Chapter 17

1AM

Gerald sat with his back to the bedroom wall. The cat rubbed against his leg, more out of hunger than affection. The pressure he had felt in his chest when that nosey bitch was walking around was still there. He knew he could not really live here forever, but he did not want to leave yet. He was sometimes surprised that the water still worked, despite all the red-coloured bills that occasionally dropped through the letterbox. The electricity had been cut off long ago, hence the occasional candles and oil lamps, and the water was always cold as a result. Nevertheless, it was a home. It was quiet. It was better than a tent. It was, until today, safe and protected. Gerald had only one real choice: move on. That choice, though, seemed a tough one to take. The man was gone, the policeman was gone, the girl was gone, and none of them had asked about the Macallisters. The cop had asked about the missing man, but did not really know anything. Maybe no-one would ever come back to bother him again. He knew it was unlikely, but still felt that running away now was a bit premature.

Gerald looked at his fingernails. They were tough, from years of manual labour, cracked and needed to be cut. He pulled a large penknife out from his pocket and started digging the dirt from out beneath them. Then, he used the pull-out, extremely blunt scissors to chop them down to size. The clippings fell to the floor between his knees and the cat bent down to sniff them. It was clearly not hungry enough for that, looked disdainfully at the ageing giant in front, and walked off. Cats were probably the closest animal to humans in terms of pure sass and attitude. They reminded Gerald of women; their disinterest in being near him unless they wanted something felt like a throwback to his youth. He had never been married, never had children, never really had a proper girlfriendunless you counted the drunken fumbles after teenage cheap-beer sessions before his life had really gone down the drain.

Gerald's grim fingernail clippings were not the only detritus on the floor. The whole house had not been cleaned since he had inherited it and it was starting to smell. Dust had formed a thick quilt over most of the hard surfaces and the cat had left its small packets of disdain in various locations. The bedsheets had gone unwashed and the few utensils in the kitchen that he had ever used were still in the sink, soaking in weeks-old cold water. It was not surprising, really. Gerald had never had to wash anything before. He had never used a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner, not that either of those could be turned on now. When he was young, his mum did everything for him. She was a classic housewife. She did all the chores for the two men in the house. However, he had certainly outstayed his welcome in the parental abode, eventually getting kicked out after one too many arguments with his drunken father. After that, he had lived in tents until being incarcerated.

Prison had taught him how to do 'man jobs' but he had never done laundry or kitchen duty. After being released from prison, he had become quickly homeless, unable to come to terms with the responsibilities of adult life. There were too many rules that seemed so stupid, and how did things suddenly get so expensive? No. A life working under bosses half his age and living in a flat visited by social workers and probation officers was not for Gerald. He had lasted about two weeks outside of prison before he literally disappeared from his old home town. A disappearance that was completely against the rules of his release. It had made him a fugitive. A crime that you could only commit if you were already a criminal. He even saw his own face on the news once, but the media had long since lost interest in his story. He hoped it would stay that way. If he did not have to interact with people too often, then there would be no problems. It was always their fault, Gerald assured himself.

2AM

Claire was at home again. She could not sleep. Every minute that passed was an opportunity for her brain to create new images to amuse itself. They did not, sadly, amuse Claire. They frightened her, no matter how irrational she told herself she was being. She racked her brain to no effect. Where could Jim be? Her brain was in a state of cognitive dissonance, simultaneously feeling the emotions of anger, confusion, worry and frustration. Picking up the laptop from the table next to her bed, she brought Google Maps up on the smudged screen. Wiping the smudge with her finger only succeeded in making it worse. How was it, she wondered, that there was always a smudge on this screen? It wasn't a touch screen, so what kind of mad, invisible gremlin was going around touching people's laptop screens? More attempts by her brain to distract itself without success.

Her eyes refocused on the webpage as a digital representation of the A369 appeared. It was like a line had been drawn through a green puddle. Aside from the occasional black line and grey-green splat of paint, the area was virtually empty. A quick click changed the view to satellite, and the sterile view of abstract emptiness was transformed into blocks of grass and trees. Prettier, but equally unhelpful. Not knowing what she was actually looking for just frustrated her further. The only place on the map near Jim's car was the house. The dark, abandoned, quiet, stupid bloody mansion. What a waste of time that had been.

Click, pinch and zoom, ad infinitum, but no new ideas emerged. The laptop slipped to the side by her legs as her head fell back onto the pillow. She felt along the duvet for the metallic edge of the computer until her fingers reached the screen. She smudged it again when she closed it shut, gripped it briefly, then shoved it across the bed and onto the floor. It landed with an unsatisfying, soft thud onto the thick rug. Eyes closed, Claire desperately wanted to shut out her own thoughts, yet she was now watching them on the inside of her eyelids. A morbid, private cinema of nightmares. First, coming from the anger part of her brain, she could see Jim laughing, arms wrapped around a woman she did not recognise. Next, to go with her confusion, she imagined Jim in a dark room with no doors or windows. He was laughing at her. Then, from her worried imagination came the most visceral images of all. Jim was bleeding, calling for help, trapped in a ditch next to a field. He had been hit by a car that did not stop and he was slowly bleeding to death, crying in pain and self-pity. Finally, frustration sent her a new nightmare, only this was merely a reflection of the truth: a blank map with a single object, the house. The dark, abandoned, quiet, stupid bloody mansion. Her tears finally came.