Free The Kind Folk by Ramsey Campbell

more," Luke says and leaves the thought behind as he follows Sophie into the front bedroom.
    It smells older than it should, besides dusty and airless. He makes his way to the window, where he has to force the rusty catch out of its groove. He's shoving the sash as high as it will judder when Sophie says "Do you know what I think is in here?"
    He swings around to find her gazing at the contents of the room. "What is?"
    "A song," she says as if she isn't quite speaking to him. "Maybe a lot of them. Here's a horseman who was so eager to get where he was going he's left half of himself behind. Here's somebody offering us the moon to play with. Here's a ring for a giant to give his girl and stars for her hair. Here's a hand looking for its fingers and an eye to help it look ..." Stroking her belly, she murmurs "I think someone likes it here."
    "Let's decide what to do when we've sorted the place out," Luke finds he's anxious to establish.
    "We could make a start if I didn't have a gig tonight. We'll come back very soon."
    She could almost be advising her little passenger if not the house itself. Luke shuts the window as she heads for the stairs. He's on the landing when he glimpses something pale in Terence's bedroom. A glance at the object sends him hurrying downstairs. As Sophie climbs into the car he loiters in the hall. "Won't be a moment," he calls, "don't know if I locked the window," and sprints back to the room.
    What he saw is under the bed and next to it as well, in the darkest corner of the bedroom. Perhaps it fell from its nest under the pillow, or did Terence try to smash it? The three jagged fragments feel colder than the stone they're composed of and unpleasantly slippery, as if they've just been dredged up from a marsh. Luke fits them together and stares at the result before scrambling to his feet and kicking the remains into the darkness under the bed. He hasn't time to dispose of them now. He'll need to return to the house by himself.
    He's running downstairs only so that Sophie won't wonder why he took this long, not because he feels pursued. He locks the house and hurries to the car. "Hard to shut," he says as he starts the engine, after which he does his best to seem too busy driving to speak. He's hoping the task will keep the sight at the house out of his mind until he can set about trying to understand. It was the stone Terence brought home from Amberley Street, the elongated face that looked as though the subject was dreaming he was an ancient god. It was the face Luke imagined he would see watching him from dozens of windows at once. However fanciful that may have been, the image on the shattered plaque is exactly the same face.

A NAME FROM THE BOOK
    The hotel room in Norfolk smells faintly of lavender. Luke could imagine it's the scent of the chintz that pads the chair beside the bed, and the matching stool that squats bandy-legged at the dressing-table. The bed is laden with a quilt plump enough for winter. The room overlooks a square that's neither regular nor straight-edged, from the middle of which a stone cross extends a narrowed shadow. It might almost be a sundial indicating that it's close to five o'clock by pointing at a butcher's, where headless birds hug themselves as they dangle upside down above a slab. Luke has hours before he goes onstage—hours to spend with Terence's journal.
    Downstairs a stone-flagged hallway leads to a cobbled yard behind the inn. A smell of aged paper reminiscent of Terence's house has massed in the boot of the Lexus. As Luke carries the ledger into the hall the manager, an angular woman with shoulders wide enough to hang a doorman's coat on, leans over the sill of the reception alcove. "Heavy work, eh?" she says. "What line are you in, Mr Arnold?"
    "They say I'm a comedian. I'm on at the Broadest Broad."
    "You must have a lot of jokes in there."
    Luke smiles as he supposes he's meant to and tramps up the variously tilted stairs. The ledger is too massive for the