Free Nightsiders by Gary McMahon Page B

in his face. The man’s breath smelled like dog shit. Robert winced, but stood firm. It was all he could do; put on a show of strength.
    “Remember this?” Corbeau slowly raised his hand, and Robert saw he was holding a mobile phone. He twisted his wrist, showing Robert the screen, and the picture upon it. He must have taken the shot from the car last night, outside the bar. It showed Monica on her knees from the side, with her face buried in Robert’s crotch. Her eyes were closed, her cheek bulged, and Robert’s hands were gripping the sides of her head. “She has a good technique, learned from working on her back in backrooms and bedsits, when we were too poor to put food in the babies’ mouths.” Corbeau pressed a button and the still picture began to move. It was not a photograph; it was a film clip.
    Robert tore his eyes from the little screen and stared at Corbeau.
    “I suppose your wife still has the same number?” Corbeau raised the phone into the air, as if in a form of victory salute, and made a big show of pressing another one of the buttons. “And there it goes, right to her handset. The wonders of technology, eh?”
    Realization dawned upon Robert, and the earth trembled beneath him. “No. You haven’t…”
    Corbeau nodded. “Oh yes I have.”
    What should he do, where could he go? There was no point in running, because the file would already have arrived, and by the time he reached her Sarah would have seen it. This was irreversible; there was nothing he could do to prevent the outcome, or to rewind the tape of the last few minutes. All he could do was hope her capacity for mercy had not left her after the attack, and that he had done enough in all their years of marriage for her to realize how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, despite his many flaws.
    “One more thing.” Corbeau, still smiling, turned to face the door that led to the kitchen. “You can bring her out now.”
    Robert was frozen. He was a man of ice. What now, what next?
    Molly walked through the door, her face dirty with tears. She was sniffling, but quietly, as if she had been ordered to remain silent. Her feet scuffed the carpet and her hands played with the hem of her sweater. She looked small, tiny; a mere baby in a room filled with adults.
    There was a boy standing behind her. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. On his head was a Burberry baseball cap and he was wearing an ugly tracksuit. Fine stubble shone at his chin, but his cheeks were hairless and marked with old acne scars. Robert was sure this was the boy he had seen Molly with before—the boy she had been secretly spending time with.
    “Meet my son, Ethan. He’s a good boy, but does play a bit rough.” Corbeau took a step back, as if expecting Robert to leap at him, fists swinging.
    Robert, beyond even the thought of violence now, stared at his daughter. “Molly. Are you okay?”
    She nodded, but did not speak. She was frightened and ashamed. Now her father knew the depth and breadth of her lie, and the sheer magnitude of this betrayal had taken away her voice, rendering her mute.
    “What do you want to do?” Corbeau’s voice had once again lowered and taken on an almost sensual tone. “Do you want to kill him, or do you want to kill me? You want to kill someone, I know you do. I can smell it on you, like the scent on a dog. You want to spill blood, but you don’t know how. Your safe and secure upbringing has kept you in a bubble, kept you away from having to take a life. Now’s the time to look back, reach inside, and become primal…but you don’t have a clue where to start.”
    On the sofa, Monica Corbeau began to sing. It was a sad song, a lament or a hymn in a foreign tongue, and it sounded incongruous here, in this room, at this moment.
    Ethan Corbeau pushed Molly away from him, toward Robert. The boy, he could now see, was holding a knife. He had been pressing the blade into Molly’s back, against her spine.
    “Go on,” said