The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That the conversation is privileged information. Without total confidentiality, it would never have happened in the first place. That’s the flip side to what we do here. We comfort and help people, and it has to be anonymous for us to be able to do that. The by-product is that we occasionally have to listen to things we’d rather not. We have to keep them secret. That’s why it’s such a difficult thing to do, Jane.’

  He paused, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘It’s why not everyone is cut out for it.’

  That last sentence, he could have said it as a threat, but some kindness had returned to his voice. A part of Jane heard it as a threat anyway, and she felt a lurch inside herself. Mayday was important to her, and she didn’t want to lose it.

  ‘But I think you are,’ Richard said softly. ‘I think you’re very good indeed.’

  The compliment made her blush, but she clung to it anyway. She forced herself to acknowledge it.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ve just had a rough call. That’s all.’ He corrected himself. ‘Well, worse than that. Even I find it hard to imagine what it must have been like to listen to that, and I’ve been doing this for ten years now. But the principle stands.’

  He leaned forward again now, wanting to emphasise the last point but also making it clear that, in his mind, the conversation was over.

  ‘You are not responsible for what happens outside of the call itself.’

  Jane nodded.

  She tried to believe that.

  Part Two

  Fourteen

  I parked up on the main road by the Thornton estate, and left the car engine idling as I stared at the buildings.

  It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening, but the sunshine was still just about hanging on. An angle of it rested across the tops of the houses, while tufts of grass shivered at the bases. My thoughts went beyond the buildings, though, all the way to the waste ground. Something awful is coming. That familiar night-time sensation, brought forward into the day. It felt as though, when that something finally arrived, I wouldn’t be able to get out of its path in time. That I’d simply be blown away sideways, like the factory that had once stood there.

  But I wasn’t going back in there tonight. Instead, I turned off the engine, got out of the car and faced the opposite side of the road, my back – quite literally – to my past.

  It had been weeks since the breakin at my house, and Drew MacKenzie had failed to materialise. However messy the burglary, crimes only stay on the radar for a certain amount of time before newer, fresher ones push them off to the sidelines. MacKenzie would get picked up eventually, I was sure, but not because anyone was actively looking for him. For whatever reason, that wasn’t good enough for me.

  Perhaps it was simply pent-up frustration from our investigation, but Chris had been right in what he’d said over the phone: I did want to do everything myself. I’d wanted to go after MacKenzie from the beginning. And this evening, as I left work, I’d decided I wasn’t prepared to put up with waiting any longer. The rat-catchers had had their chance, and missed it. It was my turn.

  According to the reports on file, the last known address we had for him – across town – had been a washout. Which didn’t surprise me. I knew the area, and it was sublet city: residents came and went, and nobody kept a register or a headcount. MacKenzie probably hadn’t lived there for years. Like me, though, he was a Thornton kid. You can escape from that sometimes, but you can’t ever really change where you come from. Pull the plug out of our lives, and for people like me and Drew, this will always be the place we’ll swirl back down to.

  On the far side of the road there was a small row of shops and businesses. The bookie’s was shuttered up for the night. The off-licence was open, a homeless man half lying close to the door, little more than a pile of brown clothes and bristling grey hair. Beside that, an alleyway. And then the Packhorse.

  Even if I hadn’t grown up here, as police I would have known the Packhorse by reputation. It’s not the Wheatfield, and you’re not going to read about shootings and stabbings here, but it’s rough enough to be raided from time to time. The drugs are fairly blatant. Right now, I could see a cluster of people smoking by the door, and I was sure at least some of it would turn out to be cannabis. They just stand there and don’t give a fuck. It would almost be a dare, except there was nobody here to take them up on it. The world around was more or less oblivious.

  In the evenings, the younger contingent from the estate tend to colonise the place, and it gets louder and more lively. Once upon a time, that would have been me. I remembered it well. There’d be at least one fight a night, but none of them would be reported unless they had to be. It was mostly just the same people facing off, warming over old arguments and slights. Nobody ever got barred for very long, simply because there was nowhere else for them to go, and nobody else to replace them. If Drew was back in Thornton, there was a good chance he’d be here.

  I considered my options.

  The alleyway to the side led to a beer garden at the rear of the pub. It was totally enclosed, surrounded by high brick walls on all sides, with a few benches scattered around, standing lopsided on cobbled ground so covered with old cigarette butts and roach ends that it was impossible to ever sweep clean. The underage drinkers used to perch on the metal steps of the nearby fire escapes, while dealers used the alleyway. I imagined none of that would have changed much. A side door from there led into the pub proper.

  Along with the front door, there were two exits, then. If MacKenzie was inside and saw me coming, I couldn’t cover both. I weighed it up, and decided it was better to go through the front.

  I crossed the street and approached the door. Aside from the group by the door, there was an alcove with two more smokers: a shaven-headed man with a field of acne scars across his cheeks, and an old woman in a soft blue tracksuit, her own face a mess of wiry red veins. As I’d suspected, the air reeked of dope, and the man barely moved to let me through. From his body language, it was as though he hadn’t seen me. But I felt his gaze following me inside.

  It was a shock at first: not so much the familiarity of the place, but how busy it was. The pub was heaving, and the raucous mingled noise of all the people was overwhelming. The bar was in the centre. An obese young woman was serving. She waddled awkwardly along, her mottled forearms the same enormous width from elbow to wrist.

  I edged through the crowds of people, wafting away a fly and trying not to breathe in too deeply. Searching for familiar faces. Finding none. There were old men lined up along the bar itself; clusters of younger drinkers forming circles with their backs out; lonely strays. Workmen in bright yellow coats and clumpy muddy boots. Close to the open door to the beer garden, an elderly woman was stamping and clapping along to music I could barely even hear.

  I didn’t recognise anybody, and I felt woefully out of place here now. That was a good thing in some ways, of course, but less so in others: the atmosphere wasn’t threatening, as such, but I’d definitely been clocked as not local, and I caught a few less friendly looks pointed my way. Perhaps, I admitted to myself reluctantly, this had been a mistake. I decided to finish looking around, check outside, then get the fuck out as quickly as I could.

  Past the side door, at the far end of the pub, there was a lower section, slightly grander-looking than the rest: red carpets, and walls panelled with dark mahogany, like a private room in an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. Most of the space was taken up by a pool table covered with stained green felt, and the rest was full of men, the majority in their late twenties and early thirties. Some were playing pool, while the others were watching football on an overhead screen. I stood at the top of the stairs, my gaze moving from one face to the next.

  One of the men by the table was leaning over it, his fingers gripping the underside, his face obscured by the low-hanging lamps. As I watched, he lifted that side of the table off the floor, then banged the legs down h
ard, the balls on the table shifting back and forth with the movement. From inside the table I heard a rolling and a clattering, and then the white ball emerged into its bay with a rattle.

  When the man leaned away again, I recognised him.

  Hello, you little shit.

  The sight of him took me right back to the night of the burglary, and despite the environment in here, my first instinct was to walk straight down there, elbow through the crowd, and arrest him. But that wouldn’t be the wisest course of action. I turned and examined the throng behind me. A few people back there were still eyeing me suspiciously, and they weren’t the types to look away when I caught them. Chances were, nobody was going to actively assault me, especially if I identified as police, but I could hardly count on good-hearted bystanders either. Nobody would need to interfere directly; they could make it hard enough for me without really trying. Just an accidental sidestep; a blocking. I turned back, more concerned about the men at the bottom of the stairs. They were MacKenzie’s crew, after all – career criminals, in their own small way – and he probably wasn’t the only person down there who’d been in my house that night. Even if he was, he had a good twenty friends with him.

  The sensible thing was to go back outside and call in for assistance. Not escalate the situation more than I needed to.

  My gaze moved from MacKenzie over the other men.

  Back to him.

  I remembered the laughter as they’d trashed my house.

  Decisions, decisions.

  You’ve got to do everything yourself, haven’t you?

  I went to the bar and ordered a vodka and Coke. It arrived in a small glass with lipstick stains on the rim. I gave it a rub, then took it over to the stairs, standing to one side at the top. The drink was warm, but it would do. I sipped it, kept a vague eye on the television screen by way of pretence, and waited. Sooner or later, he’d need the bar or the toilet.

  It only took ten minutes, but it felt like an age. Behind me, back towards the front of the pub, the karaoke had started up: awful, tuneless renditions of ‘My Way’ and ‘Mack the Knife’. I began to wish I’d made the vodka a double.

  But then, finally, there was MacKenzie, standing at the bottom of the stairs, facing away from me. He was holding up an empty pint glass, waggling it. There was a chorus of approval. I looked at the stairs. They were big and solid: thick oak struts at either side.

  Don’t think. Just do it.

  I put my glass on the side and met him halfway down, blocking his path. He almost bumped into me, then steadied himself with a hand on the banister and glared at me.

  ‘What the—?’

  I smacked one half of the cuffs over his wrist, then leaned down swiftly and attached the other to one of the struts of the staircase.

  Click. Done.

  ‘Shit! What’s going on?’

  ‘You’re under arrest, Drew.’

  I made my way quickly back up the stairs, my heart going off more than I wanted to admit, and threaded through the bar. The shouts from behind me were drowned out by the karaoke, but I knew they’d be coming.

  ‘Excuse me. Excuse me.’

  I edged my way between people as quickly and efficiently as I could. Whatever they thought about me, none had seen exactly what I’d done, and nobody tried to stop me. MacKenzie’s crew were another matter. I glanced over my shoulder; a few of them were making their way after me.

  ‘Oi! Stop her!’

  I ploughed on, trying to reach the door before anyone understood and decided to make things difficult for me. But just as I got there, my way was blocked by two people coming in from the outside: an elderly woman, and a younger one. The younger was perhaps in her early fifties, but it was difficult to tell. Her hair was ragged and unkempt, and she had an enormous scar running down her forehead and across her cheek all the way to her ear. It was a horrific injury, as though the top quarter of her head had been sawn away and then reattached. The eye sectioned off within it was pink and blind.

  I know you.

  But that was all I had time to think before my momentum carried me past the pair of them, almost pushing them to one side, and I half fell out of the door into the evening air.

  Car across the street – I ran for it and got in, locking the doors after me. Five or six of MacKenzie’s friends fanned out on to the pavement opposite, and two started to cross the street. I slapped my ID face out against the car window, which stopped them, although didn’t make them retreat any.

  Regardless, it was done. I’d got him. With my free hand, I pulled out my phone.

  Now I would call for assistance.

  But as I waited for backup to arrive, MacKenzie’s crew loitering grudgingly on the far pavement, my thoughts kept returning to the woman at the entrance of the pub.

  I know you.

  Except I had no idea who she was.

  Fifteen

  It is important to keep active.

  Two mornings a week, Margaret leaves the house early and catches a bus into the city centre, then walks slowly through the busy streets, heading for the library. The first thing she does is return the three books she took out on her last visit, always feeling a pang of nostalgia for the weathered old cards replaced by the computerised system. Then she spends half an hour browsing, moving slowly through the aisles.

  The vast majority of books hold no interest, but she finds it comforting to recognise the same titles and patterns on the spines, visit after visit. She finishes at the romance aisle, where the shelves are full of narrow paperbacks, the mostly pastel covers tattered and worn. The titles here are all but indistinguishable, but Margaret can usually tell from scanning the first page whether she has read one before.

  It takes time, of course, but that is the point. So much of her life now is spent finding ways to fill her day. Killing time. A question always hovers underneath such moments. What is she killing time for? With Harold gone, there is nothing much to anticipate or look forward to, and so the answer is depressing: she is killing time simply to get to more time. Her days pass for the sake of it. But it always feels a little different here in the library. Meandering and browsing take her out of herself. The pleasures on offer here, however small, are one of the few things she lives for.

  When she has selected three books she’d like to spend more time with, Margaret checks them out at the counter, then begins the slow walk back through town to her bus stop. Sometimes she window-shops. Today, the heat is so strong that she decides to rest along the way.

  She reaches a tea room with an ornate front. It looks old-fashioned and homely, not one of those indistinguishable chains. The bell above the door tinkles gently as she opens it. Inside, the shop is pretty and elegant, but small: there are only six tables, and five of them are taken. The room is also dimly lit, and it’s because of this that Margaret first notices her. How strange to be wearing sunglasses in here, she thinks – and then realises that the solitary woman at one of the tables is her next-door neighbour.

  Even in here, Margaret thinks.

  Even here, she can’t get away from them.

  At the same time, she can hardly retreat now, and the woman isn’t paying her any attention. There is a large-brimmed cup of tea to one side on the table, untouched for the moment as she scribbles into a small black book. The metal clasp taps against the table as she writes. A Filofax, Margaret thinks, pulling the word from somewhere. Something busy people need.

  Margaret approaches the counter and orders tea from the young woman serving there, then moves to the free table. To reach it, though, she has to pass her neighbour, and as she draws closer to her, she finds herself hesitating. The Filofax has gone away now, and the woman looks miserable. She has moved the tea across and is stirring it, lost to the world. What happens next is a whim.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Margaret says. ‘May I?’

  The woman looks up quickly, and Margaret smiles and gestures to the empty seat at the table. In truth, she isn’t sure which of them is more surprised. Her heart f
eels like a bird in her chest, unexpectedly startled.

  ‘May I sit here?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Then the woman gathers her manners together. ‘Sorry. I mean, yes. Of course.’

  She moves her cup back, although there is no real need, and Margaret sits down.

  ‘I don’t want to interrupt. I just saw you here and thought it might be good if we had a chat. We never really have, have we?’ But the woman only looks confused at that, so Margaret has to explain. ‘I live next door to you. It used to be my husband and I, but he died last year.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’

  ‘I’m Margaret.’ She holds out her hand. After a moment, the other woman shakes it carefully. Nervously, almost.

  ‘Karen.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you properly.’ Margaret takes in the woman’s clothes. She’s wearing a white uniform, a little like a nurse’s. It occurs to her again that she really has no idea what her neighbours do for a living. ‘Are you on your lunch break?’

  Karen nods, and is about to say something else when Margaret’s pot of tea arrives. They sit in silence for a few seconds while she pours. The sugar cubes are rough and hard. She plinks two into her cup, and then it’s her turn to stir incessantly.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.’

  ‘Do I?’ Karen gives a hollow laugh, then takes off her sunglasses and rubs her eyes. She is a lot older without them, especially close to. ‘Oh, I’m just tired. It’s hard work bringing up two children. Three, sometimes, if you count Derek.’

  Margaret smiles; despite the undercurrents, it’s clearly at least an attempt at a joke. But she also thinks, Derek. So these are her neighbours. Karen and Derek. They aren’t so frightening after all.