The Concrete Grove

CHAPTER ONE

HER NAME WAS Hailey. She was just fourteen years old.

And she was afraid.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Hailey wasn’t afraid, not exactly; she was sad and confused and worried about her mother, and all she really wanted was to be left alone. Just for a few minutes, maybe even as much as half an hour. She needed some time on her own, during which she could think about things and set the facts in order. The world always seemed a little less harsh when the facts were put in place, with everything lined up in neat little rows where she could see them properly. Like her books on their shelves or her stuffed toys sitting against the skirting board at home.

It was Hailey’s mother who was afraid. Even Hailey could see that. Her mother, she knew, was terrified.

Things had been tense around the flat lately — even Hailey, with her limited ability to empathise, was aware of this tension. Her mother chewed her fingernails all the time, and she lost her temper much easier than ever before — easier and more regularly. She was drinking a lot — cheap wine in big bottles from the local off-license — and Hailey could sometimes hear her crying at night through the thin walls of their crummy little flat in the Grove. In the morning she would pretend that she’d slept well and everything was fine, but Hailey knew that there were tear stains on her mother’s pillows.

Hailey walked slowly through the narrow streets, ignoring the youths who were perched on garden walls and loitering at the corners smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking cider from plastic bottles. She paid no attention to the fat man who always seemed to be watching her from a parked car near the shopping arcade, and blanked the old woman who stood on her front step shaking her fist at the sky and shouting at the birds.

Such sights were normal in the Grove — the Concrete Grove. Hailey had learned this. The people who lived on the estate were somehow different from the ones she had known before, in her old life, when her mother had a job and money wasn’t a problem.

These people, the ones she now lived among, were closer to the bottom of the pile than anyone else she’d met. That’s how her mother termed it: the bottom of the pile. As if society was just a big pyramid of people, squirming and shouting and fighting for position, and she and Hailey had slipped through the gaps to end up somewhere near its base. Sometimes, late at night, when she was unable to sleep, she could almost feel the pressure of all those bodies above her, pushing and shoving and nipping and punching… looking for a way to climb.

She quickened her pace and reached the north end of Grove Road, where the Bailey brothers lived. The twin boys, both fifteen and in the year above Hailey in classes, were possibly the worst bullies at her school. A month ago they’d put little Lloyd Jones in hospital, slashing his back with a straight razor taken from their father’s things. Hailey recalled the police visiting the school, when not one of the other pupils had dared say anything against the brothers — which meant, of course, that they had got away with their crime because there were no witnesses. They remained unpunished, even though everyone knew they’d done it. Even the headmaster knew, but he was just as scared of the Bailey family as everyone else in the area.

Was every school like this, or just the one she went to? She didn’t remember her old school being so violent or filled with such aggressive pupils, but it was so long ago now — a full eighteen months — that she could barely recall anything about the place, other than it had seemed so clean and bright and stress-free in comparison to her current educational establishment.

She was glad that school was over for the day, and that she could roam around on her own just to get the horrible prison air of the place out of her lungs. At her old school, she’d been happy to stay behind and help the teacher tidy the class, or play outside the gates with her friends before heading home for dinner. These days all she wanted was to be away from school, yet still she could feel its awful shadow at her back.

She was now nearing the centre of the estate, where the Needle was located. She’d bypassed the shopping arcade, where the worst trouble-makers tended to gather like a herd of bored animals, and was now approaching the middle of the set of concentric streets that made up the main body of the Grove. A number of the flats and houses around this central area were empty, their doors and windows boarded. Others were occupied either by the kind of people you didn’t want to meet or tenants who rarely stepped outdoors before nightfall. It was a creepy place, even in broad daylight, yet she was often drawn here by its sense of emptiness.

A border of old timber hoardings and security fencing surrounded the derelict tower block, but everybody knew a way in. Hailey’s point of access was through a shallow channel someone had once dug under the fence close to the old red-brick electricity sub-station at the front of the building. She couldn’t remember who’d shown her this route inside the perimeter, only that it had been pointed out to her late one Sunday evening, when dusk was falling and the sound of motorbike engines churning up and down the surrounding streets had filled the air.

Hailey got down on her belly and wriggled through the gap, trying her best not to ladder her thick black tights on any hanging wire or splinters. Her mother would kill her if she ruined another pair; the tiny clothes budget for this month was long gone.

The sky seemed to darken around her as she slid under the barrier, as if her entrance had triggered a dimmer switch in the heavens. She knew this was a silly thought, that it was too early in the afternoon to grow so dark, but there was something nice about pretending to be so important that the sky would create an atmosphere just for her.

Somewhere in the depths of the estate a dog began to bark; a burglar alarm went off, the wailing tone bound to be ignored and left to peter out of its own accord. A police helicopter hummed through the sky above her, so she stayed where she was, belly pressed into the dirt, until it passed by. But this was just another game. Nobody cared that Hailey was here; nobody was concerned about her whereabouts. Not even her mother.

After several seconds had passed, and sensing that she would not be seen, Hailey jerked upright and scurried across the cracked and stained concrete forecourt towards the waiting Needle. She stared at the empty building as she approached, peering at its boarded upper windows and security-shuttered doorways. Several of the caged windows on the ground floor had been partially exposed by vandals tearing off the timber and paint-daubed metal sheets and breaking the glass beneath. These openings bled darkness; they provided small, square glimpses of something black, unhealthy and rotten. If she allowed herself, Hailey could imagine things moving in there. Strange things. Dark things. Things that lived in such forgotten places.

What was she doing here? Why did the decrepit building have such a hold on her? She always came to the same place when she was feeling uneasy or simply craved solitude. Despite its central location on the estate, and the fact that there were so many ways in, children rarely played here. The place, Hailey’s few friends had often told her, was haunted; and once, a long time ago, a bunch of children had even been harmed by the spirits who dwelled within its crumbling concrete walls. Depending on who she spoke to, these children had either been scarred for life or murdered. The story changed with each telling, the way a fairytale might.

Hailey kept walking. The Needle ignored her, just like everyone else.

She stopped, confused. Why was she thinking of the old building in terms of a personality?

Hailey stared at the grubby concrete, trying to understand her feelings towards the place. She should be too afraid to set foot here, especially alone, but for some reason the resolutely upright Needle seemed to offer her some kind of solace.

Yes, that was the word: solace. She’d encountered it in English class. It meant comfort or consolation. That, she thought, sounded just about right.

She started to move again, towards the tower block. Broken glass crunched underfoot; her left ankle twisted slightly as she stepped into a shallow depression in the ground; her right foot kicked something hard and it rolled away from her across the uneven surface. But she didn’t look down. She kept on staring ahead, watching the Needle as it loomed closer. Its tall grey rendered walls were as cold and dry as reptile skin; the boards across its windows were closed eyelids; the patches of weeds and wild grass at its base were as welcoming as a doormat at the threshold of a lovely home.

The conflicting emotions rushing through her — fear of the dark and empty spaces within the building’s shell; a sense of feeling welcomed or, more precisely, bidden — made her feel slightly sick, as if she’d eaten something bad.

The main doors to the tower block were sealed with security shutters, so Hailey continued round to the rear, where there was a way in through a small ground floor window where the metal sheeting had been pulled aside. The window panel had been removed long ago, before the access point had been shored up, so whoever had then torn away the corrugated metal had been able to slip inside without having to shatter the glass.

Hailey peeled back the thin metal square, struggling to fold it away from the wall. The metal groaned as she moved it, and then finally it seemed to relent under the pressure and bent back to reveal the window aperture beneath.

The opening was roughly the size of the screen of the portable television Hailey had in her room at home. She was a slim girl — didn’t eat much, and wasn’t even keen on the sweets and sugary treats the other kids seemed to love — so she was always able to squeeze through without much of a problem.

She leaned in and forced the metal sheet further back with her shoulder, turning her body so that she could scrabble up the wall and begin to climb through. She wriggled her body into the gap, aware of the metal sheet digging into her side as she moved into the space. Then, with a final shrugging motion and a kick of her legs, she was through and tumbling onto the floor at the other side of the wall.

Dust rose in a cloud around her; the noise she’d made echoed through the concrete shell. Hailey sat on the ground and blinked into the darkness. It always seemed too gloomy in here — much more than she would have expected from the outside. It was as if natural daylight was afraid to enter, and the darkness held inside the Needle acted as a sort of barrier, protecting whatever else lived here from the light.

Now there was another unwelcome thought. Why did she keep doing this, trying to scare herself? It was like some kind of challenge. She was throwing down the gauntlet, daring herself to venture further inside the building. Maybe the bullies were right, and she really was as weird as they said.

A sound came to her from up ahead: a brief scraping noise, like a stick being dragged along the wall. She peered into the darkness, waiting for the interior to resolve in her vision. She saw the empty space, the walls and black rectangles of doorways. Her ears thrummed. She was in a hallway — she knew that much from past visits — but for some reason she never knew which way to turn. Was it left or right up ahead?

Standing, she moved across to the wall, reaching out to touch it, to confirm that it was there, as solid and immobile as ever. The sound did not repeat. Silence grew and swelled and threatened to become something even worse than noise. Hailey closed her eyes tightly for a couple of seconds, and then opened them again. This time the room was clearer; she could see deeper into the building.

A few metres ahead, the hallway became a T junction. Hailey paused for a moment to think, and then remembered that the left turn led to more rooms and the right one would take her to the reception area at the front of the building, which was usually littered with empty beer cans and bottles, used condoms and dirty syringes left behind by nocturnal visitors. Everyone who came here used the reception area: it was large and uncluttered, and the walls were covered with graffiti that probably dated back to the time when the Needle had been emptied and sealed.

Hailey moved forward, and when she reached the junction she turned left. Her ears felt under pressure, like when she went swimming in the deep end at the local pool. Doorways seemed to lean forward, blocks of blackness taunting her, challenging her to enter. She walked along the hallway, stepping over mounds and heaps of garbage — despite keeping the main area clear of debris everyone seemed to dump their rubbish here. She passed an old sleeping bag, holes torn in the fabric and the white guts seeping out. An old armchair sat against the wall, the stain across its back and arms resembling the bloodied outline of an unusually thin human figure.

Something moved behind her. Hailey refused to turn and look. There was nobody there; the building was empty. It was just a cat or a rat, or even a bird that had gained entry through an upper window, rooting around in the garbage.

The last doorway was closer now. It was the room she always used. The doorway had no door; even the hinges had been removed. She could never say why she came to this room, only that it was small and nondescript and relatively untouched. The other rooms she’d been inside were either blackened by fire, smelled of old sweat and urine, or were filled with random objects — black plastic bags filled with water-damaged porn magazines, broken crates and pallets, wheelie bins, shopping trolleys, and even a surprising number of discarded children’s toys.

It was amazing what some people would dump in places like this…

When she reached the final doorway she stopped at the threshold. For the first time she felt a strange sense of apprehension, a feeling that she shouldn’t be here, not now. She waited, and the feeling faded. Perhaps it was just a result of the increased tension at home, or something stirred up by that noise she’d heard earlier.

But no, that wasn’t it. There was something… something else. Then, at last, she realised what was troubling her. Since entering the building she had been aware of a sort of vibration in the air, a soft thrumming sound that she had at first put down to distant construction machinery or heavy traffic. But there were no building works nearby, and the nearest main road was a couple of miles away. That police helicopter she’d spotted earlier? No. That would be long gone by now.

So what was it, that small sound, that weird throbbing in the still, dead air?

Not hesitating any longer, Hailey stepped through the doorway. The thrumming sound inside her head was threatening to leak out.

The room looked the same as it always did, but there was something different about the space as she entered. That sound was stronger here, inside the room. It sounded like bees, buzzing around a hive. Hailey was puzzled. Was there a wasps’ nest in here, or perhaps a swarm of flies clustering around a pile of shit?

Part of her screamed that she should leave, but another, calmer part of her made her legs move and forced her deeper into the room. It was dark. The two windows were covered. The buzzing grew louder, as if responding to her presence.

At the end of the room was a cupboard — a built-in wardrobe. The doors remained intact, and the cubby hole was always empty, as if nobody had even noticed it, or if they had seen the cupboard they had not been interested enough to look inside. The buzzing seemed to be coming from within, behind the closed doors. It wasn’t only in her head after all, and the realisation filled her with relief.

Hailey moved forward, towards the wardrobe. The buzzing sound intensified.

She stood before the doors. They were tall and narrow, with stainless steel handles. She reached out and grasped one of those handles, her fingers tightening around it. Don’t, she thought. Leave it alone. But that other part of her — the calm part — whispered to her that she should open the doors.

Her hand made a fist around the small handle. Then it turned, pulled, and the door eased noiselessly open.

At first Hailey didn’t know what she was seeing. There was a dense cloud inside the wardrobe, low down near the floor on the right hand side. The cloud seemed to be moving, vibrating. The buzzing sound was louder now — it filled her ears, flowing inside her head. The sound was that of their wings: quicker than thought, lighter than dreams.

She was looking at a swarm of giant insects. Flies. Bees. Hornets. No, that wasn’t right. They were too big, too quick… too beautiful.

They weren’t insects, they were birds.

Hummingbirds.

Hailey had only ever seen hummingbirds on television, on nature programmes, and they had always fascinated her. As far as she knew they lived in America, and places like Ecuador and Mexico. There certainly weren’t any in England. So what were these ones doing in a dingy cupboard in a derelict tower block in Northumberland?

They were gorgeous. Their plumage was radiant — green, red, yellow and gold. The colours bled and mingled as she watched, lighting the darkness and forming a shimmering mirage of sad beauty in the bottom corner of that wardrobe.

There were a lot of them in there. Each one was tiny, the size of a baby’s hand, and they were clustered in the corner as if they were all feeding from the nectar of a single bunch of flowers. Hailey watched them in silence, feeling a sense of awe creep along her arms, then climb to her neck, where it rose higher and flushed her cheeks.

“Beautiful,” she whispered.

And that one word was enough to break the spell.

The flock of birds seemed to undulate, shifting as if their natural rhythm had been disturbed or even broken. They turned to Hailey as one, their little black eyes peering at her from the corner, their sharp little red beaks glinting in the shadows. Then, as if dancing, they flowed out from their hiding place, breaking apart their formation to hover before her, creating a brightly-hued screen between her and the interior of the wardrobe.

Spellbound, Hailey reached out a hand… her fingers opened, then closed. She tried to grab one — just one — of the hovering miracles, but they all flowed away from her, breaking ranks and forming an opening. She looked through the gap they had made and into the cupboard. And she saw what it was they had been eating, and why their beaks were so red, like they’d been carved from ruby.

The dead dog was folded into the corner of the wardrobe, its legs broken and twisted, its head crushed. The fur of the dog’s jaw, and along its neck, was red, tattered, and the corpse had been punctured thousands of times. By countless tiny little beaks. Red beaks. Like rubies.

Hailey tried to scream but the hummingbirds were stealing her air, sucking it from her throat. She backed away, flailing out at the suddenly obscene creatures. Their wings moved faster than she could see; the buzzing sound was louder than anything she had ever heard. She knew that she would fall before it even happened: the image flashed through her mind, clear as a frame from a film.

Walking backwards, panicked and unable to take a breath, she felt her legs tangle and then she went down, hitting the concrete floor hard. She cried out in pain and shock and fear, and the hummingbirds swooped backwards, allowing a small space to open up between her and them. She drew breath; her cheeks swelled; her throat opened. Finally, and with great relief, she opened her mouth and screamed.

The birds backed away as one hovering mass: their colours were like spilled paints, their motion was nightmarish. Where Hailey had first perceived beauty, she now witnessed horror of a kind that she barely even understood.

She scrabbled on the floor, turning around and rising to her feet, pushing away and heading for the door.

Then she saw what the birds were moving away from.

Her scream had not caused them to flee. It was something else. A thing so alien, so unlike anything she had ever imagined, that it took on a strange kind of beauty — a beauty tinged with horror and darkness, and with tears and blood and sweat. Hailey’s belly began to cramp; she felt moisture between her legs.

“What?” she said, and it was the only thing worth saying, the only question she could have asked. She tried to move back the way she’d come, towards the birds, but was caught between two extremes. Her legs skidded on the smooth concrete floor, her skirt riding up to show her dirty, slashed tights. The floor was cold on her exposed flesh. The backs of her legs turned to stone.

Hailey glanced down at the exposed parts of her legs: her scuffed knees, the smooth patches of thigh visible through her ripped tights. Then she looked back at the small, ragged shape that was blocking her escape.

Something vague, dusty and tattered shifted in the shadows near the doorway. Then, as if responding to her whispered question, it began to chuckle.

Others joined the creature, spilling from the joints in the walls and ceiling, squeezing through the plug points and light-fittings. Then, clustered together in a dense and leering pack, they came streaming towards her, aiming for a point directly between her open legs.

CHAPTER TWO

TOM RAN AS if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels.

It was an old phrase — one his mother had been known to use whenever she needed to get a move on, if she was late for work or an appointment she needed to keep. The hounds of hell. Tom hadn’t heard those words in years, never mind used them, so when they came into his head now, as he sprinted between lampposts on a street two miles away from home, he felt a twinge of grief somewhere deep down inside, like a guitar string snapping.

Tom’s mother had died when he was twenty-one. She had never seen him finish university and get his first proper job, or even had the opportunity to meet his wife, Helen.

He ran faster, closing in on the crooked No Entry sign he was using as a marker.

Fartlek — it was Danish for ‘speed play’.

The training method was one of Tom’s favourites; it helped rid him of the formless anger he often felt burning up his insides. The technique involved sprinting for prolonged periods between two fixed points — usually street lights or concrete bollards — and it helped improve speed and stamina. In Tom’s case, he would run at a steady pace for ten minutes, and then vary this by increasing his pace for a set distance. He only ever used the method when he was feeling particularly low. Today was one of those times.

Helen was having a rough time this week. She had developed minor abrasions that might turn into bedsores along one side of her back, and he was forced to roll her every hour or so to prevent this from happening. She screamed in pain whenever he moved her on the sheets.

Tom wished that she would just make an effort, try to get out of bed, before it was too late. She hadn’t left the bedroom for over two years now, and he was losing patience. The woman he had fallen in love with, had worshipped with his mind and his body, was now nothing but a shell. The doctors had told him that physically there was no reason she should not at least be attempting to move around the house, even if she remained in the wheelchair instead of transferring to the sofa or a dining chair. No, her problem was a mental one — she was terrified of shifting her arse from the mattress, just in case she injured herself.

He reached the No Entry sign and allowed himself to slow to a jogging speed. He’d run six miles — two more miles than he had planned — so could afford the luxury of letting his muscles relax a little.

Tom’s breathing was soon under control. He knew that fitness was all about recovery time, and his fitness was at a pretty high level. If nothing else, Helen’s injuries had helped him get in shape. The shame was, of course, that those same injuries had also ruined her life. Both their lives, if he was honest.

He moved steadily along the street and turned left, cutting through a narrow ginnel and into the heart of Far Grove. He didn’t like coming out here even in the early evening, hated straying this close to the place everyone called the Concrete Grove. It was a rough part of town, a Bad Area. Petty crime and anti-social behaviour were the norms, and Tom was not a man who believed in putting oneself in danger.

He increased his pace again, preparing to take the next side street and leave the Grove behind. Even on the outskirts, he could sense the hatred, the poverty, the basic lack of respect, for which the area was known. Even if this negative image was media-created, it was rooted in some kind of truth: the bad always outweighed the good in areas like this one.

The housing estate had been designed to form a series of concentric circles, each one bearing the word Grove in its title: Grove Street, Grove Avenue, Grove Terrace… one after the other, all the names similar and monotonous, just like the bland flats and houses and the sallow faces he saw whenever he did stray here.

Darkness was staining the sky; he’d been gone too long. Helen would start to worry.

Let her, he thought. I’m sick of worrying about her all the time.

He felt immediately guilty, almost as if he had landed her a physical blow. He knew it wasn’t her fault, not really. Ten years ago she had been in an accident with a man who was in all but name her lover. They had been on their way to a country hotel to consummate the relationship, travelling too fast in the rain. The road surface was poor and the tyres had lost their grip on a turn. A simple thing, a small accident, but one whose repercussions could be felt like shock waves even now.

Tom no longer felt a sense of betrayal regarding Helen’s illicit tryst, but still he could only think of the man who had been driving the car as That Man. He had become a symbol more than a human being, and his death in the accident was only fitting.

The accident had left Helen emotionally as well as physically damaged, and Tom realised that there was a possibility she might not ever again be the person he had married. No, that wasn’t right. She would never be the same, it was a certainty. Too much time had passed with too little improvement. He was stuck with her like this forever, or at least until she decided that enough was enough and stopped wanting to carry on with what was left of her life.

As Tom approached a row of asbestos garages — surely the council should have demolished them, in the name of Health and Safety? — he glanced across the road to examine the grass verge opposite. There was a metre wide strip of what should have been green but was actually brown, with a footpath on the other side. Lying on the ailing grass and curled up into a tight ball he saw what looked like a large rag doll, or perhaps a Guy — but it was nowhere near Bonfire night, so the shape couldn’t be an effigy of Guy Fawkes, England’s most beloved terrorist…

Once again, Tom slowed his pace. He jogged to a point where he was level with the doll, or heap of clothes, or rolled up carpet… then he realised that he was looking at a person. A small, crumpled person. A child, in fact.

He looked both ways along the street and saw no sign of anyone else in the vicinity. Even the lights in the houses were off. A handful of the doors and windows — even this far out of the heart of the estate — were covered with wood or metal security shutters, and the rest, those still occupied, were shut up tight for the evening.

The sky was growing darker. A couple of birds flew overhead, one of them letting out a sharp squawking noise as it glided over a low house roof. He heard a faint buzzing sound, like flies swarming nearby.

Tom crossed the road, slowly, carefully. He had heard stories of people pretending to be injured so that they could mug an unwitting Samaritan. Granted, these possibly apocryphal tales had been reported in the seedier redtop newspapers, but still it paid to be cautious. These days, caution was the byword. You couldn’t just rush into these kinds of situations acting like the big hero, not anymore. That way you risked being beaten or stabbed. Only a few weeks ago there had been an incident where a man coming to the aid of a young woman being abused by her boyfriend outside a pub had been turned on by the couple and beaten so badly that his skull had been fractured in five places.

“Hello.” His voice was low. Small. He felt ashamed at how frightened it made him sound. “Hello there. Can I help?”

The body — the child — did not stir.

“Are you okay?”

As he moved closer, Tom realised that it was a girl, probably in her mid-teens. She was wearing a grey school blazer and a crumpled black skirt. Her black tights were dirty and torn; one of the ripped tight-legs had rolled down to the ankle. There was a smear of mud on one exposed knee.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He wasn’t even sure why he’d said that, but it had seemed right, a small reassurance. If the girl had been mugged or raped then it stood to reason that she must be scared, and she might even be pretending that she was unconscious until he went away. “I can help.”

He was now standing roughly two metres away from the girl. He could see the knots in her dirty brown hair and the pale skin of her cheek. Her small hands were clutched into fists, her arms drawn inside and held tightly against her chest.

Tom moved closer and went down onto his haunches, feeling his knees creak a little. Sweat dripped from his brow and into his eyes. He wiped it away with the back of one hand.

The girl moved, just an inch. She turned her head slightly, her nostrils flaring, one eyelid fluttering.

“My name’s Tom Stains. I was running… I saw you here. Can I help you?” He felt idiotic, stuck there and not knowing what to say. All he could do was repeat the same tired lines, like an actor in a bad television play.

The girl’s eyes flickered open. They were blue. Like cornflowers. The blood rushed back into her cheeks, colouring them a warm shade of pink. She opened her mouth, worked her jaw and tried to sit up.

“Let me.” Tom went over and grabbed her by the arm, trying to help her to her feet. She looked up and smiled. Her lips were dry; the skin was chapped. He was amazed that he was able to make out such intimate details.

“Thanks,” she said. Her voice was dry and croaky. She lurched upright, holding on to him for support. Her grip was tight, her fingers digging into his biceps. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. Let’s just get you on your feet.” Tom was painfully aware of his bare legs, his ridiculous running shorts and the T-shirt with the silly logo that said “If Lost, Return to the Beer Tent.” For some reason he wanted to impress this teenage girl, to make her feel safe. She invoked a strange paternal instinct that took him by surprise as well as a faint erotic charge: a curious set of feelings that he had not realised he was capable of experiencing.

“I’m okay,” she said, still leaning against him. He prayed that he didn’t get an erection, and deliberately ignored the sight of her thighs, visible through the rips in her tights.

Still sweating, but now for a different reason, Tom led the girl over to a low garden wall. She sat down, finally relinquishing her grip on his upper arm, and rubbed her face with her hands. She had a long, graceful neck. The top three buttons of her blouse were undone.

Stop, thought Tom. Just stop it.

“Are you… are you injured?” He kept his distance, still feeling silly in his shorts and T-shirt.

The girl looked down at herself, seeming to inspect her body for signs of damage. “No. I don’t think so.”

“What happened? Were you attacked? Mugged? Did they take anything?” Tom licked his lips. His throat was dry.

“I dunno. I think I just passed out, like. Fainted. You know?”

Tom nodded. But he didn’t know; he didn’t have the slightest clue as to why a healthy young girl might faint. “Are you ill, or something? Is that why you passed out?”

The girl shook her head. “I don’t know why it happened. It just did. I was walking around near the Needle, next thing I know I’m waking up here.” She smiled, but it looked forced, as if she were trying to convince him of something.

“The Needle? That’s all the way over there, isn’t it?” Tom turned his head due north, raised a hand to point but dropped it before it even reached waist level. Everybody knew where the tower block was; it was visible from just about everywhere on the estate.

“I know. Weird, eh?” She smiled again. “What did you say your name was?”

“Tom. Tom Stains. I’ve been running…” He glanced down at his legs, lifting his arms away from his body in an almost apologetic manner.

“Yeah. Whatever.” She glanced along the street, dismissing him.

“What’s your name? I should take you home; get you back safe and sound to your parents.” God, he sounded like an old man.

“I’m Hailey. I live a few streets away. I’ll be fine.” She pushed away from the wall, but stumbled a little. Steadying herself, she grinned. “Or maybe not.”

“Come on, Hailey, let’s get you home. I’m sure your parents will be worried.” He took a step towards her but did not touch her. It wasn’t appropriate, not now. She could walk by herself, unaided, and if he grabbed her she might get the wrong idea — or he might.

“Mum. It’s just me and Mum. But, yes, she will be worried. She worries about me all the time round here. It’s not like where we used to live.” She turned and began to walk along the street, her strides slow and uncertain.

“I see.” Tom fell into step alongside her, ready to catch her if she stumbled but not willing to offer his arm unless she asked. “Just you and your mother, eh?” Something turned inside him, like a key in a lock or a tumbler falling into place: some hidden mechanism within the chambers of his heart. Tom didn’t believe in fate or destiny, he clung to no god. But there was something about these events, a sense that the picture was not what it seemed. Beneath the surface, under the façade of reality, something was happening, changes were taking place.

Unbeliever that he was, Tom was confused to think that the steps he was taking now were in fact the beginning of some kind of journey. The destination was unclear, the aim unknowable, but he had willingly taken a turn off the beaten track and allowed himself to be led astray.

Somehow these thoughts failed to trouble him. In fact, he felt more alive than he had in years. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he had embarked upon anything that might be considered an adventure.

CHAPTER THREE

NIGHT WAS FALLING in slow shades as they walked along Grove End, past the dark hulk of the primary school, and headed towards the Grove Court flats. The long nights were drawing in. It would soon be Christmas. Tom hated Christmas.

He was so aware of Hailey strolling along at his side that he could think of nothing else, not even the things he hated. He knew that Helen would be expecting him home to prepare dinner, but he could barely even picture her face. All he could see was the girl.

Tom realised that after the initial near-sexual thrill he’d experienced his feelings towards Hailey had faded to something more like fatherly concern. The girl was in some kind of trouble, that much was certain. He didn’t believe her story about fainting and not knowing how she came to be lying unconscious at the side of the road, half a mile away from where she’d been roaming.

“Just down here,” she said, as if she were deliberately trying to break into his thoughts. She turned, smiled, and then faced forward again. Her strides were now long and even. She seemed much more in control than when he’d first found her. Perhaps he should just leave her here, close to home, and be on his way?

No. If she had been accosted, as he suspected, that would be a foolish thing to do. She was a young girl and it was growing dark. He was duty-bound to accompany her at least to her front door.

There was also the voice at the back of his mind, the soft, purring one that suggested if the girl was this pretty, then her mother must be beautiful. There was no father around, and she might be so grateful that she invited him in for coffee…

Tom laughed softly.

“What’s wrong?” Hailey glared at him, her blue eyes flashing in the growing dimness. “What you laughing at?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was nothing. Just a silly thought I had, that’s all.” He smiled at her and hoped that she couldn’t see through his mask.

Hailey coughed, and then glanced slowly around, as if she were looking for someone. “I don’t like it here. The closer you get to the centre, the weirder it feels. Don’t you feel it? It’s like something in the air — a gas, or something.”

Tom was confused. He didn’t know what she wanted him to say. “This is a run-down area. There are people here who you don’t want to meet after dark. That’s all.”

Several lights had come on in the front rooms of houses and flats. Television light shuddered like a submarine’s lamps through thin curtains. Tom knew what the girl meant. This was a strange place, especially after dark. That was why he didn’t like coming here, why he wished he could run the other way… any way, just not deeper into the estate.

They turned right onto Grove Mount and then crossed the road. There were two cars parked alongside each other at the mini roundabout at the end of the street, young drivers leaning out of the side windows to make some kind of exchange. Tom thought it was probably a drugs deal, but it could be something worse. He’d heard rumours of all kinds of things changing hands down here, and lethal weapons being given to kids who were stupid and desperate enough to use them.

“Which number is yours?” He tore his gaze away from the illicit transaction — although, part of him reasoned, it couldn’t be that illicit if it was being carried out in plain view. Another, more cynical voice replied: it’s more a case of nobody giving a damn. The air was turning cold, and his legs prickled with gooseflesh.

“Number eleven,” said Hailey, slowing down. “Just here, the one on the corner.” She approached the squat block of flats — a two-storey building with a grass verge outside its spiked metal railings.

“You’ll be fine from here. I’d better get back… my wife will be wondering where I am.” He pulled back, away from her, taking a few backward steps across the footpath.

“No, come in and meet my mum. She’ll want to thank you for helping me.” Her smile was impossible to ignore; he felt his own come to life in response, as if it were a bloom flowering in sunlight. “Just for a minute.”

Tom felt his legs move towards her, dragging his resistant body behind. He had the feeling that he might regret this, but still he followed her through the gate and along a narrow concrete path. He didn’t try too hard to leave her and go home.

“It’s here somewhere…” Hailey fished inside her blazer pocket and produced a set of keys. She opened the main door to the flats and walked inside, clearly expecting him to follow.

Not knowing what else to do, Tom paused for a moment to glance both ways along the street, and then he quietly stepped inside the building. The external darkness gave way to a smoother, duskier darkness inside the building. Hailey didn’t bother to turn on the lights as she ghosted across the ground floor. She opened a door and turned towards Tom, smiling. “Come on up.” Then she walked through the doorway and Tom was forced to hurry before it closed.

They climbed the stairs without speaking, their footsteps echoing on the tiled treads. Tom felt apprehensive. Would her mother really welcome him or would she think that he was some kind of pervert in his daft shorts and sweat-stained T-shirt? “Maybe I…” But he didn’t finish. Hailey had reached the landing and was opening another door; this one let out light as it swung wide, and Tom could do nothing but follow.

The hallway was clean but narrow. At one end there was a glass fire door — presumably this led out onto one of the tiny balconies Tom had seen from the street. He stayed a few steps behind Hailey, wishing he’d just turned and walked back down the stairs. But it was too late now; he’d gone too far to risk looking like a fool. An even bigger fool, he thought as he glanced again at his bare legs.

As he watched, someone walked quickly past the other side of the glass door. Then, abruptly, they returned and crossed in the opposite direction. He waited for them to do an about-face and repeat the pass, but nothing moved. For some reason he felt a prickle of fear across his back; his muscles tensed, an involuntary reaction.

Then one of the doors in the hallway opened.

“Hailey! Where have you been?” The woman standing in the doorway was beautiful. Tom stared at her, wishing that he wasn’t there, dressed like an idiot, but he was also glad that he’d accompanied the girl home. It was worth the hassle just to catch sight of this woman, to see her leaning out into the landing and clutching her shirt collar shut across her pale throat.

“This is Tom. He brought me home.” Hailey’s voice had lowered an octave, her whole manner changing and becoming surly, that of a stereotypical teenager.

“Hello… listen, I’m sorry.” Why the hell was he apologising? He’d done nothing wrong. “I found her out in the street, near Far Grove. She’d fainted. I just brought her home. So she’d be safe.” He was backing away, raising his hands and probably looking like he was trying to escape. He might as well be wearing a T-shirt with ‘Guilty’ printed across the chest, rather than the message about the Beer Tent.

The woman turned to Hailey, her brow furrowed with worry. “Did it happen again? Did you black out?” She pushed fallen hair out of her face with a thin hand. Her hair was so black that it looked blue beneath the cheap hallway lighting. Her hand was like a small animal, snuffling along her neat hairline.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. He helped me.” Hailey turned to face Tom, pouting. She suddenly seemed much younger than she had before.

Tom smiled. He didn’t know what to say.

“I suppose I should thank you.” The woman stepped out of the flat. Her feet were bare. She was wearing an ankle-length skirt along with a white blouse — the outfit made her look vaguely bohemian. “I didn’t mean to be so unwelcoming. People round here… well, you know. Some of them are a bit grim.” When she smiled her dark eyes blazed. Her cheeks flushed red.

“I didn’t do anything. Just brought her home. I thought she might’ve been mugged.” He was poised for flight. Just one wrong move on her part and he felt like he might flee. What was wrong with him? Was she so alluring that he was afraid of her?

Yes. Yes, he was. She was terrifying.

“Please. Come in. Have a drink. Let me thank you properly.” She stood aside, and he caught a glimpse inside the flat. It was small, poky really. Bland white paper on the walls. Cheap carpet on the floor. “You must think I’m terrible. Fancy a beer before you go running off again?” She gestured with her head, raising one eyebrow as she looked at his shorts.

“Oh. Yeah, I was out for a run. I don’t usually wander around the streets in this get-up. Not after dark, anyway.” This exchange finally broke the tension; he felt calmer now, in control of his emotions.

“Drink?” She made a drinking motion with her left hand. He noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“That would be lovely,” he said, and took a step forward. A single step that felt like he had recommenced the journey started outside, when he’d decided to escort Hailey home. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

“If I minded, I wouldn’t have asked. By the way, my name’s Lana. Lana Fraser.” She held out a hand. Her fingers were extraordinarily long — he hadn’t noticed before, but they seemed distorted above the top knuckle. He reached out and shook her hand, feeling those weird fingers. They were cold to the touch.

Tom walked into the flat. Hailey was already inside, vanishing into a room — presumably her bedroom — on the right hand side of an entrance area that was too small to be called a hallway. Another door up ahead — this one open — led into what must be the living room.

“Go on in. Make yourself at home.” Her voice was close to his back. He imagined that he could feel her breath on his neck, but that was silly. He knew that she was standing a few paces away, closing the door, locking it behind them. “I’ll be just a moment.”

The living room was small, but cosy. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, just a TV, a slightly battered two-seater leather sofa, two mismatched armchairs, a coffee table, a bureau shoved against the wall and a bookcase stacked with hardbacks. Tom made for the latter, crossing the rug that lay over the laminated floor. He had always been an avid reader, and loved to check out people’s book collections.

He could hear voices in the other room, the one Hailey had entered. They were raised, but not shouting. A concerned mother checking that her daughter was okay.

He ran his fingertips along the worn spines of Lana’s books, noting the fact that these were well-thumbed copies.

“Tea, coffee, or a nice cold beer?”

He turned, surprised for a moment that she had managed to sneak up on him so quickly. “Oh, I think a beer would hit the spot.”

“I think I’ll join you,” said Lana, heading for the open-plan kitchen that took up one whole side of the room.

The cooking and living/dining areas were separated by a series of floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves and a narrow breakfast bar, which helped give the impression of two rooms where there was really only one. Tom watched Lana moving behind the shelves, catching sight of her through ornaments and knick-knacks as she bent to the fridge and then crossed to the sink. Then he turned back to the bookcase. He spotted a couple of Graham Greene novels immediately, and nodded his approval. The books were in no particular order that he could make out — unless it was a purely personal system — and each one was a hardback edition, either with or without a dust jacket. Steinbeck stood next to John Irving; Tom Sharp rubbed shoulders with Dickens; Shakespeare snuggled up next to Stephen King.

“Are you a reader too?”

He turned, clutching a battered copy of Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance. It was one of his favourite novels. “Yes, I am. I love books, always have done.”

“Good,” said Lana, handing him a glass of pale beer. “That’s something we have in common from the start, and I think that potential friends should start off from a shared interest.” Her smile was radiant… it was also cheeky; he felt as if she were teasing him.

“So we’re going to be friends, are we?” He took a sip of his drink. It was ice-cold. He closed his eyes briefly, savouring the taste.

“I think it’s the least we should do, don’t you? Seeing as you were kind enough to help my daughter.”

“Is she okay? I mean… unharmed?”

A flicker of something dark passed across Lana’s already dark eyes. She shook her head; a vague gesture that Tom failed to read. “She’s been having these mini blackouts. They don’t last long, just a few minutes. The doctor says it’s nothing to worry about, just stress from the move and some stuff that went on back where we used to live.” She waved her hand, dismissing the subject. “Yes, she’s fine. Thank you for being so concerned.” She smiled to show him that the comment was genuine, but her eyes remained shaded.

“Shall we sit?” She moved across the small room, heading for the sofa, then changed her mind and lowered her thin body into one of the armchairs. Tom followed her, and sat on the sofa. He had almost finished his beer. “Refill?”

“Only if you are,” he said.

She nodded, stood, took his glass. Their fingers touched again, and this time it felt strange, like a tiny electrical current had passed between them. She stared at him with those dark, dark eyes, a puzzled expression on her face.

When she returned from the kitchen she was carrying a tray. Upon it were their refilled glasses, and two more cans of beer. “One for the road,” she said, winking.

“So,” said Tom, a panicked feeling welling in his chest. “You say you haven’t lived here long?” This woman was confusing him. There was a mutual attraction here, he could feel it, but it seemed that they were both trying to ignore the connection.

“Do you live here, in the Grove?”

Tom shook his head. “No. I… not that there’s anything wrong with living here, of course.” He felt his cheeks burning. He was talking himself into a corner. “I mean… shit. Sorry.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry. It is shit here. I’m not fooling myself otherwise. Hailey and I used to live in Newcastle. It was South Gosforth, to be exact, right next to the Metro station. We had a nice home, I had a good job. Then a couple of years ago it all went tits-up when my husband bailed on us and his debtors. We lost the house and we had to come here. It was the only place the council would give us; according to their stupid little points system we didn’t have a high enough rating for anywhere decent.” She took a long swig of her drink, closed her eyes and swallowed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so nosy.” He rubbed his palms on his thighs, then realised that the action made him look like some kind of madman. He stopped, held up his hands. Then he picked up his glass and drained it. “Listen, I should go.”

Lana nodded. She licked beer foam from her lips. “Is the wife waiting for you at home?”

For some reason he could not identify Tom felt guilty. “That’s right. She’s… she’s not well. There was an accident several years ago and she relies on me.” Why did he feel the need to justify himself? Was it because, really, he didn’t want to leave? He wanted to stay here and drink into the night with this woman, trading histories, telling stories, laughing and bonding and becoming friends — perhaps even more than friends.

He stood, tugging at the hem of his shorts, trying to cover the goose pimples that had appeared above his knees. “I should… you know. I should leave.” He felt dizzy, like the world was spinning faster beneath his feet. He tried to hold on, had to hold tight. If he didn’t, he thought that he might fall off the edge of the planet.

“Thanks again,” said Lana, following him as she walked to the door. “Listen, I didn’t mean to come on too strong then. It’s just that I don’t have any friends here, and I think I get a bit needy. Just ignore me.” She reached out, as if she were about to touch his arm, but then let her hand drop away.

“It’s fine. I can be your friend.” Jesus, did he really just say that? “How fucking corny,” he added, pausing by the door.

“Just a bit,” said Lana, smiling now, looking happier than she had done only seconds earlier. “But it was a nice thing to say.” She turned her head slightly to one side, and he caught sight of a faint scar along her jawline.

When he left the flat he had to fight not to look over his shoulder, just to catch another glimpse of her as she closed the door. He heard the locks slide into place, and paused to listen for her footsteps. But of course he couldn’t hear them; there was no way her bare feet could be heard through the door. Yet he told himself that she was standing on the other side, thinking about him.

Tom descended the concrete stairs, and left the building. He glanced at his watch and was shocked to find that it was now almost 9 PM. The street lights were on. Voices drifted towards him — kids’ voices, filled with intent. The song of distant sirens accompanied him as he jogged back along Grove End, along the side of the school and towards Far Grove. He felt like he was leaving something behind, something that might just prove to be worthwhile. Never before in his life had he experienced feelings like these: it was terrifying, but it was also liberating. Had he ever felt this kind of thrill when he and Helen had first met? He thought back, to the time when they’d swapped phone numbers in the university canteen, and realised that what he had felt then had been but an echo of this, and not a very strong one.

The voices receded, far behind him. Laughter. Running footsteps.

In the silence that rushed in to replace the sounds, Tom became aware that he was being followed. He turned his head to glance over his shoulder and saw a quick, light movement as something shot through a gap in the school fence and padded across the yard. He felt his feet slowing; his hands clenched into fists. Run, he thought. Just keep going. But his body refused to obey. It felt like all the blood was rushing out of his feet. The beer he’d consumed pooled in his lower stomach.

Despite this physical reluctance, he pushed onwards, aware that whatever had entered the school was now moving back in his direction. It drew level with him, keeping pace behind the high metal railings. He saw its dark, glistening flanks as it ran. The shape darted between pools of sodium light, and for a moment he thought that it was a child loping along on all fours. Then, gasping with relief, he saw that it was a short-haired dog. Of course it was. The relief was displaced once again by fear when he remembered that there had been sightings of packs of stray dogs in the area — he even recalled a story about someone being attacked one night by a mangy mongrel.

Tom tried to look away, to look straight ahead, but he was unable to take his eyes from the beast that ran alongside him, loping between patches of lamplight. The road was narrow here; the creature was so close that he could have reached out and touched it through the gaps between railings. There was moisture in his eyes; he felt like weeping.

Then the dog turned its bristly head to face him. And Tom felt an emotion that at first he could not explain. Never before in his life had he experienced real fear — the kind of fear that makes you realise that you are always a single moment away from death. One thought filled his mind, casting everything else in shadow: the dog’s face was human.

It was a hound with the features of a person, a male. A boy.

In the split second during which the thing looked his way, Tom made out its wide green eyes, its strangely hairless cheeks, its flaring nostrils and thin, curling lips. He was struck with a sort of nostalgic horror as the face of a young boy smiled at him from the body of a dog. Nothing he could have imagined would have scared him as much. He had not been this afraid since childhood.

And then it was away, bounding further into the school grounds, towards the dark classrooms. He tried to tell himself that what he had seen could not be real. That it was impossible. After all, he’d experienced but a single, snatched glimpse and not a prolonged look at the thing. He even managed to fool himself for a while, as he peeled away from the school railings and ran along in the middle of the road. Then, when finally he reached the brighter area where the road bisected Far Grove Way, he admitted all over again that what he had seen had been something from a nightmare, a nightmare that he should have remembered from long ago.

Even if his eyes had deceived him, it must have been his brain trying to tell him something, to warn him that he was close to making a big mistake. He shouldn’t be here, in this godforsaken wasteland of the Concrete Grove. In fact he should never come here again.

Helen was waiting for him back home. Behind him, at Lana’s flat, there could be only trouble. It was time to go home to his wife, and return to the life he had chosen many times, whenever he had been called upon to make the decision.

Running hard now, quickening his pace towards a full sprint, he tried to rid his mind of the shame and the guilt and the slow-burning rush of illicit pleasure. But no matter how fast he ran, and how far he went, Tom knew that he could never outrun himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

TOM WAS COLD when he arrived home. The temperature had dropped outside, and the skin of his legs was taut and goose-pimpled. He fumbled for his key in the tiny pocket at the rear of his shorts, his fingers unable to get a firm grasp on the Velcro flap. It took him a lot longer than it should, but at last he grasped the key and slipped it into the lock. The downstairs lights were off. Shadows swarmed around his feet, cast by the light that bled down the stairwell from his office.

“Tom?” Helen’s croaky voice drifted towards him from the ground floor. “Is that you, Tom?”

Who the fuck else would it be? He thought. Then he said: “Yes, it’s me. Sorry I’m late.” He closed the door and walked along the hallway, flicking on the kitchen lights as he entered the room. The spotlights seemed to snap on too quickly, too brightly, and he closed his eyes against the glare.

The breakfast dishes were still in the sink. This morning, feeling lazy and careless, he hadn’t even bothered to load the dishwasher.

“Tom?” Her wavering tone annoyed him, made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle like those of a cat just about to pounce. He closed his eyes again, silently counted to ten.

“Tom!” Impatient now, he could hear her manoeuvring her body in the bed in the other room. Her excessive weight made the timber frame creak.

“Just a minute, love. I’ll bring you some soup.” She always liked soup on a week night. Even when she was fit and healthy, in the days before the accident, she had enjoyed a bowl of cream of tomato or oxtail after coming in from work.

Tom moved quickly, opening the can and pouring its contents into a saucepan on the stove. He stirred the soup as it warmed up, and once it began to bubble slightly at the edges, he buttered two slices of bread. When the soup was ready he ladled it into a large bowl, and then placed the bowl and a plate containing the bread on a plastic tray. He added a spoon and a napkin, and then left the kitchen and walked through the house to her room.

Helen had occupied the reception room since she’d come home from hospital. At first it had been a matter of sleeping in there so that Tom could get some rest. The pain had kept her awake; she didn’t want to cause him any sleepless nights. Now, much to his relief, she stayed in there because she was too lazy to move. He couldn’t stand the thought of her joining him upstairs in the master bedroom — even if their sex life had not died along with her ability to walk, the idea of her massive body beside him was enough to bring a sour taste to the back of his throat. And she was so big these days that he stood no chance of carrying her up the stairs.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was dim — she rarely let him open the curtains, and the light she used to read by was fitted with an energy-saving bulb that never cast much light.

“Sorry I’m late, Helen. There was this girl, just a young lass, really. She’d fainted in the street and I had to stop and help her.”

Helen put down her book on the bed. She turned and peered at him over the lenses of her tiny reading glasses. Her jowls shuddered. “Really? Was she okay?”

He nodded. “Yes, she was fine. Just a bit shaken. I took her home to her… her parents. They said she suffers from fainting spells, some kind of seizures. But she was fine when I left.” He smiled. Why wasn’t he telling her everything? Parents? He felt guilty for hiding the fact that Hailey had only a mother — and an attractive one at that — but something held him back, made him give a sanitised account of events. Was it guilt? But why? It wasn’t as if he had done anything wrong or improper. He’d thought about it, yes, but thinking a thing and acting upon those thoughts were entirely different situations.

“Here,” he said, moving towards the bed with the tray balanced on his open palms. “I made your soup.”

“You never forget, do you? Never let me down?” Her smile was big and loose, like a mother smiling at her child. “I’m glad I have you to look after me, Tom. God knows what I’d do without you, you know.”

He set down the tray on her meaty thighs. “Why do you say that? Of course you have me. Why wouldn’t you?” Again, he felt that his own guilt was making him labour the point. She often did this, a sort of passive-aggressive emotional blackmail. He usually ignored it… but now, this evening, what had happened earlier was making him defensive. “Just eat your soup. I have crusty bread; it’s your favourite.”

Her small, spongy hand grasped the spoon and she shuffled up against the headboard, trying to settle into a more comfortable position. When she raised the spoon to her mouth some of the tomato soup spilled down the front of her nightdress. For a moment, Tom thought it looked like blood. She tipped the spoon and drank the soup, closing her eyes to savour the taste.

Tom felt like picking up the bowl and pouring the scalding contents over her head, onto her face… and then he felt ashamed, disgusted with himself for resenting Helen in this way. It wasn’t her fault she’d been partially paralysed, not really. Yes, she had chosen to be there, with That Man, but nothing in life was ever so clear cut that you could fairly apportion blame. Nobody was innocent; everyone was guilty of something. It would be unfair of him to place the whole of the blame onto Helen’s shoulders.

Maybe so, he thought. But it’s her fault that she won’t even get her fat arse out of bed.

Again, he felt a deep sense of shame; a depth charge of emotion detonated in his stomach. The accident — why did they all keep calling it that, even now, especially now? — had left deep mental trauma, like a trench in her soul. Helen was afraid to go out, and she was equally as frightened to remain inside. Her whole life was lived in a state of fear now, and there was very little anyone could do to change that. All Tom could do, all he could really manage, was to collect her prescription drugs once a week and feed and care for her every day, offering her support when she needed it. Washing her armpits, emptying her colostomy bag. Keeping her human. Whatever their marriage had once been, it wasn’t the same now. Everything had changed that day ten years ago, when That Man had crashed the car in which she was a passenger and she’d lost all feeling from the waist down. That day, that terrible, terrible day, was effectively when their love had died.

Oh, they still shared something like love, but it wasn’t the same kind they’d known before. The feelings had changed, mutated, as they were battered and torn in the accident, and then they had re-emerged as a form of duty.

Tom watched her eat, trying to take pleasure from the fact that she was still alive. At least she still lived. But he knew in his heart that living was something she no longer really did: all she was capable of was existence.

When she was done he took the tray and left her bedside. He turned back at the door, looking at her, but she was concentrating on her book. It was a paperback mystery, the kind she couldn’t get enough of these days. It puzzled him that although she was terrified of everything outside the front door, she enjoyed reading about murder and mayhem. Perhaps the fictional horror helped keep her real-life fears at bay.

“I’m going to work for a while. Shout for me if you need anything else.”

She did not look up from her book. “Thanks, I will.” Her eyes blinked behind her small reading glasses and she licked her colourless lips. She had not even noticed the soup stains on her nightdress. She was so utterly unconcerned with how she looked these days that it had passed her by.

She used to be beautiful, he thought. So very beautiful. Like Lana Fraser.

He left the room and closed the door, leaning back against the thin wooden panels and feeling moisture gather in his eyes. He looked at the tray, at the dirty, red-smeared bowl and the crumbs on the plate, and he realised that he’d always fucking hated tomato soup.

The memory of what he had seen on his way home — the dog with a boy’s face — came back to him. If he was seeing things, imagining monsters, nobody could blame him. His life was a slow implosion of duty and regret. Tom knew that he was going under, that things were getting to him in a way they never had before, and perhaps his strange vision was a result of his conflicted emotions.

Wouldn’t any man who was forced to wipe his wife’s arse after she took a shit in a plastic bowl, and then struggle with her spongy, shapeless form to pull up her pants experience some form of breakdown? Not to mention the fact that once she had deteriorated enough to have the bag and tubes fitted, it was up to him to keep them washed and sterilised. Didn’t that justify some kind of emotional upheaval?

Now that he was home, and away from that grotty estate, he could rationalise what had happened. The thing he thought he had seen out there in the darkness could not possibly exist. His mind had conjured a demon to represent his inner turmoil — that’s what the psychology books and websites he occasionally read would say, anyway, and he was inclined to agree with them.

But still he could not shake the fear he had felt when he thought that he was being stalked — or, to be more precise, when he felt hunted. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was real, and the terror had been so strong, so overpowering, that it had felt like a twisted kind of happiness.

Jesus, was he so messed up that he now equated fear with a feel-good factor? He laughed softly, but even to his own ears it sounded forced, as if he were trying to convince an unseen listener that he was taking none of this seriously.

The truth was, of course, that he was unable to do anything else.

He went back through to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher, wiping down the work surfaces before slipping the washing tablet into its slot and pressing the buttons to set the machine away. The dishwasher thrummed softly, a soft voice singing in a foreign language. He closed his eyes. The sound was almost soothing.

Closing the door on his way out of the kitchen, Tom made his way upstairs to what he still occasionally liked to call his study, a room that had once been the guest room, where their friends had stayed after entertaining dinner parties and drunken conversations. The room had served as his office for ten years now, since Helen had come out of hospital to be cared for at home.

Ten years. It felt to him like a lifetime, a span of time that he could barely make sense of. How had it become so long so very quickly?

He booted up his computer and waited for the programs to load. He knew that he should start work immediately, but felt restless. There was no way he could settle down this evening, not without something to calm him. Internet porn? Meeting Lana had certainly stirred his libido. But no, it didn’t feel right. Maybe he’d hit one of the regular forums and chat for a while with his faceless friends — other lonely carers reaching out across cyberspace to try and make their own lives seem less empty.

The computer screen flared into life.

Tom ran his fingers over the mouse, trying to make sense of his need.

Lana. Lana Fraser.

What’s your story, Lana Fraser?

Tom opened the browser and without thinking about what he was doing he typed her name into the search engine. The name was not uncommon. The search summoned a lot of unrelated hits, but halfway down the first page he saw the one he wanted. His eyes were drawn right to it, as if he were meant to see the details.

It was a link to an article in a local newspaper, dated eighteen months ago:

… Mrs. Fraser has lost her home… murderer… wife and daughter… prominent businessman killed himself…

Tom clicked his cursor on the link and was taken to the relevant page. He read the article, feeling sad and horny and shameful. There was a photograph of a much younger version of Lana, black and white, clearly taken some time ago. She was wearing a dark suit. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She looked glamorous and sharp as a blade.

He had no recollection of the story, but must have read about it at the time. Her husband had murdered three people — shady businessmen with organised crime connections — and tried to make the killings look like gangland assassinations. They were revenge killings, brought about because of an investment that had gone sour. When his crime was uncovered, and he became aware that the police had marked him as their top suspect, Timothy Fraser, aged thirty-eight, had taken a small-calibre handgun and shot himself in the face. He lived on in hospital for a week, in a coma and under police guard, and then he died.

Lana had lost everything: her home, her money, her lifestyle. It had all been taken by administrators to cover the cost of the bankruptcy and pay back her dead husband’s debtors.

Tom needed a drink. He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and took out the whisky bottle and tumbler he kept there. He poured a large measure, knocked it back in one. Then he poured another, smaller amount into the glass and returned the bottle to the drawer.

“Lana Fraser,” he said, his lips burning slightly. “I think we might both be in need of a friend.” He took a sip and closed his eyes, then threw back his head to enjoy the swallowing motion as the harsh liquid flowed down his throat to light up his insides like a flame.

CHAPTER FIVE

LANA SAT IN the chair by the window and watched the fire in the sky. She wasn’t sure what was happening out there, or where exactly the source of the reflected flames was located, but at least it wasn’t right outside her door. That, at least, was a comfort.

These days she took her comforts where she could, and they were always small. So small, in fact, that she was often unable to pinpoint them amid the general chaos of her existence.

The flames burned on, beautiful and pitiless, as if a great furnace door had been opened.

Only last week Lana had been sitting in the same position, sipping a similar glass of Chardonnay to the one she now held, when some kids had let off a firework in the street outside. The rocket had arced up into the sky and then turned slowly towards her window, striking the glass. The crack was still there: it was paper thin, barely even noticeable, but she saw it every time she looked through the window. She’d called the council, trying to get a workman to come out and replace the pane, but her request had been met with a wall of apathy.

“Little bastards,” she said, gripping her wineglass, not knowing if she meant the culprits or the council workers. The fire in the sky shimmered, as if in response, and then it dimmed before giving off another surge of brightness.

Kids, it was always kids. Places like these, council estates inhabited by the people society had shoved to the bottom of the pile, were full of ill-mannered kids out to cause trouble. Some of the parents didn’t care, many of the ones who did simply lacked the skills to manage, and the schools were unable to cope. The rest got lost in the shuffle.

It was just the way of things; there was nothing anyone could do about it. The situation had gone too far, the rot was set too deep, and the country had long ago accepted this kind of anti-social behaviour as the norm at a certain level of society. The level she and Hailey now occupied.

It seemed like there was a constant stream of bad behaviour on the estate: lighting fires, vandalising private and public property, killing house pets, bullying the incapacitated. It never stopped. There was no end in sight.

It all amounted to just another night in the Concrete Grove.

Hailey was in bed, dreaming of whatever she craved for these days — no doubt pining in her sleep for everything they had lost. Her bedroom door was closed, perhaps even locked. She had never locked her room at the old house in South Gosforth. Back then, there had been few secrets between mother and daughter. But now, in this new life, it sometimes seemed like secrets were all they had, the only things that kept them close. They shared nothing but the fact that they hid things from each other. The glue that bonded them was impure, toxic.

The details of what had happened to Timothy constituted one of those secrets. At first Lana had even tried to keep it from Hailey altogether, but once the newspapers and the local TV news started reporting the story, that soon became impossible. So she was forced to tell the child at least part of the truth — the fact that her father had been broken by life and chose a dark way out. The effort to keep the secret from everyone else — to remain tight-lipped around the estate in which they now lived — had finally brought them together again. The bond they shared was not the same as the one they’d had before, but it was all they could hope for under the circumstances. Quite frankly, Lana suspected that it was now the closest thing to love they would ever know.

She sipped her wine and wondered whether she could possibly summon any more tears, or if her well had finally run dry. Then, disgusted with herself, with her stupid self-pity, she emptied the glass and refilled it. She was getting drunk. Her eyes were heavy and her mind was blurred, as if layered in cotton wool. She could no longer trust her emotions, or her instincts.

But that was good: she liked being drunk. It made the lies seem more like truths.

That man. The one from earlier this evening. What was his name? Tom? He was nice. She smiled at the memory of his nervous grin, his loose limbs, dumb T-shirt and silly running shorts. Why was she thinking of him now, at her lowest ebb? Was it because, for some reason, when she had spoken to him she had felt less alone?

“Fuck,” she said, enjoying the way the word tasted of wine and stolen kisses. “Get a grip, woman.”

Now that she had time to think about him, Tom seemed even more attractive than he had when he’d brought Hailey home. After Hailey had gone to bed, Lana finally had the time to consider what she had felt as he stood there, bare-legged and shaking in her doorway. Clearly he found her attractive too — Lana was experienced enough to recognise the signs. But it was more than that, deeper. There was a connection between them, a quiet spark that had simultaneously slowed down and speeded up the short time they’d spent together. He was older than her, but that might even be part of the appeal: a figure of authority to cling to in the night, when her demons came loping towards her out of the dark.

Lana struggled to understand the thoughts in her head. The wine, the night, the worry over Hailey and those weird fainting spells, it was all setting her off balance, confusing her to the point where she no longer felt that she could trust herself to do the right thing.

But what was the right thing? And how would she recognise it? There were no rules here, no written bylaws she could follow. Everything was fluid: even emotions were up for barter.

She took another mouthful of wine, held it, and then swallowed. The taste was good: bone-dry and woody, just how she liked it.

When the telephone rang she took a few seconds to register its quiet buzzing. Frowning, she glanced over at the handset where it rested on the windowsill. She stood and walked to the window, once again looking at the fiery darkness hanging above the distant silhouette of Far Grove.

Sirens drew close as she reached out to pick up the phone, as if the sound had been triggered by her motion.

“Hello.” Her voice was bounced back at her through the earpiece — a fluke of acoustics, or a fault on the line. “Hello,” she said again, and this time she was answered by a thick, heavy silence.

Feeling her heart swell in her chest, Lana waited. She knew who it was. There could be only one man who would call her so late, and project such a sense of menace down the line.

The line hummed. It sounded like distant wings, hundreds of them, beating so fast that it filled her ears with a single note.

“Do you have it?” His voice was like rocks splitting, concrete breaking under immense pressure.

There was no point in pretending, in playing dumb. “No. Not yet.” She closed her eyes. “But I will.”

She pretended that she could hear the sound of her own heart beating, and if she waited long enough it would rise in volume and drown out his words, silencing his threats.

“I want it tomorrow.” Again, that gritty voice: pure verbal hatred. “I’ll send a couple of the chaps round.”

Lana still could not open her eyes. If she did, she thought she might see him standing there, grinning, his hair slick with gel and his eyes blazing. “It’s too soon. I don’t have it. Please… just give me a few more days. A week.” She loathed the pleading tone in her voice, the fact that she was reduced to begging from scum like this, whining like a dog for scraps from the table.

“Tomorrow.” That humming. The sound was audible behind his voice. “The chaps’ll call on you. Be there or it’ll only be worse for you.” Then he hung up.

Lana stood there, bathed in distant firelight, her forehead sweating and her hand gripping the telephone receiver. She was unable to put the phone down. Her fingers refused to budge, to open and relax their grip.

“No,” she said, and the word was like an exhaled breath. It made as little impact on the world as a sigh. “I don’t have it.”

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, she was able to relinquish her grip on the handset. She put it back on the windowsill, carefully, delicately. She still had her eyes closed. Her lips were trembling. Darkness danced behind her eyelids. The world was unstable, as if someone had untied her from her moorings and she was beginning to drift, to move away from everything that had ever seemed safe. The darkness behind her eyes beckoned.

“Mum?” Hailey’s voice, behind her and filled with concern.

Lana opened her eyes and the fiery darkness flooded in… then, gradually, it receded, letting in the light. The sirens were louder.

“Mum? Are you okay?”

She turned round and faced her daughter. Hailey was standing in the doorway, the light from her bedroom forming a bright pool at her feet. She was wearing an oversized nightgown and clutching the ear of a ragged teddy bear — the one her father had given her, and which they had both, for some reason, christened Well-do. It was a private joke, one of the few things father and daughter had ever really shared.

“Hi, honey. Can’t you sleep?”

Hailey shook her head. She was fourteen years old, yet she often seemed a lot younger. Right now, standing there with her weight on one hip and Well-do in her hand, she looked about ten, maybe even younger than that.

“What’s wrong, Hay? Bad dreams?” Lana started to move across the room, towards her daughter, but Hailey flinched long before she even made it to her side. “What is it, honey? Tell me about it.”

Then, at last, she saw it: the dark stain at the crotch of Hailey’s nightdress, the way she was standing turned fractionally to one side to hide the damp patch. “Oh, Hailey. Oh, baby, come here…” She went down onto her knees and hugged her daughter close, ignoring the smell of urine and the way that Hailey shuddered at her touch. “It’s okay. Just an accident, that’s all.” She felt her eyes begin to prickle and blinked away the threat of tears. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

So for the second time that night Lana comforted her daughter, treating her as if she were an infant. She ran a hot bath and watched in silence as Hailey undressed, trying to hide her thin body in the steamy bathroom. Lana stared at her slight arms and legs, at her small mound of a tummy. She was aware of a strange sensation in her chest, like the slicing motion made by a thin blade, and she looked away, unsure of what it was she was feeling.

There was a soft splashing noise as Hailey climbed into the bath; a louder one as she sat down in the water and moved her hands through the bubbles.

“Everything’s going to be fine.” Lana heard herself say the words, but she couldn’t believe them. The lie came easily, like a gift, and she accepted it with good grace. Sometimes it was easier to let people hear what they wanted, and this was certainly one of those times. “We’re going to be fine.” But they weren’t; of course they weren’t. They were in a lot of trouble and nothing she could do or say could alter the facts: she owed money to the biggest bastard in town, and he wanted it back, one pointless payment at a time.

Lana ran the sponge across her daughter’s narrow shoulders, letting the hot water spill across her pale skin, turning it pink. Hailey said nothing. She just sat there in the bath, letting the water soak her, staring at the same spot on the tiles. She didn’t even blink.

What is it? Lana squeezed the sponge, stared at the soapy water on soft flesh. What’s come between us?

A lot more than the murders and Timothy’s suicide had created a vast gap between them, pushing them and keeping them apart. There was something else — an unknown quantity — and Lana did not know what she was meant to do to fix the problem. She was not armed with all the facts; whatever Hailey was going through, she was keeping it to herself. For some reason, perhaps even fear, the girl would not come to her mother for help.

“Speak to me, honey.” Lana whispered through tight lips, her jaw aching from the tension. “Tell me what it is.”

But Hailey kept staring at the wall, at the stained white tiles, her eyes unfocused yet seeing something beyond the room, the flat, the entire estate. Whatever it was she was looking at, Lana felt that it was changing her daughter, transforming her into a stranger. Making her different. Turning her inside out.

The room was filled with steam, obscuring her vision, and Lana felt that she should open the window but she didn’t want to leave Hailey’s side. Something kept her there, near the body that had begun life curled up within her, the construct of skin and hair and bone she had built for nine months inside her womb.

Lana was afraid for her daughter, but she didn’t know why.

Hailey had not wet the bed since she was two years old, and even then it had been an accident. Even her father’s death had not caused this kind of physical reaction, just the expected crying and outbursts of rage.

So what, Lana thought, was so terrifying that Hailey was suddenly fainting in the street and pissing herself in her sleep? What the hell was scaring her this much?

The steam moved sinuously, as if it were hiding shapes within its cloudy mass. At last Lana was able to move away, and she walked to the window and opened it, letting in the cool night air. The steam shifted, breaking apart like a hacked sheet. There was nothing behind it, no monster hid within the folds of dissipating steam. Nobody was in the bathroom apart from the two women, mother and daughter, and the unmistakable presence of their shared fear.

“Please,” said Lana, once again hating the fact that she was forced to plead.

Hailey said nothing. She twitched her head to the side, one corner of her mouth turning up in an expression that was not quite a smile but something else, something unreadable. “It’s nothing,” she said, and her voice was like that of a small child, not much more than a baby. “I promise, Mum. There’s nothing wrong. Nothing at all.”

Lana stood by the window, the cold air kissing her neck, the sirens wailing in the night. In that moment, with the song of the estate ringing in her ears, she knew that Hailey was lying.

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN LANA WOKE she felt a strange sense of panicked urgency, as if she should be doing something important but couldn’t remember what it was that required her attention. She blinked at the daylight, opening her mouth to run her dry tongue across her even drier lips. She felt the beginnings of a headache flaring up behind her eyes.

The radio was playing at a low volume on the dressing table. There was make-up scattered across the table’s surface, on the seat of the chair and on the floor. Eyeliner pencils, tubes of lipstick and other beauty paraphernalia had been thrown down carelessly. She didn’t remember much, just a vague notion of applying make-up, washing it off, and reapplying it differently. She had a mental picture of her face in the mirror, eyes blackened by mascara, lipstick smears across her mouth.

She sat up slowly, not wanting to encourage the headache. An empty wine bottle rolled off the bed and onto the floor, hitting the carpet with a soft thud. She’d taken alcohol to bed again. That was never a good idea, and she knew that it was happening too often for comfort. Her father had died from drink — his heart had failed under the pressure of too many years of chronic alcohol abuse. She didn’t want to go the same way, leaving behind a blotchy, wine-sodden corpse for her daughter to bury in a cheap coffin.

Lana glanced over to the open bedroom door. She usually closed it at night — a leftover fear from her childhood, when she couldn’t sleep with an open door — but now it was wide to the wall. Daylight slanted through the gaps between vertical blinds, forming lines across the carpet which stretched to the doorway. Lana watched the bright tramlines, light-headed and slightly nauseous.

She reached out and turned off the radio.

There was a noise from somewhere inside the flat. It sounded like something heavy falling to the floor, or perhaps a door slamming. Was Hailey up and about, getting ready for school? Lana slid out of bed and put on her dressing gown. She caught sight of her reflection in the wall-mounted mirror and was relieved to see that last night’s horror-show make-up had been cleaned away. Her cheeks were bare, shiny. They looked sunken. Her eyes were too wide, and as flat as old-fashioned copper pennies. She tried to swallow but it hurt her throat. Her skin was clammy.

She left the room and walked along the short hallway, towards Hailey’s room. “You up yet, honey?”

There was no reply.

“Hailey? Come on, let’s get up and get you ready for school. No messing about, now.” She stood outside Hailey’s room, one hand on the door handle. She squeezed the handle but didn’t turn it. Something held her back, an echo of fear. She didn’t understand why she felt so afraid, but terror filled her like water, drowning her from the inside. Lana felt like she was about to choke on it, to stop breathing.

She turned the door handle and pushed open the door. Breathing steady now, she entered the room. Some identikit boy band stared down from a poster on the wall. Hailey’s books were all lined up neatly on their shelves. Stuffed toys glared at her from the floor. Her television was on, the picture stuck on a DVD menu: images of dancing animals dressed in human clothes.

The bed had been made, the quilt smoothed down on the mattress and the corners — weren’t they called ‘hospital corners’? — tucked down tight. “Hailey, where are you?”

She listened to the silence, waiting for a tell-tale sound, but none came. Hailey, if she was still indoors, was keeping quiet. Lana glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 7:30. Hailey didn’t usually leave for school until well after 8 o’clock, so she must still be here. The girl didn’t have many friends she could go and meet up with before classes, and there was nowhere else she could have gone this early.

She turned and padded quickly back out into the hallway. The bathroom door, at the far end near the front of the flat, was closed. She moved towards it, wondering if Hailey was having a bath — the shower had worked only sporadically for almost two months, and no-one from the council had been out to fix it. This failure to fix things was a recurring pattern, both in the home and in Lana’s life in general.

She paused for a moment at the door, and then knocked. A sudden burst of daylight shone in her eyes, reaching her through the lounge window; it was hot and bright, making her wince. Then the light faded, and when she looked at the window the day outside was dull and hazy.

“Are you in there, Hailey? What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

There was a long pause, and then Hailey finally answered: “Not feeling well, mum. Just a bit sick, that’s all.”

Lana tried the handle but the door was locked. “Come on, let me in. Do you need something? Is it your period?”

Again, Hailey said nothing. Lana knew that the girl was embarrassed to talk about these things, but it was an important part of life, and one that required discussion, particularly if Hailey was having problems.

“Listen to me. I used to suffer really badly with cramps. They were so bad that I used to vomit. Is that what’s up with you? Is it cramps?”

“Yes.” Then she heard the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by what might have been Hailey putting things back in the bathroom cabinet. Was that a bottle of pills she could hear rattling?

The lock clicked; the door opened. Hailey stood there in her white school blouse and pleated black skirt. The tail of her blouse was hanging out of her waistband, and she looked small and frail. Her eyes were huge, with dark circles beneath them. There was a splatter of vomit on her chin.

“Wipe your mouth,” said Lana, picking up a tissue and using it to wipe Hailey’s face, doing a mother’s job before Hailey even had the chance to pull away and look in the mirror. “It’s okay, honey. I can do this.” She smoothed down her daughter’s hair with her fingers, noticing how dry it felt. The skin of Hailey’s forehead was hard and flaky; her T-zone felt like fine emery paper.

“Thanks,” said Hailey, taking a step back, part-way into the bathroom. Her eyes were squinted, as if the light hurt them. She licked her lips and her tongue looked dark, almost purple.

“What is it? Aren’t you feeling well? Maybe you should stay off school today.”

Hailey shook her head. “We have a maths test. If I miss it I’ll have to sit it again some evening after school. I’d rather go in. I’m fine.” She pushed the hair out of her eyes with her thin, white fingers.

“I’ve never seen you look so pale… it’s like you’re anaemic. Maybe I should make an appointment with the doctor.” Lana wanted to hold the girl, but felt that it might scare her. When exactly had they moved so far apart?

“No. Really. I said I was fine. I am, really. I’m okay. Just a bit tired.”

Lana moved away from the door. “Aren’t you sleeping?”

Hailey shook her head. “Not too well. Not here, in this place.” She walked past Lana, being careful not to touch her.

Lana felt like crying. “I’m sorry. I never wanted it to be like this. I had plans for us, big plans.” She stood where she was, bathed in the glow from the bathroom light, feeling its fragile warmth on the side of her face. “I thought things might be better once we settled in.”

Hailey wasn’t listening. She crossed the lounge and went into the kitchen area, where she sat down at the breakfast bar, staring at an empty bowl. Her eyes looked odd, as if she were blind.

“Let me get you something.” Lana followed her daughter, opened a cupboard, and poured some cornflakes into Hailey’s bowl. Then she opened the fridge. “Fuck,” she said, feeling useless. “There’s no milk. I forgot to buy milk.” The omission felt like a metaphor, a symbol of how bad a mother she was. “How could I forget to buy the fucking milk?” She felt hysteria building, as if she were about to laugh or scream — she wasn’t sure which, and even when it came the sound would be difficult to identify.

Slowly, carefully, she closed the fridge door. Then she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Hailey, standing and pushing the stool across the cheaply tiled floor. “I’ll get something on the way to school.”

Lana was unable to open her eyes. She was entranced by the dancing darkness behind the lids. “Do you have money?”

Hailey laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Yes. I have money.” Then she went to the front door, opened it, and slammed it behind her as she left.

Lana straightened up and opened her eyes. She saw bright little points of light in her field of vision; dancing moonbeams, trapped in her kitchen in broad daylight. The bright spots faded, going out like distant flames blown by a wind, and then vanished altogether.

Acting on impulse, she returned to the bathroom, lifting the toilet lid and staring down into the bowl. Stringy vomit floated like pale kelp in the water, clinging to the side of the bowl where it had not quite been flushed away. There were tiny red flecks in the matter, as if Hailey had also brought up a small amount of blood. She could be mistaken, but it looked as if that was what had happened… unless she was suffering from the hangover and the weird morning light, and the redness was simply the result of tired eyes. She reached out and pressed the flush, watched the water as it swirled and cleaned away the stains.

A rogue thought entered her head, and she was unable to push it away: what if it isn’t vomit? But the thought of Hailey issuing that pale, clotted material from elsewhere was one she couldn’t countenance. It was too much; too terrible to hold inside her mind.

Back in the kitchen she made instant coffee and sat at the breakfast bar wondering how she could get her life back on track. Things had gone so wrong by now that it seemed impossible to put them right. Everything was difficult; the world was at best uncaring and at worst actively against her. Nothing went right, not now: everything she tried seemed to fail, and her attempts to fix their situation usually brought more pain into their lives.

At first she didn’t hear the knocking at her door, but after a short while the sound grew louder and drew her attention. Lana put down her cup and walked across the room to the door. Monty Bright’s phone call was fresh in her mind. She thought about putting the security chain in place, but then decided against it. If Bright wanted to get to her, he could pick and choose his moment. A cheap door chain would not hold him back.

She opened the door.

The man standing in the corridor was big, possibly the largest human being she had ever seen. He stood well over six feet tall and his girth was proportional to his height. A large round shaven head sat on a neck that resembled a joint of uncooked beef — wide, raw and spilling over the collar of his white shirt — and when he smiled a gold tooth glinted somewhere at the back of his mouth.

“Morning, darling.” His voice was squeaky, quavering, like a tardy teenager’s late-breaking tones.

He was wearing a tight black leather bomber jacket and dark blue jeans. The clothes were so big that Lana assumed they must be custom-made, and were probably expensive to buy.

Lana took a single step back, into the narrow hallway. She didn’t mean to retreat; it was an instinctive reaction to the presence of the giant at her door, the monster who was even now following her inside. Only when he moved did she catch sight of the other two men behind him. They were not as big as the first, but they were big enough; tough enough.

“I hope we aren’t disturbing you, Miss Fraser.” The last one in closed the door behind him. The flat felt tiny, as if it were a doll’s house.

“I haven’t got the money.” She stood against the wall just inside the lounge, giving them the run of the place. She decided that subservience might be the safest course of action. “I told Monty yesterday, when he called me. I don’t have anything this week.”

The smallest man, the one closest to the door, stepped forward and gave her a fast back-handed slap across the face. Just before her head started buzzing, Lana noticed that he was wearing black leather gloves. She didn’t realise that her head had shot backwards and hit the wall until the pain started: a hot, beating place at the back of her skull. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks, and she was ashamed. The last thing she wanted to do was show these bastards how much they scared her.

“Just keep your fucking mouth shut until we tell you to speak, Miss Fraser.” It was the one who’d hit her: he was standing right in front of her, his scarred face only inches from her own. He ran a hand along her bare arm; the black leather felt wrong, like diseased skin.

She nodded, trying to smile.

“That’s better,” said Leather Glove Man. “It’s always easier when you people let us control the situation.”

“Get a fucking move on, Terry,” said the large one. He was examining the room, picking up books and putting them down again, running his fingers over her ornaments and framed photographs. “Ooh, nice.” He picked up a photo of Hailey in a swimsuit. “I like it when they get those little pointy titties. Like buds, they are.” He brought the photograph to his face and licked the glass frame.

Lana closed her eyes. The third man, who had moved further into the room, began to giggle. “Dirty bastard,” he said; his voice was nasal and unpleasant. “You’d shag anything, wouldn’t you?”

“If it bleeds it breeds,” said the big man. “And I do like it when they bleed…”

Lana opened her eyes. “Listen, I can give you some other stuff, just to buy some time. I have jewellery. Some of it’s still worth a lot of money — it’s from before, when we were better off.” She moved away from the wall but Terry pushed her back against the plaster, his leather-clad hand pressed against her chest, between her breasts. He looked right into her eyes and smiled.

“Come on,” she said, feigning weakness while all the time she wanted to tear out his throat with her teeth. “Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable,” said the big man. “And what’s reasonable about borrowing money and not paying it back? Monty’s a reasonable man; all he wants is what’s due to him. Nothing more, nothing less. He wants what he’s owed.” The gold tooth glinted. Leather Glove Man’s hand at her chest pushed harder, shoving her back against the plasterboard wall.

Lana was trapped. She knew it, and the men in her flat knew it. This was a game, a routine, and they were all aware of the rules. They would intimidate her for a little while, maybe even rough her up a bit more, and then they would take whatever they wanted in lieu of money owed.

Her right cheek was burning. The pain where she’d hit the wall with her head was a gentle throbbing, subsiding as she spoke to the men.

The big man stepped forward. His leather jacket creaked and his footsteps were loud and heavy, like sacks of wet earth being dropped onto the floor. “You know why we’re here.” He pushed Terry out of the way, bringing up his hand to stroke her cheek. “We’re going to take your stuff and go away. Then we’ll come back again, but for the money next time. This is a warning. We won’t hurt you, not today. But next time we’re going to have to break some fingers, or maybe even a pretty little hand. Not an arm or a leg — that’ll come after. It gets worse each time.” His meaty fingers slithered across her face, cupping her chin. He squeezed, forcing open her mouth. “We might even take something else… something that you won’t want to give freely. You have a very pretty mouth.” He blinked rapidly, as if there was something in his eyes. “So does your daughter.”

Lana was breathing heavily, as if her heart was approaching a cardiac arrest. It was panic, building in her chest and spreading outwards, like a fire. She fought to control her rage: lashing out would make things worse, and probably result in even greater violence.

Just a warning, she thought. That’s all.

“There’s a message, too. From Monty. You want to hear it?”

Lana nodded. He was still gripping her chin, keeping her jaws locked open. Her mouth was wet. Saliva filled the back of her throat, but she was unable to swallow.

“If you want to pay off the debt in another way, come and see him at the gym. He’s always willing to negotiate, and you’re a very attractive woman, Miss Fraser.” He paused, cocked his head to one side like a dog. “You don’t mind me saying that, do you?” He pushed his knee between her legs, forcing them apart.

“No,” she said, her breath coming in short, sharp stabs. “No, not at all.”

The big man pressed his broad kneecap into her groin. Her legs began to tremble.

“Thank you, Miss Fraser,” he said, pulling away from her. “Now we’ll just take a few things and be on our way.”

Lana felt her body crumple like a discarded suit. Her legs buckled and she slid down the wall, rubbing at her chin. Her face ached; her legs felt like partially disassembled plastic toys, unable to hold her upright. She sat on the floor and watched the three men as they moved around the flat, mentally cataloguing her belongings. When Terry, the one with the leather gloves and the quick hands, entered Hailey’s room she fought the urge to scream.

It took them less than thirty minutes to clear her out. They knew what they were doing and the type of goods they were looking for. They only took the stuff that was worth something in terms of resale value; everything else they either left behind or destroyed for fun. The last thing they carried down the stairs to load onto the back of their van was the television. Hailey would be distraught if she couldn’t watch her shows: lacking close friends or any kind of regular social life, she used her video games and the TV as her main sources of distraction.

But at least they’d left her books. Thugs like these were not renowned for their love of literature, and Hailey had a shelf filled with classics and science-fiction novels, books that had belonged to her father. Hardy, Wells, Vonnegut; the girl loved her books, and would have been distraught if she'd lost them.

The men said little more before they left: just a few words, a couple of vulgar promises that washed over her, not even touching her where it mattered. The big man grabbed his crotch in his massive hand and blew her a kiss on his way out the door. “Next time we’ll have some proper fun,” he said, before thrusting his hips like a piston. “Some proper fucking fun…”

Lana remained where she was on the floor, squatting like some primitive warrior woman delivering a baby in the dirt. She was no longer shaking. It was comfortable down there, near the dusty skirting board. She stayed there for a long time even after they left, thinking about her options, trying to work out what to do about the situation. Once again, she had failed her daughter. The choices she had made led only to despair.

Soon all she could think of was Hailey’s face when she walked through the door after school to find the flat emptied of their belongings.

Hailey’s poor, sad face and a single word, one she’d always been afraid of, even when it had entered her life two years ago. A word that stayed there, lodged inside her head, even when she stood up, crossed the room and closed the door. Her hands, when she looked at them, were as steady as those of a stone sculpture.

The word in her mind brought horror, it promised terror and a release from financial bondage: the word was revenge. But it was something she shied away from, terrified. Violence was an option she could only ever consider once everything else had failed. She’d learned that, at least, from her desperate murderer of a husband.

THE THREE MEN walked outside and headed towards their car, the largest of the group hanging back from his colleagues. He stopped, looked up, and then looked back at the Grove Court flats, feeling a strange tingling sensation at the back of his neck, as if he were being watched.

“Boater! You coming?”

He kept staring at the grey-walled building, his eyes scanning the façade. Finally they came to rest upon the window of the flat they’d just left — Lana Fraser’s place. What was drawing his gaze? Why was he staring so hard, so intently, at that window? Was it that he was desperate to get another glimpse of the woman inside? Yes, she was beautiful, but he’d seen better. In truth, he’d had better. Despite his size, and the fact that he was not a handsome man, the power associated with his position as one of Monty Bright’s pack-dogs ensured that he never went hungry for physical pleasure.

No, it wasn’t just her beauty. There was something more — an inexplicable desire, a craving. It exhausted him to think about her, and the obscene act he’d put on inside the flat had caused him to lose his grip on the day. All he wanted now was to go home and rest.

“Come on, man! For fuck’s sake, we have work to do. That junkie needs sorting out, for one thing. Monty doesn’t want him coming down from his high before he can go to work on the skinny bastard’s arse.”

Francis Boater fought hard to drag his eyes from the window. He strained, forcing the muscles in his neck to turn his head. Then, when he was once again facing in the direction he was meant to be heading, he pushed his reluctant feet across the pavement.

“I’m coming,” he said, but what he really wanted was to get away, to go back to the flat and tell that woman that everything would be fine. These thoughts were new to him; never before had he felt even a glimmer of tenderness. Not way back when his mother used to treat him like a house pet, or during any of the subsequent desperate relationships he’d fallen into. This feeling — it was so large, so much bigger than him, that he felt like falling to his knees and crying, or pummelling the nearest face into mush.

Yes, that was it — that felt so much better. A normal reaction: the lust for violence. Francis Boater would be nothing, just an empty shell, if it were not for the violence at his core. It was what drove him, what made him real.

He joined the others at the car, those alien thoughts banished for now. Banished but not forgotten.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HAILEY KNEW SOMETHING was wrong before she even entered the main door of the Grove Court flats. She stood outside the building, clutching her book bag, and looked up at the balcony of the flat she and her mother shared. The window looked smeared, as if someone had rubbed dirt across the glass. The concrete balcony jutted out from the façade like an afterthought, its crooked rail looking as loose and dangerous as ever.

She thought about the Needle, and what had happened to her there. She had no real memory of the events, just a vague image of hummingbirds and something small and lithe and dusty darting towards her from the shadows. Then she’d blacked out and found herself lying on a grass verge a mile away, on the border of the estate, with that man — was his name Tom? — leaning over her, his face knitted with concern.

She pulled the strap of her book bag over her shoulder and pushed on through the door, into the building. At the bottom of the stairs she felt an involuntary internal shudder pass through her as she glanced up the concrete stairwell. Hailey didn’t like enclosed spaces, and the stairs always smelled of stale piss and sweat. Kids often sat around on the steps at night, drinking beer and smoking spliffs, urinating up the walls and shouting into the empty spaces.

She began to climb the stairs, clinging to the handrail and moving as quickly as she could without fear of stumbling. By the time she reached the next floor, she was breathing heavily. Her stomach rolled, once, as if she were carrying something fluid in there, and she belched. Tasting egg in her mouth, she opened the fire door and moved slowly across the landing, heading for the door to their flat.

Outside the door she took out her key and adjusted the bag on her shoulder. Her stomach felt bloated, gaseous. She rubbed the area above her belly button, experiencing mild discomfort. Then she slipped the key into the lock, jiggled it, and turned. The door latch popped and she kicked the door open a couple of inches, jamming her foot between door and frame to stop it from closing again — the lock mechanism was automatic, and she didn’t want to have to fiddle with the key again.

“Mum.” She walked into the hallway, pushing the door shut behind her. The latch clicked into place. She threw her keys onto the telephone table, let her book bag fall to the floor, and shrugged off her jacket. Her arms felt cold; she hugged herself, rubbing at them, wondering if she was coming down with something. There was some kind of bug going around at school, and she could easily have picked it up from one of the other kids.

“Mum! You in? I’m home… what’s for dinner?” She walked along the short hallway, turning the corner into the living room, and was surprised to see her mother sitting on the floor and cradling her head in her hands. The side of her neck was red, livid, and the lights were out. The sky outside the window was growing dark, signalling the early approach of evening.

Then she noticed that most of the furniture was gone.

“I’m sorry, honey. They took it all.” Her mother’s voice was muffled, as if she were afraid to make herself properly heard. “All of it.”

Hailey remained where she was, standing in the doorway. “Did they take the TV? My TV?” She clenched her hands, making little fists, and began to press them into the flesh of her thighs. Her stomach churned, the innards rolling like an internal tide, back and forth, in and out, stirring along with her mood.

“Yes. I’m sorry. They took anything they could sell. I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t get it. I tried.” She removed her hands from her face and looked up. Her cheeks were pale against the red rawness of her throat, and her eyes were dark. “I really did try. I even rang around a few old friends of your father’s, turned on the sob story… but the fuckers didn’t even want to know.” She stood, sliding her spine up the wall as she straightened her legs. “Not one of those sorry bastards would even offer us a few quid, just to keep the wolf from the door.” She smiled, but it was not a pretty sight. It looked more like she was baring her teeth, trying to snarl like an animal. “And that’s what they are: wolves. Or maybe sharks.” She smiled again, and Hailey looked down at the tops of her shabby trainers.

“It’s okay, Mum. We’ll survive. It’s just stuff… belongings. We can replace them.” She didn’t mean what she said, but she knew it would comfort her mother. Hailey felt nothing, she was beyond feelings. Whatever had happened to her at the Needle had exacerbated a transformation that was already well under way. Gradually, over the past few months, she had been shedding the capacity to empathise, to experience emotions in the way she saw others do. It felt like she was removing herself from the society in which she was trapped. Like a snake, she was shucking off her skin, layer by layer, to reveal a new being beneath.

Quite where these thoughts had come from, she was unsure. They were brand new, alien. She had never before even considered notions like these, and it was terrifying and enlightening. Somewhere deep within Hailey, it appeared that there was the potential to be someone else, to become something new. Whenever she focused on her own mind, picturing what might be hiding there, she heard the distant buzzing of hummingbirds’ wings and smelled dust and rot and the essence of memory.

She saw things behind her eyes when she closed them, late at night when she was chasing sleep. Strange things, dead things: hideous yet beautiful things that shouldn’t be there, not in this world. She knew they were dead because they were twisted, decayed, and they did not move. Not, at least, until she saw them. And then they moved slowly and gracefully, as if underwater, and they turned their shadowed eyes upon her… seeing her, marking her out, noting her as one of them.

That was when their true beauty dawned upon her, and she realised that instead of horror these things promised freedom; they offered salvation, but only if she were brave enough to reach out and take it. That was what her transformation — this unbecoming of the self — was all about. Hailey might be ‘educationally slow’, as her teachers put it, she could even be emotionally underdeveloped, but she was bright enough to know that something was trying to reach her, to communicate with her. She also knew that whatever it was, this being, this presence, its source was the Concrete Grove.

For the first time since moving to the area, Hailey began to feel like she might, in fact, have come home.

“Don’t cry, Mum. We’ll be strong together.”

Her mother stepped across the carpet; her bare feet were soft and silent on the thin weave. She fell into Hailey’s arms.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” Roles had reversed. Hailey now felt like the parent, the protector. She was not quite sure how this had happened, or when it had begun, but her definition of reality had shifted to accommodate the changes going on inside her. She held her mother close, stroking her sweaty hair, and kissed her cold, pale cheek. “We can get through this. I love you.” The words tasted sweet, like all lies, and she repeated them out of greed rather than affection. “I love you, Mum.”

Her mother’s body went slack against her, the tension leaving her limbs and the looseness of relief taking its place. Hailey didn’t know how she sensed these things, but it made her feel strong, and more intelligent than ever before.

Was this part of the change? Was it making her brain expand, filling it with new knowledge? She smiled. “There, there,” she whispered. “Nobody’s going to hurt us.”

Later, when they parted, they tidied the flat, brushing up the broken ornaments and toys, putting away the things the men had thrown down onto the floor. They changed the bedding and washed the kitchen work surfaces. Hailey watched her mother carefully, noting the changes in her — just as she had mentally absorbed the ones occurring to her own inner being.

It felt like the end of something… and the beginning of something else.

“Come here,” she said, when the cleaning was done. “I have something to show you. You need to feel it, though.”

“What is it? You seem different… what have you done?” Her mother stepped closer, one hand reaching out to hang in the air between them.

“I’ve done nothing, Mum. Honest. But I am different, and so are you. We both are. There’s something here, in the Grove, and it wants to help us. It’s taken me a long time to figure this out, but whatever’s here, in this place, it can help solve our problems.”

Her mother shook her head. Her eyes shone in the lamplight. “No, honey. You’re imagining things. I know everything’s bad right now, but I promise I can make it better. I have… I have an idea. A plan. I just need to work things out in my head before I do anything.”

“Look, Mum. Can you see?” Hailey raised her shirt, pulling it up over her now swollen belly. More changes had taken place in the last couple of hours, and the pain was gone. Now, in the dimness, she felt radiant, as if she were supplying all the light they needed.

“Hailey… oh, my God. Hailey, what is this?” Her mother’s hands flapped towards her face, like larger pink versions of those hummingbirds, whose wings Hailey could even now hear inside her head. “What is this?”

“It’s help,” said Hailey, bowing her head to take in the sight. Her belly was swelling even now, as they watched. It looked like a balloon being slowly pumped full of air. She stared at the skin in wonderment as it rose and bulged, pushing forward and straining at the waistband of her cheap school skirt. The skin was taut and translucent, like a stretched rubber sheet. There was something inside, and it danced with the rhythm of her blood. A shape pulsed against the whitening flesh of her stomach, not trying to get out but simply making itself known, saying hello to the women it had sensed on the other side of the flimsy sheet.

“Hailey, this isn’t right! It’s not normal! Are you pregnant?”

Hailey giggled. “Pregnant? No, not really. That’s not what I’d call it.”

Her mother began to make a sound, low in the throat, which was something half way between sobbing and laughter. “But what…” She could not finish her thought. Her eyes had gone shiny, clear, as if she were seeing something clearly for the first time in her life.

“I’m not pregnant exactly, but I am carrying something. It isn’t a new life, it’s an old one. Ancient. The seed of a place that I think can only be reached through pain and heartbreak; a place where the corpses of dead dreams are stored.” Hailey heard the words coming from her lips, but she knew they were not her own. The thing inside her, the being that was writhing and coiling and thriving within her womb, was speaking through her, using her thoughts to commune with the other side of the flesh barrier.

“They are the Slitten. And they can help us. But only if we ask them to.”

Her mother was down on her knees and cupping the air in front of Hailey’s distended stomach. “If we ask?”

Hailey nodded, but she was not sure. Nothing was certain. “I think so.” At last she had her words back; the Slitten had returned her voice. “That’s what they told me, from inside here.” She flicked her belly with her forefinger. It made a sound like a tom-tom drum.

“No,” said her mother, standing now and shaking her head. “This is crazy. It isn’t real.” She turned away, flexing her fingers and stamping her feet, powerless to express her anger and frustration. “It’s fucking stupid.”

Darkness bled back into the room, filling the corners and shading the walls. The lamps seemed weaker than before, as if some of their power had been leeched away. The brightness Hailey had felt previously now dimmed, faded, went out. Her belly deflated quickly, flattening against its occupant. She looked down, still holding the hem of her shirt.

“See? We were hallucinating.” Her mother stood across the other side of the room, near the kitchen. She was lost in shadow, her dark form blurring at the edges. Only her eyes shone. “It’s the stress. We’re both tired… exhausted, really. We need to sleep and stop talking like this.” She did not move. Her outline bled away, as if unseen hands tore at her, picking her apart.

Hailey tucked her shirt into the waistband of her skirt. Her hands were shaking.

“Go to bed,” said her mother, opening the fridge. Light flared, spilling across the floor. She took out a wine bottle, slamming it down onto the bench. “Go to bed, now.”

Hailey turned away, the palm of one hand held against her flat, flat stomach. She was crying, but she dared not make a sound.

She retired to her bed without any more fuss, keeping her movements slow and easy to avoid any kind of disturbance.

The Slitten needed their rest, too.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TOM WOKE IN darkness. He knew that he’d been disturbed, but he was unsure what might have caused it. Perhaps Helen had shouted, or the telephone had rung, stirring him from restless slumber. He waited for the sound to come again, and when it failed to appear he wondered if his own conflicted thoughts had roused him, his fears tumbling like performing clowns around his skull as he slept.

He sat up and looked around the room. Nothing had changed; it remained as always. He didn’t know why he’d expected any difference, and the thought confused him, making him doubt that he was fully awake. He slipped out of bed and went to the window, opened the curtains a few inches. The street was quiet and empty; not even a single car moved along its length. A slight breeze stirred the privet hedges along the garden fronts; litter prowled the edges of the gutter outside the house opposite.

Tom turned away from the window and went out onto the landing. Shadows pooled in the corners, like dark water. Yellow light, refracted from the streetlamps through the landing window, hung in the air like an incandescent fog. He walked along the landing, passing the open door to the upstairs bathroom. From the corner of his eye he spotted something, but when he spun around to look at it directly there was nothing there. He could have sworn that there was a man — or at least a man-shaped shadow — sitting on the edge of the bath with his hands held up to his face. But, no: more tricks of his tired mind, his aching eyes.

He walked slowly down the stairs, being careful not to make a noise. Helen slept well, but she was easily disturbed. Her ears, even as she rested, were attuned to even the subtlest of movements within the house. He turned at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the kitchen. Then he stopped. Backtracking, he turned again and went to Helen’s room. Her door was ajar — she always demanded that he leave it that way. She was too afraid to have it fully closed yet nervous enough that she would not rest if it was wide to the wall. She wanted to be able to hear him as he wandered about the house. She said his movements comforted her.

He played his fingers along the doorframe, and then traced a line across the middle of the door, grasping the handle. He pushed gently and stepped inside. His bare feet sank into the carpet — this was the only room where they’d spent a bit of money, because Helen was always in there, never leaving, even to use the toilet.

She was a huge mound on the bed, her bulk only partially covered by the heavy winter quilt she insisted upon using whatever the season. He often wondered how someone so fat could always be so cold. Then, ashamed and saddened, he would try to forget that he’d ever thought about her in that way.

She was his wife, and he loved her. At least he used to love her, before she became like this. He did, he loved her, with all of his heart. But he also hated her, and wished that she would die.

Gritting his teeth against these familiar thoughts, Tom approached the bed. Helen was snoring lightly, the air wheezing through her nose. Her lips shone in the darkness, coated with drool. Her hair — never styled these days, rarely even washed unless he did it for her — lay like rat tails on the pillow. She was flat on her back, with one arm raised above her head, as if grasping for the headboard.

A sea cow — a manatee: that was how he often pictured her. He’d watched a documentary a few years ago about the creatures, and the image had seemed appropriate. His sea cow wife: all fat and lazy and defeated.

“Helen,” he whispered. “I think I love you. I do still love you. I don’t know what I feel.” He often did this, late at night or into the early hours, when sleep was his enemy and he felt as restless as a thief. He came down here, to her sick room, and he spoke to her in low tones, telling her how he felt or how he thought he felt, sometimes even how he knew he was supposed to feel but didn’t, couldn’t, or just wouldn’t.

“You make my life a living hell, but I’m glad that I’m here for you, to take care of you. Yet I wish… I wish you would pass away quietly in your sleep.” He leaned in close as he spoke, his lips mere inches from her slack, flabby cheek. “I do. I wish you would just go away.” He closed his eyes. “When I open them again will you be gone?”

No, she was still there, on the bed, snoring and sweating and filling his life with regrets. His very own pet sea cow.

Tom did not even realise that he had raised his hand, curled it into a fist. He looked to his left, staring at the fist as it hovered in the air. He thought about bringing it down, as hard as he could, and repeatedly smashing her in the face. The distance between thought and action narrowed; it would be so easy to beat her to death.

“But messy,” he said. “Far too messy.”

He grabbed the other pillow, from the side of the bed where her head was not resting. He held it in both hands, feeling its soft weight, and scrunching it into a shapeless wad of material. He moved the pillow down, close to her face. There was an inch between pillow and skin; a tiny fraction that she filled with her stinking breath.

He could kill her in minutes. It would not be easy — he’d read somewhere that it was difficult to suffocate someone, that it took longer than you might think — but it would be clean and almost merciful. She would wake in confusion, gasping for air, and by the time she knew what was happening she would be on her way down, into the darkness.

Yes, he could do it. It was feasible that he could murder his wife. Especially if he continued to think of her as an animal, a wounded sea cow…

He replaced the pillow on the bed, turned stiffly away, his bare feet shuffling across the carpet.

No. he couldn’t do it; of course he couldn’t. He never would.

“Tom?”

He stopped dead, shocked that she was awake. Had she been awake all along, waiting with her eyes closed? Waiting to see what he would do?

“I wouldn’t blame you, Tom. Not really.” Her voice was slurred, as if she were drunk, but she was not talking in her sleep. She was aware; she knew what had been on his mind, and that he had fought against it.

“Go back to sleep,” he said, without turning around. “It’s late.”

“I won’t wake up next time. If you do it, I’ll consider it a mercy.” She was fading again, diving deep, going under. “A mercy…”

Tom stayed where he was, unable to move. He did not start moving again until he heard Helen begin to snore, and even then he moved slowly, carefully, afraid that she might be faking it, giving him an opportunity to go back to the side of the bed and pick up the pillow.

He closed the door behind him. Shut it tight, just the way Helen didn’t like it.

“Mercy,” he whispered, wondering exactly what that was, what it meant. Could mercy be quantified, weighed and measured like sacks of grain? And if so, how much did he have inside him? Not much, he thought. Not nearly enough.

He passed the bottom of the stairs and glanced up the stairwell. There was the suggestion of something having just moved away, sloping across the landing to stand round the corner, near the entrance to his room. He stood there for a few seconds, trying to regain his balance, to get a grip on his sense of reality. Everything was slipping away, becoming fluid, and he felt like he was drawing close to the brink of some kind of mental abyss.

He had never felt so alone.

That woman — Lana — appeared in his mind. Her dark eyes, gypsy-dark hair, beautiful half smile. Why was he so drawn to her that he would think of her now, in his darkest hour? Just what was it about the woman that made her haunt him in this way?

The telephone at the bottom of the stairs began to vibrate. It didn’t ring, not fully: just a gentle thrumming sound, like an electric razor. He moved across the floor, picked up the receiver and placed it against his ear.

“Hello.”

All he heard on the line was a series of electronic ghosts: clicks, hisses, distant connections being made. Then, growing closer, as if it were travelling along the miles of overhead lines and underground cables, he began to make out a sound that reminded him of childhood.

When he was a boy, before the madness of adulthood drew him in, he would ride for miles on his bicycle. He and his friends, adventurers to a man, would set off in the early morning and not return home until well after dark, their prolonged absence causing mayhem in the family home. Sometimes they would take wooden lolly sticks and place them so that they stuck in the rear spokes of the bikes, and when they pedalled the noise was like fingers snapping at a hundred miles an hour, or the fast, harsh music of Spanish castanets.

This was the sound he heard now, on the other end of the line. It drew closer and closer, getting louder and louder, until all he could think of was those friends and the long bike rides they enjoyed. It was like a calling — an echo from summers now long dead — and part of him wanted to answer. He listened to the clicking noise, allowing it to reach inside him and grasp his heart, but once it had him he began to doubt its authenticity. It seemed false, faked: a sound fabricated to lure him elsewhere.

He thought of Helen lying in bed, her face blue, vomit on her chin. He thought of punching her saggy sea cow face until the bones broke and the flesh tore beneath his knuckles. The clicking sound seemed to encourage these thoughts, to embellish them and make them even more vivid in his mind.

“No,” he said, pulling the phone away from his ear. “This isn’t right.”

As if on cue, the clicking sound began to fade, leaving him behind. Part of him wanted to follow it, to get on his bike and pedal after the sound through summer lanes and across sunlit fields. But the part of him that mattered — the strong part, the undefeated fragment of his humanity — held back.

The clicking sound diminished, absorbed into the digital static, the black-hiss voices undulating through the ether. For a moment he could have sworn that he heard a snatch of laughter, followed by the mumbled word “Soon.”

Tom put down the phone and grabbed his coat from the hanger at the bottom of the stairs. Still barefoot, he took his keys from the pocket and unlocked the door. Stepping out into the cool night air, he took a breath and allowed his legs to carry him to the car. He reversed out of the drive, spun the car in the road, and set off to the place he had been thinking about all day.

He drove to the Concrete Grove.

Passing through Far Grove, he saw a police car parked outside an all-night kebab shop. One uniformed officer was holding a young man across the counter, cuffing his wrists, while his partner radioed a report in to the station. The boy’s eyes locked onto Tom’s as he drove by; the boy smiled at him, and went limp.

The waste ground adjacent Far Grove Way was burning. Someone had set light to a sofa, and black smoke and yellow sparks rose from it like ugly phantoms, dissipating into the black night sky. Tom slowed down as he passed the blaze, staring at it through the side window. There was nobody around. The fire continued as if the fuel had been laid out and ignited for his eyes alone.

A fox crossed the road as he put his foot down on the accelerator, its eyes blazing red as they caught the light from his headlamps. It was an example of his mental instability that he thought the fox, too, was smiling — just like the boy in the kebab shop. He felt like everything was turning its gaze towards him, waiting to see what he would do, how he would respond to this situation. The area, and everything within it, was ripe with expectancy.

Paranoia, he thought. I’m fucking paranoid. It was a feeling he knew all too well.

He cruised along Grove End, past the terraced houses on one side and the primary school on the other. He stared between the school railings, hoping that he would not catch sight of that strange human-faced dog. He knew the beast was a fantasy, a fiction, yet still he was afraid of seeing it again… and part of him desired just that: a single glimpse of a thing that could not be, another look at the numinous, just to prove that there was something else beyond the life he was leading now.

He parked the car at the end of the street, beside the mini roundabout. Sirens wailed far off, like banshees, and he heard the sound of breaking glass. A dog barked, disturbed by the sound, and he listened to its rhythmic cadence.

He watched Lana’s window, wondering if she was in there, sleeping, or possibly out for the evening. There was no way of knowing whether or not she was home, but he felt that she was safe in her bed. More than a feeling, in fact, it was a certainty. No doubt she slept lightly, like most people who lived in troubled neighbourhoods, and all of her dreams would be bad ones.

It came to him like a light going on inside his head: he could help her, if he liked. He could possibly even save her. He didn’t know what kind of trouble she was in, or how serious it was, but if she would only let him he could help her out of the mess.

If he’d been asked, he couldn’t say how he knew this: he simply did. Sitting here, in the car, outside her building, he felt closer to her than he ever had to another human being — closer even than he had ever felt to his wife. He gripped the wheel with his hands and stared out through the windscreen. Then, overcome with an emotion he could not name, he lowered his head and began to weep. His hands still gripped the wheel, tighter, tighter, until his fingers ached.

“What am I doing here?” he said, looking out at the sky, the depthless dark beyond the fine grey skins of clouds. There came no response — just as always. Even if the universe knew the answers, it was not telling. It would never willingly divulge its secrets to the likes of him.

Tom waited there until the sun turned the sky in the east a light shade of red, like blood smeared along the blade-edge of the horizon. Then, his face still wet with tears, he started the car and set off towards home, the place where he now realised his heart had never truly belonged.

CHAPTER NINE

BANJO SAT IN the chair, shivering. He wasn’t cold; it was warm inside the room, despite being located underground, in a section of the huge cellar directly beneath the gym. No, it was not because of the temperature that his body was jerking and spasming repeatedly, like a series of tiny orgasms. It was because of fear.

Banjo was tied into the wooden dining chair. His hands had been pulled back, around the back of the chair, and secured with plastic ties, like the kind some people used to keep their expensive wheel trims on their posh cars. He’d also seen police detectives in the American cop shows he loved to watch when he was stoned use similar ties to cuff prisoners, rather than using traditional steel handcuffs.

He struggled to get his body under control, tensing his muscles and taking a deep breath — which was difficult in itself because of the PVC ball gag someone had stuffed into his mouth and belted tightly at the back of his head. On top of all the drugs he’d ingested, the situation was enough to make him think that he was finally losing his mind.

The room was dim. There was one light — a small lamp in one corner, which stood on a low wooden table. The lamp was missing its shade, and the low wattage bulb cast a meagre illumination. Shadows crawled around the walls, grouping in the corners. When Banjo looked up, straining his neck because of the ball gag straps, it looked as if the ceiling was covered in a wet black substance. He knew his eyes were creating narcotic-phantoms, but it was a disturbing image just the same.

The attempt to calm down was failing. Fear filled him, turning him into a repository for terrors he could not have imagined only days before. Why had he done it? There had been no real reason for his crime, and everyone knew what a bastard Monty Bright was, how he dished out his own brand of punishment to keep the Grove under his control. So why the fuck had Banjo taken the loan shark’s money?

He remembered everything so clearly, all the little details. It had been cold, crisp, and the stars were unusually bright, like little isolated lamps across the sky. He’d had the idea weeks before, when he was smoking spliffs and dropping cheap acid with an old girlfriend. They were bemoaning the fact that they were always skint, couldn’t ever afford to do anything interesting or buy any decent drugs, and Banjo had decided right then that he needed to do something to alter the course of his life, even if it was for just a weekend.

He thought it would be easy to pose as one of Bright’s collectors, and target some unsuspecting biddy who owed a payment on her loan. He even knew who to choose: old Mrs. Waits, from Grove Rise. Everyone knew she’d come into a bit of money, that when some distant cousin had died he had left her a few grand in his will. The old bird was so dotty she’d probably forget that he’d been to visit, and think nothing of paying twice… Alzheimer’s or something. Her memory was shot to shit.

But things hadn’t quite worked out the way he’d planned.

Yes, he’d gone round there, wearing his long leather coat, with his game face on, and acting like some TV tough-guy, and Mrs. Waits had given him the cash — five-hundred quid, right in his hand. When he’d walked out of her house, heading for the Unicorn to enjoy a couple of pints, score some quality coke and reflect on the success of his mission, he had even felt good about things. For once in his life, Banjo had made something work. He had bettered his situation.

Then, several days later, when the real collectors had gone round to see Mrs. Waits — the guy who always wore those leather gloves and the big fat one with a chip on his shoulder — the old bat had been able to give a good description of Banjo, and, when pressed, had even known his name. Turned out the estate gossips were wrong and she didn’t have Alzheimer’s after all. She was just old and slow, but her mind remained sharp.

That was the fatal flaw in Banjo’s plan. He had not even realised that the woman knew him, and her supposed mental condition had made him lax. He knew who she was, of course, but as far as he knew he was unknown to her.

As far as he knew.

In reality, of course, it turned out that she recognised him from years ago, when he’d worked in the FastFilm video rental shop on the Arcade, his first job after leaving school. His only job after leaving school, if he was honest: working a nine-to-five had never appealed to Banjo.

He’d considered leaving the Grove then, fleeing the area and perhaps heading south, to London. That’s what they always did in the movies — all the ones he’d watched free of charge in the back of the rental place where he’d once worked, his face bathed in the light of their reflected glory. But in those movies they always seemed to have more than five-hundred quid in their back pocket, and even if they didn’t, they always managed to pick up some additional pocket change along the way to fund their adventures.

Again, the reality was miles away from fiction; the truth, life’s truth, was never quite as promising as the truth of VHS.

The room was bare. The walls were covered in timber panelling, and the varnish was peeling. His mind was racing; his body was rushing from the drugs. The floor was concrete, hard and cold and uneven. The only furniture in the room, apart from the chair into which he was tied, was the coffee table with the lamp on it. There was nothing else, just two doors, facing each other from opposite walls.

The bloke with the leather gloves — what was his name? — had given Banjo a few slaps, back and front-handed, as if he were hitting a woman. The violence had been demeaning more than painful, although the blows had stung at the time. Now all he felt was a slight hot sensation across his cheeks, which moved around as his drug-rush developed. His eyes watered. The ball gag was drying out the inside of his mouth.

The lamp flickered. There was a slow, dragging sound from behind one of the doors. Nothing else. Just silence. Had he imagined it, or was somebody there?

Banjo had no idea how much time had passed, or whether it was night or day. They’d come for him at around two in the morning at least a couple of days ago, kicking down the door of the squat he’d been using as a bolt-hole and a shooting gallery to use the smack he’d spent a large portion of that five-hundred quid on. They dragged him outside, where they pushed him into the back of a car. He knew where they were taking him; everybody on the Grove was aware that Bright had rooms beneath the gym on Grove Lane, and he used them not just for storage but for other, less conventional functions. Even the police had knowledge of Bright’s underground lair, but they just left him alone to go about his business. As far as they were concerned, he kept the Grove under control.

There were rumours that he had bodies buried down here, in the foundations, under the concrete floor, even inside the walls. Banjo couldn’t be sure how much truth was in these stories, and had always doubted them, but right now, strapped into the chair, they had never seemed so real.

The lamp flickered again. He saw colours bursting behind the sudden glare.

Banjo closed his eyes to stop them watering. He tried to swallow but his throat was dry and his tongue felt as big as a side of beef in his mouth. His rush continued, gifting him a strange sense of ease. They’d been pumping him full of drugs — pure, uncut — since he got here. It felt like he hadn’t been clean and sober for weeks.

Footsteps approached from the other side of the door — which door, again he couldn’t be sure.

Somebody knocked, three times.

That was an odd thing to do, knocking on the door, as if whoever stood out there was a visitor and Banjo were not being held captive. He waited, listened, and the knocking came again. Three times, like a charm.

Then there was the sound of a key being inserted into the lock, moved around in the barrel; and finally the locked clicked. The door swung open without a sound. Banjo strained to turn his head and peer around at the door, to see who was coming in and hopefully appeal to their sense of pity. He flexed his hands behind him, making fists and opening them again, and tried to move his legs against the chair, maybe tip the whole thing over.

Darkness surged towards him, clashing with the drugs in his system. He knew that he wouldn’t come down from this sweet high for hours, and somewhere at the back of his mind he realised that by then it might be too late to make a difference.

“Be still.” The man who drifted towards him was not tall. He was broad, and his familiar face hung in the dimness like a ghostly apparition. There was nothing overtly threatening about the way he looked. Yet he was terrifying.

“Calm down or I’ll kill you right now.”

Banjo stopped struggling. The man’s voice — low, even, rather bland — acted like a physical restraint, even more so than the plastic ties which bound him to the chair.

“That’s better.” He walked around to stand before Banjo, his movements slow and deliberate. He was wearing a short black bomber jacket zipped up to the throat and dark denim jeans. His black hair was slicked back against his skull with some kind of product, as if he were stuck in the 1980s or had seen the film Wall Street too many times. To Banjo, in his messed-up state, that hair looked painted on, like some kind of lacquer. It glistened like a beetle’s carapace in the dimness. Banjo wanted to laugh.

“Now we can talk, like a couple of good old fellows. Yes?” His lips didn’t move much when he spoke: his teeth remained clenched, like those of a ventriloquist throwing his voice.

Banjo nodded his head, kept nodding it. The drugs they’d been feeding him had taken control of his actions. He couldn’t stop even if he tried.

“Stop that. You might hurt yourself.” Monty Bright smiled, and it was like every last bit of light in the room rushed towards his mouth, smearing against his small, white teeth.

Banjo stopped nodding. It was strange how this man’s energy seemed to cut through even the tremors of the drugs to make Banjo do as he wished.

“You took something from me, son. You robbed me, and that isn’t nice. I now find myself in a position — one I’ve been in many times before — where I’m forced to make an example of you.” His voice remained low. There was nothing particularly aggressive about his tone, but Banjo sensed his violence, even saw it moving snakelike behind the mask he wore. Bright didn’t waste words; everything he said had a purpose, and that purpose was usually dark.

Banjo felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Poor boy,” said Bright, taking a couple of small steps forward so that he was directly in front of his captive. “Wasting tears on this life… your life. It wasn’t much, you know. Your life. Not really. You were ejected, bloody and screaming, from your mother’s gaping cunt, and then you were raised like an animal, a sacrifice for whatever dark gods rule places like this.” He smiled again: quick, tight, like a wound opening up on his face for one brief moment. The lamplight quivered. “You fucked a few girls, smoked a few drugs, and made a few casual friends. You wasted your time at a shitty state school, learning nothing and dropping out before you’d even dropped in. Then you were ejected again, from a different cunt this time, to stand bloody and screaming before the jaws of society.”

Banjo could do nothing for crying. The ball gag was making him choke; his throat ached. He was sobbing now: deep, heartfelt, half-choked muffled sobs that shook his entire body. He felt no grief; something else, an entirely unnameable emotion, stirred within his depths.

“It’s such a fucking waste — a waste of everything, son. Do you see that?” Monty Bright bent forward. He smelled of an enclosed room after heavy rain, a dark corner where water seeps in to cause rot. “But let’s not waste these tears.” His tongue, long and rough and pointed, slid between his thin lips and he licked Banjo’s cheek, lapping up his tears like honey. This perverse and intimate act lasted only a couple of seconds, but it made such a great impact on Banjo that he felt his heart break. Here was a man — a strong, powerful man — who thought so much of Banjo’s regrets that he would feed on his tears. It should be horrendous, a concept so inhuman that it was monstrous, yet Banjo felt nothing but love.

He loved Monty Bright like a father.

Banjo smiled around the ball gag, tasting plastic. The drugs raced through him, changing him, making him malleable to the consciousness of this other.

Bright nodded, reached up, and removed the gag. “Are you ready to redeem yourself, to make sure that the rest of your life isn’t wasted?” Then, producing a small knife, he cut the plastic ties, freeing Banjo’s arms and legs.

“Yes,” said Banjo, still smiling, his voice raw in his dried-out throat. “Yes, I’m ready.” He rubbed his arms, trying to get the blood flowing. His legs felt like wooden stilts, stiff and unresponsive.

Bright took him by the hand — no man had ever done that before — and led him across the room, to the other door. Banjo’s legs grew stronger, the muscles remembering how to walk. Soon he was moving more easily, his body becoming more responsive and the drugs in his system flowing freely now that he was unbound.

Banjo felt like he was floating, tethered to the ground only by the grip of his captor’s hand.

The door he stood before was old, scarred, and weathered, as if it had been kept outside for decades rather than inside this room. The ancient paint was peeling like scabs; the heavy grain of the wood looked like burst veins and capillaries.

“Step inside and become something else, something more than human wastage.” Monty Bright stepped back, prodding Banjo gently in the small of the back. Bright didn’t touch the handle, but the door began to open. It moved smoothly, without a sound, and Banjo stared at the ribbon of darkness that grew between door and frame, becoming a black wedge.

“Go on, now. Let’s get this done, son. Let’s get this show on the road. The fucking road to nowhere.” Bright’s voice, along with his accompanying laughter, sounded as if it was reaching him from a great distance.

Banjo stepped into the welcoming darkness and felt the last vestiges of his old fear leave him as the door closed behind him. He thought of his mother, and the way she had wasted her life on drink, her own drug of choice; he remembered his father, turning away and leaving them all behind; he recalled fondly the touch of his baby sister’s hand, the night she had died of pneumonia in hospital. None of these memories upset him — they were like pictures on television, scenes from the videos he used to love. He was free of them now; this room he had walked into, and the drugs, had cut him off from harm.

Banjo walked to the centre of the room, his eyesight now growing accustomed to the darkness. The ground was soft, like mud, and the walls seemed to writhe at the corner of his vision. Soon he realised that he was surrounded.

He stood at the centre of a number of televisions. Each of them was an old model — some of them must have dated back to the early days of the technology. Big dusty screens stared blindly in his direction; dead cables trailed behind bulky sets; large buttons and dials were like mutations on the shells of these machines.

At one level he was aware that there must be something here, for him to see, but at another level, where he stood apart from the scene, he knew that he was so wasted that he could be looking at a bunch of cardboard boxes and moulding the image to suit his mood.

Banjo kneeled on the soft ground. He was not sure why, it just felt right, like an act of communion. His entire life had been spent in thrall to these things as they pumped out images and lifestyle choices, so why not worship them now, in a dark underground room that felt so much like a church?

He bowed his head just as the screens came to life.

One after another, in quick succession around him, forming a crude circle of brightness, the screens flared, bathing him in their holy light. Dust swam before his eyes, giving the illusion that he was underwater. The television sets throbbed, a cathode-ray heartbeat, and he watched as pictures began to form from the static. It was like birth: difficult, painful. The forms bucked and writhed, twitched and jerked, and the screens bulged outwards as the figures took shape.

Drug-demons: nightmares snatched from inside his head. He watched them with a sense of wonder.

They were small and they were naked. Their skin was the colour of static; their eyes the grey of the dusty concrete that had surrounded him his entire life. They emerged like grubs from the television sets, their substance formed of the material of the screens as well as the nebulous static and the ghost of the heroin in Banjo’s blood. They left behind their empty TV shells as they rolled away, their legs lengthening in sudden thrusts. The fronts of the television sets looked like a series of kicked-in faces. The things that had hatched from these wounds lay curled on the ground before them, twitching occasionally; sleeping dogs dreaming of the chase.

Then, simultaneously, they sprung up from the ground and stood erect, uncurling swiftly and almost mechanically. They stood before their televisual eggs, rocking back and forth, torsos without arms, long, back-folded insect legs lacking a midriff, flat, featureless heads unsupported by anything even resembling a neck.

Their concrete-grey eyes were big and square and blank. Their mouths were just stretched ragged holes, lacking teeth or gums. They were tubes, those mouths, and Banjo didn’t want to see where they ended. He raised his hands to these new gods, these entities sired by the great glass tit of television, and opened his mouth to pray or question or perhaps just to scream. His drugs high had reached a new plateau: never before had his dreams become flesh.

They were upon him within seconds, flowing through the space like a rogue signal, moving in the syncopated jinks and jerks caused by a faulty transmission. Banjo felt his cheeks expand as his mouth was filled with their flexible tubes. He tasted burnt copper and charred wires. He felt pregnant with emptiness. Then, without warning, the effects of the drugs abated. Banjo’s fear resurfaced, finding a way back inside the crowded schedule of his TV-learned emotions, and he felt the channel inside his head change forever.