Secret Story

by Ramsey Campbell

  Kathy saw that all the emotions she’d suffered since leaving his room had both exhausted her and wasted her time. “Am I allowed to ask how?” she said.

  “By being a writer. I thought you thought that’s what I am.”

  “You know I do. You know you are.” Being emptied of her accumulated feelings had left room for hunger, but as she lifted her fork she said “And you’re going to be filmed. It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Not as much as some things.”

  “Who’d have thought you’d be meeting film stars? And they’ll be meeting a star as well,” she was quick to add. “If it’s a workday I can always call the office and tell them you’re sick.”

  “You won’t have to. Mrs Wimbourne is giving me time off. I’ve let her know what’s most important.”

  “That’s better still. We don’t need people thinking you’re unhealthy when you aren’t.” Deep down she felt she might almost have wished sickness on him that morning by proposing the excuse. At least he was making up for it now, and she was happy to regain her appetite in sympathy with his. She wondered if the reason behind it could be that he’d met a girl he cared for, but she mustn’t risk putting him off by questioning him. She had to let him tell her in his own time, however frustrating that might become—indeed, already was. “We’re two of the healthiest people I know,” she declared and stopped herself from saying more with a forkful so tasty it did away with any need to think.

  TWENTY

  Trying to plan was useless, Dudley told himself. It simply made the inside of his skull feel scraped bare of thoughts. Life would come to him as always, and he only had to lie in wait for it. Once he’d met the man who would play him in the film, he would be able to think of dialogue that was worthy of his character. He had to let working with Vincent ease some of the pressure on him. If Vincent thought of any tricks sufficiently clever for Mr Killogram to perform, Dudley mustn’t resent it just because they wouldn’t be his. Nevertheless waiting frustrated him so much that he couldn’t stop pacing the station platform as if he was bearing the empty relentlessly sunlit receptacle of his skull up and down in the hope that inspiration might stray into it. He hadn’t caught a solitary notion by the time the train from West Kirby pulled into Birkenhead North.

  It was crowded with pensioners travelling on passes. With his back to the engine he had the impression that a scrap of the world was being paraded past him for his approval. He imagined rolling someone down the grassy banks into the path of a train, but who? His gaze ranged over pallid pouchy faces, some of which appeared to be in the process of leaving their gender behind—he had to look twice to be certain that one balding figure was female—and then his attention was drawn to the far end of the carriage as if the banks racing by on both sides had snatched it with them. Watching him from the farthest seat was Patricia Martingale.

  As their eyes met she replaced with a smile whatever expression she’d worn. The train was slowing in anticipation of Birkenhead Park. When an unsteady couple in the middle of the carriage rose to their feet, she pointed to the vacated seats. Lurching down the train to join her felt like one of those scenes in films his mother liked where characters ran into each other’s arms, except that this made him grin even wider. He regained control of his mouth as he sat opposite her and objected “You never said you lived over here.”

  “Maybe we should exchange a few secrets if I can write about yours.”

  She wouldn’t be writing once she learned his. He felt a little wistful at the possibility of never reading how she would have rounded off her appreciation of him. He was silent while the train approached Conway Park, where Mrs Wimbourne could no longer make him appear to be reduced to her level. Patricia leaned forward into the spotlight of the sun to ask “Any sign of a story yet?”

  He tried not to grin at the way the sight answered the question. “Working on one,” he said.

  “Any chance of tomorrow or earlier? If we don’t have it by then we’ll need to save it for the next issue.”

  “This is the next issue.”

  “The one after that, I mean. Maybe the longer we keep people waiting the more excited they’ll get about you.”

  The light receded behind her as the tunnel drew over him. His mind was feeling scraped again, and his question came out harsh. “Have you finished writing about me yet?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “When am I going to see it?”

  A copy of her tribute would prove that he was the last person who could have wanted to harm her, and he stared at her until she said “I’ll do a last little bit of work on it and then perhaps I can give you a peek.”

  The roar of the tunnel through the open window silenced her. She glanced at him only occasionally as the train sped to Hamilton Square and under the river to Liverpool. He didn’t mind how closely she observed him; all she would be seeing was the famous writer. She left the train ahead of him at James Street and preceded him into an uninspiring lift, no more than a grey metal cell so cramped that it almost pressed her against him. It raised them to a corridor too short to be useful, out of sight of the ticket collector but not of the escalator from the platform. A second lift was several times the size of the first but offered even less, given the proximity of the staff. In any case, the station setting would bring him too close to repeating himself.

  At the bottom of James Street three lanes of traffic raced along either side of the dock road. It occurred to him that if you were holding a girl’s hand you could fling her in front of a car or better still a lorry, but it would have to be late at night with limited visibility, and she would need to be more at ease with him. The Albert Dock was useless—cars, tourists, shoppers, guards on patrol—but beyond the glass doors to which Patricia had the combination, the stony corridor and walled-in stairs lit by luminous white bricks seemed promising: suppose somebody unknown followed her in? Then he noticed the dead eye of a security lens up in a corner, and only just refrained from grimacing at it as he followed her to the office of the Mersey Mouth.

  Six men of about his age were seated on chubby leather sofas in the reception area, between a table low enough to kneel at and a brick wall full of Tom Burke’s misty views of Merseyside. If they were the actors, none of them much resembled Dudley. He attempted to decide whether that was to the good as the scientifically tanned girl behind the desk gave him a generalised smile. Patricia led him through the solitary right-hand door of an inner corridor, into a long room occupied only by Vincent. A line of chairs huddled against the conference table that had been pushed to the side of the room overlooking the river, leaving three chairs with their backs to the wall at the far end. “Did you check the hopefuls?” Vincent said in not too low a voice. “Any first impressions?”

  “They don’t look like Mr Killogram. They don’t look like anyone.”

  “He’s meant to be somebody nobody notices.”

  “I thought they were meant to be stars. I’ve never seen any of them. What have they been in?”

  “Plays more than film work, some of them. Commercials, some have, or local soaps. They’re all good, that’s the main thing.” When Dudley met that with a blank stare, Vincent shook his head vigorously enough to set his round face quivering and almost to dislodge his glasses. “We’d have to spend our entire budget and then some on a major star,” he said. “This is Merseyside, not Hollywood.”

  “I thought Walt only hired the best.”

  “We’re all proof of that, aren’t we?” Patricia intervened. “Look at it this way. If whoever you choose had a familiar face, people would see that and not your character.”

  Dudley grudged acknowledging this when she’d presumed to class him with herself and Vincent. “Let’s get on with choosing,” he told Vincent.

  “I’ll start them off,” Patricia said.

  He resented how she was trying to involve herself, returning with the first of the actors. He saw little reason why she should feel entitled to sit next to him and Vincent, and might have sa
id so except for concentrating on the hopeful. “Bob Nolan,” the bony sharp-faced actor said.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” said Vincent.

  “You don’t know me, but you will. I’m a writer. Murder stories, they’re my meat. Want to hear something funny? They’re all real. How do I know? Because I did them . . .”

  His voice was too high and his face too eager to please. He looked ready to break into a grin, but the wrong sort—not the way a predator might bare his teeth when he saw his kill. By the time the actor completed the opening voice-over Dudley was almost sure that he’d been poking fun at the character. He could hardly wait for Nolan to leave so that he could turn on Vincent. “Do you think it’s funny?” he demanded.

  “Wouldn’t Mr Killogram think so?”

  “I’d say witty.”

  “Try and make him if you like.”

  Dudley strove to think of ways while he observed the procession of men who wanted to be him. One had too booming a voice to be unobtrusive, or could the point be that he was so noticeable that nobody would ever suspect him? Another crouched as if he didn’t think he was already small enough to go unnoticed, but he was so nondescript that Dudley felt insulted. The next actor watched his audience sidelong throughout his speech as if he was ashamed to admit to being Mr Killogram. By contrast, the fourth man entered the room with an imperfectly restrained swagger. “Colin Holmes,” he announced.

  For once Dudley managed to head Vincent off from speaking. “In your own time.”

  As the actor stepped forward he seemed to increase more in stature than his approach quite accounted for. He halted halfway up the room and held Patricia with his gaze. “You don’t know me, but you will . . .”

  His originally somewhat harsh voice had grown soft and penetrating. If he or Mr Killogram was concealing any amusement, there was no question that it was deepest black. As soon as he’d finished speaking he swung around and stalked from the room. Patricia shivered or returned to herself. “That was convincing,” she murmured. “I’d say he wanted the job.”

  Her assumption that she was entitled to comment would have angered Dudley more if he hadn’t shared her view. He contained his impatience as he watched the final candidate, who rested his hands on his stomach as though praying or to cover up its prominence. The gesture was enough without his uneasily fluctuating voice to put Dudley against him. He didn’t bother to let the man out of earshot before saying “I know who I want.”

  “Let me guess,” Patricia said, but only that until they and Vincent were alone. “The one I spoke up for.”

  Just in time not to betray his indignation Dudley saw that by siding with her he would be demonstrating one more reason why he could never have harmed her. “Shall we have him back in and send the rest off?” Vincent said.

  Patricia was on his way before Dudley had time to dispatch her. “Thank you all for coming,” he heard her say, and “We’d like you to rejoin us.” A sudden snigger overtook him, to be disguised as a cough. If she was so anxious to present herself as important to his work, she was bound to get her wish. He had to grin at her, and perhaps Colin Holmes thought the renewed greeting was aimed at him as well, because he widened his eyes and mouth. “We think you’re it,” Vincent informed him.

  The actor’s face was as strong as Dudley’s reflection, as sharply defined and angular, with an expressively mobile mouth and nostrils that seemed to flare with eagerness. “I must say I’m flattered,” he said in his softened voice.

  “Colin, this is Dudley Smith. The man behind Mr Killogram.”

  “Then he’s the man I was hoping to meet,” Colin Holmes said.

  Dudley stood up and stuck his hand out. “Call me Dudley,” he offered.

  The actor strode forward to grip his hand fiercely enough to hurt. Dudley clasped his throbbing fist with his other hand and lifted them to signal victory. “And I’ll call you Mr Killogram. What else have you been in?”

  “Soaps mostly. I shouldn’t think you watch that kind of thing. Too ordinary for you.”

  Was there a hint of pique in his wide blue eyes? “They are but you aren’t,” Dudley said.

  “I won’t be,” Mr Killogram said as the receptionist leaned into the room to announce “The rest of the actors are here.”

  “We don’t need any,” Dudley called. “We’ve got him. Meet Mr Killogram.”

  She responded with a frown so small he assumed it was meant to be charming, though it wasn’t directed especially at him. “Who?”

  “The hero. He’s the only man we need just now, isn’t he, Vincent?”

  “I wasn’t talking about men,” the receptionist said.

  Neither Patricia nor Vincent seemed disposed to contradict her. Only Mr Killogram allowed him to glimpse some amusement, enough to convince him that they had more in common than the others might have guessed. When the first victim—a tall slim creature named Jane Bancroft—applied for his and Mr Killogram’s approval, he felt as if he spoke for both of them by remarking “That’s a good name for an actress.”

  “Can we try some of the train scene?” Vincent directed her. “It’s just to see how you and Colin work together. It won’t be in the film.”

  Mr Killogram gazed into Dudley’s face. “Will that be a problem?”

  “It’s just some family’s making a stink. They keep saying it’s like how some girl died years and years ago.”

  Before Dudley finished sensing that Mr Killogram felt as outraged as he did, the actor took his script to the end of the room and waited for Jane Bancroft to join him. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said.

  She straightened herself a last inch until she was almost as tall as the actor, and Dudley imagined Patricia straining to be taller than his own shoulder. “Why shouldn’t I be?” Jane Bancroft said.

  His voice grew even softer yet no less audible. “I don’t mean you. That’s where I’m starting from.”

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she told the audience as well.

  “Whenever you’re ready. Go again? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  She peered at him as if to determine who he thought he was. “I told you once.”

  That was Dudley’s line, and he felt as if he was throwing his voice. “I’m guessing you haven’t got a boyfriend,” Mr Killogram said.

  While Vincent had cut some of the dialogue, Dudley relished the urgency this lent to Mr Killogram. “Maybe,” Jane Bancroft said with a wariness that sounded coy to him.

  “Are you looking for one?”

  “I don’t need to look.”

  “How about one that’s shown he can take care of you?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Two can twice as well.”

  Mr Killogram was pacing her, boxing her in as she followed the wall back and forth. “This isn’t the way,” she said abruptly. “I’ve gone wrong.”

  “You can’t with me.”

  Was that Vincent’s line? No, it was Mr Killogram’s own. It and the way he was trapping the girl with his deft manoeuvres made Dudley’s stomach deliciously tight with anticipation, and so did her struggle not to appear nervous as she tried to dodge. “What’s the matter with you?” she gasped.

  “We shouldn’t part like this after all we’ve been through. At least let me give you my number.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Or give me yours.”

  “Thanks even less,” Jane Bancroft said and trotted a few sidelong steps that she seemed to want to be comical. “Look, I was pretending I was lost before.”

  It might have been a mating dance if Mr Killogram had gone in for that sort of nonsense. Warmth and tightness spread down from Dudley’s stomach as Mr Killogram said “I’ll escort you just the same.”

  Throughout the dialogue Mr Killogram had kept his back to the audience, a stance that helped Dudley feel the other was performing his secret thoughts. He didn’t see what expression Mr Killogram turned on her to make her stiffen in order, he was certain, not to flinch. “Sorry. Sorry
,” she said, more to Vincent than to him. “I didn’t realise it was meant to be this serious.”

  “What did you think it was meant to be?” Dudley asked through some kind of a grin.

  “More fun. A nice acting job. I hope I didn’t waste too much of your time. I don’t suppose you’ll keep me in mind for your next film,” she said entirely to Vincent, and had barely finished when she fled.

  Vincent threw up his hands and then snatched off his glasses to embellish a second take of the gesticulation. “Let’s try not to scare anyone else away,” he said.

  As the pleasurable ache faded from his middle Dudley said “Who are you saying did?”

  “You might want to stop suggesting you don’t think they’re actors,” Patricia said.

  He mustn’t draw attention to their disagreement. “You can tell me if I am.”

  “Who’s next?” Mr Killogram was eager to know. “Don’t say they’ve all bolted.”

  “Better tone it down a notch or they might,” Vincent said, “and can we see your face this time?”

  Mr Killogram swung around to display a grin Dudley would have been proud to sport. “Here it is,” he said as his next victim ventured into the room.

  Did she think he was referring to her? Mr Killogram might have. “Lorna Major,” she announced, frowning at him.

  “That’s Mr Killogram,” Dudley said.

  “He means Colin’s playing him,” Vincent quite unnecessarily explained. “He’ll take you through the train scene.”

  Mr Killogram faced her at once, presenting his profile to the audience. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I told you once.”

  The swiftness of her retort came close to throwing Dudley, but not Mr Killogram. As they enacted the scene he prowled back and forth, hemming the girl in while he showed her and the watchers an expression of wide-eyed rationality that he kept appearing to strengthen by lifting his upturned outstretched hands. The girl refused to look away, and her determination to confront him prevented her escape. Dudley was so sure he could invent a suitable fate for her that when Vincent asked him for his thoughts he had to restrain them. “She’ll be good,” he said. “I’d have her.”