Bod worse than any beating could have done.
He reached the iron railings that bounded the Potter's Field, and slipped between them.
'Hullo?' he called. There was no answer. Not even an extra shadow in the hawthorn bush. 'I hope I didn't get you into trouble, too,' he said.
Nothing.
He had replaced the jeans in the gardener's hut — he was more comfortable in just his grey winding sheet — but he had kept the jacket. He liked having the pockets.
When he had gone to the shed to return the jeans, he had taken a small hand-scythe from the wall where it hung, and with it he attacked the nettle-patch in the potter's field, sending the nettles flying, slashing and gutting them till there was nothing but stinging stubble on the ground.
From his pocket he took the large glass paperweight, its insides a multitude of bright colours, along with the paint pot, and the paintbrush.
He dipped the brush into the paint and carefully painted, in brown paint, on the surface of the paperweight, the letters EH and beneath them he wrote WE DON'T FORGET.
It was almost daylight. Bedtime, soon, and it would not be wise for him to be late to bed for some time to come.
He put the paperweight down on the ground that had once been a nettle patch, placed it in the place that he estimated her head would have been, and, pausing only to look at his handiwork for a moment, he went through the railings and made his way, rather less gingerly, back up the hill.
'Not bad,' said a pert voice from the Potter's Field, behind him. 'Not bad at all.'
But when he turned to look, there was nobody there.
JOEL KNIGHT
Calico Black, Calico Blue
IT gave him A bit of a fright when he saw it. Having had a particularly objectionable day at the office, and navigated his way up three flights of stairs due to the inactivity of the lift, it was, in all honesty, the last thing he had expected to see. It was rested against his front door at a slight angle due to the pile of the doormat: a child's doll; not one of those modern things that cry and need their nappies changing, but a china doll, the kind he always thought of as being quintessential Victoriana. It was wearing a blue calico dress and tiny shoes with tinier buckles. Above painted rosy cheeks its eyes were black and dull. He picked the thing up and held it. There was something strange about the hair: it was very fine, and more akin to the strands of a cobweb than any imitation of a child's head of hair. He brought the doll into the flat and left it on the table in the hall whilst he found pen and paper. With its legs dangling over the edge of the tabletop it did actually look remarkably realistic. He wondered to whom it belonged; obviously to a resident of the flats, or to a younger relative or visitor, as whoever had left it would had to have gained access to the building using the security code. He wrote a very brief message — CHILD'S DOLL FOUND. PLEASE CONTACT DAVID HARNECK. FLAT 12 — leaving his telephone number underneath. On his way to work the following morning, he pinned the note to the board in the entrance hall: the doll itself he had moved to the spare room.
It was a woman's voice. There was a trace of an accent that he could not place.
'You have found my doll?'
The telephone had been ringing as he entered the flat, and he stood in the hallway, slightly out of breath.
'Yes. It was outside my front door,' he replied.
'Thank you so much. I have been very worried.'
'That's quite alright.' He began attempting to manoeuvre himself out of his jacket, whilst balancing the handset between his shoulder and cheek. He was making rather a hash of it.
'I hope she has not caused you any trouble?'
'No, no trouble at all,' he replied.
'I will come up for her. I live at number nine.'
With no further word he heard a faint click, and then the line was dead. He replaced the handset, and disentangled himself from the jacket, consciously leaving his shoes on. He had barely got to the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of water when the doorbell rang, once, then twice. He moved quickly into the hallway — stubbing the front of his shoe in a bump in the carpet in the process — and opened the front door. There was a woman in the hallway. She was standing a few feet back from the actual doorway at a distance that betrayed possible reticence, apprehension or over-politeness. She showed no sign of exertion, in spite of the fact that, given the amount of time elapsed since the telephone call and the doorbell sounding, she would had to have moved very quickly indeed. Her hands were neatly folded in front of her: her hair very long and dark: her skin pale, and imbued with a slight translucent quality. She was wearing an evening dress that was more than a little ill fitting. She was regarding him with very large eyes. Then she spoke:
'Mr David Harneck?'
'Yes,' he replied.
'I believe you have found something of mine,' she said.
That accent again: that which he had heard on the phone. He stood looking at her for a few moments, feeling a little out of sorts.
'You've come for the doll?' he said.
'For the doll, yes,' she replied.
There was something slightly haughty about her manner, and yet, there was more to it than that. Regal, may have been a more adequate, if potentially over-generous description.
'Do you want to come in for a minute?' he said, instinctively.
'Thank you, no,' came the response.
There was something so final about the statement that he knew there was nothing to be done by way of dissuasion.
'I have your doll here,' he said. 'It's in the spare room, I won't be a moment.'
He left her in the doorway and went to retrieve the doll. It was, of course, exactly as he had left it — on top of the bookcase, but faced down, to afford less opportunity for it falling. When he returned to the front door with the doll in one hand he observed that she had moved hardly a muscle. Her eyes glinted when she saw the doll, and in the light from the hallway it seemed her eyes had changed colour, although of this he could not be sure. Her expression — hitherto one of utter earnestness — brightened: the ghost of a smile played across her lips.
'You are really most kind,' she said. 'She is such a silly thing, quite — but what is the word — strong-willed, is, I think you say.'
She took the doll from him and held it, as would a child. It was an odd gesture, and one that did not exactly become a woman in her early thirties, as he presumed her to be. He chose to make light of her utterance about the doll possessing a strong will.
'She often wanders off then, does she?'
'Oh, yes,' the woman replied. 'She is full of mischief. I sometimes think she is not happy in our family.'
To that, he had no response. The woman was obviously a little eccentric, and had carried too many traits — often endearing in a child — into her adult life that were best left behind or outgrown.
'You are most kind,' she repeated. 'Will you allow me to repay you for your kindness in some way?'
'I can assure you that's not necessary. It was nothing, really.'
'Then, perhaps,' she said, 'you would come to have a drink with me. I live at number nine. Not this evening, I'm afraid. I am busy this evening, for I have other guests, but shall we say tomorrow?'
He hesitated for a moment, and then something made him acquiesce.
'That would be very pleasant.'
He held out his hand. She looked at it, and then turned. She still had the doll in her hand, dangling — though
