The Whisper Man

He didn’t reply. She could imagine him thinking it over. Torn between his determination to help Jake and the authority in her voice.

“Tom? Let’s not make this any worse.”

“Okay.”

He hung up.

Damn it. She wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not, but she supposed there was nothing she could do about it for now. In the meantime, she pinged a message back to Sharon, relaying her instructions, and then leaned back in her chair and tried to rub some life into her face.

Another report was delivered to her desk. She opened her eyes again to find more useless witness statements. None of the neighbors had seen or heard anything. Somehow, Francis Carter—or David Parker, or whatever he was calling himself—had walked into a house, committed the attempted murder of an experienced officer, abducted a child, and disappeared without attracting any attention whatsoever. The luck of the devil. Literally.

But not just luck, of course. Twenty years ago, he might have been a fragile, vulnerable little boy, but it was clear that the years since had seen him grow into a disturbed and dangerous man. One who was good at moving unnoticed and undetected.

She sighed.

The school, then, for what it was worth.

Let’s take another look.

Sixty

Go back to Karen Shaw’s house.

For a moment, it had felt like I might. DI Beck was police, after all, and my instinct was to do what the police told me. And her words had stung me. On top of every other way I’d failed, there was too much that I hadn’t told the police, and the fact I’d held back on information at the time to protect Jake didn’t change the fact that I could have prevented this.

Which meant he was missing because of me.

I couldn’t blame Beck for not taking me seriously in light of that, but she hadn’t seen what Jake had drawn. Someone had made that picture for him to copy, and they had done so recently.

And why had Jake kept it?

What was so special about it?

I remembered what had happened after that first day. The argument we’d had. The words he’d read on my computer screen. The distance between us. I could only think of one explanation for why that picture had ended up in his Packet of Special Things, and it was that Jake had decided to keep it because someone had shown him the kindness and support that I hadn’t.

And it was that thought that made my decision for me.

* * *

I made it to the school just in time. The doors were still open, and there were a few parents and children milling around in the playground. I’d been considering going to the office—and would have, if necessary—but the office had a security door that separated it from the rest of the school. Here, I could get straight in if I needed to.

I ran through the gates, my heart pounding, straight past Karen, who was just leaving.

“Tom—”

“A minute.”

Mrs. Shelley was standing by the open door, the last of the children trailing in past her. She looked alarmed at the sight of me. I imagined I looked as frantic as I felt.

“Mr. Kennedy—”

“Who drew this?” I unfolded the sheet of paper and showed her the picture of the butterfly. “Who drew it?”

“I don’t—”

“Jake is missing,” I said. “Do you understand? Someone has taken my son. Jake came home with this picture after his first day of school. I need to know who drew it.”

She shook her head. I was babbling too much information for her to process, and I fought down the urge to grab her and shake her and try to make her understand how important this was, and then I realized Karen was standing beside me, gently resting her hand on my arm.

“Tom. Try to calm down.”

“I am calm.” My gaze didn’t leave Mrs. Shelley as I tapped the picture of the butterfly. “Who drew this for Jake? Was it another child? A teacher? Was it you?”

“I don’t know!” She was flustered. I was scaring her. “I’m not sure. It might have been George.”

My grip tightened on the paper.

“George?”

“He’s one of our teaching assistants. But—”

“Is he here now?”

“He should be.”

She glanced back, and that was all the time it took for me to move past her into the corridor beyond.

“Mr. Kennedy!”

“Tom—”

I ignored them both, glancing sideways into the cloakroom, where the children from Jake’s class were hanging up their things—where Jake should have been—and then I started running, rounding the corner ahead and entering the main hall, which was filled with children traipsing toward the classrooms on all sides. I dodged between them, then stopped in the middle, the hall spinning around me as I looked here and there, not knowing which room might be Jake’s, and where George might be. I was in trouble here, I knew that deep down, but it didn’t matter because if I didn’t find Jake my life was over anyway, and if George was here, then he couldn’t be hurting—

Adam.

I recognized Karen’s son putting his water bottle on a table at the far end of the hall, then walking through a door. I ran across, noticing one of the receptionists and an older man, the groundskeeper, heading down a far corridor toward the hall. Mrs. Shelley must have called ahead. An intruder in the school would warrant that, I guessed.

“Mr. Kennedy,” the receptionist shouted.

But I reached the classroom before they did, moving quickly inside, still just about self-aware enough not to push the children in front of me out of the way. The room was a cacophony of color, the walls painted yellow and adorned with what seemed like hundreds of laminated sheets: multiplication tables; pictures of fruit and numbers; small, cartoonish figures performing tasks with their occupations written beside them. I looked across the sea of tiny tables and chairs, searching for an adult. An older woman was standing at the far end of the room, staring at me in confusion, clutching a register on a clipboard, but she was the only grown-up I could see.

And then I felt a hand on my arm.

I turned to find the old groundskeeper standing beside me, a firm expression on his face.

“You can’t be in here.”

“All right.”

I fought the urge to shake his hand off me. There was no point—whoever George was, he wasn’t here. But the frustration at that made me shake his hand off anyway.

“All right.”

Outside the classroom, the groundskeeper pointedly closed the door. Mrs. Shelley was walking toward me, her phone in her hand. I wondered if she’d already used it to call the police. If so, maybe they’d start taking me seriously now.

“Mr. Kennedy—”

“I know. I shouldn’t be in here.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“Put me on yellow, then.”

She started to say something, but then stopped herself. More than anything else, she looked concerned.

“You said Jake is missing?”

“Yes,” I said. “Someone took him last night.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what … obviously I understand that you’re upset.”

I wasn’t sure she could. The panic was like a live wire inside me now.