The Nameless Read online

  The Nameless

  Ramsey Campbell

  --------------------------------------i

  The Nameless --------------------------------------ii

  "Barbara Waugh is an ordinary enough woman ... but she does have two tragedies in her past: the heart-attack death of her young husband and then the kidnapping-murder of her little girl, Angela. But it is now nine years later, and she has buried her memories in her work. Until one day, she picks up the phone and hears a voice call her `Mummy`; after that, she becomes obsessed with the idea that Angela is alive and still being held captive by the people who abducted her. ...

  "Because the disembodied, girlish voice (can it really be Angela?) directs her to a house with a bricked-up gate off the Portobello Road, Barbara, despising herself for gullibility, goes there to reconnoiter. ...

  "The house is deserted all right, but don't breathe a sigh of relief too soon.

  "The chilling, revolting, nerve-curdling worse is yet to come. ...

  "The creepiness of THE NAMELESS is unassailable."

  --The Washington Post ------------------------------------comiii

  Look for all these Tor books by Ramsey Campbell

  DARK COMPANIONS

  THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER

  THE FACE THAT MUST DIE

  INCARNATE

  THE NAMELESS

  OBSESSION --------------------------------------iv

  THE NAMELESS

  RAMSEY CAMPBELL

  TOR

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK --------------------------------------v

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  THE NAMELESS

  Copyright ^can 1981 by Ramsey Campbell

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Reprinted by arrangement with Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

  First Tor printing: February 1985

  A TOR Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

  49 West 24 Street New York. N.Y. 10010

  ISBN: 0-812-58125-3 CAN. ED.: 0-812-58126-1

  Printed in the United States of America

  098765432 --------------------------------------vi

  For tamsin

  (who helped without even knowing) with my love ------------------------------------comvii

  For help and advice given while writing this novel I am especially grateful to Robert Aickman, Tony Beck, Arthur Cullimore, Phil Edwards, Kay McCauley, Christine Ruth, Tim Shackleton, Bob Shaw (the Glasgow science fiction fan rather than the Lakeland science fiction writer), Carol Smith, and John Thompson. I owe even more to Barry Forshaw, Peter and Susie Straub, and Thorn and Alice Tessier, for their impeccable hospitality during my field trips to London, and I have a special thank you to Harlan Ellison and his feats of total recall.

  It goes without saying that the Otford nursery school is my invention, and up to the time of writing there is no Barclaybank machine in Glasgow. ------------------------------------viii

  The Nameless --------------------------------------ix

  Ramsey Campbell --------------------------------------x

  The Nameless

  1 --------------------------------------1

  Prologue: 1940

  The yard was larger than a football field, but it felt much smaller. As he stepped into the yard, the walls closed in. The summer sky and the hills were bright as posters, gulls glided screaming over San Francisco Bay, but once you were inside the walls it was impossible to be aware of anything but them. Perhaps it was only the hundreds of faces staring down, the voices shouting propositions like desperate whores, yet it felt as if the walls were leaning over you, as if they'd grown senile with immeasurable misery and bitterness. Sometimes it seemed you could feel the stones aching.

  The tall man reacted to none of this. As he stalked across the yard, following his shadow, which was thin as his limbs and black as his clothes, his long sharp face was expressionless. Only his eyes were bright and purposeful. He reached the north cell block and strode in as if he had --------------------------------------2

  no time to waste. Nevertheless, when he came to the green door he stopped and peered through the window.

  There wasn't much to see: just a room nine feet across, whose walls glared the same sickly green as the door. You couldn't tell by looking that the steel walls alone weighed over two tons. The two empty chairs that stood in the room might have belonged to a dentist or a barber who had gone out for lunch--except that nobody who had to sit in one of those chairs ever got up again.

  After a while he strode along to the elevator and stepped in. If anything, his eyes were brighter now. But they were expressionless by the time the guard at the top of the shaft unlocked the elevator to let him through, and the guard who searched him in the outer cubicle hardly glanced at his face. In a minute the cubicle door was locked behind him, and he was on Death Row.

  It was much quieter than the yard, but the silence felt as though it were locked in. There was an atmosphere of men on edge with waiting while pretending not to wait at all. It hung in the air like gas, invisible but suffocating. Eyes that looked baggy with shadow stared at him from cells narrower than the stretch of a man's arms and little more than twice the length. Behind each man, beneath a caged light bulb, was nothing but a stool and a bunk and a seatless toilet. Perhaps the eyes were dark with more than shadows.

  The tall man ignored all this. He strode up to Santini, who stood rattling his keys and tasting last night's meatballs, and wondering what the sharp-faced guy looked like. Maybe if he could figure that he wouldn't feel so tense. Or maybe that came with the job. Whenever they brought a con into the Row Santini grew nervous, in case the sight of the place he was going to spend the rest of his life in drove the guy berserk. Santini always breathed easier when the new one was locked up. --------------------------------------3

  "I am Doctor Ganz," the tall man said briskly. "I am here to see Frank Bannon."

  Santini might have been a specimen in a laboratory, the way the guy was looking at him. No doubt Ganz was here to find things to bitch about. Psychiatrists and attorneys, they ought to be locked up in here for a while; they'd soon see how necessary everything was. Only they never looked as cool as this guy. Anyone who looked as cool as that after a walk past the gas chamber, there had to be something wrong with him.

  When Santini unlocked the interrogation room, which was scarcely larger than a pay toilet, Ganz sat down at the far side of the table. His elbows rested on it, his fingertips touched his bony cheeks, and Santini almost realized what he looked like. As Santini turned to join the other lineman, who was waiting to unlock the cell, he noticed that Ganz's eyes were gleaming.

  Bannon glanced up with a faint vague smile when they opened his cell, and Santini felt sick to his stomach. Of all the animals they kept locked up in San Quentin, Bannon was the worst. Santini couldn't think of what he had done to that girl without wanting to puke. Somehow the way Bannon looked made it worse: always neat and clean, face scrubbed and so untroubled you couldn't even tell how old he was. Now Governor Olson had got up off his ass in Sacramento and was bitching about prison reform, about the dungeons and the rest of it--but by God, Bannon deserved to be left down there without a blanket if anyone did. Santini would have helped the guards with the rubber hoses if Bannon looked like getting out of hand. Maybe a taste of the lime and water treatment might make him cry a few tears for the girl.

  The line-men escorted Bannon across the corridor, his slippers flapping. "Thank you, Mr. Santini," he said, and Santini could have knocked him down. The son of a bitch ---------------
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  observed the rules so carefully you'd think he enjoyed them. Santini slammed the door of the windowless room and locked it, but that didn't lessen his anger or the stale taste of meatballs. He was turning away when he heard Ganz say "Good afternoon."

  You could forget the time of day in here, but that wasn't why Santini turned back. "Maybe I'll stick around here for a while in case he gets through quickly," he said.

  The other line-man moved away, shrugging. No doubt he realized that Santini meant to eavesdrop, but Santini didn't care. It wasn't only that he wanted to hear what Bannon had to say about himself, the son of a bitch--it was more that he wanted to know what made the man in black so eager to talk to him.

  At first Ganz sounded like any do-gooder with the usual assholed questions. Did Bannon ever feel depressed? Did they give him books if he wanted to read? Had he seen his wife since he was brought here? Would he like to see her? "Sure, I'd like to see her if she wants to come," Bannon said.

  "How would you describe your married life? Satisfactory on the whole?"

  "I'd say we had a pretty good life. She didn't complain much, and I never had any reason to. I was picking up good money as a senior engineer. We lived as well as any of our friends." Santini's fists were clenching: the son of a bitch probably had a better marriage than he did--he didn't look forward to home leave any longer, not when she'd start chattering like a monkey as soon as he came in the door, not when greasy pasta came with every meal. No wonder she was twice the size she'd been when he had married her.

  He made himself stop listening to himself, for Ganz was --------------------------------------5

  asking, "Do you remember what you did that brought you here?"

  "Sure I do. I'm not crazy, you know. They said I wasn't at the trial."

  "And how do you feel now about what you did?"

  "I feel all right. I can talk about it if you want."

  His indifference was appalling. Santini wasn't sure if he could bear to listen. He could understand some violence--a man hitting on his wife now and then, you couldn't blame a guy for that--but not what this animal had done.

  "Yes, I'd like you to talk about it," Ganz said. "I want you to tell me everything you did and how it felt. Will you do that?" His tone had been professionally neutral, but now Santini thought he heard a hint of eagerness. He risked a glance through the small window in the door, and realized instantly what Ganz looked like. With his gleaming eyes, his elbows propping his thin arms, his long hands framing his sharp ageless face, he looked very much like a praying mantis.

  "Well, where do you want me to start?" Bannon said. "I just saw this woman in the street one day and followed her.``

  "Why did you follow her?"

  "Because she was so good-looking, I guess. It turned out she was going home, so I found out where she lived, in an apartment building. Only I didn't think I could do anything in there, in case someone overheard."

  "What did you have in mind to do? You were thinking of rape at that time?"

  "Not at all." Bannon sounded offended. "I told you, I had a pretty good marriage. I never thought of being unfaithful, ever. All I knew was I had to get this woman alone somewhere we wouldn't be interrupted. The more I followed her, the more I knew I had to do that." --------------------------------------6

  "You followed her over several weeks. Did your wife notice anything unusual about your behavior, do you think?"

  "She said in court she never did. I just told her I was out on jobs. She had no reason to disbelieve me."

  "So eventually you got to the woman you were following. Tell me about that."

  "Well, I knew by now she worked in a factory, so I decided one morning to see if I could get in there. There were hundreds of people going in, nobody noticed me. Nobody questioned me or anything, even when I followed her to the section where she worked. I was just wondering if I could get her alone when I found an old pair of overalls someone must have used for mopping up. Well, I went behind a machine and put them on, and once I'd smeared oil on my face my own wife wouldn't have known me. I didn't like getting dirty and looking like some kind of junior employee, but I knew I had to. I went straight to the woman and made her understand I needed her to unlock the storeroom just across the way. I guess you know she was a supervisor. Well, she couldn't question me because of all the noise. She unlocked the door and I went in after her."

  Ganz sat forward. "And then you--was

  "Well, first I grabbed her keys and locked us in. That only took a few moments. Then I threw her on the floor and sat on her chest. She had her right arm free and I was kneeling on the other. I guess you know what I did then. I took the fingers off her right hand with a pair of pliers."

  "That must have taken some time," Ganz said conversationally, and Santini had to bite hard on his knuckles to control himself. "Did her screams bother you?"

  "No, not really. I knew nobody could hear them for the noise outside."

  "Then how were you feeling?"

  "I don't think I felt anything much, except maybe as if I --------------------------------------7

  were dreaming. I remember it all seemed to be happening a long way from me. Wait, I did feel one thing--sort of disappointed there wasn't more to it, somehow."

  "And why did you think you were doing this to her?"

  "I didn't think about it much. I just felt it was something that had to be done."

  "As soon as you'd finished, you left her."

  "That's right. I locked her in and walked straight through the factory gates. They must have thought she was somewhere else in the factory, because they didn't find her for a while. I dumped the overalls as soon as nobody could see me and washed up in a public toilet, then I went in to work. I mean, nobody was going to ask why I was a little late. The only thing was, I had to buy a suit to match the one I'd dirtied up. Once I got rid of the dirty suit in the furnace, everything was fine."

  "How did you feel when you learned your victim wasn't dead?"

  "Well, I was hoping she wasn't. I was afraid she might have died from loss of blood. For a while there I felt pretty bad when I thought about it. If she'd died I don't know what I would have done. When I read that the doctors had managed to save her I felt so good I had to tell my wife I'd landed an important contract, so she wouldn't wonder why I was laughing."

  "Then there is a gap of a few months. Were you ever afraid the police might trace you?"

  "To tell the truth, I never thought about it. I kind of felt as if what had happened to her was someone else's responsibility."

  "But you were waiting for her, weren't you?"

  "Oh, sure. I mean, I couldn't have got to her while she was in the hospital. It didn't bother me to wait, I just put it out of my mind. I knew I had to finish what I'd started." --------------------------------------8

  "Tell me about that."

  Son of a bitch, Santini was muttering through teeth that were clenched so hard that they ached, goddamned sadistic son of a bitch. He couldn't have said which of them he meant. "Well," Bannon said, "I kept watching her apartment, so I knew when she came home. Her mother had moved in there already to look after her. I went up there one morning, when I figured most of the neighbors would be out of the building. I wasn't sure what I had to do this time, so I took along a box of tools."

  "Her mother answered the door."

  "That's right, and she let me in when I said the caretaker had sent me up to check the wiring. Then I guess she decided she ought to have called him first, because she went for the phone. I knocked her cold before she could do anything, then I went to her daughter."

  "What did you feel when you saw her?"

  "Sort of disappointed. She wasn't nearly as good-looking. I mean, she must have been in her thirties and yet she looked older than her mother. She had something on her right hand, a kind of surgical mitten, I guess. I remember I was uncomfortable, the way freaks make you feel. I guess I felt disgusted with her for looking that way. She was sit
ting up in bed, listening to Count Basie on the radio. She sort of woke up from dozing when I came in. She saw the toolbox, and then she looked at my face, and I could see she recognized me right away."

  "And what did you do then?"

  "Well, first I had to stop her screaming in case anyone could hear," Bannon said, and that was when Santini blocked his ears. He knew enough of what had happened to convince him that he couldn't bear to hear any more. He could imagine Bannon's victim, home at last and feeling as safe as she would ever be able to feel, looking up to see him in her bedroom. He swallowed the sour taste of --------------------------------------9

  meatballs and watched Ganz, whose eyes were even brighter now. He was supposed to be a psychiatrist, but Santini thought he should be locked up himself.

  It must have been five minutes before he saw Ganz relax and felt he could risk listening. "When her mother saw what I was doing she ran straight down the hall," Bannon was saying. "I could hear her screaming and banging at all the doors, even though I'd turned the radio all the way up."

  "But you were still there when the police arrived."

  "Well, the woman wasn't dead then. I wanted to finish if I could."

  "How did you feel when you were arrested?"

  "Frustrated, I guess. I felt I hadn't finished. And then I felt that well, they'd caught me, there was nothing else I could do."

  "Is that how you feel now?"

  "To tell you the truth, I just feel kind of exhausted, deep down inside myself. I mean, I did all those things to her, I guess they have to punish me for that. It doesn't seem to matter, somehow. Only I don't know, when I try to think about what I did, why I did it--was

  Ganz's long hands reached out toward him. "What? What are you trying to say?"

  "Well, I feel somehow I was doing it for someone else."

  Santini felt restless and furious--it was just the usual psychiatric bullshit, even if he hadn't heard it put that way before--but Ganz was nodding. "Yes. Yes, I see. Well, you have been very patient in answering my questions. Is there a question you would like to ask me?"

  "Sure," Bannon said at once, "if you can tell me why I did all that to her."

  Something like a smile dawned on Ganz's face. "You ------------------------------------com10