Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother (21 page)

 
          
At
the door into the hall, George looked back. Dr. Miller was still sitting amid
the island of light, a small figure perched on a swivel chair. He looked
relieved, yet unsure. Unsure whether he’d done the right thing? At once George
was certain the doctor had been pondering what to do since he’d read the report
of the inquest. Perhaps he had been waiting apprehensively for some such report
for years. Down the hall, his receptionist, no doubt his
wife,
was cooking dinner. George hurried out and halted, shocked by the urban purring
of the night.

 
          
Wednesday, September 17

 
          
As
they turned from Lodge Lane into Mozart Street, Edmund said, “Let me do the
talking. Just to be confronted with you three might make her say things she
wouldn’t say otherwise. It’s a gamble, but I’ve a feeling it’ll work.”

 
          
So
that was why he’d let them come. Clare was sure he would have preferred them
not to. If she hadn’t rung George yesterday to discuss a school visit to the
Newsham
, she wouldn’t even have been aware that they knew
the grandmother’s address. She’d rung Edmund at once. This woman knew why Rob
had been killed; she might even be partly responsible. And Chris should meet
her too; she’d shouted down the start of his protests.
And
George.

 
          
Each
side of Mozart Street was an unbroken two-storey terrace; the front doors
opened onto the pavement. A few of the houses were painted chocolate, to set
them apart from the line. On some, the bricks that formed an arch around the
front door and framed the windows were painted blue or moss-green. Snatches of
television leaked from windows, some of which were new, with
louvres
. Several windows were filled with paler brick or
boards; through a jagged upstairs sash Clare saw a doorway onto a dark landing.
Beneath her feet the gravel of the roadway slithered, crunching.

 
          
Number
2a was the furthest from Lodge Lane. At the end of the street, large shallow
steps led down to an alley; the twilight of the street was darker there. A
shouting man played football among the parked cars; he and the children with
him glanced at Edmund’s party. Edmund reached for the knocker on a front door
that looked like part of a dead tree,
mossed
with
paint. He halted, listening.

 
          
Inside
the house, beyond the swollen, jammed sash of the grimy window, they could hear
a woman’s voice. “Through my fault,” it said, “through my fault.” A television,
Clare thought, turned up loud enough to be heard through the glass. But as she
gazed, a figure took shape in the grime as in fog, flickering with firelight: a
woman sitting forward in a chair, dim hands clasped, blurred face confronting
an open doorway. “Through my most grievous fault,” she shouted, punching her
breast so that her whole body shook. She was praying.

 
          
Clare
saw her start when Edmund knocked. She rose and walked toward the doorway, so
slowly that the grime of the window might have been thick around her. Clare
gazed at the dim empty room, the
colourless
fat
chairs. At last she heard the front door open.

 
          
The
woman was in her seventies. Her thin sharp face, pinched toward the pointed
chin as if between finger and thumb, peered forward on a neck whose wrinkles
sagged. Her large pale-blue eyes frowned warily; her lips were gripped thinly
together. Her hands, spotted like old food, clamped themselves on the
doorframe, barring the way; a worn handbag hung from one arm. Her grey uneven
hair stood up in spikes. She looked like a guard defending her post among her
fallen comrades, or a martyr.

 
          
“Mrs.
Mary Kelly?” Edmund said.

 
          
“Yes?”

 
          
He
was lagging. Clare could see why; he was fascinated by the way Mrs. Kelly was
dressed—green cardigan, faded purple skirt, striped yellow-and-black socks,
pink
fluffy slippers. “We’d like to talk to you about your
grandson,” he said.

 
          
He
snapped his card toward her, like a dealer. She ignored it and gazed toward the
man with the football. “Good evening, Mr. Wright,” she called.

 
          
“Hello
there, Mrs. Kelly. Got visitors, have you?”

 
          
“We’ll
just see about that. How many are there?”

 
          
“Three men.
I think
it’s
three men;
you know how they are these days.
And a girl.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Mr. Wright.” As she turned back to them Clare saw that the large pale eyes
never moved. They gazed blindly at her. “Say your names,” Mrs. Kelly said.

 
          
“Clare
Frayn
.” When the blank intent gaze moved on, she
shivered.

 
          
“Chris
Barrow.”

 
          
“Edmund Hall.
I’m a writer.”

 
          
“Oh,
you’re this writer, are you? So that’s what you want. I thought so. And who’s
the other one, that’s keeping quiet?”

 
          
“I’m
George Pugh, Mrs. Kelly. A cinema manager,” he stumbled on.

 
          
“No
need to sound so sorry about it,” she said, grinning or baring her teeth.
“Well, you sound human, anyway.
A bit less sure of yourself
than your friends.
And you’ve come to try to upset me, have you?”

 
          
“We
don’t want to upset you,” Edmund said.

 
          
“And
you won’t, oh no. Make no mistake about that. I’m past being upset. Not like my
friend you made ill, in the launderette. So now, do you still want to talk to
me?”

 
          
“Please.
We’d like to hear anything you can tell us about your grandson. These people
have relatives who suffered from him, you see.”

 
          
Chris
was hardly a relative of his cat, but Clare suppressed her amusement. “So
that’s why it takes four of you to talk to me, is it.
Because
people suffered.”
Mrs. Kelly smiled,
then
pounced: “Suffered in what way?”

 
          
“Could
we discuss it inside?” Edmund said.

 
          
“There
are children listening.” And there were, sidling closer.

 
          
“If
I let you in—if I let you in—you’re to follow me. I’ll show you where to go,
and you’re to stay there. I won’t have you excusing yourselves and wandering
off. And don’t think you can creep out, either. Is that understood?
All right.
Mr. Pugh, you come in last and slam the door.”

 
          
The
house smelled like dusty old clothes in a
mouldering
wardrobe. Mrs. Kelly’s voice echoed amid the hollow clatter of feet on the bare
boards.
“One more thing.
Just remember my friends are
outside. I’ve only to scream. Even the four of you won’t stop me screaming.”

 
          
Clare
slowed, gazing up the uncarpeted stairs. A rusty socket hung from a flex above
the landing; stripes of wallpaper stepped down toward her, almost
colourless
beneath twilight and dirt. “Never mind looking
how bad it is,” Mrs. Kelly said, startling her. “Mr. Wright’s told me all about
that. It’s better than falling downstairs over the carpet. You’ll just have to
put up with it, as I have to.”

 
          
“I’m
sorry,” Clare said. “I couldn’t see for a moment, after the sun.” The hall
flung her voice back at her, making her stammer. As she followed Mrs. Kelly the
dusty furniture muffled her words, like a hand before her mouth.

 
          
The
room no longer had a door. Despite the warm evening and the coal fire in the
grate, the room was cold, and almost bare except for several armchairs. A
blackened rectangle of linoleum protected the floorboards from sparks, although
the fire was caged. In an alcove, two framed photographs, dim with dust, stood
on a small table. Large and tiny pigeons hung in flight on the pinkish
wallpaper, halves of pigeons were trapped in the joins. Near the ceiling,
ragged leaves of wallpaper hung down; in some of them, spiders crouched on
tangles. “Sit down,” Mrs. Kelly said. “I want you sitting down.”

 
          
The
armchair puffed dust at Clare, like a fungus. Mrs. Kelly grasped the back of
the chair nearest the fire and lowered herself to sit, facing the doorway. She
put her handbag on the floor beside a large portable radio, a Liverpool Echo,
the Catholic Pictorial, and the tabloid which had reported Edmund’s search.
“Now talk away,” she said.

 
          
“As
I say,” Edmund said, “we’d like you to tell us about your grandson.”

 
          
“I’m
sure you would. But why should I? Is it your business? I don’t want to talk
about him.” She closed her eyes tight and opened them, unchanged, blank. “I’m
tired. I just want to rest. I think I’ve earned that.”

 
          
“Do
you know what he’s been doing?” Edmund demanded.

 
          
“No.”
And she smiled triumphantly. “You tell me.”

 
          
“He
caused a man to be killed in a car crash and stole part of the body. And he
murdered a woman and half devoured her.”

 
          
“You
saw him doing these things, did you?”

 
          
“I
know it was him, Mrs. Kelly. So do you.”

 
          
“If
you’re so sure of yourself,” and her smile was malicious now, “why haven’t you
told the police?”

 
          
“I’ve
done that.” He sounded totally convincing to Clare, but she knew the blind
could hear lies where the sighted saw honesty. She held herself rigid, in case
an uneasy movement alerted Mrs. Kelly. Dust glinted slowly, floating; shadows
on the pigeons shuddered.

 
          
“Then
why haven’t the police been to see me?”

 
          
“Because I haven’t told them your address yet.
That’s the
one thing they don’t know. But let me be completely honest. I’m writing a book
about these murders. That’s partly why I’m here.”

 
          
Her
face was as blank as her eyes now. “But I want to see your grandson get what’s
right for him. I used to know him at school. The police can only arrest him.
But that isn’t the whole answer.”

 
          
Clare
heard him leaving his feelings ambiguous, so that he could agree with Mrs.
Kelly’s. Had he done that with Clare?

 
          
“And
these other people are relatives, are they,” Mrs. Kelly said. “Who’s the one
who sends pansies to do his lying for him?”

 
          
Launderette,
Clare mouthed at Edmund, pointing at Chris. “I sent someone to talk to your
friend,” Edmund said, frowning.

 
          
“That’s
the kind of person you associate with. And you want me to believe you know
what’s best for him, my grandson. I don’t think there’s anything more to be
said.”

 
          
Clare
chewed her fingers to block her mirth. Edmund had trapped himself in his own
ambiguity. At the same time, she felt helplessly frustrated. They had been
close to the truth, and he’d lost it.

 
          
“Of
course I don’t know what’s best for him, oh, no. I’m only his grandmother. You
should try living with him for a few years before telling me what’s right. Then
maybe you’d know what you’re talking about.”

 
          
All
at once Clare’s frustration said, “Since you know, Mrs. Kelly, won’t you tell
us?”

 
          
“You’re
going to have a try now, are you? Who are you?”

 
          
“Clare
Frayn
. Your grandson killed my brother.” The empty
eyes gazed at her. The silence made her say, “I’m a teacher.”