I was woken by someone ringing the doorbell. I reached for the lamp over the bed. Then they started knocking on the door. Ringing frantically and knocking. Fuck you Connie Francis, I thought as I tried to shrug myself awake, knock and ring and tap and knock and ring and tap, looping in my stupid head. Then I stopped dead. It was two thirty in the morning. Whoever it was would bring only bad news or bad luck at this hour. I tiptoed into the living room in the dark and approached the line of light that penetrated from the landing. The line vibrated as the hammering increased. I had to do something; the whole building would be awake before long. I opened the door.
It was Rose, the man from the island. The man in the van with Sykes. His hair was unleashed and fell in a torrent down his back. Despite his leather coat, his teeth were chattering and he was shivering. His green eyes were bloodshot and panicked.
‘It’s Sykes,’ he said, grabbing my arm ‘Sykes told me to come and get you.’
‘No.’ I could feel pieces of myself unhinging and clattering to the floor. ‘It’s finished.’
‘If you don’t, he’ll kill himself. He says he will. I know he will.’ Rose shook me, beseeching me. Oh yes, I thought, I see. I understand. You’ve been infected too, you poor bastard.
‘Where is he?’
Rose led me through the rank shrubbery of Fabulina’s garden. The path was almost obliterated. When we reached the front door he struck a match.
‘Power’s off,’ he said, unlocking the door. In the hallway shadows jumped over the conglomeration of furniture, the grotesque hall-stand and the boxes stacked against the walls. There was a candle burning on the newel post at the foot of the staircase, it guttered in the draught sending the stairs skittering up into the darkness.
Sykes was sitting on Fabulina’s bed, cross legged like a mandarin. His face was in shadow. He was wearing her old sequined blouse, it was half unbuttoned and the black scabs stood out on his white chest in the candle-light. The bed was a Chinese marriage bed, a narrow four-posted monstrosity, writhing with gargoyles and demons, spawned from the same brood as the hideous hall-stand. Like the downstairs of the house, which I had seen when I visited Fabulina, this room was crammed with furniture — another baby grand, an ancient jukebox, chaise longues, crippled little tables, japanned and lacquered, laden with junk. The floor was covered with layers of tattered Turkish rugs and on the hearth stood a giant marble angel, taller than life, with arms outstretched in supplication, a candle burning on each palm.
Sykes moved into the light. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. His face was gaunt and white and his pupils were enormous. I presumed he was drugged. He looked at me blankly for a moment in that way he had, and then seemed to focus.
‘Howdy,’ he nearly smiled. ‘Glad you could make it.’ Then his eyes flickered to where Rose was standing behind me in the doorway and they ignited with rage.
‘Fuck off,’ he screamed. ‘Fucking pack up and piss off.’
‘But you said...’ Rose was a big man. Fit and muscular. If he’d had a mind to, he could have beaten Sykes to a pulp. And me too for that matter. But he seemed to diminish and cowered out the door, almost whimpering.
‘Another victim,’ I said. ‘What the fuck am I doing here? What do you want?’
‘I had to see you. I knew you’d come.’
‘Under false pretences.’
‘Would you have come otherwise?’ Sykes got off the bed.
The furniture seemed to be encroaching. I had become so used to my spartan premises that the mayhem of Fabulina’s bedroom deranged me. There was a smell of mummification and decay laced with something sweet, old incense, spilt perfume. Downstairs, the front door opened and slammed. A gust came up the stairs and the candles danced in the hands of the angel. Sykes waded towards me through an eddying pool of light. He took my right hand and licked it. His eyes never left my face. Then he put my fingers into his mouth. He licked the palm of my left hand. Then he knelt on the carpet, took off my shoes and licked my feet. I started to protest but he came up and stopped the words with his tongue. He unbuttoned Fabulina’s sequined blouse and let it fall. Stepped out of his trousers. His body was studded with black spots. He closed my eyes with a kiss and pushed me down onto the floor. Took off my clothes. His mouth was all over me. His hands. Then I was spread-eagled on the floor drenched in a flood of warmth. I opened my eyes. Sykes was kneeling between my legs, pissing onto my chest.