might explain something of a personal nature that I have recently experienced. I also know almost nothing about the organization, or M. L. Hazzard, and have only discovered information about his society within the last fortnight.

  Kind regards

  Seb Logan

  Mark Fry wrote back within the hour.

  I’m just about to finish some lesson planning. Full day of classes tomorrow. No rest, aye? But I could call you in an hour or so. Or is that too late? That would be eleven-ish.

  Mark

  Seb quickly agreed to the time, then headed to the drinks cabinet.

  ‘Who was he?’ Mark Fry repeated Seb’s question, and followed it with a chuckle. ‘Hazzard used so many personas, I don’t think he was ever one person for long enough to establish himself as a single personality. And I doubt I uncovered them all. Every time something didn’t work out for him, he just reinvented himself and started over. He may even have been a composite of shifting identities with unique personalities. But I can tell you that he began in life as one Ernie Burridge, and that he ended life as his literary pseudonym, Montague Leop
old Hazzard.’

  ‘I had no idea.’ Seb near clawed at the phone to extract the information.

  Mark Fry had called Seb at eleven p.m. and spoke in a soft northern accent. He embellished most of what he said with an irrepressible chuckle. Seb took to him immediately. He might even have fooled himself that this was the first friendly voice he’d heard in years.

  ‘I don’t think anyone knew much about Hazzard when he was alive, Mr Logan, let alone after he died. At the time the SPR was active, most of those involved probably didn’t know who they were dealing with. By then, Hazzard was a much better confidence trickster and was covering his tracks more effectively.

  ‘The SPR were a very different animal to most other cults of that time too. As far as I could tell, no one ever broke silence from within the SPR. That was odd, considering what they were up to. Temple of the Last Days and the Process Church were similar in that respect, though in few others. And the SPR didn’t go out like the Temple and there were no Manson Family trials. They barely left a trace of their existence.’

  ‘Why the silence, the secrecy? This was a criminal organization?’

  ‘Well Hazzard had learned some hard lessons when he’d fallen foul of the law in the past, and had learned to conceal his past, I think. It was a different time in the UK too. Not so much public scrutiny. As for it being illegal, you know that he did time in prison?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Sorry, you haven’t read my book. And probably none of his stories beyond the two that Pantheon anthologized. That right?’

  ‘Yes. This is all news to me. There’s almost nothing online.’

  ‘You’re not wrong. But his writing was never more than a footnote in his life. Not enough money or adulation in it. He found being a cult leader, because that is what he was, far more lucrative when he hit his stride in the sixties.’