The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror Page 12

  I simply waited until the appropriate opportunity arose, as I knew it eventually should. While I watched and listened, patiently enduring the oh-so-clever remarks he made to the office girls (most of whom resemble prostitutes from Michael Powell’s excessively vulgar and unnecessary 1960 film Peeping Tom) about me, I comforted myself with memories of a happy, sunlit childhood, recalling a row of terraced houses patrolled by smiling policemen, uniformed milkmen and lollipop-ladies, a place in the past where Isobel Barnet was still guessing contestants’ professions on What’s My Line, Alma Cogan was singing “Fly Me to the Moon” on the radio, cornflakes had red plastic guardsmen in their packets and everyone knew his place and damned well stayed in it. Even now when I hear the merry tinkle of “Greensleeves” heralding the arrival of an ice-cream van beset by clamouring tots I get a painful, thrilling erection.

  But I digress.

  Last Tuesday, while shifting a wire-meshed crate in the basement workroom, Mick dislocated his little finger, cutting it rather nastily, so naturally I offered to accompany him to the casualty ward. As my flat is conveniently situated on the route to the hospital I was able to stop by for a moment, trotting out some absurd excuse for the detour.

  After waiting for over an hour to be seen, my nemesis was finally examined by Dr MacGregor, an elderly physician of passing acquaintance whose name I only remember because it is also that of John Le Mesurier’s character in The Radio Ham. My experience as an HVF had familiarised me with basic casualty procedures, and I knew that the doctor would most likely inject an antibiotic into the boy’s hand to prevent infection.

  The needles for the syringes come in paper packets, and are sealed inside little plastic tubes that must be broken only by the attending physician. This is to prevent blood-carried infections from being transmitted.

  It was hard to find a way around this, and indeed had taken dozens of attempts over the preceding months. The packets themselves were easy enough to open and reseal, but the tubes were a problem. After a great deal of practice, I found that I was able to melt the end of a tube closed without leaving any traces of tampering. To be on the safe side I had prepared three such needles in this fashion. (You must remember that, as well as having access to basic medical supplies – those items not actually locked away – I also possess an unlimited amount of patience, being willing to wait years if necessary to achieve my goals.)

  While we waited for Dr MacGregor to put in an appearance, the boy prattled on to me about work, saying how much he “truly valued my input”. While he was thus distracted, it was a simple matter for me to replace the loose needles lying on the doctor’s tray with my specially prepared ones.

  A little while ago I throttled the life out of a very sick young man whose habit of nightly injecting drugs in the toilet of my local tube station had caused him to become ravaged with terminal disease. I would like to say that he died in order to make the world a safer, cleaner place, but the truth is that we went for a drink together and I killed him in a sudden fit of rage because he had not heard of Joyce Grenfell. How the Woman Who Won the Hearts of the Nation in her thrice-reprised role as Ruby Gates in the celebrated St Trinians films could have passed by him unnoticed is still a mystery to me.

  Anyway, I strangled the disgusting urchin with his own scarf and removed about a cupful of blood from his arm, into which I dropped a number of needles, filling their capillaries with the poisoned fluid. I then carefully wiped each one clean and inserted it into a tube, neatly resealing the plastic.

  Dr MacGregor was talking nineteen to the dozen as he inserted what he thought was a fresh needle into a vein on the back of Mick’s hand. He barely even looked down to see what he was doing. Overwork and force of habit had won the day. Thank God for our decaying National Health Service, because I’d never have managed it if the boy had possessed private medical insurance. My unsuspecting adversary maintained an attitude of perky bravery as his finger was stitched up, and I laughed all the way home.

  Mick has been feeling unwell for several weeks now. A few days ago he failed to turn up for work. Apparently he has developed a complex and highly dangerous form of Hepatitis B.

  As they say, age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm.

  Diary Entry #3 Dated 17 October

  The hopeless liaison officer has returned with a new request.

  Yesterday evening I opened the door of my flat to find her hovering on the landing uncertainly, as if she could not even decide where she felt comfortable standing.

  “Can I help you?” I asked suddenly, knowing that my voice would make her jump. She had not caught me in a good mood. A month ago, Mick had been forced to resign through ill-health, but my promotion had still not been announced for consideration.

  “Oh, Mr Morrison, I didn’t know if you were in,” she said, her free hand rising to her flat chest.

  “The best way to find out is by ringing the doorbell, Miss Chisholm.” I opened the door wider. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you.” She edged gingerly past me with briefcase and folders, taking in the surroundings. Hattie took one look at her and shot off to her basket. “Oh, what an unusual room,” she said, studying the walnut sideboard and armchairs, the matching butter-yellow standard lamps either side of the settee. “Do you collect art deco?”

  “No,” I said tersely. “This is my furniture. I suppose you’d like a cup of tea.” I went to put the kettle on, leaving her hovering uncomfortably in the lounge. When I returned she was still standing, her head tilted on one side as she examined the spines of my post-war Radio Times collection.

  “Please sit down, Miss Chisholm,” I insisted. “I won’t bite.” And I really don’t because teethmarks can be easily traced.

  At this instigation she perched herself on the edge of the armchair and nibbled at a bourbon. She had obviously rehearsed the speech that followed.

  “Mr Morrison, I’m sure you’ve read in the papers that the health cuts are leaving hospitals in this area with an acute shortage of beds.”

  “I fear I haven’t read a newspaper since they stopped printing The Flutters on the comic page of the Daily Mirror,” I admitted, “but I have heard something of the sort.”

  “Well, it means that some people who are required to attend hospital for tests cannot be admitted as overnight patients any more. As you have been so very helpful in the past, we wondered if you could take in one of these patients.”

  “For how long?” I asked. “And what sort of patient?”

  “It would be for two weeks at the most, and the patient I have in mind for you—” she churned up the contents of her disgusting briefcase trying to locate her poor victim’s folder “—is a very nice young lady. She’s a severe diabetic, and she’s in a wheelchair. Apart from that, she’s the same as you or I.” She gave me a warm smile, then quickly looked away, sensing perhaps that I was not like other people. She handed me a dog-eared photograph of the patient, attached to a medical history that had more pages than an average weekly script of The Clitheroe Kid, a popular BBC radio show which for some reason has never been reissued on audio cassette.

  “Her name is Saskia,” said Miss Chisholm. “She has no family to speak of, and lives a long way from London. Ours is one of the few hospitals with the necessary equipment to handle complex drug and therapy trials for people like her. She desperately needs a place to stay. We can arrange to have her collected each day. We’d be terribly grateful if you could help. She really has nowhere else to go.”

  I studied the photograph carefully. The girl was pitifully small-boned, with sallow, almost translucent skin. But she had attractive blonde hair, and well-defined features reminiscent of a young Suzy Kendall in Robert Hartford-Davis’ patchy 1966 comedy portmanteau The Sandwich Man, in which Our Norman, playing an Irish priest, was not seen to his best advantage. What’s more, she fitted in perfectly with my plans. A woman. That would certainly be different.

  I returned the photograph with a smile. ‘I think we ca
n work something out,” I said.

  Diary Entry #4 Dated 23 October

  Saskia is here, and I must say that for someone so ill she is quite a tonic. The night she arrived, I watched as she struggled to negotiate her wheelchair around the flat without damaging the paintwork on the skirting boards, and despite many setbacks she managed it without a single protestation. Indeed, she has been here for two days now, and never seems to complain about anything or anyone. Apparently all of her life she has been prone to one kind of disease or another, and few doctors expected her to survive her childhood, so she is simply happy to be alive.

  I have installed her in the spare room, which she insisted on filling with flowers purchased from the stall outside the hospital. Even Hattie, never the most amenable of cats, seems to have taken to her.

  As my flat is on the second floor of a large Victorian house, she is a virtual prisoner within these walls during the hours outside her hospital visits. At those times the ambulance men carry her and the folded wheelchair up and down the stairs.

  On her very first night here I entered the lounge to find her going through my catalogued boxes of BBC comedy archive tapes. I was just beginning to grow annoyed when she turned to me and asked if she could play some of them. No one had ever shown the least interest in my collection before. To test her, I asked which shows she would most enjoy hearing.

  “I like Leslie Phillips in The Navy Lark, and the Fraser Hayes Four playing on Round the Horne,” she said, running a slim finger across the spines of the tape boxes. “And of course, Hancock’s Half Hour, although I prefer the shows after Andrée Melly had been replaced by Hattie Jacques.”

  Suddenly I was suspicious.

  This tiny girl could not be more than twenty-two years of age. How could she possibly be so familiar with radio programmes that had scarcely been heard in thirty years?

  “My father was a great collector,” she explained, as if she had just read my thoughts. “He used to play the old shows nearly every evening after dinner. It’s one of the few lasting memories I have of my parents.”

  Well naturally, my heart went out to the poor girl. “I know exactly how you feel,” I said. “I only have to hear Kenneth Williams say ‘Good Evening’ and I’m reminded of home and hearth. They were such happy times for me.”

  For the next hour or so I sounded her out on other favourite film and radio memories of the past, but although there seemed no other common ground between us, she remained willing to listen to my happy tales and learn. At eleven o’clock she yawned and said that she would like to go to bed, and so I let her leave the lounge.

  Last night Saskia was kept late at the hospital, and I was in bed by the time the heavy tread of the ambulance man was heard upon the stair. This morning she asked me if I would like her to cook an evening meal. After some initial concern with the hygiene problems involved in allowing one’s meal to be cooked by someone else, I agreed. (In restaurants I assiduously question the waitresses about their sanitary arrangements.) Furthermore, I offered to buy produce for the projected feast, but she insisted on stopping by the shops on her way home from the hospital. Although she is frail, she demands independence. I will buy a bottle of wine. After being alone with my memories for so long, it is unnerving to have someone else in the apartment.

  And yet it is rather wonderful.

  Diary Entry #5 Dated 24 October

  What an enthralling evening!

  I feel as if I am truly alive for the first time in my life. Saskia returned early tonight – looking drawn and pale, but still vulnerably beautiful, with her blonde hair tied in a smart plait – and headed straight into the kitchen, where she stayed for several hours. I had arranged a ramp of planks by the cooker so that she could reach the hobs without having to rise from her chair.

  Hattie, sensing that something tasty was being prepared, hung close to the base of the door, sniffing and licking her chops. To amuse Saskia while she cooked I played dialogue soundtracks which I had recorded in my local cinema as a child during performances of Passport To Pimlico and The Lavender Hill Mob, but the poor quality of the tapes (from a small reel-to-reel recorder I had smuggled into the auditorium) was such that I imagine the subtleties of these screenplays were rather lost to her, especially as she had the kitchen door shut and was banging saucepans about.

  The meal was a complete delight. We had a delicious tomato and basil soup to start with, and a truly spectacular salmon en croute as the main course, followed by cheese and biscuits.

  Saskia told me about herself, explaining that her parents had been killed in a car crash when she was young. This tragedy had forced her to live with a succession of distant and ancient relatives. When the one she was staying with died, she was shunted into a foster home. No one was willing to take her, though, as the complications arising from her diabetes would have made enormous demands on any foster-parent.

  As she talked she ate very little, really only toying with her food. The diabetes prevents her from enjoying much of anything, but hopefully the tests she is undergoing will reveal new ways of coping with her restricted lifestyle.

  The dining table is too low to comfortably incorporate Saskia’s wheelchair, so I have promised to raise it for tomorrow’s dinner, which I have insisted on cooking. I was rather nervous at the prospect, but then I thought: if a cripple can do it, so can I.

  Saskia is so kind and attentive, such a good listener. Perhaps it is time for me to introduce my pet topic into the dinner conversation.

  Diary Entry #6 Dated 25 October

  Disaster has struck!

  Right from the start everything went wrong – and just as we were getting along so well. Let me set it out from the beginning.

  The meal. I cooked a meal tonight that was not as elaborate as the one she had prepared, and nothing like as good. This was partly because I was forced to work late (still no news of my promotion), so most of the shops were shut, and partly because I have never cooked for a woman before. The result was a microwaved dinner that was still freezing cold in the centre of the dish, but if Saskia didn’t like it she certainly didn’t complain. Instead she gave a charming broad smile (one which she is using ever more frequently with me) and slowly chewed as she listened to my detailed description of the indignities daily heaped upon me at the office.

  I had bought another bottle of wine, and perhaps had drunk a little too much of it by myself (Saskia being unable to drink for the rest of the week), because I found myself introducing the subject of him, Our Norman, the Little Man Who Won All Our Hearts, before we had even finished the main course. Wishing to present the topic in the correct context I chose to start with a basic chronology of Norman’s film appearances, beginning with his thirteen-and-a-half-second appearance in A Date with a Dream in 1948. I had made an early decision to omit all but the most essential stage and television appearances of the Little Man for fear of tiring her, and in my description of the films stuck mainly to the classic set pieces, notably the marvellous “Learning to Walk” routine from On the Beat and the ten-minute “Teamaking” sequence from the opening of The Early Bird.

  I was about to mention Norman’s 1956 appearance with Ruby Murray at the Palladium in Painting the Town when I became distinctly aware of her interest waning. She was fidgeting about in her chair as if anxious to leave the table.

  “Anyone would think you didn’t like Norman Wisdom,” I said, by way of a joke.

  “Actually, I’m not much of a fan, no,” she said suddenly, then added, “Forgive me, Stanley, but I’ve suddenly developed a headache.” And with that she went to her room, without even offering to do the washing up. Before I went to bed I stood outside her door listening, but could hear nothing.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  Diary Entry #7 Dated 27 October

  She is avoiding me.

  It sounds hard to believe, I know, but there can be no other explanation. Last night she returned to the flat and headed directly to her room. When I put my head around the door
to see if she wanted a late-night cup of cocoa (I admit this was at three o’clock in the morning, but I could not sleep for worrying about her), it seemed that she could barely bring herself to be polite. As I stepped into the room, her eyes widened and she pulled the blankets around her in a defensive gesture, which seemed to suggest a fear of my presence. I must confess I am at a loss to understand her.

  Could she have led me on, only pretending to share my interests for some secret purpose of her own?

  Diary Entry #8 Dated 1 November

  At work today we were informed that Mick had died. Complications from the hepatitis, annoyingly unspecified, but I gained the distinct impression that they were unpleasant. When one of the secretaries started crying I made a passing flippant remark that was, I fear, misconstrued, and the girl gave me a look of utter horror. She’s a scruffy little tart who was sweet on Mick, and much given to conspiring with him about me. I felt like giving her something to be horrified about, and briefly wondered how she would look tied up with baling wire, hanging in a storm drain. The things we think about to get us through the day.

  At home the situation has worsened. Saskia arrived tonight with a male friend, a doctor whom she had invited back for tea. While she was in the kitchen the two of us were left alone in the lounge, and I noticed that he seemed to be studying me from the corner of his eye. It was probably just an occupational habit, but it prompted me to wonder if Saskia had somehow voiced her suspicions to him (assuming she has any, which I consider unlikely).

  After he had gone, I explained that it was not at all permissible for her to bring men into the house no matter how well she knew them, and she had the nerve to turn in her chair and accuse me of being old-fashioned!

  “What on earth do you mean?” I asked her.

  “It’s not healthy, Stanley, surrounding yourself with all this,” she explained, indicating the alphabetised film and tape cassettes that filled the shelves on the wall behind us. “Most of these people have been dead for years.”