The Whisper Man

They scared me too.

The door opened. Mrs. Shelley appeared and then began looking at the parents and calling children’s names back over her shoulder. Her gaze drifted across Karen and me.

“Adam,” she said, and then moved immediately on to a different boy.

“Uh-oh,” Karen said. “Looks like you’re on the naughty step again.”

“The day I’ve had, that really wouldn’t surprise me.”

“It can feel like you’re a child again yourself, can’t it? The way they talk to you sometimes.”

I nodded. Although I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to put up with it today.

“Anyway, take care of yourself,” Karen said, as Adam reached us.

“I will.”

I watched them go, then waited while the rest of the children were released. At least Dyson was getting a good chance to take precautions, I supposed—and the thought made me scan the faces in the playground myself. Except what was the point? A few of the parents were familiar, but I hadn’t been here long enough to recognize more than a handful. To them I probably looked like a suspicious character myself.

When there was only Jake left, Mrs. Shelley beckoned me over. Jake emerged at her side, once again staring down at the ground. He looked so vulnerable that I wanted to rescue him—just scoop him up and take him somewhere safe. I felt a burst of love for him. Maybe he was too fragile to be ordinary, to fit in and be accepted. But after everything that had happened, so fucking what?

“Trouble again?” I said.

“I’m afraid so.” Mrs. Shelley smiled sadly. “Jake was put on red today. He had to go to see Miss Wallace, didn’t you, Jake?”

Jake nodded miserably.

“What happened?” I said.

“He hit another boy in the class.”

“Oh.”

“Owen started it.” Jake sounded as though he was about to cry. “He was trying to take my Packet of Special Things. I didn’t mean to hit him.”

“Yes, well.” Mrs. Shelley folded her arms and looked at me pointedly. “I’m not entirely sure that’s an appropriate thing for a child your age to be bringing into school in the first place.”

I had no idea what to say. Social convention dictated that I side with the grown-up here, which meant that I should tell Jake that hitting was bad, and that maybe his teacher was right about the Packet. But I couldn’t. This situation suddenly seemed so laughably trivial. The stupid fucking traffic light system. The terror of Miss Wallace. And most of all, the idea of telling Jake off because some little shit had messed with him and, most likely, gotten exactly what he deserved.

I looked at my son, standing there so timidly, probably expecting me to tell him off, when what I actually wanted to say to him was: Well done.

I never had the courage to do that at your age.

I hope you hit him hard.

And yet social convention won out.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said.

“Good. Because it’s not been a fantastic start, has it, Jake?”

Mrs. Shelley ruffled his hair, and social convention lost.

“Don’t touch my son,” I said.

“I’m sorry?”

She moved her hand as though Jake were electric. There was some satisfaction in that, even though my words had come out without any thought and I wasn’t remotely sure what I was going to say next.

“Just that,” I said. “You can’t put him on your traffic light system and then pretend to be nice. To be honest, I think it’s a pretty terrible thing to do to any child, never mind one who’s obviously having problems right now.”

“What problems?” She was flustered. “If there are problems, then we can talk about that.”

I knew it was stupid to be so confrontational, but I still felt a small degree of pleasure in standing up for my son. I looked at Jake again, who was staring at me curiously now, as though he wasn’t sure what to make of me. I smiled at him. I was glad he’d stood up for himself. Glad that he’d made an impact on the world.

I looked back at Mrs. Shelley.

“I will talk to him,” I said. “Because hitting is wrong. So he and I will have a long discussion about better ways to stand up to bullies.”

“Well … that’s good to hear.”

“Fine. Got everything, mate?”

Jake nodded.

“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t think we can go home tonight.”

“Why not?”

Because of the boy in the floor.

But I didn’t say that. The strangest thing was, I thought he knew the answer to his own question already.

“Come on,” I said gently.

Thirty

They’ve found him, Pete thought.

After all this time. They’ve found Tony.

Sitting in his car, he watched the CSI officers entering Norman Collins’s property. At the moment it was the only activity on the street. Despite the gathering police presence, the media had yet to arrive, and whatever neighbors were home were staying out of view for now. One of the CSI team stood on the front step, put his hands in the small of his back, and stretched.

Cuffed and ensconced in the backseat, Collins was watching the activity too.

“You have no authority to do this,” Collins said blankly.

“Be quiet, Norman.”

In the confines of the car, Pete couldn’t avoid smelling the man, but he had no intention of talking to him. As the situation was still developing, he had arrested Collins on suspicion of receipt of stolen goods in the first instance, simply because—given the nature of some of the items in the man’s collection—it was a charge they could likely make stick, and also one that gave them authority to search the man’s home. But, of course, they wanted him for more than that. And no matter how many questions he had, Pete wasn’t about to jeopardize the investigation by interviewing Collins here and now. It had to be done at the department. Recorded and watertight.

“They won’t find anything,” Collins said.

Pete ignored him. Because, of course, they already had, and Collins appeared to be implicated in that. An older set of remains had been discovered. Collins had always been obsessed with Carter and his crimes; he had visited Frank Carter’s friend in prison; he had been stalking the house where the second body had been found. Collins had known the body was there—Pete was certain of it. But more importantly, while official identification would come in time, he was also sure that the remains belonged to Tony Smith.

After twenty years, you’ve been found.

All else aside, the development should have brought a sense of relief and closure, because he had been searching for the boy for so long. But it didn’t. He couldn’t stop thinking of all those weekend searches, combing through hedgerows and woodlands many miles from here, when the whole time Tony had been lying far closer to home than anyone imagined.

Which meant there must have been something Pete had missed twenty years ago.

He looked down at the tablet on his lap.

God, he wanted a drink right now—and wasn’t it strange how that worked? People often thought of alcohol as a buffer against the horrors of the world. But Tony Smith’s body had been found, and it was more than possible that the man responsible for Neil Spencer’s murder was in custody, sitting behind him right now, and yet the urge to drink was stronger than ever. There were always so many reasons to drink, though. Only ever one real reason not to.