Beyond Here Lies Nothing

At the woman’s side, wrapped up in blankets, there is a small baby. The baby is silent; it does not cry. Its eyes are only half open; its mouth is twisted into an odd shape, the lips limp. The baby might be drugged.

The man nods as he chants. Tears begin to well up from his eyes and then spill down his cheeks. The woman reaches out clumsily and grabs his hand. The man shakes his head, vigorously; it is the woman’s turn to nod.

The woman lets go of the man’s hand, turns her body, and picks up the tiny baby.

They both continue to chant. The man’s voice is quiet but the woman’s is loud, as if she has something to prove.

Then, abruptly, the chant changes, one word, repeated over and over again: Loculus.

The woman holds up the baby by its throat. The blankets drop to the floor. The baby remains still, its sedated form motionless as they woman closes her eyes and starts to squeeze.

The man looks down, at the floor. Behind him, something stirs. Darkness rushes in, like a thick fog, coiling at floor level and then rising, forming a tube, before it takes on the shape of a man. A white-beaked face leans forward, eager.

The man opens his eyes. He reaches out and grabs the baby. The woman does not resist. It is over, just like that: the moment has gone. The spell is broken.

The beaked figure fades to blackness, flapping its arms and thrashing its head from side to side. Then, after a few seconds of this violent activity, it is gone.

The man and the woman stare at each other, reaching some kind of unspoken agreement. They reach out and hold hands, the baby clasped between them.

The sacrifice has failed. They could not go through with it. They could not kill the baby, even to save the other children.

Marc’s parents — his real parents, who loved him after all — have backed out of whatever deal they had made.

That is the reason for the subsequent haunting. That is why Captain Clickety tried to get to the twins. Because the life he was offered, the one he would have accepted without pain or pity, was revoked. The one he’d been told about all that time ago when he’d first encountered the village of Groven: the Witness.

So instead he went after all the others — the Pollack twins and all the rest: the ones he took and the ones that got away. The Pollack twins, the three boys he lured inside the Needle, the Gone Away Girls… but none of them was ever the right one. Because that one escaped, he was snatched away.

But now he’d come back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ROYLE PARKED IN the next street and made his way on foot to Abby Hansen’s house. He’d already been briefed on the two-way radio, so he knew what was going on. Erik Best — a man he’d met and spoken with on several occasions — had gone crazy with a handgun and there was a full-on armed siege taking place in the Concrete Grove.

As he approached the property, flashing his ID at uniformed officers as he made his way through the police cordon, he saw members of the Armed Response Unit getting into position. A man with a high-powered rifle was visible on the roof of the house opposite; the rest of the team was dotted about at various points close to the house, their weapons trained on the front door and windows. There’d be at least a couple of officers at the back of the house, doing the same thing. It was all locked down tight; Erik Best was going nowhere apart from down.

Detective Superintendent Sillitoe himself came walking over when he saw Royle, raising a hand in greeting. The tall, thin man looked anxious. He never had been good with television crews, and there were a lot of cameras on the scene today.

“Sir,” he said, nodding.

“Glad you could make it, Royle. We have a… well, a situation here.”

“I’ve been briefed, sir. I know what’s going on.”

Sillitoe glanced towards the house and then back again, his eyes narrow and focused. “You know this man, Best?”

“I do, sir. I’ve dealt with him on a few occasions. He’s a local gangster — did time for GBH and assault, but we could never pin anything else on him. It’s a known fact that he runs bare-knuckle boxing bouts but not from anywhere around here. We think he has links to the drug fraternity, but again there’s no hard evidence. He’s Teflon, sir. The bastard always manages to stay out of our sights.”

“Okay, anything else?”

Royle paused, tried to remain calm. “The Gone Away Girls, sir.”

Sillitoe tensed, seeming to grow in height. “What about them, Royle. Don’t start all that shit again, please. Not here, not now.” His eyes opened wider, flashed.

“No, sir, you don’t understand. The last girl taken, before it all stopped… it was Best’s daughter, Tessa Hansen.”

“And the mother’s in there with him…”

“So I believe, sir.”

“Fuck. That’s all we need, to revisit another old mess.” He paused, looked again at the house. When he turned back to Royle, his features had softened. “Can I rely on you, Royle?”

“You know you can, sir.”

Sillitoe smiled. “Good… that’s good. Let’s try to keep any mention of the Gone Away — of that case — to ourselves.” His lips curled, as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. “The press are all over this to begin with. Armed sieges, hostage situations… flavour of the fucking month, especially after that Moat business last year over in Rothbury. The bastards can’t seem to get enough of this ‘mad gunman’ shit.”

“Yes, sir. I know.” He stared at Sillitoe’s face, trying to read the man’s thoughts. But that was impossible; nobody could read Detective Superintendent Sillitoe. That was what made him so good at police force politics, why he’d risen so far and so quickly through the ranks, despite being such a piss-poor detective.

Royle was about to add something more when he heard the gunshot.

The sound was followed by a commotion: bystanders hit the deck, police officers ran around trying to look as if they had some kind of control over the situation, members of the Armed Response Unit hunched over their weapons, awaiting the order to fire at will.

Sillitoe moved quickly behind the nearest vehicle, protecting himself. Royle moved away, taking the opportunity to give his superior officer the slip. He’d been told to come here, he was meant to be on site, right in the middle of the action. He didn’t need any distractions. He just wanted to get to the heart of the matter and rip it out, still beating if necessary.

“Royle!” The voice came from an upper storey window.

He stopped walking, turned, and looked up at the front of the house. He could see a figure partially obscured by a bedroom curtain.

Looking around, he saw an officer cowering nearby with a bullhorn in his hand. He jogged over there and grabbed it, hitting the switch and causing a whine of feedback. He put the apparatus to hips lips, took a breath, and spoke:

'Best? Yes, it’s me, DS Royle. You remember me, don’t you?”

A pause… nobody on the street dared to speak.

“Yeah, I know you. I’ll speak to you… only you.” Another pause; the man was thinking things through, examining his options. “Get up here now, or I’ll kill the woman and the kid.”