Secret Story

by Ramsey Campbell

  “I’ll leave you your job.” As if the thought had arrested his pint on its way to his mouth Tom said “Have you followed up those names he dropped yet?”

  Walt touched his smooth forehead with a dewy bottle of Lennon’s Lager, depositing a bead under his elevated hairline before lowering the glass stem past his long well-nigh rectangular suntanned face. “Which were those?”

  “He didn’t seem to want to talk about one of them if you remember, Tom.”

  “All the more reason to check up on it. If he really didn’t want you knowing he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  Vincent deposited his tankard of Best’s Best on a stained Sergeant Pepper beer-mat and wrinkled his small nose to hitch his large spectacles higher on his round widemouthed face. “You’ve got me interested,” he said.

  “There was a teacher who tried to stop him writing what he writes,” Patricia had to say. “All right, maybe I should have probed more. I’ve still got time.”

  “It starts now,” said Tom. “Here’s your murder man.”

  She stood up to welcome him. He was approaching at a pace that looked positively uncomfortable. He wore a grey suit and white shirt and discreetly silver tie, and her instincts told her that Kathy had chosen the outfit. “Walt, Vincent,” she said, “this is Dudley Smith.”

  “And you’ll remember me,” said Tom.

  “Name your poison,” Walt said, having grasped Dudley’s hand. “Let me ask you, have you poisoned anybody yet?”

  Dudley muttered something like a no as he ducked to the drinks list as if the weight of his broad face was too much for his chin. “If you want an adventure nobody’s had yet,” Vincent said, “there’s Harrison’s Hock.”

  “I’d better, then.”

  “What’s everyone having to eat?” Walt said.

  A mop-haired waitress in a Beatles uniform came to take their order. Tom plumped for George’s Grill, and Vincent for Pete’s Pizza. Patricia decided on John’s Jambalaya and Walt, having waited in vain for Dudley to make up his mind, opted for Paul’s Prawns. “Looks like you’re for Ringo’s Ratatouille,” Vincent said.

  “I’ll have that,” Dudley told the waitress.

  “You know it’s vegetarian,” Patricia felt impelled to murmur, only to be met by an unfriendly glance that inhibited her from pointing out how many other items named after members of bands the menu offered. She suspected that he was unused to this kind of social gathering, especially when he didn’t wait for the Beatles to leave before he remarked to Vincent “So you want to film my story.”

  “I’ll record this if you two don’t mind,” Patricia said.

  “You want to film my story.”

  Vincent seemed no more certain than Patricia whether Dudley was repeating himself for the benefit of the tape. “I think it could be a good starting point.”

  “It’ll be the opening, you mean.”

  “Or maybe just the back story. We’d have to make it more real if I was going to stage it.”

  Dudley shifted on his chair. “What’s not real about it?”

  “How did he get away with not being caught? There are security cameras on all the underground stations.”

  The way Dudley’s face stiffened and grew blank showed how close he was to his fiction, Patricia thought, and so did his grin of relief. “They couldn’t have been working.”

  “Pretty lucky for him.”

  “You can call him lucky if you want. Nobody’s ever caught him.”

  “Could the cameras have been vandalised?” Patricia suggested.

  “That’s right, of course they were.”

  “Let’s start with the basics,” Vincent said. “What’s his name?”

  “Nobody ever finds out who he is or anything about him.”

  “The public needs something to remember him by. They’re going to want to know more, and I am.”

  “He’s never had a name,” Dudley said with a frown that Tom’s camera trapped.

  “That doesn’t work for me. Let’s think of one that’ll stick in people’s minds. It could be so ordinary nobody would think he was a killer.”

  “Like Dudley Smith,” Tom commented, and captured several expressions in fewer seconds.

  “I don’t want to think about names just now.”

  “I should have asked you in advance,” Vincent said. “Maybe you’ll have an idea when you aren’t trying to. Let’s work on something else, then. How does he get caught?”

  Patricia had a notion that the camera was driving its subject deeper into himself. After a pause that a party of Japanese tourists filled with laughter he said “He never is.”

  “Even the greatest can make mistakes,” Patricia said, though she felt that was to overrate his character. “Sherlock Holmes caught Professor Moriarty, didn’t he?”

  “That was just,” Dudley said and gulped a mouthful of hock, “that was just a film.”

  “It was a story first.”

  “Right, an old story. Some people have got cleverer since then.”

  “You think a lot of yourself,” Tom said.

  As Dudley gave him a look that appeared to contain more than simple hostility, Vincent said “There has to be something he’s overlooked. That’s how real killers are caught.”

  “He wouldn’t. I know. He never would have.”

  “I’m going to tell you this is fascinating,” Walt said. “I’ve never met a writer who was closer to his creation. But listen, I guess you weren’t expecting to be asked to rethink your ideas. We could give you a day, why not a couple of days before the next session. What’s easiest for you?”

  “I know what Patricia said you were ace at,” Vincent said.

  “What?” Dudley demanded, and she felt as if he was doing so on her behalf.

  “Finding places for killing people.”

  “He means I said you were good with locations,” Patricia felt bound to translate.

  “So tell us a few our character can use. Tell us some he’s used.”

  “They won’t be any good for filming. I’ll need to find some new ones.”

  Was it possible for an author to be too proprietary about his material? Patricia was wondering if a thought along these lines was behind Tom’s grin when he spoke. “Here’s someone that knows her way around.”

  Patricia turned to see Shell tramping over, an inch or two in combat boots above her own five feet tall. She wore a combat outfit as well, complete with a peaked cap tugged low as if to give her permanently flushed face somewhere it could huddle even smaller and observe the world. “Hey, Shell,” Walt cried. “This is a surprise.”

  Shell jerked her knuckly chin up, almost raising the shadow of the cap past her eyes. “I thought we’d got to eat at places with ads in the Mouth.”

  “I guess I said it’d do no harm to support our advertisers. If you’re on your own I’m sure you’re welcome to join us, am I right?” When Patricia and quite possibly Dudley kept their reservations to themselves, Walt said “This is Shell Garridge, Dudley. She’s a comedian and she’s writing a column for us.”

  Dudley gave her half a grin. “If I called someone in a story that, nobody would believe me.”

  “It’s Shell all right. I made the rest up. It’s a joke.” She watched his grin fail to expand before she said “You’re the one that gets your kicks out of killing women.”

  Patricia wasn’t sure how much of the twitching of his face was produced by the flashes of Tom’s camera. “Gee, you’re as sharp as a razor,” Walt said, “but go easy on our competition winner.”

  “I never voted for him.” Shell’s stare at Dudley hadn’t relented. “If you didn’t enjoy thinking about it you wouldn’t write it,” she said.

  “The last I heard we were still allowed to like creating what we create,” Vincent said. “Don’t you like making up your jokes?”

  “I don’t make them up, I observe them. How about you, Dud?”

  Dudley’s lips made such an issue of what he was going to say that Patricia didn’
t expect it to be “My father used to call me that.”

  “Wonder what he was thinking?” Shell looked away from him at last to tell a larger female Beatle “I’ll have Elvis’s Enchiladas and a Jagger’s Jigger,” and then said “Don’t let me stop you geniuses working on your masterpiece.”

  “So where are we going to kill people?” Vincent said.

  “Someone could wake up and she’s tied up with something in her mouth on the edge of the roof of, I don’t know, where’s the highest building? And then she falls.”

  “She’d wake up a long time before you got her there,” Shell said and downed half her Jagger’s Jigger, “if she had the sense any woman’s got.”

  “It’s kind of close to an old serial, is it?” said Walt. “Not so much if she’s not rescued.”

  “All right, they’re laying concrete somewhere and he could tread her face in it, and she wouldn’t be able to make a noise. And if she wasn’t dead when it got hard she’d be stuck.”

  “You boys love things getting hard, don’t you,” Shell said. “What’s making you sit like that, Dud? Like tying women up and gagging us?”

  As Dudley finished squirming Vincent said “Nobody could shut you up, Shell. Any more ideas, Dudley?”

  “He could get into wherever she lives while she’s drying her hair. You know how hot those dryers get, and he could tie her up and—”

  “Are you maybe forcing it too much, Dudley?” said Walt. “I have to say you aren’t convincing me this is how a real killer would think.”

  “God, that’s a look,” Shell said. “You want to snap that, Tom.”

  As Tom photographed the scowl that appeared to have sent Dudley into a crouch, Vincent said “Do you think you need to see things more from your character’s viewpoint?”

  “There’s nobody else’s in that story,” Shell objected. “If that’s a woman’s view of anything I’ve just sprouted a knob.”

  “Try telling us about him,” Walt urged Dudley. “What’s his background? What’s his tale?”

  Patricia wondered if Dudley was in some kind of pain to be huddling so low. “I’ll have to think,” he muttered.

  “What’s anybody need to think about?” said Shell. “They’re all the same, his kind of thug. There’s so many these days they must be breeding.”

  “How would this work?” Walt said. “Tell Dudley how you see his character and maybe that’ll help him figure what he’s like.”

  “Nothing like you think,” Dudley said.

  “Hey, that sounds like a challenge. Let’s hear from you, Shell.”

  “I told you, he’ll be like they all are. Tortured animals when he was a kid. Scared of women. Hasn’t got a girlfriend. Likely brought up by a single mum. I’m not dissing them, but she’d have kept telling him how he was better than everyone else, treating him like every time he farted somebody should bottle it and sell it. Only deep down he’ll know he’s nothing and hate her for not stopping him knowing. That’ll be another reason he’s got it in for women even more than most men have. So whenever he’s feeling more than usually knobless, because I don’t reckon he’ll have much to play with and anyway he won’t be able to get it to salute, he goes creeping after women on their own so he can pretend he’s worth knowing about. Most of the time he can’t catch them, because women aren’t as stupid as him. Just now and then one of them’s unlucky, thinks he’s so pathetic he has to be harmless. Any chance of another drink without me having to screw anyone?”

  As Walt signalled at the empty glass she was brandishing, Vincent ventured to deal with the silence. “I wouldn’t mind him not managing to catch someone. We could see it from his point of view.”

  “He’s nothing like that, none of it,” Dudley said and scraped his chair backwards.

  “Looks like it went home if you’re off home,” Shell remarked.

  “I’m going to the toilet.”

  Patricia thought it might be time to suggest that Shell finish harassing him, but the buxom Beatle was wheeling dinner to their table. As Dudley emerged from the door marked Roadies next to Groupies, Shell called “What have you been doing to yourself in there? I hope you’re just trying to walk like John Wayne.”

  “I’ve no choice at the moment,” Dudley said through a fixed grin as he sank with some caution onto his chair.

  “Everyone’s got them. I expect you’d say your character’s got none and it’s all our fault, the rest of us.”

  “He’s got plenty and he makes them. He loves what he does.”

  Shell dismissed his vehemence with more laughter than humour. “You haven’t told us why you’ve got no choice.”

  “I was attacked at work.”

  “Why, for having a big head?”

  “A girl wanted me to find her a sex job.”

  “Don’t tell us you got close enough to catch something.”

  “I said I was attacked,” Dudley protested, wriggling gingerly on the chair. “Just because we aren’t allowed to offer table dancing and the rest of it.”

  Shell chewed a forkful of enchilada while she built up a smirk. “What’d she do, twist your equipment to make you deliver?”

  Dudley poked at his ratatouille with his knife, apparently in search of any element that might appeal to him. “She told her mother and she came in as well.”

  “You never got yourself attacked by two women at once. How much would you pay for that if you had to?” Shell’s mouth turned wryer as she enquired “What did you say to make them bend your banana?”

  “They kept saying I made out she was a prostitute.”

  “And you weren’t thinking anything like that.”

  “I may have thought it, but—”

  “What gives you the right to think about women that way? No wonder you tell nasty little stories. Women ought to cover themselves up or they’re whores and they deserve whatever men dream up to get their own back ’cos they feel threatened, is that what it’s about? And women that can see through men as well. Good on the girl and her mother. I hope they made you realise we aren’t things you can fantasise about however you like.”

  “They didn’t touch me. They wouldn’t have dared,” Dudley said, waving his knife. “They had to send her brother. He attacked me in the middle of a crowd of people. I called for help and nobody did anything.”

  “Pity it wasn’t the women instead of just another man putting on his hormones in the street. Funny all the same,” Shell spluttered and lifted a song-sheet napkin to wipe her mouth.

  Tom contented himself with a grunt that could have expressed amusement. Once the unresponsiveness of the rest of the party had made itself felt, Walt said “I hope you’re not in too much pain, Dudley, and I guess I’m speaking for just about everyone. Did you want to bounce off what Shell said before?”

  “I’ve said all I’ve got to say for now.”

  “Don’t say you’re sulking because I told you all about your character,” Shell cried. “That’s too sad.”

  “Give the guy a break,” Patricia thought Walt could have said rather earlier. “We aren’t here to stop him working.”

  Shell shovelled a large forkful of enchilada into her mouth and helped it down with the last of her second jigger. “Thanks for the nosh, Walt. If I’m not allowed to talk, no point me being here.”

  “Now who’s sulking?” Dudley said.

  Shell marched halfway to the door and swung around. “If anyone wants to hear what I’ve got to say,” she announced loud enough to hush the Japanese, “I’ll be at the Egremont Ferry on Dud’s side of the river on Friday. Hang on, though, it’s a girls’ night. You’ll just have to imagine what I may be saying about you, Dud.”

  As the door shut behind her, wafting in more of the heat that appeared to be condensing on Dudley’s brow, Walt said “Is it easier for you to think now?”

  “Not yet,” Dudley said and dragged his wrist across his forehead.

  “If Shell’s got you thinking how to kill someone nobody would blame you,” Vincent said. �
�Use it if you can. It’s all material.”

  “I’ll try,” Dudley said before risking a forkful of ratatouille that did away with whatever expression might otherwise have gained his face.

  “That’s it, eat hearty,” Walt urged. “Maybe when we’re through dining you’ll find it’s fed your brain.”

  Patricia saw that Dudley hadn’t much time for the notion, or perhaps only for revealing any more of his ideas. At least she needn’t blame herself. She shut off the tape recorder in case it was helping to inhibit him, but he seemed committed to clearing his plate. When a flash paled his face, she started as he did. It felt as if the tension Shell had left behind had exploded into lightning. Tom hadn’t sneaked a shot; the Japanese were photographing the interior. “Don’t worry, nobody’s spying on you,” she told Dudley, and caught sight of an answering glint in his eyes.

  NINE

  As Dudley took another pace up the concrete slipway, it began to rain. Across the river any lights in the warehouses appeared to have been put out by the nine o’clock darkness, while beside them the illuminated Liverpool waterfront glowed with a rainy aura. Beyond the top of the ramp he could see the low roof of the Egremont Ferry, but nobody would see him. Nevertheless when another wave of the rising tide sent him father up the slipway he crouched low as if he’d been seized by his bruised crotch. Before he could straighten up, the downpour that was visible across the river found him.

  He hadn’t waited for hours below the promenade to be driven away now. At least the rain wasn’t as cold as the waves that had taken him unawares just once. In a very few moments it soaked his hair and was streaming down his face as it plastered his shirt and trousers to him. It enraged him, and so did a wave that took advantage of his distraction to slop over his ankle and spill into his shoe. None of this made him show his teeth in an expression he shared with the dark, however. It was the woman’s amplified voice that blundered out of the Egremont Ferry. “Here’s the treat you’ve been waiting for, girls. Shell Garridge and her world of wankers.”