by Alex Grecian
He would have to find a safe place to sleep and then he would begin his search anew the next day. He had lost so much time in prison, his nerves jangled with a sense of urgency. He was looking so hard, moving faster than he ever had before, examining so many possibilities that he felt exhausted to his core.
A single tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it away with his sleeve. He set his shoulders and picked up his pace. He would stay strong for his parents. He would be a brave boy and faithful, too, and he would find them. They were waiting for him somewhere.
10
Day stood at the edge of a wide and sprawling wood and peered into the green, hoping to see some sign of the missing children. The sun was going down. Treetops swayed in the breeze and small creatures skittered here and there in the underbrush, but he saw nothing unusual, nothing that didn’t belong. He looked down at his boots. Mud squelched up around the soles, and the tip of his cane had sunk an inch into the ground. His brain felt like it had swollen, pushing against the inside of his skull. He wondered what would happen if he never moved again. Perhaps the mud would suck him down under and he would slowly be lost to sight.
He reached for his flask.
“Walter!”
Day turned his head and saw Nevil Hammersmith approaching from the road. “Nevil. But I just saw you.” Day drew his hand back from his waistcoat, leaving the flask in his pocket.
“I went by the murder scene. Bentley told me you were out here somewhere.”
“There were children. Two of them. Little boys, roughly eight and ten years old. I talked to the neighbors. They say the boys like to play in the wood out here, but I can’t see any trace of them.”
“There’s a lot of mud.”
“Yes. But no footprints.”
Hammersmith looked behind them at the rows of homes lining the street. “Is it possible they weren’t heavy enough to leave tracks?”
“I suppose so.”
“They could be anywhere.”
“No, I don’t think so. The wood is dark and safe. They knew the terrain. The city at night would be strange and frightening. I think they’re in there.” Day pointed at the trees.
“Isn’t it possible that he took them?”
“There’s no evidence of the Harvest Man ever mutilating anyone outside their homes. He hides, ties up his victims, then leaves them. It’s always a man and a woman. Together. If there are children in the house, they’re also found dead, but not otherwise mistreated. I don’t think he cares about them after he’s done, whatever it is he comes to do. It’s all as highly ritualized as it is random.”
“So the children escaped his notice.”
“Otherwise they’d be dead.”
“But the Harvest Man is still at large and they may have seen him, may be witnesses,” Hammersmith said. “Which puts them in serious danger. If there haven’t been witnesses before, it’s a different situation now and you can’t know . . .”
“True.”
“I’ll help you look for them.”
“Inspector Tiffany wouldn’t care for that. You’re not police anymore.”
“Have I ever worried about Tiffany’s feelings?” He paused. “Have you?”
“You make a good point. And, frankly, I’d welcome the help. But you were looking for me for a reason.”
“I came to tell you that Inspector March is dead. Murdered in his cell. I meant to tell you before, but this doesn’t seem like a good time, either.”
Day drew in a sharp breath. He bit his lower lip and sniffed. “How was it done? I mean . . .”
“I think it was Jack, but it doesn’t quite make sense. You may have some insight. I admit I’m at a loss.”
“You’ll have to tell me everything.”
“I will.”
“Good. It can wait. But . . .”
“Yes, when we’ve found the children.”
Day nodded and walked away, moving south along the tree line. Hammersmith headed north. Day looked behind him and saw Hammersmith plunge into the wood and disappear.
Adrian March was dead. The news sank like a stone to his gut and sat there. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to ease the tension he felt. He wanted to grieve for his mentor, but still felt angry at March. He reached out and poked at the underbrush with his cane. The brambles were impassable. He kept walking, peering at the ground for clues, trying to concentrate on the job at hand. Eventually he came to a series of low flat rocks, arranged in a haphazard queue across the mud. Soil was smeared across the tops of the stones, a heavier deposit at the forward edge of each rock. Day stopped and stared at the wood. There was a gap between the trees, two feet across, the brambles trampled down, bent and broken.
He took out his flask, uncorked it. A stiff shot of brandy worked its way down his throat, exploded heat across his abdomen, and expanded out through his limbs, warm, then icy cold. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, concentrated on two missing children who needed his help. He would sort his feelings about March later, when the time was right. Properly fortified and focused, he opened his eyes and limped across the stones, into the forest.
He used his cane to push the flattened brambles ahead of him, stepping carefully, watching for signs of recent passage. The canopy above him gradually cut off the diffuse sunlight, but just at the threshold of utter darkness Day saw a single familiar footprint, small and shallow. The side of a bare foot pressed into the mud, the impressions of three tiny round toes, deeper at one side, then tapering off so that the last toe was only half represented. A child running or skipping, not lingering long enough for his entire foot to rest in the mud. Day cleared the underbrush away from the print and bent down as low as he could, moving slowly around the print in concentric circles, looking for more signs of the children. There was nothing. Nor did he find any evidence that an adult had passed this way. Someone heavier would almost certainly have left deeper footprints. Day’s own prints were clearly visible behind him, wherever he had stepped off the brambles. He grinned and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The children had escaped. The Harvest Man had not followed them into the wood.
He straightened up and hung his cane over a nearby branch. He raised his hands and cupped them around his mouth. “Children!”
A brace of pheasants flew up out of the bushes directly ahead of him, a maelstrom of fluttering wings, and he reeled backward, catching himself against the trunk of a tree. He waited for silence to descend again, listened, but he could hear no human sound.
“Simon!” He listened and called again. “Robert! You’re safe now! I’m a policeman, come to take you home!”
He listened again, shaking off the realization that he would not, in fact, be able to take them home. They would never go home again. Either a relative would be found for them or the boys were bound for the orphanage.
“Walter!” It was Hammersmith’s faint voice, somewhere far away to the north.
“Nevil, they’re here somewhere! They’re alive and running! There’s no sign of the . . .” He broke off. No need to frighten the children by mentioning their parents’ killer.
“I’ll come to you!” There was the distant sound of thrashing bush and branch. Day strained to hear the surrounding wood, hoping the children would cry out, give some indication of where they were hiding. There was nothing.
He backtracked to the footprint and found his cane. He held it out in front of him, aimed in the direction the little toes in the mud had pointed for him. Eventually Nevil emerged from the brambles and stood at his side, panting. The former sergeant’s clothes had been torn. His hair stood straight up on end, his trousers were soaked with mud, and there was a deep scratch along one cheek. Day smiled. Something about the sight of Hammersmith’s habitual disarray comforted him. He held up a hand and pointed down at the mud. Hammersmith knelt, his knees squelching in the mire, and smoothed the air ab
ove the footprint as if he could make it more visible. He looked up and they smiled at each other.
“A good sign,” Hammersmith said.
Day nodded and held out his hand, helped Hammersmith back to his feet. Mud tumbled from Hammersmith’s shins in a miniature avalanche that covered the tops of his boots.
“They were headed in this direction.” Day used his cane to point. “But it’s too dark in there to see anything.”
“What do we need to see? We’ll go on that way and hope the children show themselves when we reach them.”
“Of course.”
“Lead the way.”
“I’ll follow. You move faster than I can.”
“Not as fast as I used to.” Hammersmith held his hand against his chest.
“Still faster than me.”
Hammersmith nodded and bounded ahead, moving fast through the vegetation. Day didn’t try to keep up. He hobbled along, listening to the darkness on either side of the path Hammersmith was making. The younger man was no doubt obliterating any sign of the children’s passing. It might have been a better idea to go back and fetch a lantern. But that would mean relying on Hammersmith’s patience, which had never proved to be of adequate supply.
They pushed on.
• • •
“DON’T ACT LIKE A baby,” Robert said.
They had made a construct of branches and small vines covered with leaves, many of which were now dying and falling off, but it still looked enough like the surrounding trees that they felt safe behind it.
“But it’s dark,” Simon said. “And I want to go home.”
“We can’t go home. The bad birdie man is there and he made them dead.”
“But our home’s still there.” It sounded like Simon was going to cry and the wavering tone in his voice made Robert angry. He concentrated on the leaves, prodding them into place, filling in small gaps. The platform they had built, high up in the branches, was visible from below, but they had spent some time earlier in the spring, as early as the weather permitted, disguising it, painting it green, and Robert had returned without Simon to dapple it with grey and brown. The leaf curtain was meant to be temporary. Robert had ideas about fabric woven round sticks, if they only had enough money to buy the materials. Someday perhaps.
“We’ll go home when it’s safe,” Robert said.
“Tonight?”
“We’re gonna stay here tonight.”
“In the wood?”
“It’s all right. The wood is safe.”
“What if the policeman comes back?”
Robert glanced across their platform at the boulder they’d maneuvered up with them, using a rope and a crude pulley. It had to weigh almost as much as Simon did. They’d originally been playing pirate, had set everything up as a game because they were bored and there were no other children to play with, but now it wasn’t a game. Now they had a place to hide and they had a weapon, a rock that they could tumble down on top of anyone who threatened them.
“I don’t know if that really was a policeman, Simon. We have to be careful.”
“But what if he comes back and it’s dark and we don’t see him?”
“He can’t climb up without making noise.”
“And then the rock?”
“And then the rock.”
Simon stopped sniffling and moved closer and Robert put his arm around his brother, held him close. Robert was ten years old and it was his job to take care of Simon now that Father was dead, and Mother, too. He closed his eyes and made a silent promise to his parents. Nothing bad would ever happen to Simon.
• • •
“IT’S NO USE, NEVIL.”
“Keep looking. We’ll find them. Only I need a moment.”
“Your face is flushed.”
Hammersmith didn’t answer. He sat, panting, on a fallen log, looking as if he might tumble off it at any moment. Day made him move over so he could sit, too.
“How’s your chest?”
“My chest is fine,” Hammersmith said. “How’s your leg?”
“My leg’s been worse,” Day said.
“I don’t think they’re out here.”
“They have to be.”
“Maybe we should be looking somewhere else.”
“It’s late. They’re out here, I’m sure of it, but we’re not going to find them tonight.”
“If you’re right,” Hammersmith said, “if they’re out here, as you say, then we have to find them. We can’t leave them to stay the night in the wood.” He started to rise, but Day put a hand on his arm and Hammersmith sank back down on the log.
“They know this area far better than we do,” Day said. “They’re more likely to do well out here than we are. And I’m worried about your health. You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I am resting. Look at me resting.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re overexerting yourself. You haven’t caught your breath yet. And you’re going to open your stitches if you keep at it like this.”
“If I do, Dr Kingsley can easily sew me back up.”
“Nevil, we’re not going to find them like this. We might have passed them twenty times already. They don’t want us to see them.”
“They’re scared.”
“Of course they’re scared. They saw their parents murdered. No, we have to outthink them if we’re going to be of any use to them at all.”
Nevil slapped his hand against the dead tree’s mildew-covered bark. “Where are they, damnit? Why haven’t we found them? I swear we’ve searched every square inch of bushes out here.”
“I’m tempted to start looking under rocks,” Day said.
“I actually did look under this log before I sat down.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow, when it’s light out.”
“I hate to do that. I hate to leave them.”
“They’ll be able to see us better. They’ll see we’re not a threat to them. They’ll be tired and hungry. We’ll have a better chance at coaxing them out of hiding.”
“Do you think so?”
“I don’t see another choice, really. If we keep blundering through this wood all night, we’ll collapse.”
Hammersmith didn’t reply, but he nodded. He wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve and scratched his head.
“We’ll come back,” Day said again. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them when we have proper light.” He stood, putting more weight than usual on his cane, and held out a hand to help Hammersmith up. His former sergeant no longer seemed flushed. His face had gone pale, and Day worried that Hammersmith might pass out. There was no way he could carry Hammersmith out through the wood. “Meet me here midmorning. We’ll take up the search again.”
“I’ll meet you at first light.”
“No. Get some sleep.”
“I can’t yet.”
“Well, why not, Nevil? Good God, man. Have you learned nothing after all your close shaves? You can’t push yourself like you do.”
“I’m quite all right. Really. I’ve got someone to see, but I’ll make it a short trip and then head straight home for a nap.”
“Someone to see? It can’t wait till morning?”
“This is the most likely time to find him, really.”
“Who is it?”
“You’d rather not know, I’m sure.”
“Very well,” Day said. “Send a message when you’re up and about and ready to commence the search. Don’t come out here without me. Promise.”
“I won’t.”
“Nevil.”
“I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
Day took one last look around the clearing. He ran his palm over his stubbly chin and shook his head. “Boys! We’re leaving now! But we’ll be back to help you!” He listened for a response, but when he hea
rd nothing he turned and limped away after Hammersmith.
11
The Harvest Man found the new couple by accident. They were leaving a house on Garway Road, around the corner from Leinster Square. It was a small house, and old, but it had been kept up. The couple was smiling, happy to be with each other. She was pretty, with long brown hair done up at the back of her head, and he was tall and lanky with a giant Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down as he murmured something in her ear. They held hands as they crossed the dark road and walked away. Neither of them even glanced in his direction.
He looked up at the house and clapped his hands together with joy. There was clearly an attic, with a single window that looked out over the front garden.
He waited until the couple was out of sight and then he went to the door and knocked. There was no answer. He looked up and down the road, but it was empty. Nobody was paying attention to him. He walked around the side of the house where a hedge obscured the view from the street and he stopped again. No one had followed him, no one was shouting. He wiped his fingers on a windowpane, clearing the dirt and condensation, and peered inside, saw a small receiving room with nothing but a chair and a round table barely large enough for the lamp that sat on it. Nothing moved. The lamp was not lit and the sun was down, but nobody entered the room to light the flame.
He thought about the couple he had seen. They were doing well enough to afford a house to themselves, but they apparently didn’t employ a housekeeper. Or if they had one, she’d been given the evening off. He didn’t see evidence of children or a nanny. The couple was young, perhaps just starting out, which meant they might be living on an inheritance of some sort.
He used the point of his blade to pry the window open and slid it upward on its runners. He put the blade away and tossed the plague mask into the room ahead of him, then hoisted himself up, balanced for a moment, teetering back and forth on his belly, his head inside the house, his legs brushing against the hedge outside. He heard nothing. The air inside was undisturbed. He smelled something sweet lurking beneath the usual stale quality of an empty house. He put the palms of his hands against the wall under the window and pushed himself the rest of the way in, dropped to the floor, turned, and pulled the sash down. He picked up his mask by the strap, sniffed, and followed his nose to the kitchen, where a tray of fresh chocolate biscuits sat cooling on the sideboard. Moonlight streamed through the windows, lending the room a dim blue hue. The Harvest Man took two biscuits and rearranged the others so that they appeared to fill the tray. He crept about the ground floor, munching on one of the biscuits, getting his bearings. First, of course, he needed to know where the couple slept, and he was excited to find evidence that they occupied separate rooms at night.