Read Online Ramsey Campbell - 1976 - The Doll Who Ate His Mother by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online

with
books like those,” he said.
                 Clare
realized how easily she had let Edmund persuade her; he had no room for faint
amusement now. She felt wickedly pleased. “With respect,” he said, “you haven’t
read them. They’ve been praised by criminologists.”
                 “Experts,”
Mr. Pugh cursed.
                 They
emerged from the stalls as he hurried into his office. Clare heard the lady
from the kiosk saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Pugh. I didn’t mean what I said. It was
a dreadful thing to say.”
                 “All
right, Mrs. Freeman. Thank you for waiting.”
                 A
few of the lines on his face had softened. Clare saw Edmund note that too.
Edmund motioned her to the vacant chair, then stood
gazing down at Mr. Pugh across the desk. “In my own defence ,”
he said, “I must say nobody has ever accused my books of inciting crime. Not
like some of the films nowadays. Aren’t there some films you wish you didn’t
have to show?”
                 “Of
course there are.” He checked the lady’s calculations rapidly. “But they’re
what the public wants these days. You can’t go against the public.”
                 “Well,
that’s it. You show them because it’s your job.”
                 “That’s
right. My job,” he said, locking the safe. “There’s place and means for every
man alive.” Isn’t that right?”
                 “Sorry?”
                 “All’s
Well That Ends Well. We can all see what my job is.” He glanced sharply at
Edmund. “But I still don’t know what job you think you’re doing.”
                 “I
believe I’m helping people understand what makes a criminal. And I think that
may help prevent crime.”
                 “Understand?”
His voice boomed in the small office; Clare started. “You want me to understand
that animal? You want me to understand the man who could do that to an old
lady?”
                 “I
know exactly how you feel. If it had been my mother I’d want to meet the man
who did it face to face.”
                 “But
it wasn’t your mother, so you write about it. I don’t want to catch him. I
wouldn’t trust myself. It’s the job of the police to catch him. You help them
if you want to protect society so much.”
                 “We
will be helping them, by pursuing an independent line of enquiry. We’ll tell
them as soon as we have something worth telling. But I have to make a living
too, you know. I don’t always like what I have to do—you should be able to
appreciate that. I have my job to do, just as you do.”
                 Mr.
Pugh squeezed his bottom lip forward thickly, shaking his head. He reached for
the phone and dialled . “Yes, it’s me, dear,” he said.
“In fifteen minutes. Bye-bye now, dear. Bye-bye.” It was clearly a ritual.
“Sounds as if you’re doing everybody’s job to me,” he told Edmund. “Coroner,
detective, God knows what. Just tell me this: what made you pick on my mother?”
                 He
was tidying his desk, though it was neat already. “It wasn’t only your mother,”
Edmund said. “There was another incident, just as tragic. Someone caused a car
crash almost outside where your mother lived. We’re sure it was the same man.”
                 Mr.
Pugh held open the front doors of the cinema for them, and switched off the
lights. “Yes, my mother mentioned it,” he said. “I’m sorry someone was killed.
But I’ll lose no sleep over a car crash.” He gestured at the cars hurtling by
beneath the sodium lights of West Derby Road. “Let the buggers—excuse me, my
dear—let the drivers kill each other off. The air might be a bit cleaner. The
sooner they have to use bicycles the better.”
                 Clare
watched Edmund timing his move exactly. He waited