Holes for Faces Read Free Page A

listed,” it said.
    “Forgive me, I wasn’t asking for Peacehaven Taxis. Any cab firm here will do.”
    “There is no listing.”
    Was the fellow pleased to say so? He sounded as smug as the worst sort of priest. “The nearest one, then,” Marsden persisted. “I think that might be—”
    “There are no listings for Peacehaven.”
    “No, that can’t be right. I’m in it. I’m at the railway station. You must have a number for that at least.”
    “There is none.”
    Marsden was aware of the dark all around him and how many unheard lurkers it could hide. “Is there anything more I can do for you?” the voice said.
    It sounded so fulsome that Marsden was convinced he was being mocked. “You’ve done quite enough,” he blurted and slammed the receiver on its hook.
    He could try another enquiry number, or might he call the police? What could he say that would bring them to his aid yet avoid seeming as pathetic as he was determined not to feel? There was one voice he yearned to hear in the midst of all the darkness, but the chance of this at so late an hour seemed little better than infinitesimal. Nevertheless he was groping for change and for the receiver. He scrabbled at the slot with coins and dragged the indistinct holes around the dial. The bell measured the seconds and at last made way for a human voice. It was his own. “Ray and Marjorie Marsden must be engaged elsewhere…”
    “I am. I wish you weren’t,” he murmured and felt all the more helpless for failing to interrupt his mechanical self. Then his distant muffled voice fell silent, and Marjorie said “Who is it?”
    “It’s me, love.”
    “Is that Ray?” She sounded sleepy enough not to know. “I can hardly hear you,” she protested. “Where have you gone?”
    “You’d wonder.” He was straining to hear another sound besides her voice—a noise that might have been the shuffling of feet in rubble. “I’m stuck somewhere,” he said. “I’ll be late. I can’t say how late.”
    “Did you call before?”
    “That was me. Didn’t you get me?”
    “The tape must be stuck like you. I’ll need to get a new one.”
    “Not a new husband, I hope.” He wouldn’t have minded being rewarded with the laugh he’d lived with for the best part of fifty years, even though the joke felt as old as him, but perhaps she was wearied by the hour. “Anyway,” he said, “if you didn’t hear me last time I’ll sign off the same way, which as if you didn’t know—”
    “What was that?”
    For too many seconds he wasn’t sure. He’d been talking over it, and then she had. Surely it had said that a train was about to arrive; indeed, wasn’t the noise he’d mistaken for thin footsteps the distant clicking of wheels? “It’s here now,” he tried to tell her through a fit of coughing. By the time he would be able to speak clearer, the train might have pulled in. Dropping the receiver on the hook, he dashed for the platform. He hadn’t reached it when he heard a scraping behind him.
    The storeroom was open again, but that wasn’t enough in itself to delay him. His eyes had grown all too equal to the gloom in the passage, so that he was just able to discern marks on the floor, leading from outside the station to the room. Could someone not be bothered to pick up their dirty feet? The trails looked as if several objects had been dragged into the room. He didn’t believe they had just been left; that wasn’t why they made him uneasy. He had to squint to see that they were blurred by more than the dark. Whatever had left them—not anybody shuffling along, he hoped, since their feet would have been worse than thin—had crumbled in transit, scattering fragments along the route. He thought he could smell the charred evidence, and swallowed in order not to recommence coughing, suddenly fearful of being heard. What was he afraid of? Was he growing senile? Thank heaven Marjorie wasn’t there to see him. The only reason for haste was that he had