by Emmy Ellis
“There’s no one there,” he said.
“Call the police anyway.” Adam leant on the desk, peering at the screens. “He was right there!” He stabbed a finger at the image of the shop door.
“All right, calm down.”
Dane picked up the phone and dialled. Adam clenched his teeth in an effort to stave off the shivers rampaging all over him, folding his arms across his middle to give himself a bit of comfort. It had worked in the past, when he was alone at home and thought he’d heard something—someone—outside their front door. It had helped calm him, get things in perspective.
It didn’t help now.
His bladder distended, and if he didn’t watch it he’d let out a stream of urine. He’d done that in the past, too, pissed all over himself, ashamed at the way his body reacted to even the slightest ‘off’ noise. He should have gone to see a therapist like Dane had said, but that meant admitting he was mental, that he had a problem, and Adam wasn’t, didn’t.
He ducked under the table, overreacting now the gunman had gone, but he couldn’t help it. Snuggled in the corner, he took deep breaths and listened to Dane talking to the police. The call seemed to take an age.
A loud hammering came from the front of the shop, and Adam jumped, banging his head on the underside of the desk. His heart stuttered, stopped for a few seconds, then restarted with a God-awful beat that was too fast and hurt too bloody much. He gulped, lungs constricting and not allowing any air in, and panicked, flailing his arms and whacking his heels on the floor.
“It’s the police already,” Dane said, hunkering down and peering at him. “It’s okay, it’s the police.”
Adam’s lungs inflated and, nauseated, he fisted his burning eyes. Adrenaline surged through him, sending him lightheaded, disoriented. He blinked, seeing Dane as a blurry shape.
“They stayed on the phone the whole time,” Dane said. “And now I have to let them in, all right? You coming out?”
Adam shook his head. He drew his knees up, curling his arms around them, and waited for the pulse in his throat to stop its incessant, deafening throb.
“Okay.” Dane stood and walked to the door. “I’ll be back in a second.”
Adam wanted to call out, to tell him to be careful, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He rested his head back, staring at the underside of the desk at a hardened nub of chewing gum someone had stuck there. It reminded him of school, of being a kid again.
Who said when you grew up you didn’t get scared anymore? Who said things got better?
In no time, the office door swung open. Dane’s feet were accompanied by four more—encased in shiny black shoes with droplets of rain on them.
“Does that work?” a man said.
“Yeah. You want me to rewind it?” Dane asked.
“Please. And where’s the person who saw the gunman?”
“Um, he’s under there.”
Adam felt all kinds of a prick, but he was fucked if he could make himself come out. One pair of the black shoes moved, came to a stop in front of the desk, and creaked.
A police officer hunched down and looked at him. “You all right there, son?”
Adam nodded.
“Gave you a bit of a scare, did he?”
“Yeah, just a bit. Like before.” He hadn’t meant to say that last bit.
“Like before?”
“Yeah. I was attacked…” Why tell him that?
“Ah, I see. Right. You okay to come out, tell us what happened?”
“About what happened before, or…?”
“No, just now.”
Relief bled into Adam’s system—he didn’t fancy reliving that other time again—and he found the courage to crawl out. He stood, embarrassed, and perched his arse on the corner of the desk. Knitted his fingers. Twiddled his thumbs.
“There he is,” the other officer said.
Adam glanced across to the door sharply. A female officer stood there. She stared at a monitor, walking towards the desk, and pursed her lips.
“It’s the same man as the others,” she said.
“Right, son.” The male officer pulled out a notepad. “If you could just tell me what he did, although I could probably tell you.”
Adam frowned.
“We’ve had a lot of incidents like this. He does the same thing every time, but I need to hear it from you just the same.”
Adam didn’t want to tell them, didn’t want the images to come back into his head, but he pushed himself, words pouring as fast as the rain had.
After waiting for Dane to clear up the Doritos and dip and lock up, the police then gave them a lift home.
Once inside their flat, Adam thought he’d feel safe, but he didn’t. It wasn’t as though by being in your own home the memories went away, was it? They were with you, in your head, and no amount of hiding was going to cut it.
He went into the kitchen, exhaling a steady breath at hearing Dane locking up, and flicked on the kettle. He picked out two mugs and busied himself with the mundane task of making instant coffee so he didn’t have to think too hard.
Thinking hard hurt more than your head sometimes.
“You okay?” Dane asked.
Adam stared.
The kettle clicked off, bubbles raging about inside it, steam huffing from the spout. It brought Adam back to reality.
“I can’t fucking live here anymore,” he said, and the sudden conviction that he couldn’t, he really couldn’t live here, smacked him full force. “This flat, this fucking place…”
“I know. I know. I’ll look into it. A fresh start somewhere else, yeah?”
Adam nodded. “Somewhere quiet, without all this bullshit. Too many people here, too much danger. Just…too much everything.”
“All right. It’ll be all right. I’ll take care of it.”
Chapter Three
Dane and Adam were going to view a potential property. Dane had chosen a small hamlet called Lower Repton outside the city, close enough that they could visit when needing to do a big food shop but far enough away that a million miles might as well separate the two places. It was nothing more than a single road, cottages in a row on each side and a Cotswold stone pub called Pickett’s Inn sitting on the corner, having seen better days by the looks of it. Adam reckoned it might fall down if a storm had the idea of howling through the street.
Why Dane had chosen Lower Repton, when it was still the subject of so much speculation with regards to those Sugar Strand drug murders, Adam didn’t know. Maybe because this place was in the middle of nowhere Dane thought they’d be safer, regardless of what had happened here.
Adam relaxed as soon as he saw the small cottage they were thinking of renting, number two, with its whitewashed outer walls, higgledy-piggledy slate roof, and a sign beside the front door that read Reynolds’ Gaff. Apparently a murder had occurred here, in the main bedroom, but any clue there had been a killing had been removed, the room bright and airy, belying the fact something grotesque had taken place.
Despite that, all the tension that filled him from the city attack and the recent happenings at the mini-mart drifted away, leaving him free of worry for the first time in quite a while. Sadly, it returned when they went back to their flat. Like a dose of the clap, it itched.
Lower Repton felt different, the people they’d encountered more laid-back, not one of them giving funny looks after they announced they were moving there. Well, no one except an old lady who lived over the road, a bit of a nosy mare if ever there was one, but she didn’t seem like she’d do them any harm. Even though the tiny place had been rocked recently, everyone appeared to be getting on with things, getting back to normal. Maybe city dwellers had a pack mentality, the majority following the loudest voices instead of the quiet ones inside them. He didn’t know, but he was glad to be getting the fuck away from it, them and the knot of fear that prevented him from moving on with his life.
* * * *
The city was far behind them. They’d be
en in the cottage just over a week, Dane and Adam working for a local farmer, helping out with whatever jobs needed doing. Dane had said he’d sort things out, and he’d come through faster than Adam could have imagined. It felt like they’d lived in Lower Repton for longer than they had. What had gone on in the city was a distant memory, something that had almost wrecked another man in another time but the attack had been too brutal, the words spoken too harsh for him to erase them fully.
He’d heard through the grapevine that someone had assumed, because he lived with a bloke, that he was gay.
Finally, the last of the packing boxes empty, Adam flattened them into large squares ready for the recycle collection. He supposed their old mates in the city would take the piss out of the way Adam and Dane had settled into village life, but really, did he give a shit?
No. Where had those mates been after he’d been accosted in that alley? None of them had cared beyond hearing about it for the first time. They hadn’t wanted to deal with the aftermath, and when Adam and Dane hadn’t gone out clubbing with them like they used to, when they weren’t fun any longer, those friends had taken a huge step back. Still, what they thought wasn’t his concern now. Quality of life and peace of mind mattered far more than anyone’s opinion.
Outside in the back garden, he wedged the cardboard behind a large green wheelie bin and looked around at the shadows. They didn’t freak him out like before, where people could jump out at him or lurk about doing things they shouldn’t bloody well be doing. Drug pushing, fucking against walls, meeting to work out the best way to do people some damage. The whole ethos of a place like that had always bothered him, but, as usual, he’d never thought anything bad would happen to him.
He’d been so wrong.
Who knew walking home after a few beers could leave him broken and bleeding on the ground, a spiteful wind whipping around him as though Mother Nature was also in on the act? Everything about that night had been wrong anyway, from the sour-tasting beer he’d sworn was off, to the general atmosphere in The King’s Arms being fraught with tension. People were antsy, pissed off at the end of a long week when they should have been ecstatic the weekend was there. He remembered thinking that was odd, how everyone had frowns and spoke in sharp, clipped tones.
He wished he’d listened to what his intuition had been trying to tell him instead of brushing it off as insane thoughts. That he’d got mad ideas because he’d been tired and his mind had decided to mess him about. He had too many what-ifs, that was the problem. Dane had told him recently that the past couldn’t be changed, so there was no use mulling over it, not unless it helped him to mend himself and move on.
Maybe he’d given someone a weird look that night. Maybe he’d stared a little too long at the wrong person on the wrong day. They’d convinced themselves he was gay, so to them, they were justified in what they’d done. Whatever, that gang of blokes had taken exception and followed him out of the King’s. At first, Adam hadn’t taken any notice, thinking the men were on a bender, heading to the next pub along the high street, but when he’d reached the end and they were still behind him, he’d got a bit worried. His heart rate had accelerated, his legs had gone weak, but he’d called himself a silly bastard and carried on walking. Like a group of blokes would want to follow him anyway.
He’d told himself they were on their way home, just happened to be going the same way as him, and he’d carried on, head down, hands jammed in his jacket pockets. In Kitchener Street, two roads away from the flat, the men had shortened the gap between them. They’d talked about duffing someone up and making them regret they’d ever lived, and he’d felt sorry for whoever they’d had in mind for punishment. It couldn’t have been him, though, because he didn’t know them, hadn’t done anything to upset them. Regardless, he’d stupidly darted down an alley between houses that led to his street, his safe haven, thinking he’d get back quicker that way.
The men had been on him before he’d even made it halfway down, kicked the shit out of him, and had strode off as though they’d done nothing wrong. That part had struck him as the worst, even more so than the beating. How could some people do that and not feel guilty? Pissed up on alcohol or not, it wasn’t normal to act like that. Adam had rolled onto his side and watched them leave the alley the same end they’d entered, laughing and jostling, the streetlights giving them an orange aura. They’d looked weird. Alien.
He’d stayed put, bones and muscles hurting, his mouth so puffy and full of blood he couldn’t scream. His whole body had ached, and he’d had a bit of trouble fully processing things. It had all happened so fast. One minute he’d been walking home, the next he was on the wet ground in an alley that stank of cat and dog piss, knowing he couldn’t get up because his leg didn’t feel right, like it didn’t belong to him. Numb. Bent.
An old granny had stumbled upon him the next morning, shaking him awake, bending over him with an expression of pity mixed with horror. Again, things had occurred in quick-time—the ambulance had come, he’d been loaded into it—and he’d found himself at the hospital, cleaned up and in a gown with a fuck-off great slit up the back. How the hell had he managed to get himself in this mess? Unable to piece things together in any form, he’d drifted back to sleep, uncaring whether he woke again.
When he’d next opened his eyes, Dane had been sitting beside the bed. Then Adam had wanted to stay awake, to never sleep again, to always be on alert for arseholes who’d had a mind to do someone in, just because. And he hadn’t slept properly ever since—well, until they’d moved to Lower Repton.
Today had been a long one, their Saturday taken up with the last of the settling in. He stared at the same sky he’d always stared at his whole life, yet it appeared different. The stars were brighter, and less cloud coverage scudded across the bright, silver-quarter moon. Dane was inside, putting up a shelf over the head of their beds so they had some place to put their things. Phone. A book.
The sound of a hammer then the use of a drill drifted to him.
He looked out past the water-logged grass and hedges at the bottom of the garden and squinted at a series of bobbing lights in the distance. Car headlamps? They drifted from left to right as though a string of traffic travelled, a set of several cars all going to the same location.
If Adam knew the area better he’d be able to judge where the cars might be going, but the road to the city was the only one he knew and went in the other direction from the front of the cottage. The lights winked out in twin sets one after the other, and, curiosity getting the better of him, he went upstairs to the back bedroom so he could get a better look.
From this height, he made out the shape of a barn, the flicker of strong-beamed torches briefly lighting patches of it—red bricks, a doorframe, a grey-tiled roof? He wasn’t entirely sure from this far out, but his imagination liked to fill in the blanks. Every so often the head and shoulders of figures broke the backdrop of dark grey, the people partially obscured behind what appeared to be hedges. The moonlight gave them an eerie appearance. What the hell were they doing out there? He was pissed off with himself for not having studied the landscape more in the daylight. That should have been the first thing he’d done, what with his need to make sure he’d be safer living out here. He’d been so taken by the feel of the place, though, at how he felt so much calmer, that gazing at their surroundings hadn’t entered his head.
Dane stopped hammering and using the drill, and a few beats of silence ensued, then he padded up behind Adam.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked.
“Look.” Adam nodded at the window. “What d’you think they’re doing?”
“Fuck knows. Can’t say I give much of a shit.” He paused for a second or two, then said, “That shelf was a right bastard to put up.”
“It looks weird.”
“What, the shelf? Didn’t think you’d even been in to have a gander yet.”
“No. Them. Those torches, see?” A skewer of fear twisted in Adam’s gut. “A few minut
es ago they pulled up in cars. From what I could see, about six of them. Cars, I mean. Now they look like they’re trying to find something. I wonder if they’re one of those groups who go out with metal detectors. They might need to do it in the dark cos the land belongs to someone and whatever they find wouldn’t really be theirs.”
“Does it matter?” Dane stroked his chin.
“Well, yeah. Not the metal detector thing, though. But what if they’re up to something? I thought we were safe here—”
“We are. You sure you’re not creating a worry that doesn’t exist? I’m not being funny, but you’ve been fretting for so long, that now you don’t need to…”
“You think?”
“Maybe,” Dane said.
Whether he was or wasn’t, this still didn’t sit right with Adam. He needed to make sure they were okay. The fear of the past would always be with him, and since they’d been here and he’d felt so much better, he didn’t want his new idyll ruined.
“How far out d’you reckon they are?” he asked.
Dane pressed his hands to the sill and leant forward. His breath misted the glass. He tsked and wiped the circle of condensation with his jumper sleeve. It squeaked. “About half a mile, give or take a few yards. Why?”
Adam turned from the torch arcs and looked at Dane. Light spilling in from the hallway lit the right side of his face, while moonlight lit the left. Dane frowned, and his mouth was downturned, concern etched not only in his features but in his rigid pose.
“Should we go out there?” Adam asked.
Dane sighed and dropped one hand from the sill, letting it dangle beside him. “Are you serious or fucking me about? It’s dark, it’s getting late, and we’re new around here. We don’t really know where we’re going or what goes on. Maybe there’s some kind of barn dance or whatever the hell village people do on a Saturday night. I don’t know, maybe they’re searching for a lost dog.”