The Grin of the Dark

me to read the nameplate of the apartment opposite ours, but when I try to clear it of half-melted snowflakes I rub the name illegible. Mark is racing upstairs while Natalie follows him at half the speed. I use both hands to hold my case above the stairs so as not to chip them, and then I blunder with it into Natalie's bedroom. 'You've come back the worse for wear,' she says.

'Better handle me gently, then.'

I'm not sure if she's preparing even the slightest of smiles when Mark calls 'Here it is, Simon.'

'Go on, get it over with,' Natalie tells him or me or both, and steps well aside to let me out of her room.

Mark is sitting at my desk. Has he been using my computer in my absence? He can't have logged online without my password, and in any case I don't know why I should be apprehensive. Perhaps it's simply that the notion that anyone else has used the computer makes my work seem vulnerable – and then I notice the book in front of him. It's Surrealistes Malgre Eux. 'Look what someone did,' he says as he hands it to me.

I can see no difference when I open the book. Did I fancy that the text might have changed somehow? I'm about to give up leafing through it and ask Mark what he's so impatient for me to find when I reach the pages that deal with Tubby Thackeray. The margins of both have been pencilled solid black.

While this may be a suitably funereal tribute, I don't like having a book defaced. 'You did this, did you, Mark?'

'I saw it in a film,' he says with a wide smile that I find wholly inappropriate. I'm about to start by telling him so when I realise that the blackness of the borders isn't total after all. Both side margins contain words so faint they're scarcely legible. Before I've finished straining my eyes I'm unconvinced the additions are worth deciphering.

grate

mind

mined

pourtal

vorpal

portle

trope

troop

troupe

let

it

owt

ownly

con

necked

links

recht

lynx

wrecked

sub

con

shush

first

foot

your

Bill

of

men

tall

health

all

fools!

yer

round

first

for

noll

edge

first

be

last

carol

carroll

itty

bitty

god

I'm opening my mouth when I wonder if the annotations are even more meaningless than they appear. 'Mind out, Mark,' I say and pull the desk drawer open. On top of the small stack of posters is the one signed by Thackeray Lane. The wispy script of the first name, before the signature degenerates into an elongated capital, is indeed the same as the handwriting in the book. This seems capable of scrambling my thoughts until I see the explanation. 'Why did you do this, Mark?'

He looks inexplicably confused. 'I told you – '

'You said you got it from a film. About a forger, was it? Full marks for learning fast but not for what you learned. You'll have me thinking films can turn people into criminals. Maybe you can tell me what all this is supposed to mean.'

Before I've finished speaking, Natalie is in the room. 'What has he done now?'

'All I did was highlight the writing for him,' Mark protests as his eyes grow wider and moister. 'That's how they sent secret messages in a film.'

It doesn't sound like a terribly secure method. Rather than criticise the film I wait for him to meet my gaze. 'Are you telling me you didn't write this?'

'I swear I didn't. I only wanted to make it easy for you to see. I looked through the paper and saw it. I was trying to read about Tubby but I couldn't read much.'

I feel like a clever lawyer for remarking 'I didn't know you could read French at all.'

'My computer helped.'

I'm defeated, not to mention bewildered. 'Well, thank you for this,' I have to say, although gratitude isn't involved. 'I'm sorry I spoke to you like that. Blame jet lag if you want.'

As his grin returns Natalie says 'Now we both really think you should go to bed.'

'I'm glad you're home, Simon,' he says and heads for the bathroom. I hope Natalie may agree with or add to his remark, but she only takes the book out of my hand. With little more than a glance at the inscribed margins she says 'How on earth could you think he wrote this?'

'He might have copied it from somewhere. I know he didn't now.'

I'm hopelessly unsure what else I know. The package was damaged when Joe brought it to me in Egham, but how could he have been the forger? The only other possibility seems to be that the autograph on the poster is fake. I've no idea where this explanation leads; it's as distractingly meaningless as too much else that I've encountered since beginning my research. I'm exhausted enough that I sink onto my desk chair. 'Don't say you're going on your computer now,' Natalie objects.

'I should drop Rufus a quick line. There may be a misunderstanding with the bank.'

'You've got time. We'll talk when Mark's asleep.'