The House of Doors - 01 by Brian Lumley Read Free Book Online

permanently. Right?”
    Gill nodded.
    “Whether there are intelligences inside the Castle, or whether it in itself is an artificial intelligence, maybe doesn’t matter. You say it probably knows we’ve brought atomics up here. So maybe it knows that you’re here, too. Maybe it’s been reading you like you’ve been trying to read it … .”
    Gill’s telephone rang. It was Turnbull’s boss, asking for him. Turnbull took the phone and listened for a while, and when the Minister had finished filled in some of the details of what had happened at Gill’s place. When their conversation was over, Turnbull replaced the handset and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”
    “Oh?”
    “He’s just tasked me to you! Spencer, my boy, you now have a minder all your own!”
    Gill was surprised and not a little grateful. The big man knew his job, and in the shortest period of time Gill had been made to feel very vulnerable. His relief showed on his face when he said, “Because of tonight?”
    But Turnbull only frowned and half shook his head. “Yes and no,” he said. “The boss will pick us up tomorrow morning and fill us in then. All he’s saying for now is that things are ‘coming to a head.’ The way I see it … you’re an ace card, Spencer. Maybe someone’s just realized that we can’t afford to lose you.”
    Gill didn’t attempt to fathom it any further than that. In any case, it only served to verify what he’d suspected for some little time: that indeed things were rapidly coming to a head … .

CHAPTER SIX
     
    A ngela Denholm checked herself out in the mirror. The bruising had almost disappeared now from her right eye, but she would continue to wear her dark glasses. With their help, and snug in her new white parka and black ski pants, she would at least feel disguised. She supposed she might only be fooling herself, but there was always the chance that Rod would also be fooled. The new clothing had been the best idea she’d had since running out on him.
    She checked the bruising again, the faint, fading, telltale blotch where his fist had struck home, and gave a small, involuntary shudder. She had always loathed physical violence, never would have believed that she’d become just another victim. And yet that’s exactly what had happened to her—or would have. But being a battered wife hadn’t been Angela’s scene. She had more going for her than that. And when finally love had fled, so she’d fled, too.
    That had been a little more than three weeks ago, since when she’d been on the run. Pride had stopped her from seeking help, kept her from going to the police, screaming for a divorce; the divorce would come later. Pride and what little loyalty she’d had left. Rod had been warned off more than once already about his drinking; another incident was all it would take for him to lose his job; Angela considered that he’d paid enough in losing her. He was a technician with a local TV station in Edinburgh, and a new job wouldn’t be easy to find. But … it was painful to her that he would be hurting. She hadn’t taken her marriage vows lightly. On the other hand, he’d only be hurting inside. And there’d been times when Angela had hurt all over.
    She looked at herself in her bedroom’s full-length mirror and nodded, strangely relieved that she still recognized the woman in there. For a time she’d felt irrevocably changed, but now the old Angela was coming back again. At least married life—life married to Rodney Denholm—had kept her in good trim. Little chance there of becoming fat and contented!
    Small, leggy, slim, and pretty, with elfin ears half-hidden in tight black ringlets, a not-quite-perfect mouth, pert nose, and slightly tilted, deep, dark eyes, she looked almost Eurasian and was often taken for it. But in fact she was as English as they come. Or British, anyway, since her father was a Scot. But she’d inherited her mother’s face and slender figure, and mercifully something of her