The Mammoth Book of Dracula (65 page)

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.

<>

~ * ~

JOHN GORDON

Black Beads

JOHN GORDON was born in Jarrow-on-Tyne and now lives in Norwich with his wife, Sylvia. As a child he moved with his family to Wisbech in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, where he went to school. After serving in the Royal Navy on minesweepers and destroyers during World War II he became a journalist on various local newspapers.

His first book for young adults,
The Giant Under the Snow,
was published by Hutchinson in 1968 and gained praise from Alan Garner, among others, and was reissued in 2006 by Orion with editions in Italy and Lithuania and as a talking book.

Since then Gordon has published a number of fantasy and horror novels including
The House on the Brink, The Ghost on the Hill, The Quelling Eye, The Grasshopper, Ride the Wind, Blood Brothers, Gilray’s Ghost, The Flesh Eater, The Midwinter Watch, Skinners, The Ghosts of Blacklode
and
Fen Runners.

The author’s short stories are collected in
The Spitfire Grave and Other Stories, Catch Your Death and Other Stories, The Burning Baby and Other Stories
and
Left in the Dark.
He was one of five authors who contributed to the Oxrun Station “mosaic novel”
Horror at Halloween,
edited by Jo Fletcher, and his autobiography
Ordinary Seaman
appeared from Walker Books in 1992.

The darkness can hide so many secrets ...

~ * ~

RICHARD APPIAN WAS reclining full length in the swing seat when he raised the question of the break-in. “It’s hardly serious,” he said. “Just enough risk to be entertaining.”

Angela watched him drink. He was really very handsome. Coppery hair cut short, a strong neck and broad shoulders. He was aware of his size and he used it; that was part of his attraction. He faced down anyone he met, his small blue eyes glinting with what at first appeared to be friendliness until suddenly his smile would broaden and his victim would realize, too late, that Richard Appian had marked him down. It thrilled her.

“Ricky,” she asked, and her voice was languid, “does the old lady have anything you particularly want?”

“Her place is a treasure house,” he said. “Nothing has been touched for fifty years. You’ll love it.”

And she would. The past was a deep well of mystery to which she was drawn. Even her clothes showed it with a tendency to be slightly out of date. But he liked a woman to look feminine, by which she knew he meant helpless and compliant, and he always maintained that it was the simplicity of her dress, the fitted waist and flared skirt that had at first attracted him. That, and the strange circumstances of their initial meeting.

“Black beads,” he said. “She’s bound to have ebony beads somewhere.”

She chided him at that. “Black beads are Victorian,” she said. “Far too old.” And yet he had struck a chord; she could see herself with a double string of heavy black beads reaching to her waist. It was a childish thought from far back. “You have read my mind once more,” she said.

His smile, which would come and go like a shutter opening and closing, remained open to show the whiteness of his teeth. He was so superbly at ease, stretched out in the shade of the swing’s awning, that her heart gave the strange little skip she had recently learned to live with and then ran away in palpitations that left her gasping. Which made her prettily defenceless, he thought.

“But you don’t actually
need
anything, Ricky,” she murmured, turning her head away to look across the wide lawn where the trees made tents of restful shadow.

“What I
need,”
he said, “is what I
want.
And what I want is to have you with me when I go there.”

“But why?”They sat in the shade of a cypress behind the house, but even there the glare of the sun had made him put on his dark glasses and she could not see the expression in his eyes. “Why, Ricky?”

“Because it would please me.” Beneath his invisible gaze his lips wore a smile. “Because you never let me take you home.”

“But I do.” Enormous weariness made her close her eyes. She did not wish to make yet more excuses for not allowing him to take her further than the entrance to the apartment building. “It’s such a small place,” she said, “you wouldn’t like it.” It was so dark and narrow it had taken her a long time to get accustomed to it. He wanted to know too much, too many of her secrets.

He watched her. She sat upright, except for the gentle curve of her spine, and her hand drooped over the arm of her chair holding her glass by its rim as if it was almost too heavy for her slim fingers. Her pale lethargy emphasized the dark beauty of the eyes which slid away from him to look towards the house. He had never lived anywhere else; there was space for him, and to spare, and it was easier for him to take part in the family’s business if he lived at home—in the style which suited him. He sought to impress her even more. “Mrs Grayson’s house is much larger even than this,” he said, “and we shall have it all to ourselves.”

“But it will be dark.” She did not look at him. She knew what was in his mind. Taking her to a strange empty house in darkness excited him, but he was reluctant to admit it to her. A faint contempt stirred in her that he should hide his desires by pretending to be a thief.

“All you will have to do is hold the torch,” he said.

“But what if we should be surprised?”

“That’s impossible. Mrs Grayson is in a nursing home and won’t be coming back. Ever.”

“I shall be a liability,” she protested. “I can’t climb, I can’t run.” By tormenting him she put an edge to his determination, but she herself tingled with pleasure at the danger and it diminished the dragging tiredness that besieged her.

“There is no need to climb through windows. I can get a key at any time I want. We have known her for years, and she’ll never know what’s missing.”

“I’ll be useless—I get so breathless.” She frowned; it had not always been so.

“You won’t even have to climb the stairs.” The dark lenses looked on her and she knew the expression concealed there. She had seen it before on another face, in another place. She lowered her eyes and allowed him to betray what was in his mind. “A big house all to ourselves,” he said. “I shall carry you up the stairs in the dark.” He hesitated. “If you would like that.”

When she said nothing he sought to justify himself. “You mustn’t forget I have carried you before.” He saw her eyelids flicker as if she did not remember. It was a game they played. “My old dog Wolf found you,” he said. “In the woods lying among the dead leaves. He thought you were dead, too. We both did.”

“I was merely comfortable.” She dipped her eyes. “I was asleep.”

“How was I to know? I lifted you up, and you were as light as air.”

“Not everyone would find me as light as that; you don’t know how strong you are.” She was never sure she should remind him of his strength; she had seen others afraid of it. “Then you woke me.”

“Not by picking you up.” She had remained asleep in his arms.

“Perhaps not, but I felt your breath beneath my chin.”

“I thought I saw a pulse in your neck.”

“I felt your breath, and it was time to wake.”

“Strange meeting,” he said.

He watched as she, remaining silent, raised her glass to drink. The wine had a deeper red than her lips. He became bolder.

“We shall go to old Mrs Grayson’s house. There may be a dress you can wear ... Mrs Grayson had a daughter.”

“Black beads,” she said. “Just black beads; nothing else.”

His sigh was soundless, and they did not look at each other. He was having his way and she was permitting it.

Somewhere out of sight a car squeezed the pebbles of the drive. “My mother,” he said. “There will be trouble.”

“Because of me?”

“Indirectly.”

Mrs Appian came around the corner of the house and saw them. Peevish lines puckered her mouth.

“I thought you were in the office today, Richard.” She did not glance at Angela.

“I phoned them first thing and told them what to do.”

“But you know your father likes one of us to be there when he is away. It is the only way to run a business.” Mrs Appian, soberly dressed and trim, but with a bright scarf at her throat, looked at the drink in Angela’s hand, and then at Angela’s clothes. The girl’s long dark hair contrasted strongly with her pale skin, and she hardly seemed to have the energy to smile. Why were his girlfriends always so docile? Maybe it was just as well, considering his temper. But this one was a worry. “Are you quite well, my dear?” she asked. “There’s not a scrap of colour in your cheeks.”