THE UNWILLING SON an absolutely gripping mystery thriller that will take your breath away

by Jane Adams

  Ray frowned. ‘You know for sure that she got away from them?’

  Beckett smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘They stopped at red lights and she waited until they changed, then flung the door open and ran off. The car door hit another car in the next lane and the driver demanded they do something about it. It barely marked the paintwork but he was not in the mood to put up with any of it.’

  ‘So presumably you can trace them through their insurance details?’ Ray said.

  ‘If it were that easy,’ Beckett replied. ‘The driver that she hitched the lift from, he calls himself Bill Wyatt, he bunged the man some cash and drove away. The driver of the other car was annoyed enough to report it, but we’ve no idea who this Bill and the woman, Emily or Emma as she called herself, could be. Might be they just didn’t want to get any more involved. Might be something more. We have a mobile phone number for them, from when they phoned Katie’s parents. But the number seems to be unavailable, as they say. The phone’s certainly not been switched on since.’

  Ray sat for a moment thinking about this. ‘What makes them think she wanted to come to Mallingham?’ he said. ‘What made her run away? Are we sure it’s connected?’

  Beckett nodded slowly. ‘Her parents say that she was having nightmares. She dreamed that someone was coming back, but she couldn’t say who. Her mum told us that Katie was scared. Really scared. But she didn’t seem able to explain herself. Apparently she’s barely spoken since the explosion. She does OK at school, writing and such, and has her friends, but she still has problems with talking to people, especially if it’s connected with that night.’

  ‘Someone coming back,’ Ray mused thoughtfully. ‘Do you think she meant Harrison Lee?’

  Beckett shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hoped you might be able to tell me.’

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time Katie eventually stumbled into Mallingham she looked a wreck and she knew it. Drowned rat did not even begin to describe her. She asked for directions twice before she managed to find the police station. Both times people shied away from her as though they feared contamination.

  Katie had had enough. She was tired, hungry, soaking wet and very miserable, and she had made up her mind. She would go to the police station, ask to see someone in charge, explain what she had come for and then let them send her home. As far as she was concerned, she’d done what she had felt compelled to do. Now she just wanted to go home.

  She walked up to the front desk of the station. The vinyl tiles had been newly washed and Katie spread muddy footprints and fat drops of dirty rainwater all over the clean surface. She looked down guiltily at her feet and then up at the desk sergeant, who was glowering at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said hesitantly. Then, ‘I think you might be looking for me.’ She certainly hoped they were.

  The man gave her a funny look and then beckoned her closer. Katie gave one last despairing glance at her feet and the mess she was creating and walked forward. She was shaking with cold now, shivering uncontrollably, soaked right through to her underwear by the torrential rain.

  ‘And who might you be?’ the desk sergeant asked her. ‘And why might we be looking for you?’

  ‘My name is Katie,’ she said, ‘Katie Fellows, and I ran away from home.’

  She looked so pathetic, no one could have failed to take pity on her. The desk sergeant was no exception. He had not long started his shift and he remembered the name Katie Fellows from a note in the daybook. Beckett wanted to talk to her if she turned up, though no one had really thought she would. He called for a WPC and had her find spare clothes, a blanket and a cup of tea, and half an hour later Katie, her hair still wet but feeling somewhat warmer in her borrowed clothes, was sitting in an interview room with Sergeant Emma Thorn, waiting for a call to be put through to her foster parents.

  ‘Your mum said you were having bad dreams,’ Emma Thorn said. ‘That seems like a funny reason for running away from home.’

  Katie nodded. ‘I know it is.’ She swallowed nervously, wondering where to begin. ‘It’s him,’ she said finally. ‘He wants to finish things.’ She shook her head, puzzled as to how to go on, how to explain to this young policewoman. Emma, the second Emma she had met in as many days, but different. She looked confident and calm, and didn’t direct any of those ‘I know what it’s like to be a teenager’ glances at her.

  Emma Thorn looked Katie straight in the eye as though genuinely curious and said, ‘Can you tell me about your dreams?’ She waited a moment and then went on, ‘Or would you rather wait until your mum’s here? I mean, you don’t even know me, do you?’

  Katie sighed. She closed her eyes and wrapped both hands around the mug of tea. She had never felt so tired or so completely ridiculous. All that effort to run away and now she’d handed herself in at the local police station in Mallingham and was likely to be sent home without finding the man who could help her, without achieving any of the things that she’d set out to do. It would have helped, thought Katie, if she had known what those things were to start with.

  Emma Thorn reached across the table and touched her hand. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘At least you’re safe, that’s the main thing.’

  Katie opened her eyes and looked at her. Something in the way the woman had spoken told Katie that she wasn’t the only person on Emma’s mind. ‘Who isn’t safe?’ she asked. ‘Who has he taken this time?’

  * * *

  Since that day he had blocked out the sun, keeping his curtains closed and opening his windows to the world only at night. And he had learned as he grew older to recreate the images, the falling angels reaching out their hands towards the earth, and where once he had to be content with the wings of moths he could now breathe life into his own images. Brush and pigment obeyed his hand, bringing his vision to life as the first artist had done all those years before. Pigments oxidized with blood to give them power, and the wings of his beloved moths had been collected up and stowed away beneath the altar.

  And now the old one was dead and had sent out his soul, and the chosen one was ready to be reborn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DI Dave Beckett was called at five with the news that Katie had turned up at Mallingham. He had been on his way home, but he swung the car round at the next roundabout and headed back for the police station. His afternoon had been productive, Ray had been eager to help in any way he could, though some of his ideas were a little bizarre, to say the least. He seemed to have been drawn into the thoughts and feelings of the Eyes of God in a way that Beckett himself didn’t think he would ever have allowed. That said, Ray’s record as a police officer was excellent and his recent involvement in exposing high-level police corruption in the wake of one of the biggest drugs busts the area had ever seen was to be applauded, though Beckett was not naïve enough to think that everyone would see it that way. Ray’s investigation had implicated several senior officers, seriously damaging public confidence.

  It had been Emma Thorn who had called to give him the news. Katie had apparently spoken to her foster parents and they were on their way to Mallingham.

  ‘She’s deeply disturbed about something,’ Emma Thorn had said.

  ‘Has she explained why she came here?’

  ‘She talks about a dream. She knew that something bad had happened, that someone would die. She’s quite convinced that Harrison Lee isn’t dead. At least I think that’s what she means, it’s not easy to be sure. I got her to write things down for me in the end, she seemed to find that easier to deal with than having to tell me out loud.’

  ‘And what do you make of her?’ Beckett asked.

  Emma paused before answering, then she said, ‘I like her. I think she’s a decent kid. But something really deep is troubling her and won’t give her any peace. I don’t even think she knows why she’s here.’

  Beckett promised to get there as soon as he could, but he knew he’d be caught in the tail-end of the rush-hour traffic and it might take some time
.

  He’d been using the hands-free set to talk to Emma, but he realized to his annoyance that Ray’s number had not yet been programmed into his phone. He found a bus stop and pulled over before dialling Ray’s number. He was not sure why he felt compelled to do this, but he did. He justified it by telling himself that Ray had been concerned for Katie and had also been present the night she was found in the aftermath of the explosion. An encounter between them might trigger something in the girl’s mind.

  Ray picked up on the second ring. If he was surprised to hear from Beckett again so soon, he didn’t say so.

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he promised. ‘Thank God she’s safe.’

  Beckett rang off. He echoed those sentiments. He just wished he could feel confident about Tim Westerby’s chances.

  Ray had told him something useful that afternoon, something he had been unaware of. The location of this latest murder had a clear connection with the past. Roger Joyce’s body had been found in the same place, which Ray reckoned had been a vicarage. Ray considered it was likely that if Tim Westerby was dead, his body would be found in the same place as that of the second child eleven years ago. Phillip Abrahams had been left close to an old cinema. It had already been closed back then, but now, Ray thought, it was the site of a new supermarket.

  ‘It’s a long time ago,’ he’d told Beckett. ‘I’m not dead sure of the location, there’s been so much redevelopment in Mallingham, but you could look it up. It wouldn’t be so hard to find out exactly.’

  Beckett had put two officers on the problem, knowing that it meant sifting through old files and would take time. And he didn’t think Tim Westerby had much time left.

  * * *

  Beckett’s first impression of Katie was of an exhausted child who just wanted to go to sleep. An appropriate adult had been summoned in the shape of a social worker who had clearly been doing her best to ingratiate herself with Katie and was getting nowhere fast. Emma Thorn had taken her down to the canteen and fed her, and that had been the most positive move, Beckett thought, that anyone had made so far. She certainly seemed to prefer Emma to the social worker who had been assigned to look after her, greeting her with a tired smile when she came into the room with Beckett.

  ‘This is DI Dave Beckett,’ Emma Thorn told Katie. ‘If you’re really good you might get to call him Dave.’

  Katie gave her another smile, but it was clear that she was losing interest.

  Dave Beckett sat down at the table opposite. ‘Have they sorted out where you’re staying for the night?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Mum and Dad are coming.’

  Beckett looked across at Emma for confirmation. ‘No more than a couple of hours up the motorway,’ she said. ‘We thought it might be best for Katie to hang on here until her parents arrived and then they can all go to the hotel together.’

  Beckett nodded. She was a pretty kid, he thought. Round face with hair that had been cut into a neat bob, though two days of neglect and soaking weather had left it looking far from its best. The sweater she had been loaned was several sizes too big and the sleeves came down over her hands. She looked very young and very vulnerable, the oversized clothes just adding to the impression of fragility she seemed to convey.

  ‘You came here looking for someone?’ Beckett asked.

  Katie nodded.

  ‘So, do you know his name?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And when you do find him,’ Beckett asked her, ‘what do you want him to do?’

  ‘Stop it all from happening again. Make the other one go away.’

  For a moment Beckett regarded her thoughtfully, questions clamouring in his head. Then suddenly Katie looked towards the door. Her whole body stiffened and she got excitedly to her feet.

  ‘He’s here,’ she said.

  At that moment the door opened and a constable came to tell Beckett that Ray Flowers had arrived.

  Chapter Fourteen

  George got up early on the morning of 24 February. He was naturally an early riser, not liking to waste what he saw as the best part of the day, and this morning he had a special task in mind. He had begun to pack up his home in preparation for moving and planned to put much of the furniture in store until such time as he found somewhere suitable. Until then he had rented a flat close to the office.

  This morning, though, he was determined to deal with the most difficult room. Jan’s room. It was a task he had been putting off for a long time and the room was much as his daughter had left it. George saw no contradiction in the fact that Jan had left home a good year before she had died, that this was not a place she counted as hers any longer. To George, Jan’s room was just that, hers, and would always be. Many of her things — childhood toys, favourite clothes, objects reclaimed from the flat she had shared with friends — were still there.

  He had never recovered from his daughter’s death. He acknowledged that freely. Jan had died of a drug overdose, the circumstances had been suspicious, as his daughter had not been a known user, and Ray had been the investigating officer. George had done everything he could to keep the case alive long after all leads had burned out and the investigating officers had been assigned elsewhere. He had pestered Ray for weeks afterwards, calling him at work and on his private line, and he now blessed the fact that Ray had not once shown anger or resentment, even when George had been at his most aggressive and unreasonable.

  A verdict of accidental death had been recorded, though George had never believed that, despite, much to his chagrin, never even coming close to proving otherwise. It had been the one time in his life when strings pulled, contacts made, favours called in had meant nothing. He had been totally helpless in the face of his own personal tragedy and he still remained unreconciled to the fact.

  He had been standing in the doorway for at least fifteen minutes, unable to cross the threshold, and in the end closed the door again and went back downstairs. He had a lady who came in to clean for him three times a week. He would ask her to do it for him. Lili would understand, she knew how he felt about Jan’s room.

  Thinking of Jan led him back to thinking about Mitch. He had always liked her, admiring her spirit and independence, the exact qualities her father found so hard to deal with. The exact qualities he had found so hard to deal with in his own child. Patrick had called him the night before. George had not arrived home until very late and Patrick was clearly drunk. He didn’t like George’s answers to his questions, didn’t like the fact that George had found nothing so far to support Patrick’s insistence that Mitch should leave the Eyes of God.

  George had watched a video of the Prophet several times since he had seen the tape at Patrick’s home. He had examined the figure closely, studying Martyn Shaw as he had studied many men in his professional career. The man was sincere as far as he could see. George may not be on his wavelength as far as beliefs were concerned, but somehow he did not doubt the man’s integrity. Martyn Shaw believed that he was chosen, that he had a message and it was his duty to pass it on to the world.

  George could understand Mitch wanting to belong to something like this, and he wondered if her choice was so different from his own. He had been a career soldier, followed by a career in more covert activities. Membership, in effect, of a club quite as exclusive as the Eyes of God. As ready to turn away those eager but unsuitable. And this sense of belonging had been hardest to leave behind when he had quit his job. It had been more than a job, it had been a life, a total existence. In his heart of hearts he had been deeply relieved when Dignan offered him work, because it meant keeping the contact that George had most feared losing. He knew that Ray understood this, though they never discussed it. Ray was not someone who needed to belong in the same way. He made his life as a professional outsider, belonging, therefore, to a club just as exclusive as anything George could aspire to.

  He thought about Patrick and wondered how he was going to cope when Mitch refused once again to come home. George knew he would ha
ve to support her decision. He knew, too, that he and Patrick were cut from the same cloth: same background, same aspirations, part of something that both their daughters had rejected, though Mitch much more positively than Jan ever had.

  George sighed and wondered what really happened to the dinosaurs.

  * * *

  In a shocking twist of fate, Tim Westerby’s body was found by children who had known him. They were walking to school in a group as usual, though today they had a couple of older brothers in tow just to make sure that they arrived safely. Children from Tim Westerby’s street, who attended the same school, who played with him at break-time and argued over who should sit where at lunch.

  They were a little subdued this morning, but kids, being kids, and full of restless energy, two of them had run on ahead. The old Fosse Cinema had been demolished more than a year before and a new supermarket built on the site. Now the buildings around this were coming down, what had been an ancient, run-down garage at the side of the cinema and a pub that had been closed for as long as the boys could remember. The buildings had been cordoned off and half demolished, but every day they ran to the iron railings and peered down into now empty basements where beer barrels had once been kept or, a little further along, the inspection pit in the garage where cars had been brought for repair.

  They were fascinated by the exposure of the skeletons within the buildings, the reinforcing from the concrete and the invisible structure that had formerly held it all in place now laid bare. Sometimes, if they were alone, without older brothers in tow, they sneaked through the railings and prowled the site before the day’s work began. The boys knew it intimately. The difference today was that Tim was not with them.

  The barking of a dog drew their attention and about twenty feet from the road, tied to a concrete reinforcing bar by a length of rope, was a springer spaniel. Both boys recognized him at once.