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

it’s crazy. I don’t know who he is, but he turned up at my house and gave the neighbours the same yarn – that he is my son. I threw him out. And yes, he has been at my hotel. Now I know who to thank for that.”

“Christ. Roy – have you told the police?”

“Yes. They don’t believe me, or they think something else. And you have informed this lunatic of my hotel.”

“God – Roy…”

“Think of something, Lewis. He may be dangerous. I need your help. This is your fault.”

“Christ. Oh, Roy. What shall I do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I suggest you come up with something.”

I broke the connection.

To be truthful I wasn’t sure how much, if any, use this would be. But the fact of Sej’s pursuit of me had been established at last, with an independent and non-vulnerable source. Potential?

Having attended to that, however, I sat down once more on the bench.

The phone went again.

I looked at it.

I let it ring. I’d check any message later. Let Lewis Rybourne stew, if he was capable of it.

Meanwhile the images of the afternoon revolved slowly in my mind. I kept thinking of the women he’d helped, and the dog, its sad tail hanging out of his shirt – now ruined by blood and lost. And the piano. How he played. And how he had gone so suddenly away.

Bells were ringing from various places, including the nearby church. It was six o’clock.

I got up and walked to The Belmont. In the foyer a young woman came straight up to me, all smiles.

“Excuse me, but that guy who played the piano – you know him?”

“Didn’t he give you a card?”

“Well, yes. Only I called the number and there was no answer.”

I would have to bear in mind, Joseph was not only brilliant, but good-looking. This young woman was clearly smitten. I said, with a stiff smile, ‘I don’t know him well. Just keep trying the number. I think he’s out until later.” And walked to the lift leaving her there, crestfallen. Another stalker. This time of Joseph?

Tonight was my last night here. I couldn’t afford any others. The entire excursion would already make quite a hole in what I call my Emergency Fund, that is my building society savings.

Would he come back to The Belmont? If he did, what then would happen?

I ordered dinner in my room and watched TV. Now I thought more solidly of my house and the possible damage that could have been done to it. Strangely, I didn’t think he had caused damage. Partly too I wished not to go back. But I hadn’t anywhere else to go. Perhaps, now Rybourne had some idea that Joseph was a danger, if the police confronted him at Gates he would have to tell them what had gone on. And any DNA test would show Joseph was nothing at all to do with me.

Unless…

Had he been Lynda’s child? Hers and mine. That would make him only twenty-eight. Less? He didn’t look quite that young, did he, or only when unconscious.

He wasn’t Lynda’s. He was neither like her, nor me.

The TV, even with its multiple channels, seemed all one chaos of unreal inanity, or desperate, unassuageable realness.

I turned in about eleven. Check-out tomorrow was noon.

I would go back, see to the house, pack a few extra things, then maybe myself head up north. I’d said I had nowhere to go, but it’s cheaper there, out of the main northern cities. And Matthew lived there, all on his own without adulterous Sylvia. I could go and commiserate with him.

Before leaving however I would get some extra security added to the house. Duran, the electrician who fixed my kitchen lights and the thermostat last November, had a side line in villain-proofing. I’d gathered, from various hints, he’d been a competent burglar once, and now put former knowledge to good use for the other side. I hadn’t taken him up on any of that, last time. Now I’d better. He was a tough guy too, Duran. He might have some brainwaves.

I slept well. Seven straight hours, waking at a quarter to eight, feeling drugged and out of kilter.

At reception, while paying, I heard of the manager’s coming to see who played the piano yesterday. I had a last drink at the bar.

All the time I kept looking up at the mirror, looking for Sej to walk in. But he didn’t. And I thought, Is it over? And a tide of relief swirled through me. And after the tide, a sort of pause. I can’t describe it. It was still and quiet, without shadows, quite empty.

5

Less than a minute after, No 3A came back into the main room, accompanied by a skinny man with long greasy yellow hair, also in shorts, and barefoot as 3A had just accused him of being.

3A looked at me and jabbed his thumb back at the other one. “’S’im. The one I told you about. No 2.”

No 2 smiled at me with crinkled grey teeth. He was about twenty-six, and his uncovered arms unashamedly revealed the tracks of needles. He stank of sweat and – sugar. A chemical smell you pick up by some chocolate counters.

“Hi,” he winningly said.

I nodded.

We all stood there.

“Where’s Tee?” asked No 2, smilingly bemused. “I got some lovely stuff for ‘er. I get it off of…”

“Shut up,” decided 3A. “This geezer don’t want to know, right?”

No 2 looked deeply at me from mad huge eyes the colour of a stagnant pond. “I seen this booful car down the road. That yours?”

“No,” I said.

No 2 giggled. “Tha’s good. I pissed up it las’ night. I bin a bad boy. ‘Ere,” he added, “you want any stuff? I got this wicked stuff off of…”

“Shut up,” said 3A again. “Look, you nosed-up prick-head, Tina ain’t here. She’s gone off. And we’re just going. OK?”

“Who bruk the door?” innocently asked No 2.

“The postman,” said 3A impatiently, “he couldn’t get no fucking answer so he broke