The Whisper Man

by Alex North

  And …

  Someone was whispering.

  But the figure at the end of the bed, still swaying ever so slowly from side to side, was entirely silent. The sound I could hear was coming from somewhere else in the house.

  I looked to my left. The open bedroom door gave me a view of the dark hallway. It was empty, but I thought the whispering was coming from somewhere out there.

  “Jake—”

  But when I looked back, the silhouette at the end of my bed had disappeared and the room was empty.

  I rubbed the sleep from my face, then slid across the cold side of the bed and padded quietly out into the hall. The whispering was a little louder out here. While I couldn’t make out any words, it was obvious now that I was hearing two voices: a hushed conversation, with one participant slightly gruffer than the other. Jake was talking to himself again. I moved instinctively toward his room, but then glanced down the stairs and froze where I stood.

  My son was at the bottom, sitting by the front door. A soft wedge of streetlight was cutting around the edge of the curtains in my office to the side, staining his tousled hair orange. His legs were curled up underneath him, and his head was against the door, with one hand pressed there beside it. In the other, resting against his leg, were the spare keys I kept on the desk in the office.

  I listened.

  “I’m not sure,” Jake whispered.

  The reply was the gruffer voice I’d heard.

  “I’ll look after you, I promise.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Let me in, Jake.”

  My son moved his hand toward the mail slot in the door. That was when I noticed that it was being pushed open from the outside. There were fingers there. My heart leaped at the sight of them. Four thin, pale fingers, poking through among the spidery black bristles, holding the mail slot open.

  “Let me in.”

  Jake rested the side of his small hand against one of them, and it curled around to stroke him.

  “Just let me in.”

  He reached up for the chain.

  “Don’t move!” I shouted.

  It came out without me thinking, from my heart as much as my mouth. The fingers retreated immediately and the mail slot snapped shut behind them. Jake turned to look up at me as I thudded down the stairs toward him, my heart hammering in my chest. At the bottom, I snatched the keys out of his hand.

  Sitting like that, he was blocking the door.

  “Move,” I shouted. “Move.”

  He scrabbled out of the way, crawling on his hands and knees into my office. I scraped the chain out of the lock, then tried the door handle, which turned easily—Jake had already unlocked the fucking thing with the keys. Pulling the door open, I stepped quickly onto the front path and stared out into the night.

  As far as I could tell, there was nobody up or down the street. The amber haze beneath the streetlights was misty, the pavements empty. But looking across the road, I thought I could see a figure running swiftly across the field. A vague shape, pummeling away through the darkness.

  Already too far away for me to catch.

  My instinct took me down the front path anyway, but I stopped halfway to the street, my breath visible in the cold night air. What the hell was I doing? I couldn’t leave the house open behind me and go chasing someone across a field. I couldn’t leave Jake in there by himself, alone and abandoned.

  So I stood there for a few seconds, staring into the darkness of the field. The figure—if it had ever been here at all—had disappeared now.

  It had been here.

  I stood there for a moment longer. And then I went back inside, locked the door, and phoned the police.

  Part Three

  Twenty-two

  Credit where it’s due, two police officers arrived on my doorstep within ten minutes of my phone call. After that, things began to go downhill.

  I had to take some responsibility for what happened. It was half past four in the morning, and I was exhausted, frightened, and not thinking straight, and the account I had to give was light on detail anyway. But there was no getting away from Jake’s role in what unfolded.

  When I’d come back inside to make the call, I’d found him at the bottom of the stairs, hugging his knees and with his face buried in them. I had eventually calmed down enough to calm him down too, and then I’d carried him into the living room, where he’d curled up at one end of the couch. And then refused to talk to me.

  I had done my best to hide the frustration and panic I was feeling. I probably hadn’t succeeded.

  Even when the police officers joined us in the living room, Jake remained in that same position. I sat down awkwardly beside him. Even then, I was aware of the distance between us, and I was sure it was also very obvious to the police. The two of them—a man and a woman—were both polite and made the requisite concerned and understanding faces, but the woman kept glancing curiously at Jake, and I got the impression the worry on her face was not wholly because of what I was telling them.

  Afterward, the male officer referred to the notes he’d made.

  “Has Jake sleepwalked before?”

  “A little,” I said. “But not often, and only ever to my room. He’s never gone downstairs like that.”

  That was if he even had been sleepwalking, of course. While it made me feel better to think he hadn’t been about to open that door out of choice, I realized I couldn’t be sure of that. And Jesus, if that was true, what did it say about how much my son hated me?

  The officer made another note.

  “And you can’t describe the individual you saw?”

  “No. He was quite far away across the field by then, running fast. It was dark, and I couldn’t see him properly.”

  “Build? Clothes?”

  I shook my head. “No, sorry.”

  “Are you sure it was a man?”

  “Yes. It was a man’s voice I heard at the door.”

  “Could that have been Jake?” The officer looked at my son. Jake was still curled up next to me, staring off into space as though he were the only person in the entire world. “Sometimes children talk to themselves.”

  Not something I wanted to get into.

  “No,” I said. “There was definitely somebody there. I saw this man’s fingers holding the mail slot open. I heard him. The voice was older. He was trying to persuade Jake to open the door—and he was going to as well. God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t woken up in time.”

  The reality of the situation crashed down on me then. In my mind’s eye I saw the scene again, and realized how close it had all been. If I hadn’t been there, then Jake would be gone now. I imagined him missing, with the police seated across from me for a different reason, and felt helpless. Despite my frustration with his behavior, I wanted to wrap my arms around him—to protect him and hold him close. But I knew that I couldn’t. That he wouldn’t let me, or even want me to right now.

  “How did Jake get the keys?”

  “I left them in my office across the hall.” I shook my head. “That’s not a mistake I’ll be making again.”

  “That’s probably wise.”

  “And what about you, Jake?” The female officer leaned forward, smiling kindly. “Can you tell us anything at all about what happened?”

  Jake shook his head.

  “You can’t? Why were you at the door, sweetheart?”

  He shrugged almost imperceptibly, and then seemed to move a little farther away from me. The woman leaned back, still looking at Jake, her head tilted slightly to one side. Evaluating him.

  “There was another man,” I said quickly. “He came by the house yesterday. He was hanging around the garage, acting strangely. When I confronted him, he said he’d grown up here and wanted to look around.”

  The male officer looked interested in that.

  “How did you confront him?”

  “He came to the door.”

  “Oh, I see.” He made a note on his pad. “Can
you describe him?”

  I did, and he scribbled away. But it was clear that the man actively knocking on the door had made the development significantly less interesting to him. Plus, it was difficult to convey how uneasy the man had made me feel. There had been nothing physically threatening about him, and yet he had still seemed dangerous on some level.

  “Neil Spencer,” I remembered.

  The male officer stopped writing.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I think that was his name. We’ve only just moved here. But another little boy went missing, didn’t he? Earlier this summer?”

  The two officers exchanged a glance.

  “What do you know about Neil Spencer?” the man asked me.

  “Nothing. Jake’s teacher just mentioned him. I was going to look it up online, but it was a … busy night.” And again, I didn’t want to go into the argument Jake and I had had. “I was working.”

  But, of course, that was the wrong thing to say as well, because work was writing, and Jake had read what I’d done. I felt him shrink slightly beside me.

  Frustration got the better of me.

  “It’s just that I’d have thought this would be more worrying to you than it seems to be,” I said.

  “Mr. Kennedy—”

  “It feels like you don’t believe me.”

  The man smiled. But it was a careful smile.

  “It’s not a case of not believing you, Mr. Kennedy. But we can only work with what we have.” He looked at me for a moment, considering me in much the same way his partner was still evaluating my son. “We take everything seriously. We’ll log a record of this, but based on what you’ve told us, there’s not a vast amount we can do right now. As I said, I recommend you keep your keys out of your son’s way. Observe basic home security. Keep an eye out. And don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you see anyone else around your property who shouldn’t be here.”

  I shook my head. Given what had happened—given that someone had tried to take my son—this response wasn’t remotely good enough. I was angry at myself, and I couldn’t help being angry at Jake as well. I was trying to help him! And in a minute the police would be gone, and it would just be me and him again. Alone. Neither of us up to the job of living with the other.

  “Mr. Kennedy?” the female officer said gently. “Is it just you and Jake here? Does his mother live elsewhere?”

  “His mother is dead.”

  I said it too bluntly, a trace of the anger I was feeling escaping. She seemed taken aback.

  “Oh. I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m just … it’s hard. And what just happened tonight, it scared me.”

  And that was the point when Jake came back to life, perhaps animated by anger of his own. What I’d written. The fact I’d just said his mother was dead so brazenly. He uncurled and slowly sat up straight, finally looking at me, his face expressionless. When he spoke, it was with a raspy, unearthly voice that sounded far too old for his years.

  “I want to scare you,” he said.

  Twenty-three

  When the alarm went off, Pete lay very still for a moment, letting it ring on the bedside table. Something was wrong and he needed to prepare himself. Then there was a burst of panic as he remembered the events of yesterday evening. The sight of Neil Spencer’s body on the waste ground. The almost frantic race to get home afterward. And the reassuring weight of the bottle in his hand.

  The clicks as he’d broken the seal.

  And then …

  Finally, he opened his eyes. The early morning sun was already strong, streaming through the thin blue curtains and falling in a wedge over the covers bunched up over his knees. Sometime in the night, sweating with heat, he must have thrown them off his upper body, and the tangle of material felt ridiculously heavy now, wrapped tightly around his knees.

  He turned his head and looked at the bedside table.

  The bottle was there. The seal was broken.

  But the contents remained, full to the top.

  He remembered how long he’d deliberated last night, battling the urge again and again as it came back at him from different angles, both he and the voice refusing to relent or retreat. He’d even brought the bottle and a tumbler up here to bed with him. Still fighting, even then.

  And in the end, he had won.

  Relief rushed through him. He glanced at the tumbler now. Before going to sleep, he had put the photograph of Sally on top of it. Even after everything that had happened—the horrors of the evening—that photograph and those memories had still been enough to keep him clean.

  He tried not to think about the day ahead of him or the evenings to come.

  Enough for now.

  * * *

  He showered and ate breakfast. Even without drinking, he felt so worn down that he contemplated not going to the gym. A briefing had been scheduled for first thing, and he needed to be prepared for it, to be filled in on the case. But he already felt soaked to the skin in it. As dispassionate as he’d tried to be when viewing Neil Spencer’s body, it was like pointing a camera without looking through the viewfinder; your mind took the photograph regardless. If anything, if he was going to be competent and professional in a couple of hours, he needed to empty some of that horror out.

  He drove to the department and went to the gym.

  Afterward, feeling calmer, he went upstairs. For a moment, he stared at the blissful piles of safe, innocuous paperwork in his office, then found the old, malignant bundle of notes he was going to need and headed to the operations room one floor above.

  His calm faded slightly as he opened the door. It was still ten minutes before the briefing was due to begin, but the room was already heaving with officers. Nobody was talking; every face he could see looked somber. Most of these men and women would have worked this case from the beginning, and whatever the odds, each of them would have clung on to hope. By now they all knew what had been found last night. Before today, a child had been missing. Now a child was dead.

  He leaned against a wall at the back of the room, aware as he did that gazes were falling on him. It was understandable. While his initial involvement in the case had come to nothing, all of them must know that his presence here now was not a coincidence. He spotted DCI Lyons sitting near the front, looking back at him. Pete met his eyes for a moment, trying to read the expression on the man’s face. Like last night at the waste ground, it was blank, which only left Pete free to imagine. Was the man feeling an odd sense of triumph? It seemed unfair to contemplate such an idea, but it was certainly possible. Despite the disparity in their career trajectories since, Pete knew that Lyons had always resented him on some level for being the one to catch Frank Carter. This recent development meant the case never really had been closed. And here was Lyons, presiding over what might turn out to be the endgame, with Pete reduced now to the status of a pawn.

  He folded his arms, stared at the floor, and waited.

  Amanda arrived a minute later, stalking quickly through the assembled throng toward the front of the room. Even from the brief side view he got of her, it was obvious she was harried and tired. Same clothes as last night, he noticed. She’d slept in one of the overnight suites or, more likely, hadn’t slept at all. As she took to the small stage, there was a subdued, defeated look about her.

  “Right, everyone,” she said. “You’ve all heard the news. Yesterday evening we had a report that a child’s body had been found on the waste ground off Gair Lane. Officers attended and secured the scene. The identity of the victim has yet to be confirmed, but we believe this to be Neil Spencer.”

  They had all known it already, but still: Pete watched the slump travel around the room. The emotional temperature of the room dropped. The silence among the assembled officers, already absolute, somehow seemed to intensify.

  “We also believe it to be a case of third-party involvement. There are significant injuries to the body.”

  Amanda’s voice almost broke at that and he
saw her wince slightly. Too hard on herself. Under different circumstances, it might have been perceived as weakness, but Pete didn’t think it would be in this room right now. He watched as she gathered herself.

  “Details of which are obviously not going to be released to the press at this time. We have a cordon in place, but the media know we’ve found a body. That is all they are going to know until we get a handle on what’s happening here.”

  A woman by the wall was nodding to herself. Pete recognized it as the kind of action he had made in the deepest throes of his addiction, pining for a drink and riding out the pain.

  “The body has been removed from the scene and a postmortem will take place this morning. We have an estimated time of death somewhere between three and five P.M. yesterday. Assuming this is Neil Spencer, he was found in roughly the same place he went missing, which may be significant. We also believe Neil was killed at a different location, presumably wherever he had been held. Fingers crossed that forensics will give us some clue as to where that might be. In the meantime, we’ll be going over all the CCTV in the area. We’ll be knocking on every door in the vicinity. Because I am simply not having this monster wandering around Featherbank undetected. I’m not having it.”

  She looked up. Despite the obvious tiredness and upset, there was fire in her eyes now.

  “All of us here—we’ve all worked on this investigation. And even if we’d steeled ourselves, this is not the result any of us were hoping for. So let me be absolutely clear. It will not be allowed to stand. Do we agree?”

  Pete glanced around again. A few nods here and there; the room coming back to life. He admired the sentiment and acknowledged the need for it right now, but he also remembered giving equally angry speeches twenty years ago, and while he had believed them at the time, he knew now that things not only stood whether you wanted them to or not, but that sometimes they followed you forever.