The Whisper Man

All their hopes and dreams, and look what I’ve gone and done.

Pete pushed Frank Carter’s words out of his head, and stared down in silence for a few seconds, wanting to take in the enormity of the moment. Except he realized that it wasn’t there, no more than Tony Smith himself was present in the empty shell of bones on the gurney. Pete had been held in orbit by this missing little boy for so long, his whole life circling the mystery of his whereabouts. But now that center of gravity was gone and his trajectory felt unaltered.

You search for something, and you find it, and there you are still.

“We found several of these in the box,” Dale said.

Pete turned to see the pathologist leaning over at the waist, hands in his pockets, staring at the cardboard box that Tony Smith had been found in. Moving closer, Pete saw the man’s attention was directed toward a butterfly stuck in the cobwebs there. It was obviously dead, but the colored patterns on its wings remained clear and vivid.

“The corpse moth,” Pete said.

The pathologist looked at him with surprise.

“I never took you for a butterfly fan, Detective.”

“I saw a documentary once.” Pete shrugged. He’d always figured that he watched and read to kill time, and was slightly surprised himself to find some of the knowledge had stuck. “I have a lot of evenings to fill.”

“That I can believe.”

Pete dredged his memory for details. Despite its name, the corpse moth was a butterfly. It was native to the country, but relatively rare, and the program he’d watched had followed a team of eccentric men trailing through fields and hedgerows trying to catch sight of it. They’d found one at the end. The corpse moth was attracted to decaying flesh. Pete himself had never seen one, but ever since watching the documentary, he’d found himself scanning the country lanes and hedgerows he searched on weekends, wondering if their presence might provide some indication that he was looking in the right place.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out to find a message from Amanda. He read it quickly: an update on the case. After a night in the cells, it appeared that Norman Collins had reevaluated his no-comment position and was now prepared to talk to them. She wanted Pete back there as soon as possible.

He put the phone away, but lingered for a moment, looking at the cardboard box in front of him. It was strapped with overlapping layers of brown parcel tape: a container that had clearly been sealed and reopened and sealed again many times over the years. The box would now be sent for forensic analysis in the hope of finding fingerprints. Pete’s gaze moved over its surface now, imagining the invisible hands that might have touched it over the years. He pictured people pressing their fingertips against it, the cardboard a surrogate skin encasing the bones secreted within.

Prized among collectors.

For a moment he wondered if such people had imagined a heartbeat. Or if they had gloried in the absence of one.

Thirty-nine

Seated across from Amanda and Pete in the interview room, Norman Collins’s lawyer sighed heavily.

“My client is prepared to admit to the murder of Dominic Barnett,” he said. “He categorically denies any involvement in the abduction and murder of Neil Spencer.”

Amanda stared at him, waiting.

“However, my client is prepared to make a full and frank statement regarding his knowledge of the remains found on Garholt Street yesterday. He has no desire for you to waste resources on him, potentially endangering another child, and he believes what he has to say may help you locate the individual actually responsible for the killing.”

“Which we very much appreciate.”

Amanda smiled politely, even though she knew bullshit when she heard it. Sitting mutely on the other side of the desk, Collins looked diminished and wounded. He was not a man built for imprisonment, and a night in custody had erased the smugness he’d displayed in here yesterday. The fact that he was finally going to talk brought her little pleasure, because it was clearly motivated by self-interest rather than any desire to save lives. There was no better nature in there; he’d simply had time to realize that talking to them—giving his side of the story—might do him some good in the long run. That it might look better for him if he cooperated and was seen to help.

But now wasn’t the time to show disgust. Not if he really could help.

She leaned back. “So—talk to us, Norman.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“You knew that Tony Smith’s remains were in that garage, didn’t you? Let’s start there.”

Collins was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the table between them, gathering himself. Amanda glanced at Pete, sitting beside her, and saw that he was doing the same. She was worried about him. He seemed more subdued than ever, and had hardly spoken to her after arriving at the department. It seemed like there had been something he was on the verge of telling her, but for some reason he had held it back. This was going to be hard for him, she knew. He’d come straight from viewing what were almost certainly the remains of Tony Smith, a boy he had searched for, for so long, and now he was set to hear the truth about what had happened all that time ago. The years might have hardened him on the surface, but she didn’t want to think of all his old wounds tearing open again.

“I understand what you think of my interests, my hobby,” Collins said quietly. She turned her attention back to him. “And I understand what many people think of them. But the fact remains that I am well respected in my field. And I’ve acquired a reputation over the years as a collector.”

A collector. He made it sound benign—respectable almost—but she had seen details of his collection. What kind of individual was drawn to the material that he had spent so many years acquiring? She pictured Collins and the people like him as rats scurrying around in the dark underbelly of the Internet. Doing their deals and making their plans. Chewing at the wires of society. When Collins looked up at her now, the disgust she felt must have been obvious on her face.

“It’s really no different from interests other people have,” he said defensively. “I learned long ago that my hobby was considered niche by most, and abhorrent by a few. But there are others who share it. And I have proved trustworthy over the years, which has allowed me access to more important pieces than others.”

“You’re a serious dealer?”

“A serious dealer in serious things.” He licked his lips. “And like any such dealings, there are open forums and there are private ones. My interest in the Whisper Man case was well known in the latter. And several years ago I was made aware that a certain … experience might be open to me. Assuming I was willing to pay, of course.”

“What was this experience?”

He stared back at her for a moment, and then answered as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“To spend time with Tony Smith.”

A moment of silence.

“How?” she said.

“In the first instance, I was told to visit Victor Tyler in prison. Everything was arranged through Tyler. Frank Carter knew about it, but he had no interest in being directly involved. The procedure was that Tyler would vet the people who came to him. I was pleased to pass that particular test. Upon receipt of funds delivered to Tyler’s wife, I was directed to an address.” Collins grimaced. “I wasn’t surprised to be sent to Julian Simpson.”