Ramsey Campbell - The Last Voice They Hear

An investigative journalist is in the middle of a publicity tour for his new book when a voice from the past phones him. Someone is killing happily married couples, looking for the right combination of age and attitude, the right sort of family ties. That someone might be the journalist's brother.

for Maro and Caro, David and Jen more red! more red!

Need I say that Jenny helped as always? Tam and Matt were on my side too. This is also the place for me to thank Petra Brandt for pediatric advice, Ned Porter for insight into police matters, and Brenda Neave for details of airport security.

When the phone rang just after midnight he was sure it must be Gail. He threw a handful of cold water in his mouth to clear it of toothpaste and unhooked the receiver from the hotel bathroom wall. "Hi," he said, and then "Hello?"

He'd already heard a newsreader's voice. "Police have confirmed they believe there is a link between the murder of a Sussex couple," she said, and more that he covered up by repeating his hello. He was beginning to think he had a crossed line when he heard the close hollow sound of a face pressed against a receiver. Then the presence went away, and the broadcast voice came forward, reading another story. "This is Geoff Davenport," said Geoff, wanting to get to the end of rather too long a day. "If I'm who you're after..."

He was holding a dead lump of clammy plastic, which he returned to the wall. He switched off the anonymous glare of the bathroom and crossed the extensive panelled bedroom to the phone by the window. Beyond the parks on the far side of Princess Street, tiers of a dozen or more windows supported the gables of the tenements of old Edinburgh against the crags and a glowing stony sky. Very faintly through the double glazing he heard along one of the tracks gathered into Waverley Station a train shaking itself awake. He felt in need of doing so. He reached for the phone to ask the hotel operator if she could trace the call, and it rang.

"Geoff Davenport."

"That was worth waiting for," said Gail, her San Francisco voice hoarse yet sweet, invigorating as a cappuccino. "I hope it wasn't a playmate who stopped me getting through before."

"My only playmate's hundreds of miles away at the end of this line."

"Better had be. Sorry to call so late. The pride of the family's working on some new teeth."

"How is he now?"

"Quiet at last. Lifting weights in his sleep."

Geoff clearly saw younger than three-year-old Paul lying face up in his cot, fists half open above his head. "Will he have any new words to surprise me with when I come home?"

"He nearly said milk today if I'm not kidding myself."

"We knew he was fond of the containers."

"Takes after his dad. So who was that on the line before?"

"Must have been a wrong number. The kind that can't be bothered to say who they are."

"Not even any heavy breathing? Poor Geoff. Edinburgh's been looking after you better than that mostly, I hope."

"Plenty of books to autograph and questions to answer."

"Any awkward ones I could have helped with?"

"When's the next series of The Goods to be was the popular choice."

"To which the answer was..."

"As far as I'm concerned, not until my favourite researcher is ready to work on it. But then I'm only the front man who was lucky enough to be asked to write the book."

"Famous presenter and best-selling writer, you mean. Maybe the channel will have brought the creche back by the time I'm needed. And if not you're the essential one, not me."

"Without you I wouldn't be where I am now."

"So long as you aren't at the weekend, or Paul will be starting to wonder what you look like."

"Show him a tape of The Goods. Help, no, don't. I've done enough trying to live up to how makeup and the camera make me look without having to at home as well."

"How you look at home is how we like it. Better head for bed now so you can look your best for Glasgow. Or are you in bed?"

"Wish I were, with you."

"Sleep well instead. Take the phone off the hook if you like."

"You know I won't."

"That'll help me sleep," said Gail, and then there was a silence, since neither of them liked saying goodbye. "We'll call you tomorrow," she told him instead, and was gone.

Having talked to her allowed Geoff to enjoy his tiredness, of which there was at least a day's worth. He slipped beneath the quilt, the underside of which was several degrees cooler than the room. He seemed hardly to have groped for the light-switch when he was nothing but asleep.

The phone wakened him. As he grappled the receiver off its cradle he saw twelve on the bedside clock reduce itself to one, and the minutes turn into the blank eyes of a double zero. "Hello?" he demanded, wobbling into a sideways crouch draped with the quilt. "Who is it? What's..."

The voice awaiting him might almost have been a recording one hour old. "Police have confirmed they believe there is a link between the murder of a Sussex couple and several similar crimes still under investigation ..."

"Damned bloody..." Geoff snarled, then was sufficiently awake to control himself. "Whoever you are, you need help. I don't think it's my kind of help you need, but if you really want to talk to me I'd appreciate it if at least..."

He wasn't expecting the sudden violent breath in his ear. It seemed to focus the mugginess of the room on him, and made the caller feel uncomfortably close. "I can hear you," Geoff said, "and I'll tell you now..."

This time the breath was measured, and he knew the caller meant to speak. The arm that held the phone was propped on the bedside table, and Geoff used it to hitch himself into a less cramped position. As the newsreader came to the end of the story Geoff s arm began to shiver. He was about to struggle out of the posture in which he'd trapped himself when a voice spoke so close that it felt like part of him. "You didn't stop it, Geoffrey."

As soon as Maureen stepped out of the terminal building at Heathrow the taxi driver caught her eye. She'd barely raised her eyebrows at him when he climbed out of the car. Despite his alertness, he looked sleepy-eyed. His mouth was framed by a moustache and chin-sized beard as black as his curly hair. She guessed him to be in his mid-thirties and trying to appear older. "Where to?" he said with a hint of an East End accent as he opened the passenger door.

"Not far from Windsor. I'll just wait for my husband," said Maureen, and saw Frank butt the automatic doors aside by aiming the baggage trolley at them. "You needn't have hurried, Frank."

"I'm fine now. In you get."

"I'll put your bags in for you, sir."

"Not this one," Frank said, hauling the plastic bag of bottles out of the trolley. Maureen saw him wobble on his weakened ankle as he let go of the support. He came towards her at a stumbling run that his expression couldn't quite deny was faster than he liked, and she gripped his elbow to ease him towards the taxi. "I'm fine," he repeated to convince himself.

"Just making sure you are, that's all. We don't want the grandchildren having to visit you in hospital, now do we?"

He'd only almost fallen. He'd been adjusting the bottles in the bag when he'd stepped off the travelator one pace too late and wrenched the ankle that had never been much good. As he insisted on handing Maureen ahead of him into the taxi she gave a quick kiss to the face that was still the one she'd married, even if the cheeks had grown determined to increase their girth still the same gleam in his deep brown eyes when they met hers, the same wry grin that said there was nothing she didn't know about him. "I'm not about to lose you after all these years," she said.