Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (10 page)

 
          
“No, nobody.”
The police had asked him that.

 
          
“She
would have told me,” he said.

 
          
“Thank
you very much, Mr. Pugh.”

 
          
Was
that all? It seemed to have petered out, like some of the films he had to show
nowadays. The coroner was telling the tape recorder that he knew nobody with a
grudge against his mother’s dog. “I call Ruby Roberts,” he said.

 
          
Ruby
swept her coat about her like Caesar adjusting his cloak for an oration, and
grasped the Bible, gazing up as if she were Joan of Arc yearning for a friendly
voice. “Is Ruby Roberts your real name?” the coroner said.

 
          
“Yes,”
she said, eyes blazing. “It certainly is.”

 
          
He
nodded, smiling faintly. “And did you know the deceased Lilian Pugh? You knew
her from the theatre, didn’t you?”

 
          
Don’t
start on the theatre, George thought; we’ll be here all day. “I knew her
husband first,” she said. “He was on the stage, of course, before he went into
showing pictures. A fine
actor,
and a fine man. How he
would have felt if he’d seen his poor wife there, on the floor—”

 
          
“All
right now,” the coroner said, holding up one finger. “We’re coming to that now.
You went to Mrs. Pugh’s flat on the morning of seventh August?”

 
          
George
switched them off. He felt almost disloyal listening to Ruby—it was like
watching a play about his mother’s death. But then everything about his
mother’s death had seemed theatrical: Ruby’s telephone call to him, hinting
breathlessly at horrors; even the sight of the body. At the morgue he’d waited
in a small bare room. Suddenly the curtains at a window before him had parted,
exactly like the opening of a first act, and there had been his mother, lying
covered with a sheet beneath a cymbal-shaded bulb. He’d felt cut off from her
by more than the glass. Once he and his parents had played a game to see who
could feign death the longest. His mother had looked more convincing then.
Behind the glass she’d looked like someone inexpertly made up to resemble her.

 
          
“She
was lying on the carpet, covered with blood,” Ruby said.

 
          
It
must have ruined the carpet, then—his mother’s
favourite
,
the Persian. His mother’s friend Mr.
Billington
, who
had used to manage a cinema and who helped out at the
Newsham
for no more payment than the chance to watch films free, was sorting out
everything at the flat. George hadn’t been able to go there. But now he
couldn’t avoid hearing what Ruby had found there, what she’d held back from
him.

 
          
“I
could see they were bites,” she said. “But that wasn’t what turned me sick. It
was the look on her face. She was looking at Rex, poor faithful beast.” She
leaned toward the jury and said in a whisper that filled the court: “She died
of knowing that what had happened to Rex was going to happen to her.”

 
          
That
was her exit line. The coroner thanked her, but didn’t repeat what she’d said.
A young policeman took her place in the box, blushing. Ruby sat down beside
George, holding her heart in with one hand, squeezing his hand with the other.

 
          
All
at once, with a cold horror for which he was wholly unprepared, George realized
the policeman was confirming Ruby’s story.

 
          
The
policeman wasn’t playing a part. He was plainly embarrassed and disturbed by
what he had to tell. The court snapped into place around George, sharp and
close. He saw the intent faces. He saw Edmund gazing at the coroner, admiring
his lucidity and skill. He saw the young policeman’s white face, and knew he
had been sick after he’d seen George’s mother. He felt his own legs trembling
uncontrollably. He pressed his knees together, but still they shook.

 
          
Now
there was a pathologist. The coroner echoed him. Even the echo was no longer
unreal; it was twice as real, unbearably so. George saw his mother turning
anxiously in the doorway to watch him ride away. Yes, the pathologist said,
there were numerous lacerations.
The marks of teeth.
Not an animal’s. Portions of the flesh had been— George’s horror was mixed now
with helpless rage that this audience should hear what had happened to his
mother. All he could see was Edmund’s face, alert for every word. All he could
hear was his own blood, punching his ears furiously.

 
          
“Stand
up, please,” the Scotsman said.

 
          
The
jury had returned; now the coroner strode in. “Mr. Foreman, what verdict do you
return on the death of Lilian Pugh?”

 
          
“Pardon?”
said the foreman uneasily.

 
          
“What
is your verdict?” the coroner said, still as quietly.

 
          
“Death by misadventure.”

 
          
“Yes.”
The coroner was nodding slowly, as if he knew the verdict was inevitable, even
if not entirely satisfactory. Death by misadventure! George thought wildly. As
if she had died in some unavoidable accident!

 
          
The
coroner was gazing at him. “Please accept my deepest sympathies, and my hope
that the culprit will quickly be brought to justice,” he said kindly. In a
moment he was standing up.

 
          
“Stand
up, please,” the Scotsman said.

 
          
The
reporters were leaving. They’d come only to hear about George’s mother. Now
that the show was over they were hurrying to lunch, a pint and a pie. George
glared so fiercely at Edmund that he turned and followed the reporters. George
waited until the man had had time to leave the building. “I’ll be in touch with
you soon,” he told Ruby. He couldn’t bear her just now.

 
          
Reporters
were crowding outside the courtroom. For a furious moment he thought they
wanted to interview him. Then he saw they had surrounded Edmund. “I didn’t know
you were back in town,” one was saying. “I’d have thought our provincial crimes
were beneath you these days.”

 
          
George
heard the sarcasm. It fed
his own
rage and his dislike
of Edmund. His feelings welled up beyond his control. “He’s here writing a
book,” he said viciously. “All about the things this monster has done. No doubt
it’ll make him a lot of money.”

 
          
He
strode furiously downstairs. In a room off the landing a girl was washing
teacups by an urn. He halted in the wide sunlight of Castle Street, at the edge
of the lunchtime crowd. He must go home to Alice. He wouldn’t be fit to run the
Newsham
until he’d told someone about all this. It
was minutes before he ceased shaking and was able to cycle home.

 
          
Saturday, September 6

 
          
WHAT
MAKES A MAN A MONSTER?

 
          
I’m
here to find out, says writer.

 
          
Most
people, unless their sensibilities have been numbed by the world we live in,
still shudder when they hear of a murderer at large.

 
          
But
one man who has reason to rejoice at every new atrocity is Edmund Hall.

 
          
His
first book, Secrets of the Psychopaths, which he describes as “a serious study
of the criminal mind,” contained detailed descriptions of sadism, incest,
cannibalism, and necrophilia. It sold 100,000 copies.

 
          
“Crime
has fascinated me ever since I was a child,” says Mr. Hall, who describes his
books as “helping people to understand crime.”

 
          
Now
he is in Liverpool, researching his new book on a psychopath. Yesterday he sat
in on the inquest on Mrs. Lilian Pugh, whose death last month is being
investigated by the police.

 
          
One
man who is less than happy about Mr. Hall’s research is George Pugh, the son of
the deceased Mrs. Pugh. After an angry scene with the writer outside the
coroner’s court yesterday, Mr. Pugh told our reporter that the book was “bound
to make a lot of money.”__

 
          
“Is
Secrets of the Psychopaths only one book?” Clare said. “I thought you said it
was a series.”

 
          
“They’ve
deliberately misrepresented me,” Edmund said. He was gazing impatiently at the
hotel room phone, though it hadn’t been long since he’d rung for drinks. “Can’t
you recognize the tone? They’re the lot I used to work for. It’s pure jealousy,
just because they had to stay in this grubby little town while I made it big in
London. They haven’t changed. There used to be incredible petty rows because I
wouldn’t join their union. God, I’m glad I’m out of that. Half of them couldn’t
even spell.”

 
          
He
picked up the telephone receiver,
then
clubbed the
cradle viciously with it. “Now half the people we trace won’t want to talk. And
no doubt the police will be warning me off their patch. Thank you, George Pugh.
I can do without his help in future.”

 
          
“Won’t
he be here?”

 
          
“Not
if I can help it. Not if he can either, to judge by the way he behaved after
the inquest.”

 
          
Walking
back toward the
Newsham
, he had said he would invite
George too. She had been looking forward to a return bout between the two men.
Now here she was, alone with Edmund in his bedroom. She was wondering wildly if
he’d engineered the situation, when someone knocked at the door.

 
          
It
was a porter. “You took your bloody time,” Edmund said.

 
          
“I’m
sorry, sir. We had to send out for this brand of bourbon.”

 
          
“Never
mind the backchat. Leave them, I’ll pour. Wait a minute. Take that empty with
you; don’t leave it for the bloody maid. I don’t want to sit and look at it, do
I? Christ, these people,” he said to Clare as the porter strode silently out.

 
          
The
empty bottle had been of bourbon. Surely he hadn’t drunk all that today? At
least, she thought (remembering a bit of Shakespeare they’d all used to giggle
over in her teens)
,
he wouldn’t be able to do much, if
he planned to seduce her. “Never mind, Edmund,” she said. “It can’t be that
bad.”

 
          
“What
can’t?” he said, snarling at the stiff cap of a gin bottle.

 
          
“I
mean, that report won’t stop you writing your book. They still don’t know that
you know his name. Maybe some people will be more ready to
help,
now they know about your books.”

 
          
His
fist was still clenched, wrestling with the cap.

 
          
“I’ll
help you if I can. I feel better about helping now,” she said, “because the
police told me today they’ve decided not to prosecute, now that they’ve
realized the psychopath was involved. They said I should have heard from them
already. It must be our new postman’s fault. So anyway, I can help you now.”

 
          
“You’re
a nice girl, Clare.” He was filling her tumbler with gin, well past her cry of
protest. “We’re going to get on well together.

 
          
I’ll
tell you one thing I don’t like about London: it made me forget there were
girls like you.”

 
          
“Oh
yes?” she said, laughing uneasily.

 
          
“Yes.
You’re not like the women down there.
Too bloody sure of
themselves, all of them.
And half of them are
fake
inside and out. Listen,” he said, “I haven’t bought you that dinner yet. What
night are you free?”