Darkness Falls

by J. M. Robinson

  Maybe it was suspicious, Carol wasn’t sure and she certainly hadn’t considered it so at the time. All she’d been trying to do was survive. She drew herself up and pushed out her chest. She tried to draw confidence from her posture and express it in her voice. “What do you want Emily?”

  Emily smiled and took her time to answer. “The way I figure it, you owe us.”

  “Owe you? Owe you how?”

  “Whether you started the fire or not you sure landed on your feet afterwards. You know we’re sisters Carol, you know we look after each other.” It was what they had all said because there hadn’t been a chance that any of them would end up significantly better off than any of the others. The few of them who left had been let go because as long as the others had the brothel and their family in it, what else did they need? Now the brothel was gone and Carol was doing well for herself, of course they’d come looking for her.

  “What do you want?” Carol said.

  “We need money,” Emily said.

  “I don’t have any,” Carol said immediately. It was true. She wasn’t paid well - a night on the street could have earned her the same as a week cleaning up after rich children - the benefits were elsewhere.

  “Someone here does,” Emily said.

  “You want me to steal?” Carol said. She was shocked by the suggestion. Maybe what they did wasn’t strictly legal but she had never thought of herself or any of the girls as criminals. “I can’t steal!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not right.”

  Emily nodded and stepped closer. Carol could smell the dirt on her skin beneath the heavy perfume. “You know what else isn’t right Carol? Your friends, the people who are supposed to be your family, living on the street while you’re swanking around this place. Things are bad, there’s no work. Are you going to let us starve?”

  Carol shook her head. “Of course I’m not.”

  They stayed together for a few minutes longer, although they wasn’t much more to say. The longer Emily remained in the house the less Carol considered her a friend.

  Carol led her out through the kitchen. No one was there which might have seemed strange if she had thought about it. She let her out the back door.

  “Where will I find you?” Carol said.

  “I’ll come back,” Emily said. “Two days.”

  Carol nodded and she didn’t say goodbye. She closed the kitchen door and wondered what she could possibly do to help her friends without getting herself into trouble.

  She walked back through the kitchen intending to go up to the nursery where, by now, somebody else would have had to get the boys up.

  When she got to the top of the stairs she found Mr Brambley waiting for her. “Has your friend gone?”

  “Yes sir,” Carol said.

  “She was an old friend of yours was she?” Mr Brambley said.

  “That’s right sir.”

  He looked at her for a moment and she wondered what he was thinking. Had Emily’s appearance reminded him of what she used to be and of what they used to do together? If so, what would that mean? Was it something he would want to re-enact?

  “Is there anything else sir?” Carol said. “It’s just that the children will need to have their breakfast.”

  Mr Brambley nodded and then shook his head. Carol took this as a sign that she could leave but she got no more than three steps along the corridor before he called her. “Carol, could I have a word with you?”

  She turned around and walked back to him.

  “In private, please,” Mr Brambley said.

  Carol nodded and followed him into the nearest room. It was a guest bedroom. The curtains were closed and she could smell dust in the air. He closed the door behind her and she had a vision of him throwing her down on the bed and ripping her clothes off. Instead he stood at the door and she stood in front of him with her hands behind her back.

  “When you came to me you said you needed help,” Mr Brambley said.

  Carol nodded. “Yes sir, I’m very grateful for everything that you’ve done for me.”

  “Of course. You and I are, at least I hope we are, friends. You were in trouble and I did what I could to help.”

  Carol already felt guilty for agreeing to help Emily and this was just making it worse.

  “I have tried to behave appropriately towards you Carol. I think I’ve done a good job, considering what our relationship used to be.”

  “You have sir,” Carol said. She could feel tears welling up behind her eyes.

  “I thought then, and I still think now, that it is important for you to put that part of your life behind you. I have no desire for a concubine. Your position in this house is as the children’s nanny.”

  “Yes sir,” Carol said.

  “So I ask you, respectfully, not to bring old friends to my house. You and I had a special arrangement but I cannot risk anyone seeing her sort here. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir,” Carol said.

  “If anyone were to find out what you used to be or, god forbid, what our relationship used to be, it would make your position her untenable. Do I make myself clear?”

  Carol nodded and felt a heavy weight settle on her chest. There was little she could do to stop Emily or any of the other girls showing up at the house.

  “Well then, very good,” Mr Brambley said. “I think you had better get back to work.”

  “Thank you sir,” Carol said. He opened the door for her and she went back into the corridor, not sure what she was going to be able to do to keep her old friends away.

  Carol found it impossible to let her guard down. When she was out of the house with the boys she looked around her constantly, wondering who had seen her and if they were still watching her now. Her night time vigils at the parlour window stopped being observational and became a desperate search for the person who had seen and reported her whereabouts.

  After her meeting with Mr Brambley she had decided that she wouldn’t steal for her old friends. But she wasn’t naive enough to think that her simple refusal would be enough to get rid of them. Emily had made that perfectly clear and now, whether she realised it or not, she had a way of easily getting back at Carol.

  If anyone around the house noticed her change of mood they didn’t mention it. She seemed to float around like a ghost, not coming close to touching anything, a background shape on the world that couldn’t affect it. A part of her realised that if she didn’t relax and get some sleep soon then she would make herself unwell.

  After a few days she became desperate for something to change, whether for good or ill. If Emily or one of the others came back then she would deal with it. She waited and she waited but time had lost all meaning and she seemed to exist in several points all at once.

  Finally, nearly a week after Emily had first turned up, Carol got her wish. She was at the park with the boys, sitting on a bench while they ran around throwing things at each other and making holes in their nice clean trousers.

  “Hello Carol,” said a familiar voice. It was with a sense of relief that Carol looked up and saw John standing there. At least he was dressed respectably, albeit in a way that clearly signalled he was in a class beneath her young charges. His suit was dirty but he had a hat on and carried a cane.

  “Hello John,” Carol said.

  “Do you mind if I sit?” John said.

  She moved to the side of the bench to give him space beside her. He moved stiffly and she wondered if he’d been injured in the fire or if this was something that had happened to him more recently.

  “I understand Emily paid you a visit last week?”

  Carol nodded.

  “Did she tell you what we wanted?”

  Carol stared across the field at the two boys. She wondered what they would think if they turned back and saw this strange man talking to their nanny. Would they care? Would they do anything to interfere? More importantly still, would they realise the significance of it and tell their father?

>   “Carol?” John said.

  She turned towards him and fixed her face with a look of aggression that she hadn’t made use of since her old life. She wondered why she hadn’t been able to summon it when speaking to Emily but some things would remain a mystery. “She told me,” Carol said.

  “Good,” John said.

  “She told me that you couldn’t look after her, that you’re letting your girls starve and you needed me to bale you out.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “She told you all that did she?”

  Carol ignored him. “I’m not going to do it John. I’m not going to steal from them. You do whatever you want, whatever you think you can, but it won’t make a difference.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way Carol,” John said. His voice remained level and she couldn’t tell whether he was angry or not. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to change your mind.”

  “I’m certain of it,” Carol said.

  “That is a shame.”

  She looked at him and he continued to sit there. He stared across the field and she wondered what he was looking at. There was nothing except trees in the distance and the boys playing a few feet away.

  John didn’t say anything but he didn’t need to.

  “You leave them out of this John,” Carol said. “They’re nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh I agree,” John said. He kept the same even tone, the same eerie calmness. She wondered what had happened to him since his brothel burned down, since he’d been forced to live on the streets. When she’d worked for him she wouldn’t have believed that he could hurt a child but that seemed to have been a long time ago and how sure of that had she really been?

  “John--“ Carol began but he cut her off.

  “Of course, sometimes, there are casualties. Innocents are caught up in things that don’t concern them.”

  “John don’t...” Carol said. Her voice trailed off because she didn’t know what else to say.

  They sat in silence until he broke it. “Think about it Carol,” John said. “I’m not asking for very much, not really. I’m sure Mr Brambley has more than enough to spare and it would be better for all of us if we kept this professional.”

  Nothing about this seemed professional to Carol but she didn’t say so to John. She nodded and they sat together watching the boys play as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It was a warm day but Carol felt herself frozen. She shivered and wished that John would go.

  When she got home she gave the boys their dinner and put them to bed. She didn’t let them out of her sight but she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow they had managed to communicate the afternoon’s events to their father. After her own dinner she sat in her room and waited for him to visit her and demand that she leave his house.

  The knock didn’t come but the problem didn’t go away. Eventually she fell asleep and when she woke in the morning she had to do it all over again. It couldn’t go on forever but suddenly she wasn’t so keen for things to change. As long as the boys were safe then so was she. If anything happened to them she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself and their parents certainly wouldn’t.

  Carol became afraid to take them out of the house. As the days went on she became fretful of even letting them stand too close to the window.

  Doing what Emily and then John had asked of was not an option. The idea of going to the police was a possibility but she had little reason to believe that they would help her and Mr Brambley would certainly not welcome the attention it would bring. Carol had only one option; she would have to do something about it herself.

  Mr Brambley was happy to give her the evening off, once she had assured him she wasn’t planning to ‘get up to any of her old tricks’. She assured him that she was only going to see a friend and watch a show and he gave her some pocket change and told her to enjoy herself.

  It had been long enough since she was last out after dark that the night felt foreign to her. Carol walked away from the big house quickly and told herself that she would soon get used to it. That she would have to. Going back with the deed not done wasn’t an option.

  After a long walk she reached the slums. The noise of people living was muted by the makeshift buildings that wobbled in the wind. She could smell sewage and poor people. It was not a place that she had visited often but she knew it from the way the girls spoke about it. More than half of the people she had worked with had grown up amongst the filth and she knew that John had friends there.

  Carol braced herself and entered the narrow streets. Unsafe buildings lurched over the alleyway and in the distance she could hear people shouting. An argument or maybe it had already escalated to a fight. The slums were full of people selling bootleg gin that would make you go blind or crazy. She walked ahead with increasing anxiety.

  The slums had grown rapidly in recent years. She didn’t know her way around the narrow maze of streets and she didn’t know anyone there she could trust to help her. She might have been walking into more danger, both for herself and the family, but she had to try and make things right. She had to let John know that he was not going to get away with threats and intimidation.

  An old man limped onto the path in front of her. He was wearing a ripped suit that might once have been black. The old man stopped and looked at her. She didn’t know him. Carol stopped and waited for him to say something. Instead he shook his head and turned away. He disappeared into the darkness of the building opposite.

  She carried on walking. She passed children sitting on the dirty streets. Some of the younger one’s were asleep on the shoulders of the older one’s but really they should all have been at home in bed. Carol looked at the black soles of their feet, their yellow skin and hair that was limp and stringy. A boy blew smoke at her. She turned to look at him and he stared back. He seemed to be daring her to say something.

  Carol began to wish that she had brought other clothes with her. The conservative dress that she wore was new and clean and it marked her out as different to these people. She didn’t look like she belonged there and that was a dangerous thing. It was too late to go back now though, she moved on quickly and tried not to look at any of the people she saw.

  The ground was uneven dirt that had been compacted to form a path. It dipped in places and it would have been easy to trip and fall over but she managed to keep her balance. She followed the main road past open fronted buildings that all seemed to be selling something. There was a restaurant of some kind, people sat on the street eating food with their hands, their heads turned to watch her as she passed.

  Carol walked on and on and eventually she had to accept that she didn’t know where she was going and that, if she went on much further, she might not be able to find her way out. She wrapped her arms around herself and wondered how long she had already been there. Mr Brambley hadn’t given her a curfew but she wouldn’t be able to explain arriving much later than the theatres closed.

  She didn’t dare stop but she was becoming more and more sure that she should go back. It had been silly of her to think that she could find John and the girls among so many other people and what had she been thinking she would do if, somehow, she had managed to? She wasn’t a violent person and they outnumbered her. Carol felt foolish for being caught up in it all. She had a responsibility to Mr and Mrs Brambley and to the boys. She shook her head, she would have to go back and speak to the police. Nothing else made sense. It might cost her the position of nanny but it was better than losing her life.

  She turned and saw that something wasn’t right. It took her a moment to understand that there was no one else there. She couldn’t even hear anybody. It was as if they had suddenly vanished.

  Carol turned to look the other way. She was sure she had seen people ahead of her but there was no one there now.

  She turned again and again but nothing changed. A few minutes ago, ten at the most, she had been walking in the middle of a busy street and now everyone was gone.

  She conside
red calling out but she didn’t have to understand what was going on to realise that it would be a mistake to do so. Instead she started to walk as quickly as she could, no longer concerning herself with trying to remain unseen.

  After just a short distance she began to hear footsteps behind her. They echoed off the buildings along the narrow street so that it almost sounded as if she were inside. Inside some giant space where there was a gentle wind and the smell of sewage. Carol refused to look back but drew from the last of her shallow reserve of strength and started to run.

  She turned down an alleyway and only realised her mistake a few moments later. The path was paved which had seemed like a good thing at the time but as she followed it up the gentle hill she saw that there were people there. At first this didn’t seem like a bad thing. If there were people then they might be able to help her.

  The alleyway turned and turned back on itself. She ran into the tight little corners and even before she saw the building blocking her path she knew that it was a dead end. The doors were closed and the windows were dark. If there was anybody inside then they didn’t want to be seen.

  She stopped, panting for breath but that was okay. If she was breathing then she was still alive. She held onto the wall. She had to turn around or she wasn’t going to be able to defend herself. She just hoped that when she did there wouldn’t be anybody there.

  The sound of heavy breathing filled the alleyway. The way it echoed off the buildings made it seem as if there were two people behind her rather than one. A possibility that she hadn’t considered and didn’t want to. One person she might be able to get past, if she was lucky and quick, but two would be stretching the boundaries of possibility.

  Carol turned and immediately wished that she hadn’t.

  “Long time no see...” he said. He dribbled and slurred and she recognised him at once. The big man stood beside him without saying a word.

  Carol tried to take a step back but there was nowhere she could go. The building blocked her path so that she could only stand against it. She didn’t know which one was Jack, for all she knew it was neither of their names, but together they were undoubtably the murderer known as Jack the Knife.