“What sort of relics?” I asked.

“I don’t know. His little finger or something.”

“We can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because we’d get caught. Someone would see us.”

“All right,” said Dave. “Then we go to the funeral, see where they bury him, come back the same night and dig him up. We could choose the bits we want at our leisure.” Dave liked doing things at his leisure.

“Now you’re talking sense,” said I. “In fact …” And I set to thinking.

“What have you set to thinking about?” Dave asked.

“Something big,” said I. “Something very big.”

“Do you want to tell me what it is?”

“No, I don’t,” said I, rising from the marble bed of the Doveston. “I have a really big idea, but it will need work. I have to go to the library and do a bit of research.”

“I was just going that way myself.”

“No, you weren’t. But I’ll meet you later and tell you all about it. This big idea of mine will take at least the two of us to bring it to fruition.”

“Speak English,” said Dave.

“I’ll meet you at six o’clock at the launderette.”

“Now you’re speaking my language. I love that launderette.”

“I know,” I said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, then,” said Dave.

I left Dave and the graveyard behind and took myself off to the library. I often visited the library on Thursday afternoons. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, to get away from all the inevitable rancour in our house, and, secondly, because the library was closed on Thursday afternoons. You might have wondered how it was that a ten-year-old child could gain access to the library’s restricted section in order to look up information on Mr Doveston. The answer is, of course, that under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be allowed to. Which is why I always visited the place when it was closed. Me being so slim and scrawny and all that I was capable of slipping under the iron grilles that protected the Victorian mausoleums in the graveyard, I was also sufficiently slim and scrawny and all to slip in through the cat flap in the caretaker’s lodge, borrow his keys and let myself into the library. I do not consider that this was a criminal activity. I was only engaged in research. Where could be the harm in that?

However, the way fate cast the dice, there was harm in that.

But how was I to know it then?

I thought I was engaging in research. And research to bring to fruition a big idea that I’d had. Because it was a very good idea. One that could benefit everyone. Well, at least everyone who enjoyed reading P.P. Penrose. Which was an awful lot of people.

I’ll let you into my big idea now, because I can’t see any reason to keep it a secret. It was Dave who inspired the idea. With his one about digging up Penrose to take a few relics. My idea was that if we were going to dig up Mr Penrose, then why not go one better than simply taking a few relics? Why not take all of Mr Penrose? Why not take Mr Penrose’s body and do something useful with it? Something that I had read a bit about in the restricted section of the library one Thursday afternoon. In a book called Magic Island written by a certain Mr William Seabrook.[3] The book was all about Mr Seabrook’s experiences in Haiti during the early years of the twentieth century. Mr Seabrook had met voodoo priestesses. He had also seen real zombies.

My reasoning, youthful as it was, was this. If we were going to go to all the trouble of digging up Mr Penrose, why not try to bring him back to life?

To my young mind it was a blinder of an idea and I couldn’t see why any adult would find it less than admirable and enterprising. There they were, the adults, willing to consign this great writer with his great mind to the worms, when, if he was reanimated, he might have years and years left in him to write more and more wonderful best-selling books. Who could possibly find anything wrong with my reasoning? In my opinion, no one. So I went off to the library.

3

Captain Runstone was drunk. He was always drunk on Thursday afternoons. After he locked up the library at one o’clock he took himself off to the Flying Swan and got himself all drunk. He left the Flying Swan at three-fifteen, purchased a bottle of Balthazar’s Barnett Cream sherry from the off-licence, returned to his Lodge, hung his keys upon the hook beside the door, removed himself to his bedroom, consumed the cream sherry and by six o’clock was thoroughly stupefied.

I never knew exactly why it was that Captain Runstone drunk himself into oblivion every Thursday afternoon. I was very glad that he did, of course, because it allowed me access to the library. But I never knew why. It was probably something to do with the war. Most things were, back in the nineteen fifties. Most things that were bad were blamed upon the war. Which was a good thing in a way, because people never like to blame themselves for the trouble they’re in. And if they don’t have something really big to blame, like a war, or a depression, or a recession, or a bad government, they only start blaming each other.

Captain Runstone had bits missing – his left hand and also, I’d been told, his left foot, which accounted for his curious gait. Which is not to be confused with a curious gate. Like the one belonging to my Aunty May. Which had hinges on both sides and so had to open in the middle.

My Uncle Jon told me that Captain Runstone had been tortured by the Japs in Singapore. And, in fact, went into great detail regarding the specifics. And I knew that the captain cried out in a foreign tongue in his drunken sleep, because I’d heard him at it. But I didn’t know for sure what the truth was and I didn’t care too much. He wasn’t a relative, and as I didn’t even care too much about my own relatives I could think of no good reason to care at all about Captain Runstone.

I slipped in through the cat flap and nicked his keys, slipped out again and let myself in through the rear and secluded door of the Memorial Library.

I loved that library.

I did. I really did.

I loved the smell of it. And the utter silence. Libraries are always quiet, but they’re rarely silent. You have to be all alone in them to experience their silence. And when you’re all alone in a library, you experience so much more.

And I do mean when you’re really alone. Just you and the library. Just you and all those books and those millions and millions of words. Those words that were the thoughts of their authors. The lives of their authors. It’s special, really special. The restricted section held some most remarkable tomes. Books of Victorian pornography. Books on forbidden subjects. The inevitable Necronomicon, which every library has and every librarian is obliged, by law, to deny all knowledge of. Books upon freaks and evil medical experiments. And guidebooks to lead you on the left-hand path. Which is to say, Black Magic. Most people don’t really believe in Black Magic. It’s the stuff of horror films and the occasional psycho. It’s not real. It’s like fairies and Bigfoot. It makes for an entertaining read, it’s a bit naughty, but it’s not real.

This runs somewhat contrary to the beliefs of those who wrote about the subject and knew of what they wrote. Those whose books are only to be found in the restricted sections of libraries. The restricted sections that you can’t get into.

You can try if you like. You can apply for access. You can fill in forms and you might get into “a” restricted section. But you won’t get into the real one. The real one downstairs. In the basement. The one with the triple locks on the door. They won’t let you in there. Only government officials with high security clearance can get into those.