The Influence by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

know who you are,” Tony said as Derek followed him through the rooms. The house shouldn’t fetch much less than ten thousand, Derek thought, dreading to hear. Tony marched through, jingling his pocketfuls of change, and peered at ceilings, knocked on walls that crunched under his knuckles, scratched his broad stubbly pate. He hummed tunelessly to himself and said not a word until they and Alison were on the overgrown path, by which time Derek’s forehead felt stretched almost to splitting. “I’d ask for more than we expect to get and be prepared to accept offers,” Tony said. “Assuming you don’t anticipate any queries on the will, I can put it in the window at an asking price of twenty-three thou.”
    That could mean twenty thousand. Twenty thousand would end all their worries, would let them have a holiday for the first time in years and secure them the kind of house they wanted without saddling them with more of a mortgage than they might be able to cope with. Derek shook hands with Tony, hugged Alison and beamed at her as Tony left, promising to send someone who would price the furniture. Derek even beamed at the sight of Robin Ormond’s Mini nudging the kerb outside the gate.
    The accountant wasn’t quite as tall as Alison, but much broader. He wore a pale blue summer suit, and glanced suspiciously at the chair Derek gave him at the dinner table. “You want to get the little woman busy with the duster before anyone comes to look at the house,” he suggested, and put on his rimless spectacles that seemed constantly in danger of slipping down his wide flat face. “These are the accounts, I take it. Well, let’s see what can be made of them.”
    He turned the pages of the ledgers slowly, rubbing the corners between finger and thumb. “Dear me. Pah, I don’t think so. Oh, really,” he mused, then grew impatient. “Have you no receipt for this? I can’t make out this word at all. My dear fellow, that isn’t how you spell ‘calculate’.” At the last page he threw up his hands. “Never accept a postdated cheque.”
    “I’ve his word he’ll honour it. At least it means I’ve got a date for payment.”
    The accountant closed his eyes and shook his head. “You should have taken him to court, or threatened to. Better still, don’t work for such people at all.”
    “If I didn’t I wouldn’t have enough big jobs.”
    “You’re in a bad way then, aren’t you?” the accountant said accusingly. “I suppose I’ll have to pass these books, but we’ll need to be looking at ways to rationalise your business. You could be on course for a major cash-flow crisis. If you don’t call in all these debts you may not even have the capital to pay your tax this Christmas.”
    Derek was tempted to tell him what Tony had said, except that he might cast doubt on it. Better to tell him when they had the money, and then watch his face. Later Tony came to photograph the exterior, and the prospect of the sale sustained Derek through the weekend, while he and Alison cleared out as much of the house as they could. They planned a leisurely drive to fetch Rowan, stopping for lunch in a beer garden on the way, but on Sunday morning Derek was called out to one of the nursing homes beside the dunes. Alison stayed at the house to have dinner waiting for Rowan, and let the light from the hall stretch onto the path like a carpet as Rowan climbed out of the car.
    Alison had made scouse, one of Rowan’s favourites ever since she’d had it at Jo’s across the road, but Rowan only picked at the stew. “I’m sorry, mummy, Hermione made sandwiches for tea.”
    “That sounds like my sister. Don’t worry, babe, the dinner will keep if that’s all that’s wrong.”
    Rowan didn’t answer that until she was in the oversized bath, Alison scrubbing her back while Derek waited with a towel on the far side of the tiled bathroom. Rowan lifted one foot and watched bubbles vanish from her toes, and then she said “Do we really