Nightsiders

10:30 A.M.

Robert Mitchell was stressed.

He’d known all along it would happen; this response had always been inevitable. After a fortnight spent camping in the Lake District, the entire family relaxed and at ease with the world, he would have bet his bottom dollar that the first sniff of reality, of so-called civilisation, would set his triggers twitching.

And here it was; the absolute proof of his prognosis.

Twenty-five miles outside Battle, the town whose outskirts they’d moved to only three weeks ago (bad timing considering the planned holiday, but Robert had managed to get a good deal at a property auction), and civilisation had returned with a vengeance to bite him in the arse. He’d been idling along at a steady thirty miles per hour, obeying the speed signs and still sustaining a reasonable mood from the holiday, when some prick in a four-wheel-drive Jeep had cruised up behind him, getting closer to his rear bumper and generally making it obvious he wanted to overtake.

The road was narrow, only wide enough for a single vehicle, and there were no passing points in sight. So Robert had carried on at the same steady speed, glancing in the rearview mirror and catching sight of some fat man scowling through his windscreen, his broad tattooed arm and dimpled elbow sticking out of the open side window.

Then the fat man edged even farther forward, his wide, black, mud-spattered front end nudging the rear of Robert’s ten-year-old Volvo Estate…gently, gently, and without causing any damage, but nudging it all the same.

Robert glanced again into the rearview mirror, his mouth becoming dry and his eyes watering. The fat man was wearing a pair of mirror-lens aviator sunglasses; his shiny jowls were cleanly shaven, his hair cut short, like an American army crew cut. His mouth was carved into a thin smile, bright white teeth showing like little fangs.

Robert’s hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel. The man’s very presence was threatening, but in a quiet, understated way. Not like the idiots in the city, where Robert and his family used to live. Not like…like him. The one who’d changed everything; the bastard whose lean, creased face Robert saw behind him, leering over his shoulder, every time he looked into a mirror.

No. No. Not like him. Not this one.

“What’s wrong?”

Robert glanced at Sarah, unable for the moment to speak, to grunt, to communicate in any way. He forced a smile. Then, finally, his voice returned. “Nothing, love. Just this moron sitting up my backside. He’s, you know—he’s getting on my nerves.”

Sarah’s eyes flickered to the mirror in the sun visor; only moments earlier she’d been putting on lipstick, so the visor was down, despite the fact that the sun was not strong enough to warrant the protection.

“It’s nothing.” As soon as he said this, Robert tasted the lie. It was like a particularly strong spice on his tongue; unpleasant and lingering.

“Just speed up and he’ll soon get bored,” said Sarah, not sounding too convinced by her own rationale.

“What’s up, Dad?” Molly’s voice was still thick with tiredness from the early morning start; she must have taken out her omnipresent earphones, perhaps sensing the tension inside the car.

“It’s okay, Moll. We’re almost there.” Robert craned his neck to smile at the girl. She shrugged, stuck the earphones back in, and went vacant, like any other fourteen-year-old on a long, dull car journey.

Beside her, Connor did not even look up from his PSP. His eyes were wide yet lacking any kind of lustre beyond that reflected from the handheld console. It was a look that often reminded Robert of movie zombies, or the roadkill he sometimes saw flattened on the road.

The sound of a horn blaring pulled his attention back toward the road, then the mirror. The fat man was gesticulating, waving his stubby fingers in a sideways motion.

“He wants me to pull over,” he said, not taking his eyes off the man.

“Fuck him,” said Sarah. “Fuck. Him. He doesn’t own the road.”

Robert tore his gaze away from the mirror and stared at his wife. Sometimes she surprised him by reacting like this. Back in the city, before…before what had happened, she had been calm and collected, timid even. But now, after everything she had gone through, Sarah occasionally slipped into another mode, becoming someone Robert only thought he knew. A different version of his wife: an upgrade.

Robert’s foot pressed down onto the accelerator; in the rearview mirror, the man and his four-wheel-drive receded slightly, slipping back into the dust rising from the road like a light mist. Then he caught himself, and lifted his foot off the pedal. Adrenaline was coursing through his system, but instead of energising him it simply made him shake. Something hard and warm rose in his throat. Robert wanted to puke.

He turned the steering wheel and pulled the Volvo into a passing point, allowing the other vehicle to overtake. The horn blared a second time; the fat man turned to look at Robert. He was smiling. He had won the battle with ease.

“I’m sorry.” His hands were shaking on the wheel.

“For what?” asked Sarah. But she knew; oh yes, she knew. His weakness was there for all to see, and not for the first time.

Sarah reached out and turned on the radio; an old Beatles tune was just ending. She sat and waited for Robert to compose himself, listening to the DJ as he introduced a guest, some psychology professor who was plugging his new book.

Robert began to breathe more easily. He indicated, and pulled back out into the road. He could still see the dust created by the speeding fat man, and to him it looked like some kind of monster from a cheesy B-movie.

He listened to the talking heads on the radio, trying to rid himself of whatever nameless horror was stirring inside his heart, and to take his mind off the memories bubbling slowly to the surface—grim, bitter recollections of their final weeks in the city.

“In today’s all-consuming culture of corruption there is nowhere left to hide. Our homes have already been invaded by this insidious enemy that seeks to twist our minds and poison our hearts through the unmonitored Internet, television, magazines, and music our families ingest on a daily basis.”

The pompous professor was giving a brief synopsis of his book, some cheapjack volume of popular psychology. Robert changed the channel, and was relieved when he found an old, familiar refrain: Nina Simone singing about the “Backlash Blues.”

But for some reason he could not get the words from the radio out of his mind. They were haunting him, or taunting him. He could not be sure which.

Our homes have already been invaded by this insidious enemy that seeks to twist our minds and poison our hearts.

Jesus, why was that staying with him? The phrase was stuck in his brain, like an insect trapped in a jar, constantly beating itself against the glass until it went insane. He knew it was linked to the bad times they’d all gone through, but he also knew he should not allow those memories to hold such power over him.

Robert stared at the road ahead. He was alone, so horribly, terribly alone, despite the presence of his family inside the car. The moment soon passed, but it left behind an emotional residue—a stain—he could not remove however hard he tried.

Even among loved ones, he thought, we are entirely on our own.

“So,” he said, mainly to shift his own dark mood. “Are we all looking forward to getting back to the new house? Settling in, unpacking properly this time, and starting things again?” He wished he had kept quiet. The words he had used, and the way he’d said them, were linked directly to the memories he was trying to keep down.

“Yeah,” said Molly. “It should be fun. Apart from the new school.” She made a puking noise. Beside her, Connor laughed, finally looking up from his game.

“Oh, come on, you two. Dad’s done us proud with this place. I know we didn’t get the chance to get settled in before the trip, but now we can make our mark on the house, make it a real home. There’s still a long time left of the summer holidays, and we can forget about school until then. In the meantime, let’s all just dive into this new adventure and start being a family again.” Despite her surface optimism, Robert knew Sarah’s eyes betrayed how she really felt. She was clearly afraid: of the new life they were planning, of the strange territory represented by the new house and the countryside…of everything.

“Yes, that’s what we want to hear: some positivity.” His own voice held a note of trepidation. Why couldn’t they all just admit they were scared and be done with it? Was it so difficult to open yourself up and show your weaknesses, even to the ones closest to you?

They all went quiet, as if in recognition of their unspoken fears, and Robert stared through the windscreen as if he had never seen a road before. The trees moved slowly, their tops shifting like nodding heads in a slight breeze, and leaves clutched like fingers at the air. Daylight pierced the spaces between those leaves, creating bright spots in the dark treetops. He saw a rabbit racing along the verge, head down, ears pinned back, and he smiled sadly as it veered off into a clump of bushes. The sun hung in the sky as if it were painted on; its glare was unbearable when he looked directly at it, but when viewed askance the yellow blob seemed to become more solid.

Sarah’s hand strayed to touch his knee. Her long fingers clasped him, lightly but with enough pressure to let him know she meant it.

It’s going to be all right, he thought. Everything will be fine.

Before long the battered road sign for the small town of Battle came into view. It was scraped and scratched; someone had daubed meaningless black lines across it in either paint or marker pen. Battle was more like a village than a town, with a few shops, two pubs and a sub-post office counter at the rear of a newsagent. It was exactly the kind of place they needed to heal their wounds; a quiet, almost lazy backwater where everyone knew everyone else’s business but nobody really bothered to interfere.

More importantly, it was a million miles away from the city—if not figuratively, then at least metaphorically. Things moved slower in the country; the people cared little about your past, and even less about your present. He and his family could be outsiders, and now they would relish that sense of alienation. It was a different type of segregation to that found in the city, and one they could use to their advantage.

He began to recognize small sights and markers: a length of tumbledown stone wall, a sign for a farm selling fresh eggs and other produce, a drainage ditch that ran under the road but did not reappear at the opposite side. Soon, he knew, would appear the access road to the house. He was surprised at how quickly, and how deeply, it was starting to feel like home.

“Nearly there now,” he said, waiting for the road to lurch toward them around the next bend. He slowed the car, taking the curve smoothly, and bumped over the slight raised area at the side of the carriageway before shifting down a gear to take the access road.

The road climbed slowly, and if he was honest, it was barely a road at all, more of a dirt track upon which someone had thrown some wood shavings to absorb the surface water. The Volvo’s engine whined a little, but managed the steep climb with ease, and within less than a minute the car was cresting the rise and the house leapt up to meet them.

“I forgot how nice it is,” said Sarah.

“Yeah,” agreed Molly. “It is. It really is.”

Even Connor managed a muted response from somewhere at the back of his throat.

“Whose car is that?” Robert was suddenly wary. They were expecting no visitors, and not even his solicitor knew the exact date of their return from the camping trip.

“Is it the estate agent?” Sarah sounded hopeful, too hopeful, as if she were pleading with him to affirm her query.

It was an old car—a Ford Cortina—with mud caking the tyres and the wings, and deep grazes in the front bumper. The windscreen was tinted, and even from this distance Robert could see it was coated in a layer of dirt and dead insects, with tracks cut through the mess by the windscreen wipers. It was a dirty car, a vehicle that did not look cared for or well-maintained. The dirt ran deeper than the bodywork. He was certain whoever drove this vehicle was nobody he knew, or wanted to know.

He pulled up on the wide gravel drive, setting the handbrake and turning off the engine. He shifted his gaze from the filthy car to the house, and noted the curtains and blinds were all open. He had pulled them all shut before locking up the place; he was as sure of this as he was of the fact that there had been no car in the drive when they left for their trip.

“Stay here,” he said, opening the door and stepping out onto the gravel. Stones crunched loudly, as if attempting to signal his arrival. “I’ll check this out.”

As he walked slowly and cautiously toward his new home, a place where he had hoped to silence the terrors that cried out to him at night, a single curtain twitched in a downstairs room and a pale face appeared briefly at the window before moving away.

11:05 A.M.

Robert kept his pace even as he approached the front porch, refusing to betray his fear to either his family in the car, or whoever was occupying his house. Surely there was a rational explanation for all this; perhaps the estate agent had employed a cleaner to get the house ready for their return from the Lakes.

Yes, that must be it. A cleaner.

Deep down inside him, where he wrestled with demons, the truth fought to be heard. There was no cleaner, and the agent knew nothing about whoever had parked their filthy little car on his drive.

Robert paused at the outer door to the porch, taking a breath and adjusting his footing. For some reason it seemed important to solidify his grip on the world, and he curled his toes inside his shoes as if he were trying to grasp the dirt through the thin leather soles. He’d started using this technique when Sarah was in the hospital. He found it helped root him into the moment.

He reached inside his pocket and grasped the set of keys he had been carrying since taking possession of the house. On it were keys for the front porch, the inner front door, the back and side doors, and the garage, which was situated at the back of the main building. He held the keys for a moment before pulling them out of his pocket, as if he needed to convince himself of their reality before allowing them to be seen.

He took the key (marked with a yellow sticker) and pushed it into the lock. The key jammed halfway in, and even when he jiggled it, rocking it from side to side, it was apparent the key did not fit the aperture. He took out the key, checked the sticker. Yes; yellow for the front door, blue for the back, green for the side and black for the garage. He tried the key a second time but it jammed again.

Suddenly the inner door was jerked open and a smiling man slipped out onto the small porch. The man was around average height, with broad shoulders and muscled arms. He had a small potbelly, but looked otherwise in pretty good shape, and old blue tattoos struggled to show themselves through the thick hairs on his forearms. He looked like a man who did physical work, as part of a road crew, or lifting heavy bins to tip their contents into a refuse wagon.

The man was wearing a T-shirt that said I’M THE BOSS and a pair of faded denim jeans. On his feet were a pair of scuffed work boots, the laces undone and hanging loose, and the jeans were turned up an inch at the bottom. His hair was cut very short, almost a skinhead, and for some reason Robert noted that it was very thick, unlike his own thinning thatch.

The man reached out and opened the outer door. His hands were huge, the fingers as thick as sausages. His smile did not falter; his eyes were small and dark, and the smile did not touch them.

“Can I help you?” said the man, remaining just inside the porch. His boots had left dirt on the mat, and Robert winced at the sight of it.

“I think,” said Robert, “I should be asking you the same question.” He tried to smile but it would not come; his lips refused to twist into the required position. “You’re in my house, after all.”

The man’s brow furrowed. He looked around him, putting on what Robert thought was a rather theatrical display, and then shrugged his wide shoulders. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.” His voice was deep, slow, with the hint of a harsh regional accent—was it northeastern? Robert could not be sure, but he classed it as the kind of unmodified working-class accent heard on a building site rather than one you might come across in a city center office. The man definitely looked like a manual laborer, with his big hands and his faded tattoos.

“Listen, I’m not being funny, but…well, you’re in my house.” What else was he supposed to say? This situation was so absurd, so unexpected, that he simply did not know how to deal with it. “My house,” he repeated, hoping it might sink in.

“Sorry, mate, but I bought this place a few weeks ago. This is my house, and I’ll thank you to stop pissing about and tell me why you tried to stick your key in my lock.” The man’s smile turned salacious, as if he and Robert were sharing a private and slightly dirty joke. Then he glanced at the Volvo, and at Robert’s family encased within its thin shell, and the joke turned sour.

Robert took an involuntary step back, onto the drive, and was shocked by the sound of gravel crunching underfoot. “I…listen, I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing here, but could you please get out of my house?”

A woman appeared behind the man in the porch. She had bleached blonde hair, light blue eyes. She was wearing a shirt that was open to the solar plexus and a short, tight black skirt that accentuated her hard-muscled legs. Beneath the shirt, Robert could see her white bra against tanned skin, and he suddenly wondered what kind of knickers, if any at all, she was wearing under the skirt.

“What’s going on, Nate?” Her voice was similar to the man’s: low, husky, with a trace of an accent.

“Dunno, pet. This bloke seems to think we’re in his house.” A look passed between them, quick as a lightning flash and dark as storm clouds. There was humor in that glance, and something more, something deeper and much too complex for Robert to assess in such a short space of time.

“Does he, now?” She glared at Robert, her hands going to her hips, sharp elbows bent and shoulders rising. “Does he really?” Her orangey tan seemed to flare; the dark roots in her bottle-blonde hair went a shade darker; her pale eyes widened. A small red tongue flicked between her lips, like that of a hungry reptile.

Robert was disturbed to find he found her attractive.

“I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding here. I’ve owned this house for about three weeks. If you’ll just let me inside, I can clear all this up in a few moments.” Robert hated the sound of his voice: it sounded small, polite, polished. It was the voice of his fear.

“Fuck off, mate. This was funny at first, but now you’re starting to bore me.” The man—Nate—stepped down from the porch, flexing his hands. The smile was gone, replaced now by an expression Robert could not read.

“Rob?” Sarah’s voice punctured the moment, and Robert turned to face the car as she walked toward him, a look of puzzled concern on her face. He could not help but notice her hands were clenched into fists.

“It’s okay, darling. I’ll sort this out.”

“Oh, will you?” said Nate, laughing softly. “Will you really?”

“What’s going on, Rob? Who are these people?” Sarah was now level with him, and he could smell her scent—citrus mixed with sweat. She looked from him to the couple who seemed to have claimed their home, her eyes wide and only now beginning to display a sense of fear.

“I don’t know what’s happened here, but I’m sure a call to the police will sort everything out.” He took out his mobile phone, suddenly energized and pleased he was being proactive. Nate shook his head, leaned back against the side of the porch, and grinned at Sarah.

“Please,” said Sarah. “Just leave. How did you even get in there?”

The blonde woman leaned forward, through the open porch door, and showed her teeth. “The estate agent gave us a key when we bought the place, pet. That’s how it works, you know.” Her smile was smug, as if she had already won whatever subtle battle was taking place.

“Hello. Yes, can I have the police, please?” Robert spoke carefully into the phone, desperate to keep his tone even. “Yes, it is an emergency; well, it is to us, anyway.”

Nate laughed. “Monica, love, go and put the kettle on, will you? I’m sure Sergeant McMahon would like a brew when he gets here.”

Robert stared at the mobile phone in his hand, and then at the man called Nate. He looked back at the phone, and then at his feet.

“Battle police station. Can I help you?” The voice in his ear was distant, as far away as the world now seemed to be. Everything was receding, pulling away from him, just like before, in the city, when Sarah had been attacked. He had not expected to be put through to the local force. He’d been primed to speak to an emergency operator.

“Could you send someone out to Number One Oval Lane? I think there’s an altercation taking place.” Then he pressed the button to hang up the phone and grabbed hold of the emotion that was stirring in his chest—the promise he had made himself not long ago, that he would protect his family at all costs. What had happened to Sarah would never happen again: he would not allow that kind of nightmare back into his life, their lives. Not ever again.

“Listen, you bastard!” Robert strode forward, his entire body tensing like a single flexed muscle. “Get out of my house right now!” He grabbed at Nate’s T-shirt, noting once again the proclamation that he was The Boss. Oh no you’re not, not this time, sonny, he thought wildly. His anger took him by surprise. He had always known it was there, held within, but only now had it surfaced. He wished he’d been capable of this before. Maybe things would have been different.

Nate’s eyes widened in surprise; his lips compressed into a tight sneer. Robert was dimly aware of raised voices—belonging to both Sarah and the other woman, Monica—but he could not make out what they were saying. He pushed right up against Nate, feeling the man’s warmth and almost tasting the sweat on his body. The world flared brightly, as if a series of lights had been switched on, and his vision exploded. He felt his fist make contact with Nate’s skull: at least it felt like his skull; hard, unyielding.

The world tilted and he was on the floor, on his back, and Nate was above him, laughing and spitting, with a slash of red at his temple. The other man seemed to be urging him on, and Robert did not need an invitation. Not again, he thought. Never again…

It seemed to go on for hours, slowed down to a disorientating pace, and Robert was barely even aware of any damage being done to either his opponent or himself. Pain was beyond him; all he wanted was to rid himself of this terrible man, this invader.

Our homes have already been invaded by this insidious enemy that seeks to twist our minds and poison our hearts.

He knew the voice was only in his head, and that it was an echo of one he had heard very recently, but now it seemed to be speaking directly to him, telling him what to do. He struck out, and struck out again, and was frightened to realize he was crying.

Then he was pulled away, pulled off his victim, and the voices around him became discernable once again. Sarah was yelling his name, shrieking at him to stop, and Monica—bleached blonde Monica, with her white bra and fantasy knickers—was shouting and swearing as she helped Nate to his feet.

Nate was smiling, but attempting to hide his amused triumph. It was replaced, suddenly and effectively, by a look of pure shocked terror. “I dunno what happened. He just went for me like a bloody maniac.”

Another voice, this one belonging to whoever was holding him, replied: “Just calm down, sir. Please be calm and move away from Mr. Corbeau.” He had little choice in the matter: the man, whose arms were now wrapped around Robert’s neck, was tugging him away from the scene, across the drive and toward a waiting police car. As he was slammed facedown into the bonnet, he turned his head to the side and saw his children standing by the Volvo. Molly’s hand covered the lower part of her face, and Connor had one arm around his sister, comforting her.

Good boy, he thought. Good lad. Protect her.

The policeman—the renowned Sergeant McMahon?—had pulled Robert’s arms around behind him, and he twisted them upward so that it felt as if his shoulders were about to pop out of their sockets. Then his cheek was forced against the paintwork, and the officer was saying something he could not quite hear: it sounded like something about him being under arrest.

11:37 A.M.

“Are you calm now, sir? Are you under control?”

Robert nodded; his whole body was slumped and empty of whatever uncharacteristic energy had propelled him only moments earlier.

“Are you sure, sir? I don’t want to have to use my handcuffs. The paperwork is a ball-ache.” The policeman had a kind face; his little half smile was incredibly appealing. His face was pale but he was red in the cheeks.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Robert was panting, out of breath, and far from being fine, but he no longer wanted to pursue the course of violence. All that was gone; it was vented from his system by the frantic burst of activity. What he wanted now was a hot cup of tea and a place to lie down in peace.

Nate Corbeau stood to one side, holding his face. There were a few spots of blood on the side of his forehead, below the hairline, but otherwise he looked unharmed. He was not even breathing heavily. The scuffle had clearly left him unmoved.

“Now,” said the policeman, “can anyone tell me what the hell’s been going on here?”

Monica Corbeau rushed to the policeman’s side. “Listen, McMahon, this sodding idiot just attacked my Nathan. I want him locked up.” Her face had become hard, the lines turning into edges and taking on a sharpness Robert had failed to notice previously. “He’s mad.”

Sergeant McMahon sighed. He scratched his arm and crouched down beside Robert. “Listen, sir, I can see you’re a sensible man, not usually prone to violence. I mean, you’re knackered after that little episode, aren’t you?” He smiled again, and in that smile Robert saw a possible ally.

“I’m sorry. Really. But, you see, we bought this house weeks ago, before going on holiday, and when we got back just now, we found these…people here. They were in our house. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Sergeant McMahon looked around at Nathan and Monica Corbeau. His face was out of sight, so Robert failed to see what kind of expression passed between them. When he turned back to Robert, the sergeant’s face was harder, almost rigid. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station, in Battle. The Corbeaus here have been living in this house for about a fortnight. I was here when they moved in.”

“But…” Sarah had spoken at last, but her words dissipated in the warm, still air. She raised her hands to her face, and her eyes grew wide with disbelief. Robert had never before seen such a look of confusion on her face, and it saddened him to know it was merely a reflection of how his own face must look. He nodded, stood slowly, and allowed the sergeant to direct him to the front of the police car.

“Can you drive?” said McMahon, speaking now to Sarah. “Can you follow us in your car? I’m sure we’ll get this all cleared up without any further need for unpleasantness. I was hoping to avoid the paperwork, but your fella here seems adamant on putting me through it today.” Again there was the flash of a kind smile, and a vague sense of warmth.

Sarah nodded. “Yes, I’ll follow. I’ll follow you in.” She turned and stared at the Corbeaus, hatred blazing in her eyes, and then spun away to stalk back toward the Volvo. “Get in the car!” she snapped at the kids, and they silently obeyed her, knowing well enough to hold their tongues. Robert experienced a strange sense of loss as he watched them all climb into the vehicle. Sergeant McMahon pushed his head down to avoid the roof and gently helped him inside the police car.

Robert stared at the house through the rear window. The Corbeaus were standing there, watching him leave, and even as the car pulled away he could see their sullen grins. They were enjoying this; it was all going to plan. For some reason they had chosen him and his family for mischief, and he knew this would never be over until they had achieved whatever their aim might be. He hoped simple mischief was all they were after, and that once they had won they would move on, leaving him to pick up the pieces. He was very good at picking up the pieces.

It was a short drive into town, and the police station was situated on the main road just as they entered Battle itself. It was a small, squat building, made of red brick and with tiny windows. It looked like it might have been built in the early 1980s—certainly no earlier than the mid-1970s—and reflected the casual ugliness of that era. A few police cars and motorcycles were parked in spaces at the front of the building, but Sergeant McMahon drove them round the back, where he pulled up in a space beside some double doors. “No need for the main entrance,” he said. “Let’s keep this nice and low-key, eh?”

“Thank you,” said Robert, lifting his head and examining the man’s face. McMahon was slightly overweight, but not quite tall enough to carry it off. His face, now that his color had returned to normal, was long and plain, with dark brown eyes and a slight gingery stubble growth on his chin. He looked young—perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties—yet radiated a sense of trust and experience. Robert doubted the man had much trouble dealing with whatever passed for crime in a small town like Battle, and his aforementioned dislike of paperwork probably contributed to his strategy of low-level policing.

“Let’s get you inside, make you a cup of tea, and get this nasty little problem ironed out. I’m not sure about you, but I’m parched.”

McMahon opened the rear door and waited for Robert to climb out of the car; then he led his docile prisoner across the car park and in through the double doors.

After passing through a back office, where a handful of mostly uniformed people at desks barely looked up from their work to acknowledge their presence, Robert found himself sitting in a plastic chair in a cramped room with photos on the wall. The photographs mostly showed another man, not Sergeant McMahon, on various fishing expeditions. In each shot he was holding large fish, grinning with other men, and posing on some riverbank.

“It’s my boss’s office. He’s on holiday. Do you fish?”

“No,” said Robert. “No, I don’t. Not much call for it in London.” He regretted his flippancy immediately, but by then it was too late to take it back.

“Ah, I see,” said McMahon, stretching. “Not in London now, though, are you? You’re up north, with us lot.” He smiled, but this time it was not quite as friendly. He looked toward the glass door, cocking his head to one side. “I think your wife has just come in. Just relax and I’ll make sure she’s comfortable while we have a little chat.” He left the office and closed the door behind him.

Robert looked around the small room, reading the spines of the law books and paperback thrillers on the shelves, glancing at the bushes and the landscaped area beyond the window, and then finally looking inward, where his anger was now sleeping.

“Now, then.” McMahon had reentered the room, and was carrying two Styrofoam cups. “Sugar?” He had been gone just long enough to send for the teas, and perhaps to start checking up on Robert and his family, to access official records and official databases to see who they were.

Robert nodded.

McMahon sat down opposite him and stirred the teas, and then he pushed one toward Robert. “Drink up.” He took a sip from his own cup, grimaced, and then put the cup down on the uncluttered desk. “Tastes like liquidized shit, but it’s better than nothing.”

Robert waited for his tea to cool. He stared at the cloud of vapor that shimmered above the rim of the cup, wondering what had gone so very wrong with his life—not just now, in the last hour or so, but before, when they had been forced to leave London and come here, where they clearly did not belong.

“So what happened? In your own words, what’s been going on?” McMahon leaned back in his chair and carefully studied Robert’s face.

“Like I said, my family and I have been away camping in the Lake District. We got back this morning, to the house we bought before going away, and found those people there, acting as if they owned the place…claiming they do own the place.”

McMahon sat forward, placing his hands flat on the desk. “And then you attacked Mr. Corbeau? Is that right?”

Robert shook his head; then he nodded. “He provoked me, goaded me into it. I mean, what would you do if you found someone in your house? He’s even changed the locks. My key…it wouldn’t fit.” Right then he began to realize how stupid this all sounded. His story barely held water. As far as McMahon was concerned, he had been called out to a dispute and found two grown men fighting, one of whom he knew and the other a stranger—an impolite, rather standoffish stranger from London. “I know how this looks…” He tailed off, lamely.

“I really don’t know what to make of this, sir. We’ve already run a quick check and you are who you say you are—your identity tallies with what you’ve told me—but do you have any evidence that you own the house? As I said earlier, I was present when the Corbeaus moved in; I even helped them shift an old fridge out into the drive.”

“That was my old fridge,” said Robert, once again on the verge of tears.

“Listen, I’ve spoken with the estate agent, and I know those people bought the place. I honestly don’t know what to tell you. You seem like a reasonable man, but you must realize how unreasonable this all seems. I mean, show me the deeds with your name on them and I’ll reconsider my position, but until then I’m afraid that I’ll have to issue you with a formal warning. Please, stay away from the Corbeaus, or I’ll be forced to arrest you.”

The room was suddenly airless. Robert’s head began to throb. “The deeds are in an oak writing desk in the spare room: the third drawer down, in a manila folder marked PROPERTY SALE. Go round there and take a look.” He stared at Sergeant McMahon, trying to appeal to the man’s sense of fair play.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll have a little word with Nathan Corbeau. I’m sure he’ll let me see the necessary paperwork, and all this will be cleared up. In the meantime, I suggest you and your family check into the Collingwood Hotel. It’s a nice place, reasonable rates, and right here in town. So you don’t have to go back out there to Oval Lane. Do we understand each other?”

Robert looked down at his hands. They were clenched tightly into fists, the knuckles white. He looked back up again, at McMahon, and nodded once. “Yes, we understand each other,” he said, in a hoarse whisper.

He felt empty. Not even his fear remained.

1:00 P.M.

They found the Collingwood Hotel with ease. It was situated a few hundred yards along from the police station, and had a huge vacancy sign hanging above the door.

“Looks cosy,” said Sarah, not even glancing at the place. It was the first thing she had said since they left the station, and Robert decided to go with the flow and see where it went.

“Yes,” he said, pulling on the handbrake. “I’m sure it’ll be fine until all this crap gets cleared up.”

“Why are we staying here, Dad? Who were those awful people?” Molly’s voice was strained; she was on the verge of cracking. He could tell. He could always tell.

“Don’t you worry, love, we’ll be fine. All we have to do is prove we bought the house, and then they’ll be out of there. Sergeant McMahon is looking into it now.”

Sarah let out a long, slow breath. When he glanced at her, he saw her eyes were closed. Her lips were pinched shut. Despite the somewhat hardened expression, she was beautiful. He had never stopped thinking so, even as she lay in a north London hospital bed, her face swollen with bruises and those full lips shredded by her attacker’s cheap gold rings.

“We’ll be fine,” he repeated, but this time to Sarah, to his wife.

She did not respond to his assurance.

“Come on, then. Let’s make the best of this, eh? A night or two in a hotel won’t kill us.” These false high spirits were making his head ache. His eyes began to water. He gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers, squeezed, and then quickly got out of the car. He heard the car doors open and then slam shut behind him, but did not turn around to watch as the others followed him. Instead he kept squeezing his nose as he walked toward the hotel entrance, his vision wavering and his legs refusing to move properly.

Several stone steps led up to an old-fashioned revolving door. Glass doors flanked the central entrance, and Robert chose the left one, but the kids hit the revolving door and giggled as it spun them around and spilled them into the lobby. Sarah used the right-hand door; Robert could not help but take it as a form of silent rebuke.

Behind a high check-in desk there sat an old woman with headphones in her ears. She took off the headphones as Robert approached the desk, smiling distractedly. “Hello there,” she said, turning off the iPod she had pulled from the breast pocket of her white blouse. “Sorry. I was listening to the football.”

“I was wondering,” said Robert, bellying up to the desk. “Could we check in for two or three nights?”

The old woman consulted the large leather-bound book on the desk, looked back up, and nodded. “Room 216 suit you? Second floor. And it’s a family room with a nice view of the town square.” She held out a pen and rotated the guest book so he could sign. The page was empty; no other names adorned the fine-ruled page.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to carry your own bags. Our porter is in hospital having his gallstones removed.”

Behind him, Connor giggled. Molly shushed him.

“That’s fine. We don’t have many bags.” He did not know why he had lied. Of course, they had the bags from their two-week holiday, and the tent was stashed in the roof-rack storage container. “Just a couple of overnight bags. I’ll get them later.”

After giving his credit card details, Robert took the key and led the way up the wide staircase to the second floor. The place had clearly been nice once, but a lack of regular maintenance had ensured the hotel was now going to seed. Paper was curling on the walls, the carpets were worn in places, and the banister in the stairwell was loose.

“We won’t be here long,” he promised the kids, as he reached the top of the stairs and made his way along the landing to their room.

The room itself was clean, but basic. There were three beds—a double, a single, and a fold-out divan—and a large wardrobe. A set of drawers was positioned behind the door, with a television set on top, and an old armchair sat forlornly in the bay window. The en suite bathroom was spacious, but again it showed signs of general wear and tear: a cracked tile, damp stains in one corner, a broken window latch.

“I’ll go and get our cases—the small ones, with the toiletries. If we need anything else, we can just get it as and when.” He smiled. No one returned the gesture.

Robert went back down to the car. The street seemed filled with light as he opened the boot and extracted the luggage: enough light to fill his senses, but with little heat behind it. There were not many people around, and those few pedestrians he did see ignored him, as if he were an extra in the movie of their lives. Cars passed slowly on the main road, obeying the speed limit. The place was almost too quiet to be real.

He carried the bags back up to the room. When he tried to get back inside, the door got stuck in the frame. He pushed; Sarah pulled from the other side. The kids laughed. Eventually the door lurched open and he sprawled into the room, almost dropping the bags.

“Can we go and explore?” Molly was excited, and Robert thought it best to try and maintain her good mood.

“Yes,” he said. “But I want you back here in exactly one hour, and do not get into any trouble. I mean that…”

The kids slunk from the room, and then, when the door closed, he heard them running for the stairs. At least they were upbeat; that meant one less thing to worry about.

He sat on the bed next to Sarah. She shifted along, away from him, and stared at the blank television screen. He saw her face reflected there; saw the way her body had stiffened and her hands lay dead in her lap.

“What’s going on, Rob?” Her shoulders began to shake. The shock of what had happened back at the house on Oval Lane was finally setting in, and her reaction was extreme. “This is too much. Just too damn much.”

He reached out to her, but she pulled away, twisting her body out of his grasp.

“Who the hell are those people? And why did you attack that man? That’s not like you; you’re not a fighter.” She turned to him at last, her face soft and blurred by emotion. “He wanted you to hit him. You do realize that, don’t you? He was pushing you into it, and you responded exactly how he wanted you to.”

Robert looked down at his hands, at the frayed bedsheets. “I know. It’s just…I never want to fail you again. I need to protect you, and the kids, too.” He kept his head down, closed his eyes.

Her hand slipped into his, clasping it tightly. There should have been warmth there, in her touch, but all he felt was cold. A distance had crept between them, replacing the bond they had once shared. The attack back in London had wounded their relationship in ways that were only now becoming clear. The rape and beating had hurt so much more than her body; even the internal scars she carried were nothing compared to the wounds that had developed in their marriage.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely audible, less than a whisper. “This all feels so strange…like a bad dream.”

Robert looked up, at the side of her face. He could see the faint scars on her cheek, the pits and scratches were the attacker had cut her as he smashed his fist into her features. His gaze followed the crooked line of her nose—once as smooth and linear as a mountain slope—and down to her lips. She was his wife, but different; the attack had robbed her of something indefinable.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. All he could muster. He hoped it might just be enough.

Her grip on his hand tightened. Relaxed. Tightened again. At last he felt a familiar warmth.

“I’m hungry, but I also feel sick.” She smiled, her eyes shining at last. “What do you suggest?” Her hand travelled along his forearm, rubbing his skin. She leaned into him, her mouth opening, the lips parting and the tip of her tongue poking out to point at him.

“I don’t think it’s food I’m hungry for.”

The switch in her mood shocked him, but he was used to these extremes of emotion. Ever since the attack, she’d become unpredictable. He could never judge what she might do.

They embraced clumsily, like inexperienced lovers. Robert realized they had not made love for months, and the last time had been a cold, passionless fuck, as if Sarah were simply trying to reclaim her sexuality after the attack and was using him as a sex toy.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, just before her lips mashed against his mouth. It was all the answer he needed.

They pulled aside their clothing, not even bothering to undress. The heat of the moment carried them along, and it was as if they both realized they needed to act quickly, before it burned itself out.

He slipped inside her, making her gasp. She bit his ear; her tongue left a dab of saliva on his earlobe. The unreality of their current situation receded, replaced by the solidity of their relationship. Despite the damage, it was fundamentally sound.

It took a few moments to find their rhythm, but finally it happened. Robert felt distanced from the act, as if he were watching it on a screen—hotel pornography raised to the nth degree. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and decided it did not really matter if he looked into Sarah’s face or at the back of his own eyelids because her eyes were screwed tightly shut anyway. She whispered into the side of his neck, but he could not make out the words. It was her private language, a glossolalia of past hurts, and he wasn’t meant to decipher the message. All he had to do was accept what was happening.

Sarah’s legs tightened around his waist as she approached orgasm. He was a long distance from his own climax, but realized this was not about him, nor about her. It was about retaking control yet at the same time trying to lose themselves in the moment, and make it more real than anything else around them.

Sarah yelled, calling his name. He thrust into her, and kept going until she began to pull at his arms and shoulders. Finally, he reached his own shuddery climax and rolled off her, coming to rest on his back. The mattress was lumpy, but still it provided enough comfort.

Sarah was panting, breathless. Her hand groped for his across the sheets.

“I love you,” he said. She did not answer.

They were showered and changed by the time the children arrived back from their expedition. Molly burst into the room first, a look of irritation on her face.

“Tell him to stop winding me up!” she cried, slamming the door in her brother’s face.

“Come on, Connor. What’s all this about?” Robert moved across the room, giving Sarah’s hand a squeeze as he passed her: she looked up from her place in the chair by the window and gave him a distracted smile.

“Nothing, Dad. I’m just telling her about Sawney Bean, and the way his family would eat strangers when they came to town. And Leatherface, from those chain-saw films.” He grinned, enjoying his sister’s discomfort.

Molly sat heavily on the bed, drawing up her legs and propping her chin on her fists.

“Give me a break, eh?” Robert closed the door. “Okay, who’s for a little late lunch? I’m sure we can get something from a nearby café.”

“There’s a burger bar along the road…” Molly’s mood suddenly lifted, and she almost leapt to her feet.

“Yeah, please?” Connor grabbed Robert’s arm, squeezing it.

“Okay, we can have burgers just this once.” Sarah stood and went to Robert’s side, linking his arm with her own. It felt good; it felt right. For the first time in a very long time, they were as close as he thought a family should be.

“Where have you two been, anyway? Surely there’s nothing too exciting around here?”

Connor and Molly exchanged a glance Robert could not read, and then they both smiled. “Oh, nowhere. Just around,” said his daughter, and he knew in that instant she was lying, or at least holding back the truth.

Burger Byte was located on a corner not far from the hotel entrance. Molly led them there, her pace hurried and her long, dark hair trailing behind her as she jogged along the footpath. She reached the café first and stood in the doorway, urging the rest of the family to follow. Connor hung back, fiddling, as usual, with his PSP. His face was bathed in a greenish light that seemed, to Robert in that moment, like a harbinger of bad tidings.

They went inside and ordered burgers, chips and fizzy pop. Sarah had a side salad and a mineral water. The modernity of the place took Robert by surprise: along the side walls were computer terminals bolted to metal brackets. Only a few of these were occupied, and of the people who sat in the plastic chairs checking email accounts and surfing the Net for online baubles and trinkets, not one of them looked over the age of thirty and they all had coffee cups resting by their machines. The era of cyberspace had come limping into Battle, and its acolytes were made up of the young and the bored and the jobless.

Midway through their meal, Sergeant McMahon walked in. He nodded at Robert and said hello to Sarah. The children eyed him with suspicion; Molly acted openly hostile.

“Please, sit down,” said Robert, hoping for some positive news.

“Let me speak before you even think about asking any questions,” said the sergeant, taking off his helmet and placing it on the low, round table. “I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you.” The man fidgeted in his seat, clearly ill at ease. His cheeks held the faintest trace of red.

“Go on.” Robert put down his half-eaten burger, finally admitting it tasted like shit, and not even real shit—just some synthetic substitute. “We’re listening.”

McMahon took an envelope from his inside pocket and set it down next to his helmet. “So I spoke to Nathan Corbeau, and he showed me the deeds to the property. His name is on those deeds, and he has all the relevant paperwork to back up his claim of ownership.”

Robert lunged forward, across the table, about to butt in.

“Wait. Let me finish.” McMahon looked tired: his eyes were heavy, and he seemed to have gained a stone in weight since they had last met. “He also asked me to give you this, on an official basis. I thought it might be better coming from me than from a solicitor.” He picked up the envelope and handed it to Robert, who took it from him and stared at the blank front. “What is it?” He opened the envelope and took out a sheet of typed paper. It looked official, but still he had no idea what it might be. “What is it?” he said again.

“It’s a restraining order.”

The world dropped out from under Robert’s feet. The only thing keeping him in place was the chair and the table, and the sight of the shitty burger he had discarded earlier. “What is it?” He had heard the words, but they made no sense.

“Legally, you are not allowed within a hundred yards of any member of the Corbeau family. If you break the terms of this order, you will be arrested. I will be forced to arrest you; do you understand me? I won’t be happy about it, but that’s what I’ll have to do.”

Robert stared at the sheet, then at McMahon. “Don’t these things take a while to prepare? I mean, shouldn’t there be some kind of hearing? How did he get this so fast?”

McMahon shook his head. Regret filled his eyes; his allegiance had shifted. “I don’t know how he did this, or where he went to get it, but it’s legal and binding. I’m afraid he has you over a barrel, Mr. Mitchell.” He blew air between his lips and blinked rapidly. “I really don’t understand what’s going on here, and what Corbeau has against you, but he seems to have decided you’re his enemy.”

Sarah had remained silent until now, and when she did speak, she sounded as if she might weep at any minute. “Can’t you help us? That’s our house, I swear; it’s our house. That man is trying to steal our lives.”

Robert glanced at her; her face was slack but her eyes were hard and cold, like slivers of ice. Something inside her had awakened, and she was doing her best to deny its existence. Robert could see it; he knew it; he had seen it once before, after the attack, when she had sworn to him that any man who ever touched her again without permission would die.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. I don’t even understand what there is to be done.”

“But we can’t just walk away and let them stay there. It’s our fucking house!” Sarah slammed a fist down onto the table. The sound was deafening in the quiet café.

Quietly, Molly began to cry. Connor reached out and held her, his body shaking with either fear or rage.

“I’m sorry,” said McMahon. “I’ll look into this, I promise. Just be patient…and trust me. I know something’s wrong here. I don’t know what it is, but it stinks, and I’ll find out what it is if I have to work through the night.” With that, the sergeant stood and walked away. When he reached the door, he turned back, offered a grim smile, and then left the building.

A great and hungry silence stole inside and filled the room, entering Robert’s head through his ears, nose and mouth. His head swelled, approaching the point of critical mass, and then just as suddenly it returned to normal. Yet it held a strange and terrible echo, like that of a scream. While around him the world kept turning; people came and went; and a frightening presence sat in his house, no doubt drinking his wine and raiding his drawers and cupboards, and possibly even burning his books.

He could almost hear their laughter as the skin of the world began to slowly unpeel.