He was so tired.
But he had so much to do.
He needed to plan for tonight.
To prepare.
As soon as the distant edges of the pain in his head began to dull, Jim slipped into a dreamless sleep.
Hours passed.
When he woke, it was getting dark outside. His headache was gone. He felt rested, refreshed, clear.
Ready.
The smell of cooking food was wafting up from downstairs.
When Jim got to the kitchen, he saw Noreen stirring something on the stove.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Eat.’
He did as he was told.
She served him a steaming plate of roast chicken and then sat in the seat opposite, at the other end of the kitchen table. There was nothing in front of her except for a small glass of water.
A full minute passed where the only sound was the noise of Jim eating.
Then Noreen said, ‘I don’t want to see you tonight, okay?’
Jim stopped, a forkful of chicken paused halfway to his mouth, and looked at her questioningly.
‘When you’re leaving,’ she clarified. ‘I don’t want to see you when you’re … When you’re ready. When you’re dressed.’ She paused. ‘I don’t want to see him. Do you understand me? I don’t want to … To meet him.’
Jim said nothing. He resumed eating.
He found a pair of black sweatpants, a black sweatshirt and a black hooded jacket in the wardrobe. Having double-checked they were free from logos or other identifying marks, he changed into them. He slipped his feet back into his black work boots and tied the laces. He set his mobile phone to silent and put it into the drawer of his bedside table. Then he went downstairs and slipped out the front door, around the side of the house and into the shed. It was nearly midnight.
The mask, gun and gloves were still sitting on the floor where he’d left them the night before. He stashed them in various pockets along with the other items that formed his kit. He crossed the garden and pressed his back against the rear wall of the house, just beside the patio doors. He stole a quick look inside the living room, being careful to remain out of sight.
Noreen was sitting on the couch. Her body was facing him but her head was turned away, towards the television.
He scanned the surrounding houses, checking their windows, making sure each one was either dark or had its curtains drawn. Satisfied, he took out the mask, put it on his head and pulled it down. He pulled on the gloves. He reached inside his jacket and withdrew the gun.
Then he slid open the patio door and slipped inside.
Noreen immediately turned towards the noise and let out an aborted scream when she saw him.
But she didn’t move. She didn’t run.
She stayed sitting on the couch, her body rigid, wide-eyed with fear.
‘Please, Jim,’ she said, her chin trembling. ‘Please don’t …’
He turned to slide the door closed behind him and paused for a moment to admire his reflection in the glass: a tall, broad-shouldered figure dressed all in black. Covered in it, except for the slit in the mask that revealed his eyes.
It had always disguised his identity but now, in doing so, it also disguised his age. Unless you were close enough to see the wrinkles around his eyes and the white hairs in his eyebrows, no one would have any idea what age the man behind the mask was. They would only know that it was a man, stronger and taller and bigger than them, and that if they had seen such a sight before, it was in their nightmares.
The reflection of the living room behind him, a scene of warm domesticity, only seemed to heighten the effect. People were terrified by the idea of masked men appearing at the end of their beds in the dark, but surely seeing one moving silently around your fully lit living room was far more horrifying a prospect.
He turned back around to face Noreen.
He moved towards her.
‘Please, Jim.’ Her voice was a nervous whisper. ‘I asked you not to do this. I said I didn’t want to see. Please.’
He stood over her and waited until Noreen lifted her head and looked up into his face.
Into his eyes.
The only bit of Jim she could actually see.
He raised the gun and touched the cold barrel of it to the side of Noreen’s face. Stroked her with it. Gently. A caress.
‘Please, Jim.’
He traced her jawline with the butt of the gun, then pushed it into the fleshy part of her neck.
She was crying now.
‘Think of Katie, Jim.’
He pushed harder.
‘Please, Jim. Don’t. I’m sorry.’
He leaned down until his mouth was level with her ear and whispered, ‘Who’s Jim?’
Not in his own voice, but in his.
The Nothing Man’s.
Noreen’s whole body began to shake.
It came back then, crashing over him in a ferocious wave. Soaking into his skin. Filling him.
Fuelling him.
The Nothing Man had returned.
And he was ready to end this once and for all.
He straightened up and stepped back. He slipped the gun inside his jacket. He pulled the mask up over his head, folded it up and put it away in a pocket. He pulled off his gloves and stowed them away too.
Noreen looked up at him, scared and uncertain.
‘I’m doing this,’ Jim said, ‘because I was going to do it anyway. You’re not my master. I don’t take orders from you. Now or ever. Do you understand me?’
Noreen nodded.
‘Good.’ Jim moved to go. ‘Don’t wait up.’
He stuck to back roads and secondary routes, avoiding traffic cameras.
The house in Passage West wasn’t in the village proper, but down a narrow lane that turned sharply off the main road on the left-hand side before you got that far.
Jim drove past the turn.
Two hundred yards further down the road was a derelict pub called The Harbour Master. Fifty yards beyond it was a small, unlit lay-by. Jim pulled in there, turned the car around and headed back in the direction he’d come from. When he got to the lane that led to the house, he used it to turn around and come back once again to the lay-by. He had to repeat this move three times before he reached the Harbour Master just as there was a gap in passing traffic. No one saw him turn in there and once he’d parked behind the derelict building, no one passing could see his car from the road.
He killed the engine and settled in to wait.
At 2:00 a.m., he headed towards the Black house on foot, crossing the main road and slipping down the lane. His gun was secured inside his jacket. In the pockets on its outside were his gloves, the mask, the head torch and the shiny new toy he was excited to use.
There was no traffic at all on the lane, no streetlights, no noise. He’d forgotten how, in the countryside, it got actually dark. He nearly tripped in a pothole and, after a couple of minutes, began to feel his bearings slipping away. Was he in the right place? Had he already passed the house? He didn’t think it was quite this far down the lane …
But then he saw the familiar gates and the shadowy shape of the house beyond.
The Black family home looked exactly the same. It stood in the middle of its plot as if it had been absently dropped there, as – to this day – no garden or landscaping had ever shaped the field around it. There was one car parked outside the house, lit by the light over the front door. A small hatchback, grey in colour. Jim presumed it belonged to Eve. All the curtains to the front of the house were drawn but through the glass of the front door he could see a dim glow: the light in the hall was on.