The Whisper Man

But there was also a small part of him that knew he made Daddy’s life very difficult indeed. That he was often a distraction rather than a help. He thought about how Daddy had gone out without him tonight. And he wondered if, wherever Daddy was right now, he might even be feeling glad he didn’t have Jake to bother him anymore.

No.

Daddy was going to find him.

Finally, Jake opened his eyes. The room was pitch-black now, apart from the little girl, who was standing by the bed, perfectly illuminated. She was as bright as a candle flame, but in a way where the light didn’t leave her edges and reveal anything around her.

“What are we doing, Jake?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“What are we being?”

Now he understood.

“Brave,” he whispered back. “We’re being brave.”

Fifty-six

I lurched awake, immediately disorientated and confused by my surroundings. The room around me was dark and unfamiliar and full of strange shadows. Where was I? I had no idea, only that it wasn’t right for me to be here. That wherever this was, I was supposed to be somewhere else, and that I desperately needed to be—

Karen’s living room.

I remembered now. Jake was missing.

I sat very still on the couch for a moment, my heart beating hard.

My son had been taken.

The idea seemed unreal, but I knew it was true, and the tendrils of panic that brought were like a shot of adrenaline, knocking the leftover dregs of sleep away. How had I fallen asleep in this state? I was exhausted, but the terror humming inside me right now was already almost too much to bear. Perhaps I had been so tired and broken that my body had simply shut down for a while.

I checked my phone. It was nearly six o’clock in the morning, so I hadn’t been asleep for long. Karen had gone to bed in the early hours. She’d been adamant about staying up with me to wait for news, but had also been so wiped out by the evening’s events that I’d finally convinced her that one of us should grab some rest. Before she went upstairs, she’d told me to wake her up if there were any developments. There had been no messages or missed calls since. The situation hadn’t changed.

Except that Jake had now been with whoever had taken him for a little while longer.

I stood up, flicked on the light switch, and began pacing back and forth across the living room. It felt like if I didn’t move, then my feelings would overwhelm me. The aching need to be with Jake kept smacking up against the knowledge that I couldn’t, and my heart was twisting and contorting inside me from the tension of that.

I kept picturing his face, the image so vivid that when I closed my eyes I imagined I could reach out and touch the soft skin of his cheek. He must be so scared right now, I knew. He would be lost and bewildered and terrified. He would be wondering where I was and why I hadn’t found him.

If he was anything at all anymore.

I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. DI Beck had told me last night that they were going to find him, and I had to allow myself to believe her. Because if not—if he was dead—then there was nothing beyond that. It would be the end of the world: a hammer blow to the head of life, scrambling all coherent thought. After that, there would only ever be static.

He is alive.

I imagined he was calling out to me, and that somehow I could hear it in my heart. But it didn’t feel like imagination, more like his actual voice, crying out on a station I was almost but not quite tuned in to. He was alive. There was no way I could know that, but there had been so many inexplicable events that was it really so impossible?

It didn’t matter if it was.

He was alive. I could still feel him, so he had to be.

And so I formed the words in my head clearly and precisely, and then threw them out from me as hard as possible, hoping the message might reach him. That he might receive it in his own heart and feel the truth of it.

I love you, Jake.

And I am going to find you.

* * *

The house came to life shortly afterward.

Karen had told me to help myself to anything in the kitchen. I was leaning on the counter in there, drinking black coffee and watching the dawn light creasing at the horizon, when the floorboards began creaking overhead. I set the kettle to boil again. A few minutes later, Karen came down, already dressed, but still looking exhausted.

“Anything?” she said.

I shook my head.

“You’ve not called them?”

“Not yet.” I was reluctant to. For one thing, without me bothering them, they could concentrate on finding Jake. For another, it also meant I didn’t have to hear anything I might not want to. “I will, but if there’d been anything they would have called already.”

The kettle clicked off. Karen spooned instant coffee into a mug.

“What have you told Adam?” I said.

“Nothing. He knows you’re here and that you slept on the couch, but I haven’t said anything else.”

“I’ll stay out of the way.”

“You don’t have to.”

Even so, I kept to the kitchen after Adam came downstairs. Karen made him his breakfast and he ate it watching television in the living room. Outside the kitchen window the day was already brightening. A new morning. I listened half-heartedly to whatever program was playing in the other room, amazed by how life was carrying on. How it always does. You only notice how astonishing that is when a part of you gets left behind.

Karen left me a key before she left with Adam.

“What time is the liaison officer getting here?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

She put a hand on my arm. “Call them, Tom.”

“I will.”

She looked at me for a moment, her face sad and serious, then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

“I’ll take the car. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay.”

When the front door closed, I fell back down on the couch. My phone was there, and yes, I could call the police, but I was sure that DI Beck would have been in touch if there had been any news, and I didn’t want to be told what I already knew. That Jake was still out there. That he was still in danger. And so instead I reached out for the item I’d brought with me from the house. My son’s Packet of Special Things.

Even if I couldn’t be with him physically, I could think of one way I could at least feel closer to him. I was conscious of the weight and importance of what I was holding. Jake had never told me I couldn’t look inside it, but he hadn’t needed to. His collection was for him, not for me. He was old enough to be entitled to his own secrets. And so, however tempted I had sometimes been, I had never violated that trust.

Forgive me, Jake.

I opened the clasp.

I just need to feel you close to me.

Fifty-seven

When Francis woke up, the house was silent.

For a while he lay very still in bed, staring at the ceiling and listening. No sound at all. No movement that he could detect either. But he could sense the boy’s presence directly above him, and the house felt fuller as a result. There was a feeling of potential to it.

There is a child up there.

The peace and quiet were encouraging, because of course that was how things should be. It meant that Jake understood the situation and was happy with it. Perhaps he was even excited to be in his new home.