by Andrew Lowe
The movement shifted him into the light, painting a little more detail over his gaunt features. He tipped his head back and regarded Sawyer for a few seconds, then reached back to a remote control on the arm of the sofa. The music faded to a low murmur.
Sawyer stayed still, just inside the door. He checked around the room; no sign of anyone else. ‘I need the control.’ Harrison said nothing. ‘For the ankle collars. And a key to get them off would be nice.’
‘Who are you?’ Sawyer recoiled at his watery hiss. ‘You’re not the police. Are you a hunter? Which group? I haven’t seen you before.’
Sawyer shrugged. ‘Just a concerned citizen.’
Harrison smiled. Even from this distance, Sawyer could see his stained teeth, premature wrinkles. ‘None of this is your concern.’
Sawyer glanced at the sound system. ‘Nice music. Is this how you stir yourself up to kill?’
Harrison dropped his head. ‘It’s a band called Sunn. Experimental. Not your verse, chorus, verse type.’ He raised his voice. ‘You need to leave my house.’ He looked up again. ‘Will you leave my house?’
Sawyer shook his head. ‘I can’t. Not yet.’
Harrison turned his back, retrieving something from the sofa. He faced Sawyer and raised the Nexgen crossbow. Sawyer dropped to the floor, as the bolt swished over his head and crunched into the plaster of the wall behind. He scrambled to his feet and charged, as Harrison reloaded, holding the crossbow vertically against the floor and drawing back the cable. As Sawyer reached him, Harrison let the crossbow fall forward; he drew back an arm and swung it around in a wide arc. His extended reach caught Sawyer by surprise, and the swipe connected with the side of his head, sending him back to the floor, sprawling onto his right shoulder. By the time he had righted himself and spun back, facing the sofa, Harrison had reloaded the bow.
He pointed it at Sawyer, looking down the sight. ‘Stay where you are, on the floor. Put your hands on your head.’
Sawyer shuffled upright, knees bent. He rested both hands on his head and clasped his fingers together.
Harrison kept the crossbow trained on Sawyer’s forehead. ‘From this range, the bolt would crack through your skull, enter your brain. You may not even see or hear anything.’ Sawyer remained impassive. Harrison narrowed his eyes. ‘Whoever you are, you’re a trigger squeeze away from oblivion. You should say, “Please”. And, “No”. And, “Don’t do this”. You should be in fear of your life. And yet, there you sit, like an obedient dog.’ He sighed. ‘Have you harmed my mother?’
Sawyer shook his head. ‘Lynette is fine. I cuffed her to the pipe, away from the children.’
‘You know who I am. You know what happened to me.’
‘Not just you.’
Harrison nodded. ‘No. My mother and father, too.’
‘But you were twelve. Innocent. Like Samantha.’
Harrison shuddered at the word, closed his eyes briefly. ‘I never called her that.’ He forced a weak smile.
Sawyer sat up. ‘Sidney Black took Sam’s life, and he ended your childhood.’
‘This is what the deviants do. They prey on purity. The children… They’re like these candles. And the predators snuff out their flames.’ Harrison backed off and sat down on the sofa, keeping the bow trained on Sawyer. The candlelight fluttered across his pallid skin, and he lowered his voice again: a strangled whisper. ‘Think of the moment you’re born. All that sound and fury, as you’re torn from your mother’s shelter. And then your own inner light starts to burn. But, nothing gold can stay. That glorious light of life is destined to fade and die. For some, the fading happens too early, because of trauma or premature responsibility. Others get to bask in it for longer. But now… The internet.’ He spat out the word. ‘The online world. A glorious achievement of human communication, now just a conspiracy to kill that light as soon as possible. It wants children to hurry up and be adults, with spending power. And it also gives predators access to them, to dim their light in a different way.’
‘That’s what Black did to Sam.’ Sawyer kept his eyes on the crossbow, as it wilted in Harrison’s grip.
Harrison glanced at him. ‘This thing they call “the dark web”. They named it well. The images they share there. The depravity. The children in those pictures have already lost their light, and those moments of defilement are passed around for the pleasure of predators. Technology has built them a playground. If it were terrorism, we would have declared war on it. But instead, we look the other way. We don’t want to see. We don’t want to know.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘Because there’s no money at stake.’ He shuffled in place; Harrison caught the movement and raised the bow again. ‘There’s no bigger picture. No politics.’
Harrison sighed. ‘Someone once said, “The creative adult is the child who survived.” Today, children aren’t allowed to grow into creative adults. Their colour, their light, it’s muted by the way the technology gives them infinite access to all these layers of distraction and degradation. They deserve a chance to flourish. To grow and play, without all that noise, all those phoney influences.’
Sawyer sat up. ‘Phoney. HOLDEN82. So it was The Catcher In The Rye. You want to put Holden Caulfield’s ideas into practice. Protect children from the corruption of the adult world. Preserve their light. And you’re doing it in Sam’s name.’
‘In the book, Holden wants to catch the children as they fall out of the rye field, over the cliff, losing their innocence. I know I can’t catch every child.’
‘How many, then? Is three enough?’
Harrison bowed his head. ‘I will take five. We can manage five.’
‘What happened with Holly Chilton?’
‘She wouldn’t rest. She ran. I couldn’t save her.’
Sawyer kept his focus on the crossbow; Harrison had let it drop again. ‘And were you going to keep the children for good?’
Harrison’s head jerked up. ‘No! They will be released, when their education is complete.’
‘Back into the wild?’
‘Yes. But fortified. Better equipped. Uncorrupted. And after that, the glory.’
‘Glory? You think you’ll be heroes?’ Harrison didn’t answer. ‘And meanwhile, you take direct action against the predators, the paedophiles who steal other children’s innocence, and light?’
Harrison ran his fingers along the side of the crossbow. ‘The ones we love, they never really leave. They merge with us. They walk beside us. My sister doesn’t have a voice any more, and so my actions speak for her. I’m her vessel. The crossbow bolts are her rebukes to the deviants. She was shown no mercy, and so she gives none. She reaches out, from beyond death, and takes her vengeance through me.’
Sawyer’s phone buzzed in his pocket, making an audible vibration against the wooden floor.
Harrison raised an eyebrow. ‘So, who are you, if you’re not the police? I take it they’re coming?’
Sawyer steadied himself; Harrison still hadn’t raised the crossbow again. ‘It sounds like you’ve admitted defeat.’
‘Against what?’
‘Technology. The online world. You see it as the enemy. But all the big companies… They only know about your habits based on what you do and say and buy. They can’t own what’s inside your head.’ He moved his leg around, slowly, bracing his foot against the floor. ‘Humans have a wonderful thing that computers will never replicate. We can improvise, find lateral ways to solve problems. They want us to accept ourselves as malleable and easy to manipulate, with their clickbait and algorithms. But we’re not conditioned animals. We’re better than that. We’re extraordinary, and we can do extraordinary things. You’ve done an extraordinary thing here. Your intentions are good, but the consequences would be catastrophic. You can’t reprogramme people, retro-fit them for a world that no longer exists. You have to give them power, not take it away. Show them that they have it in themselves to be more than just slaves to technology. In your own way, Harrison, you’re also stealing their light, by depri
ving them of parental love.’
Harrison raised the crossbow. ‘Take off the mask.’
A shout from upstairs. Lynette.
Harrison startled, and raised his eyes to the door. Sawyer sprang forward. Harrison shot back across the sofa and lifted the crossbow. Sawyer anticipated it and lurched to the right, ducking down by the sofa’s near side. The bolt skimmed across the sofa’s arm and wedged in the floor behind Sawyer. Harrison rose up and gripped the end of the bow with both hands, wielding it like a club. Sawyer scrambled to his feet and drove at him. Harrison swung the frame of the bow into Sawyer’s left shoulder, sending him back down to the floor, sliding away from the sofa, beneath the window. He pulled himself back to his feet, and caught a glimpse through the blinds: light, out at the front of the house. Car headlights.
Harrison held the bow vertically against the floor, pulling back the cable, priming it for reloading. Sawyer pushed forward and sprinted for the door.
He made it outside, to the end of the hallway. It would take too long to get to the door that led back to the kitchen, and Harrison’s line of sight would be too straight. He bounded up the staircase.
Harrison reached the door of the sitting room as Sawyer made it to the first landing. He ducked under the frame and stood in the hall, silhouetted against the red light. He aimed the crossbow up and Sawyer darted around the corner. Harrison fired again, and the bolt tore into the landing wall.
Another shout from Lynette. Children’s voices, too. Mia and Amelie, crying out.
Sawyer raced up to the next landing. He took a breath and checked his phone. Walker.
AFOs going in. Five minutes. Keating gave the order.
Sawyer pushed on, up to the top floor. He ran to the classroom door and peered around the edge. The desk had been upended. All three children were crowded around the captive Lynette. She had curled into a ball, and Joshua was beating her, pounding at her back and head with both fists. Amelie and Mia struggled with him, trying to pull him away.
Sawyer rushed over and eased Joshua back, to the desks. He was sobbing, wild, desperate to get to Lynette. Sawyer moved in front of her, and crouched in front of the boy, eye to eye. ‘Joshua. Let the police deal with this. You’re safe now. You’ll see your mum and dad soon, back in Youlgreave.’ Joshua backed into one of the desk chairs and sat down. ‘You’ll be okay. This will all soon be just a bad memory. It won’t be able to hurt you any more.’
Joshua wiped his eyes and focused on Sawyer, behind the balaclava. ‘You know about us. He… they kept us here. Holly got away, but… Why didn’t you come quicker?’
A shout from below, outside, at the front of the house. ‘Armed police!’
Sawyer glanced at Amelie and Mia, and ran out through the door, into the corridor. He froze. Harrison had reached the top of the stairs. He spotted Sawyer and raised the bow. Sawyer slammed the classroom door shut behind him, casting the corridor in darkness. Harrison was barely a shadow, rendered in the distant light from below.
Sawyer ducked low and ran at him, bending his movement laterally, sticking to the far edge of the corridor. Harrison tracked him with the bow, and as Sawyer lunged for him, he fired. The bolt planted into the wall behind, and Sawyer barrelled into him, head down. Harrison dropped the crossbow, and rolled his arms, trying to stay upright. But the impact was too strong, and he toppled backwards. His gangly frame tumbled down the stairs and crumpled into an angular heap on the landing, where he lay still.
A crash downstairs. The AFO team would enter and run through a precise, room-by-room securing process. There was no telling how long it would take them to reach the back corridor and sitting room. If he was spotted, he would be detained.
He charged down the stairs and checked on Harrison. Unconscious, still breathing. At the first-floor landing, he could hear the shouts of the entry team, as they covered the rooms at the front of the house. He made it to the ground floor and sprinted past the sofa, towards the crossbow target and the route through the kitchen into the back garden. He eased open the glass-panelled door and ran through the galley kitchen to the short passage with the stone floor.
Voices echoed from behind the side door that led outside. Sawyer ducked down and threw himself into the messy storage area, opposite the tidy and open laundry room. He tucked himself behind a protruding wall unit and crouched in the darkness.
The side door slammed open, and the AFO support team broke into the passage. Three officers, probably four. He heard one enter the laundry room, and the heavy boots of a second tramped into the storage area, a few feet away from his hiding place. It all depended on the officer’s competence, and diligence. If he poked around, checked for concealed threats, he would surely spot Sawyer, hold him at gunpoint, and detain him. Game over.
Sawyer crouched there, next to a pile of discarded plasterboard, breathing steadily, listening to himself.
Nothing. Just a higher breathing rate from the exertion. No racing heart. No symptoms of stress or panic. No fear. It was almost the opposite. He was seconds away from discovery and detention. All was in danger of being revealed: his illicit surveillance and correspondence; the contact with Shepherd, Walker, Sally O’Callaghan; the entanglement with Shaun and Dale. On top of the murder investigation, it would surely be the end of him as a serving officer.
And yet, there was nothing. Apart from a curious sense of irritation; something close to boredom.
The officer’s colleague called, “Clear!” and he repeated, loud enough and close enough to make Sawyer wince. They both moved out into the passage, through to the kitchen. Sawyer had no way of telling if there were more officers in the grounds of the house, but he didn’t wait; he pushed out of the storage room and peered around the side door, down to the gap in the hedge. The snow fell thick and fast now, but there were only footprints off to the left; nothing in the back garden. The AFO team must have entered around the side, from the front of the house.
He dived out of the side door and ran along the wall, crunching through the fresh snow. At the hedge, he dropped onto his belly and scrambled through the gap, crawling out the other side, into the field where he could break for the trees and disappear.
As he prepared to emerge, he stopped, and listened.
Footsteps in the snow. One person, approaching from around the other side, walking towards the hedge, only feet away. Low voices, further off.
A light shone down and caught Sawyer as he pulled himself upright. The barrel-mounted torch of an automatic weapon?
He raised his hands to his head slowly, and squinted into the light.
It was a standard torch, and the holder lowered it, revealing his face.
DC Walker. Suited up, with a bullet-proof vest under a thick overcoat.
‘Sir?’
Sawyer lowered his hands. ‘One adult male, unconscious but armed with a crossbow. Still a possible threat. Last position on the staircase, second floor. One adult female, secured. The three children are with her in a room on the top floor. No evidence of anyone else in the house.’
Walker’s walkie-talkie crackled; he spoke into it. ‘Rear of house secure. Be advised. Two adults inside, one possibly armed with crossbow. Three children in room on third floor.’
Sawyer caught his breath. ‘He wanted to save them, keep them pure. Protect them. Stop them having to grow up before their time, like he had to.’
Walker nodded. ‘It’s kidnap. Murder.’
‘I suppose for him, the end justified the means.’ Sawyer gazed out at the snow-covered fields, shining through the dark. ‘I need to go.’
‘You were never here.’
Sawyer locked eyes with him. Walker smiled, opened his mouth to speak again. Sawyer held up a hand. ‘I’ll say it.’
‘What?’
‘Good work.’
Sawyer moved off, away from the house, up the field towards the trees. Running. Not looking back.
65
In the morning, Sawyer trundled the Corsa through the minor roads outside Thornhill
village. The temperature had risen overnight, and turned the lighter snowfalls into slush, but the track down to Shepherd’s cul de sac was treacherous, and his wheels spun as he parked the Corsa near the farm gate.
He sat there, staring down at the stone-built semis, listening to ‘Chill Out’ by The KLF: a dreamy, drifting, ambient collage, evoking a rail journey across America’s Deep South. It was music he often used to carry himself off to sleep. But here and now, with the world outside in stasis, on ice, he wallowed in the chirping cicadas, gospel choirs, clanging freight train. He craved the heat, the aliveness, the sense of motion.
Shepherd emerged from his house, blowing into his hands. He trudged out to the Range Rover and scraped the snow from the windows. Sawyer opened the Corsa passenger door and gave a slight toot of the horn. Shepherd looked up and approached, measuring his steps across the thinner patches of snow.
He climbed in and closed the door.
Sawyer lowered the music volume, kept his gaze on the street ahead. ‘It’s not a style choice.’
Shepherd looked at him. ‘What?’
‘The car. The Mini’s still indisposed.’
Shepherd nodded. ‘The children are safe. It was a guy whose sister was murdered by a paedophile when they were kids. His dear old mum was helping.’
Sawyer feigned shock. ‘His mum?’
‘Yeah. Keeping it in the family. Revenge for his sister, her daughter. Looks like the fella was driving it all. We think he used social networks to groom Holly and Joshua, but then the woman took over after Holly’s death. Luring the kids, taking them. Easier to trust a woman, I suppose. Quicker, too.’
‘And no sexual assault?’
Shepherd gave a pained smile. ‘No. According to the children, they were just… conducting lessons. Maths, English, History. Acting like a proxy school, but denying the kids access to technology. They said the woman gave the lessons. Probably helped convince her that the end justified the means. And Rhodes pulled some pretty strange things off the computers. Some of it looks like notes on targets. Government agencies, ministerial departments, public bodies.’
