Fortnight of Fear Read online

  He stormed blindly through the house, yanking open drawers, strewing papers everywhere, clearing ornaments off table-tops with a sweep of his arm. He wrenched open the doors of the cocktail cabinet, and hurled the bottles of liquor one by one across the room, so that they smashed against the wall. Whiskey, gin, Campari, broken glass.

  Eventually, exhausted, he sat down on the floor and sobbed. Then he was too tired even to cry.

  In front of him, lying on the rug, were Anna’s identity card, her social security papers, her passport, her credit cards. Anna Huysmans. The name which was now his.

  On the far side of the room, halfway under the leather sofa, Gil saw a large diary bound in brown Morocco leather. He crept across the floor on his hands and knees and picked it up. This must be the diary that David Chilton had been talking about. He opened it up to the last page.

  He read, through eyes blurry with tears, “Gil has been marvelous … he has an enthusiastic, uncluttered personality … It won’t be difficult to adapt to being him … I just hope that I like his wife Margaret … she sounds a little immature, from what Gil says … and he complains that she needs a lot of persuading when it comes to sex … Still, that’s probably Gil’s fault … you couldn’t call him the world’s greatest lover.”

  Gil flicked back through the diary’s pages until he came to the very first entry. To his astonishment it was dated July 16, 1942. It was written in German, by a Reichswehr officer who appeared to have met Anna while driving out to Edam on military business. “Her bicycle tire was punctured … she was so pretty that I told my driver to stop and to help her …”

  There was no way of telling, however, whether this German Samaritan had been the first of Anna’s victims, or simply the first to keep a diary. The entries went on page after page, year after year. There must have been more than seven hundred of them; and each one told a different story of temptation and tragedy. Some of the men had even essayed explanations of what Anna was, and why she took men’s bodies.

  “She has been sent to punish us by God Himself for thinking lustful thoughts about women and betraying the Holy Sacrament of marriage …”

  “She does not actually exist. There is no ‘Anna’, because she is always one of us. The only ‘Anna’ that exists is in the mind of the man who is seducing her, and that perhaps is the greatest condemnation of them all. We fall in love with our own illusions, rather than a real woman.”

  “To me, Anna is a collector of weak souls. She gathers us up and hangs us on her charm-bracelet, little dangling victims of our own vicissitudes.”

  “Anna is a ghost …”

  “Anna is a vampire …”

  “If I killed myself, would it break the chain? Would Anna die if I died? Supposing I tried to seduce the man who was Anna before me … could I reverse the changing process?”

  Gil sat on the floor and read the diary from cover to cover. It was an extraordinary chorus of voices – real men who had been seduced into taking on the body of a beautiful woman, one after the other – and in their turn had desperately tried to escape. Business executives, policemen, soldiers, scientists, philosophers – even priests. Some had stayed as Anna for fewer than two days; others had managed to endure it for months. But to every single one of them, the body even of the plainest man had been preferable to Anna’s body, regardless of how desirable she was.

  By two o’ clock, Gil was feeling hungry. The icebox was almost empty, so he drove into Amsterdam for lunch. The day was bright but chilly, and so he wore Anna’s black belted raincoat, and a black beret to cover his head. He tried her high-heels, but he twisted his ankle in the hallway, and sat against the wall with tears in his eyes saying, “Shit, shit,” over and over, as if he ought to have been able to walk in them quite naturally. He limped back to the bedroom and changed into black court shoes.

  He managed to find a parking-space for Anna’s BMW on the edge of the Singel canal, close to the Muntplein, where the old mint-building stood, with its clock and its onion-dome. There was an Indonesian restaurant on the first floor of the building on the corner: one of the executives of the Gemeentevervoerbedrijf had pointed it out to him. He went upstairs and a smiling Indonesian waiter showed him to a table for one, overlooking the square. He ordered rijstafel for one, and a beer. The waiter stared at him, and so he changed his order to a vodka and tonic.

  The large restaurant was empty, except for a party of American businessmen over on the far side. As he ate his meal, Gil gradually became aware that one of the businessmen was watching him. Not only watching him, but every time he glanced up, winking at him.

  Oh shit, he thought. Just let me eat my lunch in peace.

  He ignored the winks and the unrelenting stares; but after the business lunch broke up, the man came across the restaurant, buttoning up his coat, and smiling. He was big and red-faced and sweaty, with wavy blond hair and three heavy gold rings on each hand.

  “You’ll pardon my boldness,” he said. “My name’s Fred Oscay. I’m in aluminum tubing, Pennsylvania Tubes. I just couldn’t take my eyes off you all during lunch.”

  Gil looked up at him challengingly. “So?” he replied.

  “Well,” grinned Fred Oscay, “maybe you could take that as a compliment. You’re some looker, I’ve got to tell you. I was wondering if you had any plans for dinner tonight. You know – maybe a show, maybe a meal.”

  Gil was trembling. Why the hell was he trembling? He was both angry and frightened. Angry at being stared at and winked at and chatted up by this crimson-faced idiot; frightened because social convention prevented him from being as rude as he really wanted to be – that, and his weaker physique.

  It was a new insight – and to Gil it was hair-raising – that men used the threat of their greater physical strength against women not just in times of argument and stress – but all the time.

  “Mr Oscay,” he said, and he was still trembling. “I’d really prefer it if you went back to your party and left me alone.”

  “Aw, come along now,” Fred Oscay grinned. “You can’t mean that.”

  Gil’s mouth felt dry. “Will you please just leave me alone?”

  Fred Oscay leaned over Gil’s table. “There’s a fine concert at the Kleine Zaal, if it’s culture you’re after.”

  Gil hesitated for a moment, and then picked up a small metal dish of Indonesian curried chicken and turned it upside-down over Fred Oscay’s left sleeve. Fred Oscay stared down at it for a very long time without saying anything, then stared at Gil with a hostility in his eyes that Gil had never seen from anybody before. Fred Oscay looked quite capable of killing him, then and there.

  “You tramp,” he said. “You stupid bitch.”

  “Go away,” Gil told him. “All I’m asking you to do is go away.”

  Now Fred Oscay’s voice became booming and theatrical, intended for all his business colleagues to hear. “You were coming on, lady. You were coming on. All through lunch you were giving me the glad-eye. So don’t you start getting all tight-assed now. What is it, you want money? Is that it? You’re a professional? Well, I’m sorry. I’m really truly sorry. But old Fred Oscay never paid for a woman in his life, and he aint about to start just for some sorry old hooker like you.”

  He picked up a napkin and wiped the curry off his sleeve with a flourish, throwing the soiled napkin directly into Gil’s plate. The other businessmen laughed and stared. One of them said, “Come on, Fred, we can’t trust you for a minute.”

  Gil sat where he was and couldn’t think what to do; how to retaliate; how to get his revenge. He felt so frustrated that in spite of himself he burst into tears. The Indonesian waiter came over and offered him a glass of water. “Aroo okay?” he kept asking. “Aroo okay?”

  “I’m all right,” Gil insisted. “Please – I’m all right.”

  He was standing on the corner of the street as patient as a shadow as David Chilton emerged from his front door right on time and began walking his cocker spaniel along the grass verge. It was 10:35 at
night. David and Margaret would have been watching News At Ten and then South East News just as Gil and Margaret had always done. Then David would have taken down Bondy’s leash, and whistled, “Come on, boy! Twice round the park!” while Margaret went into the kitchen to tidy up and make them some cocoa.

  He was wearing the same black belted raincoat and the same black beret that he had worn in Amsterdam; only now he had mastered Anna’s high heels. His hair was curly and well-brushed and he wore make-up now, carefully copied from an article in a Dutch magazine.

  Under his raincoat he carried a stainless steel butcher knife with a twelve-inch blade. He was quite calm. He was breathing evenly and his pulse was no faster than it had been when he first met Anna.

  Bondy insisted on sniffing at every bush and every garden gatepost, so it took a long time for David to come within earshot. He had his hands in his pockets and he was whistling under his breath, a tune that Gil had never known. At last, Gil stepped out and said, “David?”

  David Chilton stood stock-still. “Anna?” he asked, hoarsely.

  Gil took another step forward, into the flat orange illumination of the streetlight. “Yes, David, it’s Anna.”

  David Chilton took his hands out of his pockets. “I guess you had to come and take a look, didn’t you? Well, I was the same.”

  Gil glanced toward the house. “Is he happy? Alan, I mean.”

  “Alan’s fine. He’s a fine boy. He looks just like you. I mean me.”

  “And Margaret?”

  “Oh, Margaret’s fine too. Just fine.”

  “She doesn’t notice any difference?” said Gil, bitterly. “In bed, perhaps? I know I wasn’t the world’s greatest lover.”

  “Margaret’s fine, really.”

  Gil was silent for a while. Then he said, “The job? How do you like the job?”

  “Well, not too bad,” grinned David Chilton. “But I have to admit that I’m looking around for something a little more demanding.”

  “But, apart from that, you’ve settled in well?”

  “You could say that, yes. It’s not Darien, but it’s not Zandvoort, either.”

  Bondy had already disappeared into the darkness. David Chilton whistled a couple of times, and called, “Bondy! Bondy!” He turned to Gil and said, “Look – you know, I understand why you came. I really do. I sympathize. But I have to get after Bondy or Moo’s going to give me hell.”

  For the very first time, Gil felt a sharp pang of genuine jealousy for Margaret. “You call her Moo?”

  “Didn’t you?” David Chilton asked him.

  Gil remained where he was while David Chilton went jogging off after his dog. His eyes were wide with indecision. But David had only managed to run twenty or thirty yards before Gil suddenly drew out the butcher knife and went after him.

  “David!” he called out, in his high, feminine voice. “David! Wait!”

  David Chilton stopped and turned. Gil had been walking quickly so that he had almost reached him. Gil’s arm went up. David Chilton obviously didn’t understand what was happening at first, not until Gil stabbed him a second time, close to his neck.

  David Chilton dropped, rolled away, then bobbed up on to his feet again. He looked as if he had been trained to fight. Gil came after him, his knife upraised, silent and angry beyond belief. If I can’t have my body, then nobody’s going to. And perhaps if the man who took my body – if his spirit dies – perhaps I’ll get my body back. There’s no other hope, no other way. Not unless Anna goes on for generation after generation, taking one man after another.

  Gil screamed at David and stabbed at his face. But David seized Gil’s wrist and twisted it around, skin tearing, so that Gil dropped the knife on to the pavement. Gil’s high heel snapped. He lost his balance and they both fell. Their hands scrabbled for the knife. David touched it, missed it, then managed to take hold of it.

  The long triangular blade rose and fell five times. There was a sound of muscle chopping. The two rolled away from each other, and lay side by side, flat on their backs, panting.

  Gil could feel the blood soaking his cotton blouse. The inside of his stomach felt cold and very liquid, as if his stomach had poured its contents into his whole abdominal cavity. He knew that he couldn’t move. He had felt the knife slice sharply against his spine.

  David knelt up on one elbow. His hands and his face were smeared in blood. “Anna …” he said, unsteadily. “Anna …”

  Gil looked up at him. Already, he was finding it difficult to focus. “You’ve killed me,” he said. “You’ve killed me. Don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

  David looked desperate. “You know, don’t you? You know.”

  Gil attempted to smile. “I don’t know, not for sure. But I can feel it. I can feel you – you and all the rest of them – right inside my head. I can hear your voices. I can feel your pain. I took your souls. I took your spirits. That’s what you gave me, in exchange for your lust.”

  He coughed blood, and then he said, “My God … I wish I’d understood this before. Because you know what’s going to happen now, don’t you? You know what’s going to happen now?”

  David stared at him in dread. “Anna, listen, you’re not going to die. Anna, listen, you can’t. Just hold on, I’ll call for an ambulance. But hold on!”

  But Gil could see nothing but darkness. Gil could hear nothing but the gray sea. Gil was gone; and Anna was gone, too.

  David Chilton made it as far as the garden gate. He grasped the post, gripped at the privet-hedge. He cried out, “Moo! Help me! For Christ’s sake help me!” He grasped at his throat as if he were choking. Then he collapsed into the freshly-dug flower-bed, and lay there shuddering, the way an insect shudders when it is mortally hurt. The way any creature shudders, when it has no soul.

  All over the world that night, men quaked and died. Over seven hundred of them: in hotels, in houses, in restaurants, in the back of taxis. A one-time German officer collapsed during dinner, his face blue, his head lying in his salad-plate, as if it were about to be served up with an apple in his mouth. An airline pilot flying over Nebraska clung to his collar and managed to gargle out the name Anna! before he pitched forward on to his controls.

  A 60-year-old Member of Parliament, making his way down the aisle in the House of Commons for the resumption of a late-night sitting, abruptly tumbled forward and lay between the Government and the Opposition benches, shuddering helplessly at the gradual onset of death.

  On 1–5 just south of San Clemente, California, a 55-year-old executive for a swimming-pool maintenance company died at the wheel of his Lincoln sedan. The car swerved from one side of the highway to the other before colliding into the side of a 7-Eleven truck, overturning, and fiercely catching fire.

  Helplessly, four or five Mexicans who had been clearing the verges stood beside the highway and watched the man burn inside his car, not realizing that he was already dead.

  The civic authorities buried Anna Huysmans at Zandvoort, not far from the sea. Her will had specified a polished black marble headstone, without decoration. It reflected the slowly-moving clouds as if it were a mirror. There were no relatives, no friends, no flowers. Only a single woman, dressed in black, watching from the cemetery boundary as if she had nothing to do with the funeral at all. She was very beautiful, this woman, even in black, with a veil over her face. A man who had come to lay flowers on the grave of his grandfather saw her standing alone, and watched her for a while.

  She turned. He smiled.

  She smiled back.

  Laird of Dunain

  Inverness, Scotland

  The charming Scottish county town of Inverness is situated on the River Ness, at the head of the Caledonian Canal. It is calm and clear and peaceful in the summer, with the spires of St Mary’s Church and the High Church reflected in the river, although you always feel a bracing sense of dramatic history when you walk its streets. Not far away, to the east, a cairn marks the spot where the hopes of Bonnie Prince Charlie were fi
nally crushed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Over 1,200 Highlanders were killed around Leanach Cottage, which still stands today. Most were brought down by the English army’s opening cannonade, and then by the English tactic of ignoring the charging Scotsman in front of him, and bayoneting the exposed side of the Scotsman to the right.

  Laird of Dunain is dedicated to Ann Nicoll, of Dunain Park hotel and restaurant, on which the setting for this story is loosely based. If you haven’t eaten Ann Nicoll’s saddle of lamb in tawny port sauce; or her pigeon breast stuffed with pecan nuts and apples; then you don’t deserve to be a carnivore, like the laird himself.

  LAIRD OF DUNAIN

  “The tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles an’ a’

  “The blankets were thin and the sheets they were sma’

  “The tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles an’ a’

  Out onto the lawns in the first gilded mists of morning came the Laird of Dunain in kilt and sporran and thick oatmeal-colored sweater, his face pale and bony and aesthetic, his beard red as a burning flame, his hair as wild as a thistle-patch.

  Archetypal Scotsman; the kind of Scotsman you saw on tins of shortbread or bottles of single malt whisky. Except that he looked so drawn and gaunt. Except that he looked so spiritually hungry.

  It was the first time that Claire had seen him since her arrival, and she reached over and tapped Duncan’s arm with the end of her paintbrush and said, “Look, there he is! Doesn’t he look fantastic?”

  All nine members of the painting class turned to stare at the Laird as he fastidiously patroled the shingle path that ran along the back of Dunain Castle. At first, however, he appeared not to notice them, keeping his hands behind his back and his head aloof, as if he were breathing in the fine summer air, and surveying his lands, and thinking the kind of things that Highland lairds were supposed to think, like how many stags to cull, and how to persuade the Highlands Development Board to provide him with mains electricity.