The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets Read Free

do nothing. I searched all the bookshelves in our house. There was no copy of The Octopus Nest . I tried Timothy’s phone again, swearing under my breath, furious with impatience. How could he not have remembered to switch it on? He knew what a state I was in. Irrationally, I took my not being able to speak to him while he was out as an omen that it would take him much longer to return, that he might never come back. I needed to occupy myself, to drive away these groundless fears. That was when I thought of the internet.
    I rushed to Timothy’s study and switched on the computer, certain that Amazon, the online bookshop, would have The Octopus Nest listed. I wanted to know who it was by, what it was about. It might lead nowhere, but it was the only thing I had to go on. In none of the other photographs did our ghost have any identifiable accessories.
    The Octopus Nest was available from Amazon, but not easily. Delivery might take up to six weeks, I read. This didn’t matter to me. I didn’t necessarily want a copy of the book. I just wanted to know more about it. The author was a K V Hammond. I clicked on the small picture of the novel’s cover, a white background with one black tentacle running diagonally across it.
    The book was number 756,234 in the Amazon chart. If Timothy and the blonde woman hadn’t bought it all those years ago it would probably have been number 987,659,I thought, half-smiling. I was surprised I was able to joke, even inside my head. Somehow our ghost didn’t seem quite so threatening, now that I had seen her holding a book that Timothy had once thought highly of, though I didn’t understand why this should be the case. The optimist in me reasoned that she hadn’t done us any harm in nearly a decade. Maybe she never would.
    No description of the novel was offered. I had bought books from Amazon before, and there was usually a short synopsis. I clicked on the ‘Google’ button and typed ‘K V Hammond’ into the search box. The first result was the author’s own website. Perhaps here I would discover more about The Octopus Nest . I drummed my fingers on the desk, impatient for the home page to load.
    A photograph began to appear on the screen, from the top down. A blue sky, a tree, a straw hat. Blonde hair. Gold, square hoop earrings. I gasped, pushing my chair away from the computer. It was her. A letter welcomed me to her site, was signed ‘Kathryn’. Only minutes ago it had seemed out of the question that we would ever know her identity. Now I knew it beyond the slightest doubt.
    I tried Timothy’s mobile again, with no luck. ‘Please, please,’ I muttered, even though noone could hear me, even though a mechanical voice was already telling me to try again later. I felt as if Timothy had let me down badly, deserted me, though I knew he was probably too preoccupied to think about a detail such as whether his phone was on or off. He would be back soon, in any case.
    Fear and excitement rioted in my mind, my whole body. I had to do something. Now that I was in possession of certain knowledge , calling the police did not seem such an absurd proposition. I didn’t want to go into the whole story on the phone, so I said only that I wanted to report a stalker, that I knew who it was, that I had evidence. The woman I spoke to said she would send an officer to interview me as soon as possible.
    Willing the computer to work faster, I moved from one section of Kathryn Hammond’s website to another. She had published no books since ‘The Octopus Nest’, but her newsletter said she was working on her next novel, the story of fifty years in the life of a ventriloquist’s dummy, passed from one owner to another. Another Timothy book, I thought. The newsletter also informed fans (it seemed to take for granted that everyone who visited the site would be a fan) that Kathryn and her sister – the frizzy-haired woman, I