‘Spike?’ I murmured, my throat dry and my voice cracking.
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the figure, walking softly towards me and playing a torch on my face. ‘It’s Frampton; I’m the janitor. What are you doing here?’
‘Thursday Next, SpecOps. There’s an officer in need of assistance in Lecture Room four.’
‘Really?’ said the janitor. ‘Probably followed some kids in. Well, you’d better come with me.’
I looked at him carefully; a glint from one of the exit lights caught the metallic gold of a crucifix around his throat. I breathed a sigh of relief.
He walked swiftly down the corridor; I followed closely.
‘This place is so old it’s embarrassing,’ muttered Frampton, leading me down a second corridor off the first. ‘Who did you say you were looking for?’
‘An officer named Stoker.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He looks for vampires.’
‘Really? Last infestation we had was in ‘78. Student by the name of Parkes. Went backpacking in the Forest of Dean and came back a changed man.’
‘Backpacking in the Forest of Dean?’ I repeated incredulously, ‘Whatever possessed him to do that?’
The janitor laughed. ‘Good choice of words. Symonds Yat wasn’t as secure then as it is now; we’ve taken precautions too. The whole college was consecrated as a church.’
He flashed his torch at a large crucifix on the wall.
‘We won’t have that sort of problem here again. This is it, Lecture Room four.’
He pushed open the door and we entered the large room. Frampton’s torch flicked across the oak-panelled walls but a quick search revealed nothing of Spike.
‘Are you sure he said number four?’
‘Certain,’ I replied. ‘He—‘
There was a sound of breaking glass and a muffled curse a small way distant.
‘What was that?’
‘Probably rats,’ said Frampton.
‘And the swearing?’
‘Uncultured rats. Come, let’s—‘
But I had moved off to a doorway beyond the lecture room, taking Frampton’s torch with me. I pushed the door open wide and an appalling stench of formaldehyde greeted me. The room was an anatomy lab, dark except for the moonlight coming in through the window. Against the wall were rack upon rack of pickled specimens: mostly animal parts, but a few human parts too, things for the boys to frighten the girls with during sixth-form biology lessons. There was the sound of a jar smashing, and I flicked the torch across to the other side of the room. My heart froze. Spike, his self-control having apparently abandoned him, had just thrown a specimen jar to the floor and was now scrabbling in the mess. Around his feet were the smashed remnants of many jars; it had obviously been quite a feast.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, the revulsion rising in my throat.
Spike turned to me, his eyes gaping, his mouth cut from the glass, a look of horror and fear in his eyes.
‘I was hungry!’ he howled. ‘And I couldn’t find any mice—!’
He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered his thoughts with a Herculean effort, then stammered:
‘My medication—!’
I forced down a foul gagging sensation and opened the medical kit to reveal a Biro-like syringe. I undipped the pen and moved towards Spike, who had collapsed in a heap and was sobbing silently. There was a hand on my shoulder, and I whirled round. It was Frampton, and he had an unpleasant smile on his lips.
‘Let him carry on. He’s happier this way, believe me.’
I pushed his hand off my shoulder and for an instant my flesh touched his. It was icy cold and I felt a shiver ran through me. I backed away hastily and tripped over a stool, falling heavily and dropping Spike’s injector. I drew my gun and pointed it at Frampton, who seemed to be gliding towards me without walking. I didn’t shout a warning; I just pulled the trigger and a bright flash illuminated the lab. Frampton was catapulted across the floor towards the blackboard and fell in a heap. I scrabbled around for the injector, found it and ran towards Spike, who had picked up a particularly large jar with a very recognisable and unspeakably unpleasant specimen in it. I flashed the torch into his frightened eyes and he mumbled:
‘Help me!’
I pulled the cap off the injector and jabbed it in his leg, giving him two clicks. I took the jar from him and he sat down looking confused.
‘Spike? Say something.’
‘That really hurt.’
But it wasn’t Spike talking. It was Frampton. He had picked himself up from the floor and was tying what looked like a lobster bib around his neck.
‘Time for dinner, Miss Next. I won’t trouble you with the menu because… well, you’re it!’
The door of the biology lab slammed shut and I looked at my gun; it was now about as much use as a water pistol.
I got up and backed away from Frampton, who once more seemed to glide towards me. I fired again but Frampton was ready for it; he simply winced and continued.
‘But the crucifix—!’ I shouted, backing towards the wall. ‘And this college—it’s a church!’
‘Little fool!’ replied Frampton. ‘Do you really suppose that Christianity has a monopoly on people like me?’
I looked around desperately for some kind of weapon, but apart from a chair—which drew out of my grasp as I reached for it—there was nothing.
‘Thoon be over.’ Frampton grinned. He had sprouted an inordinately long single front tooth which grew over his bottom lip and gave him a lisp.
‘Thoon you will be joining Thpike for a little thnack. After I have finithed!’
He smiled and opened his mouth wider; impossibly so—it seemed almost to fill the room. Quite suddenly Frampton stopped, looked confused and rolled his eyes up into his sockets. He grew grey, then black, then seemed to slough away like burned pages in a book. There was a musty smell of decay that almost blotted out the reek of formaldehyde, and soon there was nothing at all except Spike, who was still holding the sharpened stake that had so quickly destroyed the abomination that had been Frampton.
‘You okay?’ he asked with a triumphant look on his face.
‘I’m good,’ I replied shakily. ‘Yuh, I feel okay. Well, now I do, anyway.’
He lowered the stake and drew me up a chair as the lights flickered back on.
‘Thanks for that,’ I murmured. ‘My blood is my own and I aim to keep it that way. I guess I owe you.’
‘No way, Thursday. I owe you. No one’s ever answered a call of mine before. The symptoms came on as I was sniffing out Fang here. Couldn’t get to my injector in time…’
His voice trailed off as he looked forlornly at the broken glass and spilled formaldehyde.
‘They’ll not believe this report,’ I murmured.
‘They don’t even read my reports, Thursday. Last person who did is now in therapy. So they just file ‘em and forget ‘em. Like me, I guess. It’s a lonely life.’
I hugged him on an impulse. It seemed the right thing to do. He returned it gratefully; I didn’t expect that he had touched another human for a while. He had a musty smell about him—but it wasn’t unpleasant; it was like damp earth after a spring rain shower. He was muscular and at least a foot taller than me, and as we stood in each other’s arms I suddenly felt as though I really wouldn’t mind if he made a move on me. Perhaps it was the closeness of the experience that we had just shared; I don’t know—I don’t usually act in this manner. I moved my hand up his back and on to his neck, but I had misjudged the man and the occasion. He slowly let me go and smiled, shaking his head softly. The moment had passed.
I paused for a second and then holstered my automatic carefully.
‘What about Frampton?’
‘He was good,’ admitted Spike, ‘real good. Didn’t feed on his own turf and was never greedy; just enough to sate his thirst.’
We walked out of the lab and back down the corridor.
‘So how did you get
on to him?’ I asked.
‘Luck. He was behind me in his motor at the lights. Looked in the rear-view mirror—empty car. Followed him and pow; I knew he was a sucker soon as he spoke. I would have staked him earlier ‘cept for my trouble.’
We stopped at his squad car.
‘And what about you? Any chance of a cure?’
‘Top virologists are doing their stuff but for the moment I just keep my injector handy and stay out of the sunlight.’
He stopped, took out his automatic and pulled the slide back, ejecting a single shiny bullet.
‘Silver,’ he explained as he gave it to me. ‘I never use anything else.’ He looked up at the clouds. They were coloured orange by the streetlamps and moved rapidly across the sky. There’s weird shit about; take it for luck.’
‘I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing.’
‘My point precisely. God keep you, Thursday, and thanks once again.’
I took the shiny bullet and started to say something but he was gone already, rummaging in the boot of his squad car for a vacuum cleaner and a bin-liner. For him, the night was far from over.
18. Landen again
‘When I first heard that Thursday was back in Swindon I was delighted. I never fully believed that she had gone for good. I had heard of her problems in London and I also knew how she reacted to stress. All of us who returned from the Peninsula were to become experts on the subject whether we liked it or not…’
Landen Parke-Laine. Memoirs of a Crimean Veteran
‘I told Mr Parke-Laine that you had haemorrhagic fever but he didn’t believe me,’ said Liz on reception at the Finis.
‘The flu would have been more believable.’
Liz was unrepentant.
‘He sent you this.’
She passed across an envelope. I was tempted just to throw it in the bin, but I felt slightly guilty about giving him a hard time when we had met the previous night. The envelope contained a numbered ticket for Richard III which played every Friday evening at the Ritz Theatre. We used to attend almost every week when we were going out together. It was a good show; the audience made it even better.
‘When did you last go out with him?’ asked Liz, sensing my indecision.
I looked up. ‘Ten years ago.’
‘Ten years? Go, darling. Most of my boyfriends would have trouble even remembering that long.’
I looked at the ticket again. The show began in an hour.
‘Is that why you left Swindon?’ asked Liz, keen to be of some help.
I nodded.
‘And did you keep a photo of him all those years?’
I nodded again.
‘I see,’ replied Liz thoughtfully. ‘I’ll call a cab while you go and change.’
It was good advice, and I trotted off to my room, had a quick shower and tried on almost everything in my wardrobe. I put my hair up, then down again, then up once more, muttered ‘too boyish’ at a pair of trousers and slipped into a dress. I selected some earrings that Landen had given me and locked my automatic in the room safe. I just had time to put on a small amount of eyeliner before I was whisked through the streets of Swindon by a taxi-driver, an ex-Marine involved in the retaking of Balaclava in ‘61. We chatted about the Crimea. He didn’t know where Colonel Phelps was going to talk either, but when he found out, he said, he would heckle for all his worth.
The Ritz looked a good deal shabbier. I doubted whether it had been repainted at all since we were last here. The gold-painted plaster mouldings around the stage were dusty and unwashed, the curtain stained with the rainwater that had leaked in. No other play but Richard HI had been performed here for over fifteen years, and the theatre itself had no company to speak of, just a backstage crew and a prompter. All the actors were pulled from an audience who had been to the play so many times they knew it back to front. Casting was usually done only half an hour before curtain-up.
Occasionally seasoned actors and actresses would make guest appearances, although never by advance booking. If they were at a loose end late Friday night, perhaps after their performance at one of Swindon’s three other theatres, they might come along and be selected by the manager as an impromptu treat for audience and cast. Just the week before, a local Richard III had found himself playing opposite Lola Vavoom, currently starring in the musical stage version of Fancy-free in Ludlow at the Swindon Crucible. It had been something of a treat for him; he didn’t need to buy dinner for a month.
Landen was waiting for me outside the theatre. It was five minutes to curtain-up and the actors had already been chosen by the manager, plus one in reserve in case anybody had a bad attack of the nerves and started chucking up in the loo.
‘Thanks for coming,’ said Landen.
‘Yeah,’ I replied, kissing him on the cheek and taking a deep breath of his aftershave. It was Bodmin; I recognised the earthy scent.
‘How was your first day?’ he asked.
‘Kidnappings, vampires, shot dead a suspect, lost a witness to a gunman, Goliath tried to have me killed, puncture on the car. Usual shit.’
‘A puncture? Really?’
‘Not really. I made that bit up. Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday. I think I’m taking my work a bit too seriously.’
‘If you weren’t,’ agreed Landen with an understanding smile, ‘I’d really start worrying. Come on, it’s nearly curtain-up.’
He took my arm in a familiar gesture that I liked and led me inside. The theatregoers were chattering noisily, the brightly coloured costumes of the unchosen actors in the audience giving a gala flavour to the occasion. I felt the electricity in the air and realised how much I had missed it. We found our seats.
‘When was the last time you were here?’ I asked when we were comfortable.
‘With you,’ replied Landen, standing up and applauding wildly as the curtain opened to a wheezing alarum. I did the same.
A compere in a black cloak with red lining swept on to the stage.
‘Welcome, all you Will-loving R3 fans, to the Ritz at Swindon, where tonight (drum roll), for your DELECTATION, for your GRATIFICATION, for your EDIFICATION, for your JOLLIFICATION, for your SHAKESPEARIFICATION, we will perform Will’s Richard III, for the audience, to the audience, BY THE AUDIENCE!’
The crowd cheered and he held up his hands to quieten them.
‘But before we start—! Let’s give a big hand to Ralph and Thea Swanavon who are attending for their two-hundredth time!!’
The crowd applauded wildly as Ralph and Thea walked on. They were dressed as Richard and Lady Anne and bowed and curtsied to the audience, who threw flowers on to the stage.
‘Ralph has played Dick the shit twenty-seven times and Creepy Clarence twelve times; Thea has been Lady Anne thirty-one times and Margaret eight times!’
The audience stamped their feet and whistled.
‘So to commemorate their bicentennial, they will be playing opposite each other for the first time!’
They respectively bowed and curtsied once more as the audience applauded and the curtains closed, jammed, opened slightly and closed again.
There was a moment’s pause and then the curtains reopened, revealing Richard at the side of the stage. He limped up and down the boards, eyeing the audience malevolently past a particularly ugly prosthetic nose.
‘Ham!’ yelled someone at the back.
Richard opened his mouth to speak and the whole audience erupted in unison:
‘ When is the winter of our discontent?’
‘Now,’ replied Richard with a cruel smile, ‘is the winter of our discontent…’
A cheer went up to the chandeliers high in the ceiling. The play had begun. Landen and I cheered with them. Richard III was one of those plays that could repeal the law of diminishing returns; it could be enjoyed over and over again.
‘… made glorious summer by this son of York,’ continued Richard, limping to the side of the stage. On the word ‘summer’ six hundred people placed sunglasses on and looked
up at an imaginary sun.
‘… and all the clouds that lower’d upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried… ’
‘When were our brows bound?’ yelled the audience.
‘Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,’ continued Richard, ignoring them completely. We must have been to this show thirty times and even now I could feel myself mouthing the words with the actor on the stage.
‘… to the lascivious pleasing of a lute… ” continued Richard, saying ‘lute’ loudly as several other members of the audience gave alternative suggestions.
‘Piano!’ shouted out one person near us. ‘Bagpipes!’ said another. Someone at the back, missing the cue entirely, shouted in a high voice ‘Euphonium!’ halfway through the next line and was drowned out when the audience yelled: ‘Pick a card!’ as Richard told them that he ‘was not shaped for sportive tricks…’
Landen looked across at me and smiled. I returned the smile instinctively; I was enjoying myself.
‘I that am rudely stamp’d…’ muttered Richard, as the audience took its cue and stamped the ground with a crash that reverberated around the auditorium.
Landen and I had never wanted to tread the boards ourselves and had never troubled to dress up. The production was the only show at the Ritz; it was empty the rest of the week. Keen amateur thespians and Shakespeare fans would drive from all over the country to participate, and it was never anything but a full house. A few years back a French troupe performed the play in French to rapturous applause; a troupe went to Sauvignon a few months later to repay the gesture.
‘… and that so lamely and unfashionable, that dogs bark at me…’
The audience barked loudly, making a noise like feeding time at the dogs’ home. Outside in the alley several cats new to the vicinity momentarily flinched, while more seasoned moggies looked at each other with a knowing smile.
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