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

by Jane Adams

  ‘That’s Ben. That’s Tim’s dog.’

  The more cautious of the two turned and shouted to his brother to come and look. The second had pushed his way through the gap in the fence and was running across the site towards the frantic animal, whose barks had become louder and more plaintive as he saw someone he recognized.

  By the time the rest of the group arrived, the boy was standing beside the dog, staring down at something.

  Tim Westerby lay gazing at the sky, covered to the chin by a grey blanket edged in blue. This time his hands were not crossed over his chest, as Ian Thomason’s had been, but were extended to the side, palms open, and on each palm the symbol of an eye within a circle drawn clear and large.

  * * *

  Beckett had gone to the hotel to speak with Katie again, this time in the presence of her foster parents. Ray had joined them.

  The previous night Katie had been too tired and, after Ray’s arrival, too emotional to be of much use to him, but Beckett hoped that this morning things would be better. She certainly looked more rested and relaxed, sitting with her parents and brother in the hotel lounge and carrying on what looked to be a very loud conversation in sign.

  Ray arrived just behind him and they went in together.

  ‘You look much better this morning,’ Ray commented.

  She nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  Her parents rose to greet the newcomers. They still looked tense and pained, and Beckett knew they would be eager to get home. The night before, they had established that Ray was the man Katie had come to find but little more.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ she had asked him.

  ‘What happened to your hair? Last time I saw you it reached right down your back.’

  ‘Cut it off,’ Katie told him.

  ‘Why me?’

  She shrugged. ‘I saw your face. In my dream.’

  ‘Are you sure? I can’t believe that you remembered me that well. We only met that one time.’

  ‘I know.’ Katie hesitated, trying hard to get the words out without them slurring. Trying to do the things her speech therapist had told her and shaping her lips and tongue to make the sounds first. ‘But you stayed with me in the ambulance,’ she said. ‘I sat on your knee. You sang nursery rhymes and you got them wrong.’

  Ray nodded. ‘I wouldn’t say I actually sang them,’ he said. ‘But it kept you amused.’

  Beckett had been listening intently. ‘Why did you come here, Katie? What did you think Ray could do?’

  ‘You said someone was coming back,’ Ray said. ‘Did you mean Harrison Lee? If so, sweetheart, I can assure you that he’s dead and gone.’

  Katie shook her head. ‘I believe you that he’s dead,’ she said. ‘But he isn’t gone.’ She frowned, clearly trying to root out memories that were buried very deep. ‘It’s why everyone died,’ she said.

  ‘Lee was arrested. Morgan and the others would probably have been implicated. They killed themselves.’

  Katie shook her head. ‘No. Morgan told them to. It needed fire. Fire . . .’ She hesitated again, trying to get it right. ‘Fire makes things clean.’

  ‘Makes things clean? I don’t understand,’ Ray said. ‘You mean the people who died, it was important that they were burned? Cremated?’

  Katie shook her head again. ‘Not like dead people,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t make it right. I heard him talking.’

  Ray waited, allowing the implications of this to sink in, then he turned to Katie’s parents. ‘Have you talked to her much about the Eyes of God?’ he asked.

  Guy Fellows looked uncomfortable. ‘We decided that we wouldn’t bring it up,’ he said, ‘but that if Katie asked questions we’d do our best to answer them. From time to time articles have appeared in the news and we’ve not discouraged her from reading them.’

  Ray nodded, but anything he might have asked next was interrupted by the ringing of a mobile.

  Beckett excused himself and moved away, but his expression as he listened to the caller told them the news. ‘They’ve found the boy,’ he said softly. ‘Ray, I think you should come with me.’

  Katie stared at Ray.

  ‘How many?’ she demanded. ‘How many dead?’

  ‘Two,’ Ray told her reluctantly. ‘The first was taken the night Lee died.’

  Katie’s eyes widened and she looked at him without comment. He patted her gently on the shoulder and promised to come back.

  ‘Well,’ Beckett demanded as they left, ‘what is it you both know and I don’t?’

  ‘Two deaths,’ Ray said. ‘We’re waiting for a third. Just like last time.’

  * * *

  A crowd had gathered. Parents mostly from the streets that backed onto the building site. The boys who had found the body had been shepherded away, taken home by Emma Thorn, who was, with the help of a WPC, dealing with their statements.

  The area had been cordoned off and the body concealed within an incident tent. Ray and Dave Beckett passed through the cordon and surveyed the scene, the semi-derelict buildings and the heavy machinery ready to finish the job. It was very close to where Ray had predicted they would find the second body.

  ‘There, where the supermarket is now, that was the Fosse Cinema. I used to go to the pictures there. The kids’ club on a Saturday.’

  ‘You grew up round here?’

  Ray nodded. ‘Never much one for travelling.’

  They crossed the rubble-strewn site, ducked into the shelter covering the body and stood watching as the photographer finished her job before crouching gingerly beside the corpse.

  The child lay on his back and his eyes were open. Ray resisted the impulse to close them and instead avoided looking at the boy’s face. He had been covered with a blanket like the last time and, as before, the blanket had been tucked around the body as though to keep him warm.

  The hands were open, arms stretched out to the side, and something about the pose struck a chord with Ray, though for the moment he could not place the fleeting memory. The drawings on the hands had been made in black ink. They had been carefully inscribed, as though the design had to be exact and perfect.

  A young officer pushed his way through the opening in the tent wall to tell them that SOCO had arrived. He turned white when he saw the child.

  ‘If you’re going to puke,’ Ray told him sharply, ‘get outside. No one pukes on my crime scene.’

  The young man pulled himself upright and exited rapidly.

  ‘Your crime scene?’ Beckett enquired.

  ‘Sorry. Force of habit. Probationer, is he?’ He jerked his head towards the young man who had just left.

  ‘I believe so.’ Beckett gestured towards the child’s hands. ‘They wanted to be certain it was seen this time,’ he said.

  Ray nodded.

  ‘You’re serious about there being a third death, aren’t you? You think the killer will take it that far.’

  ‘I do. But I’m buggered if I know what we can do about it. This child was taken from his own home. The first from practically outside his own front door. It’s going to be no good just telling parents to keep their kids inside, and we’re going to have a panic on our hands no matter what.’

  ‘So, how do we narrow the odds?’

  Ray shook his head. ‘It’ll be a boy,’ he said. ‘If he keeps to the same MO. About the same age and most likely not looking anything like the first two, so our usual cues according to type are not much help. Last time we couldn’t sort out the pattern. I don’t hold out much hope of this time being any different.’

  ‘You think he could already have the third child? There was a schedule last time.’

  Ray nodded. ‘A rough one. And he seems to be keeping to it. My guess is that he’ll take the boy tonight. Early tomorrow. Certainly before dawn.’

  ‘Doesn’t give us much to go on. You think the girl knows more than she’s letting on?’

  ‘Not consciously, no. No, I don’t. She was four, five years old last time. We don’t know if she met
Harrison Lee or how involved she was. There were no records about her parents. We don’t even know if they were there. Now we could use DNA, but that’s not much help at the present.’

  He sighed. ‘Look, there’s a chapter of the Eyes of God out Oakham way and I’ve got a friend who can arrange an introduction. I’ll go out there and see if they can shed any light, but I’ll need your sanction to tell them everything.’

  Beckett nodded. ‘It’ll be in the evening papers anyway. We can’t keep the lid on this time, there are far too many witnesses. How long will it take you? I want to schedule another talk with Katie this afternoon and I’d like you there.’ He paused, a thought striking him. ‘You don’t think . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t. Katie was still at home the night Lee died and Ian was kidnapped. No, something triggered her desire to come here, and I’d love to know what, but I don’t think she’s any less of a victim than she ever was.’

  ‘Crackpot fucking cults!’ Beckett exploded.

  ‘If only it was as simple as that,’ Ray said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took some organizing. Ray called George, who then had to speak to Mitch, but within the hour Ray was on his way to Sommers House.

  It was a long time since he’d had any dealings with the Eyes of God and it was not something he talked much about. He’d barely mentioned even to George just how deep his involvement had been or how much he had learned about them. George knew that he had worked on the Harrison Lee case, but not that he had once come face to face with Lee himself, that he had met Morgan and that he had, for a while, kept in contact with the relatives of those believed dead in the explosion.

  Ray could not have explained what made him so cagey about discussing this time in his life, but he still found it hard. He had been one of the first officers on the scene the night that the chapter house exploded and had been present when Katie was found, as well as the old man who had briefly survived the explosion, only to bleed to death while they tried to free him from the wreckage.

  Ray had seen something happen that night that he still could not explain. The old man had refused to give his name. He had said that names were just so much baggage and only relevant for the short time you owned them anyway. He had been so utterly unafraid that Ray had been convinced that the pain must have driven him half out of his mind.

  Except that there had been no pain. Shock, the paramedics said, sometimes it did strange things to the mind. But Ray knew that they had merely been looking for explanations that their own logic and training could handle. The man had been not just free of pain; he had reached a state that Ray could describe only as ecstatic. Calm and joyful as though what he was approaching was something wonderful. He had seen the doubt in Ray’s eyes and spoken to him as though he could read his thoughts.

  ‘The greatest of adventures,’ he whispered. ‘Who would want to turn away?’

  Ray had since read reports in the media of those who had chosen to die, believing that they were escaping this life for something far more wondrous. Those who had been part of the Heaven’s Gate cult had reminded him forcibly of this old man when he had seen images from the press release that they had left behind and extracts from the video they made just before they died. That had been the closest he had come to witnessing anything like that man’s certainty and unfettered joy.

  When they lifted the beam from his legs, they knew that it might kill him, but they had been left with no choice. He would die anyway. They were unable to put blood into his body faster than it flowed out from his wounds. Ray had been horrified, watching the last vestiges of life ebb away from the old man’s body and the spark go from his eyes, but the man had merely smiled up at him, his eyes locked on Ray’s face. And then he had reached out his arms as though to embrace the air.

  ‘Don’t you feel it?’ he had whispered and Ray had felt a soft wind on his face, like the passage of wings.

  * * *

  Sommers House glowered out of the leaden sky, the February day not kind to its limestone walls or the mossy slate of its high-pitched roof. The woods beyond enclosed the house and grounds, protecting them from the world outside.

  The door opened as Ray parked the car at the end of the drive and a man came down the steps to greet him. He was about fifty years old, with faded brown hair and gentle eyes. This must be Bryn, Ray guessed, recalling George’s description of him. He looked anxious, the summer-blue eyes pained and sad.

  ‘Mr Flowers? I’m Bryn Jones. I wish I could say that you’re welcome.’

  He extended a hand to shake Ray’s, more from courtesy, Ray felt, than any kind of pleasure.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you with this,’ Ray told him. ‘But two boys have died already and if there’s any chance you might be able to prevent a third . . .’

  He left it at that. Bryn nodded and gestured for him to come inside. ‘This opens too many old wounds,’ he said softly. ‘But from what George has told us, you already know about that.’

  They were about to have lunch, having waited for him, which Ray appreciated though he was not certain about vegetarian food. There were a dozen of them gathered in the large dining room, excluding several children who had already begun to eat and indeed were almost ready to leave the table by the time he arrived.

  Bryn introduced him. ‘This is Mitch. My wife, Irene. Tom, who’s one of our garden designers — he’s getting quite a reputation locally. Amy and Ted . . .’ He broke off. ‘Let’s just eat, shall we? And you can tell us how we can help, though I have to tell you, Ray, very few of us were around the last time. Only myself and Irene. And we weren’t local, though of course we knew Morgan. The group was quite small then. And Amy too. She knew Morgan.’

  Ray glanced at the woman, who raised her glass in wry response. ‘Guilty,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t know what I can tell you.’

  Irene had begun to serve the meal and the children were asking to be excused. Irene waited until they were gone, their voices echoing from the playroom across the hall, before she said, ‘This will mean more trouble for us, won’t it?’

  Ray nodded. ‘I should close your gates,’ he said, ‘and keep them closed. The news will have broken now and by the time the evening papers come out there won’t be a newspaper or TV company in the country not camping on your doorstep.’

  ‘And there’s nothing we can do about it?’

  ‘Issue a statement perhaps, saying that you deplore what’s happening and distance yourselves totally from it. Other than that, say nothing, close your gates and be prepared to ride it out.’

  ‘For how long?’

  Ray shook his head. ‘That I can’t tell you. Until whoever’s doing this is caught. Until we put him away like we did Lee. I’m sorry. There’s nothing more I can say.’

  Irene nodded slowly. ‘We thought we could find peace here,’ she said. ‘And we have. We run our courses, we live our own lives and we do no harm.’

  ‘Someone is doing harm,’ Ray told her gently. ‘And in your name. I need to know anything that might help.’

  ‘But we know nothing,’ Mitch argued. ‘We didn’t even know about the second child or that . . . that the symbol had been drawn on his hands until George called us. We’ll do anything we can, but I really don’t see . . .’

  ‘Why did Lee kill those boys?’ Ray asked. ‘He never explained himself, not to us, not to anyone on the outside.’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’ Bryn began.

  ‘Oh, don’t give me that!’ Ray sighed, aware that he was being unnecessarily sharp. ‘Look, you can see the pattern as clearly as the next man. It doesn’t take a genius and it doesn’t even take someone with prior knowledge. Whoever’s doing this is making it as obvious as they can that this is linked to what Lee had planned eleven years ago. I need to know what it was.’

  Irene was poking at her food. ‘What makes you think that Lee explained?’ she said. ‘Anyone who might have known is dead. You were there, at the chapter house. You saw what happened.’

  ‘A
nd we still don’t know who died. Look, the child who survived that night — we called her Katie — she turned up in Mallingham looking for me. She’s quite convinced that something even more terrible is going to happen and seems to think that I can stop it in some way. I don’t know if there’s anything in what she believes, but I do know that when Lee died something was set in motion and we have to stop it now before another child dies.’ He paused, listening to the laughter of the children in the other room. ‘It could be anyone’s child,’ he went on slowly. ‘The second little boy was taken from his own home. The first was within yards of his front door. Can you imagine what it must be like for the parents? If one of yours was taken. Suddenly gone and you didn’t know where or how. You just knew that whoever had taken them was a killer who had already taken two lives — two lives that we know about. You imagine a child of yours, scared and alone, kept God knows where and in God knows what conditions . . .’

  ‘You’ve made your point!’ Irene spoke sharply, then sighed. ‘I know what you’re saying to me. You don’t need to spell it out. The fact is, we didn’t know what Harrison Lee was planning. He was a strange man, secretive. Sometimes what he believed didn’t go with what the prophets taught. He had obsessions that even Morgan couldn’t countenance and Morgan could be extreme.’

  ‘Like what?’ Ray asked.

  ‘How much do you know about us?’ Bryn asked. ‘About what we believe?’

  Ray considered. ‘I know that you believe in something called Conservation of Matter. That you believe every atom in existence has been present in the universe since the beginning of, well, of everything. That each time something new is made — a new person, a new plant or animal — the atomic structure will contain atoms reused, recycled if you like, and that past life memories and so on may be a result of this. I know that you believe in the messages of your dreams and that you share the dream experiences. That you believe the Earth might have been seeded from elsewhere, either deliberately or by accident, but I don’t know why you think that.’

  ‘Panspermia,’ Amy said. It was the first time she had spoken since Ray had sat down. ‘It’s becoming almost respectable now. People like Sir Geoffrey Hoyle are talking about it as a possibility. Did you know, for instance, that about 70 per cent of the Earth’s water had an extraterrestrial origin and there’s evidence of bacteria at least arriving with it?’