“I don’t want you sitting up till all hours,” said his mother. “You should give chess a break for this evening.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. I won’t be up late.”
He lingered on the stairs for some moments, listening to the voices of his parents and their quiet laughter as they moved about the kitchen, clearing the dishes and putting things away. He loved to hear them when they were alone together, the secret and intimate pulse of the life they shared. He knew he was never far from their thoughts, but he also liked the way they became something else when there was just the two of them, something fierce and private that he could never enter or be a part of. Knowing this made him feel less responsible.
Back in his room, these matters receded as if they had never been. It was the box he had to think about now. His parents had never set eyes on Colin Wilkes. They didn’t even know he existed. The horror and strangeness of the automaton would not have been apparent to them. For them the box was nothing more than an extravagant toy and here again Michael was glad. Their worry and interference could only make things more complicated.
He wound the key, setting the mechanism in motion. He watched Wilkes and the hunchback go through their immortal motions. The more he looked at them the more it seemed to him as if they were hiding something, as if Levenson’s Ruse was a ruse in more ways than one, a decorative cover for some other more elaborate game that was being played out behind the scenes.
Still, the horror of being defeated in that ridiculous way every time – who would choose that? Michael waited till the charade was over then wound them up again, unable to resist seeing the awful spectacle one more time. The music played, the tango rhythm turning the chess game to a stylised dance.
Santa Fé was in Argentina, where Grandpa Felipe was born and where Michael’s grandmother Lisa von Pelz had emigrated with her family after the war. He felt he should ask Grandma Lisa about Santa Fé, although Michael was certain the place itself had nothing to do with what was going on here, that the tune was part of the joke, the ruse, to make it clear to him that whoever was pulling the strings knew everything about him and then some.
And who would be pulling the strings if not the puppeteer? For the first time since arriving home he thought back to his encounter with Aeneas Lascombe. It was Lascombe that mattered, Michael knew that. Gara Brion in his stupid spider costume had been so much stage dressing. Lascombe had been awful, as pale-faced and sinister as he was in the movie. Michael knew he could not exist in the real world. He was a projection, quite literally the figment of someone’s imagination.
Could he himself have imagined Lascombe into existence? Was Lascombe the secret embodiment of all his fears?
But that still left the matter of Wilkes – Wilkes-in-the-box who had saved him from his tormentors only to warn him against the one thing in his life that mattered to him.
He had briefly thought of Wilkes as a guardian angel. What if he was the devil instead? A devil sent to tempt him away from the path he had chosen, into the same life of doubt and disillusionment that had reduced Wilkes himself to a mannequin in a glass box, playing out his own nightmare in an infinite cycle of games he could never win.
Michael shook his head in irritation at himself. The idea of celestial beings warring over his soul was absurd. Why would they bother with him? He was unimportant, at least thus far, a pawn in the game. He couldn’t even win a county tournament.
He waited till the music stopped and then covered the box with one of the used shirts that lay in a heap on his bedside chair. He could not bear the sight of it any longer, the sight of Wilkes pleading with him not so much to save him as to guess.
He lay back on the bed, wondering if he should watch The Puppeteer, if the film might contain a clue that he had missed. He had the DVD after all, he had all of Ruby Castle’s movies. He decided against it. He had the feeling that seeing that film tonight would be a bad idea. Michael closed his eyes, wishing more than ever that he could talk to Lennox. He had no intention of telling him about Aeneas Lascombe. If the old man really was ill then a horrible story like that would only worry him. But they could talk about chess. If Lennox was in a good mood he might even be persuaded to tell Michael about the time he had seen Nicky Maslanyi beat Garry Kasparov. Then everything would be all right, at least for a while. Michael climbed under the covers and fell asleep.
* * *
He was woken by Luis and Micaela coming upstairs. He switched off the bedside light and turned on his side. The luminous digits of his bedside clock radio were showing 23:30. Michael closed his eyes as his father eased open the door and peeked into the room. Aft er a moment or two, the door eased shut again.
“He’s fast asleep,” his father whispered.
“He’s worn out,” said his mother. “I wish you wouldn’t encourage him to take this chess thing so seriously.”
They went into the bathroom and he could no longer hear them. After their bedroom door finally closed, Michael waited a further half an hour by his clock and then switched on his mobile, holding it under the bedclothes to smother its warm-up jingle. There were no text messages, but he was not expecting any. He queued the number of Lennox’s flat from his contacts then pressed the call key. It was well after midnight, but he imagined that for a man like Colin Wilkes that would still be early.
Michael held the phone to his ear and waited, imagining the sound of Lennox’s phone, ringing in consort in the empty hall.
THE LAMMAS WORM
The first time I saw Leonie Pickering she was standing beside the A419 just east of Cirencester. Someone had scrawled her name in square black capitals on the back of a torn-up cereal packet then fastened the cardboard label around her neck with a piece of string. There was no return address. She was wearing a yellow dress, soiled at the back with mud or excrement.
Her features were odd. I don’t mean deformed, just strangely put together. Her skull was elongated, like the artists’ impressions you see of Neanderthal people. There was a small ridge on her forehead, just above her eyebrows. Her eyes were a liquid black. Her frizzy dark hair looked a mass of tangles, matted together like a piece of old carpet. She seemed not to have a clue where she was.
It was early on a Sunday morning, well before nine, and the roads were quiet. We had played a ground in Marlborough the night before. Cirencester was our next stop and most of the other wagons were already there. I was bringing up the rear with Morrey Shyler and Piet van Aspen. Morrey was taking it slowly because his engine had developed a knock, and I was taking it slowly because I always tended to end up driving with Piet. Piet was moving at a snail’s pace as usual, because that was the fastest his decrepit old jalopy would go.
Morrey braked so suddenly I almost went into the back of him. Steady on, Morrey, I thought, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Then I saw the kid. She was standing at the edge of the road, staring out into the traffic like a dummy in a shop window. I hooted to warn Piet to slow down then pulled over on to the verge. As I switched off the ignition I saw Morrey jump down from his cab. He went straight up to the girl and put out his hand to her, the way you might do with a frightened animal. The girl’s lips drew back from her teeth in a kind of snarl. She looked like an angry baboon.
She was tiny, no more than five feet tall. Shit, I thought, she’ll have his hand off if he’s not careful. I opened the door to get down.