Gary McMahon - Beyond Here Lies Nothing

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

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

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

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 Because the life he was offered, the one he would have accepted without pain or pity, was revoked.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

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

But now he’d come back.

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

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

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

“Sir,” he said, nodding.

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

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

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

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

“Okay, anything else?”

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

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

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

“And the mother’s in there with him…”

“So I believe, sir.”

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

“You know you can, sir.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A pause… nobody on the street dared to speak.

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

Royle stopped himself from responding immediately. This didn’t make sense.

“The kid?” His voice echoed. “Let me get this straight. There’s a child up there with you, Best?”

“Yeah, a fucking kid… or so it wants us to believe. Come up now or they’re both dead. I’m not fucking around. The time for all that’s gone. This is serious. This is where it all ends, Royle.”

Royle did not wait for confirmation from his superior officer, nor did he look at anyone as he stalked across the street and pushed open the gate. He walked up to the door, waited, and listened. He heard someone coming down the stairs, heavy-footed, and moving along the hallway. He couldn’t make out details through the stippled glass panel in the door, but it didn’t look like Erik Best.

There was the rattle of a bolt in its slot. The door opened an inch; the security chain tautened, made a faintly musical noise. A woman’s battered face peered through the gap.

“Miss Hansen?”

She nodded.

“Miss Hansen… Abby, are you okay?”

The more he saw of her face the more worried he became. She was cut and bruised, with what looked to be a broken nose and a shattered cheekbone. Both of her eyes were swollen almost shut.

“He hurt me… he’s got a gun.” Her voice was dull; she struggled to make the words clear through her beaten face. “He’s halfway up the stairs… if I try to run, he said he’ll shoot me in the back.”

Royle nodded. The decision was made.

“Let me in.”

She shut the door. He heard her pawing at the security chain, trying to release it from its catch. Then the door opened again, wider this time; just enough for him to step inside. She moved to the side, and once he was through the doorway, she slammed the door and replaced the chain, slid the bolt back into place. She was shaking. The unfocused look in her eyes made it seem like she’d just woken up from a long sleep and was still only half awake, still caught up in the wild webbing of dreams.