Read Online The Doorkeepers by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

well.” The woman looked impatient to cross the road.
    â€œListen, would you mind if we asked you some questions about her? She was missing for nearly a year, and nobody seems to have any idea where she was.”
    â€œWell … all right, then. But we can’t do it out on the street, can we? Come back to my place. It’s only just around the corner.”

Six
    It was too noisy to talk as they walked along Earl’s Court Road, but once they had turned into Trebovir Road, the woman said, “I just couldn’t believe that anybody would want to do anything like that to Daisy. She was a treasure, you know. A real treasure.”
    â€œDid you know her very well?” asked Josh.
    â€œShe stayed with me for a couple of weeks, after she walked out on those horrible Arabs. She was supposed to stay in some hotel, but I wouldn’t let her. She was too – what d’you call it? – vulnerable, you know what I mean? I didn’t want her staying in some crappy hotel room all on her own and cutting her wrists in the bath.”
    â€œYou think she was suicidal?” asked Nancy.
    The woman opened a peculiar black bag that looked like a shrunken head, and took out a set of keys. “She might have been, left on her own. But she wasn’t left on her own.”
    The dog had already trotted ahead of them until it reached the steps of a gloomy red-brick mansion block. They climbed the brown and white tiled steps and the woman opened the front door. Inside it was impenetrably dark until she pressed the timeswitch. The hallway was cold and narrow with an old-fashioned bicycle in it.
    â€œI’m right at the top,” she said. “Up in the tower, like the Wicked Witch of the West.” She led them up a steep flight of stairs. Halfway up, the timeswitch clicked and they were plunged into darkness again. “Don’t move,” warned the woman. She found the switch on the next landing and they continued their ascent. Behind every door they passed they could hear music, or the television, or people talking.
    The woman opened the door to her flat. It was a wide, open-plan space, right up in the roof, with sloping ceilings, illuminated by an odd collection of spotlights and lamps made out of bottles and seashells and colored glass vases. The walls were painted gray and hung with literally hundreds of charms and mascots and mystical pictures of saints and demons. To the left, under the window, lay a crumpled black futon, with a mobile of sequinned fishes circling over it. To the right, there was a table and chairs in the Mexican rustic style, painted red and gold. Ahead, under another window, was a small kitchen area, with shelves that were crowded with every conceivable kind of spice and herb and seasoning, from cassareep to dry masala. There was a lingering aroma of sandalwood joss sticks and Caribbean cooking.
    The dog immediately went to his bowl and started to make a furious lapping noise. The woman dropped her bag on the table and said, “How about a cup of tea? I always have a cup of tea as soon as I get home.”
    â€œSure, that’d be great. My name’s Josh, by the way. Josh Winward. This is Nancy.”
    The woman held out her hand, her wrist jangling with bangles. “Ella Tibibnia, and my dog’s called Abraxas. That’s a very magical name, Abraxas. It’s a pity he’s such a plonker. You never think of dogs being plonkers, do you? But he is.”
    Josh didn’t have the faintest idea what a “plonker” was, but he pulled a kind of Harrison Ford grimace to show that he probably agreed. Ella filled a big blue enamel kettle with water and put it on the gas to boil. “You like hawthorn flower tea? It’s very good for insomnia.”
    â€œSure, whatever you’re brewing up.” Josh looked around the room. Nancy was inspecting an opalescent glass globe in a decorative bronze base, and a collection of sinister little