Linger Awhile by Russell Hoban

and complaining of being followed by ‘some huge hopping thing’. He was Walter Dixon, thirty-two, a freelance writer. ‘What do you write?’ I asked him.
    ‘Science fiction,’ he said. Casually dressed but respectable, didn’t strike me as an addict of any kind but you never know with writers. I sat him down, got him a coffee, and said, ‘Please begin at the beginning.’
    ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but keep your eye on the walls because it could be hopping through at any moment.’ He kept turning his head like a blind man listening for something.
    ‘You’re pretty safe here,’ I said. ‘We’ve got armed officers for just such emergencies and if it hops through a wall we’ll book it. When did you first become aware of it?’
    ‘Around half-eight in Cecil Court.’
    ‘What were you doing in Cecil Court?’
    ‘I’d just had a salt beef sandwich and a couple of beers at Gaby’s Deli in Charing Cross Road and I was standing in front of Watkins Books looking at their window …’
    ‘Yes, go on.’
    ‘
The Illusion of Reality
by Sredni Bufo was the featured book. No, I’ve got the name wrong.’
    ‘Never mind. You were standing in front of Watkins and?’
    ‘Hang on – I don’t feel its presence any more, I think it’s gone. I don’t know what came over me. Look, I don’t want to be wasting your time so I really should be going.’
    ‘Don’t go just yet,’ I said. ‘It’s been my experience that these huge hopping things don’t usually turn up without a reason. Two beers wouldn’t do it. Was there anything before the hopping thing?’
    ‘Ah! The woman …’
    ‘What woman?’
    ‘Standing next to me. Suddenly she crumpled and I caught her just before she hit the ground. I said, “Gotcha” and she held on to me. She gave me a great big wet slobbery kiss. My God, she tasted awful, then she was nuzzling my neck. Her mouth was very wet and she began to bite me but I fought her off.’
    ‘Then what?’
    ‘Then she wasn’t there but the hopping thing came after me – didn’t attack me, just kept hopping behind me with a squelching sound each time it hit the ground.’
    ‘Can you describe the woman?’
    ‘Quite pretty, blonde, about five foot six. Her clothes were damp and smelly.’
    ‘What was she wearing?’
    ‘Some kind of western outfit. Cowboy boots.’
    ‘Do you mind if I take a swab from your mouth and your neck?’ I said.
    ‘What for?’ he said.
    ‘You never know,’ I said. Afterward I took his address and phone number and gave him my card. ‘Let me know if you remember anything else,’ I said. ‘Any time of the day or night.’ I sent the samples off to the lab and that was it for Monday evening. When I got home I took my shoes off, put my feet up, drank some whisky, and listened to Alison Krauss and the Cox family. I fell asleep in my chair and dreamt that Rose Harland was waiting for me on the far-side bank of Jordan. ‘I’ll be waiting, drawing pictures in the sand,’ she sang, ‘and when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout. And come running through the shallow waters, reaching for your hand.’ I could still see her face as I woke up, then it faded and I went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep I heard myself say, ‘Definitely not a mouse turd.’
    1 February 2004. Scotland Yard e-mailed me a photo sent by Ralph Darling of Witheridge in Devon. He’d written to say that his sister Rachael had gone to London last November in a depressed state of mind and he hadn’t heard from her since. He was worried about her and he wanted to know if there was anynews of her. A living face in a photograph looks quite different to a dead one but when I had the Devon photo side by side with ours I was pretty sure it was a match. So that was her name, Rachael Darling. I rang up Ralph Darling and he came in to identify the body of his sister.
    He was a very large man in corduroy trousers and a reefer jacket. I’m six feet tall and he was half a head taller and broad. He