Free The Face That Must Die by Ramsey Campbell Page A

could tell that he still didn’t trust her. “Aigburth Drive,” he said.
    “ Why, I live there,” she would have said to many people — but she didn’t feel like saying so to him. She felt wickedly delighted that he’d come to the wrong library. “You want the voters’ list at Sefton Park,” she said.
    His eyes pinched narrow. Surely he didn’t suspect her of lying. Maybe she was being paranoid, imagining suppressed violence in his voice as he said “You must have it here as well.”
    “ I’m afraid not.” His continuing disbelief angered her. “If you’ll just come over here,” she said, “I’ll ask that gentleman to let you see our list.”
    The rude man raised his head, hostile as a feeding animal. “No, no thank you,” the limping man said hastily. “It’s all right. Thank you for your help. You’ve been very helpful.”
    He limped out. The doors swung back and forth, back and forth, closing their gap. What a weird character! Her anger faded quickly but not, she was pleased to find, before it had burned away the threat of depression. She joined her colleagues, who were muttering at stray books on the shelves. In an odd way, the incident of the limping man had cheered her up. She always enjoyed mysteries.

    * * *

    Chapter V

    As he fled onto Lodge Lane, Horridge gasped with relief. The crowd within the bus shelter stared at him through apertures framed by claws of glass. The girl had seemed to know more than she should. What reason could there be for her to know?
    He trudged unevenly, cursing his display of panic. The man at the table had looked like an official, but there had been no reason for him to notice Horridge. By fleeing, Horridge had drawn attention to himself — and he must be inconspicuous now.
    He trudged. His leg throbbed, and felt swollen. His thigh felt as though burdened with a clinging child. The memory of his flight through the cinemas was aching there. He had to plod and sway like a drunkard. He couldn’t move faster than his doubts.
    What had the girl been doing in that library? She wasn’t supposed to be there. She might almost have been planted there to send him on this trudge, to give his doubts more time to trouble him. She had seemed all too ready to tell him that she couldn’t help, without bothering to look in any index. How could she have known that he’d gone to that library so as to finish as quickly as possible what he had to do?
    At last he managed to escape the faded street, the patrolling shoppers, the plague of shops that displayed dusty emptiness. At the roundabout he found he dared not pass the decayed house. He had to use the path just within the park, which followed the road but whose border of trees screened him from the house. He limped hastily by, distracting himself with a glimpse of a bench that had been turned to face away from the park, no doubt by vandals.
    The lake was surrounded by fishermen, immobile as posts. If they’d nothing better to do they should go and clean up Cantril Farm, to make it fit for decent folk to live in. Why weren’t they at work? No wonder the Social Security were suspicious, with all these people who didn’t know right from wrong. But that was no reason to treat him as if he didn’t know how to behave. Babble, babble. Was his mind trying to distract him from his purpose too?
    It seemed so, for his thoughts tried to fasten on Lark Lane, to slow him. How like a village it was: a butcher’s open-fronted shop with slabs, an old police station, an antique shop glowing brassily. It felt familiar, as though he had been here as a child — but he was sure he never had. Couldn’t he linger? A fish and chip shop said it was Chinese and English, which was a lie: it couldn’t be both. Enough chuntering. Get on with the job that must be done.
    Behind the library counter stood a bearded youth with far too much hair. No, he wasn’t the goatish creature from the corrupt house. He tugged his beard as though ringing himself awake