Volunteers
TERRY LAMSLEY was born in the south of England but lived in the north for most of his life. He currently resides in Amsterdam, Holland.
His first collection of supernatural stories, Under the Crust, was initially published in a small paperback edition in 1993. Originally intended to only appeal to local readers and the tourist market in Lamsley’s home town of Buxton, Derbyshire, in the heart of England’s Peak District (the volume’s six tales are all set in or around the area), its reputation quickly grew, helped when Under the Crust reached the hands of the late Karl Edward Wagner, editor of The Year’s Best Horror Stories series. Wagner was instrumental in the book being nominated for three World Fantasy Awards in 1994, and ultimately winning the Best Novella award for the title story of the collection. Ramsey Campbell accepted it on the author’s behalf, and Lamsley’s reputation as a writer of supernatural fiction was assured.
In 1997, Canada’s Ash-Tree Press reissued Under the Crust as a handsome hardcover, limited to just 500 copies and now as sought-after as the long out-of-print first edition. A year earlier, Ash-Tree had published a second collection of Lamsley’s short stories, Conference with the Dead: Tales of Supernatural Terror, and it was followed in 2000 by a third collection, Dark Matters. More recently, Night Shade Books has reprinted Conference with the Dead, with the limited edition containing a previously uncollected story.
Edited by Peter Crowther, Fourbodings: A Quartet of Uneasy Tales from Four Masters of the Macabre showcased the fiction of Lamsley, Simon Clark, Tim Lebbon and Mark Morris, while Made Ready & Cupboard Love is a collection of two original novellas from Subterranean Press and RIP, a novella from PS Publishing.
For a vampire, help can sometimes come from the most unexpected source...
~ * ~
“I THINK, FOR the first visit, you had better take someone with you. He’s probably a nice enough old gentleman, but we don’t know much about him.”
“Is he very old?”
“I believe so.”
“That’s a posh street, where he lives. The best part of town. We don’t often get called out there. The residents are well off enough to buy better help than we provide.”
“Anyone can fall on hard times, Sylvia.”
“I assume he is housebound?”
The Volunteer Coordinator nodded. “He had an accident some time ago that has stopped him getting about. Broke his hip, I believe. Something like that. A neighbour informed us he was probably in trouble.”
“The independent type,” Silvia said. “Too proud to ask for the help he needs. Toffs like that aren’t used to talking about their private problems with the likes of us.”
“They have to get used to it pretty quickly if they want to take advantage of the services we provide, love,” the Coordinator reflected. “He could have to wait months or years for medical treatment. Single, elderly men are not high on anybody’s list of priorities. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to make an assessment of his needs, and do the best we can for him.”
“Poor old soul,” Sylvia said.
The Coordinator smiled compassionately, as she did dozens of times each working day, to express the depth of her empathy with her staff, their clients, and the world in general.
“Take Mr Strope along, Sylvia. He’s getting bored sitting about in the office with nothing much to do.”
“Isn’t there anyone else? Someone I know?”
“He requested to be put with you. Says he admires you.”
Sylvia pulled a sour face. She had frequently noticed the little man watching her recently. She kept bumping into him in shops, on the street, all over the place. It was almost as though he were stalking her. She was afraid he might have learned some of her secrets.
“There’s nothing wrong with Mr Strope, is there dear?”
“Well, just the way he looks, I suppose. And the way he looks at me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s got a hungry look.”
“Are you suggesting he might be a pest? He’s been checked. The police say he’s clean as a whistle.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”
The Coordinator rested her fingertips together under her chin and gave Sylvia a challenging look. “He’s new to the job, but he seems to have his head screwed on: he picks things up fast, and he’s keen,” she said. “But you don’t have to take him if you don’t want to, pet.”
“I’ve nothing against him, I suppose,” Sylvia admitted.
The Coordinator handed her a sheet of paper with an address written on it.
“Off you go then, poppet. He’s got an Irish-sounding name, the old chap. O’Cooler, Mr Strope said he thought it was. He took the call. Said it could have been Doctor O’Cooler, but the line was crackly. Let me know how you both got on as soon as you get back, won’t you?”
Sylvia memorized the number of the house and handed the paper back with a dismissive flourish.
“Of course I will,” she said primly, and left.
~ * ~
“I don’t think anyone in there can hear me knocking because the door’s so thick. It’s like the entrance to a castle.”
They had been on the front step for what seemed a long time.
“Try the bell again,” Sylvia suggested.
Mr Strope was about to comply when he suddenly froze in an alert, listening posture. He turned to Sylvia with his eyes wide and his mouth open, as though he was going to take a bite out of her.
“Did you hear that? Something’s moving in there.”
Sylvia shook her head sceptically.
Strope listened again. “Getting closer,” he said. He rapped the door hard with the back of his hand.
Unmistakably, a voice sounded distantly inside.
“Go away. No tradesmen. No religious bigots.”
Sylvia was used to outright rejection of this kind. She had long ago learned how to chat and charm her way into the most inhospitable, unwelcoming establishments. It was just one of her many skills. Sure enough, after a few well chosen pleas and blandishments, whoever was behind the door grudgingly agreed to let them in.
They waited patiently, watching the door with speculative anticipation, until an open hand appeared abruptly through the large, napless letter box. A big, none-too-clean hand with long, strong square-tipped fingers. Palm up, it bore an ancient key.
The message was obvious. Strope accepted the key, the hand withdrew, and they let themselves in.
It was extremely gloomy inside the house. Sylvia, carefully venturing forth, was expecting this, as she had noticed heavy, drawn curtains at every window as she had approached the huge red-brick Victorian building minutes earlier. No lights were on. Darkness hung everywhere like some solid substance.
A person in a wheelchair, backing steadily away from them down the hallway, was receding into invisibility. They had no alternative but to follow. Somewhere near the back of the house the vehicle turned off into a large room partly illuminated by a single flickering oil lamp. There were a few items of heavy furniture parked round the sides of the room, including a broken and unmade bed, an oak table with candelabra, a quartet of throne-like chairs, a long, low blanket-box, lidded, and resting on six elegant claw and ball legs, and what appeared to be some kind of iron stove, from which a thick pipe or chimney curved up through the ceiling. All these articles except the stove were partly concealed by black muslin drapes that drooped from them at various points, looking for all the world like the snares of some alarmingly overgrown arachnids.
The occupant of the mobile chair, similarly wrapped in a cocoon of peculiarly tailored fustian, whose face had so far not been visible, came to a halt alongside the box, and firmly applied the brake. A masculine voice, plangent, but a little unsteady, like a poorly maintained church harmonium, apologized for not answering the door sooner.
“I was resting. It takes me some time to—to come to myself, when my sleep is disturbed.”
“Asleep at eleven-thirty in the morning!” Sylvia thought. “How demoralized the poor man must be.” She resolved to do something about that.
“It’s all right, mate,” said Mr Strope. “Don’t worry. We’re in no hurry. We’ve got time on our hands just the same as you have.”
The man in the chair turned towards him and, in doing so, revealed his features. He had hard, round, owlish eyes, a thin, hooked nose, and an apparently lipless, discontented, drooping mouth, more sharply down turned on the left side than the right. His long silver hair was patchy, as though his scalp was diseased, and his face shone like polished ivory in the lamplight. His manner was poised, his expression detached. He held out his hand again towards Mr Strope. It obviously wasn’t there to be shaken. It took Strope a few seconds to understand the significance of the gesture, before he hurried forward and replaced the key.
O’Cooler solemnly asked them to take chairs and be seated.
Once her great bulk was comfortably enthroned, Sylvia explained who they were and why they had come. “We’ll have to ask a few questions about your circumstances first. You’ve no objections?”
O’Cooler shook his head grandly and turned his full attention on his interlocutor. He reached discreetly into one of the pockets of the rather theatrical garments he was wearing. Sylvia thought he was going to light a cigarette but instead he pulled out a length of dark material and held it across the lower portion of his face as though he expected to sneeze. No sneeze came, and the cloth remained in place. Bad teeth, Sylvia speculated. Pyorrhoea?
“Now,” she said: “Name and title? Have I got it right—Mr—O’Cooler?” She spelt it out. “Yes?”
The man in the chair appeared to have some brief doubts about the veracity or accuracy of this most basic information about himself for a surprising number of seconds, but at last he dropped his head vigorously in confirmation.
“And it is Mr—not Dr?”
Again a pause, during which Sylvia thought the man might be smiling to himself behind his hand, then:
“Correct,” he said.
Sylvia rattled off a dozen questions that were all more swiftly answered. She wondered, as he spoke, which part of Ireland the man originated from. He certainly had a slight accent, she decided. Or should that have been brogue? She found herself becoming fascinated by his almost musical voice. He’s attractive, in an unusual sort of way, she decided, in spite of his age.
She tried to get through the questionnaire as quickly as she could, but it was a long rigmarole. She felt the gaze of both men fixed upon her. O’Cooler looked her frankly and calmly in the eye from behind his half-masked face, but Strope, she knew, was covertly surveying the curves of her over-ample body. My very fat body, she thought, and squirmed slightly in her chair under the intensity of his wanton gaze. As she did so her huge breasts rippled, and Mr Strope’s eyes glowed afresh. She thought she saw moisture emerge on his lips. She had long ago learned that a certain type of man was attracted to and easily became obsessive about extremely overweight women. Little Strope, with his wiry but muscular body, thinning hair, sad but cunningly hopeful expression, and restless hands, was a perfect example of the type. Also, under the surface, there was something fierce and primitive about him that alarmed her. She’d known as soon as she’d set eyes on him he could be trouble, and now here she was teamed up with him, perhaps in extended partnership. No. Not that! She didn’t want to be unkind, but she would have to do something very positive to discourage him.
“And how did your accident happen?” she asked the owner of the house. “Just the details.”
O’Cooler, without reflection, said, “I slipped and fell when I was emerging from my ...” He seemed to cough then, or so it sounded, and faltered in some confusion for a moment: “From my bath” he said at last, pronouncing the final word with particular clarity.
“The most dangerous place in the home for an old person, the bath,” Sylvia observed ominously. “Thought of installing a shower?”
“No.” His response was startling: almost a yap, as though the idea was somehow repellent and alarming. He wiped his mouth vigorously, returned the cloth to his pocket, then put his hand up guardedly over his lips. “Certainly not,” he added more composedly. “Running water doesn’t suit me,” he explained.
Which confirmed Sylvia’s nasal suspicions that it was a considerable time since he had been anywhere near that element with a bar of soap. Since his accident, perhaps? How long ago was that? She asked him.
“Almost seven weeks,” O’Cooler admitted, sounding, for the first time, slightly sorry for himself.
“Since when, of course, you have not been able to get about. Do the doctors give you any hope of recovery soon?”
O’Cooler shuddered. “I am reluctant to submit myself to the investigative considerations of the medical profession,” he said.
“You’ve not seen a doctor?”
“No.” O’Cooler shook his head grandly, with dignity.
“So you’ve had no help at all. How have you been coping?”
“Poorly, I’m afraid. My—” he searched for a word, “—my sister, Carmilla, has been kind enough to drop in with a little food from time to time, whatever she had surplus to her own requirements, but she is ailing herself. The hole in the ozone layer is affecting all our family. We’re very sensitive to that sort of thing, I’m afraid. The implications are serious. It’s sapping our strength. Our bones are becoming brittle ...” He seemed in danger of losing the thread of his thoughts, but recovered his drift quickly. “Also,” he continued, “as an alternative source of nourishment, I’ve got an arrangement with one of the local butchers, who is a very understanding man, with peculiar tastes himself, and who will deliver in emergencies. But it’s not the same thing at all. I’m rather fussy about what I take inside me, if the truth be known,” he admitted, sounding somewhat insincerely apologetic.
Sylvia caught her breath and interrupted, “Do you, by any chance, have special dietary needs?” she asked, failing to keep an edge of excitement from her voice. “Or an eating disorder, perhaps?”
“You are astute,” O’Cooler acknowledged. “I have suffered from something of the kind for a very long time. I have a problem with solid food. I only take—(he pronounced the next word as though it had five syllables)—liquids.” His tone as he made this statement somehow made it obvious he was not prepared to go into further detail about the nature of his problem.
Sylvia wondered what on earth O’Cooler got from the butcher, but decided not to ask. Bet he has just got bad teeth-, she thought, feeling somewhat let-down. Well, that could soon be fixed by a visit to the dentist. He’s not really, deeply sick like I am. For a moment, she had hoped she might have found a fellow sufferer. Her disappointment made her symptoms tingle painfully through every part of her body. She stood up suddenly, clutching the huge canvas shoulder bag she took with her everywhere, and asked the way to the bathroom.
O’Cooler seemed put out by this question at first, as though he were unsure if he possessed such a facility. Then, with palpable reluctance, he directed her up the stairs, first left, first right, first door on the right, and handed her a torch. “The battery is very low,” he warned,” so don’t waste it.”
Does he think I’m going to go prying about up there? Sylvia wondered, feeling that perhaps her client had something to hide.
As she left the room she heard Mr Strope say, “Big house you’ve got here mate. You live alone, don’t you?”
O’Cooler confirmed this fact.
“Funny,” Strope went on, “because I thought I saw someone leave as we turned the corner to get here.”
“An estate agent called earlier, to look the place over: I’m thinking of selling up and moving back to the old country.”
“He seemed to be in a hell of a hurry to get away. In fact, I thought he’d jumped out of one of the first floor windows. I think he might have cut himself. Could swear I saw blood on his shoulders.”
“Ummm,” said O’Cooler, apparently unconcerned. “Well, it’s possible, I suppose. He was a clumsy fellow.” Sylvia, ascending the steep stairs, heard no more.
~ * ~
She located the bathroom just as the torch flickered out. Inside, she was relieved to find there was a bulb in the ceiling lamp that responded halfheartedly with possibly thirty watts-worth of illumination when she flicked the switch. She sat down on the toilet without lifting the lid, opened her bag, pulled out a number of plastic bags and lunch-boxes, and began to open them at random. They contained a wide selection of cakes, biscuits, pies, chocolate, meat, and—other things. All sorts of other things. Any spare money she had (which was little enough, but she spent it wisely) went on food.
A fast eater, Sylvia dug into various containers and stuffed her mouth again and again. She’d been a binge eater for five years, since she was twenty-two. Severe, insoluble problems with men were the cause, she believed. After a number of disastrously painful affairs she had swiftly gone from being a person who ate too much of what she fancied to someone who obsessively consumed unpleasant food she didn’t like, to punish herself for her greed. She had expanded accordingly. Later still, she went on to eating other things that were not good for her at all. She had developed most unusual appetites.
Today she was in such a hurry to indulge herself that she did not, at first, realize exactly what sort of place she had walked into. Gradually, as the first overwhelming gratification brought on by her abandoned self-indulgence began to wane, and self-loathing to wax, she started to take in her surroundings.
The bathroom’s ornate fittings were huge, ancient, and covered with filth. She could just see into the bath from where she was sitting. Presumably, it was the one O’Cooler claimed to have fallen out of, but she had her doubts about that. It was quarter full of brown sludge from which protruded dozens of small bones; of birds and other animals, by the look of it. There were feathers, and bits of skin too. They’d been there a long time. Parts of the otherwise bare wooden floor were similarly smeared with pools of this muck, that looked like someone’s unsuccessful and discarded attempts at making stew. Sylvia got up and began to prowl around. She wanted to wash her food-besmirched hands, but the sink was almost overflowing with something similar to the substance in the bath, but without the bones. Fungus of some kind, green in colour, floated upon its surface in patches. She turned on one of the taps. Nothing emerged until a trickle of black, shiny insects, who must have been nesting there, fell out onto the gunge below and began to struggle and drown.
Sylvia cleaned herself up as best she could with a tissue, grabbed her bag, and got out of there. The torch glimmered briefly to life again just long enough for her to find her way along the forlorn corridors to the top of the stairs. She descended blindly and ultra-cautiously, edging her way down each level, aware that if she lost her footing and fell her own weight would probably kill her.
The door to the room in which she had interviewed the resident of the house was shut. She knew she had left it wide open, otherwise she would not have overheard the fragment of conversation between O’Cooler and Mr. Strope when she had set out for the bathroom. Still in the dark, she thought perhaps she ought to knock, though she was not sure why she had gained that impression. She tapped lightly, paused, tapped loudly, waited again, then grabbed the handle firmly, wrenched it round, and entered.
She felt at once that the atmosphere in the room had changed. O’Cooler was standing some distance away from his wheelchair now, with his back towards her. He was leaning almost casually on a thick brass-topped stick. His tight-shut, downcast mouth straightened into what may have been intended as a demonstration of chilly welcome as he slowly turned to acknowledge her re-entry.
He’s really is a very striking man, Sylvia realized: fanciable, even. He hadn’t made her feel welcome, however. Something was up. She detected a new complicity between the two men, from which she felt herself excluded.
Strope’s face no longer bore its usual crafty, somewhat craven look: he appeared thoughtful now, and self-satisfied, as though he had recently achieved something very much to his advantage.
“I couldn’t help noticing your domestic circumstances leave a lot to be desired, Mr O’Cooler,” Sylvia said firmly, attempting to reassert herself. When O’Cooler made no response, she added, “If you don’t mind me saying so, your bathroom contains a number of health hazards and possible sources of infection. Animals are getting in somewhere, and dying there. The air throughout the building will be full of invisible pollutants. Any food you bring in will quickly become contaminated. All kinds of morbid conditions will nourish. Also, the whole building is dark and dangerous. The electrical wiring is a fire risk. The plumbing doesn’t work ...”
O’Cooler stabbed the floor in front of him with his cane and abruptly made his way back towards his chair with a peculiar jerking motion. (Some limited mobility, Sylvia noted. He’s not completely helpless.) His stick and stiff lower limbs formed a tripod that swung from side to side ungracefully. He scuttled along like a spider robbed by a cruel child of some of its legs. When he regained his seat he masked his mouth with his hand again and said, “The animals you saw were used by me in a little experiment, when I first came by my injury. Sadly, only partially successful, I’m afraid. The other things you mention are the least of my problems, my dear. None of that troubles me at all. I have long been used to living in a state of advanced dilapidation. I prefer it. It suits me. I have no use for mechanical conveniences and my lifestyle transcends your modern standards of hygiene.”
Sylvia was gratified and encouraged. He had called her, “my dear”. She said, “I’d like to be able to offer you a home-help: someone to come in to tidy up for a few hours a week, and maybe meals-on-wheels—”
In spite of his previous statements, O’Cooler showed considerable interest in this proposal.
“—but there’s a waiting list and, believe it or not, there are a lot of senior citizens even worse off than you. There’s just not enough money to go round, you see. Unless—I don’t suppose you are able to afford private assistance ... ?”
“Unfortunately not. I invested unwisely.” O’Cooler said something else angrily behind his hand that Sylvia didn’t catch. She thought he mentioned Lloyd’s.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to help in some way: we can do something to assist you.”
Strope spoke up then. “Mr O’Cooler and I had a chat while you were away,” he said, “and we’ve come up with a little plan.”
“Oh?” How very unprofessional! Mr Strope had no right to do anything of the sort. She was the experienced caring person. It was up to her to decide, with the assistance of the Volunteer Coordinator, what could and would be done to alleviate her client’s suffering. Strope knew nothing about such things. He was totally inexperienced. It was unfair to the client to make promises that could not be met. She was sorry, but she had been right to assume he was unfit for the task he had set himself. He’d have to be put in his place. She would, as gently as possible, point out the faults in whatever scheme he had cooked up.
“What plan?” she said.
Strope, regarding her greedily, with unconcealed voluptuous satisfaction, seemed delighted with her obvious anger. She realized her flesh was quaking with tension. She attempted to control herself, but made things worse. Strope’s eyes rolled slightly, and his hands twitched.
“Well, not so much a plan, perhaps, as an understanding,” he said.
“A gentleman’s agreement,” O’Cooler suggested almost jovially, “made to our mutual satisfaction. Simple, but very ingenious. We all have our part to play,” he added, as an afterthought.
Strope gave him an uneasy look, as though he had spoken out of turn.
“And it was his idea?” Sylvia asked, nodding towards the little lecher. She was not best pleased to learn that whatever it was they had in mind apparently included her. “I think I ought to warn you he is in no position to make decisions about your future.”
O’Cooler turn his owlish black eyes on the other man and made a sound that was the verbal equivalent of a question mark.
For a moment, Strope’s confidence visibly wavered, but, after a moment’s reflection, he recovered his composure.
“I’m not the fool you take me for, Sylvia, my love.” Strope smirked craftily and pointed at O’Cooler. “I know more about him and you, and the habits of both of you, than you might care to hear about.”
Sylvia’s apple-red cheeks blanched.
“You’d better explain,” she said, not at all sure she wanted to learn what might come next.
“A pleasure,” said Strope. “It just so happens I live across the road from here. In a first floor flat looking out on the street. Being without work, and broke, I have nothing to do, twenty-four hours a day, but stare out. So I see what’s going on. Not much, a lot of the time, but, thanks to this chap, enough to keep me entertained. A single gentleman living alone, or so he would have us believe, in this great castle of a place, who sometimes has night guests who go in but never come out, and who has filthy black smoke pouring out of his chimney at three and four o’clock in the morning, and who buries bags of charred bones in his back garden is bound to provide a bit of novelty interest to someone as bored as me.”
“You have been trespassing on my property,” O’Cooler observed testily.
“In the public interest,” Strope agreed. “You should have been more careful. I didn’t have to dig deep: there are bones sticking out of the ground all over the place. I tripped over them. You should have made sure your curtains were properly closed too. I saw what you were putting in that stove.”
O’Cooler took his hand away from the lower section of his face and gave his neighbour a cold, dangerous look. His lips jerked down in a way that suggested he had muscles around his mouth that others do not have. Sylvia noticed for the first time how very powerful his jaw looked. She caught her breath. What a noble head he had. She watched him, spellbound. She didn’t understand what Mr Strope was saying—was hardly listening, because it seemed to have nothing to do with her—but she could see he was upsetting their client, who they had come to help. Before they could start to argue, she said, “I think we can bring this interview to a conclusion now. I have enough information. We will contact you again soon, Mr O’Cooler, when we’ve put together a package of assistance to offer you. Subject to your approval, of course. Now, if you’re ready Mr Strope? I think it’s time we were going.”
“I’m staying here, sweetheart. And you’re not going anywhere either.”
Strope’s tone was extremely unpleasant. Sylvia looked to the aristocratic figure in the wheelchair for support. O’Cooler noticed her appeal, and shrugged.
Sylvia’s eyes went slightly out of focus as she considered her situation. Was she at the mercy of these two men? To make things worse, Strope started speaking again, about her now.
“I’ve been angling to get you to myself for a long time, my love” he revealed. “I’ve been crazy about you since I saw you eating the five course special in the Corner Cafe, weeks ago. My dream woman, that’s what you are, Sylvia. Big as they come, and beautiful with it. But I could tell you didn’t think much of me. I smiled at you more than once in the Cafe, when you looked my way, but you didn’t even see me. You were too busy eating. Fair enough, I told myself. When you left I decided to follow you, and of course, before long, I got to know all about you.”
“You spied on me,” Sylvia said, contemptuously.
“You bet. Every day, from dawn to dusk. Watching your house was much more interesting than watching this one. I’d got Mr. so-called-O’Cooler’s number by then anyway. I had no doubts about who and what he was: all I lacked was some way to turn that knowledge to my advantage.”
O’Cooler seemed about to speak, but in the end decided to keep his own counsel. His owlish eyes watched Strope keenly however, as the little man continued his monologue.
“I almost went up and spoke to you a number of times, but you stared through me, or gave me a haughty look, so I didn’t dare. I’m a bashful man, by nature. Anyway, when I realized you did unpaid work for the Volunteers, I saw my chance to get close to you, so I offered my services too. They soon had me on trial, answering the phone in their office. That’s when I put two and two together and I saw an opportunity to get you where I want you. It was me that brought the plight of the “poor old gentleman” to the attention of the Volunteer Service. I pretended a call came in requesting help just when I knew you were due to take the next case. It was me that hinted to the Coordinator that you ought not go alone. There was nobody else around who could have gone with you, I made sure of that.”
“And here we are,” Sylvia said. “I see.” She looked again to O’Cooler for assistance, but he had still not taken his eyes off the little man. “What’s this bargain the two of you struck?” she asked.
Strope gave her a blissful smile. “Simple. As you so rightly guessed, our friend here has “special dietary needs”. Requirements that are not being met, because he can’t get about to satisfy them. I can and will provide him with what he requires. In return, he allows me the uninterrupted use of part of his premises for my own purposes. I must have somewhere away from my flat, where I can satisfy my needs occasionally. Somewhere my activities won’t be overheard.”
“Where do I fit in to this agreement?” Sylvia asked, glancing desperately back and forth from what she could see of the inexpressive features of the resident of the house to the gloating, triumphant face of the little man. “I don’t understand. What am I going to get out of it?”
Strope move closer to her.
“My undivided attention,” he said.
~ * ~
Sylvia snatched up her bag and attempted to leave the room. She was slow on her feet, however, and Strope was as agile as a lizard. He slipped out of the door ahead of her and slammed it in her face. She heard the lock turn.
She turned to O’Cooler. “Are you going to let him keep me here?” she demanded.
O’Cooler’s eyes were heavy-lidded—almost closed. He looked tired out. Obviously he wasn’t used to such excitement. Not during the hours of daylight, anyway.
“That was one of the terms of our pact,” he acknowledged wearily.
Sylvia folded her arms across her breasts in an angrily protective gesture, as though she was preparing to repel boarders. “What’s he up to now? Where’s he gone?”
“Checking the security arrangements, I imagine. He asked about them earlier. I had them installed some years ago, to stop the more predatory local youths getting in, and other, more welcome people getting out, during occasions when I was forced to absent myself for one reason or another. There are steel bars up at all the ground floor windows, which are made of bullet-proof glass. The outer doors are similarly protected. The whole ground floor can be sealed off from the upper regions at the press of a button.”
“So I’m trapped. You’re going to let him do what he likes with me?”
“He led me to believe you are not the first, and probably won’t be the last, of his victims.”
“Well, that’s a consoling thought, to be sure,” Sylvia snapped.
O’Cooler raised one furry eyebrow at her sharp tone and unexpected irony, then fatigue got the better of him. He held back his head, opened his mouth, and yawned widely.
Sylvia noticed the yawn, and the glint of O’Cooler’s fangs.
She was a well-meaning, good-hearted person who tried always to see the best in people. She was the sort who made an effort to keep up a cheerful front, and tried not to dwell too much on the dark side of life. She had to, the kind of work she did, to get through her days. True, she was a bit slow on the uptake, but she wasn’t stupid. She was a supremely practical girl, who didn’t try to ignore the evidence of her own eyes. And she could think fast, when she had to.
“There’s something you should know,” she said to the increasingly dormant creature in the wheelchair.
“Mmm.” He hardly stirred.
“I was voted ‘Most Valued Volunteer’ by my fellow workers recently. I got a certificate.”
O’Cooler twitched slightly, perhaps with impatience. “Oh: good.”
“Most Valued Volunteer” she repeated. “I’m an important part of the set-up back there. Very experienced. They need my expertise.”
O’Cooler stifled another yawn. “How very gratifying for you.”
“They’ll miss me soon, if I don’t get back. They have your address. Strope slipped up there, in his hurry to get his hands on me, and wrote it down on a piece of paper for my Coordinator. They’ll certainly come looking for me. Maybe with the police. I should have thought you were the last person in the world to want them snooping around, under the circumstances, especially if Strope was right about what you’ve got buried in your back garden.”
Her words aroused the sleepyhead quicker than an alarm clock could have done. “Are you sure about that?” he spluttered.
“Absolutely. I’ve been gone a long time already. And, let’s face it, you’re as much a prisoner here as I am—in your condition, in the middle of the day. There’s nobody to help you make your escape in that thing.” She pointed to the long, lidded wooden case she had earlier mistaken for a blanket-box.
O’Cooler’s composure had vanished: he was wide awake. Sylvia could almost hear the alarm bells ringing in his head. “But if I stay here, and let you go ... ! That man said if I let him have you, he would bring me food regularly, until I recovered.”
“If he promised to lure people here for you to feed on, forget it. He couldn’t deliver. And he’d dump me and run, when he’d finished doing what he wanted to me. You’d just have another corpse on your hands for the police to find when they get here.”
“I had no option but to believe him or starve.”
“But I told you I could put an aid-package together for you myself. Individually tailored to your needs, now I understand exactly what those needs are. We’ll work something out.”
“Can you give me some details?”
“Okay.” Sylvia explained that the Health, Social and other Services were being manned more and more by otherwise unemployed and untrained volunteers who, if they were considered at all suitable, were told to put in plenty of time for nothing, if they wanted to continue to receive benefits. Millions of people were desperate to comply with this scheme, as it offered the nearest thing most of them would ever get to security.
“There’s a vetting process they all have to go through, and most of them are worse than useless, as you can imagine. Those, we have to reject. It’s part of my job to interview these people. I have access to the names and address of thousands of the rejects, who mostly have no income at all. Consequently, they will do anything, anything at all, for a little cash.”
O’Cooler fiddled thoughtfully with his walking stick. Out of touch with social and economic conditions in the world outside, he hung on to her every word.
“See what I’m getting at?” Sylvia said, as her bleak revelations sank into the invalid’s brain. “I am in a position to hand-pick any number of reliable—let’s call them donors—of either sex, who will provide you with a discreet personal and anonymous service, brought to you in your own home, for a few pounds a week. I know you made some unwise investments, but you can afford that surely?”
She could see O’Cooler (she still preferred to think of him under that name) was tempted by her scheme. “I can even screen them for your favourite blood group, if you have a preference,” she added temptingly.
“What guarantee do I have you will do as you say?” O’Cooler said.
Mr Strope could be heard returning, his boots knocking on the uncarpeted parquet floor in the corridor outside.
“You have my word. As ‘Most...’”
“Yes, I know: ‘Most Valued Volunteer’,” O’Cooler snapped, but he had made up his mind. He surprised Sylvia by holding out his big long hands and grasping hers. “It sounds like a bloody good bargain, to me,” he said, not really swearing, she guessed. “As you see, I put myself in your hands.” He raised her hands to his thin, hard lips, and kissed her fingers. “Here’s to our future” he said.
She wondered if he was suggesting they could become friends. More than that, perhaps. The idea was not unpleasant. He had something other men she’d met certainly didn’t have. She could do worse. After all, in his way, he was very distinguished. A Count, even.
Strope was having trouble with the awkward key.
“What shall we do about him?” O’Cooler muttered, a coconspirator now.
“Is that stick of yours as strong and heavy as it looks?”
O’Cooler nodded. “And weighted with lead at the top.” He handed it over. “When you’ve finished, I’ll dispose of him in that.” He pointed towards the oven. “I should be able to manage if I take it slowly.”
“I’ll try not to kill him outright. There’s not much to him, but he should provide you with a snack before he goes.”
The aristocratic invalid nodded his approval and gratitude. “Very considerate of you.”
Beyond the door, Strope dropped the key and cursed.
Sylvia took the opportunity of this delay to lean down close to O’Cooler’s ear and quickly explain the nature of her own eating disorder: in particular, about the other things she had developed an appetite for recently. It was time, she felt, to exchange confidences: to form a bond.
At first, O’Cooler looked a little taken aback.
“Well,” he said at last, “who’d have thought it? But, if that’s the way things stand with you, I’ll save the heart and lights, and the, er, other bits.”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Sylvia whispered. “I’ll have to get back to report to my Coordinator soon. I’ll tell her you don’t require our assistance after all, and that Strope has decided he doesn’t want to continue with this sort of work, but I’ll try and call round for them later, while they’re fresh.”
The key clicked and turned at last.
Moving surprisingly quietly for someone her size, Sylvia took up position behind the door.
She winked at her new friend, and raised the bronze-tipped stick high above her shoulder.
~ * ~