The Whisper Man

She watched the CSIs for a moment. The forensic work was so somber, so thorough, that it felt like the room was already being treated as a murder scene. As though everybody in here knew a truth that she had yet to catch up with.

She went through to the spare room. The walls were lined with bookcases, with several boxes on the floor still to be unpacked. Tom Kennedy was pacing back and forth between them, following an elaborate path, the same way an animal might wear away the ground in an enclosure. Karen Shaw was sitting in a chair by a computer table, holding one elbow, her other hand at her mouth, staring at the floor.

Tom noticed Amanda and came to a stop. She recognized the expression on his face. People dealt with situations like this in different ways—some almost supernaturally calm, others distracting themselves with motion and activity—but in every case, the behavior was about displacement. Right now Tom Kennedy was panicking and struggling to contain it. If he couldn’t move in the direction of his son, then he needed to be moving somewhere. After he stopped walking, his body began to tremble.

“Tom,” she told him, “I know this is difficult. I know this is terrifying for you. But I need you to listen to me and I need you to believe me. We are going to find Jake. I promise you.”

He stared back at her. It was obvious that he didn’t believe her, and perhaps it wasn’t a promise she could keep. But she meant it all the same. The determination was burning inside her. She wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t rest, until she’d found Jake and caught the man who had taken him. Who had taken Neil Spencer before him. Who had hurt Pete so badly.

I am not losing another child on my watch.

“We believe we know who’s taken him, and we’re going to find him. Like I said, I give you my word. Every available officer is focused on hunting this man down and finding your son. We are going to bring him home safe.”

“Who is he?”

“I can’t tell you that right now.”

“My son is alone with him.”

She could tell from his face that right now he was picturing every terrible possibility—that a reel of the worst imaginable horrors was unfolding in his head.

“I know it’s hard, Tom,” she said. “But I also want you to remember that, assuming this is the same man who took Neil Spencer, Neil was well cared for at first.”

“And then murdered.”

She had no answer to that. Instead, she thought about the abandoned apartment she had visited a few hours earlier, and the way Francis Carter had re-created the decorations in his father’s extension. He must have seen the horrors in there as a child, and it seemed that he had never truly escaped that room—that a part of him had remained trapped there, unable to move on. Yes, he had looked after Neil Spencer for a time. But then some darker impulse had emerged, and there was no reason to think he would contain it any better with Jake than he had with Neil. The opposite, in fact—once the dam was broken, killers like this had a tendency to accelerate.

But she was not prepared to entertain that idea right now.

Tom, of course, had no such luxury.

“Why Jake?”

“We don’t know for certain.” The desperation in his question was also familiar to her. Faced with tragedy and horror, it was natural to search for explanations: reasons why the tragedy could not have been prevented, to help ease the pain; or ways in which the horror could have been avoided, serving only to stoke the guilt. “We believe the suspect may have had an interest in this house, the same way that Norman Collins did. It’s likely he discovered your son was living here, and probably decided upon him as a target as a result of that.”

“Fixated on him, you mean.”

“Yes.”

A few beats of silence.

“How is he?” Tom said.

Amanda thought he must still be talking about Jake, but then she realized he was staring past her toward the living room, and understood he was asking after Pete.

“He’s in intensive care,” she said. “That’s the last I’ve heard. His condition is critical, but … well. Pete’s a fighter. If anyone can make it through, then it’s him.”

Tom nodded to himself, as though that resonated with him on some level. Which didn’t make sense, because he had barely known Pete at all. Once again she remembered how pleased Pete had been that afternoon. How suddenly alive he had seemed.

“Why was he here?” she said. “He shouldn’t have been.”

“He was babysitting Jake.”

“Why Pete, though?”

Tom fell silent. She watched him. It was clear that he was considering what to tell her, choosing his words carefully. And suddenly she realized she had seen this expression before too. The tilt of Tom Kennedy’s head. The angle of his jawline. The serious expression. Standing in front of her now, his hollow face illuminated by the light above, Tom Kennedy looked almost exactly like Pete.

Christ, she thought.

But then he shook his head and moved slightly, and the resemblance disappeared.

“He left me his card. He said, if we needed anything, to get in touch. And he and Jake … well. Jake liked him. They liked each other.”

The explanation stumbled to an end, and Amanda continued to stare at him. Although she could no longer see the similarity outright, she hadn’t imagined it. She could press that point, but she decided that it wasn’t important—not right now. If she was correct, then the repercussions of that could be dealt with later. Right now, in fact, she needed to be back at the department, making good on the promise she’d made as best she could.

“Okay,” she said. “What’s going to happen next is that I’m going to leave here, and I’m going to find your son and bring him home.”

“What do I do?”

Amanda glanced back toward the living room. It went without saying that Tom couldn’t stay here overnight.

“You don’t have family in the area, do you?”

“No.”

“You can come to my place,” Karen said. “It’s not a problem.”

She hadn’t spoken until now. Amanda looked at her.

“Are you sure about that?” she said.

“Yes.”

Amanda could tell from Karen’s expression that she understood the severity of the situation. Tom was silent for a moment, considering the offer. Despite Amanda’s reservations about the journalist, she hoped to God he said yes. She could do without the headache of finding him somewhere else to be right now. And it was obvious that he wanted to say yes—that he was a man on the verge of collapse—and so Amanda decided to give him a push.

“Okay, then.” She held out her card. “Those are my details. Direct line. I’ll get a family liaison out to you first thing in the morning anyway, but for now, if you need anything, you call me. I’ve got your number too. Any developments at all, and that includes about Pete, and you’ll hear from me the same minute.”

She hesitated, then lowered her voice slightly.

“The same fucking minute, Tom. I promise you.”

Fifty-four

The day was dead and the night was cool.

The man stood in his driveway, warming his hands on a mug of coffee. The front door of his house was open behind him, the inside dark and silent. The world was so quiet that he imagined he could hear the steam rising from the cup.