by Lauren Algeo
The whispering was intermittent. The hiker was planting doubt in the man’s mind about his wife’s whereabouts. Her shift at the golf club finished at 6pm however it was now 6:45pm and she wasn’t home yet. Where was she?
Another light went on in the house. Through the panes of glass in the front door, they saw the man walk past and head to the back of the house.
Was she with him right now? Were they parked up somewhere in his fancy car, with their mouths pressed hungrily together and their hands all over each other’s bodies…
It went on until another car pulled up in front of the house. The wife was home.
She drove a small, red Clio and they got a glimpse of her as she crossed in front of the light outside the front door. She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with shoulder length, brown hair. She was dressed in a smart white shirt and fitted dark trousers, no doubt her uniform from the golf club.
The hiker was quiet and they watched for a while but apart from upstairs lights turning on, nothing happened.
Brewer was starving. They hadn’t eaten for hours and the bottles of water in the rucksack were empty. The rain had stopped however the air was cold and their clothes were still wet. He had no doubt they would both get ill from this trip. Georgie was visibly shivering but her eyes were locked on the house as if she was unaware of it.
‘We should get back to the flat soon,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It’ll take a while and the trains will stop in a few hours.’
‘Just a little longer?’ she begged. ‘Until they go to bed. I won’t sleep unless I know nothing will happen to her tonight.’
‘Ok,’ he relented. ‘We’ll get night buses if we have to.’
They watched quietly again. The hiker remained silent until the woman went to bed. The husband would have been tense enough during dinner. It had done its job so far by sowing the seeds of doubt, now it would just help them grow.
The second floor of the house went dark just before 11pm, although one light stayed glowing downstairs. The whispering began immediately.
‘Did you notice how nervous she was when you asked about her day and why she was late?’ It teased. ‘As if you’d buy that story about a sudden rush of customers she had to help serve.’
Georgie and Brewer listened intently. The hiker was definitely male and he spoke in a husky voice, one that soothed as you listened, making you believe every word. The curtains in the front room twitched and they could see the man moving around downstairs again.
‘That’s the coat she was wearing today, check the pockets,’ the hiker urged.
‘Hmm, completely empty,’ he mused a moment later. ‘She must have cleaned them out recently. Got rid of any evidence.’
Brewer touched Georgie’s shoulder lightly and she jumped as though she’d been stung. A yelp escaped her throat and she quickly clamped her hand over her mouth.
‘Practice for a while,’ he told her.
She tried blocking for half an hour, before the man went up to bed and the hiker stopped temporarily.
‘We better get out of here,’ Brewer said.
They headed for the station before the hiker decided to move for the night. It took two hours to get back to the flat, with a late train and two night buses.
Georgie went straight to bed, exhausted, but Brewer was more disciplined. He mapped the areas they had travelled to that day and marked out the vicinity of the couple’s house, and the factory where the husband worked. There was a golf club a few miles away, which Brewer concluded the wife worked at as the husband had expected her home so soon after her shift ended.
He Googled the golf club and scrolled through its website. It was an exclusive member’s club so the clientele could easily be hiker targets. At 4am, he switched off the laptop and fell into a fitful sleep on the sofa, haunted by the sound of the hiker’s voice.
Chapter 17
Brewer woke Georgie up at 6.30am by rapping loudly on the bedroom door. She yanked it open angrily then he saw her face soften as she remembered they had a hiker to hunt. Her red hair was sticking up on one side and she had lines on her face from the folds of the pillow. She was wearing her old white top and a pair of black leggings to act as pyjamas.
‘Get dressed,’ he instructed.
‘Are we going back?’ she asked, instantly wide-awake.
‘Yes,’ he called over his shoulder as he walked to the living room. ‘Pack some stuff, we’re going for the night.’
He heard her give a whoop of excitement. He would rather not have her near a hiker for this long yet but there wasn’t much choice.
‘Will it taunt the man all day today?’ Georgie asked as they sat on a train an hour later, racing out to Surrey.
They had grabbed some toast for breakfast and hurriedly packed. Brewer had more food and water, some warm clothes, his laptop, and other supplies in his bag. He’d given Georgie one of his spare rucksacks; it was slightly smaller and he usually only took it on overnight trips. She’d packed a change of clothes and an extra jumper. He’d also given her a spare torch. She’d need her own supplies if she was going to do this more often.
Brewer wanted to get to the couple’s house before either of them went to work. They’d be there by 8.30am, and the factory was only a ten-minute drive away so they should make it before the man left. He’d researched the factory where the man worked in the early hours and found out they made bread, and the second shifts usually started at 9am. There were other factories on the industrial estate but he hadn’t looked into those yet. The wife’s shift wasn’t likely to start until the clubhouse opened at 10am so she would still be home.
‘In my experience, it would have whispered to the man during the night, when he had nothing else to distract his thoughts,’ Brewer said. ‘It’ll carry on today and tonight.’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘They usually only take a few days to break a vessel. Can be more or less, depending how strong the person they target is,’ he said. ‘My guess is that tomorrow night will be show time. This guy already seems completely susceptible to the hiker’s voice.’
‘We’ll find a way to stop it,’ Georgie replied with naïve determination.
Brewer said nothing.
They were back by the hedge near the couple’s house at 8.25am. The morning was fairly bright, with a thin covering of light, grey cloud. They couldn’t see any lights on inside however both cars were there.
The hiker’s car was missing from outside the front of the house. Brewer scanned the road and couldn’t see it parked anywhere else.
‘Where’s the hiker?’ Georgie asked, looking wildly around as if it would suddenly attack them.
Brewer shrugged. ‘Could already be waiting at the factory, or parked somewhere else, getting some rest.’
It wasn’t there though because the house was too quiet. He started to feel a little uneasy as the minutes ticked by.
At 8:50am, the woman stormed out of the house. She was wiping her eyes and although they couldn’t see her face very well from this distance, he would bet she was crying. She slammed her car door and sped off down the road. She’d clearly left in a hurry and wasn’t wearing her uniform so she would be back some time before her shift, if she were even working that day. A nice early morning row to get the hiker’s plan moving.
The man emerged five minutes later and they got their first decent look at him. He was tall, with a little extra weight around the middle, and a fairly handsome face. Brewer guessed he was in his late thirties. He had dark brown hair, that was cut quite short but this morning it was poking up at the back, as though he hadn’t finished styling it. They looked like an ordinary couple with normal lives, probably married for a few years
The man walked stiffly down the drive and straight past his car. He had a vacant, trance-like look on his face. He carried on walking across the road, heading right for where Brewer and Georgie were lurking.
Georgie stepped back next to Brewer, trying to shrink into the hedge. She grabbed his arm t
o pull him back too but Brewer held his ground.
Halfway over to them, the man stopped walking. He gave a confused look around and then shook his head with a slight, preoccupied smile on his face. He headed back to his car, got in, and drove in the direction of work.
Georgie breathed out in relief and released her iron grip on Brewer’s forearm.
‘I thought he was coming to confront us,’ she admitted.
‘I can’t believe the hiker’s got him this rattled already,’ Brewer said, more to himself. ‘He must be extremely susceptible to it, probably a lot of damage already in his mind.’
They walked the few miles to the industrial estate, with less panic than yesterday now they knew where the hiker was going.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the plan is fed to the man’s mind today and acted on tomorrow daytime,’ Brewer mused as they walked.
‘You mean the murder?’ Georgie put extra emphasis on the word ‘murder’.
‘Or murders, if he decides to kill the wife too,’ he said. ‘A jealous husband gone crazy, who kills his wife and her suspected lover.’
He knew Georgie was thinking of the poor woman they had just seen crying; who was completely innocent in the whole thing but would likely suffer as collateral damage. Her face paled considerably.
‘Are you ok?’ Brewer asked, aware she hadn’t experienced any of this first hand yet.
‘Yeah,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just horrible to think of all the people who get caught up in this shit.’
‘You still want to go ahead?’
‘Yes,’ she said more forcefully.
They spent the day camped across the road from the entrance to the industrial estate. There was a small, disused building and they took refuge from the wind in the shelter at the front. It also kept them fairly hidden from view.
Georgie sat cross-legged on the ground, staring alertly at the factory buildings; waiting for the hiker to begin his torment of the man. Brewer got out his laptop and propped himself up against the wall to do some more research. There had to be a reason why this man had been so quick to fall under the hiker’s influence.
He looked at the website for the factory again. He scrolled through several pages and came across a group photo of the workers at the factory taken at last year’s Christmas party. There was a caption underneath labelling the people in the photo. The third man from the left was their vessel. According to the copy, this man was called Tim Rawlings. It was a start.
Brewer Googled Rawlings to see if there was more information on him. He didn’t have any social networking accounts however there was a picture of him and his wife at a function at the golf club. Apparently Tim and Jennifer Rawlings had attended a charity dinner that summer. They were dancing in the photo and smiling at each other. He didn’t show the image to Georgie.
Jennifer Rawlings had a Facebook profile. A grinning picture of the two of them appeared next to her name, only her account was private. Brewer nudged Georgie out of her hypnotic state and passed her the laptop.
‘Time to put your skills into action,’ he said.
She gazed at the screen for a moment then began tapping at the keys. It took her forty-five minutes, and several swear words, to hack into the account.
Mrs Rawlings’ profile didn’t hold much of interest. She only really used it to make plans with friends and share her photos. It was in one of her many albums that he saw a photo of Tim with a young girl. The caption read ‘Tim and Maddy enjoying an ice cream on the beach.’
That roused Brewer’s attention. There were no other photos of this Maddy on the page so he didn’t think she was Tim and Jennifer’s child. He figured she was a daughter from a previous relationship, or maybe a friend’s child.
The hiker began taunting Rawlings again halfway through Brewer’s research. It was 11am and the exterior of the factory was quiet.
‘She behaved so off with you this morning,’ the hiker mused. ‘She knows you suspect something.’
Georgie was on her feet the moment the hiker started whispering. She hovered near the front of the overhang they were taking shelter under and listened intently.
‘Can you hear it?’ she asked Brewer.
He nodded and turned his attention back to the laptop. She was intrigued by the exchange going on in the factory however he had heard it all before. He needed to know more about the vessel’s background, and maybe the possible target too. It was a long shot, but he decided to call Marcus for help.
‘What do you want this time?’ Marcus sighed when Brewer got him on the line.
‘A quick background check?’ Brewer was pushing his luck again but he knew Marcus’s enquiring nature would always win out.
‘Is this something to do with our Rankin case?’ he asked.
Brewer assured him it wasn’t. They argued for a couple of minutes before Marcus relented.
‘You can’t keep putting my arse on the line,’ he huffed. ‘So who am I looking in to?’
‘The guy’s called Timothy Rawlings.’ Brewer gave Marcus the limited background information he had. ‘Anything you can find on him would help, or his wife Jennifer.’
Marcus agreed to come back to him that afternoon with anything he discovered.
‘Is he going to help us?’ Georgie asked when Brewer put the mobile back in his pocket.
‘Yes, although he’s not happy about it.’
‘When you left the police, did they take away your access to the databases and stuff then?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘My badge, my privileges, everything.’
She turned her attention back to the factory. The hiker was still eating away at Rawlings’ grasp on reality.
‘It’s been going on too long,’ it whispered. ‘You need to stop it.’
Georgie didn’t have to imagine the turmoil in the man’s head; she knew how easy it was to fall under the spell of a hiker’s hypnotic voice. She had been in a complete trance until Brewer had dragged her out of it.
‘You should threaten him with one of these slicing knives,’ the hiker urged. ‘He’d be terrified of a blade this big. Then she’d realise how much more of a man you are. His fancy cars and money would count for nothing if you reduce him to a snivelling wreck. I doubt the factory would miss it for the night…’
Georgie grabbed Brewer’s shoulder frantically, nearly knocking him sideways from his position on the floor.
‘Did you hear that? It wants him to take a massive knife!’
‘I heard,’ Brewer frowned. ‘This is moving much faster than I thought. Rawlings’ mind must be seriously damaged.’
‘We have to warn his wife, or the police! They can protect this man at the golf club.’
Brewer shook his head. ‘That won’t stop it, Georgie. Someone has paid for this man to die and the hiker will get the job done, by any means. The wrath of the Grand is too much of a threat if they fail.’
Georgie looked thoughtful. ‘Well, that could be a way to stop them,’ she suggested. ‘If we keep interfering and forcing them to mess up, then the Grand will kill them!’
‘He’s not likely to kill all of his valuable assassins,’ Brewer said patiently.
‘You think of something then!’ she stropped.
‘I’m trying, but you have to understand there might not be much we can do. I’ve done all of this before; the intervening, the police, it didn’t work.’
‘What happened?’ she demanded.
He recalled the memory of that July day. The air had been humid and the sun had been blazing all week – hard to imagine with the rain that wouldn’t stop lately.
‘I’d been tracking a female hiker and her vessel for a couple of days,’ he started. ‘It was a male victim who had taken a while to respond to the hiker’s whispering. He had two young daughters at a local primary school and they were going to be holding a summer talent show, where the kids would perform in classes to their parents. It was going to be in the main school hall on the Friday evening…’
Brewer�
��s voice trailed off. Memories of the hiker’s whispering bubbled to the surface. The vessel had been called Jonathan; he didn’t recall the last name.
Jonathan had split up with his wife a couple of years earlier and she had custody of the girls. He hadn’t seemed bitter towards his ex, or the situation, at the start but the hiker had manipulated the thoughts in his head. Twisted them until Jonathan was seething at the arrangement – how dare that bitch get all the access; he was a far better parent.
‘Anyway this guy was going to be helping backstage at the show while his ex-wife watched from the audience,’ Brewer said. ‘It was a fairly big hall and held a lot of people but from what I heard, there were only two ways in or out: a set of double doors at the front where everyone would enter, and a fire escape backstage that led out to the playground. There were some windows along the side of the hall, only they didn’t open that wide – some sort of health and safety thing for children.’
Georgie listened intently. She sat down and leant against the wall beside him. There hadn’t been kids involved in any of the other stories he’d told her.
‘The hiker began pushing the idea of starting a fire during the performances.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘The reasoning it used was that if there was a small fire and everyone panicked, this guy, Jonathan, could help get people out and save his two girls like a big hero. The hiker told him it would make the mother seem unfit to look after them and he could go for sole custody.’
‘But that’s crazy!’ Georgie cried.
‘I know, except hikers are very persuasive, you know that. It hounded the man’s mind until he came around to the plan.’
‘But a fire with his own kids involved… how could he go along with that?’
‘The guy put up a good fight. He held on for quite a few days under the pressure of the whispering… in my experience everyone caves in the end.’
‘Except you,’ Georgie said pointedly.
‘And you,’ Brewer shot back.
Georgie snorted loudly. ‘I had caved! It was only you pulling me back on that platform that saved me.’