Nightsiders

4:30 A.M.

Robert woke in the dark and felt afraid. Fear gripped him by the shoulders and pinned him to the bed, trying to tell him something he should have by now realized. He strained against the night, blinking his eyes and willing his limbs to move. Gradually, he began to make out shapes in the room; the wardrobe, the other beds, the chair in the window, the open bathroom door. He knew where he was. He was safe—they were all safe, his family.

There came a sound, like that of a shoe scraping against the wall.

Robert sat up, his mouth dry and his skin prickling. There was someone else in the room. He could see a hunched figure crouching perhaps, over by the main door, watching him in the darkness.

He reached out to the side of the bed, groping for the lamp. His fingers skimmed across his wallet, a paperback book, his car keys…and then, finally, he found the base of the lamp. With weak fingers he pressed the button, and light washed across the bed, covering his legs. He was staring at the door, at the figure. It was Connor, his son: Connor, standing against the wall.

“What’s wrong?” he said, amazed he could even form the words with his dried-out lips. “What is it?”

“I can’t sleep.”

Robert opened his arms, and his son came to him, falling into the embrace. Connor buried his face in Robert’s shoulder, and Robert stroked his hair, soothing him as he had done when the boy was but a small infant, afraid of nameless, formless monsters in the dark.

“They won’t get you,” he said, still lost in those long-gone days. “I won’t let them.”

But this monster was not nameless, nor was it faceless. It had a name, and it was an ugly one that tripped nastily off the tongue, snagging on the teeth.

This time, the monster’s name was Corbeau.

8:30 A.M.

That morning they had breakfast in the hotel. Robert and Sarah ordered coffee and croissants while the children enjoyed a full English fry-up. They spoke little during the meal, each of them lost in their own bitter thoughts.

Robert was still obsessing over the restraining order. He knew very little of such things, but he was certain Corbeau had produced this one with what amounted to illegal haste.

He would ring his solicitor after breakfast. Burt Morrow was a good man, and he handled all of the family’s affairs. He had even acted as Robert’s literary agent for a while, when he was trying to write thrillers. These days, working freelance for several broadsheet newspapers and upmarket magazines, he had enough contacts to act as his own representation, but he retained Morrow for all other matters. He trusted the man.

It was after nine a.m. when they returned to their room; office hours, so Morrow should be at his desk by now. Robert picked up the phone as Sarah vanished into the bathroom. Connor and Molly once again went for a walk outside, trying to find something to occupy them in the small town.

“Hello, Morrow Legal. Sheila speaking.” It was Morrow’s longtime secretary, a good woman to have on your side in a crisis.

“Morning, Sheila. It’s Rob Mitchell here.”

“Welcome back! How was your holiday?” Her voice brightened, containing a note of genuine affection that never failed to make Robert smile.

“Fine, thank you. We’ve been back a day now, but something weird has happened. Is Burt in today?”

“Yes, I’ll put you straight through.” She was all business now, sensing something was amiss and Robert needed to talk to her boss immediately.

“Rob. What can I do for you?” This was typical Morrow: no preamble, no small talk, just right to the crux of the matter.

“I need some advice—professional advice. And maybe a little help, too.” Robert gripped the phone, his palm sweating.

“Fire away. What’s the problem?” Morrow’s voice was rich and smooth; like coffee, as Sarah was fond of saying. The man was almost sixty, but still as sharp and ruthless as a man half his age. He had bailed Robert out of minor legal and publishing tangles on countless occasions, and no doubt would continue to do so until he died: retirement, early or otherwise, was not an option for a legal animal like Burt Morrow.

“The house you helped me buy up here, near Battle. Somebody’s in it.”

“‘In it’? What the hell does that mean?” There came over the line the sound of pages turning, and Robert could picture Burt with his favored 2H pencil skimming over his lineless loose leaf sketch pad.

“It means someone has taken up residence in my house, and he has documents to prove he owns it. Don’t ask me how or why; just tell me what I can do about it.”

“Shit, Rob, this sounds…well, bizarre. You say the guy has deeds to the property, with his name on them?”

“Yes, and he’s taken out a restraining order on me.”

Morrow went silent for a moment. Then he regained his composure and carried on. The pause was slightly unnerving, but not entirely out of character. “Give me names and I’ll get right on this. I’ll call you back with something within the hour.”

Robert dictated the name of Nathan Corbeau, spelled it as he thought it should be spelled, and then hung up the phone. He had not even said good-bye; their friendship did not rely on such trivial niceties, and neither man had ever tried to introduce them into the dynamic they shared.

Robert went to the window and looked out at the street. Again, there was little traffic and the footpaths were not exactly bustling with crowds. The pace of life in Battle seemed almost absurdly slow compared to London, where everything was done at great speed and with little thought for taking time to enjoy whatever it was you were doing. He glanced along toward Burger Byte, where they’d eaten yesterday, and then down the other way, past the police station and the newsagent-cum-post office. Just as his gaze came to rest, he saw Molly disappearing around the corner. She was holding someone’s hand—a boy—but it was not that of her brother.

Robert leaned in toward the glass, trying to catch sight of her again, but she was gone. The boy at her side was definitely not Connor; he was shorter and stockier than Robert’s son, and with very short hair—almost a skinhead.

Robert’s heart lurched.

He went to the telephone and dialled the number for the police station; McMahon had given it to him yesterday, with a promise that he could always be reached. Once he got through to the sergeant, the words came from his mouth too fast, in one unbroken sentence, and he at first struggled to make his message understood.

“Just calm down,” said McMahon. “Take a breath and start again.”

Robert closed his eyes. Opened them. “I said: do the Corbeaus have any children? Do they have kids?”

McMahon paused before speaking, as if he were consulting a list or a computer screen. “Yes, they do. A boy and a girl, I think. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” said Robert, and then he hung up the phone.

Immediately it rang, while his hand still gripped the receiver. Reflexively, he picked it up and placed it against his ear. “Yes? McMahon, is that you?”

At first there was only silence, at least the buzzing kind of silence you hear through a telephone receiver. Then, gradually, sounds began to form. Robert recognized immediately the low, angry growling of a dog. This was then replaced by a liquid panting, as if the same or another dog was being held underwater. Finally, there came a voice, but it was garbled, barely intelligible. The words it was speaking were nonsense; he could barely make out that they were words at all. It was like another language, but one that made little sense even to the one who spoke it. He closed his eyes. Once again he sensed that odd unpeeling of reality.

Then, thankfully, the line went dead.

Robert stood with the telephone receiver still held against his ear, his mouth open, lips working but no sounds issuing forth. For a moment there, less than a moment, really—a fraction of a nanosecond—he could have sworn he heard a name in the general din of that make-believe language. The name, he was sure, had been Molly.

He hung up the phone and walked slowly to the bathroom door. Behind it, he could hear the sound of the shower running. Sarah was singing softly, as she always did when she bathed. He could even name the song: “Under Your Skin.”

“I’m just popping out for a minute.”

No reply. Still she sang.

“Sarah, love, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just going out to the shop…”

There came from the bathroom a sort of noncommittal grunt, and then Sarah once again began to sing, this time louder.

Robert turned away, put on his coat, and calmly walked along the landing. As he descended the staircase, that calm began to unravel and he had to resist the urge to run. Surely the disturbing phone call had been a coincidence, a wrong number or some children playing a prank. There was no way Corbeau could have called them; he was not even aware they were staying in the hotel.

The old woman was at the desk when he reached the ground floor. “Excuse me,” he said, approaching her with a loose smile. “I got a call a few minutes ago. It came straight through, from an external line. Do all calls not come through reception?”

The old woman glanced at him and put down her iPod. This time she was not wearing the headphones; she had been untying a knot in the wire as he approached. “Usually,” she said. “But each room has its own number on the system, and if you know the extension, you can get straight through. Some of our long-term residents give out those extensions, and have private calls that don’t come through the internal system.”

Robert’s throat was dry; he felt sick. “Has anyone asked you for the extension to our room? Anyone at all?”

The old woman shook her head, and returned her attention to the knot in her headphone wire. “Nope,” she said, dismissing him. “Why would they?”

Robert left the hotel feeling cold, as if a chill wind had passed through the lobby and latched onto him like a parasite.

He hurried down the street, past the police station and to the corner where he had glimpsed Molly. He was now beginning to doubt it had even been her, but not quite enough to abandon his search. He turned the corner and walked a few paces before reaching a small, grotty pub. There was no name above the door, and the interior was dark and cool and peculiarly unwelcoming. He stepped into the doorway but did not enter. There was a young couple sitting in a corner, near the jukebox, and they were kissing passionately. The boy, dressed in a denim jacket and a pair of white tracksuit bottoms, was running his hand along the girl’s leg.

Molly?

He wanted to go inside, but something stopped him. It was like a physical barrier, an invisible gate keeping him out. He stared at the couple, aware that a barman had noticed him and was walking slowly out from behind the bar. The man was holding a glass, rubbing it clean with a towel, massaging it in much the same way the boy was now caressing the girl’s tiny left breast.

“Help you?” The barman was now before him, smiling. His front two teeth on the upper row were missing. There was a smudged tattoo on his neck that could have been a swallow, a spider or a crab. “You comin’ in?” He rubbed his glass. The boy rubbed the girl’s tit.

“Molly,” said Robert, still unable to move.

Then, at last, the couple broke apart and the girl turned around, staring at the doorway. It was not Molly; it did not even resemble her. The girl had shorter hair, a thinner build, and her face was plastered with makeup. She smiled, opened her mouth, and he saw a wad of chewing gum lodged in the side of her mouth, between tooth and cheek.

The barman laughed as Robert wheeled away, stumbling into the road. He was aware of a car horn sounding, and someone shouting at him from an open window, but he did not pause. Then he saw her, farther along the street, eating an ice cream. Connor was with her, drinking Coke from a can, and they were staring in the opposite direction, as if there was nothing wrong in their world.

“Dad?” Molly spotted him first. The ice cream fell from her hands and splattered on the ground. She ran toward him, concern etched onto her features. Her hair was gloriously long. She wore no makeup. Nor was she chewing gum.

She ran to him and he held her, feeling foolish and pathetic. Why had he been so afraid? He could trust his children, of course he could; there should never be any doubt regarding that issue.

“Where were you?” He was breathless.

“We were here. Round about here. We got some ice cream and went looking for something to do.”

It sounded like the truth, but Robert once again caught his children exchanging an unreadable glance. Connor noticed his scrutiny, and smiled. That was when he became certain his son was also lying, and that there was something happening here beyond his control as a parent and as a man. Despite his previous thought, he couldn’t trust them, not entirely. Or rather, he could not trust who or what they came into contact with.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, pushing Molly away. “Always tell me where you’re going.” He winced at the edge of irritation in his voice, but could do nothing to modify it. He was angry; they had lied, and were still lying. About what, he did not know, but he aimed to find out.

Sarah was waiting for him in the bar when they got back to the hotel. She had been drinking; quickly, and probably quite heavily. Her movements were already slow and uncoordinated and her eyelids were droopy. Robert sent the children up to the room and took a seat at the bar beside his wife. He ordered a double whisky, and when it came, he drank down half of it in one go.

“Burt Morrow telephoned,” said Sarah, wobbling on her stool. “He tried your mobile first, then the room phone, and finally got me on my mobile.”

“I didn’t get any missed calls. What did he say?” Robert motioned toward the barman and raised his glass. The barman nodded, picked up another glass, and moved toward the optics on the wall.

“He wouldn’t speak to me at first, but I badgered him until he gave in. I told him I knew everything you did—whatever that’s worth—and he relented and told me what he’d found out.”

“What has he found out?” The barman put down another double in front of Robert. He finished his current drink and picked up the second glass.

“Fuck all. According to his sources, the paperwork Corbeau has is legal, and he can’t seem to find any record of the deeds we have. Or, should I say, the deeds we used to have but are now locked up in a drawer in Corbeau’s house.”

“Our house,” said Robert, his fist tightening around the glass.

“Whatever. Another large white wine, please.” She smiled at the barman.

Robert felt like he was reaching deep inside himself and hauling on a rope, like a deep-sea fisherman bringing in a net. He had no idea what he might find attached to the end of that rope, but there was no doubt he would reach it eventually. Then he would be forced to confront his catch.

“What the fuck are we going to do, Robert? What can we do? Morrow said to leave everything to him, but I don’t think he can help us. Whatever’s happening here, it’s stranger than we think; it’s as if the whole world is conspiring against us. Nothing seems right—even this little town, and the people in it. It’s like a fucking film set. That copper, McMahon…even he doesn’t seem right.”

Ignoring her panicked words, Robert finished his drink and stood from the stool. “Calm down. I’ll speak to Morrow. He might have something more by now. You never know.”

The barman brought Sarah’s wine. She grabbed the glass and took a large mouthful. Then, slowly, she reached into her handbag and drew out her mobile phone. She did not look into Robert’s eyes, but she turned toward him all the same. “There’s also this.”

Robert sat back down and waited. “What is it?”

Still Sarah could not meet his gaze. She flipped open the front face of her mobile phone and pressed a few buttons. Then, pausing for a moment, she swallowed. “It isn’t nice.” She turned the phone in her hand, so Robert could see the screen. On it was a photograph, and for several seconds he failed to see what it was meant to be. Then, like a fist to his gut, the meaning registered in his vision. The photograph was a close-up of a man’s erect penis, with white semen dribbling from its tip. There was no doubt in his mind whose penis it was.

“How is he getting hold of our numbers?” His voice was poised on the verge of hysteria, but he managed to keep it down, keep it inside. “This is…impossible. It can’t be happening.”

Slowly, carefully, and with decreasing subtlety, Nathan Corbeau was invading their lives. It had started with him taking possession of their house, and then advanced to rushed legal paperwork and strange phone calls, and now there was this…sexual harassment. No: sexual terrorism.

“Why is he sending you pictures of his cock?” He regretted the words as soon as they were out there, but it was too late to cancel them.

“Excuse me?” At last she looked him in the eye; her face was taut, the bones prominent. Drink had flushed her cheeks and loosened her tongue. “Are you serious?”

“Why would he? Did you come onto him back there, at the house, when I was fighting for our sanity? Did he make a move on you?” He could barely believe what he was saying; the words did not sound like his own. He knew he was losing control, but still he could not help himself. All of this seemed inevitable. It was preordained, scripted. He had to go through with it.

“You mean, like I came onto the man who raped me? Is that what you mean, Robert? When I wore that short skirt and went out without my husband? I was asking for it, wasn’t I? Just. Fucking. Begging. For. It.” She finished her drink and stalked away from the bar, behind which the barman had retreated to a safe distance. “Don’t bother coming up to the room tonight. I don’t want to see you until I’m calm and sober.” Then she left the room, her footsteps echoing across the space like gunshots.

“Another double, please,” said Robert, knowing he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but doing so anyway.

5:30 P.M.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. He recalled a telephone conversation with Burt Morrow, but not its content, and more whisky than was probably sensible. Then he had left the hotel and stumbled out into the street, sick and hungry and brimming with a violence he did not recognize as his own.

Right now he was walking back toward the bar he had seen earlier; the one through whose doorway he had seen the couple necking, and the barman rubbing his glass. He reached the doors and barged inside, noting the place was quiet but for a handful of drinkers at the bar. He approached the woman who stood behind the bar (the original barman was nowhere to be seen) and ordered more whisky. He knew he would regret this in the morning, but by then he would not care.

Now would be the time to call Sarah, or to go crawling back to the hotel to speak to her. But something held him back. Was it doubt? Did he really believe she had encouraged Corbeau’s interest? When he looked deep inside himself, at the pathetic man he was beneath the mask he wore, he knew he’d suspected her of somehow encouraging the man who’d raped her back in London.

He was ashamed. He felt terrible. But still, he had briefly entertained the idea…

He drank for a while, watching the steady flow of traffic as people came and went, faces replaced by other, similar faces, bodies brushing up against him on their way to the toilet at the back of the room. He was not aware of how many drinks he had, but he knew the number was great. He had always been a whisky drinker, and could handle it well, but in this volume it was lethal.

The next thing he remembered was playing pool against a tall man with skinny limbs and a pock-marked face. Somehow he won the game and the pock-marked man walked away, shaking his head and waving a hand in the air. Robert watched him as he left the pub, and then looked around for his next opponent.

She was standing a yard or two away, staring at him and nursing a bottled lager. When he saw her, she raised her bottle and winked at him. He recognized her immediately, but could not place her face. Then, abruptly, realisation rushed it. It was Nathan Corbeau’s wife, Monica, and she was alone.

Before he knew it she was standing next to him, a fresh lager in one hand and a whisky in the other. “Can I join you? I’m pretty good at this game. Misspent childhood, an’ all that.”

Robert was numb. He looked at her badly made-up face, her pale blue eyes, and her cheaply dyed hair. Then his gaze trickled down to her chest—the low-cut blouse revealed just a little bit too much cleavage—and her flat belly, then finally to the tiny leather skirt wrapped like a thick belt around her waist. Her legs were firm and shapely and hairless, coated with obviously fake tan. He felt an erection stirring, and grabbed the whisky from her hand just to occupy his mind.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let me set them up.”

Robert stared at her, taking her in. All of her. “I can be arrested for even standing next to you.” He took a sip from his drink, feeling shut off from his surroundings. The whole room narrowed down to the small area around them: the wet floor, the dust beneath their feet, the scuffmarks on the wooden boards.

“I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t my idea.” Slowly she walked the length of the pool table, enjoying the fact that he was watching her.

Her sexuality was blunt, vulgar, yet it was also crudely effective. She bent over too far to reach beneath the pool table and retrieve the balls from their slot, and as she arranged them in the wooden triangle, she made sure her breasts were spilling out of that thin blouse. Her smile devoured him, and then spat him back out in pieces.

Robert knew precisely what she was doing, and part of him was flattered; another part of him, the part that ate healthily, slept well, read good books and tried to lead an orderly and productive life, was utterly horrified. The coarseness of this woman made him feel at once unclean and highly aroused. He could blame the drink, of course, but deep down he knew something about her had connected with something inside him. It was a truth he would have preferred to ignore.

Also, deep inside him, the man that was weak and wounded and resentful noted this might be the perfect way to take revenge on Sarah. How dare she send him away? What right did she have to doubt him?

In his past, Robert had experienced many sleazy sexual encounters: he had been drawn to the thrill, and to the filth. He liked dirty women; he loved dirty sex. When he was single, he visited prostitutes out of choice rather than desperation, and even the act of paying for that kind of sex had given him a thrill. Once he was married he started pushing that side of him away, repressing his proclivity for sleaze, but it was still there; it was always there, waiting to be unleashed. This whole situation had triggered something and a door had opened up inside of him, letting out those dark, base desires.

Something inside him was stirring. The shadows of his past were on the move.

“My break,” she said, reaching out to pick a cue from the rack on the wall.

They played in silence for a while, and Robert noted she had not been lying: she was very good indeed.

“I really am sorry about that little misunderstanding,” she said when they paused in their game to take a drink. “Things got out of hand. It was silly.” She licked her lips; again it was such an obvious thing to do that Robert could hardly believe what he had seen, or his response to the action.

Robert did not know what to say. His civilized aspect wanted to indulge her in conversation, to discuss what had happened, why it had happened, and how they could resolve things. His primitive self wanted to grab her by the hair and fuck her across the pool table. Never before had he experienced such intense and unwelcome feelings. It was both terrifying and invigorating. He felt strong. He felt weak. He felt like a man.

His head was spinning; the whisky was taking hold. He was aware of the pub emptying, of people drifting out into the night, and thought it must be getting late. “It’s getting late,” he said, as if confirming his own wayward thoughts. “I should go.” He could hear the slurring of his voice, and was more than aware of his uneven gait as he stalked along the edge of the pool table, but some part of him refused to leave.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s late. I’ll walk you out. My car is parked in the back. Want a lift?” She walked away without waiting for an answer, nodding at the barmaid as she passed and going through the rear door. Robert stared at the pale patches on the back of her knees, where she’d forgotten to apply the fake tan.

The seduction was so easy that Robert was almost embarrassed. He had not even put up a fight. He stumbled after her, not really thinking about why; he just felt the urge to be out there, in the night, where anything might happen. He felt the hot air on his cheek; he smelled tobacco mixed with diesel fumes; and then he saw her leaning against the back wall, smoking a cigarette.

He stood before her, as if naked. He stared into her damned and damning eyes, and he realized he wanted her—all of him, every tiny element that made up his being, wanted her. He was ashamed; he was thrilled. The night seemed to shift and form a funnel, the narrow end positioned directly above him, vomiting out blackness. He reached up, reached out, and embraced it…embraced her. The cigarette fell from her hand and described a fiery arc as it headed toward the ground. Her lips went to his throat, but not his mouth: that kind of intimacy had no place here.

She spun him like a toy and pinned him to the wall, her hands going to his trousers and pulling down his zipper. She took out his cock and rolled it between her palms, brought her hands to her face and spat on them, and then once again grabbed his twitching member. Slowly, she went to her knees, her warm, wet, sticky mouth enveloping him. He grabbed her head, his fingers knotting in her tatty hair, and felt like punching her, smashing her skull with his bunched fists just to watch her bleed. Again the intensity and horrific nature of these thoughts took him by surprise, and he was instantly ashamed of them. Robert was not a violent man; he was a man of peace. But somehow this woman had reached deep inside him and unlocked a door to reveal a kind of brute carnality that had always been there but never before let out.

She wants this, he thought. She wants this…and so do I.

He came in seconds, and when she pulled away, he saw his seed glistening on her cheek. She laughed, drawing the arm of her blouse across her mouth, her lips twisting into an animalistic snarl as she stood and backed away from him. “Fucking useless,” she said. Then she spat in his face and turned her back on him, walking toward the center of the car park.

Robert sank to his knees, ruined, the potential for violence now gone. He watched as she reached the exact center of the car park, and suddenly headlights flashed on in the darkness. An engine rumbled to life, and a battered Ford Cortina trundled into view from the shadows.

The car stopped beside Monica Corbeau, and the passenger door popped open. She climbed in, still laughing, still snarling, and slammed the door shut. The car made a slow circle, and Nathan Corbeau stuck his head out of the window.

“My turn next,” he said, grinning. “But I’ll do a lot better than that with your woman.” Monica’s leering face hovered at his shoulder, a grim ghost riding shotgun.

The car roared away into the night, and Robert dropped his head and threw up on the cracked concrete, thinking about his wife, his children and hoping he could still face them all in the morning.