Nightsiders (8 page)

“Sorry, Dad.” Connor’s voice was tiny, like that of an infant.

Robert walked away, not sure what else he could say. He felt close to tears.

He climbed the stairs and went to their room, then stood outside and listened at the door. He could hear Molly crying, and was afraid if he went inside he would be unable to stop himself from screaming at her. He thought of that couple in the bar, practically eating each other’s faces, and felt his stomach flip. He imagined some boy’s hands all over his daughter’s body, and feared for her because of her lack of street smarts. He had always done his best to protect his children, and to bring them up in what he thought of as the right way. This inevitably meant they were both a little naive, and some of their friends knew much more about the seamier side of life…but was it so wrong to try and retain a sense of purity within the sanctity of your family, to do your best to keep the tide of filth at bay?

Oh, God
, he thought.
What if she’s pregnant? What if…what if she gave away her virginity in a back lane and finds out she’s up the duff?

He gritted his teeth and leaned his forehead against the door. The wood was cold and hard, but still it felt as if his head would pass right through it if he tried. The edges of his world had become less rigid, all borders were now blurred. Nothing was the same; everything had changed. Fact and fiction had become part of the same experience, reshaping the world into a strange and frightening place.

He pushed open the door and went inside. Molly was sitting on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest and her T-shirt stretched over her kneecaps. She was staring at the bed, her face streaked with tears. She looked about four years old.

“Hello, love.” All the anger had gone now; he felt calm and detached, buoyed on currents of warm air. Things were going wrong, going haywire, and all he could do was attempt to limit or contain the damage. “How are you feeling?”

“Nothing happened, Daddy.” She had not called him that in years, not since she was tiny. “We were just walking around, holding hands. I was upset because you and Mum had that fight, and Ethan listened to me. That’s all. We just walked and talked.”

“Are you sure? Do you promise?” His voice was contracting, becoming small and quiet.

Molly looked up at him, her face a pale, drawn mask. Now she looked so much older than fourteen, and he felt like weeping for all the potential hurt that lay ahead in her future. He wished he could take care of her for the rest of her life. “I promise, Daddy.” Once again, he knew deep down she was lying: all that remained a mystery was the extent of the lie. He hoped it was a small one, a little white lie, and that its effects would be negligible. He could not judge her for her dishonesty, not in his current position. Not only was he lying to Molly, to Connor, and to Sarah, but he was also lying to himself.

He was the king of liars.

Robert went to her, and he knelt down at the side of the bed. He threw his arms around her, holding her as if she might float up and away if he ever let go.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll make it all better.” Another lie: this one perhaps the biggest of them all.

10:30
A.M.

The police station was quiet when he walked in. Nobody looked at him; even the uniformed officer on desk duty ignored him. An old man sat on a bench with a small dog in his lap and two women whispered together from their seats near the door. The white-painted walls were covered in shiny paper flyers; wanted and missing-persons posters and information leaflets, commonplace police station junk probably left unread by everyone who passed through the door.

“I’m here to see Sergeant McMahon,” he said, raising his voice to a level that fell just short of shouting.

The man at the desk looked up, frowning. “Who would that be, sir?”

“Sergeant McMahon. I’d like to see him, please.”

The officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, but there’s no one here by that name. We have a Sergeant Mackenzie, but he’s out on a call. I can take your details and ask him to get back to you.”

A clock ticked; behind the desk, beyond a narrow corridor and through a set of doors, several telephones rang. Pipes groaned and grumbled in the walls. Robert was surprised only that he was not surprised. It was as if this moment, this small revelation was simply part of some bigger story, and he was the unwilling protagonist being put through a set of preordained paces.

“So,” said Robert, looming over the desk. “You’re telling me there isn’t a Sergeant McMahon? That he doesn’t exist?” He clenched his hands on the desktop; his fingernails dragged across the smooth Formica surface.

Beats of silence: the women had stopped whispering and even the telephones no longer rang.

“That’s right, sir. Can anyone else help?” The officer was losing interest. Now that he had decided Robert was not a threat, he was growing bored with the exchange. “If you’ll just write down your name and number here, I’ll have someone call you when the sergeant gets in.” He pushed a pad and pencil across the desk.

Noise flooded back in, filling the vacuum and making Robert’s ears drone. It was like someone was trying to tell him something, but all those other sounds were doing their best to drown out the tiny voice. He strained to hear, but nothing came through: the transmission was too weak.

“No. No, that’s okay. I must have been given duff information, that’s all. It’s nothing important, just a minor thing.” Robert felt like laughing in the man’s face; his sanity was slipping, but at least he was aware of the fact. Wasn’t it true if you thought you were mad, then surely you could not be mad? Q.E.D.

He was halfway across the room to the door when he turned back, stopping again at the desk. Something had occurred to him, a small thing, but one that amused him.

“Yes?” The officer spoke through pursed lips, clearly annoyed by now.

“I think I will leave my details after all,” said Robert, reaching for the pencil and the notepad. He carefully inscribed a name and address across the top of the page.

Nathan Corbeau

1 Oval Lane

Battle

Then, satisfied, he put down the pencil and left the station.

Robert had no idea why he had written down Corbeau’s details, other than it felt as if he were reclaiming something, a part of himself that had been snatched away by that other man who had taken his place. It made him feel powerful for a moment, and he gained an insight into what type of creature the usurper might be. He understood the thrill of theft, the prolonged high of pretending you were someone else, and took comfort from the knowledge that the life you knew could be smothered and replaced with another, even for such a short period of time.

He did not return to the hotel. Instead he climbed into the car and headed for Oval Lane. It was a short drive, but a pleasant one, and even in his current state of agitation he could enjoy the sight of the trees and the fields and the ancient farm buildings dotted along the horizon. A series of low hills rose into the distance, like the spine of a fossilized dragon, and he felt a strange sensation of being uplifted from the norm as he viewed the scene through the windshield.

He drove up the narrow access road and parked the car. He was just about to get out when his mobile phone rang. He picked it up from the dashboard and answered it.

“Rob,” said Sarah, breathless. “Is she with you? Is Molly there?”

He closed his eyes. “No, she isn’t with me. What’s happened?” He tightened his grip on the phone; plastic creaked close to his ear.

“She’s gone again, with that boy. Connor’s here, but she’s not. I was in the shower when I heard the door slam, and when I came out, Connor told me the boy had called her on her phone and she’d rushed out to meet him.” There was panic in her voice, but she remained in control. There was no danger, not yet; at least they knew who Molly was with, even if they did not know this boy personally.

“Have you called the police again?”

“No. Do you think I should?”

He paused, thinking about the question. “No. They won’t do anything anyway. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just messing about with some boy we don’t approve of: that’s not a crime. Stay there with Connor and I’ll see if I can find her.” His finger slid over the button that would terminate the call, but did not press it.

“Where are you, Rob?”

“Nowhere,” he said, thinking that was exactly where he was: nowhere at all. Nowhereville. He pressed the button and the line went dead.

He got out of the car and walked over the gravel drive, stopping at the porch. The sound of birdsong was like a recording. This time the outer door was open, so he stepped inside and rapped his knuckles against the inner frame. He did not knock again; he just waited for someone to answer. He had the feeling they knew he was there, waiting, and they would come eventually, when they were ready for him.

Nathan Corbeau opened the door. He was wearing a faded muscle vest and a pair of soccer shorts: Robert could not identify the team; he did not recognize the team logo. The man’s upper torso was wide, almost square in shape, and his arms were well defined and hairy. His skin was dark, almost swarthy. “Hello, stranger.” His smile was huge, and hungry.

“We need to talk.” Robert held his gaze, refusing to budge even an inch. He remembered the rape, the aftermath, and the promises he and Sarah had made both to each other and to themselves. He was not a victim; he would never be a victim again.

“Well, come on in, loverboy.” Corbeau stepped back and to the side, opening the door wider.

Robert stepped across the threshold, recalling something he had once read about vampires having to be invited in before they can enter a person’s home. “Thank you.”

Corbeau led him along the hallway and to the living room doorway. The wallpaper was scratched and torn, and somebody had spray-painted crude obscenities from floor to ceiling. The living room door had been removed from its frame. The wood around the absent hinges was rough and jagged, as if it had been hacked at by a dull blade.

“We’re decorating, so you’ll have to excuse the mess.” Corbeau led the way into the living room, smiling.

Monica Corbeau was sitting on the sofa, one hand buried in a slit in the cushions and pulling out the padding. She was wearing some kind of housedress, open to the waist, and no underwear. Her breasts hung loose; there were food stains on her skin. She turned to him and smiled, chocolate stains on her teeth and rubbed into her messy hair. “We weren’t expecting visitors,” she said. “If you’d called ahead, we could have dressed up and made a bit of an effort.” She giggled, and kept on tearing the stuffing out of the sofa.

The floor was littered with detritus: fast-food cartons, beer cans, condoms, wooden crates, pages torn from pornographic magazines, and, oddly, cut flowers. The stems of the flowers were dry and brittle, and the petals had been scattered across the grubby carpet in decorative arcs. The room smelled bad, like backed-up sewage pipes.

“What have you done to my house?” Robert stared at the walls. There were brown stains that looked like they might be feces, and when he raised his eyes to examine the ceiling, he saw that wads of dirty toilet paper had been balled up and thrown so that they stuck to the plaster.

The blinds and curtains were drawn, and someone had set fire to the trailing edge of the curtains before extinguishing the flames to create a long charred hem that had left deposits of ash on the floor.

“We’ve been making the place feel more like a home, making our mark, putting our stamp on things.” Corbeau moved toward his supine wife, reached out a hand and grabbed one of her breasts. She giggled again.

Robert realized then that he was truly in the company of beasts: there was no other explanation for these people and the things they did. He cast aside his inbred middle-class liberalism and accepted they were monsters. It felt strange, going against everything he had been taught, to dismiss fellow human beings in this way, but his only hope for survival was to see them for what they were. No excuses; no theories or postulations. They were beasts.

“Why are you doing this to us?” His shoulders slumped, but he knew he had to gain a degree of control. “Just tell me why.”

Corbeau let go of his wife’s breast and walked back toward Robert. His feet crunched on food containers and broken glass. “We’re playing games, now. We’re just beginning.” His voice was quiet, but sounded louder than a jet engine in the stifling silence of the room. “We’re playing funny games.”

Robert looked him in the eye, and reflected there he saw…nothing. No love, no hate, no empathy, no antipathy…nothing but an empty yearning for diversion, the need to be entertained. “But who are you?”

Corbeau stopped in his tracks, spreading his legs apart as if to balance his weight in an unstable world. He put his hands on his hips and leaned back slightly, like a stage actor preparing to bellow his lines at an audience. His face looked odd, as if it didn’t quite fit on his skull.

“Who are we?” He repeated Robert’s question, but with a tone of contempt in his voice. “I’ll tell you who we are. We’re the ones you don’t want to be reminded of. The ones born on forgotten council estates, and who grow up to steal your cars, break into your houses, and rape your wives and your daughters. We’re the ones whose names you never know, but whose faces haunt your CCTV dreams…the ones with steel in our bones and acid in our blood. The mad ones, the bad ones, the glad ones. We’re every lazy middle-class stereotype brought to life.”