He felt his way along by touch. It was impossible to see.
His foot kicked something hard, and he skittered back before he identified it as the first step. He groped around until he found the wall, and a cold steel railing. Holding on to it, he started up, treading as softly as he could. The steps came to a small concrete landing, then turned back on themselves, still rising. He paused on it, out of breath. A small window was set high in the wall. It was almost obscured with dirt, but the steps here weren’t quite so dark. He continued up. He was almost at the top when Kale moved out of the shadows.
Ben stopped. He couldn’t see Kale’s face, but he could make out the barrel of the shotgun aimed at his chest. He put out his hand in a desperate staying gesture, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
“Wait—” he said.
There was a roar of light.
Smoke from the shotgun blast hazed the air. His ears were still ringing as he swiftly reloaded, watching the photographer’s body for any movement. The double impact of the twelve-bore shells had flung it down the steps, crumpling it against the back of the small landing. As his eyes adjusted from the muzzle flash, he made out the black splashes of blood on the walls and floor.
He looked for a moment longer, making sure, then snapped the shotgun shut and went back into the office.
Keeping out of the direct line of the window, Kale crossed over and stood with his back against the wall to one side. He picked up the broken mirror tile he’d ripped from above the toilet sink and tilted it until he could see the barricade. The predictable bastards were starting to come over. He readied himself, then spun round and fired through the window, one barrel straight after the other this time, not both together as he had done with the photographer cunt.
He ducked down, ignoring the pain in his knee, cracking the breech open and pumping in two fresh shells, slithering on his arse to the other side of the window, and then he was up and firing again.
He dropped back to the floor, his bad leg stuck out awkwardly in front of him. He reloaded with one hand while he had another look with the mirror. Shouts and yells, but the bastards had fucked off. The twelve-bore wasn’t accurate at that range, probably not lethal, even with ‘00’ buckshot cartridges which would put a four-inch hole through two-inch wood at ten feet, and blow photographer cunts practically in half at eight, but it had a good spread. He made sure none of them had dropped down on his side before he lowered the mirror.
Keeping well outside the perimeter of chairs, wastepaper bins and boxes he’d set up to mark the area where the police marksmen bastards could get a shot, he went over to the desk. It was tipped on its side in part of the room he knew would be out of any line of fire.
Steven was curled behind it, eyes squeezed shut, hands over his ears, rocking backwards and forwards. Kale felt angry again for being made to use the shotgun. He stroked his son’s head.
“Shh, it’s all right. It’s all right.”
“No bangs! No bangs!”
His son’s hair felt soft and fine under his fingers. He pushed his hands gently down from his ears. Steven shook his head violently. “No bangs!”
“Not many more.”
There were seven shells left. When he was down to two he would use them to make sure the bastards didn’t separate him and his son again.
He stayed there for as long as he dared and then, skirting the area he’d marked out, he went back to the window to check with the mirror. The barricade was still clear. He hoped it had taken some of them out when it went down. He’d rigged it so it would collapse if anyone gave it so much as a sour look.
It’d still slow them up long enough to do what he had to when they cottoned on that they couldn’t talk him out.
The telephone was ringing again downstairs, but he took no more notice of it than before. He returned to the desk. Steven’s eyes were still shut but his rocking wasn’t quite so violent.
Kale lowered himself to the floor and put his arm across his shoulders. He unwrapped a stick of chewing gum, broke it in two and gave half to Steven, half to himself. The boy chewed without opening his eyes.
“They just don’t give you any peace,” Kale said, looking down at him. “There’s no time. They can’t just leave you alone.”
He brushed a strand of hair from his son’s face, then put his head back against the desk and looked at the paling sky through the window.
“We were almost there. I could feel it. I’ve been close before, but not like that. I was near to it in the desert, but I didn’t realise, not then. Not until what happened to you and your mum. It was right in front of me, but I couldn’t see it. There was so much... broken... it took your breath away. It was like that was how things were supposed to be, that was normal. But it was too soon. I wasn’t ready. You’ve got to be tempered first. You’ve got to be nearly broken yourself.
“It purifies you, makes you see more clearly. You’ve got to go through that before you can see it’s not all shit, there’s no such thing as good or bad luck. Everything fits and works together, like a big machine. It’s all part of the same thing, all part of the Pattern.”
He broke, off, tilting his head to listen. Outside, it had gone silent. He turned to Jacob again.
“There’s a reason for it all, for everything,” he went on. “That’s what the Pattern is — it’s the reason. You’ve just got to be able to see it, that’s all. Scientists say everything’s made out of the same stuff, all these little... little bits. They think they’ve found out what the smallest bit is, but then they realise there’s something smaller. So that means that you, me, this floor, that desk — everything — is all connected. And if it’s all connected then what happens to one thing or person, even if it’s on the other side of the world, it’s still part of everything else. Part of us. It still affects us, even though we don’t know it.
“There’s all this...” He frowned, locking his splayed fingers together. “...this meshing going on, all the time. Everything interlocks. So long as the Pattern’s in sync it’s okay. But sometimes you can go out of sync with it, and then...” He clenched his hands together in a double fist. “Things break. Like those wrecks out there. Each one’s sort of... frozen.” He savoured the word.
“They’re like recordings. The Pattern’s there, in each bit of them, and if you could see it you could understand why things happen like they do, you could avoid the breaks. But you’ve got to know how to look.”
He stopped as the loudhailer started up again. He pushed himself across the floor to the window. The sky was lighter now. The wrecks in the yard were no longer just frost-covered shadows. Through the mirror he could see the bastards still weren’t doing anything on the far side of the barricade. Just mouthing off.
He went back to the desk. Steven was rocking again. Kale held his son and rocked with him.
“When you came back it was a sign that I was getting close to seeing it. Things were falling back into place again, I was getting back into sync. Even the way you are is part of it. I didn’t understand at first, but it is. You’re locked in here—” He rubbed his son softly across his forehead. “You see everything as a pattern. I’m trying to see one, and you’re trying to get out of one.”
His expression hardened. “They wouldn’t leave us alone, though. A bit more time, that’s all we needed. Just a bit more time.”
He put his head back, tiredly, then snapped it round at new noise from the yard.