Holes for Faces by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

can think of no other way to deal with it. I drop the box and crouch painfully, and once my playmate imitates me I poke my head above the table as it does. “Peep,” I cry, though I’m terrified to hear an answer. “Peep.”

Getting It Wrong
    Edgeworth was listening to a reminiscence of the bus ride in Hitchcock’s Lucky Jim when the phone rang. He switched off the deluxe anniversary special collector’s edition of Family Plot and raised the back of his armchair to vertical. As he grabbed the receiver he saw the time on his watch jerk even closer to midnight. “Hello?” he said and in less than a second “Hello?”
    “Is this Mr Edgeworth?”
    He didn’t recognise the woman’s voice, not that he knew any women he could imagine ringing him. “That’s who you’ve got,” he said.
    “Mr Eric Edgeworth?”
    “You’re not wrong yet.”
    “Have you a few minutes, Mr Edgeworth?”
    “I don’t want anybody fixing my computer. I haven’t had an accident at work or anywhere else either. I’m not buying anything and I’m not going to tell you where I shop or what I shop for. My politics are my affair and so’s the rest of what I think right now. I’ve never won a competition, so don’t bother saying I have. I don’t go on holiday abroad, so you needn’t try to sell me anything over there. I don’t go away here either, not that it’s any of your business. Anything else you want to know?”
    “That isn’t why we’re calling, Mr Edgeworth.” In the same brisk efficient tone she said “Will you be a friend of Mary Barton?”
            At first Edgeworth couldn’t place the name, and then it brought him an image from work—a woman heaping cardboard tubs of popcorn while she kept up a smile no doubt designed to look bright but more symptomatic of bravery. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, although the call had engaged his interest now: it might be the police. “Is she in trouble?”
    “She’s in inquisition.” This might well have meant yes until the woman added “She’d like you to be her expert friend.”
    “Never heard of it.” Having deduced that they were talking about a quiz show, Edgeworth said “Why me?”
    “She says she’s never met anyone who knows so much about films.”
    “I don’t suppose she has at that.” All the same, he was growing suspicious. Could this be a joke played by some of his workmates? “When’s she going to want me?” Edgeworth said.
    “Immediately if you’re agreeable.”
    “Pretty late for a quiz, isn’t it?”
    “It’s not a show for children, Mr Edgeworth.”
    “Aren’t I supposed to be asked first?”
    “We’re doing that now.”
    If all this was indeed a joke, he’d turn it on them. “Fair enough, put her on,” he said as he stood up, retrieving his dinner container and its equally plastic fork from beside the chair.
    “Please stay on the line.”
    As Edgeworth used his elbow to switch on the light in the boxy kitchen off the main room of the apartment, a man spoke in his ear. “Eric? Good to have you on. Terry Rice of Inquisition here.”
    He sounded smug and amused, and Edgeworth had no doubt he was a fake. The kitchen bin released a stagnant tang of last night’s Chinese takeaway while Edgeworth shoved the new container down hard enough to splinter it and snap the fork in half. “Mary’s hoping you’ll give her an edge,” the man said. “Do you know the rules?”
    “Remind me.”
    “There’s only one you should bother about. You’re allowed to get three answers wrong.”
    “If we’re talking about films I’m not bothered at all.”
    “You don’t need any more from me, then. Mary, talk to your friend.”
    “Eric? I’m sorry to trouble you like this so late. I couldn’t think of anybody else.”
    That was a laugh when she’d hardly ever spoken to him. It was the first time she’d even used his name, at least to him. From her tone he could tell she was wearing her plucky smile. “What channel are