‘We’ve got other concerns, Callie,’ Mia said with an icy cold calm.
‘You have, you mean? Not us, you!’
‘We all have,’ Albie said quietly. Mia flashed her a look and then returned to Jarrow who remained impassive in front of her. Mary was at his side, staring at the ground, clearly deferring all control to her husband.
‘Well, thanks for your hospitality, Jarrow, but we will be leaving now.’
Jarrow smiled a TV presenter’s smile that didn’t belong in reality. ‘Tell me, Mia, what do you see when you see us?’
‘Twisted bastards!’ Callie bellowed at the back of the tent.
‘I choose not to see anything,’ Mia said.
‘Of course you do. You see evil, don’t you?’
Something shifted inside Mia, a sensation more than a real feeling, a distant voice that wanted to reply for her. ‘You have no idea what real evil is, Jarrow. I hope you never do.’ The index finger on her right hand was flaring again as the middle finger rested clumsily on the trigger of her weapon, but Mia pushed on. ‘I’d like the keys to one of your vehicles out there, please. Now.’
‘Look at us, Mia. Look into my eyes. Look at Mary. At Melissa or her two children. Do any of us look evil to you? Do we look like vicious people who enjoy inflicting pain on people?’ Jarrow thrust his chest out proudly, his words taking on a slightly pompous tone again. ‘Did we not save you? Did I not patch you and your friends up, and make you better? That’s what we do here, Mia. We make people better. We save people.’
‘I’m not interested,’ Mia replied in her ice-cold voice. ‘I’ve heard it all before. The good doing the great, or is it the great doing the good? I get confused. You self-appointed judges. You’re all as corrupt as the next. Are you really that much better than that madman Schaeffer and all that he did?’
Jarrow bristled at that and his smile faded. ‘I am a good man. We are good people.’
‘No you’re not. You’ve just shifted the definition of what is good, to justify your actions. So has The Party.’
‘Says the girl holding a rifle.’
‘I’ve seen what they have done up there at Bleeker Hill, you know? The Wash? I was there. I heard the same grand justifications. All these good men. It really is a wonder the country has fallen apart, what with all these good people around us. Wouldn’t you say, Jarrow?’
‘Was Sullivan a good man?’
Now it was Mia’s turn for indignation. ‘You don’t say that name to me.’
‘Was he a great man?’ Jarrow’s smile was creeping back onto his face. ‘How you shouted his name to me when I was putting you back together. He must be so important to you. He must be a really good man. Is he, Mia? Is Sullivan a good man?’
‘Keys. Now.’
‘You would steal from us, Mia? You would leave us without one of our vehicles, after all that…’
‘Keys!’ Mia screamed, the word exploding through the still night air trapped in the tent.
‘We don’t…don’t actually…I mean…I can hotwire…I know how to hotwire…a…yeah…’ Tommy had been so quiet in the tent that Mia had momentarily forgotten he was there. Stood at the entrance next to Albie and Sam, he hung his head as if embarrassed by his own presence in the situation. ‘If you want I can hotwire one of them.’
Mia glanced to Tommy and nodded slowly, her lips betraying a smile she hadn’t intended. ‘Go, Tommy. Go do it now.’
‘Him!’ Galton suddenly barked at the group. ‘You save his life and yet you keep me chained up in a cage! You know who he is? I know him! I’ve walked patrols with him. He’s a Party man just like me. So was his dad! Let me go and take him instead!’
Tommy stopped in the doorway to the tent, one hand holding the canvas flap of the entrance up over his head. Jarrow was now working Tommy over with his eyes, just as he had done at the campfire when he swallowed the casual lie Hector and Tommy had offered to explain away his clothes. This time Jarrow seemed to be seeing Tommy Bergan all too clearly.
‘Well more fool me for being a trusting man,’ Jarrow said to Tommy’s back.
Melissa and her children were also glaring at Tommy now too, and Mia didn’t need to see Donald to know where that man’s focus was right at that moment. Only Mary remained in the same position, staring dolefully down at the ground. The tension in the air, already palpable, now seemed to be twisting and tightening around them, and Mia suddenly started to feel its suffocating hold.
‘Go!’ Mia shouted to Tommy. ‘Go now, Tommy!’
‘You can’t trust him!’ Galton spat. ‘Take him, you don’t need me. He’s much higher up in The Party than I am. You don’t want me.’ Blarney lifted his right paw from the ground just in front of Galton and snarled, his yellowing fangs seeming to grow and stretch out of his black lips. ‘Someone get this dog away from me!’
7
Tommy is slipping on the slick and muddy pathway. He is falling to his knees, pulling himself up and then sprawling out again onto his face with a splat. Both doors to the ambulance are locked and he is not surprised. The back of the ambulance is a storeroom of pills and lotions, boxes stacked neatly on top of each other. No way into the front from there. Tommy is then swinging his jacket off his shoulders, wrapping it around a fist and smashing the driver’s side window.
A figure was suddenly drawn out of the darkness behind him, some ghostly, nightmare vision, and now pale old fingers clawed at the material of his shirt as if trying to hold on to something, anything. Tommy spun around in surprise and launched himself at the shape, the two of them coming together in a half hug, and then the shape seemed to fold in on itself as if his body was made of paper, and Tommy were a howling gale. The skeletal body hit the ground with barely any sound, and then Tommy was down on top of it, a fist raised up high above his head, ready to strike. In his blind panic Tommy’s mind had seen Jarrow standing there, or maybe Donald, or worse still it had been Galton, but now, the reveal of his attacker suddenly made Tommy freeze.
‘You?’ Tommy said, still stunned by who he was looking at.
‘Please,’ Malcolm whispered. ‘Please. Yes. Yes!’ He was staring above Tommy at his clenched fist. ‘Yes. Yes.’ He repeated the word, the plea, over and over in a hoarse cry. His hands fumbled along Tommy’s legs and then up to his shirt again, fingers tugging listlessly at the material.
‘What are you doing? What do you want?’
‘No more,’ Malcolm sighed, and then coughed angrily. He turned his head to the side and spat into the mud. ‘Do it! Please!’
‘Crazy old bastard.’ Tommy began to stand from him but those bony fingers summoned an old strength from somewhere and latched onto his shirt, holding him where he was. ‘Get your damn hands off me!’ Tommy slapped Malcolm’s hands away and then stood over him, straightening his shirt.
‘Here…here…’ Malcolm’s fingers ran along his loose-fitting belt and hooked around a keychain. ‘Here…keys. I have keys.’
‘You what?’
‘Take the keys. Take them. Get away from this place.’
Tommy crouched to the old man and reached down for the keychain. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Go!’ Malcolm coughed again but kept his focus on Tommy. ‘Take your people and go.’
‘These aren’t my people. I’m nothing to them.’
‘Go! Just get out of here!’
‘What is this? What do you want?’
Malcolm’s right hand closed around Tommy’s at the keychain, shaking with the exertion of a strength born from the fear now colouring his empty face. ‘Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me with these people.’
‘I’m not taking you with us old man, how long do you think you would last out there? You know what’s going on in this country? This is the safest…’
The grip on Tommy’s hand tightened even further, those fingers curling around, refusing to release. When Malcolm spoke again it was through gritted teeth. ‘Why would I want to go anywhere with you? Why would I want to go anywhere with
anyone? Look at me. Look at me! This country had me long ago. End this. Please…Tommy? Yes. Do it, Tommy. End this. Don’t leave me with these people. Do it and take your people away from here.’
‘Let go of my hand you mad old loon. Let me have the keys!’
‘Please…Tommy, please…’
Tommy began to pull at Malcolm’s fingers with his other hand, trying to prise them open, but Malcolm wouldn’t give to him. He was snarling, he was weeping, his face turned away as he summoned whatever was left of his belligerent old spirit. ‘Kill me, Tommy! Do it. Please!’
‘Shut up!’ Tommy swung a palm across Malcolm’s face and then began to hit at his hand. ‘Give me those damn keys!’
Malcolm howled as Tommy wrenched at his index finger and twisted it. The pain sucked out the last of the old man’s resolve and his hand released its hold on Tommy’s, swung up above his head and then flopped down pathetically into the mud. Tommy ripped the keychain clear and then turned away. ‘You bastard,’ he said to the empty space where Tommy had just been, ‘you stupid bastard.’
As Tommy began emptying the back of the ambulance, dumping the boxes of supplies onto the ground, Malcolm rolled his head back and for several minutes lost himself amongst the deep dark of the night sky. The rain had stopped and the threatening wind had fallen away. The air had become thick and heavy, threatening a storm, and yet right then there was calmness in the sky.
‘I’m sorry, Malcolm,’ Tommy said from somewhere close by.
Malcolm closed his eyes on the first star of the night.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tommy said again as he gently pressed his hands around the old man’s neck.
Malcolm gave no reply. He didn’t need to. The smile on his face was enough.
8
The hold is fragile. The catch is weak. She is falling away from him again and as he tries to hold himself inside her he is put in mind of the feeble, desperate fingers of old man Malcolm trying to find purchase at Tommy’s shirt. Silence is fumbling the connection, losing his grip, but yet she is still there…just…
Mia…
She is in the same position in the tent and she is sweeping that rifle around slowly at each person in turn, she is lingering at Galton. A statement. A threat that doesn’t need words. That eerie quietness that came as soon as Tommy left is thick and heavy like the humid air and Mia is in no hurry to break it. As far as she is concerned it has all been said. Old Frosty bollocks’ sister has other ideas though…
‘Well, Mia?’
Mia gave no reply, refusing to even look at Callie. She wondered just what sort of sheltered existence Callie and Hector had lived through all these months. Hector knew better, he must do, he knew they had no choice but to walk away and leave Galton to the mercy of these people. He wouldn’t care, so why did his sister? Then Mia realised there was a time, not so far gone, where she would probably have been as disgusted and conflicted as Callie was. It was a time wrapped up with her father, a period full of memories not yet tainted. She pushed the thought away, turning her mind from that person she barely recognised any more. It was the easier way to be. The safer way.
‘Well?’ Callie said again. ‘Answer me, Mia.’
‘Leave it, sis,’ Hector whispered into her ear, a protective arm around one shoulder.
‘Why should I leave it?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, Callie. Let’s just get out of here. I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be.’
‘Wise words, thief,’ Galton said from his position on the floor, slumped back against the cage. ‘You’ve been hanging round this murdering bitch too long. You’ve lost your sense of the right thing to do. You know your sister has called it right. Callie knows the right thing. Listen to her. Listen to Callie.’
‘Shut up!’ Hector shouted down to the floor, ‘don’t you speak to me, Party filth.’
‘You know you can’t leave me here. You know it isn’t right. You call me filth yet you buddy up to little Tommy Bergan? You know who his father was?’
‘Shut your trap, Galton.’
‘Callie, talk some sense into these people. You’re a good person, I can see it, I know you know this isn’t right!’ Galton’s voice was thin and reedy, a childish warble. ‘Help me, Callie!’
Hector wrapped both arms around Callie and tried to move her away but she held her ground and matched his strength.
Galton turned his attention onto Jarrow and his wife. ‘You going to let Frankie Bergan’s kid walk out of here? You want a member of The Party at your mercy then you’re not going to have a better catch than him walk by your way anytime soon. You want your own private piñata, use him, not me. I’m a nobody. I’m nothing.’
Mary continued to stare unblinking at the ground. Next to her Jarrow remained fixated on Mia, waiting for her move. At his sides his hands opened and closed to fists. Outside the tent a horn sounded, and then beneath it came the low revving of an engine.
‘Haircut? Take Callie outside and tell Tommy we’ll be right there, will you?’
‘No!’ Callie screamed again as her brother started to try and wrestle her to the front of the tent. ‘You can’t do this Hector! This isn’t right!’
‘Stop it, Callie. We have to go!’
Albie stepped forward to help, but was quickly shoved aside by Callie. Outside the horn sounded again.
‘I never did thank you, did I?’ Mia asked Jarrow, quietly.
‘No. No you didn’t.’
‘Thank you, doctor Jarrow.’
‘The very idea that you would think we do this for thanks shows just how little you understand us.’
‘I don’t want to understand you.’
‘Worried you might come to the realization we are doing the right thing?’
‘Don’t leave me with these people!’ Galton tried to stagger up to his feet but Donald stepped forward and kicked him back to the floor. The horn sounded again outside, in three quick blasts. ‘Please…Callie…don’t let them leave me here! Please, Callie!’
Callie, already fighting her brother with a series of wild thumps and slaps was now kicking out at Albie who was also trying to hold her still and calm her. ‘How can you allow this, Hector? Albie? How can you just stand by and…’
‘Oh, for crying out loud! Enough of this bullshit!’
They are all freezing in surprise. Not one of them seemed to remember he was there. This killer. This assassin. Now the boy is stepping forward into the centre of the tent and they are all staring at him with stupid, gawping faces. He has more control in his short stride than any of these ridiculous adults could hope to ever have, and if they bothered to think about that then they would be scared too. He is barging past Mia and then shoving Frosty bollocks to one side, and then he is swiping up the scalpel from the trolley. They all stare. In one step he is in front of Galton, and then with one quick swish of his right arm, he has drawn the scalpel across that man’s throat. A small river of red is breaking and beginning to ooze down Galton’s neck, ugly great gushes of blood spurting out between his broken fingers as he claws at the wound, and now he is sinking back to the ground and he is gurgling and whining his last. Still they stare. These stupid people just stare. Now the boy is turning to them all, his bloody weapon up before him, and it feels like a taunt.
‘Can we go now, do you think?’ he is asking the others. ‘Haven’t we got things to do?’
There are statues around him. Pale faced and frozen, they continue to stare. The older woman is buckling at the knees as a scream builds inside her. Now Mia is moving and the machine gun is swinging off her back and she is throwing it towards the young boy…
Darkshines…
That word suddenly came at him again and then Silence was yanked out of his darkness and thrown back into the night’s embrace, the connections severed. Instantly he fought back and pushed at Mia and Sam and then Tommy in quick succession. The catch seemed to stretch and fray in his hands and then he was lost in someone else’s darkness, a hold that held him at whim. He trie
d to pull back from it but it was already too late.
Singer…
His former neighbour’s mad face seemed to leer down at Silence from an impossible height. Silence pushed on and tried to move past him but there was no way around the memory. It was going to be played out and Silence had no choice but to be in the audience. Singer is there at Darkshines and he is staring out through the bars in the window of his cell door, his lunatic eyes finding Silence and then Audley Thinwater who is standing next to him. Silence is leaving. Free. Though never free. He has succumbed and handed himself over to The Party and that face in the next cell is mocking him and Silence is feeling hollow inside. Thinwater, that podgy brute of an animal is pounding the barred window of Singer’s cell door with a fist and sneering at him. “You’re next, Singer!” Thinwater is saying. “The Party will have you next!” and Singer is laughing and the laugh is a hideous noise, and then those madman’s eyes are the last things Silence sees as he leaves the place they called The Hole, for the last time. He is calling…
Darkshines…
Singer’s laughter echoed through him as he was thrown back, released once more to the night. It was a taunt that was never going to leave. It was both threat and invitation. Silence pounded his fists to the truck and then sat up again, gritting his teeth and pulling back his lips as if he were about to snarl. The hunting knife was unsheathed and firm in his right hand and he had no memory of it. Silence had no hold on anything in that instant except a deep red rage that needed its release. The knife was thrust down through the side of the truck, pulled free and then punched down through the metal again. Ten times he did it, each blow harder than the previous one, and yet that anger would not abate. The rage could not be released. Not yet and not here.
Darkshines.
‘Yes,’ he said into the night as he slipped the knife back into its sheath. ‘Yes, Milo. Yes.’
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