The Shift Key

by John Brunner

  ‘You could try Harry Vikes, I suppose,’ Stick said in a doubtful tone. Though I don’t imagine he’s in the sweetest of tempers. He got his nose broken in a fight with Ken Pecklow yesterday morning, then one of his calves died, then his wife marched into the Marriage, drunk out of her head, and called him a limb of Satan and knocked a lot of beer over people … I was there. I saw that. Any use to your paper?’

  ‘Not really,’ Wallace sighed, wondering what his editor would say if he found he’d sent two of his best staffers on the trail of a non-story. ‘Isn’t there anybody else?’

  Inspiration dawned on Stick’s face. ‘Have you tried Dr Gloze?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, he’ll still be taking morning surgery, I suppose. In that house over there, see? With the brass plate on the porch? He was one of the people that something peculiar happened to.’

  ‘Really!’ Wallace’s professional ears pricked up. ‘Thanks a million! Hey, Lisa!’ – catching sight of her as she emerged from the churchyard and hastening over to arrange a rendezvous at the hotel.

  It did not exactly delight him when a moment later he spotted, getting out of a Ford Sierra with a car-phone aerial that had just pulled up to the petrol-pumps of the Fidgers’ garage, one of his colleagues, if not a direct rival. He’d been prepared to bump into fellow-reporters, but why in the world should an up-market paper like the Globe think it worth sending Donald Prosher here?

  And wasn’t his red-haired passenger Wilf Spout, who’d won an award last year for his coverage of those kids in Cumbria suffering from radiation sickness?

  Lord! They must know something we don’t! But what?

  At least this was only Friday. He made a mental note to book a room for himself and Lisa at the hotel before Don and Wilf and everybody else got into the act …

  ‘I don’t quite know how to broach this,’ Wallace said with feigned diffidence as he and Lisa, and Steven, handed back their menus to the waitress. ‘But I have it on good authority’ – he lowered his voice – ‘that you yourself were affected by the curious phenomenon that overtook this village yesterday.’

  He glanced around. At least Don and Wilf hadn’t found their way here yet. But what might they be up to while he was otherwise engaged? Were they maybe heading for the Court, to talk to the Goodsir family …?

  This was going to have to be a short lunch. Pray that the service would be quick! He composed himself to listen to Steven’s answer.

  The young doctor was saying, ‘Well, I don’t know how much I’m justified in saying, to be frank.’

  ‘The truth as you see it,’ Wallace countered solemnly. ‘That’s all I ever ask for. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with my work …?”

  A brief apologetic smile. ‘I don’t see the Banner very often, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You and millions of others!’ Wallace said heartily, and scowled at Lisa for wincing because she’d heard the line uncountable times. ‘But … Well, let me put it this way. If not tomorrow, then on Sunday at the latest –’

  ‘The name of Weyharrow is going to be splashed all over the papers, and probably our TV screens as well,’ Steven cut in, his tone resigned. ‘Yes, I’m quite aware of that.’

  Wallace blinked. ‘May one inquire why you’re so sure?’

  ‘Well, given that our local reporter did her best to – No, I oughtn’t to say that. It’s her job, after all.’

  ‘Are you by any chance referring to Jenny Severance? Is she a friend of yours?’ And on the strength of two nods: ‘Do you happen to know how I can get hold of her? I’ve rung her paper and …’

  Steven was shrugging apologetically. ‘I’ve no idea. I only met her yesterday. Isn’t she – ah – following up the story, like you?’

  There was a pause full of incomprehension, confusion and bewilderment.

  Into it, from the doorway of the restaurant, broke a shrill cry.

  ‘Is the doctor here?’

  All eyes turned to see a tall, brown-haired woman with tears streaming down her face, smearing wide greyish lines of diluted mascara across her cheeks. She spotted Steven and rushed over.

  ‘You are Dr Gloze, aren’t you? I’m terribly sorry, I don’t want to interrupt … but I can’t get hold of Mr Book, and Yvonne says she doesn’t know when he’ll be back, and I –!’

  She clenched her fists and pressed them hard against her temples.

  ‘She’s dead!’ she forced out. ‘And I wouldn’t have had that happen for the world! She’s been kind to me for two whole years, kinder than my Declan ever was, and if she did do something silly just the once … I can’t stand it! I can’t believe I drove her to it!’

  The room – full by now of lunch-time customers – was frozen for a second. Steven forced himself to his feet, discarding his paper napkin on the table.

  ‘You’re –?’

  ‘Moira O’Pheale,’ the woman whimpered. ‘I’m Phyllis Knabbe’s lodger.’

  Oh.

  Steven, like everybody in the village, had heard some of yesterday’s rumours but, he being a stranger, reports had reached him not at second but more like tenth hand. What he had gathered, though, was enough to give him a scrap or two of background.

  ‘So what has happened?’ he invited.

  ‘I didn’t see her this morning.’ Moira glanced around, spotted the paper napkin and dabbed her eyes with it. ‘But I popped back at lunch time – I’ve been helping out in Roy Jacksett’s shop. She hadn’t been down to the kitchen. My breakfast things were just as I had left them. So I went up to her room and knocked. No answer. I thought she must have gone out. But when I went into the bathroom, I saw something I must have missed before. This!’

  She thrust a convulsive hand towards Steven, who took by reflex what she proffered.

  It was a small plastic bottle with one of Mr Ratch’s labels on it.

  Empty.

  With a dead hand closing round his heart he read aloud, ‘Thirty Mogadon tablets. To be taken as directed …’

  ‘When I last saw it, it was nearly full!’ Moira moaned. ‘So I went into her bedroom, and … and there she was.’

  Steven drew a deep breath. ‘Sorry about our lunch, Mr Jantrey. Mr Mender!’ – spotting the landlord, who had come to see what the fuss was about. ‘Please ring 999 and call an ambulance to Miss –’

  ‘Miss Knabbe!’ Moira forced out.

  ‘Miss Knabbe’s house. Tell them I’m going there at once. And send for the police, as well.’

  Wallace pushed his chair back, exchanging a glance with Lisa that meant: it’s a sort of a story, at least …

  ‘We’ll give you a ride,’ he said crisply. ‘Come on!’

  But before they arrived, there was a crowd already gathered: local folk nearest the house, plus a fringe of visitors diffidently hanging around the edge.

  And moving authoritatively among them with a tape-recorder on a sling over his shoulder: Donald Prosher, of course. Where did the bastard get the gall? Wallace had been down that road, and concluded that having a microphone shoved under their noses turned more people off than on. He did carry a recorder, of course, but only a pocket-sized model with a built-in mike that he produced with reluctance when he had to.

  Such as now! He moved in, following the doctor as he forced his way to the door, and was dismayed to see Don fall in behind. But he could scarcely argue priorities, since his rival had been on the spot before him, even though he had arrived with the person who had found the –

  Body?

  Yes: in one of the two poky rooms upstairs. A woman, her face pallid in death, her expression a ghastly rictus that even affected the doctor. As for Moira, she wouldn’t come in, but leaned on the banister-rail, heaving as though about to vomit.

  ‘And you are –?’ Don said with professional assurance, proffering his mike.

  Ghoul!

  Listening with half an ear, Wallace turned the rest of his attention back to the doctor, who was saying, ‘There’ll have to be a post-mortem, of course, but I�
�m fairly sure what the result will be.’ He was touching the corpse’s throat and wrists as he spoke, testing their rigidity. ‘Aren’t the police here yet? Christ, I wish they’d get a bloody move on. And where’s that ambulance?’

  He was sweating visibly.

  ‘Where’s that bottle Mrs O’Pheale showed me? Someone find it, please!’

  On the landing Moira was pouring her heart out. She interrupted herself long enough to say, ‘You took it!’

  ‘What …? Oh, sorry. So I did.’ Steven retrieved it from his jacket pocket as Lisa squeezed into the room in Wallace’s wake, having paused on the stairs to change the film in her camera and mount a flashgun. She took a splendid shot of the dead body.

  ‘Who –? Oh, it was you, was it? Get out! Get out and take your bloody camera with you! All of you, get out of here this minute!’

  ‘But, doctor –’ Wallace began.

  ‘After what your friend just did, I have nothing to say to you! Nothing! Do you understand? Get out!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Before I pitch you down the bloody stairs!’

  News that Steven had taken sides against the invading reporters, who were even more cordially detested than the hippies, spread rapidly throughout the village. All of a sudden, within a matter of an hour or two, Weyharrow came to the collective conclusion that their temporary doctor wasn’t such a bad sort after all. Even before the hotel dining-room closed at the end of the lunch hour Nigel Mender had been heard to mention that Dr Tripkin was – wasn’t he? – talking about retiring some time soon …

  And after what had happened to Mr Phibson, who himself had not been here all that long, only having accepted this living to fill in time between his wife’s death and his own retirement … well, it was clear there would be another new parson pretty shortly.

  But a village like this needed a few stable points of reference, as it were. And Basil Goodsir was never likely to provide one the way his father had before arthritis got the better of him, poor old chap – especially not after his extraordinary outburst in court yesterday.

  No, from the point of view of ensuring what one might call a focus of stability in the area, one could do a lot worse than encourage a young doctor to settle here. It might take him a while to adapt to the way things were done, but given that people were already talking favourably about him …

  Several influential persons promised that when Dr Trip-kin got home from Spain they’d have a private word with him. Meanwhile, how was Basil today, since the name had cropped up? And how was Mr Phibson, come to that?

  Dreadful about Mrs Ellerford, wasn’t it? And Miss Knabbe – whoever would have thought it? Of course, that O’Pheale woman must know more than she had so far told …

  Joyously, the wellsprings of gossip brimmed and overflowed. In the midst of abundant rumour, Wallace fumed and offered bribes of drink and money and met blank denials.

  While Don Prosher and Wilf Spout were nowhere to be seen …

  Nigel Mender had already been feeling uneasy. It was alarming to see normally level-headed people falling for old Phibson’s senile ramblings about the Devil. In his capacity as chairman of the parish council he had phoned the diocesan office, hoping to talk to the bishop, but that dignitary happened to be away until Sunday. Mr Thummage, the archdeacon, had promised to call on Mr Phibson if he could, but his offhand manner conveyed that he felt the whole thing was a matter of mountains and molehills. Had Mr Phibson, he inquired, been over-working lately? He was of course no longer a young man, and a widower at that …

  Mention of the fact that reportedly the Marriage had had no trade to speak of today elicited a dry chuckle.

  ‘Well, I gather their sign verges on the blasphemous, does it not? Perhaps the Jeggses’ business may pick up again when they finally decide to change it.’

  Idiot!

  News of Miss Knabbe’s suicide brought matters to a head for Nigel Mender. Inspired by the conversation in his bar at lunch time, during the afternoon he phoned as many members of the parish council as he could, to canvass their opinion about calling a public meeting tomorrow. The consensus that emerged was in favour. It should be chaired by himself, and Mr Phibson – unavoidably – must be invited to speak. People would expect it, even those who never went to church. On the other hand, someone must be found to speak authoritatively against him, particularly since it was this rumour about ancient psychic forces that had lured that horde of hippies: over sixty so far by Constable Book’s count, doubtless with more to follow.

  There’s that teacher fellow, of course. He’s bound to show up – never misses a parish meeting. Might make a good councillor one of these years. Shame that he seems to be a bit on the mystical side himself. What’s his name? Draycock, that’s the one. If he hasn’t sided with old Phibson already he’s likely to, isn’t he? So what about Basil?

  Not under present circumstances?

  Granted, granted. Shame old Marmaduke isn’t up to it any more. He always kept a level head on his shoulders … And of course old Tripkin is still away … What about his stand-in? He seems to have made quite a hit with the peasantry, I’m told – ha-ha!

  Well, one can always ask …

  And so, in the way things are done in English villages, it was arranged.

  A deputation of two councillors waited on Steven after evening surgery and invited him for a drink at the hotel. There it was made plain to him that at the meeting – which the council had agreed to organize tomorrow evening in the parish hall adjacent to the church – someone must put the case for rationality, even if it meant throwing poor old Phibson to the lions, ha-ha!

  Steven struggled not to tremble visibly. He said, ‘But I haven’t any explanations to offer. All I know is that some very strange things have happened to a lot of people and one or two have been extremely nasty. I can’t deny the facts, can I?’

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to, old boy! All we want is to be told that it can’t have anything to do with devils. Have another? By the way’ – in a lower tone – ‘the word is out, you know, that you’re making a pretty good impression. And you must have heard that Dr Tripkin is planning to retire …?’

  Oh dear, Steven thought. Oh very definitely dear …

  10

  Cedric had planned to go down to the village immediately after breakfast. But that had been last night. In the light of day the prospect of re-meeting Chris the Pilgrim and his old lady, and the rest of the troupe who travelled around in that beat-up bus, seemed infinitely less attractive.

  Besides, people he detested were bound to corner him and ask after his loathsome father.

  He dithered most of the morning until Peter Lodd, who delivered groceries for Mr Jacksett, arrived on his bicycle, puffing and panting after ascending the hill. The Goodsirs bought most of their provisions in Chapminster and Hatter-bridge, and luxuries were sent from London, but they made a token show of patronizing the local shops.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you up here,’ Peter said cheekily. (But Cedric had promised himself he would grow out of that sort of response, and be a true egalitarian.)

  ‘Why so?’ he returned.

  ‘The village is full of your old mates. The ones you got so chummy with in the summer. Been asking after you!’

  Well, in that case …

  Summoning his courage, he wheeled his own bike out of the garage it shared with his father’s Mercedes and his mother’s Fiat, and they rode down the hill in company.

  When he reached the green, he was indeed saluted as a friend, and plied with questions about what had been happening in the village. He had trouble answering; he hadn’t even heard about Mrs Ellerford yet, let alone Miss Knabbe’s death or the set-to in the church, so he wound up learning more than he had to tell.

  Eager to flee his embarrassing predicament, he glanced at his watch and discovered it was nearly one o’clock.

  ‘What say we move in on the Marriage?’ he proposed.

  Chris and his friends exchanged meaningful looks.
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  ‘The landlord’s been turning our lot away ever since he opened,’ Rhoda said. ‘It’s this bit about the Devil. None of his regulars are showing up today, and he thinks if he lets us in they’ll stay away for good.’

  Cedric blinked, but spotted a way out. He jumped up.

  ‘I’ll go and have a word with him!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s probably against the law!’

  ‘Isn’t it your dad that makes the law round here!’ one of the group murmured, intending to be overheard.

  ‘Funny kind of law, in that case!’ said another.

  ‘Sorry about that, Ced,’ Chris muttered. But Cedric shook his head.

  ‘Heard about him wanting to bring back the gallows for people who steal sheep, did you? So did I! And I have to bloody live with him, you know!’

  Not waiting for the obvious counter – ‘So why not quit and come with us?’ – he turned away.

  ‘I’ll sort out the Jeggses!’ he promised, and strode off towards the river.

  On the far side of the green he found Stick laying rake and shovel on his barrow, about to quit for lunch.

  ‘Stick!’ he exclaimed. ‘Got time for a jar?’

  ‘Sure! Just let me find my sandwiches …’ He bent to retrieve a plastic bag slung underneath the barrow. ‘Colin doesn’t exactly love people who bring their own nosh, but by all accounts he ought to be grateful to sell anyone a drink today. Last night he seemed normal enough, but …’

  ‘Is he really not getting any custom?’

  ‘I could list by heart the people who make for the Marriage as soon as it opens, and then stay there. Plus the ones who drop in for a quick one before lunch. Plus the others who sometimes drop in after lunch. Plus …’ He spread his empty hand as he fell in beside Cedric. ‘But today, not a one. Not a one. Besides, he’s turning customers away! The – uh – the visitors, I mean.’

  ‘So Chris and Rhoda told me,’ said Cedric slowly. ‘You know, I really begin to believe that something weird is happening, and it isn’t just a trip. In the summer he was glad enough to take their money, wasn’t he?’

  ‘There might not have been much of it,’ Stick concurred. ‘But what they could, he and Rosie took. Today, though, the only people I’ve seen coming out of the Marriage were those two reporters.’