Thieving Fear

'Had I better let you go?' Just as reluctantly Ellen added 'Unless you've got something else for me.'

'I would have but the computer at the library went silly.' He was painfully aware how feeble this must seem, and as he faced the window again he said 'What have you turned up, then?'

'Do you mind if I don't talk about it just now?'

Hugh didn't. Indeed, he'd regretted the question before it had finished leaving his mouth, because it seemed bound up with the disquiet that his glimpse in the window had planted in his mind. The clouds had bared the sun, erasing the image of the room, leaving him unable to confirm that he'd seen the reflection of the mirror on the wardrobe and within it his own head. Since it would have been a back view, he couldn't have glimpsed anything like a face, never mind one that appeared to be peering out of its own darkness – soil in the eye-sockets, perhaps, and deep within it the shrunken vicious glint of buried eyes. If this was how having an imagination felt, he was glad he wasn't Ellen. 'Don't till you want to,' he said. 'I know writers aren't supposed to talk about their writing till it's done.'

'That's what you think it's about, is it, Hugh?'

Was he presuming by attempting not to? As he searched for any comment it would be safe to utter, Ellen said 'I'm sorry. I don't meant to be nasty to you.'

'You can if it helps.'

'It doesn't,' she said, but added 'Thanks for going to all that trouble for me.'

'I'd have done more if I wasn't stopped.'

'Stopped.'

The tone of her echo no longer tempted him to laugh. 'By their old computer,' he said.

'Oh yes, you did say.'

What was troubling her? Was she working too hard? Hugh made a last attempt to be of use. 'Are you taking a day off now and then?'

'For what, Hugh? Sitting inside myself? Having a good look at myself?' Ellen let out such a disgusted sound that he assumed she was more than impatient with any suggestion of indolence. 'I need to lose myself in my writing if I can,' she said.

'I expect that's what writers have to do, but couldn't you take a day off and still be sort of working?'

'How?'

Was a trace of the reflection confusing his view of the street? He was unable quite to grasp either while saying 'You could go and look at Thurstaston and see if it brings anything into your head.' When she kept her thoughts about this to herself, her silence made him babble 'It's close enough for an afternoon out, isn't it? You're the closest of anyone.'

He wasn't sure what she whispered then: surely not that she wished otherwise. 'I'm the next,' he blurted. 'I could come with you if you wanted.'

As soon as the offer stumbled out of his mouth he knew how mistaken it was. He might have imagined that the utterance had robbed him of the ability to put it into practice. He couldn't go with Ellen or indeed with anyone just now. So long as he faced the window he would know which way his brother had to come, but if he turned around he would lose that sense and everything that depended on it. He was striving to ignore any hint of a reflection on the glass when Ellen said 'I don't think that would be a good idea either.'

The longer they kept talking, the more desperate he might grow to admit his state. He mustn't trouble her with it, especially since he would be telling his brother about it very soon. At least Rory had a reason to come after all. 'I'd better let you go, then,' Hugh said. 'Good luck with your books.'

'Speak soon,' Ellen said as if she could think of no other response.

Hugh switched off her call and held the mobile in his hand, whichever of them wasn't gripping the windowsill. Though the sky had grown too clear to back any reflection, he wasn't going to turn so much as an inch. No face was peering out of the darkness it had brought. Nobody was creeping closer, as silent as the depths of the earth, to wait for him to look. None of this could help Ellen or have anything to do with her, and so he should put it behind him, though he would have preferred a different choice of words. He wasn't a writer and shouldn't try to think like one. He should concentrate on the street. Rory would arrive that way, the long way, the one that took longest but certainly not much longer. Long before Hugh was unable not to glance over his shoulder he would be rewarded by the sight of Rory's van, and then – he was so sure of it that he didn't need to speak the hope aloud, to hear how empty the room and the house were except for himself – everything would begin to be just as familiar.

SEVENTEEN

'Anyway, I should be getting back to work. How's yours?'

'I'm working on an idea. I'll say ta-ta. Hugh may be trying to call.'

'Let's hope so,' Charlotte said and looked up from nesting her mobile behind a pile of opening chapters accompanied by letters, most of them addressed to her by name and some of them spelled right, to find Glen loitering within earshot. He took her glance as an invitation to sidle behind her desk, perhaps so as only to murmur 'Problem?'

'I couldn't say.'

'Anything I should know about? Anything connected with us?'

She hoped he meant the pronoun to stand for the publishers. The sooner she satisfied him, the sooner he might leave her to feel a little less boxed in. 'Family matters,' she said.

'They can be the worst. I get the feeling maybe these aren't, no?'

'More like a problem in communication. Families have those.'

'You bet. Remind me to tell you about a bunch of mine sometime. So you don't think it's anything to put our author off her work for us.'

'I was just saying she's shaping up to be a professional.'

'That's what I like to hear. I guess she must have too.'

'I imagine she might, but I wasn't talking to her. It was another of my creative cousins.'

'Sounds like my kind of family. Who's this one?'

'He's an artist.'

'Professional? Can we use him?'

It was partly Charlotte's sense of being trapped in the meagre space behind her desk, not to mention underground and under observation, that made her retort 'I don't think he'd be your sort of professional.'

'Hey, don't be so sure you know what I'm about.'

Charlotte glanced over the top of the box that contained her desk, but none of their colleagues appeared to be listening. Perhaps they were too intent on keeping their jobs under the new regime, unless eavesdropping on a disagreement might help. 'Forgive me,' she murmured, 'I didn't mean –'

'It's OK, I'm not blaming you.' Glen pushed a heap of bound American proofs towards Charlotte, clearing a corner of her desk to sit on. 'Just because I have to focus on what our bosses want,' he said low and aimed it down at her, 'all that means is leaving other stuff at home. It doesn't mean I stop appreciating what else matters.'

Above his head the aura of concentrated light around a fluorescent tube exhibited how low the concrete ceiling was – had always been. 'So who's your artist?' Glen said. 'What's his claim to fame?'

'Rory Lucas. I won't be offended if you haven't heard of him.'

'Wasn't he the guy who made the slide show of a bunch of famous paintings that you had to watch with all the random noises and bits of music?'

'Extra Sense,' Charlotte said, doing her best to hide her surprise. 'You heard about it, then.'

'More than heard. Went to see it when it was at the Tottenham Gallery. I liked the way the soundtrack changed how the pictures felt to you. And then I hung around to watch other people reacting. That was fun too.'

'I'm sorry I didn't see you. I went a few times.'

'Yeah, well, I was there. We missed each other.'

Charlotte hadn't intended to suggest otherwise, but before she could say so Glen said 'Anyway, I'm with you