Cars swished back and forth on the Dunwich Road.
“This is it,” he said. “They promised me. If I do this, I’m free. All the debts’ll be paid off.”
She put her makeup back in her handbag and put it back in the footwell. “Alright, then.” She turned the ignition key, pulled out. The streetlights had come on at last; dull blurred embers of orange and cherry red now lit their way.
THE TESTAMENT OF SERGEANT EDWARD HOWIE CONTINUED throughout but on reachin the front i proved myself to be no mean soldier gaining promotion to lance corporal full corporal and finally to my fathers pride an mothers concern i was made a sergeant an even emmas mother could no say ought agin me then i might even hope to gain an officers commission given time should the war continue long enough an i found a part of myself hopin it would even though i knew it to be the ruling class dividin the proletariat agin itself for at the same time it brought my respect in emmas eyes but then came
TUCKED INTO BED, all her usual wild energy gone, Mary looked tiny and fragile as eggshell. Martyn tucked her in, stepped back so Anna could kiss her goodnight. Mary’s eyes flickered open when she did.
“Look after Daddy,” Mary whispered, and closed her eyes again. A moment later she was breathing in and out, deep, slow regular breaths. Fast asleep.
“Yes, ma’am,” Anna murmured, and straightened up. She didn’t turn round.
“Brew?” asked Martyn.
“Please.” Her voice was tight. He knew the signs. She was going to kick off big-style. They went downstairs and she managed not to speak until they reached the kitchen, then it spilt out. “The hell did you think you were doing back there?”
“What?”
“Back there. Running off like that.”
“Protecting my daughter.”
“Could have fooled me. Looked to me like you couldn’t wait to get away.”
“Oi–”
Anna folded her arms. “Keep it down. She’s asleep.”
“I was going after that bastard!”
“And what about Mary? She was scared to death. She was terrified you weren’t coming back. What if something had happened to you?”
The one real sodding thing he’d done since getting out of Roydtwistle, and she was pissing on it. “And what about the other kids they’ve taken?”
“It’s your child I’m worried about. Somebody has to be around here.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I’m trying to get some sense into your bloody head.”
“You’re so ruddy perfect, you look after her.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Cos you’re so bloody perfect.”
“No. I’m not. But Mary comes first for me, and she should for you as well.”
“Right.” He looked down, didn’t speak. Didn’t trust himself to.
“Pretty good sprint that, though.”
Kick the dog, then throw it a bone – but then he saw the faint smile on her lips and had to chuckle too. “Have me moments. How about that brew, then?”
“You make it. Do something useful round here for a change.”
“Bog off.”
They talked a little while; mostly about what Martyn had seen. The painted mask, the bucket on the table, the wall of white, disfigured faces.
Anna looked up, frowning.
“What’s up?”
“Mm? Nothing.”
“Just... looked like summat’d given you the collies.”
Anna shook her head. “Dunno. What you just described–”
“’Bout it?”
“I’m sure I’ve seen something like that somewhere.”
“What, round here?”
“Not sure...”
“Anna?”
“Sorry. Drifting off.” She put her mug down, stood. “You know, I’d forgotten what a pain in the arse you can be.”
“Soz.”
But he smiled; so did she, and squeezed his arm. “Good to have you back,” she said. “See you in a bit. Will you be OK on your own?”
“Think I can go to toilet without falling in. Where you off?”
“Upstairs. Something I want to check on.”
THE STATION HOTEL, like the town, had seen better days; unlike Kempforth, it still possessed a faded grandeur. It was made of the same biscuit-coloured stone as most of the older buildings. Once-ornate satyr’s heads, now badly eroded, leered above the lintels. In the lobby, oil portraits of the local gentry adorned the oak-panelled walls.
“Now what?” asked Vera.
“First of all, let’s sort the room out.”
“It’s sorted, Allen. Booked it before we left. Their best room, apparently.”
“Yes. Yes. Alright, we take our bags up. Dinner, maybe. Then the police.”
“Police? You never said anything about the police.”
“Why do you think we’re here?”
“I don’t know, Allen. How about you actually tell me?”
“Not here.” Allen went to the desk and rang the bell. Vera saw a stack of business cards for a local minicab firm and picked one up; driving a Bentley round Kempforth didn’t seem a great idea.
A fortyish woman shuffled through the door behind the desk. Bloodshot eyes; cheeks turning into dewlaps. Everything about her seemed to be sag. Vera had a brief sensation of looking in a mirror; this was her if she’d never left.
“Hiya.”
“Hello,” said Allen. “We have a booking? For a twin room?”
“What name?”
Allen glanced at Vera. “Latimer.” Better than booking him in as Allen Cowell. Keep a low profile. But Allen Cowell was one thing, Alan Latimer another. Alan Latimer had never really left at all.
A lift with a grimy mirror took them to the third floor. The ‘best room’ had threadbare carpets and a wonky toilet seat. “Christ. Hate to see the worst one.”
Allen was at the window, looking out. Vera shivered and hugged herself. You couldn’t see much from here; the mist hid everything beyond the row of shops opposite. Victorian buildings, decrepit, old, boarded-up, blotched with decay and discoloration. Dying relics of an age of industry. The Christmas lights along the street gleamed through the mist; they looked lurid and cheap. But Allen wasn’t looking at any of those.
After a moment, she went over, put a hand on his arm. His hand covered hers; they both looked out to where the Dunwich would be.
“So? You said you’d tell me.”
Allen took a deep breath, nodded. “Bad things have happened here.”
“I know that, Allen. They happened to us for a start.” Oh, god. He was going to tell the police about that. Some idea of confession being good for the soul. No. No-one could know. Ever. “Allen, no. You can’t tell them. Not about Walsh and–”
“It’s not about him. This has all been in the last week.”
She waited.
“People have disappeared. A young couple. A teenage girl. A child.” Calm, quiet, flat. “They’ve been taken.”
“What do you mean, taken?”
“Taken.”
“Who by?”
He shook his head.
“Allen.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Allen, please–”
He turned to her. Tears shone. “They said they’d show me more when I got here. And then I have got to go to the police and convince them to let me help. I can do it. They have evidence; I can use psychometry to gather information from it. We might be able to find the missing people in time. But they told me, Vera–”
“What?”
“That it will be dangerous.”
“Then–”
“No. Can’t run away. Not this time. This is the price.”
“Price for what?”
“Everything we have. Everything we’ve gained since leaving here.”
“Whatever we’ve gained, we bastard paid for. About a million times.”
“It doesn’t work like that, sis. We left others behind.”
&nbs
p; “And I’m sorry. But I did what I had to. I watched Walsh die in agony and I would do it again. And with him gone, what mattered was getting us out. Getting you out.”
“We should have gone to the police.”
“How could we trust them? One of them was one of Walsh’s sick mates.”
“Only one.”
“And we never knew who because of that bloody mask he always had on.”
“Only Walsh knew. Think the cop would have stuck his neck out for the others?”
“But if they’d been picked up, they’d’ve talked about their friend on the police. He’d’ve been in danger. And then we would’ve been. For Christ’s sake, Allen, we were kids.”
“You were nineteen.”
“So? You were still a kid, though. And you were what mattered. Not saving the whole world.”
“We left them behind–”
“Yes. We did. I did. Not you, me. And I would do it again. We were nothing but meat to Walsh and his bastard mates. We had to get out. Fuck the consequences, and fuck everyone else, and fuck all this bloody guilt. Because the only reason we’re feeling guilty about it now is because we can afford to. Back then we couldn’t. I couldn’t–”
She stopped. She could see her breath. Allen turned, swaying. His hands grabbed hers, hard. She cried out. His jaw clenched and his head went back, eyes rolling white.
The room’s lights were dimming; so was the window’s pale square of twilight. In the corners blackness thickened, as if ink was welling up in them. It spread; the walls disappeared in it, and the door, engulfed in black. It flowed across the carpet towards them, across the ceiling. It welled up over the beds and swallowed them too.
The lights on the walls were the dimmest of embers. Now they winked out. The last pinpoints of fading streetlight in the window vanished. They stood alone on a shrinking patch of worn, pale carpet. She tried to pull away from Allen but she couldn’t tear her hands free.
The beds were gone, the luggage, the bedside table; the room, the town outside, the world outside, all gone. Just her, Allen and a square yard of carpet dissolving steadily in an infinity of black.
The blackness lapped around their feet. She’d taken her shoes off. Her tights were no protection; the cold was searing – like standing in a bucket of ice, except the black wasn’t wet. Only cold. Cold as the grave. And then the floor gave way and she was plunging – she and Allen, hands still clasped – down into the bottomless dark. She couldn’t scream. The shock of the cold stopped her breath, nearly her heart too. And then she was blind. Thick black cloth wrapped around her eyes. She was numb – couldn’t tell if she was falling, floating or standing, if she still held Allen’s hands or he hers.
A flicker of light; bright, sudden, it hurt the eyes. She nearly cried out, stopped herself. That liquid black would pour down her throat, though, of course, she must be breathing it in already. The flicker was there and then gone, but something moved within it. She didn’t know what and wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Another flicker. Something black and tattered moved, not quite fast enough to avoid being seen. It might have been human, once. She wanted to believe it was just the brevity of the glimpse that made it look so incomplete.
Half a dozen more such flashes followed in the next minute. In most cases whatever they lit pulled away before they could be properly seen, but the last shape was immobile; a dark-haired man in uniform, his back to them. He stood erect, head back, as if on parade. She didn’t know why, but somehow he was worst of all. She was glad she couldn’t see his face.
She couldn’t hear herself breathing. She tried to whisper Allen’s name, but there was no sound; she couldn’t even feel the vibration in her throat.
Another, longer flicker, lighting the soldier again. He cocked his head, as if he’d heard something. Vera glimpsed part of his face. He wore a mask of some kind.
The light died. Alone in the dark again. She stared into it, waiting for the next flash. He knew she was there now. Was Allen still holding her hands? If she pulled free it might break the connection, so she wouldn’t see this anymore. Or she might trap herself in the black forever; maybe only Allen could pull her back out. She didn’t dare try.
The light came again, but it didn’t vanish this time; it got brighter, stronger, flickered less and less. The soldier was still there and he was turning towards her. In a moment she’d see whatever served him for a face. She drew breath to scream, even though no-one would hear.
Another light flickered, two or three feet away. A child stood in it. He had his back to her too. Brown hair, jug ears. He threw up a hand and the soldier vanished. Vera caught the briefest impression of a dull red glare in the black. It felt like a scream of rage.
The child lowered his hand. The glow that lit him stopped flickering, became a bright, steady cone of light shining down from somewhere above.
To the child’s left, another flickering cone lit a second boy, this time fair-haired. When the second cone had stabilised, a third one appeared to the first child’s right. The child was black-haired. All three wore school uniforms – shoes, socks, shorts; green blazers, red caps.
She knew who they were, of course.
Now they began to turn, though their feet didn’t move. She didn’t want to look at them, but couldn’t look away.
At last they faced her. They had no eyes. Under the blazers were white shirts, red ties. Their faces were smooth, unblemished. But they had no eyes.
From left to right, she knew their names: Mark, Sam, Johnny.
Hello, Vera.
Their lips moved together, but were soundless. She seemed to see the words instead, printed red on the black.
A thin tingle of feeling returned; she felt Allen’s hands in hers, just as he shuddered and pulled free of her. She cried out, or tried to – still no sound – fearing she’d be trapped forever in the dark, but fell instead to her hands and knees on the blessed, threadbare carpet of the hotel room. And Allen; he crouched beside her, shaking, eyes shut.
They were back in the hotel room. Sort of. On their side of the room, the lights glowed in their sconces; outside the window, the streetlights and car headlights passing on the road lit up the mist and a pigeon on the windowsill spared her an incurious glance. But two feet from her, the carpet vanished into inky black. It was like the other side of the room had just been sliced away. And still, the silence.
One after the other, two small, polished shoes stepped onto the carpet before her as something came out of the dark.
She scrambled backwards with a cry that no-one heard. The brown-haired child didn’t even look at her. His black eye-holes were trained on some spot on the wall behind her, over her head. Sam. That was his name.
The fair-haired child stepped out into the thin pale light a moment later. Mark. And then the black-haired boy, glasses with cracked lenses over his empty sockets. Johnny.
None of them looked at her, or Allen. All of them stared at the wall.
Again, in perfect unison, their lips moved.
You abandoned us.
And Vera had no answer. Not to that; not to them.
You left us to die.
Allen still crouched there, head bowed, tears dripping on the bare carpet.
Look at us.
Even though she wasn’t looking at the dead boys she felt the command; its heat on her face, the meaning. She turned back in time to see the glowing, emberous words fade. The children’s mouths moved again.
Look at us, Allen.
Allen must have obeyed, because then they spoke again.
There is always a price.
Oh god. Oh god. They should never have come here. Kempforth, dragging them back. The black sun. She should never have let him come back.
You never had a choice, the boys said. You live. We died. We gave you wealth. Success. There was always a price to pay for it. Now it’s due.
Still the boys didn’t look directly at either of them, just stared fixedly past them at the wall.
&nbs
p; Allen, Johnny said. Allen.
Allen dragged his gaze to Johnny; his mouth formed the word yes.
There’s somewhere you have to go.
Vera blinked; a couple of blurry images seemed to flicker in the air between them and the children for an instant; a flashing blue light, a helmeted policeman.
No, said Mark. Not yet. There’s somewhere you have to go first.
The words faded away. Then Sam spoke.
You have to go back to the start, he said. Shackleton Street. Both of you. Go there. Tonight. And you’ll see.
Shackleton Street. Oh god, no, not that place. But there was no point protesting. These were the judge and jury. There was no appeal.
But you’ll see? What? What would he – they – see? Because it was they who saw now, not just Allen.
You’ll see, the three dead boys said together, before the shadows welled up and swallowed them, their pale, solemn faces sinking away as if into deep, black water. Vera fumbled across the carpet for Allen’s hand. The darkness retreated, draining away, back into the corners of the room and then disappearing, until only shadows remained, fading before the warm yellow lights on the walls.
Vera let out a white breath. Then another, but it was fainter. The third breath couldn’t be seen at all. A moment later, she heard the swoosh of traffic on the road; a car horn beeped. Someone laughed in the corridor outside. She jumped at a muffled clatter from the window; the pigeon had flapped away.
Allen was crying; his hand slipped from hers. He lay on the carpet in a foetal position. She crawled to his side, put a hand on his shoulder. His hand crept up and covered hers. She felt the need in him, even before his free hand reached for her blouse.
“No,” she whispered. Not again. Please not again. Not so soon; it’d only been last night.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please.”
“No. Allen, no–”
“Please. Please.”
And she relented. She always did. “Alright,” she said. He reached up to caress her face, leant up towards her, lips parted.
“Wait.” She got up, went to the window. Outside, Kempforth was mired in mist and dull orange light, car lights flaring beneath it like fish below the ice. Behind her, the rustle of clothing as Allen undressed. What counted was what had to be done, not what she wanted. She pulled the curtains shut and turned to face him.
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