The Whisper Man

“It’s okay. Just reminding you.”

It had been nearly two weeks since my injuries at the hands of George Saunders, a man I now knew had once been called Francis Carter. I still wasn’t sure how close I’d come to dying that day. I couldn’t even remember most of it. A lot of what happened that morning was a blur, as though the panic I had been experiencing had smeared it all away and stopped me from retaining it. The first day in the hospital was much the same; my life only swam back into focus slowly. I was left now with bandages across one side of my body, an inability to put my weight down properly on that foot, and a handful of impressions that were little more than memories of a dream. Jake shouting for me; the desperation I had felt; the need to reach him.

The fact that I had been ready to die for him.

He hugged me now, very gently. Even so, I had to do my best not to wince. I was grateful that he didn’t need me to carry him up and down the stairs in this house. After what had happened, I’d been worried he might be more scared than ever, and that the behavior might return, but the truth was that he’d dealt with the horrors of that day far better than I’d imagined. Perhaps better than I had.

I hugged him back as best I could. It was all I could ever do. And then, after he’d clambered back in, I stood in the doorway, watching him for a moment. He looked so peaceful in bed, warm and safe, with the Packet of Special Things resting on the floor beside him. I hadn’t told him that I had looked inside it, or what I had found there, or the truth about the little girl. That was something else that—for the moment at least—I didn’t have the words for.

“Good night, mate. I love you.”

He yawned.

“Love you too, Daddy.”

The stairs were hard for me right now, so after I turned off the light I went into my own room for a while, waiting for him to go to sleep. I sat on the bed and opened my laptop, turning my attention to the most recent file and reading what was there.

Rebecca.

I know exactly what you’d think about that, because you were always so much more practical than me. You’d want me to get on with my life. You’d want me to be happy.

And so on. It took me a moment to understand what I’d written, because I hadn’t touched the document since that final night in the safe house, which seemed like a lifetime ago now. It was about Karen—how I felt guilty for having feelings for her. That also seemed very distant. She had come to see me in the hospital. She’d taken Jake to school for me and helped to look after him as I gradually recuperated. There was a growing closeness between us. What happened had brought us together, but it had also knocked us off a more predictable track, and that kiss hadn’t happened yet. But I could still feel it there waiting.

You’d want me to be happy.

Yes.

I deleted everything apart from Rebecca’s name.

My intention before had been to write about my life with Rebecca, the grief I felt over her death, and the way the loss of her had affected me. I still wanted to do that, because it felt like she would be an important part of whatever I did write. She didn’t end when her life did because, even without the existence of ghosts, that’s simply not the way things work. But I realized now that there was so much more, and that I wanted to write about all of it. The truth about everything that had happened. Mister Night. The boy in the floor. The butterflies. The little girl with the strange dress.

And the Whisper Man, of course.

It was a daunting prospect, because it was all such a jumble, and there was also so much I didn’t know and perhaps never would. But then again, I wasn’t sure that in itself was a problem. The truth of something can be in the feeling of it as much as the fact.

I stared at the screen.

Rebecca.

Only one word, and even that was wrong. Jake and I had moved to this house for a fresh start, and as much as Rebecca was an integral part of the story, I realized it shouldn’t be about her. That was the whole point. My focus needed to be elsewhere now.

I deleted her name.

Jake, I typed.

There is so much I want to tell you, but we’ve always found it hard to talk to each other, haven’t we?

I hesitated.

So I’ll have to write to you instead.

That was when I heard Jake whispering.

I sat completely still, listening to the silence that followed the noise, and which now seemed to fill the house more ominously than before. Seconds ticked by—long enough for me to begin to believe I had imagined the sound. But then it came again.

In his room on the other side of the hall, Jake was talking very quietly to someone.

I put the laptop to one side and stood up carefully, then made my way out into the hall as silently as I could. My heart was sinking a little. Over the last two weeks, there had been no sign at all of the little girl or the boy in the floor, and although I was happy to let Jake be himself, I had been relieved about that. I didn’t relish the possibility of them returning now.

I stood in the hallway, listening.

“Okay,” Jake whispered. “Good night.”

And then nothing.

I waited a little longer, but it was clear that the conversation was over. After a few more seconds, I walked across the hall and stepped into his room. There was enough light from behind me to see that Jake was lying very still in his bed, entirely alone in the room.

I moved over to the bed.

“Jake?” I whispered.

“Yes, Daddy?”

He sounded barely there.

“Who were you talking to just now?”

But there was no reply, beyond the gentle rise and fall of the covers over him, and the steady sound of his breathing. Perhaps he had just been half asleep, I thought, and talking to himself.

I tucked the covers over him a little better, and was about to head back to the door when he spoke again.

“Your daddy read that book to you when you were young,” he said.

For a moment I said nothing. I just stared down at Jake, lying there with his back to me. The silence was ringing now. The room suddenly felt colder than it had before, and a shiver ran through me. Yes, I thought. He probably did. It hadn’t been a question, though, and there was no way Jake could have known. I didn’t even remember it happening myself. But, of course, I’d told Jake the book was a childhood favorite of mine, so I supposed it was a natural assumption for him to make. It didn’t mean anything.

“He did,” I told Jake quietly. “Why did you say that?”

But my son was already dreaming.

Sixty-nine

The letter was waiting for Amanda when she got home, but she didn’t open it straightaway.

It was obvious from the HMP Whitrow stamping who it was going to be from, and she was unwilling to face that right now. Frank Carter had haunted Pete for twenty years—taunting him; playing with him—and she was damned if she was going to read him gloating about that on the day Pete died. Not that Carter could have known about that when he sent this, of course—but then, the man seemed to know everything somehow.

Fuck him, though. She had better, more important things to do.

She left the letter on the dining room table, poured herself a large measure of wine, and then raised the glass.

“Here’s to you, Pete,” she said quietly. “Safe journey.”

And then, despite herself, she started crying—which was ridiculous. She’d never been prone to tears. Had always taken pride in being calm and dispassionate. But the investigation had changed her. And there was nobody here to see it right now, she supposed, so she decided it was fine to let herself go. It felt good. She wasn’t even crying for Pete, she realized after a while, so much as allowing all the emotion of the past few months to come pouring out. Pete, yes. But also Neil Spencer. Tom and Jake Kennedy. All of it. It was as though she had been holding her breath for weeks, and the sobbing now was a deep exhalation she had desperately needed.