The Hollow Places (26 page)

“I'm sorry,”
Simon said and Will shrugged. There was nothing anyone could say or
do that would undo what had happened. They all understood this.

“Where are we
going, Will?” Clare asked.

“And who the
fuck are you?”

“I just
carried your arse a quarter of a mile. Uphill. The word is
thankyou.”

“You should
have left me,” Will said. Clare glared at Simon again. “I've got
nothing to live for,” he said.

Simon knew
that it could easily have been Zak sitting in the front with Clare,
with Sarah dead in the water. As they drove, he tried to imagine
how that would feel. He couldn't do it. He was relieved that he
didn't have to know how that felt.

“Will,” Clare
said. “Where are we going?”

“Home,” he
said. “Then prison. Then the nuthouse. Take a left here.” Clare
drove past the turning and he protested.

“I know a
better way,” she said and left it at that. She liked how it felt to
have that hanging in the air between them.

Simon
suggested that Will go somewhere where he wouldn't be alone, but
Will was adamant that he wanted to go home, saying something about
having a letter to finish. Clare didn't get involved and Simon
gathered that as far as she was concerned, Will was a loose end
that was about to tie itself up. It was neater than having to do it
herself. She didn't say it; she didn't have to.

Her short cut
took them off the main roads and cut out some early morning traffic
that was building up. She let the car roll to a stop at the edge of
a tidy park with a small children's playground and a perimeter
fence made of wire. He was about ten minutes' walk from home. She
wasn't prepared to stop outside his house and told him so. Simon
agreed, but was relieved that he didn't have to say it.

Before Will
got out of the car, he turned to Simon and said:

“Firdy told me
what was coming and I didn't do anything. If anyone could have
stopped this it was me.”

“There was
nothing you could do.”

“Remember you
said that.”

He shrugged
off the blanket and shoved his wet clothes into a recyclable
carrier bag. In his damp shoes, trousers and shirt, he exited the
car, slammed his door shut and paused at Clare's window. “I've got
to ask,” he said, “otherwise, it'll dig away at me. Where were you
when it was all kicking off down there? The Third was going to live
instead of us. Firdy wanted a clean slate. That fucking cat wanted
to eat what was left. What was in this for you?”

Clare's face
was as calm as it had been when she descended the rocks with a
plastic bag in one hand. She began the weary process of staring him
down.

“It's not her
fault either,” Simon said.

“Bull,” said
Will.

“She had her
orders. We all did.”

“Oh yeah?”
Will said. “I suppose you're right. We can't have one rule for us
and another rule for her. That wouldn't be right.”

“There are no
rules anymore,” Simon said.

Will nodded.
“Remember you said that too.” He looked past Clare then to look at
Sarah, who was staring blankly through the windscreen. “Good luck
with her,” he said, and Simon felt that he was being deliberately
ambiguous. “See you in another life.” He slapped the roof.

As Clare drove
away, Will held up a hand, as though they were dropping him off
after a night on the town. He slung the carrier bag over his
shoulder and started walking.

“What do you
reckon?” Simon asked.

“Dead by
morning,” Clare said. “You?”

“I'd like to
disagree, but I know what I'd do if I was him.”

“I know,” she
said. “So, what about Sarah? Do you want to hit her now?”

“No,” he said.
He closed his eyes. “I'll give her more time.”

*

“Simon.”

“What?”

“We're
here.”

He didn't know
how long they had been sitting in the drive.

“Let's get her
in,” said Clare.

Simon wanted
to carry her, but acquiesced to Clare's demands that she be allowed
to walk for herself. It would be less conspicuous should anyone see
and perhaps stimulating her body would encourage her mind to
follow.

The kitchen
window and the window above were smashed, reminding him of the
things he had done that hadn't been enough. The door was unlocked
and Simon entered first with Sarah alongside. Clare shut the door
behind her and took in the chaos.

The smell that
they had suffered in the van lingered in the kitchen/diner. Firdy's
smell; dust, dirt and dirty laundry. He had an urge to burn the
chair that Firdy had slept on. The cat had been in here too, but he
couldn't smell it now and there was no physical sign of its
presence. It was Firdy who had left his mark and needed to be
eradicated.

It would be
easier to deal with Firdy's physical presence than the memories he
evoked. Allowing himself to consider the last 48 hours, Simon's
mind was flooded with images – from the appearance of Firdy to the
revelation of his dream diary, the eyes of the Cat and their
journey into the Third. It was difficult to believe that it had
taken place so quickly, but it was harder to believe that it was
all over.

The Third was
dead. He and Will and Clare had each felt it to some degree. He and
Clare had seen it too. And yet, as Simon walked Sarah barefoot
through the kitchen, he couldn't help wondering if the Third was
inside her, watching, learning, clinging to life.

He repeated
her name a few times and clicked. She struggled to focus on his
fingers. Progress of a sort. Her eyelids flickered.

“Let's get you
to bed,” he said and helped her up the stairs.

He thought
that seeing her bedroom might give her the jolt she needed to come
to the surface, but he had forgotten that Firdy had trashed the
room twice. Her photos, ripped from the walls, lay in pieces on the
floor, mixed in with her bedsheets and books and papers. Her table
was overturned. Her computer was smashed in the corner. From
somewhere came the stench of shit.

He shut the
door.

“You're going
to sleep in my room,” he said. She said nothing.

He pushed open
his door.

In the corner
of the room was the dog. He stumbled, thinking that it was going to
attack him, but then he saw the rope and the blood and was
reassured that it was never going to get up again.

“Dead,” Sarah
said.

“Yeah,” said
Simon. “Dead.”

He kicked
aside broken glass and threw a blanket over the dog, glancing back
at Sarah to see her reaction. There was none. For once, he was
thankful.

He patched up
the broken window using a cork board and then sat Sarah down on his
camp bed. Within minutes, she was curled up in the foetal position,
asleep and dreaming. She was wearing Clare's sweater and long,
black coat and he didn't try to remove them as he didn't have a
blanket for her. He crept out of the room, leaving the door ajar,
trying not to feel as though he was abandoning her. Failing.

Downstairs,
Clare had made them a pot of coffee.

“I haven't had
time to get milk,” Simon said.

“That's okay,”
she said. “I don't take it either.” Simon stopped short of her.
“It's sort of a game,” she explained, crossing the distance between
them to hand him his coffee in his preferred mug. The Third had
controlled him by threatening the people he cared about and so he
had made a conscious effort not to care too much about anyone or
anything. He was good at it, but one of the few things he'd
retained an affection for was this mug. It was large with a couple
of hairline cracks from top to bottom, glazed with a looping
pattern of blue on white. Sarah had made it in class years ago.
“When I didn't want to think too much,” Clare continued, “I learnt
to be observant. I projected my thoughts outwards. I started making
stuff up about people, but it would turn out to be dead right. Ask
me about myself, however, and I draw a blank. I don't even have a
favourite colour anymore. How is she doing?”

“Asleep.”

“Good.”

“You
think?”

“She's in
shock. And exhausted. Keep an eye on her. I think she'll be
fine.”

“And what
about you?”

Clare took a
sip from her coffee cup. “What about me?”

“Will you be
fine?”

“I'll get back
home,” she said, “keep up the pretence; show my face in the
café.”

“Are there
others? Like us.”

“As far as I'm
aware, it's you, me and Will now.”

“Did anyone
else make it? Ian? Naomi?”

“I don't know
any more than you.”

“What were you
going to do when The Third had finished with us?”

“Whatever she
told me to do.”

Simon refilled
his mug, prompting Clare to tell him that he should rest. She
appeared relaxed on one of the kitchen stools with one leg crossed
over the other, one foot swinging gently back and forth. She'd
given Sarah her sweater, so she was down to a black t-shirt now,
tucked into her dark, skin-tight jeans. He could see that she was
strong, though small. He wondered if she was strong enough to
withstand whatever was next for her.

“Are you warm
enough?” he said when she caught him looking.

She
nodded.

His eyes began
closing despite himself. He could feel his tiredness creeping over
him, seeping into his joints, weighing down his limbs. Its
vengeance would be slow and devastating and sweet.

“We should
find the van and move it,” he mused. “Slow down the
investigations.”

“Taken care
of,” said Clare.

He allowed his
eyes to close, but his journey towards sleep was accompanied by a
falling sensation and his body jerked.

“I should
probably go,” Clare said.

Simon shook
his head. “I have questions.” His words were slurred.

“You need to
rest.”

“How long did
the Third have you?”

“Half as long
as you. Long enough.”

“What did you
do?”

“We've been
through this.”

“Tell me
again.”

She told him
that in the beginning she had delivered to the Third, as he had,
but then her job had become to help Firdy. As the deliveries
increased, he had deemed it necessary to carry out some of the
Third's threats and she had delivered people's loved ones to him.
She had done it more often than she wanted to remember. People had
needed convincing that the Third meant business.

“Forgive me
for saying it,” she said, “but I think you were right to do
everything you did. What choice did you have? Firdy enjoyed his
work. He always went too far.”

“Tell me. How
many times did you take people to him?” Simon said.

“How many
people did you throw into the water?”

He opened his
mouth to reel off a figure, but he couldn't provide the estimate.
It felt like more than a dozen. Could it have been as many as two
dozen? More? Perhaps he could determine how many he had (killed)
delivered in the last year if he worked out an average per month,
and then multiplied that by three. His stomach turned.

She said: “You
could see every one of their faces if you really tried and you
probably will over the years. They'll come floating up when you
don't want them. They're all in there. But for now, you've blocked
them out. Don't blame me for doing the same. You don't keep count,
you stay sane.”

Simon looked
into her eyes and thought about what she had said. She seemed to
have everything well thought out. Her manner was very casual and he
thought that maybe it was a front, but he also wondered if she had
been inside their house before, inside their kitchen, on that very
stool, carrying out orders, checking on Sarah, phoning in her
observations.

The rising sun
lit the kitchen area through the double doors and smashed window.
The battered blinds split the amber light into horizontal lines,
which crept towards the seated couple. They had both noticed it and
were watching it reach for them when they heard Sarah wake with a
gasp.

By the time
Simon was on the stairs, she was screaming, repeatedly and
hysterically.

She was
sitting on the camp bed, knees drawn up to her chest.

“He died
inside her!” she said, wailing. She grabbed Simon. “He's dead!
Dead!”

“You're safe,”
Simon said. She looked at him, not through him, for the first time
since he had been ejected from the Third and into the sea. “We're
safe. We're at home.”

“So lonely,”
she muttered and buried her face in his shoulder.

Although she
was suffering the Third's grief, he felt relief rushing through
every part of him. He had a chance to connect with her again. He
had done significant damage, and it would take time to heal, but
things would get better. He'd see to that. He could deal with
this.

Her breath
hitched.

“What's she
doing here?”

Clare was
standing in the doorway. She dropped her gaze and backed onto the
landing.

“You'd better
leave,” Simon said. Clare nodded and descended the stairs. “Look at
me,” Simon told Sarah. “It's alright. It's over.”

“Thank God
you're back,” Sarah said and held him again. Over his shoulder, her
eyes flicked towards the empty doorway. “What is she doing here?”
she said. “In our home.”

He didn't know
how to answer her, but he knew that he needed a second chance, and
if he couldn't give Clare a break, why should he be allowed
one?

*

Clare reversed
out of the drive and took off before she could change her mind. She
had done enough damage. It was time to get back to London, show her
face in the usual circles. Act natural.

The truth,
though she tried to deny it, was that she was terrified. She felt
as though everything was happening for the first time. She was
checking the mirror, as a free woman. She was making a right turn,
as a free woman. She was tidying loose strands of hair, tucking
them underneath her hat, as a free woman.