The Resurrected
Author: Guy N. Smith
Date: 1991-11-21 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Merryn Bartram is dying of a brain tumour, and not wanting to die single, she marries her lover Bernie Oldroyd. Very much in love, he tries almost everything possible to keep her alive, finally including talking to Richie Howe, a colleague of a witch he has met. Howe waits for Merryn to die and then resurrects her as one of the living dead. But Bernie finds to his horror that she has become both a nymphomaniac and an unwilling slave to Richie Howe's satanic rites.
Publisher: Black Hill Books

The Resurrected - Kindle Version 1.01

(c) Guy N Smith 1991 - 2012

Published by Black Hill Books, September 2012

ISBN : 978-1-907846-55-7

First Published by Grafton November 1991.

Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

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Contents

Title

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

The End

1

Merryn Bartram’s world finally collapsed in those five catastrophic minutes in Doctor Markham’s consulting room. Weeks of nagging unease had grown into fear, anxious days and sleepless nights when everything seemed a thousand times worse, an escalation of what was surely needless worry because it couldn’t happen to her. You always imagined the worst; it was a natural process of the human mind, she told herself, terminating in euphoric relief. Like anticipating an examination result, certain that you had failed, then discovering that you had passed. With honours. Everything always turned out all right in the end.

Didn’t it?

Except when the outcome decided upon whether you lived or died.

Her initial reaction was shock. She heard his opening words, saw the gravity in his expression and then everything seemed to cut out. Her stomach tightened into a hard ball. She thought she might be sick, didn’t care if she was. Her heart seemed to stop, then start again, with rapid beats that set her temples throbbing and sounded like heavy machinery vibrating in the adjoining room – Doctor Kite’s room. Perhaps if she had gone to him the news would have been different, she thought irrationally.

She swayed in the upright chair, then steadied. Markham was still speaking but she could not hear him. It didn’t really matter what he said from now on because he had already delivered the crushing blow. He was trying to be sympathetic. She was aware that she was nodding, attempting to smile. Just let me go, Doc, she pleaded silently, if there really isn’t anything else you can do for me. There’s no point in staying here.

Her brain was numb now, from a kind of inbuilt anaesthesia. When she rose to her feet she was steady, and she walked out of the door, which he held open for her. Apart from her greyish complexion, an onlooker might have been forgiven for considering her to be in perfectly normal health. Out in the street, she waited her opportunity to cross, then headed straight for Bullen’s cake and coffee shop as if it was the most important place in the world to her. Still a creature of habit, she always called there for a coffee whenever she came into town. Now the cafe was a sheltered harbour, herself a ship caught in stormy seas. And her voice was almost normal as she ordered a black coffee.

The windows were rain-spattered. She had not noticed it was raining outside; perhaps it had only just started. There was a queue at the counter – there always was at this hour of the morning, the aroma of freshly-baked bread and cakes a lure to passing shoppers.

Merryn wished she was eighteen. Not seventeen or earlier, because those childhood and adolescent years had been hateful ones. She’d start with her eighteenth birthday and enjoy again those ten beautiful years which had come to a close today. Eight years before she met Bernie. They had been good times, too. Oh God, just let me live them over again and I’ll be happy to call it a day.

Merryn had been twenty-eight last week. She and Bernie had gone to the pizza restaurant in the shopping precinct to celebrate. But I want to start long before then.

She was tall, with long dark hair. Her glasses, she was told, were an added attraction in a studious kind of way.

Well, she did have two A levels, might have got a degree in art if she had gone on to university instead of taking that job in Dyllon’s mill office. It didn’t matter now, as it had turned out today, because the outcome would not have been any different. Her parents had not considered art to be a ‘proper’ job; painting was something you did for fun at weekends. Which was why they’d refused to pay for her to go to college. So it had been nine till five at the mill, typing out invoices and then learning how to work computers and word processors when typewriters became obsolete.

She had lost her virginity when she was nineteen. She had only hung on that long because she had not met any man she liked enough to give herself to. She remembered the date – 28 July – as it was a milestone in her life. Like today, but for a very different reason.

Paul was never far from her thoughts. That hot sunny day was still precious to her, so much sweeter because it had been impromptu; had he parked his old Ford Popular in some lonely country lane it would all have gone according to form. She would have let him, anyway. But instead they had gone down to the recreation park. The schools had just broken up for the summer holidays and it was as though every mother in this sprawling conurbation had brought her squealing offspring down to the swings or the small lake to throw crusts of bread to the gluttonous mallards. There was a noisy carefree atmosphere, and a few courting couples had sought refuge in the unmown grass beyond the football pitch. She and Paul had wandered over there and found a space to sit down.

She hadn’t meant it to happen right there; maybe he hadn’t either. But after his fingers had explored beneath her skirt she was willing him to go the whole way, rubbing herself against him and hoping that he didn’t fail to notice the hardness of her nipples against his chest. They forgot about everybody else. The shrieking of children faded and they were alone in an empty park. Maybe somebody saw them, maybe they didn’t. Unclothed, uninhibited, their orgasmic cries muffled by their crushed lips, neither of them gave a thought that Merryn might get pregnant – until afterwards. But it was first time lucky. First time …

She might have gone the way of many of her school-friends and got engaged, only Paul wasn’t the marrying kind. After the heartbreak came others. Michael, whom she seduced because he wasn’t as forward as Paul; Will, who turned out to be married but it was beautiful whilst it lasted. And, five years later, Bernie.

Bernie with the craggy, lived-in face that made him seem several years older than he was, a mass of hair that was like a wire mop, and deep blue eyes. He was stocky, though there wasn’t an ounce of surplus flesh on him, and surprisingly athletic; Merryn had developed an interest in football, watching him play for the local team every Saturday afternoon. There was nobody else she would have stood in the pouring rain and driving sleet on a winter’s afternoon for. They had started going out less than a fortnight after he took a salesman’s job at the feed mill.

He was the kind of fellow who could turn his hand to anything, from paperwork to DIY. She admired him most because of his unassuming way. He didn’t do things just to try to show off, to prove himself. He didn’t have to. But for some unknown reason her parents didn’t like him. Maybe it was because he wasn’t what her father was, a fussy old fuddy-duddy. All the same, she and Bernie got engaged, and they were only a month away from the wedding.

Oh, God, how could you do this to me?

The headaches had started about two months ago. At first Merryn did not pay much attention to them, thinking perhaps she wasn’t getting enough sleep or maybe her glasses needed changing. She made an appointment with the optician; he said her eyes had not changed over the last year. The pains went away for about a fortnight, and then one morning she awoke with a monster of a migraine and had to stay in bed in a darkened room all day. The agony spilled over into the next day, and when she had another three days later, she went to see Doctor Markham.

He was sympathetic and prescribed some tablets. She wasn’t into feverfew or any of those supposedly natural cures. Medicine was progressing; her idea was to go forward with it, not backwards.

A week later she had the worst headache of all. It was almost three days before it subsided to a muzziness that lasted another day. Back to the doctor and another kind of pill. She thought they had done the trick, and went almost three weeks until the next pain hit her. Oh, Christ, she was nearly screaming in agony with that one. It wouldn’t let up.

Markham booked her an appointment with a specialist. A neurologist. That was ominous but she reasoned he was probably only playing safe. They did a scan – routine, a formality; they wouldn’t be doing their job if they did not explore every possibility. They’d report to her GP when they had some results.

The awful waiting period had lasted right up until this morning. Ironically, those headaches had not returned, and Merryn was wishing that she had not gone to the doctor in the first place. Maybe it was stress; she had been under a lot of pressure at work, putting in overtime because Sheila in accounts was away with shingles. Lucky old Sheila, good old-fashioned uncomplicated shingles! Or else it was something she was eating that was causing headaches – an allergy of some kind. She stopped eating cheese. It was a struggle, but as the pains hadn’t returned that could have been it. She’d tell Markham, blurt it out the moment she walked into his room: Forget what the specialist says, I’ve located the problem. I’ll just cut out cheese and everything will be fine.

The waiting room was crowded. It was half an hour before her turn came. Markham was waiting for her, his door open, but he wasn’t smiling as he usually did. Which was why she forgot to tell him about the cheese.

He seated himself at his desk and pored over a sheet of paper. The neurologist’s report. He cleared his throat. She had never known him to be ill at ease, he always came up with some quip. But not this morning. And then, falteringly, he told her. And the funny thing was that now, sitting here in Bullen’s cafe, she could recall every word that her brain had blanked out in the consulting room.

‘I’m afraid it’s a tumour.’ His lower lip quivered visibly and he kept his eyes firmly on that piece of paper. ‘A brain tumour. An operation wouldn’t be any good … laser treatment … you know …’

She knew only too well. She nodded, saving him the embarrassment of having to explain: There’s nothing we can do but we’ll have to be seen to be trying. Of course, we won’t let you suffer, we’ll make sure there’s a minimum of pain and discomfort. It’s only a matter of time. His eyes, his expression, said it all.

It took half an hour and a cup of black coffee for it to sink in. Oh, Merciful God, I’m going to die!

Merryn stared at the rain-splashed window, saw figures, silhouettes, hurrying to and fro. But at least they were going to live. In a moment of near panic, she almost rushed headlong through the door and into the road in the hope that a lorry was coming. It would be all over in seconds. No, that wasn’t the answer, it wasn’t fair to the unknown driver. Or to Bernie.

And they had to get married; she wanted to die Mrs Oldroyd. At least then her twenty-eight years would not have been a complete waste; to die at home, in the house they had put a deposit down on, not some hospice where everybody had given up hope.

I’ll fight it! A sudden desperate determination made her sit up straight. Fight it all the way. Doctors and surgeons had been proved wrong on many occasions. Why should this not be one of them?

The brief moment of hope faded as quickly as it had come and she slumped back in her chair. Christ, what was the use? She had cancer, a bad one, and it was slowly eating her brain away. She fumbled a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag, put one to her lips and flipped her lighter. The flame quavered and shook; she had difficulty in lighting the cigarette, and when she did the smoke tasted sour and brought on a fit of coughing. They said that smoking gave you cancer; they printed health warnings on cigarette packs and adverts. Merryn almost stubbed hers out, then changed her mind. You got cancer of the lung from smoking, not cancer of the brain and, anyway, there was little point in trying to kick the habit now. It was a drug and she needed it.

But whatever, the wedding was going ahead, that much was certain. She was aware that she was clutching a small white card in her hand, had maybe been holding it ever since she left the health centre. With some difficulty she deciphered the wording on it – she had to read it twice before it registered in her diseased brain. An appointment. Tomorrow, 11.15 a.m., the hospital radiology department. She knew what they’d say; We can’t cure you but we’ll contain the growth, slow it down. The pain will be kept to a minimum. Up until I die.

She was out in the street again, but could not remember leaving Bullen’s. There was a refreshing fast-driving drizzle on her face. Standing there, taking deep breaths, she was trying to awake from a dreadful dream; it must be a nightmare.

It wasn’t.

She remembered the recreation park, the long grass at the far end. And Paul. It didn’t have to be Paul – she would rather it wasn’t. A man, any man, seducing her for the first time, pulling down her damp knickers and easing her legs apart. Unbelievable sensations as he entered her, pushing deep into her, her feelings escalating.

She almost orgasmed standing there against the bus shelter.

Then the feeling was gone and she wanted to cry, to sob her hopelessness aloud. Somehow she fought it off and continued walking in the direction of the huge shopping complex, needing to mingle with a crowd, people who didn’t know, didn’t even suspect.

It was afternoon by the time she came in sight of the semi where she lived with her parents, amid row after row of identical boxes, built to house the workers of a contrived industrial region. The scheme had failed and many of the dwellings were empty, For Sale signs outside.

Mother would be in the kitchen, ironing; she always seemed to be ironing in the afternoons, a kind of ritual. How did you get on, dear? she’d ask. What did Doctor Markham say?

He said that I’m going to die, Mother! Venomously, she wanted to hurt her mother … because she didn’t like Bernie. But that would be stupid. Life was so very short.

Merryn decided to tell her parents later, break it as gently as she could. Telling Bernie was going to be the worst. She realized how a policeman felt when he called to tell a wife that she was now a widow because her husband had been killed in a road accident. Merryn began to tremble.

And as she walked up the short steep driveway towards the house, the headache came back with blinding force, taking her vision so that she swayed on her feet, lost her balance and fell headlong on to the neatly mown lawn. Writhing in agony, clutching at her head, trying to squeeze the evil growth out of her skull, she tasted grass in her mouth as consciousness started to slip away from her.

She was back in the park. Somebody was holding her. Paul? Fingers dug into her shoulders, pinched the skin as they tried to pull her up into a sitting position. She was crying with pain. It was some time before she could speak coherently.

And when she was at last able to, she screamed, ‘I’m going to die!’

2

‘Do you, Bernard Oldroyd, take this woman, Merryn Bartram, to be your lawful wedded wife?’

Bernie felt his skin go cold, and swallowed. The ‘I do’ came out in a rush, almost a shout, as if there was barely time to answer. There wasn’t; every second counted from now on. He glanced at Merryn by his side, fumbled and nearly dropped the ring. Oh God, let’s get the formalities over.

He sensed the atmosphere of tension in the small chapel, the brooding akin to that of a funeral service. Because before long that was what it would be, and Merryn would be back before the altar steps in a polished wooden coffin.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Merryn’s parents in the front pew. They should have been smiling, joyous. Instead their expressions were grim, their complexions ashen, their eyes boring into him. They hated him as they always had. It’s your fault, Bernard, they silently accused. Without you this wouldn’t have happened. Today we lose our daughter, tomorrow she might die with you – not with us, which is her rightful place.

Percy Bartram looked out of place in the hired suit. It hung awkwardly on his bulky frame. A jacket button had already popped; the bowl of his blackened pipe was poking out of his breast pocket alongside his carnation, and had already smudged it. Mavis looked fatter than ever. Her new suit threatened to split in any one of half a dozen places. Her jowls accentuated her scowl, her lips were pouted.

Her disapproval of her future son-in-law had surfaced last summer when Bernie and Merryn went on holiday for the first time. The day before they were due to leave for Torquay, she entered Merryn’s room, closed the door behind her and leaned against it as though deliberately barring her daughter’s possible escape.

‘Your father’ – she always pushed Percy into the front line whether he was present or not – ‘is not keen on this holiday of yours. It will be the gossip of the chapel for the next month. However’ – she sniffed loudly with an air of resignation – ‘we trust that you have booked separate rooms!’

Merryn had tensed; with hindsight she would have been evasive, diplomatic, even a downright liar, but instead she had blurted out, ‘Good God, Mother, you forget I’m not a teenager any more. I’m coming up to thirty. What the hell d’you think we’ve been doing for the last two years?’

‘You mean’ – Mavis Bartram’s face suffused with blood, her normally deep-sunken eyes bulged – ‘you mean that you have been having … intercourse?’

Bernie was temporarily banned from the Bartram household, a state of affairs that lasted for several weeks after he and Merryn returned from Torquay. Each evening he called to collect her, sat outside in the car until she joined him, and dropped her off at the bottom of the drive several hours later. Until finally he was allowed through the door again, into a hostile atmosphere which had barely relented even now. Those stupid buggers, he thought bitterly, are going to keep this up right until the end.

Merryn’s news had devastated him that damp, drizzly evening. He stared at her in numbed silence, tried to tell himself that he had not heard right. Or if he had, that doctors and specialists could be wrong; or even if they weren’t, that there was still hope. He wouldn’t give up hope until the day her life had ebbed from her.

‘We’ll fight it.’ His words, when at last he could get them out, sounded like empty bravado. ‘Together.’

‘Yes.’ She had nodded, and collapsed in his arms. ‘We won’t give up.’

Their greatest fear was that one of those dreadful headaches would either spoil their wedding day or cause it to be postponed, but for a week beforehand Merryn felt almost normal and even thought that perhaps the growth had mysteriously disappeared. The treatment at the hospital, unpleasant as it was, was containing it, of course. She insisted on carrying on with her job at the mill, and on the Sunday before their wedding she and Bernie went for a long walk up the Wrekin, that mountain from which it is possible to survey most of the Shropshire and Staffordshire plain. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and they climbed right up to the Needle’s Eye, past the Raven’s Bowl. It was difficult to believe that anything was amiss.

And now they were man and wife and in a couple of hours they would be heading back to Torquay, that haven of earlier happiness. They had to cram a lifetime into the coming week.

It was as if Providence had granted them just that one week, an interlude in the awful run-up to the inevitable. Their return journey was almost at an end, the blue sky had clouded over and it was raining as they entered the last lap of the long drive, filtering on to the M54.

Merryn sensed the dull ache starting behind her eyes and her vision began to tunnel. She made a vain effort to fight it off. Her temples started to pound; she thought she might vomit. She slumped forward in her seat belt. She was going to die, as the specialist had predicted. There was nothing she, Bernie or anybody else could do to save her.

Natalie Newman had lived in the Telford area for the past five years. A tall woman in her late fifties, her fair hair camouflaging the streaks of grey, her smooth skin resisting lines and wrinkles, she could have passed for mid to late forties, and often did.

A clairvoyant with a wide-ranging clientele, she also dabbled occasionally in witchcraft. White, of course, she explained with vehemence if ever the subject was broached. Before the death of her husband, she had lived in a small Yorkshire village. She had moved south when the Press castigated her unmercifully to create an unwarranted feature in a Sunday newspaper. Local hostility was not conducive to her work and she decided that residing in a conurbation would give her the anonymity which she desired. She advertised widely, increased her number of clients and offered therapy to those who requested it. Her motives were genuine, sometimes her results defied explanation, and her coven grew.

Bernie Oldroyd had met her once by chance through an old friend who was learning the technique of relaxation and meditation from her. It had been a brief meeting, but Bernie was impressed. And it was during the nocturnal hours following their return from honeymoon, when Merryn lay semi-conscious in the bed alongside him, that he decided to contact Natalie. A last throw, clutching at a straw, but when your loved one was dying you tried anything.

‘I don’t profess to work miracles,’ she stated almost defiantly as she ushered him into the small front room of her semi-detached, uniformly built house. ‘I’m not going to raise your hopes, neither am I prepared to waste my time and yours!’

He swallowed, feeling ill at ease and in a way overawed. ‘I just have to try everything. You understand, don’t you?’

Her features relaxed into a brief smile. ‘Yes, I understand. Perhaps just talking about it will help … Bernie.’

He talked. At times he was close to tears. And, surprisingly for one so dominant, she listened sympathetically.

‘You must pray,’ she said at last, her voice low, almost an inaudible whisper. ‘I do. Regularly. God guides me, contrary to anything which you may have heard about me. It is just that I believe in the old religions as opposed to the modern church and its hypocritical money-grubbing ways. Pray, and I will pray for Merryn, too. If it will help, I’ll call and talk to her. If you need me, call me.’

Inconclusive. He didn’t really know what he had been expecting, but somehow it gave him a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it would help if Natalie did talk to Merryn. He wasn’t sure, he would have to think about it carefully. But in the meantime he tried to pray.

And two days later he received a phone call at the office from Richie Howe, who introduced himself as a friend of Natalie Newman’s.

‘I heard about your problem, Bernie.’ Richie’s voice carried an undertone of arrogance. And the use of his first name by an unknown stranger was a damned cheek, Bernie thought. Whereas with Natalie it had been acceptable, now it was abhorrent. Who the hell was this fellow and what did he want? Natalie had been gossiping; that came as a disappointment.

‘I’ve talked to Natalie.’ Bernie glanced round the central office to make sure that none of the staff were within earshot. ‘And I’m praying.’

There was a sigh at the other end of the line. ‘I’m afraid Natalie’s going a bit over the top, getting religious mania.’ Bernie detected a definite sneer.

‘I found her perfectly charming and her advice was acceptable to me,’ he retorted. He almost slammed the receiver down. But Merryn was dying, today was yet another bad day, and he was prepared to listen to anybody. Even this Richie Howe if it would help.

‘Look, at the very least you can listen to what I have to say.’ Howe’s voice was condescending. ‘I think I can help you. In fact, I’m sure I can.’

Bernie Oldroyd stiffened. He was aware that he was beginning to tremble. ‘How?’

‘Look, Bernie, we can’t discuss this over the phone. I think we’d better meet up for a chat. D’you know the Meadow?’

Bernie knew the pub in question. He had passed by it many times, a small old-fashioned wayside inn. He said, ‘Yes,’ and waited.

‘How about tonight, say around nine? I’ll be in the snug. With luck we’ll have it to ourselves.’

‘All right, I’ll see you at nine.’ Bernie replaced the receiver and fought against that feeling of hope which was dashed at every turn. Praying had given him an unexpected comfort, he had even considered going to church next Sunday. But he would meet Richie Howe, and keep an open mind.

Richie Howe was in his late twenties and looked almost as Bernie had imagined him: dark hair that straggled around the neck of a grubby sweat shirt, eyes that refused to meet his gaze, features that were weak, furtive. He was wearing a torn anorak, stained jeans and scuffed trainers. The hand-rolled cigarette drooping from his thin lips refused to draw even though he kept flicking a throwaway lighter and sucking noisily on the nicotine, saliva-soaked end. His handshake was ostentatious and limp, cold to the touch.

Bernie experienced an urge to recoil, but asked, ‘What can I get you?’

‘Lager. A pint.’

They had the room to themselves. Bernie kicked the door closed behind him when he returned with the drinks. Richie leered, ‘Cheers,’ and took a long drink.

An uneasy silence. Richie was drawing patterns in a pool of spilled beer, as if deliberately waiting for Bernie to broach the subject of their meeting.

‘What can you do for my wife, Richie?’ The question was direct, loaded with apprehension.

Richie grinned, took another swallow and belched softly. His greasy hair flopped forward as if to hide the expression in his lowered eyes. ‘A lot. You want her to live, don’t you?’

‘Of course …’ Bernie’s pulses raced. He tried in vain to steady them. This was all nonsense, maybe just a dropout’s ruse to scrounge some free drinks. But when one’s wife was dying, day by day …

‘I can arrange that.’ Richie was smirking, still trying to light that cigarette. ‘But there are a couple of conditions.’

‘Go on.’ Bernie hunched forward.

‘First, you don’t mention to a soul that you’ve called me in.’

‘Naturally.’ I wouldn’t want anybody to know, he thought. ‘What else?’

‘It’ll cost you.’

The catch. The big con. A vulture preying on people’s emotions. Bernie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Look, I’m not handing over any money until …’

‘Of course not.’ Richie Howe’s laugh was chilling in the emptiness of the deserted snug. ‘I’m paid by results, which is more than you can say for Natalie Newman!’

‘She doesn’t charge.’

‘Not yet. But you go back to her, tell her that your God isn’t helping, and she’ll come up with an alternative suggestion. That’s when you have to put your hand in your pocket, pal. Believe me, I know the old ratbag and you won’t get much change out of five hundred. And Merryn will die at the finish.’

Bernie’s fists clenched beneath the table. He resisted the temptation to drive one of them into the face of the man sitting opposite him. ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

‘There are … ways.’ Richie leaned back in his chair. ‘Ways you wouldn’t understand. But if your wife lives, so what? She’ll live but it’ll cost you a hundred quid. Afterwards.’

Bernie just stopped himself from saying, ‘I’d give every penny I’ve got to have her live.’ He nodded, keeping his hands beneath the table so that Richie could not see how they shook uncontrollably. The fellow’s a nutter but I have to give it a try, he decided. ‘All right, what do I have to do?’

‘You don’t do anything except keep out of the way and leave everything to me. First, I need to see your missus, chat to her.’

‘I don’t want you alarming Merryn.’

‘Look here, pal, I can understand your reluctance but you’ll have to trust me. I just want to see Merryn, suss out the patient, if you see what I mean. Then I’ll tell you if it’s possible. I can work it most times but I have to be absolutely certain.’

‘Okay. When?’

‘Right away. Tonight.’

Bernie scraped his chair back, swaying unsteadily as he rose to his feet. He said, ‘My car’s parked at the back.’

Merryn stirred in the semi-darkness of the bedroom, and groaned. The landing light was on, shafting in through the partly open door. Her excruciating head pains had subsided to a dull throbbing, and vision had returned in her right eye. This particular headache was on the way out; maybe by morning she would be all right. Until the next time.

She wondered what time it was; night, obviously, otherwise the landing light would not be burning. Shortly she would risk a glance at the digits on the radio alarm on the bedside table. Not yet, though; they could start her pains up again. In a bit.

Where was Bernie? Downstairs, maybe. Her memory returned in stages. Uppermost was the awful realization that she was dying. It never really left her even when she was sleeping. But on waking it came back at her with force and she almost panicked. She writhed, clenched her fists, choked back a wail of despair.

Bernie, where are you? I need you. She recalled that he had said something about going out, mumbled that he had to meet a customer at a pub somewhere. In all probability it was Mr Grimmond, the organic farmer who grew fields of oats for the health-food industry. They queued up to get a contract with him. Bernie must have gone to try to negotiate on behalf of Dyllon’s. It wouldn’t be any good, they had tried it before. One of the big chains would outbid them. Grimmond was a nuisance, thought everybody ought to drop everything and run when he snapped his fingers; it was a kind of game he played, setting one miller off against another. But he always got his price in the end.

There was somebody in the bedroom. She was aware of a movement over by the window, a stealthy footstep, the creaking of a floorboard. Bernie was back, he had come up to bed and was trying to undress without waking her. Oh, thank God!

‘Bernie?’ Well, it couldn’t be anybody else. Could it?

It was! She could just make out the dim silhouette of a figure that was not familiar to her, a man with stooped shoulders, wearing some kind of outdoor garment over his clothing. Merryn tensed.

‘Just relax, Mrs Oldroyd.’ The voice was soft, commanding.

‘Who … is it?’

‘Don’t worry.’ The voice was reassuring, closer now, on her left where she could not see because of her temporary blindness. ‘I’ve just come to have a look at you.’

It certainly wasn’t Doctor Markham. Who then? One of his partners? Not Doctor Kite, this man was too tall. There was another doctor who had joined the practice recently. Merryn could not recall his name, she had only seen it on the board in the health centre. It had to be him.

She flinched as she felt a soft hand on her forehead, testing her for perspiration, a temperature. Fingers smoothed across her brow, felt at her cheeks, soft and caressing.

‘You’re soaking.’ The man in the darkness spoke kindly. ‘I think you’d better take your nightdress off. I’ll help you.’

She struggled to obey, lifting herself up with all the strength she could muster, enough to enable her visitor to peel the damp, clinging garment from her sweaty flesh and up over her head. She flopped back naked, feeling the cool air on her overheated body as he threw back the bedclothes.

‘You’re a doctor?’ It sounded silly, doubting.

‘Yes.’ The reply had a vagueness about it. Possibly he was a specialist from the hospital. She was too weak, too tired, to pursue the question. He would not be here examining her if he were not some kind of medic.

His long fingers stroked her body as if he was massaging her in some exceedingly gentle and pleasant way. Down her neck, on to her small firm breasts, dwelling on the nipples until they stiffened. A sigh of contentment escaped her lips. He was smoothing the pain from her.

‘Is that all right?’ He was leaning over her. She thought she detected alcohol on his breath.

‘It’s … beautiful,’ she whispered. Doctors weren’t supposed to drink on duty but she didn’t care. He was making her feel better already. The head pains had virtually disappeared.

His hand continued with those soothing movements, rubbing her stomach, then down on to the outsides of her thighs, moving over and inwards; she parted her outstretched legs, moaned her pleasure as he ruffled through her fluffy hair, and willed him to touch her … there. Feelings which she had almost forgotten since her honeymoon, beautiful and exciting, caused her to breathe faster. She pushed herself at him until a finger penetrated her and she cried out aloud.

Merryn began to jerk on the crumpled damp bedclothes, and heard the bedsprings creaking in time with her movements. She was whirling dizzily, everything else forgotten in this blissful moment when she recalled Paul in the recreation ground, and others. And Bernie.

Then she was lying trembling and spent, grateful that the pain was gone, weak and willing for more from this stranger whose face she had not even seen. She was disappointed to see that he was standing over by the door, on the point of leaving, his features tantalizingly in shadow.

‘Are you feeling better now?’ he enquired.

‘Yes.’ She scarcely recognized the hoarse whisper as her own voice. ‘But …’

‘Just rest, get some sleep.’ He turned away. ‘I’ll see you again soon.’

She listened to his footsteps going downstairs and tried to call him back, but he did not return.

‘Well?’ Bernie whirled round as Richie entered the living room, hating the younger man for the way he smiled, the sheer arrogance in every movement. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s dying.’ Howe began rolling a cigarette, licked the paper and put it to his mouth. ‘Faster than you think. I’d say a week at the outside.’

‘Good God!’ Bernie Oldroyd’s face drained of every vestige of colour. ‘Doctor Markham said –’

‘Fuck Doctor Markham!’ Richie Howe’s face contorted into a mask of hatred. His sudden flash of fury caused Bernie to step back a pace involuntarily. ‘Just you listen to me, Bernie. I’m in charge of your wife and I don’t want anybody else poking their bloody nose in. You see to it that that doctor keeps away from her. Got it?’

Bernie was shaking. His initial anger was gone, replaced by … fear. Suddenly Richie was no scrounging dropout trying to con him out of a few quid, he was frightening to behold, power and sheer evil exuding from him. Bernie felt it, recoiled from it, and hated himself for cringing.

‘All right.’ His voice was a whine. ‘I’ll do what you say, Richie. I’ll go along with anything just so long as you save her. You can save her, can’t you?’

The smile was back on Richie’s face, a stretching of those thin lips which was far more terrifying than his anger had been. He drew on his cigarette, then flicked ash nonchalantly on to the carpet as if to show his contempt of the other. His head thrust forward; the veins stood out on his forehead.

‘I said she’ll live,’ he hissed, ‘but first she has to die!’

3

Merryn was dying. Bernie finally faced up to the fact that she would not survive the night. The pain had begun yesterday. The tablets had eased her suffering, enabling her to sleep, but it was no ordinary sleep, it was a coma from which she would not emerge.

She looked so peaceful. He sat by the side of the bed, listening to her shallow breathing; on more than one occasion he thought she had slipped quietly away but here was still the faintest of pulse to be found.

Dusk became darkness and he knew she would not make it to morning. He thought about calling Doctor Markham, but resisted the urge because Richie Howe had instructed him not to summon the GP. If Markham dropped in for a routine check on a terminal patient, that couldn’t be helped; the doctor had looked in yesterday morning, about an hour before Merryn fell into that final deep sleep from which there would be no awakening. He would not be back for a couple of days, probably. There had been nothing at the time to indicate that the end was quite so close.

Oh, God, he had to talk to somebody! Bernie went downstairs, picked up the phone and dialled.

‘She’s sinking fast,’ he told Richie Howe.

‘Call me when she’s gone.’ The reply was abrupt, callous. ‘Then I’ll come straight round.’ There was a click and the line went dead.

I’m crazy, Bernie thought, feeling a surge of panic. But even if he phoned Markham there was nothing that could be done. There was no pain to be eased, no chance of a recovery. His wife was just sleeping her life away.

Bernie went back upstairs, and even as he reached the landing he heard the chime of the front doorbell. He stopped, stiffened, like a burglar caught out by the unexpected return of the householder. Who was it? He wondered. The doctor? I’m not admitting anybody until …

He crept into the spare bedroom and eased the curtains open just enough to enable him to look out on to a housing estate that was lit up by artificial orange lamps, their glow illuminating the drive. Two people stood down below, a man wearing an overcoat with the collar turned up and a trilby hat, the woman using her umbrella to shield them from the driving rain. Percy and Mavis Bartram had come to see their daughter. The bell rang again.

Bernie stepped back, allowing the curtain to fall into place. He just stood there, not moving, not even when the bell rang a third time. Christ, what a bastard I am, they’ll never see Merryn alive again! But if he let them in they might insist on calling the doctor. Merryn might die meanwhile and Richie’s instructions would have been disobeyed. The chilling words echoed and re-echoed in Bernie Oldroyd’s brain: Don’t let anybody know when she dies.

It was some time before he heard the Bartrams shuffling back down the drive. They would walk back to the end of the road and catch a bus home. With luck, they would presume that both he and Merryn were sleeping. Please don’t come back tonight!

He returned to the bedroom, searched for a pulse and eventually found a barely discernible one. He kissed her on the cheek and sat down beside her. Waiting.

* * *

Merryn died around 3 a.m. Bernie sensed her going even though there had been no perceptible sign, no outward change in her condition since early evening. His hand was clasping hers. In a way it was a relief that it was all over, he thought; not from a selfish angle but because her suffering was at an end. He continued to sit there with her. He wanted to cry but the tears would not come. Later, maybe. His thoughts turned to Richie Howe. The man was mad; Bernie decided he should not have had anything to do with him, ought never to have agreed to that meeting in the Meadow a few weeks ago. It was a cruel con: you pay me by results, but before she lives she has to die first.

Reluctantly he withdrew his hand and stood up. He did not put the light on; he did not need to. This madness had to end, he resolved. If Richie rang he would tell him he had decided against the whole thing. In all probability Richie would not contact him, would forget all about it.

Bernie made an effort to think logically. What did you do when somebody died? You called a doctor, who came out and checked, and wrote out a death certificate. Then you rang the undertakers and they took the corpse away. God, no, I don’t want anybody taking my Merryn away!

A slow descent of the stairs. The hall light was burning. He could see the telephone on the table by the door. He paused and stood there. I don’t want to phone anybody. You have to because it’s all over, he told himself, and took another step.

He stood by the phone, aware that he was trembling. Until he made that call he still had Merryn; nothing had changed. Why not leave it until morning? There was no point in fetching Doctor Markham out, he couldn’t bring her back to life.

But Richie Howe can.

That’s nonsense, he thought. Is it? How do you know, you haven’t tried? Why not give it a try? If it doesn’t work then you’ve lost nothing. Building up false hopes only to have them dashed, he argued with himself. It was an awful thought, subjecting Merryn to some blasphemous rites that wouldn’t help. But suppose they did … ?

He lifted the receiver, to call the GP, take an irrevocable step and get it all over. His finger rested in the dial, then moved the first digit.

Richie Howe’s number.

Richie answered almost immediately, as if he had been sitting by the telephone in anticipation of the call. His voice sent a ripple up Bernie’s spine and when he spoke his voice was unsteady.

‘She’s dead, Richie.’

‘I know.’ No trace of arrogance, just a chilling statement of fact that made goose pimples spread right up into Bernie’s spine. ‘I’ll be right round. Don’t touch anything, leave her just as she is.’

Richie arrived in twenty minutes. Bernie heard him propping his bicycle against the wall outside, and opened the door. Richie had a more than usual dishevelled look about him – bicycle clips on some old trousers that were smudged with oil, an old raincoat that was several sizes too large for him draped across his shoulders. But it was his expression that made Bernie Oldroyd recoil, regretting that he had yielded to temptation in one last futile effort to achieve the impossible.

Richie Howe’s eyes were staring with a kind of fanaticism and his complexion was deathly white. There was a nervousness about him which Bernie had never seen before, as if he was … afraid. Afraid because he was attempting the impossible? Or afraid because it might just be possible?

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ There was an uncertainty in Richie’s tone now as he closed the door behind him. In his hand he carried a small canvas bag which rattled when it moved.

Bernie made for the stairs, but Richie reached out and pulled him back. ‘No, Bernie, not you. I have to do this alone. Wait downstairs. Don’t come up, whatever happens, whatever you see or hear. Got it?’

Bernie nodded, and now his doubt, his unease, was bordering on fear. Oh, Merciful God, what a bloody fool I’ve been! He agonized. What’s he going to do up there? What’s he going to subject my darling to?

But Richie was already at the top of the stairs. All Bernie could see were those scuffed shoes and the clips clamping the trousers above the ankles, moving hesitantly now as if Richie feared to enter that room of death.

Richie went into the bedroom. He did not switch on the light, instead he pulled back a curtain, allowing a shaft of light from the orange-tinted streetlamp at the bottom of the drive to filter in. It was just enough to see by. He set his bag down on the floor, then moved to the bed. Now his movements were decisive. Throwing back the quilt, he stared at the still form on the bed.

With some difficulty he removed the clinging night attire, tossed it into a far corner of the room and began to straighten the limbs as if he was an undertaker called in to lay out the corpse before rigor mortis set in. Those same long fingers were stroking and smoothing, caressing the dead flesh, only this time with reverence instead of lust.

Only when he was fully satisfied did he reach down for his bag, unzip the fastener and withdraw some items that clinked and rattled. He held up a small book – at a glance it resembled a Book of Common Prayer – so that the light fell on the pages, illuminating the strange hieroglyphics on the brittle, flaking paper.

And then he began to read in a low voice that shook, faltering because he was afraid not because he was unable to translate the strange words. Knowing their meaning and terrified of their utterance, he felt his body become damp with sweat that chilled as the room temperature dropped rapidly.

Bernie sat on the settee in the lounge directly below the bedroom. Tense, head bowed, he was listening to Richie’s movements up above and trying not to visualize what was happening. He did not want to hear, but he had no choice.

Richie was moving about. There were footsteps and a rustling of material, and that rattle was surely the bag with its mysterious contents. A thud as something fell, then it was picked up. An agonizing silence followed until he heard Richie talking.

Bernie clasped his hands over his ears and tried to shut out that low, barely audible recitation. The words were meaningless to an eavesdropper, gibberish. It went on and on. Until finally there was silence – and that was more terrible than everything that had gone before.

It was cold, very cold. Bernie shivered. He tried to see the clock on the mantelshelf but the light had dimmed so that he was unable to make out the hands. It didn’t matter, time was of no consequence. He had been mad to let this go ahead, a rash decision brought about by grief and the crazy hope that his beloved might live again. Knowing that was an impossibility, he was angry with himself.

There were movements upstairs now – Richie walking to and fro, doing something. He dared not think what. Richie was talking again, but this time it was not that frightening monotone chant; it was almost as though he was engaged in conversation. Richie was mad, dangerously mad. Maybe he had hallucinated and convinced himself that he had resurrected the dead. A wild con trick just to earn himself a hundred pounds.

Bernie was angry now. This was blasphemous, an insult to the dead. He would tell Richie to get the hell out of here, and if he ever dared come back he’d call the police. He’d –

Richie was coming downstairs. Bernie heard the slow measured tread that seemed to have the old arrogance about it. Staring at the closed door, he willed it not to open. You’ve failed, Richie. Now please go and leave me in peace. I’m going to call Doctor Markham, do what I should have done in the first place.

The door opened and Richie Howe moved into the room. He stood there with that bag in one hand, the raincoat draped over his other arm. His features were deathly white but there was an expression of triumph, possibly even relief, on his face. He seemed taller than before, towering over Bernie, smirking.

‘You owe me a hundred quid,’ he said in a shrill voice.

‘You’re mad.’ Bernie glanced up, clenched his fists and experienced an urge to drive them into that grinning face, to reduce it to a bloody unrecognizable pulp.

‘I’ve done what you asked,’ Howe answered. ‘She’s alive. What more do you want?’

‘It’s a bloody despicable trick. I’ve a good mind to …’

Bernie’s voice tailed off. His ears had detected a movement in the hall beyond Richie, footsteps that were soft and padding as if whoever it was walked barefooted. Coming into this room …

And that was when Bernie Oldroyd screamed and almost fainted. For, framed in the doorway behind Richie Howe, stood a naked girl with long dark hair, holding on to the doorpost for support.

Merryn had been resurrected from the dead.

4

Doctor Markham had been expecting a call from Bernie Oldroyd sometime during the night. A lifetime’s experience told him that Merryn would not make it to the morning. Although there was little point in forsaking his bed, he would do it for Bernie’s sake because the man would need him. The death certificate could have been written out tomorrow after the undertakers had called to remove the corpse. But the GP had requested his partner, who was on night duty that week, to transfer the call to him when it came through.

George Markham retired shortly after eleven and left the bedside phone switched on. Thelma, his wife, was already asleep. Usually she read for a while but tonight she was tired. He hoped that the phone would not waken her when it rang.

He lay there in the darkness, thinking about Merryn – and Bernie. A real tragedy. The fellow was going to take it badly and might need a course of Valium to help him through; one could never tell. Sometime after midnight the GP slipped into a fitful doze.

The old-fashioned alarm clock shrilled at 6.15 as it always did, Markham’s hand groped for the phone and had already lifted off the handset before he realized that it wasn’t that which had woken him. He sat up with a grunt and switched off the alarm.

He had not been called. His first reaction was anger towards Doctor Kite. The younger man still had to learn that George was the boss. If he requested something, then it was an order which had to be obeyed. Kite had obviously taken the Oldroyd call and either gone out there himself or promised to call round later. Well-meaning but foolish. Markham threw back the bedclothes and swung his feet to the floor. His partner wasn’t helping anybody by working to the book; what they taught you at medical school and what you did in a practice were two totally different things.

Markham resisted his impulse to phone Bernie. Merryn might just have struggled through the nocturnal hours; it was improbable but not impossible. He dialled Kite’s number and when his partner answered, George’s tone was abrupt.

‘What about Oldroyd?’

‘Nobody called.’ Kite sounded sleepy. Maybe he had had an uninterrupted night, too. ‘You want me to check?’

‘No, I’ll look round.’ Markham rang off and began to dress. Obviously Merryn was clinging on to life, so there was no point in doing anything until Bernie rang. In the meantime there was the routine morning surgery duty, repeat prescriptions to write out and a host of other things.

The waiting room was full by nine, surgery was not finished until 10.30. Markham tensed every time the receptionist put a call through to him. But there was no word from Bernie.

Home visits were scheduled from 10.30 to 1.30. Both doctors already had a full schedule. At the top of his list of calls Doctor Markham scribbled ‘Oldroyd’. He was uneasy, he would not rest until he had checked.

The house looked normal, the doctor thought as he parked his Cavalier at the bottom of the drive. He did not quite know what he had expected; maybe an undertaker’s van backed up to the front door, even an ambulance. Certainly all the curtains would be closed. But they weren’t, they were open, and that unexpected air of normality was most disconcerting. His hand was slightly unsteady as he pressed the doorbell. Because everything seemed all right, it must be wrong.

At first he thought that there was nobody at home. Maybe Merryn had died, Bernie had phoned the undertakers and they had taken the body away. No, they would not do that without a death certificate. Then Merryn was still alive and Bernie had dropped into an exhausted sleep after an all-night vigil. Or – somebody was coming. He heard footsteps in the hall, caught a glimpse of an unidentifiable silhouette through the frosted door pane, and heard the Yale click.

And then Merryn was standing there, wearing a pink housecoat, looking somewhat dishevelled and staring at him out of hollow, sunken eyes. There was an expression of resentment at this intrusion on her pallid face, and she was struggling to recognize him!

Markham stepped back in amazement. His lips moved but no words came. He was conscious of an icy tingle which began at the base of his spine and slowly travelled upwards. God in Heaven, this defied the laws of medical science, it was unbelievable! He half thought that he might be hallucinating; Merryn had been sinking fast on her deathbed only yesterday, now she stood here, pale and fragile. Perhaps a kind of death crawl, one last supreme effort, had somehow enabled her to get up, come downstairs and answer the door. An incredible feat, but she would probably die within the hour.

‘Oh … it’s Doctor Markham!’ Recognition filtered through her bemused expression. Her voice was strained. She made an attempt at a smile, a stretching of the dry, cracked lips, but there was no welcome. What are you bothering me for, I’m busy! She seemed to say.

‘I … I …’ For once words deserted him and he just stood there feeling decidedly awkward, a trespasser. He fought to get himself under control. ‘I … I thought I’d call to see how you were, Merryn.’ It sounded feeble, like a door-to-door salesman who had forgotten his opening lines.

‘I’m fine, thank you, Doctor.’

‘Oh … I see.’ No, you’re not, you’re bloody dying. ‘May I come in?’

There was obvious reluctance in the way she stepped to one side and held the door for him. His first thought when he entered the narrow hallway was how cold it was. Perhaps the central heating had broken down. The door closed behind him and as they faced each other he experienced an urge to leave, to make some excuse and get away. Because it defied all logic, there was no explanation. It was … frightening!

‘Is Bernie around?’ He tried to sound casual.

‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t. He’s gone to the office.’

Oh, Christ, this gets crazier by the second, he thought. Her housecoat had fallen open. He stared at her nakedness beneath it; seductive, provocative. She was watching him closely, smiling again, as if to say, Do you like what you see, Doctor?

‘Er … I’d better have a quick look at you.’ His voice sounded distant.

‘Why?’

He was sweating and the perspiration was chilling on his body. ‘Well, you’ve been ill, you know.’ Her mind had gone, obviously. But what was Bernie thinking of, going off to work and leaving her alone? ‘I can see you’re a lot better now but whilst I’m here I’d better check you over.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She sounded as though she had forgotten her illness and his words had jogged her memory. ‘Well, if you insist, Doctor, although I assure you it isn’t necessary. Would you care for a cup of coffee? Or tea, if you prefer it?’

He followed her into the front room and saw a mug of steaming tea on the table alongside a half-eaten bowl of breakfast cereal. She was clearly in the middle of a late breakfast. And yesterday she wasn’t even capable of taking liquids …

‘I’ll just have a very quick look at you and then I must be on my way,’ he said rapidly. ‘I’ve an awful lot of calls today, this flu bug is fast reaching epidemic proportions.’

‘It’s certainly a nasty one,’ she answered, seating herself on the couch and reclining, her garment falling away to reveal her full nakedness.

Jesus, she thinks she’s just had the bloody flu! Markham’s hands trembled as he opened his bag and withdrew a stethoscope and a thermometer. ‘Now, if I can take your temperature, then I’ll have a listen to your chest.’ Merryn’s thighs moved and stretched. A dim, exciting memory seeped into her slowly functioning brain. The details eluded her; a darkened bedroom, another examination. She could not recall the man who had stroked her and brought on those exciting feelings that had escalated until she was wild with ecstasy. She had not glimpsed his face, but that didn’t matter so long as he did it again. It could have been Doctor Markham. She hoped that it was and he would do it again. Right now.

The stethoscope was cold against her breasts, pimpling her hardening nipples. She stiffened, and raised one leg until it was hooked over the back of the settee. Eyes closed, she was waiting. Go on, Doctor, I need it badly.

Markham was engrossed in listening to her breathing. It was fast, but with no hint of a wheeze. He dropped the instrument back into his bag, leaned forward to push the thermometer between her lips and that was when he had his first full view of her lower regions. He stared as her slender fingers came round and rubbed gently on her soft, moist flesh. Oh, my God!

He experienced shock and dizziness, and drew back. Merryn’s eyes flickered open. That smile was puckering her lips. The implication was only too plain: Go on, feel me, rub me.

‘I … er, everything seems fine, I don’t think it’s really necessary to … to take your temperature,’ he stammered. The small glass cylinder slipped from his shaking fingers, bounced on the floor and rolled beneath the settee. He made no move to retrieve it.

‘As I said, Doctor, I feel fine. Feel me and see for yourself!’ Her fingers closed over his wrist and the coldness of her flesh made him gasp. It was as if he had been touched by a corpse!

‘I … I …’ He snatched his hand away and almost overbalanced as he stepped back. ‘I must be going. I’ll look in again.’ Or maybe I’ll send Kite for a second opinion, he thought. All this defied belief.

‘I want you to rub me there, Doctor.’ Her eyes were narrowed and there was an unnerving desperation about her now. ‘Just as you did the last time.’

‘I did not!’ He blurted a denial, moving still further back.

‘Then somebody did. In the dark, when they examined me.’

‘It must have been Bernie.’

‘No, it wasn’t!’ she snapped angrily. ‘All right, if you won’t, then I’m going to masturbate!’

‘I … I think you should see the specialist again.’ He picked up his bag but failed to close the clasp because of his trembling fingers. ‘Just to be absolutely sure.’

‘I don’t want to see the specialist. I don’t need to and I’m not going to!’ She was becoming petulant, still rubbing herself. ‘I know what I need.’

As he turned away towards the door, he heard her get up from the couch, then there was a rustle as her housecoat was taken off and thrown to one side. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her coming after him, her nakedness a frightening spectacle. He moved quickly into the hall and just made it through the porch as she grabbed despairingly after him. He ran down the drive in an ungainly almost panic-stricken shamble and was breathless by the time he reached his car. Only then did he look back, but mercifully there was no sign of her and the front door was closed.

Some kind of miracle had happened, he decided. This doomed girl had not only risen from her deathbed but she had turned into a nymphomaniac. He had read of such cases in the medical journals. A cancer just disappeared and the patient recovered; doctors could not explain it, they just accepted it.

George Markham stalled the car twice before he got it going. A strange phenomenon, but he would not attempt to investigate it further. Doubtless Bernie would be in touch before long.

Until then he would leave well alone.

Merryn lay spent on the sofa. For the first time for a very long time she felt totally relaxed. She stared up at the emulsioned ceiling. Its whiteness dazzled her, forced her to close her eyes. She tried to think.

Her brain was fogged, but that was because she had been ill, with some inexplicable virus which had fooled the medical profession into thinking that she had a tumour. She felt a mixture of relief and anger; they were fools, all of them, and wouldn’t admit they had been wrong. Well, she wasn’t going to humiliate herself by agreeing to further tests.

The long sleep had done her good. She was better and that awful migraine had disappeared. It would not return, she told herself. Her illness had reached a peak; maybe it had been touch and go, but it was all over now. She had only vague memories of the last few days (or was it hours?) not really sleeping, and a dim awareness that people came and went in the bedroom – that mysterious doctor, who most certainly was not Markham, touching her in exciting places and giving her such marvellous sensations. She wished that he would come back again. Right now she had satisfied herself but it would not last for long; already her fingers were starting to stray back down to her thighs.

She smiled wryly as thoughts of Bernie returned. Good old boring Bernie, but he couldn’t give her all she wanted. A craving made her whole body tremble; she had to find the mysterious nocturnal stranger again. Vaguely she recalled him reading to her as she lay there desperately ill. She could not remember what it was all about but it had been thrilling. She had forgotten the words, as she used to when her mother read to her in bed at night; she had been dozing and still hearing, but not comprehending.

Then the doorbell rang again and jerked her out of her reverie. Damn it, she didn’t want any callers, she had things to do. But it might be … him.

She crept across to the window, peered out and groaned. Sod it, it was her parents, standing there in a state of anxiety, muttering to each other. Because they thought she was dying. Oh, God, they’d be here for the rest of the day, pissing about and not leaving her in peace to do what she wanted to do.

The bell rang again. Merryn crept back to the settee and stretched herself out. Ignore them and they’ll go away, she thought. Come back later, please, if you want to. In the meantime …

She began to moan softly as her slim fingers found their rhythm and her body responded to wave after wave of electrifying sensations.

5

Bernie Oldroyd’s apprehension had been building up all day. In a way he dreaded returning home after his first day back at the office, fearful of what he might find. How permanent was this resurrection? He had difficulty in accepting that it had actually happened; perhaps Merryn had not actually died but had merely slipped into a deathlike coma from which Richie Howe had revived her. No, she had been dead, all right, there was no doubt about that. This defied all the laws of nature, became something too terrible to contemplate. He should not have agreed to it; but without Richie Howe’s help he would not have Merryn back. For that he must be grateful.

But she had changed, there was no question about that. Only physically did she resemble the girl he had nursed these past weeks, his bride on a last-fling honeymoon. Now she was a … stranger.

Richie had left before morning, his hundred pounds stuffed into the pocket of his shabby raincoat. Pray God that is the last we see of him! Bernie thought. Only now did he sense the sheer evil that emanated from Richie; previously it had been a dislike, a contempt that he struggled to hide. Richie had demonstrated his terrible power; he had played God, the giver of life, in the role of the antichrist. And after he was gone that atmosphere of evil remained, a permeating odour of putrefaction as if a dead rat was decomposing in some hidden corner. And there was a chill which even the central heating failed to disperse.

He dreaded going home to it.

They had sat there in the cold grey light of early morning, Merryn stark naked and not appearing to notice the cloying coldness, Bernie in jeans and a sweater. Not looking at each other, they kept a numbed silence. He could not believe it but something checked his euphoria at having her alive again. It could not be, it wasn’t natural; they had used dark forces. And where did they go from here?

He started, almost snatched his hand away as her icy fingers closed over it. Her face was close to his, her breath fanned his face and he recoiled; it was the stench which had been hanging around ever since she came downstairs. The unmistakable smell of death which haunted funeral parlours.

‘What’s the matter, Bernie?’ Her voice was harsh even though she smiled with her lips. ‘Don’t you want me any more?’

‘Of course I do.’ He made a conscious effort to squeeze those corpse-like fingers. ‘It’s just that … well, I can hardly believe it.’

‘Believe what?’ she asked in genuine amazement, sliding her fingers to his crotch and searching for his zip. ‘I’ve been very ill but I’m well again. In fact, I feel better than I have for months.’

‘That’s fine.’ He swallowed as she ran his zip, began groping inside the vent until she located his flaccid flesh and tugged it out, hurting him. ‘I’m in the mood, Bernie.’ So clinical, so … whore-like, it was disturbing.

‘I … I’m exhausted’ – which was true – ‘tonight has been an ordeal.’

‘I’m sure you’ll make it … with my help!’ She laughed, a chilling sound that seemed to echo in the cold room.

He closed his eyes, knowing that he had to try, for Merryn’s sake. Her icy touch wasn’t helping, the atmosphere was all wrong. It was sex for the sake of it, not because he felt like it, a bizarre duty. Forcing himself, divorcing himself from his surroundings, he fantasized. He thought about their honeymoon, how it had been then. He felt himself start to stiffen.

‘That’s better!’ Her breath didn’t smell now, or perhaps he was acclimatized to it. She was tugging at his jeans. He lifted himself up so that she could pull them down and then she was swinging herself astride him with a strength and determination that made a mockery of her recent illness.

Surprisingly, it was warm and moist in between her spread thighs, almost as it had been … before. It was before, they were still on their honeymoon. He knew he could hold his hardness now and felt her clamping on him, her pubic bone starting to grind on his own, a horsewoman frantically urging her mount to full gallop. He heard her shrieks of delight. She was going crazy, riding him mercilessly, grunting obscenities beneath her breath.

Then she was slumped forward, those hands still icy as they gripped his shoulders for support, her breath a cold nauseating vapour on his face. He thought he might vomit, the bile was scorching the back of his throat. Oh, Jesus Christ, it was awful, unnatural! This wasn’t the Merryn he had known and loved, it was some foul, lusting monster that had taken her body for its own.

Thank God, she slid off him, picked up her discarded housecoat and draped it around her. Bernie opened his eyes and cringed before the expression on her face. She was mocking him silently, perhaps because his performance had not matched her own, eyes fixed unwaveringly on his softening flesh as though she mocked it for its inadequacy because he had not made it all the way. He pulled up his jeans, avoiding her gaze.

‘I’d better wash and shave and get ready for work,’ he muttered. I don’t have to go into the office, he realized. They won’t be expecting me, but I have to get away. I need time to think. Oh, my Christ, what have I done?

‘Who was that man who came last night?’ The question was fired without warning, an insistence that was not lost upon him.

He caught his breath and kept his head down so that she could not see his expression. ‘A doctor,’ he lied. ‘He came to … to cure you.’

‘He was nice.’ Her voice sounded far away. ‘When is he coming again?’

Never! ‘I … don’t … know. He didn’t say.’

‘There’s something you ought to know, Bernie.’

He jerked his head up and thought for one moment that she was about to make a confession, but instead her expression was one of gloating; it reminded him of Richie Howe’s leer. He swallowed, and croaked, ‘What … what’s that?’

‘He screwed me, Bernie!’ Her laugh was like a hollow rattle in her throat. ‘And, oh, Jesus, it was beautiful!’

Her mother had phoned him twice at the office during the day. The first time she was frantic because they had gone to the house and had not been able to get an answer to their persistent ringing. Bernie had difficulty, naturally, in making her believe that Merryn was out of bed and on the way to a miraculous recovery. Eventually he succeeded. Mavis had called round again in the afternoon, and this time Merryn had opened up to them.

‘There’s something wrong with her, Bernie!’ A despairing wail.

‘Of course there is!’ he snapped irritably. ‘What the hell do you expect when somebody’s …’ been resurrected from the dead, ‘made a miraculous eleventh-hour recovery?’

‘But she’s … different.’

‘She needs time to adjust to normal life.’

‘I think I’ll give Doctor Markham a ring and ask him to call and have a look at her.’

‘No!’ He almost screamed his panic. ‘Look, she’s doing fine, she just needs time. I’ll be home early tonight. If I think the doctor ought to call I’ll phone him. Right?’

‘Very well.’ Mavis Bartram was offended, but rather that than have her stirring up God knew what. Doubtless she was disapproving because Bernie had left Merryn and gone to work. Oh, God, if only they knew. But they must not.

And now Bernie was going home to … that.

Merryn was still wearing her pink housecoat when he walked into the house, he could see her through the partly open lounge door, reclining on the settee, the garment hanging loosely and exposing her breasts with their nipples engorged and a deep pink. Oh, God, she hasn’t changed since I left her this morning and she probably hasn’t got up off the sofa. Which was excusable when you were ill, he tried to convince himself.

‘How are you, darling?’ He stopped a yard from her, feeling afraid again. He could smell her fetid breath; the room reeked of it.

‘I’m fine,’ she yawned. It conveyed boredom.

‘Would you like something to eat?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry. Get yourself something if you want.’

‘I’m not hungry, either.’ The nausea was back, like stomach cramp.

‘Mother and Father came round.’

‘I know. They phoned me.’ He looked for a reaction.

‘I might go and stay with them for a few days, the rest would do me good.’

Strewth! He stared at her. He thought for one moment that she was joking but her expression was serious. Her parents didn’t like him, they got on Merryn’s nerves, and now …

‘You don’t object, do you?’ Her tone had a hint of defiance in it.

‘No. No, not at all.’ He hoped his relief didn’t show.

‘Doctor Markham called as well.’

‘Oh!’ His stomach balled. ‘What … what did he have to say?’

‘Not a lot. He’s a right peen! Bernie, if he calls again, just tell him to piss off, will you?’

‘All right.’ But his sense of relief was short-lived.

‘Oh, I had another phone call today.’ She was smirking, baiting him.

‘Who?’

‘That fellow who cured me. Richie Howe.’

It was as if Bernie Oldroyd had been dealt a physical blow. He swayed back on his heels as the room began to gyrate. In his mind he saw Richie, not shabbily clad but naked, an unwashed body kneeling in between Merryn’s lewdly spread legs, her icy fingers frantically guiding him into her. It was sickening, revolting. And it hurt.

Bernie heard himself asking, ‘What had he got to say for himself?’

‘Nothing much.’ She sounded casual, offhand now that she had delivered her blow. ‘Just wanted to know how I was feeling. I said he was welcome to call round any time he was passing. After all, Bernie,’ her voice was condescending, teasing, ‘when somebody has pulled you back from the brink of death you have to show some gratitude, don’t you?’

Bernie turned on his heel, went through to the kitchen, and stood there holding on to the sink for support. He thought for a second that he was going to throw up but the churning sensation passed. His nostrils flared as he tried to hold his breath and shut out that permeating odour, but it was too late; he could taste its foulness. The smell of death still lingered and he knew it would not go away. Ever.

Because, although Merryn moved, and breathed, and talked, she had died. She was dead, no matter what he tried to tell himself. He shuddered uncontrollably; his wife was like one of those awful creatures in late-night movies. A zombie. The living dead. And he was still married to her body with its cold flesh and fetid odours.

6

Percy Bartram had been chief cashier at the bank for the past thirty years. Reliable, a meticulously slow worker, he had no ambition other than to retire from that post with a comfortable pension. He prided himself that in three decades the only discrepancy in his till was a five-pound shortfall in 1961; he even guessed which customer he had overpaid, and the loss festered in his tidy mind. He had never shown any aspirations towards promotion. The accounting systems away from the counter had a mystique which he had no desire to attempt to unravel.

Changes were abhorrent to him. He recalled with affection the days of hand ledgers, and pound notes, which had a kind of dignity about them instead of the mass-produced coins which resembled the fruit machine tokens at the White Lion. Then mechanization had eroded and corrupted. First came the electric posting machines and adding machines, which bred a laziness in new recruits. Worse was to follow with the introduction of computers. The branch itself was extended, enlarged, and the staff increased from a respectable dozen to twenty-two, mostly young girls who had no interest in the job other than collecting their salary on the 20th of each month. Unbelievably, daily balancing of the tills was abolished; Wednesday was the day of reckoning, and any shortage less than fifty pounds was written off, after no more than a cursory effort to find it. Standards had declined, and Percy would not be sorry when next April arrived and it was time for him to call it a day.

But all this had paled into insignificance when Merryn became ill. He regretted that his daughter had spurned his advice about a banking career and chosen a very ordinary clerical job at Dyllon’s, when the bank had much more to offer her. But now even that did not matter.

Then, suddenly, Merryn was miraculously recovered. Not well, that was too much to expect. Alive, certainly, and for once she had heeded her parents’ advice and was coming over to stay with them for a few days. They might even stretch it to a week. It would do her good to be away from that husband of hers for a while. As Mavis had said, at least twenty times, it was callous and insensitive of Bernie to have gone back to work on the day of Merryn’s recovery.

‘You’ll have to cut down on that smoking of yours whilst she’s here.’ Percy had forecast that his only vice, his one indulgence, would be under threat from Mavis. ‘She’s had a cancer, don’t forget, and smoking causes cancer. I was reading an article in the paper only yesterday on passive smoking – that’s breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke. Lord, it’s a wonder I haven’t got cancer, living with you all these years. The house stinks of it!’ She gave an exaggerated cough.

‘Merryn smokes,’ Percy replied, erecting a frail defence.

‘I expect she’s given it up now.’ Mavis was busily polishing the sideboard. ‘But even when she smoked, it was only two or three a day, nothing compared with your ounce of pipe tobacco and twenty fags a day. I dread to think of the money that’s gone up in smoke these last thirty years which could have been spent on something useful!’

‘Twenty-five grams, to be precise.’

‘Whatever are you on about, Percy?’

‘They don’t pack tobacco in ounces any longer, haven’t done for ten years or more. So I’ve cut down by a quarter of an ounce a day.’

‘Hmm! And in the meantime the price has gone up so you’ve been spending more on your filthy habit. They’ve conned us on the metric system just as they did on decimalization.’

He sighed, held his lighter to the bowl of his pipe and began to puff out clouds of smoke in defiance. They had both been under terrible stress lately; he needed his tobacco, this was no time to start trying to give it up. And where his wife was concerned, he had learned from experience, he ‘cocked a deaf ’un’ and carried on as before. She had been argumentative ever since ‘the change’. He just hoped that she and Merryn weren’t going to start bickering again. In spite of all the innovations at the bank, he wished that tomorrow wasn’t Saturday. Roll on Monday morning, for once, and he could leave the pair of them to it.

‘You really don’t look well, dear.’ Mavis was going to fuss continually throughout Merryn’s stay, that was a foregone conclusion. Percy tried to immerse himself in his paper. Psychologically it was a useful screen behind which to smoke.

‘I’m fine, Mother.’ Merryn was ill at ease. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to stay with her parents after all, she thought. All she wanted was to be left alone. She could not get that fellow Richie Howe out of her mind, even though she had only seen him in the semidarkness of her sickroom. It was as if he was talking to her all the time now. She could hear his slow drawl captivating her, as if he was calling her to him. I brought you back from death; I have a right to your body. Whether he had a right or not, she would give it to him. Willingly. If only she knew where to contact him.

‘I think you ought to have an early night, dear.’ Her mother’s advice always centred around not going out, and having early nights. ‘In fact, I think we could all do with one after what we’ve been through. Don’t you, Percy?’

Percy grunted through his pipe. It was impossible to tell whether he agreed or disagreed. But an early night it was to be. Mavis refrained from remarking that Bernie had not telephoned as she fussed around in the spare bedroom, and even hinted that it might be a good idea if she slept with her daughter. ‘Percy’s such a fidget in bed, you know.’ But at least he doesn’t pester me these days, she thought.

Merryn had been aware of a mounting tension within herself all evening, one that was not solely sexual frustration. Piss off out of the way. Mother, she begged silently. I need to be … alone?

God Alive, just how long did it take her parents actually to get to bed? To and fro across the landing, taps running, teeth being brushed, the toilet flushed. Merryn trembled her impatience, almost yelling abuse when her door opened yet again and her mother’s head, encased in a hairnet, peered round. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep with you, dear?’

‘Absolutely, Mother. I’m fine.’

‘Well, if you need us, don’t be afraid to wake us up. I don’t sleep very well, anyway, so I’ll probably be listening out for you.’

Christ, it was just like teenage days! Then her parents wouldn’t go to sleep until she was safely home. And tomorrow, doubtless, the quarrelling would begin.

All quiet at last. Merryn lay there in the darkness, and found herself willing the mysterious Richie Howe to manifest himself. Her legs were stretched wide as her fantasy began to dominate her. I’m ready for you, Richie.

It was just as if he was there. She could sense his presence, only the darkness was hiding him from her. Her body shuddered at her touch; it seemed an aeon since she had last done this to herself. Now Richie was here, and she cried out as he entered her, not giving a damn if her mother heard her.

And some time later, as she lay basking in the aftermath of her excitement, she felt that he really had been there, that he was still there. She stretched out a hand and groped for him, but there was no answering squeeze on her fingers.

For the first time, she became aware of that strange odour, a kind of sweet, sickly smell. She thought perhaps it exuded from her own pores; she inhaled it and felt heady. It was Richie’s sweat, she convinced herself, a comforting smell, one that lingered in her nostrils as a reminder that he had taken her yet again.

Sleep was impossible; she had not slept since … that night. She was restless and the thought of lying in bed awake all night was intolerable. The night hours suddenly had a special appeal to her.

The house was silent. She slid out of bed, crept to the door, and winced as it creaked when she opened it. The landing light was on; her parents still had that annoying and wasteful habit of leaving it burning all night, as though they were afraid of the dark. She sniggered her contempt as she moved towards the stairs.

As an afterthought she decided to check on her parents. If her mother found her wandering about the house, the kettle would be put on to boil, there would be tea made, the whole rigmarole would start again. Merryn crossed to the door of their room and stood listening. She could not even hear them breathing. She strained her ears to catch the steady, rhythmic sound which meant that they were fast asleep. There was only a silence which magnified every creaking floorboard.

She switched off the landing light and went downstairs. That smell was stronger now. She whispered Richie’s name in the darkness. My dearest, I need you.

Her restlessness was akin to that of a caged hunting beast and she walked from room to room as though she sought a means of escape. Yet she had no inclination to open the door and go outside. Just a compulsion to be on the move like a lost soul; an inner torment denied her rest.

Something touched her, but when she whirled round there was nothing there. She felt it following her from room to room, then back up the stairs. The urge was coming on her again, she fingered herself in readiness, bending double at the pleasure her touch brought. Back on her bed she would give herself to Richie Howe once more.

She paused outside her parents’ bedroom and listened again, but there was not so much as an intake of breath to be heard. She was tempted to peep in, just to check on them, then decided against it. Her own bodily pleasure was uppermost in her mind. She could not wait.

This time it was electrifying. She scaled a peak of sheer ecstasy which she had never dreamed existed, attained impossible orgasmic heights. Writhing, moaning, she pleaded with Richie to go deeper and faster. And faster.

And afterwards she slipped into a state of exhaustion which bordered on unconsciousness.

It was daylight, a cold grey morning with rain streaking the bedroom window. Outside she heard the whine of a milk cart, the rattle of bottles, voices, people hurrying along wet pavements on their way to work. A general bustle of human activity which irritated her.

Downstairs the telephone was ringing. She let it ring. There was no point in going down to answer it because her mother would appear, her old plaid dressing gown clutched around her, asking who it was and what they wanted. If it was Bernie, then Mother would surely involve herself in the conversation anyway. So better to let her answer it in the first place.

Nobody answered it, and after a while it stopped ringing. Merryn was puzzled, perhaps her mother and father were sleeping in, mentally and physically drained after the recent trauma.

Much later it was still raining and there was a steady hum of passing traffic in the street outside. Merryn wondered why her parents were not up.

The telephone was ringing again. She decided that she had better answer it.

‘Merryn?’ It was Bernie.

There was no mistaking the disappointment in her voice when she answered, ‘Yes.’ For some impossible reason she had thought it might be Richie Howe.

An uneasy, embarrassed silence followed before Bernie said, ‘I rang earlier.’

‘I know.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t sound it. Where are your parents?’

‘Asleep in bed.’

‘Christ, it’s after eleven. I’m at the office. I thought I might call round tonight.’

I don’t want you to. ‘It’s up to you.’

The staccato conversation ended with Bernie saying, ‘I’ll see you around seven.’ Merryn replaced the receiver, suddenly aware that she was still naked. She decided to put something on in case her parents came down. It was odd, she thought, as she went back upstairs, for them still to be in bed. They were habitual early risers, unnecessarily so at weekends, and today was Saturday.

She stopped outside their door to listen; there was only silence within. She hesitated, went and donned her housecoat and came back. She tapped on the door, softly at first.

‘Mother? Father? Are you awake?’

There was no answer. She turned the knob, pushed the door open a few inches and peered inside. She could see two huddled shapes under the bedclothes. Her mother was turned away facing the far wall, her father was towards her, an arm hanging limply, the fingers almost touching the floor. Not moving.

And that smell was almost overpowering in the bedroom.

Merryn moved inside and bent over her father. His eyes were closed and he looked so peaceful, it was a shame to wake him, but it was getting late. Neither of them would thank her for allowing them to sleep this long.

‘Father, wake up!’ She shook his shoulder gently. His head rolled over as if he was a limp rag doll, and in that instant she knew without any doubt that …

… both her parents were dead.

It came as a surprise rather than a shock. She straightened up, stood looking down at them and pursed her lips. She did not panic as she once might have done. Her grief was only momentary; everybody had to die sometime.

She returned to her bedroom and dressed fully before she went downstairs to telephone Bernie. She smiled to herself when the switchboard girl at Dyllon’s said, ‘He’s on the other line, I’ll get him to phone you right back.’

There were times when even Bernie had his uses.

7

Doctor Markham experienced the same sense of unreality, disbelief, which he had felt on his last visit to the Oldroyd household. Standing there in the living room he looked at Bernie, then glanced at Merryn. She sat there on the settee, cross-legged, wearing a long dark dress, her expression stoic.

The GP’s neck prickled. This defied comprehension, logic. He had come straight from the Bartrams’ house, where he had pronounced both Percy and Mavis dead.

Poisoned by a seeping gas leak which should have killed everybody sleeping in there during the night. Yet Merryn had miraculously been spared, had apparently suffered no ill effects at all.

Gas officials were there now, repairing the leak and attempting to prevent the build-up of deadly fumes from causing an explosion. The police were waiting to move in. There would be an inquest, Doctor Markham knew, and he would be called as a witness. He could see Mander, the coroner, now, sharp-tongued, almost accusing. ‘Please explain, Doctor Markham, how Mrs Oldroyd managed to survive!’

Great God Above, there was no explanation, not even a theory.

‘There may be a delayed shock reaction.’ Markham addressed Bernie; it was easier. ‘I think I ought to prescribe Merryn some –’

‘I don’t need any sedation and I’m not taking any!’ She spat the words out viciously. ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you, Doctor.’

He inwardly cringed from her. If anything, she looked better than when he had last seen her, straight from her deathbed.

‘All right.’ There was haste in the way he moved towards the door. ‘But if you need me, you know where to find me.’ He nodded to Bernie and hurried out through the hall. That unmistakable stench of death still permeated the house and he fled from it, thinking, Please God Bernie doesn’t phone me.

‘Hadn’t you better get back to the office, Bernie?’ At first he thought there was bitter sarcasm in her tone but when he saw her expression he knew it was a veiled request for him to go away. It was hurtful because even in her bereavement she did not need him, did not want him here.

‘I’ll have to hang around.’ He dropped his eyes. ‘There will be things to do, like registering the deaths, making funeral arrangements. Leave it all to me, you get some rest.’

She stood up and walked steadily towards the stairs without once looking back. He presumed, he hoped, that grief was starting to set in, that she would go and lie on the bed, sob, and maybe later phone him.

But when he returned from town she was still upstairs. He stood listening at the bottom of the stairs but no sound came from above. He tried to convince himself that she had fallen asleep but he did not go upstairs to check.

Merryn had become a terrifying prospect and Bernie cursed Richie Howe for what he had done.

‘I want my parents’ bodies to remain in the house until the funeral.’ Merryn broke a long silence, and Bernie stiffened at his small desk in the corner of the living room.

‘What!’ He turned round slowly, trying to ignore her partial nakedness, the way that housecoat which she had taken to wearing most of the time hung open, and her seductive pose on the settee. ‘They’ve been taken to the mortuary. The funeral isn’t till Friday. The undertakers couldn’t fit it in before.’

‘All the more reason for Mother and Father remaining at home.’ Her sudden smile made his spine chill. ‘There’s no law against it. In fact, it always used to be a custom, particularly in the country.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Phone the undertakers, please, Bernie, and get them to do it!’ A sharpening of her tone made it a command.

‘All right.’ He swallowed. ‘If that’s what you really want.’

The undertakers agreed, and did not seem surprised. Bernie came back into the room. Merryn was still reclining on the sofa; her garment had slipped still further during his short absence, and afforded him an unrestricted view of her open legs.

‘Thank you, Bernie.’ Her voice was silky. ‘I think I’m going to go and stay in my parents’ house until the funeral.’

He checked his instinctive dissent. There was no reason why she should not go if she wished. The gas leak had been repaired. Not that that made any difference! And he welcomed the thought of being free of her for a few days. She was weird, creepy, a dead creature which moved and talked, and had developed an insatiable appetite for sex. That’s fine by me.’

‘Good.’ Her arms stretched out for him, her touch was ice cold. And her breath was like stale air released from a sealed tomb, a stench of rotting corpses.

And as he slid into her he thought of Richie Howe and what had happened in the room above that awful night. Only then was Bernie aware of his jealousy, his love for this woman in spite of his revulsion; and his hatred for Richie.

Merryn felt at peace in the terraced house with the bodies of her dead parents lying in their coffins in the front room. She sensed a closeness which had not been evident in life, a togetherness.

She removed the coffin lids, rested them up against the wall, and pulled up a chair so that she could sit comfortably with them. A pang of remorse assailed her for those times when they had quarrelled bitterly, but they had forgiven her. She talked to them, wishing that the three of them could remain this way forever. Three more precious days left, and they would be taken from her, interred.

Her sexual feelings were dormant; she felt guilt and embarrassment, the way it had been in early adolescence. She remembered that time when her mother had lectured her on the evils of masturbation as though Mavis Bartram had guessed that her daughter was experimenting with newly discovered delights in puberty. It was ‘harmful and dirty’ according to her mother. Girls ‘saved themselves’ for marriage and then had sex only that they might have children. ‘You wait until the right man comes along, dear, and you’ll find out all about it then.’

Bernie wasn’t the right man – her mother had expressed that view on more than one occasion. Principally, Merryn supposed, because she had openly confessed to a premarital relationship. It would have been far kinder to have been diplomatic and lied. But lying was a cardinal sin, too, in Mavis’s book. She’d been in a no-win situation.

‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ Merryn was close to tears, and she thought by the expression on her mother’s face that she had heard and understood.

And then the telephone rang. Damn Bernie, did he have to keep pestering her with trivialities? He had phoned only this morning to enquire which charity donations were to go to. Cancer Research, of course.

It wasn’t Bernie on the line. Merryn felt suddenly weak as she recognized the slow drawl, the half-slurred words, the echoes of which still lingered in the dark recesses of her mind.

‘How are you?’ Richie Howe asked.

‘I’m fine.’ She almost dropped the handset. ‘How did you know where I was?’

‘There isn’t much I don’t know.’ That was arrogant, but she did not doubt the truth of his words. ‘It’s time I had another look at you, just to make sure everything’s all right.’ He might have been Doctor Markham enquiring after a patient under his care.

‘Yes.’ She hesitated, glancing towards the living room door, and lowered her voice. Her mother had always eavesdropped on her telephone conversations; it wouldn’t be any different now. ‘But not … here. My parents … you understand?’

‘Of course. After the funeral.’ A pause. ‘If you take my advice’ – his voice was a vibrating whisper that throbbed her brain, reminding her of how those terrible headaches used to start – ‘you won’t go to the funeral!’

‘I have to.’ She felt dizzy, sick.

‘All right, but remember I warned you!’ The line went dead.

Merryn stood there leaning against the wall, trying not to succumb to the sudden feeling of faintness. To miss her parents’ funeral was unthinkable, she would have crawled from her deathbed to be present if necessary.

And then she heard her mother calling her and walked unsteadily towards the room where the coffins lay.

‘Don’t worry, Mother.’ Merryn slumped down into the chair. ‘I shall be at the funeral, I promise.’

The cortege comprised just two cars, the hearse in front and the grey Datsun following with Merryn and Bernie. It was the first time Merryn had seen her husband since her decision to go and stay in that house of death; he had arrived just ten minutes before the undertakers were due, as if he was reluctant to spend any longer than necessary in the company of the dead. Sombre, uncommunicative in his dark attire, he slipped his arm into hers as they walked out to the waiting vehicles.

It had been her parents’ wish to be buried in the old Norman church at Wrockwardine, a village on the other side of this new conurbation. Not because either of them had any link with the place, merely that on fine Sunday afternoons they liked to take a walk in the surrounding lanes. Tranquil, beneath their beloved Wrekin, it was a fitting last resting place, as they had often stated. They had always planned to be buried in the same grave; now they had their wish.

The hearse pulled up outside the main entrance to the church, the Datsun parking close behind. Nobody got out immediately, allowing the mourners a few minutes in which to gather strength and composure, all part of an undertaker’s procedure.

‘I suppose we might as well go on in.’ Bernie found himself speaking in a whisper. Let’s get it over and done with, he thought. He glanced nervously at his wife; Merryn was staring straight ahead and did not appear to have heard him.

The autumn sun was hidden behind a massive dark cloud and the leaf-strewn road was suddenly shadowy and sinister. Several degrees colder, too.

Take my advice and don’t go to the funeral.

Merryn tensed, feeling a surge of panic. Richie Howe had warned her and she had ignored him. It had not seemed important. Until now. Her body was taut as though fettered with constricting shackles, almost paralysed.

Don’t go into the church.

‘What’s the matter?’ Bernie was concerned, thinking that perhaps Merryn was going to break down, that the strain had been too much for her. All that time alone with the dead was unhealthy, it was bound to have had an effect on her. He felt for her hand. It was tense and cold, and her whole body was rigid in a paroxysm of trembling. I’ll be with you the whole time, darling. Lean on me, cry if you want to.’ In a selfish way he hoped that it might be the reconciliation which he was seeking.

Merryn saw the church through the car window. Its stonework took on a different meaning, it was a hunched, brooding monster, its doorway a cavernous mouth. Windows had become eyes, fixed on her.

This is the House of God. Enter at your peril, Evil One!

She felt its power, the invisible barrier it had erected against her.

There was a click and a waft of cold air as the car door opened, the driver holding it for her.

‘No!’ Her whisper was almost a scream. ‘I … can’t … go … in … there. Take me home. Please!’

Bernie’s grip tightened on her arm. He was in a dilemma. She was distraught and it was his duty to be at her side, not to let her succumb to grief. If he took her home she might hold it against him forever. Funerals are therapeutic, he decided. Get today over and she would be all right.

‘Come on,’ he whispered, trying to pull her gently out of the car.

She tugged back, and in that instant seemed to become imbued with a strength beyond her physique. Her hand snatched free of him and gave a push that sent him sprawling back into the seat, and then she was out of the car.

For one moment she stood there, transfixed, on the pavement, terrible to behold, her expression manic with fear. Her dark hair streamed in the wind, her deathly white face was turned towards the church, her lips curled in the snarl of a beast at bay. And when she screamed it was a howl of anguish and defiance.

Then she fled blindly, her only thought to be as far away as possible from this holy place of which Richie Howe had warned her, shouting his name aloud as she ran, calling upon him to protect her with his dark powers.

8

Merryn had been subdued since the day of the funeral, Bernie reflected. Obviously she was grieving, doubtless regretting her flight from the funeral. He had persuaded one of the undertakers to go after her and take her home. Thereafter the proceedings had been uneventful, just himself and the professional mourners in the pews; the vicar had appeared to rush through the service and after he brief graveside ceremony Bernie had gone home to find Merryn upstairs in bed. She had remained there until the following afternoon.

In a way life was easier. She made no physical demands upon him and they talked little. Bed was the time he dreaded most, the feel of her cold body against his own, the constant reminder that he was, in fact, sleeping with a living corpse.

He had made up his mind to give it a few weeks, perhaps a couple of months, and, if at the end of that time, he could not stand this bizarre relationship any longer, then he would discuss the possibility of a divorce with her. No way could he face spending a lifetime with somebody who was, in reality, a zombie.

Then Richie Howe rang him at the office.

‘Just thought I’d ring and ask how goes it.’ There was a faint hint of a sneer.

Bernie tautened, his mouth went dry. If you’re after more money you can forget it! ‘Merryn’s fine.’ He tried to sound casual. ‘Look, I’m just about to go into a meeting …’

‘Don’t let me delay you,’ Richie replied. ‘I think that we should meet for a chat, though. Call it a … post-mortem.’ This time there was a short laugh.

‘I don’t think it’ll be necessary.’ Bernie was curt.

‘I think it is.’ Richie’s tone was meaningful, almost threatening now. ‘Bernie, it’s only just beginning. You’ve got to learn how to cope, and only I can advise you on that. After all, you don’t want any repetitions of what happened at the funeral, do you?’

‘How do you know …?’

‘I know an awful lot of things, pal. Take it from me, you still need me, you can’t do without me.’

‘If it’s money you’re after …’

‘Relax, that was a lump sum, not a deposit. But we have to get together and talk, Bernie, as soon as possible.’

‘All right.’ Bernie Oldroyd’s voice quavered slightly. ‘Tonight, the Meadow, around nine.’

‘See you.’

As he left the office that afternoon, Bernie had an awful premonition that, as Richie Howe had said, things were only just beginning.

It was almost a quarter to ten before Richie Howe sauntered into the snug, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his grubby raincoat, a dead hand-rolled cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. His swagger, his grin, made Bernie’s stomach ball. Richie slid into a seat and waited for Bernie to fetch the drinks.

‘Well, at least I don’t have to prove myself this time.’ Howe took a long drink then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

‘What’s behind all this?’ Bernie’s hands clenched beneath the table, his fingernails gouging his palms. ‘You haven’t called this meeting just for my benefit!’

‘Very astute of you.’ Whatever the extent of Richie’s powers, they did not extend to lighting a half-chewed cigarette with a throwaway lighter. He sucked noisily and gave up. ‘No, I’ll go along with that, but I do have a vested interest … in Merryn!’

‘She told me you screwed her.’ Bernie’s head was thrust forward. Even if she’s a zombie I don’t like somebody else fucking my wife.

‘Well, at least our cards are on the table,’ Richie laughed. ‘But without me, you wouldn’t have her, she’d be six feet under, like her parents.’

‘You blackmailing bastard!’

‘Look, we have to come to an arrangement.’ His voice was lowered, his shifty eyes narrowed. ‘I need Merryn to help me.’

‘Ah, now we’re getting to the point. I paid a hundred quid for your benefit.’

‘Yes and no. As you’ve seen, I do have powers. So has your wife. I could not have resurrected just anybody, you know. All I’m saying is this: in return for her helping me, you have your wife back. Do I make myself clear?’

Bernie’s flesh goose pimpled and he felt slightly sick. ‘All right, point taken. But, Richie, that girl isn’t Merryn. It’s her body, at times she’s almost normal, but she’s something you’ve raised up from I dread to think where!’

‘You want to get rid of her?’ The question hit Bernie like a punch below the belt. The small room seemed to tilt.

‘I’m … not sure.’ He averted his gaze, trembling.

‘Because if you do’ – Richie Howe was watching his companion carefully – ‘we’ll have to talk very seriously about it. You can’t just walk away from her, Bernie, as you might run out on an … ordinary wife.’

‘Why not?’ A feeling of being trapped, a hopelessness showed in his tone because he did not doubt that Richie was right.

‘She might seem distant, unaffectionate at times.’ Richie was whispering now. He glanced once at the door as if to make sure that they were still alone. ‘But she’s … attached to you, for want of a better word. Like a shadow. Run and she’ll follow, hide and she’ll find you, make no mistake about that. You wanted her back; I gave her back to you. You got what you wanted. Aren’t you satisfied?’

‘As I said, I’m not sure.’ Bernie licked his lips. ‘Maybe it’ll take time.’

‘I’m the only one who has any control over her, and I can’t absolutely guarantee that. If she’s willing to play along with me, no bother. If she isn’t, we both have problems. I think she’ll be useful to me but I can’t be sure. If not, then she’s all yours, mate; love, honour and obey for the rest of your life. Your life, not hers, because she’s already dead.’

Oh, God, he hadn’t thought of it like that. It was a terrifying prospect.

‘If you want to get rid of her, and it turns out she’s no good to me, then we’ll have to talk very seriously.’

‘You … you …’ Bernie hated himself for even suggesting it, but he had to know. ‘You could … get rid of her, if necessary? If it came to that.’

‘I think so.’ The thin lips pouted. ‘But it would cost you, Bernie, and not peanuts like the last time. You understand me?’

Bernie Oldroyd nodded. A contract for murder! But was it murder to kill somebody who was already dead?

‘I’ll give it a go.’ He looked up. ‘I’ll do everything I can to make it work out. It is possible, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. Look, I’d like to call round for Merryn tomorrow night, take her to meet a few of my friends. Give you a break, eh? It’s part of the bargain, don’t forget.’

And once again Bernie found himself regretting that he I had ever become involved with Richie Howe.

Merryn had gone out with Richie. She did not seem to think it extraordinary, and had even smiled at Bernie and said, ‘See you later.’

Once again that feeling of jealousy returned, and Bernie paced the living room restlessly. He recalled a colleague who had worked as a rep for Dyllon’s a few years ago. Mike was likeable but unreliable, and in the end they’d had to sack him. He’d been married for about a year to an attractive redhead, but one day he’d confided in Bernie with a kind of boasting. Mike had a pal, Keith, who was still single and who used to visit them once or twice a week. They started going out as a threesome and one night when they’d all drunk too much, Mike asked Keith if he’d like to screw Fiona, the deal being that Mike could watch. Apparently Fiona was willing, so they had all gone up to the bedroom and, according to Mike, it had been a huge success. So much so, that from then on it had become a weekly ritual. Maybe it was even going on now.

Bernie had a vision of himself watching Richie and Merryn, and almost threw up. No way; if it ever came to that then he’d pay Richie to … to do whatever he had to do.

Merryn felt heady being with Richie again. She clung on to his arm throughout the long walk to his council house on the other side of the big estate. Neither of them spoke. For her it was so unreal, like that night when she had thrilled to him and yet it might have been a figment of her coma. Like her fantasies since. She was just content to go along with it and enjoy the pleasures.

The house smelled of stale cooking and body odours, unwashed clothes were heaped in the small hall, and she noticed how the plaster was peeling off the walls on the stairs. A hubbub of voices reached her from a room off the landing and she was disappointed that they were not going to be alone.

After that it was just like a dream.

A musky odour greeted her as Richie opened the door. Some kind of incense was being burned; the atmosphere inside the room was heavy, almost sickly. At first she thought that the interior was bare of furniture. Then in the dim light of the twin candles burning on the mantelshelf she saw a bare floor, then some chairs stacked in a comer.

People stepped out of the shadows, and with some surprise she saw that they were stark naked, three youths and a girl. They hung back as though they were frightened and had been skulking in a corner. A thrill coursed through her, making her tingle, and she caught her breath.

‘Steady!’ Richie’s hand caught her arm and pulled her back. ‘Don’t go in there … yet!’

That was when she noticed the strange markings on the wooden floor: a chalk circle which encompassed the centre of the room, meaningless symbols standing out starkly white against the black background. She tensed; perhaps they were going to indulge in some kind of game, everybody with their clothes off. That was fine by her except that she would have preferred just Richie and her to play.

‘Let me introduce everybody.’ There was a commanding air about Richie Howe. ‘This is Merryn, whom I told you about. Merryn, meet Rob … John … Pete and Anthea.’

They nodded, silhouettes that might have been puppets. Rob was tall, well over six feet. The other two males, Merryn thought, were skimpy, wimpish. Anthea was young, no more than seventeen, a little overweight. Their movements were strangely lethargic, cowed, almost as if they were prisoners in this spartan council house room, creatures who were confined to the dark. She heard Richie close the door behind her. The candles wafted in the sudden draught and gave off a cloud of tallow smoke.

It was so unreal, Merryn felt like a distant observer, like a spectator to everything, including herself. The others had grouped on the far side of the circle, and when she looked for Richie again she saw that he, too, was undressed, his garments in a pile by the door. ‘It’s best if we don’t wear clothes,’ he whispered, and her fingers instantly began undoing the buttons on her dress.

She did not understand, made no attempt to. Her brain felt sluggish but her body was vibrant and eager. She stood there naked, excited by the way those opposite feasted their eyes on her; whatever was about to happen, there was no doubt that she was to be the star performer.

‘Before you’ – Richie Howe’s tone was exuberant – ‘you see evidence of the powers which our master has bestowed upon me. This beautiful woman died and yet lived again. See how she has risen from the dead, perfection in itself, granted immortal life that can be ours, too, if we follow the Path!’

His words impinged upon Merryn’s brain like electric shockwaves; she stiffened, swaying on her feet. Risen from the dead. Immortal! Her first inclination was to laugh. This game was crazier than she’d thought. She felt a pang of fear that bordered on panic but it passed. If what Richie said was true, then it was absolutely fantastic. But it was impossible. She had been very ill, Doctor Markham had told her that there was no hope for her, yet she had triumphed against all odds. A miracle; she would accept it for what it was, and if this man with whom she was infatuated wished to claim that he had resurrected her, then she could go along with it. It was a breathtaking thought, immortality.

Richie was demonstrating her to his companions as if she was a model and he was showing off her beauty to them. He turned her this way and that, ran his hands down her, cupped them beneath her breasts as though to prove that the flesh was full and living. She felt her pulse-rate speeding up, a moistness between her thighs. She was trembling, the urge to mate was upon her. Oh, Richie, take me now!

He stepped back, and to her disappointment she noticed that he was not even aroused. The others were craning forward. Whatever their motives, she was the focal point of their interest, living proof of what their leader had achieved.

‘We are gathered tonight’ – Howe’s tone was a kind of chant now, a recitation – ‘to give thanks to the Dark One for returning life to this woman of beauty. Her flesh is his, we ask that it may be ours, too, that she might become one of his disciples like ourselves.’

Merryn saw how they were cowed, crouched around the perimeter of the chalked circle; the candles flickered again, dimmed, and the shadows moved in. She heard how their teeth chattered; it must be very cold although she was not aware of it. Lately she had not been susceptible to atmospheric temperatures, whereas once she had always considered herself ‘nesh’. Richie muttered something which was unintelligible to her and then they were all moving into that circle, his hand clasping hers as if to reassure her.

A low moan. Merryn thought it came from Anthea; the girl was clearly frightened. But what was there to be scared of? This was only a bizarre game.

Without warning, the candles went out. Merryn felt the rush of cold air and thought that the door must have blown open, but no shaft of light intruded from the landing outside. She heard the others breathing with sharp intakes of air, and sensed that they had huddled together in their terror.

And then somebody was touching her. She knew it wasn’t Richie, it wasn’t his sensuous stroking. Instead, rough fingers probed and felt her as a doctor might have done. The examination of her body began with her neck, then travelled downwards, the hand so icy that even she was aware of it. It was one of the others taking liberties under the cover of darkness, she thought. But when she smelled that foul odour she knew that it was none of them, and had her throat not been deprived of its functions she would have screamed hysterically in terror.

The searching hand prised her thighs apart and the ensuing penetration was like that of a stalactite from some arctic cave entering her. She fell backwards and felt her body bump against one of the others, but nobody made a move to come to her assistance. That breathing was stentorian, the fumes suffocating, she hovered on the brink of unconsciousness. Whatever it was that touched her so obscenely was not human.

Then she was aware that it was gone, that it was no longer defiling her body. There was just a lingering smell where it had been. She found that she could writhe, then she retched. She sensed movements around her and cowered in case that awful entity returned. Then somebody was striking a match and the candles spluttered back into life.

Merryn looked around her fearfully and saw Richie. The others were lying prone, hands covering their faces, shaking uncontrollably. Whatever it was that had manifested itself tonight, the others were terrified of it, too. Except Richie; his features were white but there was no mistaking his expression of triumph.

‘You saw for yourselves,’ he grunted. ‘Our master came to view my handiwork, this woman whom I raised up from beyond life. And he is well pleased, otherwise he would surely have struck her dead again, and us with her!’

Merryn sat up. Her flesh still quivered where those hands had touched her. She did not understand, prayed that Richie would not explain. I am alive and that is all that matters, she thought.

‘Do you now believe, all of you?’ he hissed.

The others muttered and nodded in their terror.

‘Merryn?’

She answered, ‘Yes,’ and licked her dry lips, tasting that odour on her palate; it seemed to have permeated her skin. She felt like an animal of the wild which had just mated in its stinking lair.

‘Good.’ Richie moved back into the circle. ‘The master is pleased, he has given us this disciple from beyond the grave, his chosen one!’

In the half-light, Merryn saw Richie coming for her and instinctively spread herself. She thrilled to his weight on top of her, his warmth where previously there had been searing cold, his smooth and powerful thrusting. And afterwards the others took her; even the girl lay with her and did pleasant things to her.

Tired to the point of exhaustion, she was slipping into comforting sleep. And when she stirred some time later, she was back in her own bed with Bernie lying beside her. She had no recollection of a return journey; in fact, she might never have left her own house.

It could all have been a dream. She knew it wasn’t because that odour of foulness still lingered on her body and her flesh was chafed where those unholy hands had been. But her fear was gone and she found herself longing for the next time. Immortality was a breathtaking bought. She would pay the price, whatever it was.

9

Merryn appeared to have reverted to some kind of normality. Bernie was praying fervently that it would continue. Whatever had happened that night when she went off with Richie Howe seemed to have been the turning point. He had strong reservations about her association with Richie, but this past week he had neither phoned nor called round.

On Saturday morning Bernie had taken her to the shopping centre, that massive covered complex to which people travelled from all over the county. Shopping was not one of his regular excursions. That was reserved for the domesticated husband, like Percy Bartram, who had considered it his duty to accompany his wife on a weekly expedition. However, this time Bernie welcomed the opportunity. It was yet another way of integrating Merryn into the world around her.

The inquest on the Bartrams had taken place last Monday; Merryn had not been called as a witness, thanks to Doctor Markham. The GP had insisted that she was not well enough yet to withstand the ordeal. He had put forward a reason for her survival in the gas-filled house: she had been sleeping with her bedroom window wide open, whereas her parents’ window had been closed. The explanation had been accepted by the coroner, possibly because there was no alternative. Another hurdle had been negotiated.

Physically, she seemed fitter than ever. At times he had difficulty in keeping up with her fast walking pace. She appeared to have lost interest in fashion shops and in Sainsbury’s. He himself chose most of their food. Conversationally, she was unpredictable. She had developed a habit of suddenly launching into a subject as though they had been discussing it for hours. But Bernie knew that he must adapt to his wife as much as she had to adapt to him.

It was on their return home that she dropped her bombshell, virtually destroying the façade which he had painstakingly been trying to create.

‘You realize that I’m dead, don’t you?’ She spoke so casually, not even pausing in her task of unloading the carrier bags and stacking the contents on the larder shelves, that her words chilled him.

Oh, Jesus, no! He had deliberately avoided discussing the details of her miracle recovery, hoping that it would not arise. Now, without warning, she had not only broached it but spoken with equanimity of the awful truth.

‘No, you’re not!’ His reply came too quickly. ‘If you were dead you wouldn’t be walking, talking …’

‘Don’t be silly, Bernie.’ She turned round, a half-smile on her lips, but the expression in her eyes was frightening. ‘I died. Richie resurrected me, but I’m not like other people. I’m … immortal. I won’t die. Ever. I’m a phenomenon, as well you know. Save yourself the stress of trying to hide it from me, don’t insult me by trying to pretend that everything’s as it used to be. Because it isn’t. I’m what they call the living dead, like those zombies we used to laugh at in late-night movies. Well, like it or not, you’ve got one for a wife. But don’t go blaming anybody else – me or Richie. It was you who wanted me raised up!’ She laughed, cruelly mocking him.

‘Can’t we … try to forget it?’

‘Perhaps I don’t want to forget it.’

‘Look.’ He spread his hands despairingly. ‘I just want things to be as they were. All I ever wanted was you, and if I have to have you this way, then so be it. Let’s try, both of us, make an effort …’

‘I don’t think you quite understand me, Bernie.’ Her eyes narrowed and there was no mistaking the fury that seethed in her and might erupt at any second. ‘Things aren’t the same, never will be. I’ll be with you for the rest of your life, but don’t try to do anything to change the way I am. That’s all I’m asking you. Well?’

‘I love you, Merryn.’ It sounded pathetic, like the whine of a mongrel kicked by its insensitive master.

‘Okay, you love me.’ She turned back to the groceries.

‘Do you …’ – he was frightened to ask – ‘love me?’

‘As I said, I’ll be around.’ Her reply floated to him out of the open pantry. ‘Satisfied?’

Jesus, this had to be thrashed out for his own peace of mind! He felt like a small boy pestering his mother for sweets, following her around, pleading. ‘Merryn, do you think it would be best if we … got a divorce?’

‘A divorce!’ It fetched her out of the larder and ignited a smouldering rage. Her features were twisted into a mask of fury. ‘There’s no chance of that, Bernie, so you can forget it!’ She was yelling at the top of her voice. ‘No separation, nothing. Run and I’ll follow, find you. You wanted me back and you’ve got me. So you’d better get used to the idea.’

His brain reeled. He recoiled at the sheer awfulness of his position, a thousand times more terrible now that everything was in the open. He was a prisoner within his own macabre marriage, a slave to this awesome creature whom he’d been instrumental in raising from the grave. But why? If Merryn was infatuated with Richie Howe, then why didn’t she go to her terrible lover? This was Richie’s doing; Bernie had to speak with him, maybe make another deal, however much it cost. He recalled their last conversation, Richie’s words: I could get rid of her for you, Bernie, but it would cost you.

Murder! But how could you murder somebody who was already dead?

There was one spark of hope in Bernie’s abject despair. It came to him on Monday morning as he struggled to cope with some routine paperwork in his office at Dyllon’s. He tensed, and knew then that it was the only thing left to him.

‘I’ve got some phone calls to make, Susie.’ He tried not to sound abrupt with his young secretary. ‘You can take an extended coffee break if you like.’

He dialled with a finger that trembled, heard the phone ringing out at the other end. Twelve buzzes and if nobody answered then they weren’t at home, was his office policy. Time was money but not on this occasion. He hung on and his sigh of sheer relief was audible when he heard an answering voice.

‘Natalie?’

‘Bernie, I’d given up hope of ever hearing from you again. I saw Merryn across the street last week, I would have crossed over and spoken only … Bernie, what the hell have you been up to? You haven’t been having anything to do with Richie Howe, have you?’

Christ, she knew! Or guessed. He swallowed and his voice shook when he spoke. ‘Okay, I made a mistake, a big one. I was desperate.’

‘You bloody fool!’ Her anger seemed to fuse on the line, vibrating the handset. ‘Bernie, why the hell didn’t you talk to me first? I could have warned you. Richie was one of my initiates, until he forsook me for the Left Hand Path. He’s a black magician. And very powerful. The most dangerous I know, the modern equivalent of Crowley. Oh, Jesus, I’ve been praying for days that this wasn’t because of him! I wish to God I’d never told him about Merryn.’

‘Can you help me, Natalie?’

Natalie Newman took her time answering. At one stage he thought she had replaced the receiver. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t. I’d like to. I will if I can … Look, leave it with me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, hopefully within the next day or two. In the meantime, if you can keep Merryn away from him, that’s the only advice I can give you.’

She rang off and Bernie Oldroyd buried his face in his hands and sobbed silently.

Merryn knew that Richie would come that afternoon; she accepted that she had prior knowledge of his arrival and did not question it. In just the same way some people could look at an evening sky and know that it would rain the next day. It was a sort of gift; you did not try to explain it.

He still wore that frayed and grubby mac, and the same trousers, and had not washed recently. He smelled, but his scent was exciting. She was like a bitch on heat sniffing where the male of the species had urinated.

‘The master spoke to me last night.’ Richie was strangely ill at ease and his usual arrogance had waned. ‘Oh?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s well pleased with you.’ Richie crossed to the window and stared out at the rain-sodden, desolate housing estate. ‘Just a problem, nothing that can’t be overcome. I raised you from the dead but our master is demanding another life in return.’ Richie turned round and Merryn saw how drawn and pallid his face was. ‘I don’t understand, Richie.’

‘Somebody has to die, sweetheart!’

Her stomach contracted instantly. She felt dizzy and held on to the back of a chair. The way he said it, pronounced a death, terrified her. In a voice that sounded like a whisper coming from the adjoining room, she asked, ‘Who?’

‘Anybody, I suppose.’ He made an attempt to retrieve his bravado, and smiled. ‘A kind of trade-in.’ He laughed. ‘Your life for theirs. The master has left it up to you!’

It took several seconds for his words to register in her numbed brain. She sat down on the chair. If it had not been for the other night, those invisible icy fingers feeling her, she would not have believed it. As it was, she did not doubt that Richie Howe was speaking the truth. I have to kill somebody!

‘I … can’t.’

‘You have to, Merryn. Otherwise, I dread to think what will happen to you.’

‘But … but how?’

‘There are ways. It doesn’t have to be anybody of any consequence. A vagrant, for example. Somebody who won’t be missed …’ His eyes burned into her, forcefully implanting the seed of an idea in her, waiting for it to germinate.

‘Will … will you help me, then, Richie?’

‘I’ll be around, in an advisory capacity.’ Another chilling low laugh. ‘There’s an urgency, though. The master does not like to be kept waiting. I think we’ll have to go out tonight.’

‘All right.’ She was resigned. The automaton part of her resurrected mind was taking over, submerging her human emotions. She let herself drift with it. ‘I’d better wait until Bernie gets home.’

‘No, I think you’d better leave before he does.’ Richie was thoughtful. ‘It’s easier to come up with an alibi afterwards than to invent one first.’

She nodded and went through to the hall to fetch her coat. It wasn’t the killing that worried her now, it was the mode, her own inexperience. Richie would help her, she consoled herself. She had been granted life when death had already claimed her. So there had to be a price to pay.

The road sign just off the M54 announced to motorists that the conurbation was ‘The Birthplace of Industry’ and that it was ‘Your Opportunity’. The mushroom town, the boom town, was now a ghost town. The recession had left many of the box-like houses empty, their ‘For Sale’ signs fallen down and left lying. Estate agents were banking upon the cycle going a full turn, the hopeful returning along with better times.

Simey – nobody was sure whether it was his first name or his last name or just a nickname – had been one of the pioneers. Lean and stooped with sharp, shifty features hidden behind a perpetual stubble of beard, he had two convictions for petty theft and attempted burglary and described his trade as ‘a brickie’. He had come to Telford, he told his common-law wife Maggie, to make a fresh start. He had worked as a casual labourer on an industrial site for three months, but the collapse of a brick wall which he had built, and the subsequent injury of a workmate, had relegated him to the fast-growing ranks of the unemployed; life could be relaxing on the dole, he explained to a frustrated Maggie, when you were not forced into rising early and you had time to draw breath and look around you. Unemployment benefit would provide them and the two children by Maggie’s first marriage with their basic needs, and they would be given rent assistance.

All of which might have been possible had it not been for Simey’s drinking habits. The relaxation of the licensing laws meant that he could spend most of the day, as well as the evening, in the bar of the Meadow.

The outcome of his new daily routine was that Maggie headed back to her mother’s in Birmingham with the children, and Simey was evicted from the house. He chose for his new abode a rusted-tin workman’s shelter on the waste land adjoining the industrial site where he had once worked; the firm had closed down, there were no current tenders for the unit and Simey was left in peace. With no family to provide for, his dole money almost covered his alcoholic intake. And when it didn’t there was always somebody to take pity on a down-and-out and buy him a pint. Which was how Richie Howe had first met Simey. But Richie wanted Merryn to choose her own victim; as he had told her, he was only there to advise her. None the less, the Meadow was as good a place to try as any.

Simey always drank Guinness on Thursday nights because, in his own estimation, he was rich on dole days. Tonight was no exception and by ten o’clock his usual perch on the stool at the far end of the bar was becoming precarious. The landlord refused him a refill, Simey became abusive and two of the regulars helped him as far as the doorway, where he fell outside without their assistance. He lay there, threw up and realized that the walk home was beyond his capabilities. It was raining and he needed shelter. He wondered if a passing motorist might heed an outstretched arm and an extended thumb. None did. They merely showered him with spray as an added insult.

When the girl spoke out of the darkness, Simey started. Passing headlights afforded him a brief glimpse of her standing back in the hedge out of the rain, and he turned towards her.

‘If I had a car I’d give you a lift.’ Merryn Oldroyd smiled with her lips; her eyes were in shadow.

Simey hiccuped, staggered towards her and grasped her outstretched hand. Bloody hell, she was cold, she must have been standing there for hours. On the job, maybe. Trying to thumb a customer with about as much success as he had been enjoying. He grinned. It wasn’t a bad idea so long as she didn’t charge too much. He hadn’t screwed for a long time, he reflected, long before Maggie left home; she wouldn’t let him do anything when he’d been drinking.

‘How much?’ he grunted, and hiccuped again.

‘Nothing.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’m in the mood, I’m desperate.’ Her fingers squeezed his. ‘There’s a place I know down by the river, under the trees and out of the rain.’

He clung to her arm or he would have fallen. On their left the sky was an orange glow from the huge power station, on their right was the bridge where traffic crossed the wide, deep river. There was enough light for her to find the narrow track leading downwards. The steep grassy bank was slippery. Simey slid most of the way down until he met with level ground.

His ragged clothing was saturated but he scarcely gave it a thought as he surreptitiously felt to see if by any chance he was aroused. He wasn’t, but he was optimistic of making it once they reached wherever they were going. This night, surely, had a reward in store for him.

‘Don’t get too close to the bank,’ he warned. ‘You might fall in.’

His companion halted and looked down at the dark oily water glinting evilly ten feet below. The current was swollen after the recent rains. Some feeding mallard quacked their alarm and took wing. Heavy machinery in the nearby power station made conversation difficult. Merryn was forced to shout in her companion’s ear, then repeat herself.

‘I said, suppose you walk on this side in case I slip.’

‘All right.’ Clumsily Simey changed position. He stood staring ahead in the dim light, shading his eyes, ‘I don’t see any trees here.’

‘Further up.’ She pointed, and when he released his hold on her to peer ahead, she pushed him. Hard.

Merryn didn’t think he screamed. If he did, then it was lost in the noise from the generators. Simey seemed to hover, then in slow motion, as if an invisible parachute was attached to him, he floated gently down. She wondered if he could swim; even if he could, it wouldn’t make any difference in that torrent, not in his condition, anyway.

A splash, not even a spectacular one, and then he was gone and she did not see him again. She laughed to herself. It had been so easy; she had been worrying herself unnecessarily.

Richie was waiting for her where the track met the road, keeping well back so that he was not visible in the headlights of passing traffic.

‘Easy!’ She took his arm. ‘The master will be pleased.’ He sounded relieved. His tone changed and there was no mistaking his apprehension. ‘Next time, though, it might not be quite so easy. He merely asked for a life in exchange for yours. He might have demanded a blood sacrifice – which he surely will sometime!’

10

By midnight there was still no sign of Merryn. Bernie had sensed on his way home from the office that she would not be there; it was one of those gut feelings that prepared you in advance for the worst. An emptiness greeted him as he opened the door. That faint odour to which he had become accustomed these last few weeks was barely noticeable, a body odour which no amount of deodorants would ever eradicate from her pores: the smell of the dead.

In a way he was relieved. Since their showdown on Saturday they had scarcely spoken. Merryn had gloated about the hold she had over her husband. He realized their marriage could not go on like this; he would have a breakdown, or worse. If only Natalie would phone, his last hope of a solution. Apart from paying Richie Howe an excessive sum to – Bernie preferred not think about that. Yet.

She was out with Richie Howe, he had no doubt about that. Thousands of wives indulged in extramarital affairs, he told himself, many with no intention of seeking a break from their husbands. A bit of fun, a bit on the side to relieve boredom. Oh, God, if only Merryn would come home and tell him she was leaving! The thought hurt, all the same. They were newlyweds, and for Bernie the excitement was still there even if it was only nostalgia.

Restless, he paced the room, realizing the futility of going to bed. He would not sleep, anyway. If Merryn did not return, morning would find him haggard and exhausted, still treading the carpet, beside himself with anxiety.

He stiffened when he heard a key click the front-door lock, and his empty stomach threatened to throw up. Christ, what now! He stared in disbelief at what he saw. Merryn was smiling at him in the doorway, her dark hair bedraggled, her sodden raincoat dripping like a leaking bath tap. She was soaked through to her dead flesh and yet unperturbed, as if she was not even aware of her discomfort. It was her eyes that frightened him most, the way they gleamed with some secret satisfaction, mocking him.

‘You shouldn’t have waited up for me, Bernie,’ she said disdainfully, a veiled reprimand.

He glanced sideways at the clock on the mantelshelf. 2.30. He had to clear his throat before he could get the words out. ‘Where’ve you been? You’ll catch pneumonia!’ That was silly; she was immune to any human ailments because she was immortal.

‘I’ve been out.’ Her reply was juvenile, petulant. ‘I’m not a prisoner here.’

He checked an angry retort and watched as she began to peel off her rain-soaked clothing, contemptuous of carpet and furniture as she tossed her garments to one side. Her blouse was clinging wetly. It ripped as she tore it free. Her bra clasp snapped. In her impatience she had no time to unclip it.

Bernie stared in shocked horror at this bizarre striptease. It reminded him of a porn video he had once watched. Only this was live. Real.

Her nipples were stiff and red. She fingered them provocatively, smoothed her glistening wet hands down her stomach and wiggled her hips as she jerked at her panties, lifting her legs high as she rolled them off. Look there, Bernie! She splayed her soft lower lips, held them open.

He swallowed, then backed away a step. You dirty bitch, I know he’s been there, he thought. Yet in the midst of his hurt and revulsion he sensed that he was becoming aroused. Like that threesome he’d been told about, it was exciting in a perverted way. Merryn was rubbing herself, advancing on him, reaching out for him.

‘Get undressed then, Bernie.’ Her voice was silky, like a whore’s in a dowdy brothel. ‘I’m desperate, Bernie.’

She was helping him off with his clothes, popping a button, feeling at him with a hunger that was terrifying and yet had him throbbing to her touch. Her lips found his, her tongue forced an entry; then she was twisting round, pulling him with her as she fell on to the settee. This was to be no easy ride like last time, when she’d been astride him, galloping herself into a frenzy; now she was demanding that the physical effort was his, entwining her legs around him as though she feared that he might try to escape.

His powerful body was shiny with sweat, and the atmosphere was thick with that sour musky odour which exuded from her. He powered into her and she cried out for him to go harder and faster. She was bucking, threatening to unseat him, clawing at him with her fingernails, mouthing obscenities, writhing, her head back over the edge of the settee as though for her this was one continuous orgasm.

Now he was blind to all else except his own physical pleasures. Richie had had her not so long ago; Bernie could feel the other man’s creamy warmth inside her as he thrust. An unfaithful wife back in the marital home with her lover’s seed still fresh inside her.

Suddenly Bernie exploded. Her fingers pinched his skin viciously, the expression on her contorted features was almost too terrible to behold. Those legs held him like a vice and tried to drag him even deeper into her; her lips were frothy, her eyes glazed. And as he finally slowed, his arms scarcely capable of supporting his spent body, a sickening thought flashed into his mind: God forbid, I’ve fucked a corpse!

Somehow he extricated himself from her hold, rolled off on to the floor and lay there with eyes closed. Physically, mentally, he was her slave, powerless to disobey. His heart was beating frantically like a hammer pounding inside his chest, there was a roaring in his ears, and in that moment he knew the meaning of sheer terror. Given the strength, he would have fled outside, naked as he was, and run until he dropped. But it would not have been any good because she would have followed, run him down. And punished him.

‘You can go to bed if you want, Bernie.’ There was contempt in her voice. I’ve finished with you for tonight. He writhed inwardly. But for some reason she was not going to join him between the sheets, and that in itself was a merciful reprieve.

‘All right.’ He staggered to his feet, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes because she was staring contemptuously at his limpness. Can’t you make it more than once, Bernie? Her eyes seemed to say, mocking him because Richie Howe could.

Jesus, she was cunning, she had avoided a confrontation by seduction. She’d weakened him, defeated him. He was her slave, all right. He made for the door and stumbled his way up the stairs. And before he fell into an exhausted slumber, he prayed that Natalie Newman would ring tomorrow.

* * *

Natalie phoned him late the following afternoon. Each time the switchboard buzzed him with a call, his stomach knotted and the fingers that reached out for the handset shook. There were almost a dozen calls before lunch, each one a gut-wrenching ordeal. And just when he had abandoned all hope of that call from the eccentric clairvoyant, he heard Natalie’s voice on the line, sympathetic and understanding.

‘Are things still bad?’ she asked.

‘Worse than that.’ The strain was evident in his voice. He thought he sounded as if he was on the verge of breaking down. ‘She’s evil, Natalie. She’s really turning it on now.’

‘Look, I can’t talk over the phone.’ There was an urgency in her voice that raised a glimmer of hope in him. If she was afraid of being overheard, then she had something important to say. A solution. He steeled himself against raising his hopes. ‘Can you come round to my place this evening?’

‘Yes …’ A sudden doubt clouded his mind. It was all right for Merryn to be absent without an explanation, but did it work both ways? Bernie doubted it. ‘I’ll come on the way from work. Around six.’

‘Fine.’ Natalie Newman hung up. Bernie glanced at his watch. 4.30. The next hour and a half were going to seem like an eternity, when the rest of his life depended upon what news she had for him. Somehow he forced himself to concentrate upon the deliveries and orders book. A normal life, even at Dyllon’s, was becoming an impossibility.

Natalie lit a cigarette with the butt end of her last one and inhaled deeply. It was as though even she had to call upon her reserves this time.

‘I’ve some terrible news for you, Bernie,’ She averted her eyes. ‘Something you must know, though. Merryn is a murderess!’

He opened his mouth to speak but the ‘No!’ became lodged in his throat. Speechless, trying to disbelieve, he wanted to spew up his shock all over the carpet. He closed his eyes and started to tremble. Because what Natalie Newman said was invariably true. He knew she would not have made a mistake.

‘Last night.’ She seemed more relaxed now that she had finally steeled herself to break the news. ‘A wastrel of a dropout – if it’s any consolation to you – known as Simey. He’d been living in a shack on some waste ground, an alkie. Which is why it was easy for her. She persuaded him to go for a walk down by the river, and pushed him in. I don’t have to tell you that it was orchestrated by Richie Howe in the name of Satan.’

The silence lasted several seconds before Bernie asked the inevitable question: ‘How do you know?’

‘Suffice it to say I have a mole in Richie’s coven, a young fellow who is fast regretting listening to Richie’s glib tongue. Like you. I fear for the safety of both of you.’

‘I shall have to tell the police.’ It sounded silly, he knew.

‘You’d never prove it and I’d lie my head off and say I’d never told you, Bernie. They fished Simey’s body out this morning, but this contact of mine had already phoned and told me what happened last night, so it wasn’t any surprise when I read it in the Star. Simey is presumed to have drowned whilst drunk. Apparently they chucked him out of the Meadow, and there’s a barful of witnesses to testify to that. The police don’t suspect foul play.’

‘But why did she do it, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Because she’ll do whatever Richie wants. He resurrected her and she’s his zombie slave, if you like. In just the same way that she has power over you. The power of fear, dread of the living dead! God, Bernie, you’ve been a bloody fool. I just wish I could help you.’

I wish I could help you. Which meant that she couldn’t. His earlier hopes were dashed, dragging him down to the depths of despair.

‘Natalie.’ His voice sounded as if he had an acute attack of laryngitis. ‘Richie said that … that he could … murder Merryn, but it would cost me plenty.’

Natalie laughed harshly, nastily. ‘Bernie, don’t be a bigger bloody idiot than you already are. The last thing Richie wants is to get rid of Merryn – she’s the epitome of his evil power. They say Crowley once raised up Pan. Well, Richie’s halfway there already. There aren’t many that can claim to have resurrected the dead. She’s his stepping stone to greater things, his springboard into unbelievable evil rites. And I’m afraid I’ve got to concede that he’s the most powerful black magician I’ve ever known. And I bloody well initiated him, showed him powers to use for good, but he chose to use them for evil. He’ll take your money but he won’t kill Merryn. More likely he’ll murder you. Or else use you as he’s using her!’

The sweat on Bernie’s body chilled. ‘Why … why doesn’t he take her and leave me in peace?’

‘Not Richie.’ Natalie chain-lit another cigarette. ‘He doesn’t want the encumbrance of a woman, the expense of one. You have the pleasure of keeping her, he sends for her when he needs her, either for some act of evil or just to fuck. Richie believes in having his cake and eating it.’

‘Couldn’t you …?’

Her eyes blazed angrily, boring into him for some seconds before she answered. ‘Don’t ever ask me anything like that again, Bernie. I’ve never deliberately harmed anybody, alive or dead, good or evil. No, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. As Merryn told you, if you run, she’ll follow, and hunt you down until she finds you. She’ll cling to you; she needs you because she doesn’t have anybody except Richie, and she knows damned well that he’s not going to let her move in with him. She needs a home and a slave of her own. And don’t go trying to make any more bargains with Richie Howe, because you’ve already played right into his hands and paid him a hundred quid for the pleasure. I just don’t know what to advise you to do. If there is anything, then you’ll have to think of it yourself, do it yourself …’

Merryn did not appear to notice that Bernie was home an hour later than usual. When he walked into the house she was watching television. Or rather, the set was running and she was staring fixedly at the screen. She saw him, nodded, then turned back to the chat show.

Bernie made himself a black coffee in the kitchen, but had neither the appetite nor the inclination to prepare food. Merryn never cooked a meal these days, had not done so since her … resurrection. Because the dead did not require sustenance.

He shuddered. His mind went back over his meeting with Natalie, word for word. ‘You’ll have to think of it yourself do it yourself.’

A mind-blowing thought. Her words repeated themselves over and over again, echoed in his brain until he trembled at their very magnitude. It might have been just a way of fobbing him off. Or else she had deliberately given him a cue, thrown him a lifeline.

Oh, sweet Natalie! He’d already thought of it, now he only had to do it. In that instant, sitting there at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, Bernie had made up his mind to murder his wife.

It was the only way out for him.

11

‘Mummy, how much further is it?’

Ann Lomer sighed, brushed a strand of long fair hair back and tried to concentrate on the shiny wetness of the M54; the traffic was travelling too fast, cars and lorries too close to one another, the majority of them hugging the middle lane. The spray thrown up by their wheels resembled a perpetual dirty fountain.

She squibbed the windscreen washer yet again before replying with a faint trace of an Australian accent, ‘Not far now, Jonathan. Have you taken your puffer?’

‘Yes,’ the six-year-old boy strapped in the rear seat of the hired Golf answered sulkily. ‘I’m bored. I want to pee.’

‘To wee, darling,’ she corrected him. Another crudity which her son had inherited from her outback farmer husband. Jim had his shortcomings but she missed him all the same.

‘Where are we going, Mummy? Another hotel? I want to pee.’ He was being deliberately provocative. She couldn’t blame him, it had been a long boring drive up from London with just one stop on the M6. His asthma worried her; he had been subject to severe attacks for the last couple of years. The doctors said that he might grow out of it but she had her doubts. The first time they’d had to summon the flying doctor, she had thought her son was going to die. Since then they appeared to have it under control; she checked mentally yet again that she had remembered to pack the refills for his nebulizer.

‘We’re going to visit an old school friend of mine.’ The washer was empty now and the wipers began to smear the windscreen. She took her foot off the throttle as her visibility was still further reduced. A Mini overtook her, then cut in sharply. Sod him, she thought. She hadn’t a chance of keeping a decent distance behind the vehicle in front. ‘We might be able to stay the night there with a bit of luck.’

‘I’d sooner stay in a hotel, Mummy.’

‘Well, we might have to do that. We’ll see.’

Ann had met Jim seven years ago when he was visiting England. It was a whirlwind romance – they were married within three months of knowing each other – and at the time emigrating to a land of sunshine seemed idyllic. The novelty had worn off after a couple of years; the heat was intolerable, there were poisonous snakes within the vicinity of the ranch house and, worst of all, her husband began drinking heavily. He blamed his alcoholic intake on the drought and the loss of livestock. Ann yearned for Britain with its lush pastures, its frequent rain, old faces and places. In the end she yielded to nostalgia, but she had to wait until Jonathan was old enough to travel; no way would she have left him with Jim and those snakes. She had scraped enough cash together for a six-week holiday in England, and if she could cut her costs by scrounging the odd overnight stay with friends, then it would not be such a drain on her financial resources.

She had considered leaving her husband and returning to good old Britain. Only the fact that Jonathan idolized his father had determined her to return to New South Wales at the end of her holiday. She would stick her marriage out until her son was grown up. And that seemed an awfully long time.

She glanced at the clock on the facia. 4.30. She ought to be in Telford by five. She wondered what Merryn Bartram looked like these days. Older, certainly; did she still have long hair and wear glasses? Ann would find out before long. Merryn had written to her some time ago, telling her that she was engaged to a fellow named Bernard who was everything that a girl could want. They had bought a house in readiness, and Merryn had even given the address and phone number, urging that if ever Ann came back to England she must call. Ann had phoned from the motorway services station; there had been no reply. She had debated whether to make a detour to Shropshire on her way up to see her former maths teacher in Stoke-on-Trent. Merryn might just have popped out for something; if she was away, or it wasn’t convenient, then Ann would book into some cheap overnight hostel. She decided to gamble; there wasn’t much to lose.

Damnation! Suddenly the Golf began to lose power and she cruised into the slow lane, then eased on to the hard shoulder when she realized that the engine wasn’t going to pick up. That’s all I need, a bloody breakdown!

‘Mummy, why have we stopped?’

Jesus Christ! ‘There’s something wrong with the car. But at least you can have your wee now.’

He didn’t manage more than a trickle. Bloody typical! ‘You’d better come with me. Hold my hand tightly, whilst we walk down to that telephone.’ It began to rain harder than ever.

It was six o’clock before the AA patrolman arrived. He spent a few minutes investigating beneath the bonnet and announced with some satisfaction, ‘It’s only a condenser. We’ll have you back on the road in ten minutes.’

It was after seven by the time Ann located Merryn’s house amidst sprawling estates where every house looked the same. She had almost despaired of ever finding it; why the hell didn’t people have their numbers clearly displayed at the bottom of their drives where you could see them easily on a dark rain-lashed night? But she heaved an audible sigh of relief. There was a light showing downstairs!

Jonathan had fallen asleep in his seat. She would have to wake him and he was sure to be irritable. ‘Come on, lovey. I want you to meet Auntie Merryn. You’ll really like her.’

Ann rang the front doorbell three times before she heard somebody coming. She felt embarrassed, strangely nervous. There was no need to, she told herself. Old friends always welcomed you when you had been absent for years.

‘Merryn?’ Ann stared, thinking for one awful moment that she might have made a mistake. The girl standing in the doorway had long dark hair and glasses, but something decidedly different about her expression made her most a stranger. ‘It is Merryn, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Merryn peered forward, her eyes narrowed to slits as she attempted to see out into the darkness. ‘Who it?’

‘Ann. Ann Lomer. Ann Farrell, I used to be.’

For a moment Merryn hesitated, her face contorted as though the effort to remember was excruciatingly painful. Then her lips stretched into a smile. ‘Oh, goodness me! Ann! I’m sorry, I couldn’t see you properly out there. Come on in.’

‘Thanks.’ Ann grasped Jonathan’s hand.

‘Oh, you’ve got a little boy!’ Merryn bent forward and stared intently at the child, who began pulling away and almost caught Ann off balance.

‘Jonathan, whatever’s the matter with you?’ His small arm was at full stretch, his heels dug in as he might have done if competing in a tug of war. But it was his expression that alarmed Ann most, that look of sheer panic-stricken terror.

‘Mummy, no!’ he screeched, and nearly broke free. ‘I don’t want to go in there!’

‘He’s shy, I expect.’ Merryn straightened up and smiled.

‘Jonathan, will you stop it!’ Ann tightened her grip and dragged him forcibly towards the open door. Her son had never demonstrated a shyness of people before, in fact he was usually downright cheeky. ‘We are going into the house, whether you like it or not, so stop this nonsense!’

They were in the hallway now and the door clicked shut. The boy’s eyes were rolling, frighteningly. Oh, God Ann thought, don’t let him have an asthma attack! To her dismay she saw a damp patch on the front of his trousers in his fear he had wet himself!

‘He’s tired.’ She found herself staring at Merryn, seeing features that were a caricature of those she had once known. Almost … cruel, the expression intense. ‘We’ve driven all the way up from London.’

‘Let’s go into the lounge and sit down. Bernie should be home soon. He’ll get us something to eat.’ Merryn led the way and Jonathan fell silent. He seemed to have adopted a kind of trapped resignation to his fate; he was shaking, clinging to Ann now, pinching her skin with his tiny fingers.

Ann looked at Merryn, and thought. My God, you look as though you’ve been ill, but she did not mention it. If her friend had been sick then surely it would come out in the normal course of conversation. It didn’t. Ann told herself that she had been mistaken. Seven years had taken its toll; some people aged more than others. Yet there was something decidedly strange about Merryn. Perhaps she had been under stress.

‘I can hear Bernie now.’ Merryn made no move to rise from the settee, her gaze alighting on Jonathan. ‘If you’re hungry, Jonathan, Uncle Bernie will soon get you something to eat.’

Jonathan buried his head against Ann’s bosom and she felt him start to sob silently.

Bernie was everything that any woman could wish for, Ann decided. She envied her friend, regretting her own rashness and her outback farmer husband.

‘I’ll cook something up.’ Bernie seemed relieved about something, and added, ‘And as you’ve come so far perhaps you’d like to stay the night. We have a spare bedroom if you don’t mind sharing with Jonathan.’

‘That would be absolutely marvellous, we’d be eternally grateful,’ Ann replied, and in that moment she sensed an atmosphere of hostility in the room.

It began with an exchange of glances between Merryn and her husband, then was taken up by Jonathan as he pleaded into her rumpled cardigan not to stay. Ann almost changed her mind, and would have done so had it not been for her diminishing supply of traveller’s cheques. All this was nonsense, she decided. Her imagination had been triggered off by Jonathan’s childish behaviour. Maybe she and Merryn needed to get to know each other all over again. Ten thousand miles was a long way to come just to break off a schoolgirl friendship.

The air of uneasiness continued throughout the meal, with Jonathan refusing to eat and clinging to Ann’s arm. She tried to talk about the old days but Merryn seemed oddly reluctant to indulge in nostalgia. Bernie’s conversation was polite, forced, as if it was his duty to prevent a lapse into an embarrassed silence.

It was no good expecting Jonathan to go up to bed on his own, so Ann did not even suggest it. By ten o’clock she was realizing her mistake in coming here; her son was in the grip of some inexplicable terror and Bernie was still struggling to keep the conversation going. Merryn had not spoken for the last half-hour, she’d just sat there watching Jonathan until the child looked away. Merryn might have been in a trance; her thoughts were certainly elsewhere. Ann interpreted it as a sulk because Bernie had asked them to stay overnight.

‘Look, we’re putting you to a lot of trouble.’ She made one final attempt to extricate herself and her son from this gathering, which was somehow … sinister! ‘We can easily book into a hotel. I can –’

‘I won’t hear of it.’ There was no mistaking Bernie’s sincerity. ‘You’re most welcome to stay. I have to be away by eight in the morning but there’s no need for you to rush.’

‘We plan to be on the road by then.’ Ann was determined that they weren’t going to linger any longer than was necessary.

The small bedroom was damnably cold. Jonathan was shivering, so Ann spread her coat on the bed for extra warmth. Maybe the central heating wasn’t working, she thought, and there was a decidedly unpleasant smell. She caught a whiff of it and it grew stronger; then it went away, and came back. She wondered if a rodent had died beneath the floorboards and its corpse was slowly decomposing.

Jonathan settled down but she sensed it would be a long time before he was likely to drop off to sleep. He was forcibly clinging to wakefulness, terrified to close his eyes. She consoled herself that eventually fatigue would claim him. All this wasn’t doing him any good in his condition.

‘Mummy?’ A whisper that was only just audible. She leaned across him. ‘Mummy, that lady frightens me.’

‘Oh, nonsense, darling. I’ve known her for twenty-five years.’ At least, I knew somebody who was like her, she realized, and she scares me, too!

‘She’s bad, Mummy!’

‘Sshh! I think she’s been ill.’

‘She’s angry because we’re staying.’ Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Ann thought, and her flesh goose pimpled. Merryn certainly had not enthused about their visit. Maybe their marriage was on the rocks. Ann decided it was none of her business. In the morning they would leave, and that would be that.

‘Mummy, don’t put out the light!’

Ann sighed. ‘All right, darling.’ She’d see if he dropped off and then put it out. Today had been an absolute disaster, the pouring wet journey on the motorways, the breakdown. And now this inexplicable inhospitable atmosphere. Roll on morning, and let’s get the hell out of here!

Ann’s eyelids were heavy. She forced them open to check on Jonathan, but his were still wide – staring and frightened. Poor kid, he must be shattered. She knew she could not fight off sleep for much longer, already she felt herself starting to drift. It didn’t matter, the light could stay on, and in the morning …

It seemed that she had only been asleep a few seconds before she was jerked awake. The shock made her sit upright before she surfaced from her slumbering depths. She remembered a similar feeling two years ago when the phone rang in the middle of the night and she knew it was a long-distance call to tell her that her mother had died.

Now it was Jonathan. Something was terribly wrong with him.

His screams were piercing, terrifying. The light was still burning and she saw that his eyes were closed as he writhed in the bed. But it was his purplish complexion that brought an ‘Oh, my God!’ from her lips.

His fear had brought on a nightmare; she tried to shake him awake, screamed herself when his swollen tongue flopped out of his mouth. Dear God, my baby’s having a fit! Wheezes were interspersed with his screams. He was also having an asthma attack!

Ann was panicking as the bedroom door burst open and Bernie, clad in olive-green pyjamas, stood there. His mouth opened but no words came.

‘Please,’ she yelled, ‘I don’t know what to do. For God’s sake call an ambulance!’

She heard him going downstairs, and felt completely helpless. Jonathan needed to be put on a ventilator, minutes counted.

Ann cradled the child to her breast, but he did not stop screaming. If anything his screams were growing more frantic. And fainter.

Bernie was back. She heard him say something about an ambulance being on the way. There was no sign of Merryn, the bitch! Ann blamed her, made her a scapegoat. Ann’s head was against Jonathan’s chest. So long as he continued to wheeze, he was alive, she thought. Oh, please hurry!

She felt the child go limp, but told herself over and over again that he was still breathing; that his asthma attack was over, that he wasn’t screaming because he wasn’t frightened any more. She looked to Bernie for confirmation and believed that everything was all right because he nodded.

Then there were uniformed ambulancemen in the room. One held out his arms and she passed the boy over to them, averting her eyes. They turned away for the stairs, and she followed them, oblivious of wearing only a negligee and of the torrential rain outside. She was soaked before she reached the ambulance, and did not protest when one of the men draped a blanket around her.

They were not hurrying, so everything must be fine. She convinced herself they were just taking the child to hospital to be checked over by a doctor, a routine procedure when there was a call-out.

She entered a world of dazzling bright lights and white walls and ceilings, with a sharp smell of disinfectant that was preferable to the stink in the bedroom. Sitting in an anteroom with a sister in a dark blue uniform, she sipped hot sweet tea and swallowed a pill with some difficulty. Her tiredness was back, and with it a sense of apathy so that she did not care much about anything.

She just nodded when they explained to her that Jonathan was dead. She had known all along, but for some reason it did not seem so bad now.

It was not until the following morning that a white-coated doctor broke it to her that her son had not died from an asthma attack. Jonathan had died from heart failure.

Some time later Ann Lomer became hysterical and screamed that her son had not died from a heart attack, that it was Merryn Oldroyd who had killed him.

So they gave her another pill to quieten her.

12

‘I think a short break would do us both good.’ Bernie spoke from the kitchen, where he was drying the dishes, aware of his haggard features reflected in the window. He tried to speak casually as if the idea had just occurred to him. It wasn’t easy. ‘A long weekend at the sea, say next Friday to Monday. I’ve got a few days’ leave due to me.’

There was no immediate response from the adjoining room where Merryn was reclining on the settee. He tensed, waited. The sympathy act was hard, he did not know how much longer he could keep it up. You bitch, you killed that child. He died from sheer terror! And it was bloody deliberate, killing for the sake of killing, just as you murdered that layabout!

‘A November weekend on the coast isn’t exactly appealing.’ Merryn was morose but he knew it wasn’t remorse.

‘There’s a good weather forecast. I heard it in the car coming home. Sunshine by day, fog and frost by night. I thought that if we rented a cottage, we could perhaps walk or drive out in the day and spend a few snug evenings together. Just an idea. If you’re not bothered then I’ll forget it.’

Christ, you have to go, he thought. It’s the only chance left to me now!

‘All right.’ He could hardly believe it when she agreed. He heard her getting up; she was coming through to join him. ‘Have a look in the evening paper ads, ring up and book. It’s fine by me, Bernie.’

He wasn’t surprised when her cold fingers touched him, slid round and felt for his zip. Her fetid breath was almost overpowering. But he responded eagerly, fondling her breasts and noticing how stiff and red her nipples were.

‘D’you know, Bernie.’ Her eyes burned with sudden lust. Her mood could change instantly. ‘I’ve got a yen to be screwed on the kitchen floor. We’ve done it just about everywhere else in the house, haven’t we?’

God, he’d screw her in the loo if it meant her agreeing to accompany him on a seaside break.

His only fear was that Merryn might decide not to go after all. Her whims were unpredictable, often simply to frustrate and disappoint him. The cottage had been booked, and they’d got a fifty-per-cent reduction from the surprised landlord. It was situated above the harbour, with sea views and cliff walks, Friday evening until Sunday morning. The key would be under a brick in the porch and a cheque by post in advance would be appreciated.

Bernie was ticking the days off on his mental calendar. Each evening he returned from the office expecting Merryn to announce that she had had a change of mind, but on Thursday she began to pack a few things in a suitcase.

‘Can’t you get away early on Friday?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it would be nice to get there in the light, wouldn’t it, and get a glimpse of the sea before dark.’

A month ago he would have rejoiced in the fact that she was returning to normal. But after Simey and Jonathan there could be no normality. Merryn was depraved. At times Bernie feared for his own life. If she devised some way of murdering him so that it was considered an accident, she could cash in on his life policy. She would not need him then, except for sex. There had been no contact, as far as he knew, with Richie Howe. The relationship might be over. Bernie doubted it, but after the weekend it would not matter one way or the other. He had to think positively.

She could be playing a cruel game. He had got Friday afternoon off, so they could be on the Welsh coast by 3.30. Unless she was going to play her devastating trump card: Sorry, Bernie, but I don’t feel like going, after all. You go on your own, have a good time. He might have gone just to get away from her, but there wouldn’t be much point because she would still be here when he returned.

He was relieved to find her ready when he arrived home at 1.30 on Friday, the suitcase, a holdall and two bulging carrier bags in the hall. Please God, let it all work out!

The A5 was virtually devoid of traffic. He was tempted to put his foot down hard on the accelerator. Hold on, there’s no rush, he told himself; you have to be the average office worker relaxing on an overdue late autumn weekend. He glanced sideways at Merryn. She was staring fixedly ahead of her. It was impossible to guess her thoughts. She didn’t suspect, surely … Don’t even think about it. Yet.

The mountainsides were bathed in gold, the late afternoon sun glinting on the masses of dead bracken, the peaks enshrouded in mist that heralded more fine weather. Spectacular, idyllic. It would be, Bernie shuddered, if the woman by his side wasn’t a macabre living corpse who had killed twice for the hell of it.

‘Perhaps Jonathan had a hole in the heart which they hadn’t detected.’ Bernie started, and broke out in a cold sweat. Hell, it was as though she had read his thoughts.

‘The coroner’s verdict was heart failure.’ Christ, don’t make an issue of it, he thought. The kid’s dead, nothing will bring him back.

‘Same thing.’ She sounded smug.

‘I suppose so.’ You callous bitch!

She lapsed back into silence. It was better that way.

There was a mist coming in off the sea as they dropped down to the small coastal town, and boats were bobbing in the tiny harbour. It would probably thicken into fog before morning, Bernie thought, and might be slow to clear. He shivered again.

The cottage was more or less as the owner had described it. Situated halfway up a hill, it was reached by a narrow winding road and on a clear day commanded a panoramic view of the bay; not this afternoon, though, for the mist obscured the beach and was visibly creeping inland. Within half an hour, Bernie reckoned, they would not be able to see more than a hundred yards at the most. It was getting towards dusk, too.

As he carried the suitcase from the car, he paused and gazed beyond the stone-built dwelling. He saw that the road petered out into a narrow rough track which seemed to follow the cliffs round. He would check it out tomorrow, but right now the signs were good. His pulses speeded up a little.

The interior was small but comfortable, recently decorated, low ceilings with oak beams that had been spoiled with black paint. A fire was already made up in the stone fireplace and only needed lighting. In the hearth was a bucket of logs.

‘It’s gone cold,’ he commented as he kicked the door closed behind him.

Merryn did not reply. She would not know. And that familiar odour was present again, sharp in the nostrils and searing the back of the throat until he became accustomed to it. He knelt down, held a match to the crumpled newspapers and watched the flames leap up and lick hungrily at the dry kindling. With relief he breathed in the sweet aroma of woodsmoke.

Merryn sat staring at the dancing flames. She seemed transfixed by them. Her intensity was disturbing; it was as though the fire had a meaning for her which was denied him. He switched on the portable television and the muzzy picture helped to alleviate the eerie silence.

‘Well, we’re here.’ He laughed but it sounded forced. ‘On holiday at last. What do you fancy doing tomorrow?’

‘Let’s leave that till morning.’ She did not glance away from the fire. ‘We don’t have to make plans. Or do we?’

His stomach cramped but when he looked at her she was still engrossed in the log fire.

Bernie woke with the instinctive realization that it was late. He sat up and thought for one moment that he had overslept and would have to dash to the office. Then he saw the beamed bedroom and remembered; in many ways he would have preferred to have risen to a weekday routine. But that would not have solved his problem.

Merryn lay by his side. He knew she was not asleep. She never slept, she apparently did not need to. Eyes wide open, she was staring blankly up at the ceiling. Which was probably the position in which she had lain all night, a waking dead thing by his side, to whom night was eternal day.

He slid out of bed and padded across to the window. As he drew the curtain back he was greeted by a greyness that swirled around the cottage, isolating it from the world he knew, incarcerating him with the living dead. It was terrifying because there was no mundane housing estate to look out upon to remind him that he was still amongst the living.

‘It’s foggy,’ Merryn stated, and he tautened. She could not possibly have seen outside from where she lay. She just knew, as she knew a lot of things inexplicably. And that was unnerving. Especially now.

‘Yes,’ he replied without turning round. ‘It’s very thick, it looks as if it’ll take a long time to clear.’

‘So we won’t be going for a walk today.’ There was a smugness to her tone that set invisible icy fingers stroking his spine in much the same way that Merryn did when they made love.

‘Not yet, anyway.’ Again he tried to sound unconcerned, and added, ‘But it might clear later.’

It didn’t. Towards late afternoon the heavy mist thinned sufficiently to allow the pale yellow rays of the sun setting beyond the mountains to glint briefly on the harbour. The day had dragged for Bernie; he tried to read some magazines which he had brought with him, but concentration was impossible. He stared at illustrations which did not register and were meaningless. He fidgeted, restlessly. But throughout the day Merryn had made no move to get up from the sagging old sofa. Which was what happened with a lot of holidaymakers in bad weather; Bernie tried to convince himself that they were a normal married couple, just to help him get through the day. But it didn’t work – he had not really expected it to.

On Sunday morning the mist had gone, dispersed overnight to make way for bright autumn sunshine and a cloudless blue sky.

‘Magnificent!’ Sunshine flooded the bedroom and made latticed patterns on the wall. ‘If it wasn’t for the nip in the air you could kid yourself it was summer.’

‘I suppose I’m going to have to go on a walk to please you!’

He checked himself from replying, ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ or ‘Is there anything else you’d like to do?’ and instead said, almost too casually, ‘Well, it seems a shame not to take advantage of weather like this. Before we know it, it’ll be Christmas!’

Christmas! With … that! He forced his thoughts away from the awful prospect and felt himself trembling slightly as he awaited her decision.

‘All right.’ She made no attempt to disguise her reluctance, which might just have been sheer laziness. ‘Not too far, though.’

The wind coming in off the sea was cold. Bernie kept his hands in the pockets of his anorak. Merryn wore only a skirt and blouse, a topcoat would have aroused his suspicions. The bay was deserted except for a fishing boat out towards the horizon, and away to their left a lone figure was exercising a dog along the promenade. With some satisfaction Bernie saw that the tide was in.

‘Let’s see where this cliff track leads.’ He paused, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Or do you want to walk on concrete round the harbour?’

It seemed an age before she replied, ‘Let’s try the cliffs. But, as I said, I don’t want a long hike.’

Thank God, he thought she was going to choose the harbour and seafront, and that would have presented problems.

The path sloped steeply upwards away from the cottage, then cut inland. It was rocky and there were patches of loose shale which were slippery underfoot; in other circumstances Bernie would have held Merryn’s hand. Where the track narrowed, he walked in front. He felt her eyes on him; maybe she sensed his nervousness. Damn it, they seemed to be heading even further inland.

Then, without warning, the snaking route terminated on a clifftop, with a breathtaking view to surprise the unwary sightseer. A flimsy white post-and-rail fence prevented him from plunging a hundred feet down to the hidden cove below, should he have stumbled.

‘Fantastic!’ Bernie rested his hands on the rail and stared down at the waves dashing against the base of the cliff. He felt the dampness in the air caused by the spray. The beach was hidden beneath the tide; unless there was a concealed route to and from that tiny bay, an unwary bather might have been cut off and drowned. This is truly the wild Wales they rave about in the tourist brochures.’

Merryn wasn’t listening, she was standing with her back towards him, perhaps trying to make out that faraway dot which was probably the fishing boat they had seen earlier. Bernie tried not to visualize the expression on her features.

He didn’t ever want to see it again.

His mind and body seemed to have slowed down, and he felt physically sick after a week of planning and scheming, not really believing that any of it would work out. He’d thought she would probably insist on staying in the cottage or walking along the promenade. That was if she didn’t decide not to come at the last moment. And even if all those obstacles were overcome, then he would not be able to find the right place.

But Merryn had come, she had agreed to a walk, even elected for the clifftop one. And the place was absolutely right.

He found himself thinking about the man called Simey and if it had been like this that wet night down by the river, Simey standing unsuspecting with his back to her. And Jonathan. Recalling the boy made Bernie angry. A rush of adrenaline made his limbs move faster again, and his brain was on fire with the desire to avenge the innocent six-year-old.

Bernie’s outstretched hand made contact. It felt as if he had pushed over a kid’s snowman in the park. A sensation like instant frostbite. He saw her topple forward, the half rotten barrier snapping with her weight.

Then she was lost to his view. He waited for a scream but there was none; listened for a splash, or the sickening crunch of her body on the protruding sharp rocks, but he could only hear the noise of the waves way below.

He did not step forward or drop on to all fours to peer over the edge, just to make sure. Because he did not want to see.

He had expected euphoria but instead there was guilt. He was a murderer!

He sought vindication in the fact that he could not have murdered somebody who was already dead. Or if he had then it made up for Jonathan Lomer. Simey, too, if he really wanted to convince himself. Not just for me, he thought. ‘My wife has left me’ – standing there on the sunlit clifftop, he was practising an expression of hurt, maybe even of shame and anger, which would be necessary to convince others. He would be unwilling to enter into the details of a personal matter, and nod an appreciation of the sympathy which was offered.

It was some time before he began to retrace his steps walking with head bowed, only just beginning to believe that it had all actually happened as he had planned.

Bernie had thought about returning to Telford that afternoon. He did not really know why he did not; there was nobody to whom he would have to explain his early homecoming. Possibly he lingered on in the cottage to gloat in a subconscious way. To savour his success.

He would not even confide in Natalie Newman; any confidence was a risk. Richie Howe was almost certain to inquire. My wife has left me, Richie. You’re welcome to her if you can find out where she is.

Bernie continued planning and rehearsing. Wives were not reported to the police as missing persons if they just talked out on you, he decided. You let them go. Thousands went missing every year.

Dusk blended into darkness, and sometime around ten o’clock Bernie went up to bed. Sleep eluded him but he did not chase it, just let exhaustion claim him in the early hours.

Nightmares were inevitable. He doubted if he would ever be free of them. Merryn would come to him again and again in his dreams, he would smell her odour in a darkened bedroom, feel her coldness against him in the bed. And awake sweating. And screaming.

Like now!

Her fingers were smoothing over him, sensuous in their iciness, feeling him and rubbing him to an erection. Her stench was here, stronger than before, soured by rotting marine vegetation which had wrapped itself around her submerged body. Arisen from the deep, she was a mermaid corpse, an ocean whore.

He grabbed at the light pull but missed it the first time, so that it catapulted from his grasp, then caught it and tugged it. And screamed insanely in his terror.

She looked no different from before, except that her pallid body was glistening with a wetness that had dampened the bedsheets beneath her, and her dark straggling hair had a piece of seaweed caught up in it.

13

John was scared. Scared to hell, which was where he was surely destined if he stayed with Richie Howe’s black coven.

Small and lithe, with a sparse growth of hair above his upper lip, he had drifted from place to place since he lost his first job as a packer with a components firm in Romford. He’d tried to find work but nobody was interested, so why should he bother when he could draw unemployment benefit every week? Job hunting wasn’t worth the effort; he was on a loser from the start, he decided, so if he assumed he would never find work then at least he’d avoid disappointment and frustration.

After the big peace convoy had been turned back from Stonehenge by the police, John headed north. Through a series of contacts he met Natalie Newman; she was akin to the mother he scarcely remembered. He felt secure with her and she gave him hope; if there was nothing for him in this world, there surely would be in the next.

Then Richie Howe turned up and John’s life became a nightmare. Richie introduced him to drugs, and from that point on he had a hold over John. He would never forget the confrontation between Richie and Natalie, black versus white, in effect. Richie walked out of that haven of good, which would have been fine if John had not relied upon Howe for his regular supplies of heroin.

Natalie understood. She struck a bargain with John which, in the long run, was the worst decision he had ever made. ‘Look, John, I need to know just what Richie’s up to,’ Natalie confided. ‘All right, go with him, but keep me informed. And if you’re ever in trouble you can always come to me.’

Running with the hare and the hounds, as they said. In the beginning John was sceptical about Richie Howe’s so-called ‘power’. Trying to raise somebody up from the dead was a bit of bizarre fun, but he knew it couldn’t be done. Until it happened.

Worse was to follow; the deliberate killing of that fellow Simey and then a kind of child sacrifice to the master. John had reported back to Natalie but now he lived in dread of his life. They would kill again, and who would the next victim be?

Merryn was frightening and yet she aroused him and, like Rob and Pete, he lusted for her dead flesh. Richie hinted that in due course they would all be permitted to screw Satan’s spawn as a matter of course. Fucking a corpse, in effect. John became aroused just thinking about it but secretly prayed that it would never happen. In the meantime they would continue to shag Anthea and enjoy it. This dark coven had its compensations.

Tonight, though, his guts were balling as if they had a premonition that something awful was going to happen, cramping his stomach muscles so that he had to go to the toilet as soon as he arrived at Richie Howe’s place.

Richie wasn’t there, which they presumed was because he had gone to fetch Merryn. Rob and Pete were uneasy, too, smoking with short nervous drags, eyes fixed on the bedroom door. Anthea was the only one who appeared to be relaxed. She lounged in a corner, and it might just have been a coincidence that her creased denim skirt rode up her thighs so that her companions could see that she wasn’t wearing knickers.

They jumped when the downstairs door thudded shut, tensed as footsteps came slowly up the stairs.

Richie Howe stood in the doorway and nodded to each of them in turn, a silent command. Light the candles. Tonight we commune with the master. Disrobe yourselves so that he may look upon your naked flesh.

John trembled as he undressed. He knew Richie was watching his every move, contemptuous of his flaccid organ, making him shiver and goose pimple. The candlelight added to the eeriness of the room; silhouettes moved to and fro, taking care not to step into the circle until they were called upon to do so. The stench was heavy tonight. John knew that it came from Merryn, as if the flesh that moved with a seductive suppleness was already beginning to rot on the bones. She can’t be dead, he told himself over and over again, because that’s impossible. It’s another of Richie’s tricks, she’s just drugged up to her eyeballs.

Merryn stared transfixed at the crude wooden altar with its black drapes. The sacrificial knife with its glinting fake-jewelled hilt seemed to hypnotize her. Richie had instructed her; she knew what was expected of her, and she smiled to herself. It would certainly be interesting.

She heard Richie speaking in that familiar low monotone. She did not understand the words and doubted if the others did either. A communion with the master, it was not for their ears.

Richie knelt, rose again and made the sign of an inverted cross on his bare chest. The wan light shone on his features, showing his thin lips in a bestial snarl. He had conversed with the Dark One and he was angry. They were both angry.

Richie’s arm rose. A finger extended, pointed to Rob, paused, moved on. Pete was trembling with fear but the finger moved again. A faint whimper from Anthea turned to a gasp of relief as it finally settled on John.

Oh, God! No!

The finger crooked, beckoned. Step into the circle and account for yourself.

Jesus, they knew about Natalie!

John’s legs refused to move except for a buckling of the knees. The room tilted crazily; the altar cross was the right way up as if suddenly God had intervened. He hadn’t. The cross revolved then came back to its original upside-down position. Richie’s eyes appeared to have swelled. Now they resembled the opaqueness of a jellyfish with pupils that burned evilly out of the morass, smouldering with anger, fired by a frightening lust.

‘Enter the circle, wretched one!’

John stumbled, fell inside the chalk marks, then scrambled back to his feet, muttering apologies for his clumsiness. He stood there, hands behind his back, cowering as the others crowded up to the line and stared at him. He was wilting in his guilt, his lips quivering.

‘The master is angry because we have a spy in our midst. He is furious with us for being fooled. We have to make amends before his wrath descends upon us all!’

John wanted to bow his head and apologize, to plead: I couldn’t help it, Natalie made me do it,

‘See, the guilt is upon him,’ Richie Howe shrieked venomously. ‘The master has demanded the flesh of the one who has betrayed us!’

A bizarre trial where the verdict was a foregone conclusion. The charge: spying and conveying information to a white witch. The verdict: guilty. Punishment: …

John thought he was going to throw up. Satan had demanded flesh. That meant a human sacrifice, and there was no doubt in his terrified mind that he was to be the victim. He heard himself uttering nonsensical words that were meaningless even to himself. He admitted his guilt, pleaded for mercy. Never once did the thought of escape occur to him. It would have been impossible; the coven barred the door and they would pull him back before he could leap for the window. Somehow he managed to remain upright as he felt the malevolence of their eyes upon him. They hated him for the shame he had brought upon them before the Unholy One. They demanded vengeance, more than just a sacrificial slaying. The tramp, the child – they had been cold, impersonal sacrifices, lives taken because Satan demanded them. This time it was going to be enjoyable!

‘The master is hungry for the flesh of one of our brethren.’ Richie Howe’s voice rose to an insane shriek. ‘Give him the flesh!’

John saw Merryn enter the circle; it might have been an optical illusion but she appeared to glide soundlessly towards the altar. She stood before it briefly, perhaps a humble acknowledgement of the one they called master. Her hands were outstretched. John thought she picked something up but he could not be sure. And when she turned there was no sign of it unless it was concealed in her hand, deliberately hidden from his view.

His brain was numbed, a process of instinctive anaesthesia, as he surrendered himself to his fate, mentally conditioned to die. Her eyes were on him. They gleamed with an inner lust. He saw how her nipples protruded, how her hips moved seductively as she advanced upon him.

The foulness of her breath was nauseating. Even in his paralytic terror he almost vomited. Her glasses magnified her eyes and made her almost froglike; her mouth was pouted as it homed in on his trembling lips. The cold kiss of death. Her tongue flicked at him.

He was aware of the others crowding on the perimeter of the circle, ghouls eager to witness his death yet fearing to enter that forbidden area of unholiness. Even Richie was standing beyond it, a mere spectator now that he had conveyed the wish of the Mighty One to his disciples.

John was aware of her icy fingers stroking him, tracing a freezing path down his chest until they ruffled his pubic hair. He tensed; no, not even Merryn could achieve an arousal in her sacrificial victim.

She did.

Slowly he felt her stroking fingers begin to harden the soft flesh and tensed as it began to grow in her grasp, stretching, pulsing. And all the time those dark eyes behind the lenses were mocking him. Her lips were moving, but no words reached him. Fuck with the devil before you die, he cringed inwardly, but his erection never wavered.

‘The master demands the traitor’s flesh. Give it to him!’

Richie’s scream for the blood of their victim was deafening in the small council house room, his frenzied cry a complete transformation of the black magician’s usual slurred voice as he bayed for blood. For death.

John managed to close his eyes. Whatever this satanic bitch was going to do to him, he did not want to watch. Something sharp scraped his thigh. He knew it was the blade of the sacrificial knife. Its edge was against his flesh as though shaving it in preparation, as a surgeon might have done prior to an operation. Playing with him, taunting him, any second she would plunge it into his abdomen and disembowel him. Or slit his throat, spraying them all with a fountain of warm, fresh blood.

The room temperature had fallen drastically, the candles flickered and threatened to go out. John wanted to scream, not because he was going to die but because it heralded the coming of the master once again. He wanted to tell himself that it was another trick of Richie Howe’s but his terrified brain rejected the thought. It was all true; he had to believe it now. Richie could call up the Evil One just as he could raise the dead!

‘Give his flesh to the master!’ There was a desperation in that scream from the shadows, a fear that their master was becoming impatient with the delay, that he might wreak his fury on those who kept him waiting when he hungered for human sacrificial meat.

Yet Merryn was unmoved. Her lips laughed even though her eyes were filled with an unholy lust. And with her free hand she continued to rub John, exciting him almost to the point of orgasm. His body writhed in her hold, his thighs pushed towards her.

Please, let me screw you. After that you can do anything you want to me!

John’s temples were pounding, there was a roaring in his ears. He thought he heard Richie Howe yelling hysterically somewhere far, far away. John was oblivious to everything except …

Her fingers were so delightfully, unbelievably sensuous. They pushed the loose skin back as far as it would go and he grunted with delight. Then, quickly, his foreskin was tugged forward and held at full stretch. He was pulled forward with it, balancing precariously on the balls of his feet.

And in that instant Merryn struck. Her other hand moved in, the blade of the sacrificial knife was drawn swiftly across the taut skin and pressed downwards.

The sudden pain had John doubling up, and as Merryn released her hold he stumbled forward and fell headlong to the floor, writhing as he clasped his circumcision and attempted to stem the flow of blood.

‘The master has his flesh!’ Richie Howe was in the circle, relief and euphoria in his tone. ‘The traitor has paid the price.’

The others were pressing forward, jostling one another but still not daring to trespass beyond the chalk line. They saw Merryn turn back to the altar, deposit something upon it and fall to her knees.

‘You are lucky.’ Richie towered over the convulsing, sobbing form on the floor and drove his bare foot into the unprotected ribs. ‘It could have been your life. It still might be … if you betray us again! Get out, and don’t come back, you bastard!’

They heard John go, staggering to the door, opening it with difficulty, stumbling down the stairs, crying as he slipped in his own blood in the hall.

Then he was gone, into the dark night.

Doctor Markham was both puzzled and worried. Stabbings in this artificially created conurbation were not an infrequent occurrence. Suicides were almost a weekly event. But this latest injury mystified him and he was certain the youth was lying.

Just as the doctor was preparing to turn in for the night the side doorbell had chimed, accompanied by a frantic knocking and shouting. He had hurried to answer it, perhaps there had been an accident in the road, a drunk knocked down or … It took a lot to surprise or horrify the ageing GP, but tonight was an exception. Instinctively he recoiled at the sight of the naked man clutching his bloody groin.

It was a hospital job, an emergency. Markham gave the man some bandages to slow the blood loss whilst he phoned for an ambulance. With luck there was still time.

The patient was close to unconsciousness by the time George Markham heard the wail of the approaching siren.

‘How did it happen?’ He had recovered from his shock, and he was curious.

John was mumbling incoherently, something about an accident with the zip on his jeans. Which the doctor knew was a downright lie. Maybe the police would get to the bottom of this business when he reported it. A self-inflicted wound as the result of some kinky sex game? Masochism or sadism which had gone too far?

The doctor sighed. The truth would probably never be known. Not that it really mattered. He had done everything that could reasonably be expected of him.

And as he made a second attempt to go upstairs to bed, Markham’s train of thought, for some inexplicable, unrelated reason, turned to Merryn Oldroyd. And he decided it was his duty as her GP to check on her again. His scalp prickled at the prospect.

Tomorrow, perhaps.

14

Bernie had not waited up for Merryn. There was no point. At 11.30 he went upstairs and undressed for bed. He took one last half-frightened peep through the curtains, more afraid of what he might see than what he might not. The estate was deserted, a murky world of jerry-built houses, eerie symmetrical silhouettes in the orange glow of the streetlamps.

Bernie prayed that Merryn wouldn’t come back, that she would stay wherever she was forever. But he knew she wouldn’t; her return was a foregone conclusion.

Tired as he was, he knew he would not sleep. He would lie in the darkened room like a parent anxiously listening for the homecoming of an adolescent son or daughter. Tense, straining his ears.

Until he heard the awesome click of the front door lock.

The tip-tapping of her stiletto heels came straight up the stairs; there was a disconcerting haste about her footsteps. If she had paused downstairs, lingered, perhaps made herself a drink, then it would not have been so bad. As it was, it was terrifying. As if she was coming for him.

The light dazzled him, it was some seconds before he could see the smug, self-satisfied expression on her face, the unmistakable lust in those dark eyes behind the thick lenses.

‘Have you … enjoyed yourself?’ He attempted normality, trying to kid himself that she was just an ordinary wife who had been out visiting old friends. Like Ann Lomer? Bernie’s mouth was dry.

‘Very much, thank you.’ She threw her wet raincoat across a chair and began unbuttoning her dress. ‘Most pleasurable.’ There was an ominous purr in her voice. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t be asleep, Bernie. It would have been such a pity to have to wake you.’

He started; those marks on her fingers looked like dried blood. He saw how firm her nipples were as her bra came away, how she stepped out of her panties, lifting her legs so that the electric light glinted on the moist flesh between. For a second or two she stood there, turning this way and that, posing like a model in front of a class of artists. Whatever the depths of his revulsion for her, his fear of her, he knew she would not fail to arouse him. And even as she threw back the bedclothes he was starting to stiffen.

There was no subtlety, no attempt at a seduction as her cold bloodstained fingers found him and began to rub him. Her breathing was quick, her impatience like a bitch on heat, desperate to mate.

Her breath was fetid and nauseating as her lips brushed his own, then travelled on down his body, goose pimpling a damp path until her mouth found what it was seeking. Her lips closed over his swollen flesh, her teeth scraped it venomously, secured a grip on his foreskin and tugged it to full stretch; held it and bit sharply.

He cried out in pain and then she was kneeling up, seeming gigantic as she towered over him. He wondered if she had drawn blood; her icy fingertips still held the flesh taut. She was mocking him, knowing that she had him in her power, that he was her mortal slave who would unhesitatingly carry out the wishes of his undead wife and mistress.

‘I circumcised a man tonight, Bernie.’ She spoke casually, as if it was an afterthought, something she had forgotten to mention at supper. And it was so terrifyingly believable, he did not doubt her word for one second.

Bernie’s brain spun. Her teethmarks still smarted, and as if she read his thoughts, she held up her free hand so that he could look upon the dried blood which adhered to her fingers.

He said, ‘Oh,’ because he could not think of anything else to say. He felt himself stiffen and pulse in her grasp; her words were arousing him still further. Which defied explanation. And in a trembling whisper he asked, ‘Why?’ But I don’t really want to know, he thought.

‘As a punishment.’ Her eyes blazed. They appeared bloated but it might have been an illusion created by the magnification of her glasses.

‘For what?’ He was trembling violently.

‘Treachery. He betrayed us!’

Bernie swallowed, remembering what Natalie had told him. The spy in the coven – it had to be him. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘But I enjoyed it!’ Her voice was a throaty whisper, loaded with lust. ‘I like circumcised men, Bernie, they’re so-oo sexy.’ Her fingers were twisting his loose flesh until it was all he could do to stop himself from crying out.

‘I lost my virginity to one.’ Her eyes were boring into his, hurting him in a different way now. ‘In fact, I was disappointed when I discovered that you hadn’t been circumcised. But that could easily be rectified, couldn’t it?’

He wanted to scream, to tear himself free of her, to flee out into the road. To run and keep on running. No matter where you run, where you hide, shell find you!

Then her mouth was down on him again, her icy lips cooling his burning skin, closing over him and sucking with unbelievable force until she got what she wanted.

After that, she lay by his side in the darkness, silent but not sleeping, consciously waiting for time to pass. And before exhaustion finally claimed him, Bernie made up his mind that he was going to run. To run and keep on running. Because he could not think of anything else.

Merryn was still lying there when Bernie stirred shortly after seven. He stole a frightened glance at her. Her eyes were closed; any normal person would have been sleeping. But Merryn wasn’t normal, she was a living-dead she-devil with an insatiable, sadistic bloodlust.

He eased himself out of bed and padded across to the bathroom. His head ached. Feeling physically sick, he retched into the toilet. Not just because of what had happened last night but because of what he planned to do today.

He returned to the bedroom and dressed in his best navy blue suit and a white shirt which he had washed and ironed himself. Then he took down the small overnight suitcase from the top of the wardrobe.

Merryn’s eyes flickered open. Staring balefully at him, she asked, ‘Going somewhere?’ It might have been just curiosity, but he thought he detected a mocking tone in her voice; as if she was saying, Run if you want to, but I’ll find you. There’s no hiding place on this earth for you, Bernie.

‘The sales conference.’ He did his best to sound casual. ‘Didn’t I tell you last week? At Leicester, as usual. I have to go, there’s no way I can get out of it.’ He was treading on dangerous ground. The conference was next week; Merryn, in all probability, wasn’t certain which week. She had worked at Dyllon’s long enough to know about this annual event. Bernie was just jumping the gun. All I want is to get the hell out of here, he thought.

‘Oh, I see.’ She showed no interest. And then, ‘When will you be back?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’ Please God I never come back.

‘Enjoy yourself.’ Her eyes closed again.

He packed a few essentials, then forced the bag shut. He checked his wallet to make sure that he had his credit card, his Access. Somehow, somewhere, he had to begin his life all over again.

‘See you.’ He held back from leaning across the bed and kissing her; he never wanted to get close to her again, and wondered if he would ever get that lingering smell of dead flesh out of his nostrils.

Downstairs, trying not to hurry, he checked his desk with an enforced casualness and pocketed some documents. Then he went out to the car and sighed his relief when it started first time.

Bernie pulled up at a phone box before he reached the M54 and called Dyllon’s. The answering machine came on, and he told it that he wouldn’t be in for a couple of days – a family crisis had arisen and he had to go away. He still had some leave due to him. At least answering machines did not ask questions; there were times when they were invaluable.

He hit the M6 just after nine and put his foot down in the fast lane. The rain had stopped and the carriageways had dried out, which made life just that bit easier. He should have been on a high, so he tried to force one. I’m free, free as a bird, he told himself. I can go where I like, when I like. But somehow it didn’t work.

He ignored the services signs; his tank was full and he was not hungry. He’d just run and keep running.

Merryn knew, he was certain of that. It was another game, like their weekend break, when she had played along with him, then turned up in his bed, laughed and demanded his body. But that was different – she had been close, just over the cliffs beyond the cottage. Now he was putting hundreds of miles between them.

Maybe she would let him go. She didn’t need him, she had the house and could do as she pleased, even indulge in her vile sadism, kill and mutilate when the fancy took her. Why would she bother to come after him? But logic did not dispel his feeling of unease.

Carlisle; the M6 terminated in a few miles. Bernie slowed down and moved over to the middle lane. He had no particular destination in mind. It did not really matter which road he took. He had travelled around Scotland when he was a junior rep for Dyllon’s and he knew the country. He headed for Gretna, then turned off for Dumfries.

Familiar villages: Eastriggs, Dornock. He filled up the car in Annan, then he remembered a guest house he had once stayed at in Cummertrees. For some reason he needed to go to a place he knew. He was afraid to divorce himself completely from the past. Cummertrees had been before Merryn, and it held no terrifying memories for him.

The row of tall red-brick houses was strangely out of place in this small Scottish village where virtually every other building was a squat stone-built cottage, many starkly whitewashed, the neat, comfortable homes of farm labourers and Solway fishermen. A breed of honest folk who eked out a simple existence and asked nothing more from life, they were a far cry from the stark and terrifying conurbation where evil lurked in many forms.

He had half hoped that Mrs McGhie might still be taking in overnight travellers and holidaymakers, but the hotel had changed hands. The new owners were a young couple who survived on the summer trade and hibernated for the winter.

Mary was well-built and dark-eyed. She enthused when Bernie requested a room, although he wasn’t quite sure how long he would be staying.

‘Ye can stay as long as ye like.’ A late-autumn boarder was a bonus indeed. ‘Nae rush, there’ll be a meal at six. Beef, tatties and neeps because I was no’ expecting anybody today.’

‘That’ll be fine.’ Bernie experienced a faint sense of relief as if he had just begun to shake off that from which he was fleeing.

‘There’s no’ many come tae stay this time o’ year.’ She kept up a flow of conversation as she escorted him up to a small but comfortable room on the top floor. ‘Ye see, way back in the twenties they got this idea o’ building a resort to rival Blackpool here on the Solway. Built these hotels, the first o’ many, they hoped. But it didn’a work out, the people didn’a come. So there’s just what ye see around ye, these few hotels. But we canna complain.’

Bernie sat by the window, watching the dusk creep across the saltings, listening to the distant music of wild geese as they flighted from their daytime feeding grounds back to the mudflats. Curlew were calling, the beautiful, mournful cry of the marshes. This was indeed a good place to hide. Surely even Merryn would not find him here.

* * *

Night was always going to be the worst time, Bernie accepted, half deciding to sleep with the light on like a child afraid of the dark. No, that was defeatism, he must fight this all the way.

The evening had dragged; he had declined Mary’s invitation to join them in the back room and watch television. He needed to be alone, not to think but to condition himself. Tomorrow he might move on; he had not fully made up his mind, morning was soon enough for that.

Jim, Mary’s husband, was a dour local, a strong silent man who reckoned to make his money haaf netting for salmon on the estuary in the earlier part of the year, a method of fishing peculiar to the Solway Firth; nets were stretched across the mudflats before the tide came in and inspected when it ebbed. It was a dangerous occupation, for there were innumerable quicksands out there. But a man who knew the marshes, and was both lucky and skilful, could earn a considerable sum of money before the season closed. Bernie guessed that Jim spent the rest of the year on the dole, supplemented by earnings from the small hotel. And who could blame the fellow in a place like this, where you learned to live with the wind in your teeth?

Bernie undressed, lay on the bed and tried to read the paper he had bought at the filling station. In the end he gave it up, it was impossible to concentrate. Merryn, if she believed his story, would not miss him for another forty-eight hours. He thought about continuing his journey tomorrow; maybe as far as Oban, perhaps cutting across country to Perth, and on up to Aberdeen. Another few hundred miles; but they would not make any difference if she knew where to find him. He was as well resting up here for a few days, acclimatizing to the role of a man on the run.

He switched off the light, then almost cowered in the darkness. Night here was not the same as back home, where it never really got dark and a faint orange glow from the streetlamps outside always infiltrated the room. Here in Cummertrees the nocturnal hours were pitch-black, frightening if you weren’t used to it.

There was no traffic, and that in itself was disturbing. Just the distant roar of the Solway tide, and if he strained his ears he could hear the curlews calling, a doleful symphony to the sadness of wild places where man had no place.

His thoughts kept returning to Merryn. He would never ever get her out of his mind. He tried to remember her as she once was, so vivacious and responsive when they made love, relaxing in his arms when it was all over. But instead he saw her as she was now, a ruthless nymphomaniac whose only thought was for her own pleasure, sadistic and hurtful.

It had been a tiring day, mentally and physically. His pulses were racing like a car with pre-ignition refusing to be shut off. Yet his eyelids were heavy. He let them close because there was nothing to see in the blackness of this unfamiliar room.

Once he jerked awake, realizing that he had an erection, and fought against the temptation to stroke it because that would make Merryn come back to him strongly. His foreskin still smarted where she had bitten and twisted it. The sensation was both erotic and masochistic. Sod the bitch, he thought. Her threats last night had not been idle.

Finally he drifted into a fitful slumber.

Then he was wide awake, jerking up into a sitting position, aware that he was still aroused even though he was on the point of screaming hysterically in terror. He groped in the bed beside him. And touched that soft cold flesh by his side.

She had found him, come to him in the night hours to carry out her threat of mutilation. The bitch was here in the bed. He could feel her, just as he had felt her that night after he had pushed her over the cliffy and smell her odours. He drew back as her slender fingers came in search of him.

He tried to scream again but only managed a choking, strangled cry. Tumbling from the bed, he pawed the light pull. Jesus Alive, I don’t want to see you, but better in the light than in the dark!

The sudden light blinded him. He backed away, shielding his eyes from it. From her.

And when finally he was able to see again, he stared in disbelief at the rumpled bed.

It was empty.

15

The dreams came again before morning, but in his exhausted subconscious Bernie knew they were only figments of his mind. Merryn; it was always Merryn. She came and went, sometimes angry and frustrated, other times cold and mocking. And always naked and seductive.

The last one was the worst. It woke him, and again he reached out for the bobbing cord above the bed, flooding the room with light from the unshaded bulb. He stared at the pillow by his side just to be sure. Relieved because she was gone, he felt the sheets in case they were damp from her body. But they were dry.

She had been standing there by the bedside, a limp infantile corpse cradled against her bosom, obscenely pushing one of her erect nipples into its dead mouth. The tiny head lolled to one side as if rejecting the offering, and Bernie gasped his revulsion aloud as he recognized the pallid features of the child.

It was Jonathan Lomer!

‘Why?’ he screamed at her. ‘For God's sake tell me why?’

‘Because my master needed him.’ Bernie might have been mistaken but he thought there was a momentary expression of remorse in Merryn’s eyes. When he looked again there was only gloating. ‘You cannot escape, Bernie. Even in death. I have the child’s soul, just as I will have yours when you die. Remember that. You are mine for eternity!’

Bernie sat up in bed trembling, aware of the palpitations in his chest. After what he had witnessed these past few months he was prepared to believe anything where Merryn was concerned, even a tortured dream brought on by stress and fear. One had to draw the line somewhere, for God’s sake. Raising up a dead body was one thing, captivating its soul was quite another. Richie Howe had resurrected Merryn, but it wasn’t her soul in the living corpse; it was something totally evil.

He considered phoning Natalie Newman later, but discarded the idea almost at once. She had warned him that it was useless to flee; she would not be sympathetic. All he could do was to keep on running. And pray. And hope.

And then another idea crossed his mind and his palpitations speeded up to full throttle until he was trembling violently. When it was full daylight he arose and dressed. He was not shaking any longer because his mind was made up and he knew what he was going to do.

‘Did ye sleep well?’ Mary shuffled into the small dining room with a plate of bacon and eggs on a scratched tin tray, glancing apprehensively at the spluttering element on the twin-bar electric fire. It was probably the damp; the dining room had not been used since September, when the last of the tourists had stayed.

‘Oh, yes. Fine, thanks.’ Bernie forced a smile.

‘Will ye be staying on?’ There was a note of apprehension in her voice. The haaf netting and the tourist season were several months away, so this unexpected guest was a windfall.

‘I … might.’ He stared down at his plate. ‘It all depends … I’m going for a long walk this morning. If I’m late back I might stop another night. Is that all right?’

‘Oh, aye.’ She nodded, then moved back towards the door. ‘Ye’ll be most welcome. Just let me know when ye’ve decided, Mr Oldroyd.’

Bernie finished his breakfast, surprised at his appetite. Now that he had finally made his decision he felt almost relaxed. He went outside and stood on the steep front steps, which commanded a view of the firth. The sun was shining; it was a perfect late-autumn day, so still, so peaceful. He almost changed his mind for this was like another world. Except that he would not be free of Merryn in any world, any galaxy.

He decided not to take the car. It seemed pointless. He set off, his lightweight polished shoes out of place even on tarmac here. This was the land of rugged boots, the farm labourer or the haaf net fisherman. His nylon anorak hung unzipped over his office shirt. The driver of a passing tractor stared suspiciously at him, his narrowed eyes puzzled because the season of townies and tourists was finished.

Bernie just kept on walking. He passed through small hamlets with similar squat whitewashed cottages, the windless atmosphere heavy with the sweet smell of woodsmoke. A carpet of leaves, wet from the overnight rain, deadened his footsteps.

Even now he did not think about what he was going to do, not positively, anyway. On his left were the thick reed beds where the marshes began. When he came to an accessible place he was going to walk, and keep on walking.

Hour after hour he trudged on, a subconscious procrastination keeping him on firm ground. Maybe round the next bend, or the one after that …

The sign informed him that he had arrived at Glencaple, and ahead of him he saw a village that was larger than the others through which he had passed. Modern houses were interspersed with the old, and a large building further down was surely a hotel. Another notice just off the road caught his eye: DANGER - QUICKSANDS, in red lettering that emphasized the warning. His pulses speeded up.

His eyes roved around furtively. The estuary narrowed here, the gently sloping wide banks of the tidal river glinting wetly in the bright sunlight. Treacherous mud, but the channel itself seeming innocuous because the tide was out.

A shot. He jumped, and saw a skein of wild geese far to his left begin to gain height, gaggling their alarm. Somewhere along the estuary someone had fired at them, but they were probably out of range anyway. A second shot, but the birds did not waver this time because they knew they were safe. They continued heading towards their daytime feeding grounds, the stubble and potato fields where they would remain until dusk, when it was time to run the gauntlet again. The marshes were a dangerous place.

Bernie began the descent of the steep bank, sliding the last couple of yards and muddying his trousers. The ground beneath him was soft and squelchy, oozing brackish water. He sank over his ankles, extricated his feet with a loud sucking noise and grabbed the slender trunk of a birch sapling. It was firmer here; he noticed a narrow track leading through the reed bed, well-trodden and presumably safe. He followed it.

The horizon was hazy. Probably on a clear day one could see right across the Solway as far as Carlisle, he thought. Flocks of tiny seabirds were darting to and fro, settling then springing up again, nervous, unable to relax. Like Bernie himself.

The path was muddy and slippery but he did not sink in. He paused once to look back, but the village was deserted – as if the occupants were skulking indoors because they knew what he intended to do, God-fearing people in whose eyes it was an unforgivable sin to take one’s own life and by hiding away they would play no part in it. It would be another drowning; there was one most years on the saltings when the swift, incoming tide cut off the retreat of a visiting wildfowler. He’d become just another body to be pulled out and taken to the mortuary in Dumfries. The villagers would not want to know any more than that, and their consciences would be clear in the eyes of the Lord.

The path suddenly petered out, merging with the long spiky grass and reeds. From here on it was up to the foolhardy traveller in which direction he proceeded.

Bernie chose to walk diagonally to the left. That way he would eventually reach the banks of the wide river. His conscience was clear, it was like a prolonged game of Russian roulette; step here and he was safe, step there and he would die. He decided to take a circuitous route that in due course would bring him back on to the road. If he made it, then he was destined to live. If not, it was an accident, and few would have any sympathy for the fool who chose to ignore the warning sign. Viewed like that it made him feel better.

Ten minutes later he stepped into the sucking bog.

One second his mud-covered, saturated shoes were on firm ground, the next the surface opened up, grabbed him by the ankles and pulled at him. It gurgled like some subterranean monster that had lain in wait for him; now it had him.

His instinct was to fight it. He struggled, trying to withdraw his right leg so that he could use it as a lever to extricate his left. Instead he sank in up to both knees. He steadied himself. The ground around him frothed and bubbled, giving off pungent gases that instantly reminded him of Merryn’s breath. Maybe it was she who lurked down there and was claiming him for her own, dragging him down to the hell that had spawned her.

He bent forward and supported himself on the flat of his hands, otherwise he would have fallen face downwards. He recalled reading a novel about someone who had found himself in such a predicament as this, and by lying on his back had spread his weight, thus enabling him to pull himself out. But I don’t want to live; I want to die!

The sun was well past its zenith and Bernie was still only in the quagmire as far as his thighs. Maybe it wasn’t a deep bog, he realized. Perhaps his feet had touched its bottom and it was just holding him here in readiness for the incoming tide. Drowning was reputedly a pleasant death. If so, then that was fine – but how the fuck did anybody know? Unless they had been resurrected like Merryn!

He sank another couple of inches. He felt the coldness of the marsh seep through his trousers and begin to explore the region of his groin, icy slimy fingers touching him, trying to arouse him. You dirty bastard, he told himself, you’re as perverted as she is. He was aware of the soreness of his foreskin where Merryn had inflicted her reminder that there was no escape. Run, but I’ll find you wherever you hide, Bernie.

He could not see the estuary now. He had slipped below the level of the gently moving reeds. Overhead a gull circled and called raucously, mocking him. Then it wheeled away and left him to his fate. It might return when his arms were submerged, when he was helpless to protect his eyes.

The End

Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.

This ebook is the fifty-sixth book to be published as part of a project to convert Guy's entire back catalogue to ebook format. Beginning July 2010 it is expected to have all books available by the end of 2012.

The list of books so far published is :

1. Werewolf by Moonlight.

2. The Sucking Pit.

3. The Slime Beast.

4. Night of the Crabs.

5. The Truckers 1 - The Black Knights.

6. The Truckers 2 - Hi-Jack!.

7. Return of the Werewolf.

8. Bamboo Guerillas.

9. Killer Crabs.

10. Bats Out of Hell.

11. The Son of the Werewolf.

12. Locusts.

13. The Origin of the Crabs.

14. Caracal.

15. Thirst.

16. Deathbell.

17. Satan's Snowdrop.

18. Doomflight.

19. Warhead.

20. Manitou Doll.

21. Wolfcurse.

22. Crabs On The Rampage.

23. The Pluto Pact.

24. Entombed.

25. The Lurkers.

26. Sabat 1: The Graveyard Vultures.

27. Sabat 2: The Blood Merchants.

28. Sabat 3: Cannibal Cult.

29. Blood Circuit.

30. Accursed.

31. Sabat 4: The Druid Connection.

32. The Undead.

33. Crabs' Moon.

34. The Walking Dead.

35. Throwback.

36. The Wood.

37. The Neophyte.

38. Abomination.

39. Snakes.

40. Cannibals.

41. Alligators.

42. Bloodshow.

43. Thirst II: The Plague.

44. Demons.

45. Crabs: The Human Sacrifice.

46. Fiend.

47. The Island.

48. Mania.

49. The Master.

50. The Camp.

51. The Festering.

52. Phobia.

53. The Unseen.

54. Carnivore.

55. The Black Fedora.

56. The Resurrected.

The next book will be :

57. The Knighton Vampires.

"John Mayo, of the secret Government Department codenamed Operation Werewolf, loses his wife of only a few years, and heads away from the memories to recover his wits. He ends up in the Welsh town of Knighton which has recently come to grips with the graffiti and terrorism of Welsh National Activists, as well as a number of mysterious deaths seemingly through vampirism. Mayo believes he sees his dead wife among the vampires, and investigates. As the death toll mounts and the plot complicates, he fights his way to the bottom of the whole affair to find that all the different strands of trouble actually stem from the same place."

Recently published (but not part of back catalogue conversion) :-

Night of the Werewolf

The Eighth Day.

Killer Crabs: The Return.

To view all ebooks currently available, including the one above, please follow the link below.
View Ebook Catalogue

Best regards,

Guy and all at Black Hill Books.