The Kind Folk by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

he needs to learn.
    Dan and Rudy glance at each other and at Maurice. Eventually Dan says "Rudy asked him once."
    "Said he slept with it under his pillow."
    When nobody else speaks Sophie asks "Why?"
    This time the men don't quite look at each other, but Dan appears to have delegated his workmate to mutter "Expect he meant it made him dream. He said things came to him."
    Luke remembers an entry in the journal about the stories Terence told him, and blurts "When's all this supposed to have happened?"
    "We knocked the house down," Rudy says, "the year before you were born."
    Luke can't think what else to say, and the conversation drifts away from him. Soon enough the mourners start to leave, and he and Sophie promise to visit again soon. As they drive home alongside the river, they're paced by a sliver of moon that appears to be waiting for the night to fill some of it in. At the Pier Head he swings the car uphill towards the town and immediately down the ramp under the apartments, where he has an odd sense of hiding from the moon. The electronic door tilts up, and he coasts into the numbered space next to Sophie's Clio in the underground car park.
    The converted cellar mimics the slams of his door and Sophie's. As she heads for the stairs in the lobby he retreats to the steps down to the car park. "You start the coffee," he says. "I'm not sure if I locked the car." Once he's certain that she won't be coming after him he opens the boot of the Lexus. The glare of the security lights leaves Terence's journal lying in a trough of darkness like a baby's grave. Luke balances the ledger on the edge of the boot, and every page he turns gives rise to another shadow. The entry he wants is close to the start of the journal, which he shuts and locks away as soon as he has memorised the details. IT WAS STRONG HOUSE, the entry says and lists an address in Toxteth.

THE REMAINS
    As Luke turns the car along Mulgrave Street, Christ leans out from the church on the corner. He's spiky as a bolt of lightning made into a man. He looks poised to dive from perching high up on the concrete wall and start a race along the dual carriageway of Princes Avenue. Luke imagines Terence inviting him to wonder what the lithe metal shape might be chasing or attempting to outdistance, but that doesn't offer any insight into Terence—it just reminds Luke that he has very little idea why he's here or what he's looking for.
    The street he's following is no help. Most of the buildings look younger than he is: compacted terraces where the houses seem squeezed thin to fit their boxy gardens, a mosque built of peach-coloured bricks not much bigger than playthings. Above the low roofs a wide blue sky decorated with a few white wisps like shavings of a moon adds to the impression of newness. Luke drives almost to the end before turning along a side road, which brings him to Amberley Street. At least, it does according to the street guide in the glove compartment, but now the location is occupied by a car park.
    Terence gave him the guide when Luke bought his first car. So the street has been demolished, not just the house that's mentioned in the journal. Luke finds a space for the Lexus at the far end of a rank of vehicles opposite the car park, which is enclosed by a spiky metal fence. He's beside a pallid pebbly terrace of thin houses, guarded by a wall on which scraps of litter caught by coils of barbed wire flutter like a substitute for foliage. Windows hardly large enough to frame a head and shoulders are visible over the wall. Luke crosses the uneven road and sees that the car park is next to a grassy patch of waste ground, where a path leads from a gateless entrance in the fence. Perhaps the path will let him find a way into the car park, even if he can't see why he should bother. He's heading for the gate when a voice says "I'm watching you."
    A woman has emerged from a doorway in the wall. She's at least a head shorter than Luke, but her size appears to have