The Whisper Man

“Say sorry,” the little girl told him.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough, Jake. Not good enough at all.”

George was staring down at him very gravely. It looked like he was struggling to control himself, because his hands were trembling. And Jake knew that the drawing was just an excuse. Deep down, George wanted to be angry with him. His hands were trembling because he was trying to decide if this was enough of an infringement to let his anger fly.

He made up his mind.

“And so you’re going to have to be punished.”

And then George became totally still. The costume came away. Jake could see all the goodness and kindness falling away from him, as though they had only ever been pretend, things that could be discarded as easily as pulling off a T-shirt. There was a monster standing in front of him. And he was alone here with it. And it was going to hurt him.

Jake retreated until the backs of his calves were against the small bed.

“I want my daddy.”

“What?”

“Daddy! I want my daddy!”

George started to move closer, but then Jake jumped at the sound of an alarm somewhere in the house below, and George stopped where he was. Very slowly, he turned his head and stared back toward the staircase. The rest of his body remained angled toward Jake.

Not an alarm, Jake realized.

Someone was ringing the doorbell.

Sixty-two

On the second floor, seething with rage, Francis ducked quickly into his bedroom and pulled on a white robe. He was supposed to be sick, after all. He also forced himself to calm down enough to hide the rage he felt. It was good to keep it close to the surface, though. Accessible. He might need it.

The fucking doorbell.

Still ringing. He headed downstairs. It wouldn’t be the police, he decided. If anything ever brought them to his door, their arrival would be considerably less polite than this. He looked out through the peephole in the front door, the bell ringing loudly and incessantly in his ear. The glass gave a fish-eye view of the steps and garden, and he saw Tom Kennedy leaning on the bell, a look of wild determination on his face. Francis recoiled slightly. How the fuck had Kennedy found him? What could have brought him here but not the police?

And why would he even want his son back?

Francis stepped back from the door. There was no need to answer it—surely Kennedy would go away soon. It was madness to think the man might stay there much longer.

And yet the doorbell continued ringing.

Francis thought again about the look on the man’s face, and he wondered if perhaps Kennedy really was insane. If that was what losing a child, even one as blatantly uncared-for as Jake, might do to a man.

Or if perhaps he’d misjudged.

He rested his forehead against the door, bare inches from the man outside now, feeling Kennedy’s presence as a tingle in the front of his skull. Was it possible that Jake was loved, after all? That his father cared about him so much that his abduction had driven him to such extremes? The idea sent an explosion of loss and hopelessness through Francis. It wouldn’t be fair if that was true. None of this was fair. Little boys didn’t matter that much to anyone. He had known it all along deep down, but he was certain of it now. They were worthless. They deserved nothing but—

The bell kept ringing.

“All right,” he called out loudly.

Kennedy must have heard him, but he didn’t relent. Francis walked quickly into the kitchen, selected a small, sharp knife from the draining rack, and slid it into the pocket of the robe. Finally, the bell stopped. Francis put the feeling of loss away inside him and brought the anger back up again, keeping it just out of sight.

Get rid of him.

Deal with the boy.

Then he put on his best face and went back to the door.

Sixty-three

“All “right.”

I was so surprised when I heard the voice from behind the door that I forgot to take my finger off the bell.

I’d given up expecting anyone to answer. By that point it was more that I had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been standing there. I had just become intent on ringing that bell, as though by holding it down I could somehow save Jake.

I stepped back, then turned around and looked at Karen. She was waiting in the car, watching me anxiously, her phone pressed to her ear. She’d insisted on calling the police, so I’d left her with DI Beck’s details. She stared back at me now, shaking her head.

I turned again to the door, with no idea what was going to happen next. I’d been running on adrenaline since looking through Jake’s Packet of Special Things, and now that I was here, I had no idea what the hell I was going to say to George Saunders, or what I was even going to do.

A key in the lock.

The memory of seeing my father last night came back to me. The injuries that had been inflicted on him. He had been a fit, capable man, and yet whoever had attacked him had overwhelmed him easily. He had been unarmed, and perhaps taken by surprise, but even so. What use was I going to be?

I hadn’t thought this through well enough.

The door opened.

I expected it to be on a chain, with Saunders only half visible, perhaps peering guiltily out. But he opened it fully and confidently, and I was immediately taken aback by the sight of him. He was average-looking in every way, and while I guessed he was in his twenties, he looked much younger. There was a soft, childlike sense to him. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone appear so harmless.

“George Saunders?” I said.

He nodded sleepily, then pulled the white robe he was wearing more tightly around him. His hair was messy and unkempt, and the expression on his face suggested that he had only just woken up, and was both bewildered and slightly irritated about it.

“You work at Rose Terrace School, right?”

He squinted at me.

“Yeah. Right.”

“My son goes there. I think you might teach him.”

“Oh. Well, no, I don’t teach. I’m just an assistant.”

“Year three. Jake Kennedy.”

“Right. Yeah, I think he’s in my class. But what I meant is, it’s his teacher you’d need to talk to.” He frowned, but more out of sleepy confusion than suspicion, as though the thought had only just occurred to him. “And at the school too. How did you even get my address?”

I looked at him. His face was pale, and he was shivering slightly despite the heat of the morning. He really did look ill. And yes, slightly perturbed by my presence, but not about it being me in particular. Just uneasy about a parent turning up on his doorstep.

“It’s not really about his schoolwork,” I said.

“What is it about, then?”

“Jake is missing.”

Saunders shook his head, not understanding.

“Someone took him,” I said. “Just like Neil Spencer.”

“Oh, Jesus.” He looked genuinely aghast at that. “I’m so sorry. When did this…?”

“Last night.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said again, then closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “That is awful. Awful. I haven’t really had much to do with Jake, but he seems like such a nice kid.”