Silent Voices (33 page)

Brendan turned to face him. “No,” he said, smiling lightly. “It’s fine. Let’s do this. There’s nothing to be gained from my going back. I told you, the kids are fine. Harry’s home and Jane’s coping. I’d only make things more stressful if I was hanging around at the house.”

Simon squeezed Brendan’s arm. His friend had been through a lot the previous night – Harry throwing up, and what could only have been a small bird erupting from his throat. Then the boy going into some kind of convulsive fit. The ambulance. The hospital. That was a lot to deal with, for anyone... especially a neurotic night owl with serious attachment issues.

Simon’s new mobile phone was yet to turn up from the distributor, although his new credit and debit cards had arrived by courier that morning, at the break of dawn. So when he’d got out of bed Simon had called the Coles from the payphone on the corner (which was miraculously still working) to find out how the kid was doing, and Jane had told him that Harry had finally been sent home to rest about an hour ago, feeling restless but more or less comfortable. They’d taken samples of his blood, done some tests, and little Harry had sat up in the hospital bed smiling and chatting and asking for food. He didn’t seem to realise what was going on, and had no memory of what had happened back at home the night before.

The doctors had taken plenty of time to convince themselves that Harry was in good health, apart from a sore throat and a minor headache, and then told the family that he could be taken home. He was prescribed infant aspirin for his aches and pains, a week off school to recuperate, and plenty of pampering from his parents.

“Come on, then,” he said, turning to face the apartment block. “Let’s get up there and see if he’s at home.”

The two men walked along the path at the side of the residents’ car park, looking at the expensive vehicles lined up in their private spaces: Jeeps and Land Rovers, sports models and coupés. There was a lot of money in those white-painted parking spaces.

“Looks like Marty’s landed on his feet.” Brendan seemed calmer now, more focused, if exhausted. “I always knew he would, eventually.”

“He’s only flat-sitting. It isn’t his. None of this belongs to him.” Simon felt a pang of envy, or perhaps it was more like bitterness, swelling in his stomach. He didn’t want anybody thinking that one of his old gang members had been more successful than him. He’d spent a long time, and given up a lot of personal involvement, to get where he was today, and he needed everyone to know that he’d earned it and that he was the top man. He didn’t like feeling this way, but he
did
feel it. Simon guarded his success closely, like a private stash of wealth; he hated feeling inferior to anyone, especially the people he’d left behind.

They approached the main entrance and Simon examined the neatly hand-written name cards above the buzzers. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this, because he already knew that Marty was staying in flat seven, the penthouse. But he was nosey; he liked to know things, even if they weren’t important. Just the knowing itself represented some kind of control, and it made him feel good to gather details towards himself like a child collecting shells on a lonely beach. It was not so much that knowledge was power, but that it gave him an edge over other people when it came time to push.

He glanced at Brendan, who was looking around furtively, like a criminal keeping an eye out for trouble. He smiled. Then, turning away, he pressed the buzzer for flat number seven.

There was no audible sound from where they were standing when he buzzed, so the two men just stood on the step for a while, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Simon reached out and pressed the small metal button again, and then leant forward and peered through the thickened glass panel, trying to make out any kind of movement in the entryway. He saw closed doors on the ground floor level, and a concrete staircase leading up to the floors above. There was nobody there; the place seemed deserted. Potted plants stood at intervals around the ground floor, like sentinels guarding the doors of each flat. He guessed that everyone who lived there was probably out at work – all the office workers, the bankers and solicitors, who could afford these high-spec dwellings no doubt put in long hours to meet the mortgage payments. There was no evidence of any children – no bikes or buggies or mislaid toys. These places were designed for young, upwardly-mobile people: professional couples and post-graduate flat-sharers. They were empty, even when everyone was at home. He could see how easily Marty Rivers might fit in with a set-up like this, making no mark, casting no shadow; moving through the rooms and corridors like a ghost.

“Nobody home,” he said, redundantly.

“Well, that’s a bit fucking anticlimactic.” Brendan sounded angry. He turned around and walked a few steps away from the entrance, kicking at the concrete flagstones. “I left my sick child at home for this?”

“Hey, it’s fine. It’ll be okay. Let’s go for a drink somewhere and come back later. In fact, I’ll tell you what... let’s leave a note.” He took out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and started to look for a pen.

“Here,” said Brendan, handing him a blue biro with a chewed end and no lid.

Simon flattened the paper against the glass of the door and scribbled out a quick note:
We came to see you. We’ll be back.
Then he folded the paper in half and in half again, before writing Marty’s name on the sheet and sliding the note under the door.

“Think it’ll do any good?” Brendan’s eyes were wide. He looked afraid. He must be more tired than Simon could even imagine.

Simon shrugged. “Fuck knows, but we have to try. What else can we do?”

They turned back to the apartment complex and stared up at the top floor. The windows were tinted; no interior light could be seen behind the dark glass. The sun, high above them, was more a promise of warmth that failed to deliver. Simon wondered if they were being watched. It certainly felt that way; as if Marty were up there, hiding, and examining their every move. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Simon raised his right hand, turned it so that the palm was directed towards the window, and opened the fingers. He made a slow fist, one finger at a time: the secret salute of the Three Amigos.

Come and see
, he mouthed silently, his lips forming words that he held deep inside.
Come and help us
.

M
ARTY WATCHED THEM
leave from the living room, standing before the large window in his old jeans and a torn T-shirt. He had not bathed this morning, and his mouth tasted stale. He idly rubbed the side of his stomach with the palm of his hand, feeling the lump there. It was like a growth, a tumour, and occasionally it moved – a slight twitching motion, like a dog makes while it is sleeping.

It was strange seeing his old friends again, especially together like that. They’d both changed quite a bit, but he would have recognised them anywhere. There was something about the way they moved, some trace of the children they’d been. Simon’s swagger, Brendan’s reticence... the boys had become men, and yet something vital had been left behind.

And there was the way that Simon had saluted him, just the way they used to when they were kids.

He knew why they were here. He’d picked up Simon’s messages on his voicemail. At the sound of his old friend’s voice, whatever was hiding within him – and he knew what it was; he just had trouble naming it now, because he suspected it could hear his thoughts – had turned right around inside him, hurting him. Doc had claimed that the wound was clean, that there was nothing inside, but Marty didn’t believe that. He could feel it, curling around his abdomen: a small, squat invader, using his body as a home. Part of him knew that none of this could possibly be real, but another part of him – the part that had been stunted as a child, not allowed to develop properly – knew that it
was
real, and he was being possessed, or haunted, or both, by something from a childhood nursery rhyme. The infant Marty Rivers’ deepest fears were manifesting inside the adult version; he was a cocoon, and soon that fear would hatch out, the egg within the egg, the horror coiled up within a nest of horrors. Soon it would return to the outside world, and Marty had no idea what might happen afterwards.

He turned away from the window and grabbed his drink. Whisky for breakfast again: this was becoming a habit. He took a sip and went through into the bedroom, where he stripped off his T-shirt and stood before the mirror. His body was smooth, the muscles visible beneath his skin. At first glance, it looked like he had a bit of a belly, like the unfit farts who hung around on the old estate. Then, upon further investigation, it was clear that the bulge in his abdomen was irregular; it wasn’t formed by layers of fat. There was something... unnatural, weird and disturbing about it.

He laid a hand on the bulge and felt it shiver. It was like being pregnant, he supposed, and the thought was almost amusing.

Almost.

He recalled a newspaper report from a few years ago about a man who’d gone through breast implant surgery after a drunken bet. There was full-spread story in one of the red-top newspapers, with photos showing the man proudly displaying his new breasts in a low-cut shirt, the top buttons undone to show off his cleavage. At the time the images had repelled Marty; they had made him afraid in a way that he didn’t understand, and this had quickly turned to disgust. Right now, standing before the mirror and examining his own altered form, he realised that it was the notion of invasion, of something foreign being present inside a person’s body that had caused him such grief. That was why he’d never liked women with fake breasts; the thought of something underneath their skin, nestling there, had always made him feel slightly afraid.

The shape slithered around inside him, coiling around his innards. It wasn’t painful. The sensation was even mildly pleasant. But the feelings it provoked were deeply disturbing, at levels he’d not even been aware of before. When he closed his eyes, he saw three boys bound by leaves and twigs in a secluded grove, and shadows moving, patrolling the boundaries like jailors.

“What do you want?” he said, speaking to the mirror. His silent invader tightened its grip and his heart began to pound harder. He thought of Simon and Brendan out there in the car park; he saw once again Simon’s splayed fingers making a fist as he waved up at the window, mouthing words that Marty had been unable to lip-read.

He knew what they wanted. They wanted his help. They wanted him to join forces and help fight something. Just like he’d been fighting his whole life, but alone, standing apart from the crowd. Now it was time to forget about being the lone wolf and reach out, take hold of someone else’s hand. Maybe he would feel another hand gripping his own, and whoever it belonged to would lead him out of the darkness in which he had always been lost.

Marty put on his jacket and left the room, then the flat. It was time to get things done.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

T
HEY WERE SITTING
at a table in the window, looking down at the river, drinking slowly, not speaking much; just waiting. Hoping for something to happen, waiting for the momentum to kick in and move them.

The bar – The Mill on the River – was new, with shiny tables and chairs and up-market clientele stopping off for a few drinks or a spot of lunch after viewing the paintings in the Baltic galleries. The bar (it was a
bar
, not a pub; to people like Simon and Brendan, there was a crucial difference) sat in the shadow of the old Art Deco style building, and benefited from its new status as one of the North’s top art venues.

Brendan wasn’t comfortable in places like this. He felt more at home in dingy drinking dens on impoverished estates, sharing space with drunken old men, youngsters already on their way down the slippery slope of drink-dependency, and broken-down single mothers looking for a brief window out of the hole they’d made for themselves. People in nice suits bothered him. He felt uneasy around them, as if he were an interloper and they knew it.

He sat opposite Simon sipping his pint – an expensive round; almost a tenner for two beers – and staring over his friend’s shoulder. The river was the same one he’d known all his life, but from this angle it looked different. The colour was lighter, the slight waves less threatening, the current moving at a slower pace that might not tug you under if you fell in. The river he knew and loved – and sometimes hated – would pull you down and kill you within seconds.

“Just relax,” said Simon. His face looked somehow loose on his skull, as if the last few days had tired him beyond anything he’d ever expected. Brendan knew the feeling. It wasn’t just Harry’s episode, the trip to the hospital and the night without sleep; there was a lot more going on than that. Like the river, his life had developed a weird current, and he was being dragged along by forces he would not have dreamed of months before. Even his own body was rebelling, taking on a life of its own. The skin of his back was trying to tear away from his frame, seeking a freedom that during darker moments he suspected might benefit him.

When he’d returned from the hospital in the early hours of the morning, he’d made sure his family were asleep and then gone into the bathroom. Stripping off his clothes, he’d been presented with a hideous sight: the flesh from the nape of his neck down to the base of his spine, just above his backside, was infected again. The skin had torn and split; viscous yellow fluid was slathered all over him. He was polluted; his body could no longer accept what was being done, the badness that he had held inside him for so long. His system was rejecting the filth; or was the filth simply coming out to play?