The Whisper Man

She drank the wine and poured another.

Having spoken to Tom, and knowing what she did now, she imagined getting drunk probably wasn’t what Pete would have wanted. But he would also have understood. In fact, she could imagine the understanding look he would be giving her if he could see her right now—it would be just like some of the others he’d given her. One that said: I’ve been there, and I get it, but it’s not something we can talk about, can we?

He’d understand, all right. The Whisper Man case had taken up the last twenty years of his life. After everything that had happened, she imagined it might end up doing the same to her if she wasn’t careful. Perhaps that was all right, though—maybe that was the way it was even meant to be. Some investigations stayed with you, sinking their claws in and hanging on, so that you would always have to drag them behind you no matter how hard you tried to dislodge them. Before this, she had always imagined she would be impervious to that—that she would be a climber like Lyons, not weighed down the way Pete had been—but she knew herself a little better now. This was something she was going to be carrying for a long time. That was the kind of cop it had turned out she was. Not the sensible kind at all.

So be it.

She downed the wine and poured a third.

There were positives to cling to, of course, and despite everything, it was important to do that. Jake Kennedy had been found in time. Francis Carter was in prison. And she would always be the woman who had caught him. She had worked herself to the bone, doing everything she could, and she had not been found wanting. When the hour had come, she had filled every fucking second of it.

Eventually, she steeled herself and opened the letter. She was drunk enough by then not to care anymore what Frank Carter might have to say. What did he matter? Let the fucker write what he wanted. His words would bounce off her, and he would still be rotting where he was afterward, and she would still be here. It wasn’t like with Pete. Carter had nothing to hold over her. No way of hurting her.

A single sheet of paper, almost entirely empty.

If Peter can still hear, Carter had written, tell him thank you.

Seventy

Francis sat in his cell, waiting.

He had spent these two weeks in prison in a state of anticipation, but something in the world had clicked today, and he had known that it was finally time. Past lights-out, he was sitting patiently on his bunk in the darkness, still fully dressed, his hands resting on his thighs. He listened to the metallic echoes and the catcalls of the other convicts gradually dying away around him. He stared almost blindly at the rough brickwork of the opposite wall.

Waiting.

He was a grown man, and he was not afraid.

They had done their best to make him so, of course. When he’d first been brought to the prison, on remand and still unconvicted, the guards had been professional but also either unable or unwilling to hide their hatred for him. Francis had killed a little boy, after all, and—perhaps even worse in their eyes—a police officer. The body search had been overly robust. He had been allowed to keep his own clothes, but had been confined to a single cell and not allowed to mix with the other prisoners. The latter was allegedly for his own protection, but there had been frequent bangs and clatters against his door, threats hissed and whispered from the walkway outside, and beyond the occasional call to knock it off, the guards had sounded bored and done little to stop it. Francis thought they enjoyed it.

Let them.

He waited. It was warm in the cell, but his skin was singing, his body was trembling slightly. But not with fear.

Because he was a grown man. And he was not afraid.

The first time he had seen his father was a week ago, in the prison canteen. Even at mealtimes Francis was kept separate from the other inmates, and so he had been seated at a table by himself, with a guard watching over him as he ate the slop that had been provided. Francis thought they gave him the most disgusting portions they could, but if that were the case then the joke was on them. He had eaten much worse. And he had survived far harsher treatment than this. Spooning up a mouthful of cold mashed potato, he had told himself for the hundredth time that this was all just a test. Whatever they threw at him, he would endure. He would earn what—

And then he had turned his head and seen his father.

Frank Carter walked through the door to the canteen as if he owned the whole prison, ducking slightly, his presence immediately immense in the hall. A mountain of a man. The guards, most of them shorter than him by a head, kept a respectful distance. A group of other inmates flanked him, all of them wearing orange prison uniforms, but his father stood out among them, clearly the leader of the group. He did not appear to have aged. To Francis, his father seemed almost supernaturally large and powerful, as though, if he wanted, he could walk through the walls of the prison and emerge unscathed, covered with dust.

As though he could do anything.

“Hurry up, Carter.”

The guard prodded him in the back. Francis ate the mash, thinking that the man could soon be made to regret doing that. Because his father was king in here, and that made Francis royalty. As he ate, he stole surreptitious glances over at the table where his father was holding court. The prisoners there were laughing, but it was too far away for Francis to tune out the other noises and hear what they were saying. His father wasn’t laughing, though. And while Francis thought some of the others occasionally looked his way, his father never did. No—Frank Carter just ate quickly, occasionally dabbing at his beard with a napkin but otherwise staring straight ahead of him as he chewed, as though he had serious business on his mind.

“I said hurry up.”

In the intervening days, Francis had seen Carter on a handful of other occasions, and each time it was the same. He was impressed anew by the size of the man—always towering over the figures around him, like a father surrounded by children. And each time he had seemed entirely unaware of Francis. Unlike the coterie of fawning men around him, he never even looked in Francis’s direction. But Francis felt him constantly. Lying alone in his cell at night, his father was a solid presence, throbbing somewhere just out of reach beyond the thick door and the steel walkways.

The anticipation had built steadily until, today, he had known the moment was coming.

I am a grown man, Francis thought now.

And I am not afraid.

The prison had fallen as quiet as it ever did. There were still distant noises, but his own cell was so silent that he could hear himself breathing.

He waited.

And waited.

Until, finally, he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway outside, the sound simultaneously both cautious and excited. Francis stood up, his heart beating with hope, listening more carefully now. It was more than one person. There was soft laughter followed by hushing sounds. The rattling of keys. Which made sense—his father would have access to anything he wanted in here.

But there was also something almost taunting about the noise.

Outside the cell, someone whispered his name.

Fraaaaancis.

A key turned in the lock.

And then the door opened.

Frank Carter stepped into the cell, the solid bulk of the man filling the doorway. There was just enough light for Francis to be able to see his father’s face, to see the expression there, and—

And—

He was a child again.