To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

swam away towards the port and the sea. There was little traffic on the water at this hour. A solitary boat had anchored about a quarter mile downstream, and a man’s shape could be detected standing up in it, perhaps fishing, or at some more sinister task. The nearer bank was thick with houses and hovels of the meaner sort. Directly across the bridge lay some open land, and there Vilmos thought he glimpsed some things moving skittishly. They reminded him of large pale hunting hounds at play.

Then another came from the alleys and walked out on to the bridge towards him. It was Reiner, with his book under his arm.

“What are you doing here, Vilmos? Go home, for God’s love.”

“And why are you here, eh? To read your book?”

“I’m wanted at the Master’s house.”

“You are, and I am not?” Vilmos was astonished and in his arrogance slapped Reiner across the chest.

Reiner jumped back and the book fell to the bridge with a thud. “There’s blood on your shirt, Vilmos! What have you done?”

“Amended something.”

“You are mad – you are mad…”

“No, I am very sane tonight. Come, let’s go to the Master’s house, and ask him if I am not. Do you see those pale things running about over there? What are they, do you think? I believe they are the ghosts of dogs.”

FIVE

The policeman I spoke to was the desk sergeant, and as I had predicted he would be, he was. After a brief recital of my fear that I was being pursued for reasons beyond my knowledge, he asked what exactly the young man had done. He listened. He said, “So this stalker…” his term not mine, although at once the word gained a resonance for me, “has followed you from a pub, come to your house, bought you, you say, a dustbin,” an emphasis there, “and some beer. And you have bought him breakfast.”

A short interval ensued.

I was about to speak when the sergeant went on. “Has he actually threatened you in any way, sir?”

I answered truthfully, “Not as such. But he won’t leave me alone.”

“Is he there now, sir?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps he’s got bored, sir. Or he’s decided the breakfast was enough. It was a big full English, you said. Sounds very nice.”

“But what am I to do if he comes back?”

The policeman sighed. His voice altered and became unpleasantly convivial, demonstrating he had absolutely nothing against my sort. “Well, if I was you, sir, I’d pay him off and tell him to get lost before the wife catches him.”

I stood, nonplussed by the inevitable inference he had taken.

He ended, “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

After the police I tried Harris’s number again. This time a perky P.A. answered. She belonged to Janette, of course. Janette was staying at the house in Hampshire while Harris sorted out his father’s affairs in Spain. However, right now, Janette wasn’t available, could the P.A. assist me? Obviously she could not.

After this, I went through an inventory of any person who might be able to assist, but as I had decided earlier, there was no one. The few non-business friends I now possess are of the acquaintance variety, and the males among them are my age or older, either skeletal or overweight, with diabetes and heart problems, or simply doddery.

I was on my own. The place I have been most often.

Every ten minutes or so I was going round the house, glancing from windows, out at the street, down at the side path and across the garden (where the dustbin still maintained its sentry post) to the alley to the back. I even scanned the frontal oak trees and the fir at the rear. Joseph Traskul, like Vilmos, seemed quite capable of physical feats, such as climbing up into trees. He must have scaled the back fence after all, toting the bin.

Belatedly I wished I had modernised my security. The locks and bolts and the temperamental burglar alarm were all I had. And I had noticed the alarm hadn’t gone off when I let myself back in this morning, though I had fumbled in my haste.

At lunch time I checked the fridge and freezer. I don’t eat vast amounts, and I had reasonable provender for a short siege.

I made myself a quick omelette and drank some tap water. I checked my potential armament, which is quite impressive, as in most homes it is, if ever analysed. Years of penning my usual kind of book had taught me quite a lot about what can be utilised, and even to some extent how. But I’m not a violent man. To describe a killing and a death neither excites nor upsets me. But the idea of doing it myself is still as alien to me as the thought of landing in person on the moon. Even so, we recall, men have landed there.

I put a couple of meat knives, a screwdriver, hammer, and a small drill and some other stuff, on the kitchen table, which by now I’d pushed up against the back door. I’d let the blind down over the side window of the kitchen, and stacked up pans in the sink, both to impede an entry and to make a noise. He would have to break the windows anyway. That would be enough.

On the credit side, if I ever felt able to sleep again, I never sleep for long unbrokenly, nor very deeply.

At the other windows on the ground floor I drew other curtains. The lower storey grew dark and menacing.

How long would this go on?

The telephone still worked. I kept testing it. Even if it failed – tampered with in some way – I had topped up the mobile and recharged it only yesterday morning. On the other hand, if I called them again the police might not bother. My sergeant had plainly concluded I was an ageing queer who had had a tiff with his young lover or not properly recompensed a male prostitute. They