Beyond Here Lies Nothing (The Concrete Grove Trilogy)

by Gary McMahon

  Erik had never lived on the Grove. He’d been born in Byker, in the east end of Newcastle, and from a very young age had demonstrated that he could take care of himself. His father had enrolled him in a boxing academy when he was five years old. He’d beaten everyone they put in front of him, and graduated through the age and weight classes with ease.

  His teenage years had seen him go off the rails and he began street fighting rather than using his craft in the ring. Erik was always bright enough to know that, unless you were truly dedicated, the fight game would never make you rich. He lacked the application and willpower to become a champion; his skills were purely natural, and a wide lazy streak coupled with habitual indiscipline meant that he could not stick to any kind of training regime.

  So he used his skills in other ways.

  Years ago he’d realised that he didn’t have to fight every battle himself. He surrounded himself with tough guys, men who were strong and fast but lacked his cunning and intellect. He set up illegal fights and made a fortune. When he’d made enough money he bought an old farmhouse a few miles from here and started hosting bare-knuckle bouts in the Barn, a small outbuilding with thick stone walls and neglected horse paddocks – he’d employed Hacky’s brother and his gang to do the building work there, too.

  He also ran a security firm that provided pubs and clubs with trained door staff, big blokes who knew exactly what to do if trouble started. Erik saw himself as a primitive renaissance man; a facilitator; an entrepreneur: he was the Donald fucking Trump of the mean streets and even meaner housing estates.

  Now, at the age of fifty-one, he was what his younger self would have considered wealthy. He owned a large, beautiful home, several other properties, two well-trained dogs, had three cars in the garage, but lacked someone to share it with. There was a time when Abby Hansen would have walked over broken glass to live with him, but that time was long gone. These days she’d rather cut herself on the scattered shards than stand by his side.

  The Concrete Grove... why would she want to stay here? Their daughter wasn’t coming back; she would never come home. This place was the dark centre of a universe Erik could barely even understand. He cruised through it, that alien universe, and he used it and its denizens for personal gain, but he had no idea how it really worked. Like a black hole, it sucked everything towards it, bleeding them dry: Monty Bright, his absent friend Marty Rivers, the once beautiful Abby Hansen... all of them drawn inexorably towards the black centre of this place, screaming silently as it ate them alive.

  He drove through the estate with these dark thoughts on his mind. Part of him hoped that Hacky was taking the piss; he had the urge to commit violence, and that useless kid would do as target practice. He guided the car along the grubby streets, along Grove Road and onto Grove Street, where Monty Bright’s old gym was situated. He’d acquired the building and was having it fitted out; it would be a gym again, and this time his name would be above the door... as long as Hacky’s brother got on with the job, of course, the work-shy little bastard.

  He parked at the kerb and got out, walking quickly to the front door. He opened the door and stepped inside. Three young men stood at the bottom of the new timber stairs, huddled around the bottom step. Hacky looked up and smiled. He raised a hand and walked over.

  “So, I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry to make you come all the way here, Mr Best. Really. But there was no other way... this has got to be seen. You wouldn’t believe it otherwise.”

  The other two boys nodded, looked away, staring at the fire-damaged walls. They were guilty; all of them, guilty of so many petty crimes that it would be difficult to pin a single one on them. He could see the badness dripping off them like sweat. He was covered with it, too, but he was clever enough to construct a barrier. The black hole wouldn’t suck him in. He would never allow it to get a good enough grip on his soul. These fuckers were already halfway inside; it was consuming them like space debris.

  “What the fuck is it, Hacky?” He stepped forward, grabbed the kid’s upper arm with one big hand, and knocked his baseball cap from his head with the other. The cap was old, faded, and had a decal featuring Scooby Doo smoking a spliff. “I’m really not in the fucking mood for any of your bullshit.”

  “Please.” Hacky cowered; he actually stepped back and hunkered down a few inches, as if he were a dog trying to subjugate itself before an alpha. He bent down and picked up his cap. “Honest, we have summat to show you.”

  The other two nodded. They wouldn’t hold Erik’s gaze. They were too afraid even to speak.

  “Show me.” He let go, pushed the kid away. “Show me before I change my mind and knock you out just to release some tension.”

  “It’s at Beggy’s place.” Hacky motioned towards one of the other young men – a tall, thin streak of piss with acne scars all over his long neck and thin throat.

  “Yeah,” said the one called Beggy. “I didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it in my old man’s lock-up. It’s on Grove Drive. One of them old garages past the Corner... you know?” He looked down, inspecting his oversized trainers. He blinked too much; it was making Erik angry, grating at his nerves.

  “So take me there. Go outside and get in the car. Now.”

  He watched them troop slowly out through the door and then glanced up the stairs, at the partially repaired upper floor. The walls were bare, some of them still stained by smoke. He locked the door on his way out. “Give me your keys,” he said to Hacky. “I don’t want you letting yourself in there ever again, not unless I’m around. Oh, and when you see your brother, tell him to get back here and finish the job.”

  The kid handed over the keys without looking at Erik’s face. He nodded.

  Erik unlocked the car. “Get in the back – all three of you. I don’t want any of you fuckers in the front with me. And try not to dribble on the upholstery.” He watched them squeeze carefully onto the back seat, three unwise monkeys, and got in the front, then started the car. It took them less than three minutes to get to Grove Drive. The garages stood in a row opposite the waste ground beyond the primary school. Seven squat, graffiti-covered buildings, none of them ever used to park a car. They were all utilised for storage instead, and the police turned a blind eye to whatever was kept inside, and to whoever rented them. Nobody cared about this place, as long as there was no serious trouble. Things ticked over in the Grove; crimes were done; people got paid; the status quo was maintained.

  The black hole kept on sucking, hungry for more.

  “Which one?”

  Beggy spoke, but quietly. “The third one from the left.”

  “Get the fuck out and show me.”

  They all climbed out of the car. Erik waited until they were walking towards the garages, and then he got out, too. He locked the doors and followed them across the footpath and onto the tired grass verge, wondering what the fuck could be so important that Hacky would disturb him and ask him to come here. He’d known all along that it must be something major; the kid was too afraid to fuck with him over trivialities.

  Beggy bent over and unlocked the up-and-over garage door. He opened it and the three of them stepped back in the same movement, as if they were afraid of what was in there. They stood and waited for Erik to move.

  “You going to tell me what I’m here to see, or do I have to guess?”

  Beggy shook his head. Hacky coughed; a harsh dry sound. The nameless third member of the group looked away, trying to pretend that he wasn’t here. He hadn’t spoken a word so far and didn’t look like he was going to change that habit any time soon.

  “Well?”

  “You do it,” said Beggy. “I can’t go back in there... I’ve seen enough.” He was pleading, not ordering, and Hacky nodded.

  “You’re more afraid of whatever’s in there than you are of me?” Erik took a couple of steps forward, interested now. He was standing close to Beggy. The kid nodded, but didn’t raise his head. The footpath was obviously fascinating; he was in
specting it like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen so far that day. The acne scars on his throat were livid, bright red welts. They looked painful, like aggravated wounds.

  “Okay, I’ll show you.” Hacky moved reluctantly into the shadow of the garage, his slim body swallowed by darkness. The other two young men stepped to the side, away from the open door.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” said Erik. He walked forward, stooping at the waist to get under the garage door, and looked around.

  There wasn’t much in there. In fact, it looked like someone had recently moved a lot of stuff out. Streaked dust marks decorated the internal surfaces; cobwebs had been disturbed in the corners. The oil-stained floor was scuffed in places, as if heavy objects had been pushed or pulled across it. Erik seemed to recall that Beggy’s father was some kind of low-level fence, so he probably used this place to store stolen goods that he couldn’t keep inside the house for some reason: furniture, plasma screen televisions still in their cardboard boxes, perhaps even a few large car parts that were too heavy to shift on his own.

  A stack of rolled up carpet off-cuts had been pushed up against the wall on the left hand side. The right hand wall was clear, but someone had set up a small camping table, upon which there was a red and black tartan plastic flask and a set of pornographic playing cards. Erik walked over and looked down at the cards. They were vintage 1970s, showing scenes of blank-eyed women copulating with drugged farm animals. Nice.

  He looked up and watched Hacky. The kid was staring at a large rectangular object covered by a dark, stained tarpaulin sheet. He was fidgeting; he shuffled his feet, picked at his fingernails, bit his bottom lip.

  “Is that it?” Erik indicated the sheet.

  “Yeah. It’s under there... under that cover thing.” He licked his lips. His eyes were wide. The gloom inside the garage had made his pupils dilate, unless he was strung out on drugs, despite what he’d said earlier.

  “Take the fucking thing off, then. Show me what you’ve got.”

  A strange kind of tension had entered the garage with them. Erik knew that he should be losing his temper by now. The kid was stringing this out, making a fucking meal of the situation. But there was an atmosphere between these concrete walls that made him cautious. There wasn’t any actual danger here – of course there wasn’t, not for him anyway. No, not danger: something else, a sense of... weirdness. Something here was not entirely right. That was the only way he could think to explain what he felt.

  Then he realised what it was: he felt like he was being watched. He was experiencing that sensation of eyes upon you when you walk across a room; the sense that someone is peering at you but you can’t see them, not yet. A painting’s eyes following you across a gallery floor; or the heat of a person’s gaze burning a hole in the middle of your back from across a room.

  Watched.

  He was being watched.

  Hacky bent over and tugged at the end of the tarpaulin sheet. He did it half-heartedly at first, as if he really didn’t want the sheet to come off, but then he used both hands and pulled hard, shuffling backwards as he did so. The sheet slid away, dropping to the floor. Beneath it was a large glass tank with a heavy lid, the kind of container that was used for keeping tropical fish, or exotic lizards.

  “What’s the story with that tank, then?” Erik didn’t move.

  Hacky stepped further away, not taking his eyes from the tank. “Years ago, when I was little, I used to keep snakes in there. I had a couple of pythons. Dad got hold of them from some mate. The police came and took them away. They weren’t legal, like...” He kept staring at the tank. “Dangerous, they reckoned...”

  Erik paused for a moment, unwilling to move closer to the tank, and what might be lurking inside it. The shadows kept its contents hidden; all he could see was a large dark glass receptacle, with something bulky nestling behind the glass. It could have been discarded clothing; it might have been a dead animal. A cat or a dog.

  Then the thing moved: a slight twitch, like a muscular spasm.

  “It’s alive,” he whispered.

  A snake?

  “We thought it was dead,” said Hacky. “We found it down on Beacon Green, in a little ditch, half-covered by leaves and shit. We were looking for a bag of pot we’d stashed there a few nights ago.” Still he stared at the tank. Whatever was in there coiled lazily, moving a little like one of the pythons the kid had claimed to have owned before they were seized by the authorities.

  “What is it?”

  A snake...

  Finally Hacky looked away from the tank. He turned to face Erik, and his features remained in shadow. His mouth barely moved when he spoke. Darkness writhed across his face like tar. “Honestly, I haven’t a fucking clue.”

  Something thumped wetly against the other side of the glass, shifting again inside the tank. There was a moist slithering noise as it adjusted its position.

  “Fucking hell,” said Erik, and his feet moved forward as if they weren’t under his control. He wanted to stop them but they refused to obey. He was walking towards the tank, and the living thing that was imprisoned inside.

  “Is it one of those snakes of yours?”

  Hacky didn’t answer. He’d already gone back outside, too afraid to stay and watch.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS LUNCHTIME and Marc was craving a protein fix. He’d been drinking a lot lately – much more than usual – and seemed to exist with a constant hangover, seeing the world through a thin layer of gauze. He hoped that Vince Rose hadn’t been serious about having a few cans of lager and instead wished for a nice cup of tea. A splash of milk. A spoonful of honey. Lovely.

  He parked his car at the kerb and stepped out onto the street outside Harry’s house. Even though the old man was dead, Marc couldn’t help but feel as if he was waiting inside, watching through the net curtains, as he always used to when he had visitors.

  Glancing at the grubby nets, he accepted the reality that Harry would no longer be there; his tall, thin form would never again stand in the window, looking out at the street and scowling at passers by.

  “Hey, Marc!”

  He turned around and saw Vince Rose walking along the street, a blue carrier bag clutched in each hand. He raised the bags to waist level and smiled. “Lunch.”

  “Good to see you, Vince.” Marc moved towards the man and grabbed one of the bags – the one that looked heaviest – and stood to the side while Rose walked past him. He fell into step alongside the other man.

  “I didn’t get any booze. I hope that’s okay. I’m trying to cut down and... well, if it’s there, it’s a temptation, right?”

  Marc nodded. “Thank God for that. I’m thinking about going on a month-long detox because of all the drink I’ve been having lately. It’s getting crazy.”

  They reached the front door and Rose set down his bag on the doorstep, took a bunch of keys from his jacket pocket, and opened the door.

  “It’s weird coming here when Harry isn’t around.” Marc stared through the open doorway, into the gloomy hall. “I’ve never been inside this house without him inviting me inside. He would always wait in the window, watching, and as soon as I got near the door it would open. He’d say ‘Why don’t you come in for a while?’ and walk back inside, leaving me to follow.”

  “He’s still here,” said Rose. “In one way or another. You’ll see.” He stepped inside and walked towards the kitchen, bumping the carrier bag against the wall.

  For a moment Marc didn’t want to go inside. It wasn’t the same; it wasn’t right. This was Harry’s house, and Harry needed to be there, to give his usual greeting and put the kettle on. There was a space inside this house, and its shape was that of Harry Rose. The old man had been cut out of the world but his absence was still here, permanent, like a scar in the fabric of existence.

  When he stepped over the threshold and into the house, the sunlight seemed to pull back, moving away from him. He felt the temperature drop and the daylight vanished. T
he lack of Harry Rose was a ghost, a forlorn spectre. In that moment Marc realised that most so-called hauntings were not about what was there, but what was no longer in place. It was not the remains that mattered, but what had been taken away, removed from the living world and placed somewhere else, where nobody could see them.

  Ghosts, he thought, are simply absences made solid. They’re holes in the world, holes that will never be filled again.

  He nudged the door shut with his shoulder, using his foot to make sure that it fitted properly into the frame. When the lock clicked, he followed Rose down the hallway and into the small kitchen, where the other man was putting away the shopping.

  “I got ham and cheese. Is that okay? Some nice bread: fresh stuff, from the bakers.”

  “That sounds great,” said Marc. He put the carrier bag on the table and sat down in one of the dining chairs. He blinked, trying not to draw attention to the fact that his eyes were moist. Not quite real tears, but almost... he missed his friend. He wished that Harry were still here, bustling around in the tiny kitchen, moaning – as he usually did – about some real or imagined slight.

  “How do you take your tea?”

  Marc shifted in the chair, turning to face his host. “White, one sugar, thanks. I usually take it with honey, but Harry used to laugh at that and call me a snob.”

  “Aye,” said Rose, shaking his head. “The old bastard had some funny ideas about stuff like that. For years, he called me a traitor to my class simply because I attended university and went to work in insurance. He never let me live that down... never failed to twist the knife, either.”

  The kettle made a popping sound, signalling that the water had boiled. Steam filled the air between the two men, making it seem like a fog had crept into the room.

  Rose didn’t move. He stood there, veiled by steam, staring at nothing.

  “Erm... the kettle’s boiled.” Marc made to rise, but when his host snapped back into the moment, lurching towards the kettle, he pretended that he’d simply been shifting his position on the seat.