Tick... TOCK-tick...

By the time the Police turned up later that morning, Janet and Davey had already scoured every inch of the areas they knew the little boy liked to go. They returned to their empty houses cold and tired, empty-handed and miserable. Davey persuaded Janet to try and sleep while they waited for the police to come.

The Police Inspector, a particularly loathsome rotund character called Smailes, had been grumpy and non-committal on the phone, but eventually agreed to send his sergeant round. Davey was still sitting by the window with his head in his hands when several uniforms came knocking at his front door just before lunchtime. He jumped up, and having made sure that everything was still hidden away, submitted grumpily to their clumsy interrogation.

The Sergeant questioned the old man for several long, frustrating hours. Davey sat in obstinate silence, watching the short, ugly balding man march angrily up and down in his kitchen. The sound of cupboard doors slamming and drawers being emptied filtered through the floor.

Sergeant Prynn was convinced Davey knew something about the boy. Having achieved the lofty post of Police Sergeant in a small country village, he had become quite unbearably drunk with power, power he did not hesitate to abuse at the slightest provocation. His questioning was blunt and unimaginative, and Davey had no trouble misdirecting his persistent ignorance. The man really was a piece of work. Not one person in the village had a kind word to say about him, even Janet, and she had the most gentle soul Davey knew. The Sergeant's unfortunate appearance had plagued him all his life, and Janet had once said he felt the world owed him for it.

Prynn hoisted up his trousers, trying to look imposing.

'For God's sake Davey,' Prynn said, and Davey winced, 'we've known each other how long now? Twenty years? The lad comes here every night and you tell him stories. What story did you tell him yesterday?' The old man's unfocused gaze wandered over a cracked tile in the floor, following a trail of ants leading under the dusty cupboards. There was an almighty crash from the bedroom followed by muffled shouting and laughter.

'He ain't here,' he whispered.

'Oh come on! You must have told him something, everybody knows the lad ain't right in the head, Lord knows what could set him off!'

'The boy's not like that, aye he's different, but-'

'How different? So different my son comes home from school every bleedin' day with a new story? So different that the coppers have a special file on the lad? Smailes has lost count of the number of parents he's had to placate coz William Speers punched this kid or upset that kid or just been so goddamn weird that they've had to stick him in a room on his own!'

Against his better judgement, Davey found himself rising to the bait.

'Nobody understands him, that's all,' he said crossly. 'The other kids, all they hear is what their parents say and that ain't nothing but a bunch of old wive's tales and urban myths.'

'Urban myths?' the Sergeant sneered. 'Did you see what he did to the Gibson boy?'

'Sounded like that particular little thug deserved everything he got,' Davey said. He could remember quite clearly the little figure running home, shirt drenched in blood. Of course they conveniently forgot the years of torture Bobby Gibson had subjected Billy to. And the rest. The time he was practically thrown down the school steps for no apparent reason, the weeks of running round the playing fields as punishment for reacting to the constant jibes and sticking up for himself for once.

Yes, the Gibson thug had come off worse - there's another one with a permanent disfigurement - but it had taken weeks to get the little boy back on track. Long evenings teaching him about the universe and his place in it. That had been the day the Shadow had first descended upon the village and the two kindred spirits had clung even more desperately to each other ever since.

The Sergeant grabbed the old man by the shoulders and shook him.

'Listen, Davey,' he hissed, 'you know what they're like round here, you know what they all think! You got to help me.' Davey looked calmly back at him, noting the element of fear in the sergeant's voice, and didn't say a word. He'd had worse than this. A year ago some idiotic young thugs had tried to mug the old man when he was leaving the village pub one Friday night. One of them was still in a coma, and the other would never walk properly again. Davey had walked calmly into the Police Station without a scratch, to report an 'unfortunate incident'. He had made a point of graciously electing not to press charges, but simply shrugged and suggested they must have tripped over each other in their eagerness to get home.

'You have to give me something, the boy is not safe out there. I don't want to see anybody get hurt!'

'Least of all you, hey Prynn?' said Davey with a wry smile. 'Always looking after number one, aren't you? What's Smailes got on you this time? Not long for the force was what I heard, you been caught with his daughter again?'

The Sergeant's hand cracked across the old man's face, causing a thin trickle of blood to pour from his nose.

'You better look out an' all, old man,' he muttered dangerously, but he took a step back and looked a little uncertainly at the door, checking it was still open in case he had to run for it. Davey slowly wiped the blood from his lip and began to smile.

They had reached the end of this little dance.

Tick... TOCK-tick...

'You don't understand, Prynn. Nobody does and nobody ever will. That little boy doesn't see the world the same way we do and he understands it more than any of us.' He raised his head and stopped Prynn's sneer with a steady look that made the sweating sergeant feel as if his very soul was under inspection. 'William Speers knows more about our world than you will ever know.' The old man added quietly.

Prynn barely suppressed a shiver, then regained control of himself and leaned down with his hands on either side of the old man. The overpowering stench of kippers and coffee and nervous perspiration washed over Davey as the sergeant's pitted red face drew close to his.

'Oh yeah? So how does 'e see it then?' he snarled, 'Pray enlighten me, my good man, then maybe we can find the little bugger before 'e gets hisself in some real trouble 'ay?' Davey wished the man would just go now, organise a search, something, just leave and let him get on with doing something useful.

'We are just wasting time now, Prynn. Don't be a fool'

The Sergeant threw up his hands in despair.

'You're the fool, Davey.' For a while he looked thoughtfully at the stubborn old man and began to speak again, but something in Davey's glare made him pause. He took a lingering inquisitive look around the kitchen and then whirled on his heel, storming out of the room. He shouted angrily up the stairs to his men, who had all stopped smashing things about in order to listen to the argument below.

'Time to go lads, it seems the boy ain't here. Let's get this search dealt with and fast, if any of you bastards want to catch the game this afternoon!'

Davey watched the barely visible golden pendulum inside the grandfather clock slicing away the day with its loud arrhythmical clunking. He ran his eyes over the ornate facade, following the complex geometric patterns leading up to and around the beautiful glass face. The workings were clearly visible, shiny as the day they had come out of Davey's workshop over thirty years before, even though the rest of the clock was covered in a thick layer of dust.

When he was sure he was finally alone, Davey walked over to the timepiece, tenderly brushed the cobwebs away from the lock and reached into his shirt pocket for a little key, as decorative as the clock itself. The lock was stiff and rusty and for a moment he thought he no longer had the strength, but it eventually gave with a painful screech, as if some long imprisoned demon had finally been released.

Tick...TOCK-tick...

The large door swung open with a faint hiss and a blast of stale air. Davey reached out a shaking hand to grasp the pendulum.

Tick...

The clock stopped.