In the Flesh by Clive Barker Read Free Book Online

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    Anne-Marie had been when she'd visited her that morning: pale, jittery; expectant. She had been like a woman anticipating some arrival, hadn't she?, eager to shoo unwanted visitors away so that she could turn back to the business of waiting. But waiting for what, or whom? Was it possible that Anne-Marie actually knew the murderer? Had perhaps invited him into the house?

     

     

      'I hope they find the bastard,' she said, still watching the street.

     

     

      'They will,' Trevor replied. 'A baby-murderer, for Christ's sake. They'll make it a high priority.'

     

      A man appeared at the corner of the street, turned, and whistled. A large Alsatian came to heel, and the two set off down towards the Cathedral.

     

     

      'The dog,' Helen murmured.

     

     

      'What?'

     

      She had forgotten the dog in all that had followed. Now the shock she'd felt as it had leapt at the window shook her again.

     

     

      'What dog?' Trevor pressed.

     

      'I went back to the flat today - where I took the pictures of the graffiti. There was a dog in there. Locked in.'

     

      'So?'

     

     

      'It'll starve. Nobody knows it's there.'

     

     

      'How do you know it wasn't locked in to kennel it?'

     

     

      'It was making such a noise - she said.

     

     

      'Dogs bark,' Trevor replied. 'That's all they're good for.'

     

     

      'No - ' she said very quietly, remembering the noises through the boarded window. 'It didn't bark...'

     

      'Forget the dog,' Trevor said. 'And the child. There's nothing you can do about it. You were just passing through.'

     

      His words only echoed her own thoughts of earlier in the day, but somehow - for reasons that she could find no words to convey - that conviction had decayed in the last hours. She was not just passing through. Nobody ever just passed through; experience always left its mark. Sometimes it merely scratched; on occasion it took off limbs. She did not know the extent of her present wounding, but she knew it more profound than she yet understood, and it made her afraid.

     

     

      'We're out of booze,' she said, emptying the last dribble of whisky into her tumbler.

     

      Trevor seemed pleased to have a reason to be accommodating. 'I'll go out, shall I?' he said. 'Get a bottle or two?'

     

     

      'Sure,' she replied. 'If you like.'

     

      He was gone only half an hour; she would have liked him to have been longer. She didn't want to talk, only to sit and think through the unease in her belly. Though Trevor had dismissed her concern for the dog - and perhaps justifiably so - she couldn't help but go back to the locked maisonette in her mind's

    eye: to picture again the raging face on the bedroom wall, and hear the animal's muffled growl as it pawed the boards over the window. Whatever Trevor had said, she didn't believe the place was being used as a makeshift kennel. No, the dog was imprisoned in there, no doubt of it, running round and round, driven, in its desperation, to eat its own faeces, growing more insane with every hour that passed. She became afraid that somebody - kids maybe, looking for more tinder for their bonfire -would break into the place, ignorant of what it contained. It wasn't that she feared for the intruders' safety, but that the dog, once liberated, would come for her. It would know where she was (so her drunken head construed) and come sniffing her out.

     

      Trevor returned with the whisky, and they drank together until the early hours, when her stomach revolted. She took refuge in the toilet - Trevor outside asking her if she needed anything, her telling him weakly to leave her alone. When, an hour later, she emerged, he had gone to bed. She did not join him, but lay down on the sofa and dozed through until dawn.

     

     

     

     

      The murder was news. The next morning it made all the tabloids as a front page splash, and found prominent positions in the heavyweights too.