Into the Darklands Read Online Free Page B

said, glancing around nervously. Roy was talking about how he’d sexually offended against his 10-year-old daughter.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Not as bad as these guys?’
    ‘Well…no.’
    Again, at the time I didn’t know the game that was being played, but Andy did. It was the me-and-them game. I’m not like them. I did a stupid thing, but it wasn’t as bad as them.
    ‘So what did you do?’
    ‘I just touched her a little bit.’
    ‘Just?’
    ‘Yes.’ Roy had this slightly indignant number going on. He clearly wasn’t used to being challenged. What he didn’t know wasthat Andy was just warming up.
    ‘Was she relieved?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Was she relieved?’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Roy’s voice had a real pissy tinge to it now. He was getting riled.
    ‘Was she relieved that you just touched her?’
    ‘What are you getting at?’
    ‘Well, you said that you just touched her. Like it was somehow better than what these other guys have done.’
    ‘But that’s all I did.’
    Andy shrugged. ‘That’s not so bad then, is it? If that’s all you did.’
    Roy paused, probably feeling the ice cracking under his feet. ‘I suppose.’
    ‘Where did you just touch her?’
    Roy swallowed, looking affronted that he should have to answer such personal questions. ‘The vagina.’
    Even then I could feel the air crackling.
    Roy said the word ‘vagina’ in his best man-in-a-suit boardroom voice. I’m not scared of you, he was saying with his confident use of the word. You don’t scare me at all.
    What he didn’t realise is that it wasn’t Andy he should be scared of, it was himself. Roy would be his own undoing.
    ‘How long did you do this to her for?’
    He shrugged. ‘Not long, only a couple of minutes.’
    Andy nodded. ‘Not long, that’s good. What did she do when you touched her?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘That’s right, nothing.’
    ‘Didn’t move? Didn’t speak?’
    ‘No.’ Roy’s voice was clipped and tight. You could tell he was furious. No one talked to him in this way. If this was a boardroom he would have stomped the life out of Andy, but it wasn’t; this was the Darklands, and here different laws applied.
    ‘She was very still?’
    He paused. ‘Yes.’
    Andy nodded. ‘Very still. Was she breathing?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘How was she breathing?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘How was she breathing?’
    ‘I don’t know, just normally I guess. I can’t remember.’
    ‘Show me.’
    Roy frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Show me how she was breathing. Breathe like she was.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘Just try,’ said Andy.
    Roy sat there. ‘This is stupid.’
    Andy didn’t respond.
    Roy frowned again. ‘What?’
    ‘That’s good,’ Andy finally said. ‘Just keep breathing like that.’
    ‘This is stupid,’ Roy repeated, although the boardroom strut was gone now.
    ‘Now close your eyes.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Close your eyes.’
    I remember watching Roy, wondering if he’d do it. The tension between the two of them was immense. To my surprise he did.
    ‘Now,’ said Andy, ‘I just want you to imagine something. I just want you to imagine her lying there, alone. She’s alone and there’sno one to help her, no one to stop it. And you’re touching her, the man who’s supposed to protect her from harm.’ Andy’s voice is soft, hypnotic. ‘She can’t stop this…can’t move…can’t even speak…so she just lies there as you do it…helpless…alone…’
    And in the silence Andy started to breathe, barely audible. A small hitching breath, like a child. Over and over.
    I closed my eyes too, ever the keen researcher, wanting to experience what that would be like for Roy. The silence was absolute. No one moved. There was only the sound of that small hitching breath.
    And even though I knew it was really Andy, I also knew it was the sound of that little girl, and I felt as if she were lying beside me.
    I had to open my eyes again, feeling the air