Suddenly, he was aware of how hungry he felt – he was ravenous. He closed the bedroom door as quickly as he could without making a noise, and crept downstairs to the kitchen.
He found cold meats and some of Liz's home-made rolls in the fridge, but the meat tasted oddly unsatisfying, no doubt because he was tired; it had been an exhausting day. He finished chewing at last, then, when he'd washed the dishes, he went into the long room to pour himself a large Jack Daniels and find something to watch.
There was nothing that could hold him. Even when he played a cassette of a Hitchcock film he felt restless, more aware of the flickering of the image than of the film itself. It felt as if a storm were building up behind the film, with distant flickers of lightning. He couldn't read either. He found that he was suffering from a neurosis he'd experienced when he had begun writing books: if he tried to read someone else's fiction, he was so aware of the effort behind every sentence that there was no flow at all to his reading. Eventually he put the book aside and put on a record of a Brahms quartet. Perhaps that would calm his nerves, still jangling after the stress and strain of the last couple of weeks.
Soon he dozed. Traces of old dreams troubled him: Anna running, the claw reaching out to fasten on her, drag her back… Couldn't he have dreamed that because he'd already known about the Leopard Men? He'd known something of them before he met Hetherington, but now it seemed impossible to recall how much. He nodded, started awake with an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He didn't want to sleep just yet, because there was something that needed explaining. In his moment of dozing he'd forgotten it again. The Brahms was twining and unravelling its complicated melodies. He turned off the sound and stood by the hi-fi, trying to remember.
His head was empty, and felt hollow with the sound of the sea; never before had it seemed so loud. He paced up and down the long room, glancing now and then at the mantelpiece. Whatever the answer was, it wasn't there. Moonlit waves were frozen in Liz's painting on the wall, while the sea roared outside in the dark. He licked his lips – the unpleasant taste was still there – and tried to retrace his thoughts. Leopard Men, Hetherington, Leopard Men… cups of tea, the sound of clippers on a lawn… He felt as if he had no control over his thoughts. Hetherington, Hetherington…
And then he thought of Marlowe. At once he knew. Why had Marlowe killed himself when he'd already got rid of the claw?
Alan hardly noticed he was still pacing back and forth as if the room were a cage. Surely he needn't worry about Marlowe? No doubt Hetherington had been right – Marlowe must have been put under intolerable strain by his research into the Leopard cult… But Alan was remembering what Marlowe had said on the way to the airport: how he shouldn't have brought his daughter to Nigeria, how he had to get her away before it was too late. How much had Marlowe hinted that he hadn't dared admit openly? Had it already been too late?
All at once Alan was afraid for Anna. Surely he needn't feel that way – and yet he had to see her. He took a last gulp of Jack Daniels in an attempt to drown the lingering taste – could it just be the taste of sleep and stale drink? -then he headed for the stairs. He hadn't reached them when he felt an inexplicable compulsion not to go up – not until he'd called Liz home from the hotel. Christ, hadn't he the courage to go upstairs by himself? Besides, whatever would Liz think? She was already suspicious of him.
He crept upstairs. He felt pleased by how silent he could be; after all, he didn't want to wake Anna, did he? Outside the window, the darkness was breathing long, slow, moist breaths. At the end of the back garden the hedge looked wet with dimness; beyond that, the darkness was solid as tar.
He tiptoed along the hall to Anna's room and inched the door open. Her face-was still toward him, but her posture was contorted, as if she were trying to fight off an unpleasant dream. Without warning, and for no reason he could grasp, he found himself thinking: thank God, she was asleep – he mustn't wake her, mustn't let her see him. Why not, for God's sake? He backed out of the room, afraid as much of his own feelings as of waking her. Slowly he eased the door closed, so slowly that it seemed it would never meet the frame. It had inches to go when it gave a faint creak, and she woke.
Seventeen
It was broad daylight when Anna went to bed, and she felt as if she would never fall asleep. She lay and watched her bedroom curtains darkening as the sun moved on; she listened to cars on the coast road, whirring into the distance until they sounded smaller than ants. She was waiting to hear daddy's car.
Mummy must be waiting too, downstairs. She knew mummy was nervous, waiting to tell him that the metal claw had gone. That didn't worry Anna – she was glad it was gone, she hoped it never came back – but mummy's nervousness disturbed her. It wasn't like mummy to feel that way about daddy; they had always seemed sure of each other before, and that had made Anna feel sure of them too. The idea that that could change disturbed her more than anything else she could think of. Somehow, all at once, everything seemed to have gone wrong. A thief had got into their home, and she couldn't understand how he'd managed it when she'd been in her playroom across the hall; it made her feel she was to blame for not seeing. Mummy and Granny Knight had been arguing about her, too, and she felt as if that was her fault: she wouldn't have minded going to see Granny Knight, she was just a bit funny sometimes – old people were. She couldn't tell daddy or even mummy how she felt, and that made it worse. She was sure there were things they weren't telling her. They hadn't told her about Joseph.
He must have been the man she'd known was hiding near the house – the man who had killed the poor goat. Yesterday, when mummy had made her stay in her playroom, she was sure they'd found out something they didn't want her to know. As soon as mummy was out of the way, Anna had run upstairs to the toilet and then crept into her bedroom. That was how she'd seen the policeman dragging Joseph to the van. She'd felt sorry for Joseph, especially when his arms were twisted up behind his back, until she'd caught sight of his nails, his long, bloody nails. He must have killed another goat, for there were only two now.
She hadn't been meant to see Joseph. She'd dodged back from her window before daddy could see her and had hidden in her playroom, feeling sick. So Joseph had been the one – that must have been why he'd behaved so strangely toward her. At least the goats were safe now. But instead of being relieved, all she felt was guilt: she hadn't been supposed to see him – she'd seen something that she wasn't meant to see. She wondered if Joseph had seen her, if he would come back to punish her for watching…
Now she felt worse. He must have done all that to the poor goat with just his nails. Mummy had told her that the police had locked up the man who'd hurt the goats – Anna wished she could have told mummy that she knew who he was, but that would have meant admitting she'd been spying. And anyway, she was still frightened, even if he was locked up. The house didn't feel the same, didn't even smell the same; she had nothing to rely on. She lay in her room, which was growing larger and more vague as it grew dark, dreading the moment when daddy would find out the claw was gone. She was listening for his car, and mistaking the sound of the waves for a car in the distance, when she fell asleep.
She dreamed that Joseph had got into the house. Mummy and daddy were arguing downstairs, so loudly that they didn't hear her when she cried out to them. She ran to her window, but it wouldn't open. She thumped it with her fists and cried for help, but none of the crowd of people strolling by could hear – not even Granny Knight, who didn't seem to want to look at her. Everything was sunny out there, everyone wore bright clothes; only her room was very dark. When she heard Joseph on the stairs, she couldn't scream. She couldn't hear her parents now; perhaps they were no longer in the house. She ran back to the bed and hid under the blankets.
She tried to lie absolutely quiet and still as he came into the room. It was no use. The longer she held her breath, the louder her gasp would have to be; she knew that from playing hide and seek. He was padding toward the bed, reaching out with his long nails, and somehow she knew that when she saw him it would be even worse than she feared. Perhaps he'd brought the goat's head, perhaps he was wearing it on his. She was dreaming; she knew it was a dream, she must wake before he reached her, before he pulled the blankets off her and she saw. If she cried out she would wake, if she could just stop holding her breath, if she could just move a muscle. Her fear had her frozen, she was trapped. She felt him reach for her, his nails dragging at the blankets like a dog's claws, and she choked and cried out and woke.
She was lying on her side in a knot of blankets. She had been dreaming, she was awake now, the dream would go away. She forced herself to open her eyes to make it go more quickly. The room was very dark, as dark as it had been in her nightmare, but that wasn't why she screamed. A figure with nails so long that the light from
