by Alex North
I fought down the frustration. There were no answers here.
My investigation had disturbed several more of the butterflies, though. Five or six of them were crawling over the debris I’d unpacked, their antennae twitching, while another two were fluttering against the window. I watched as one on the tinsel lifted up into the air, then flickered past me, heading for the open door, before the stupid thing looped back in again and landed on the floor in front of me, on one of the bricks there.
I watched it for a moment, once again admiring the rich, distinctive colors on its wings. It crawled steadily across the surface of the bricks, and then disappeared down into a crack between them.
I stared at the floor.
A large section of the garage floor in front of me was made up of haphazardly arranged house bricks, and it took me a second to recognize what I must be looking at. An old mechanic’s pit, where someone could lie down underneath a car to work on it. It had been filled in with bricks to approximate a flat surface.
Tentatively, I lifted up the one the butterfly had been on. It came out of the floor covered in dust and old webbing, the butterfly clinging obstinately to one side.
In the hole the brick had left, I could see the top of what appeared to be another cardboard box below.
The garage door banged again behind me.
Jesus.
This time I stood up and walked back out onto the driveway to check. There was nobody in sight, but in the last few minutes the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and the world felt darker and colder. The breeze had picked up. Looking down, I saw that I was still holding the brick, and that my hand was trembling slightly.
Back in the garage, I put the brick to one side, and then began to remove more from the pit, gradually revealing the box hidden underneath. It was the same size as the others, but had been sealed across the top with parcel tape. I took out my keys and selected the one with the sharpest tip, my heart humming.
Is this what you were looking for, Norman?
I drew the point across the center of the tape, then dug my fingers in to pull the seams apart. They came away at each end with a crackling sound. Then I peered inside.
Immediately I sat back on my heels, either unable or unwilling to comprehend what I had seen. My thoughts went back to what Jake had said last night after he’d been talking to himself in the living room. I want to scare you. That was when I’d assumed the imaginary little girl had come back into our lives.
A car door slammed. I glanced behind me and saw that a vehicle was parked at the end of my driveway, and that a man and a woman were walking toward me.
It wasn’t her, my son had told me.
It was the boy in the floor.
“Mr. Kennedy?” the woman called.
Instead of answering her, I turned my attention back to the box in front of me.
To the bones inside.
To the small skull that was staring up at me.
And to the beautifully colored butterfly that had landed and rested there, its wings moving gently, like the heartbeat of a sleeping child.
Twenty-eight
Back in the day, Pete had encountered Norman Collins on several occasions, but he had never had cause to visit the man’s home. He knew of it, though: it had once belonged to Collins’s parents, and Collins had never moved out. Following his father’s death, he had lived there alone with his mother for a number of years, and then continued to do so after she died.
There was nothing untoward about that, of course, but the idea still made Pete feel a little queasy. Children were supposed to grow up, move out, and fashion their own lives; to do otherwise suggested some kind of unhealthy dependency or deficiency. Perhaps it was simply because Pete had met Collins. He remembered him as soft and doughy, and always sweating, as though there were something rotten inside him that was constantly seeping out. He was the kind of man who it was easy to imagine might have kept his mother’s bedroom carefully preserved over the years, or taken to sleeping in her bed.
And yet, as much as he’d raised Pete’s hackles, Norman Collins had not been Frank Carter’s accomplice.
There was some consolation to be had there. Whatever Collins’s involvement right now, Pete hadn’t missed him at the time. While the man had never officially been a suspect, he had been very much suspected. His alibis had checked out, though. If someone really had been helping Carter, it was physically impossible for it to have been Norman Collins.
So what had he been doing at the prison?
Maybe nothing. And yet Carter had to have received communication from the outside world somehow, and as Pete parked outside Collins’s house, he felt a small thrill inside him. Better not to hope too much, of course. But he still had the sense that they were on the right track here, even if it wasn’t clear right now where it was leading.
He approached the house. The small front garden was untended and overgrown, filled with sweeping whorls of grass that had collapsed down upon themselves. A bush close to the house was so thick that he had to turn sideways and scrape past to reach the front door. He knocked. The wood beneath his knuckles felt weak and flimsy, half eaten away. The front of the house had been painted white at some point, but so much had flaked away since that it reminded Pete of an old lady’s face plastered with cracked makeup.
He was about to knock again when he heard movement on the other side of the door. It opened, but only to the limit of a chain. There had been no sound of it being applied, which meant Collins liked to keep his property nice and secure, even when he was home.
“Yes?”
Norman Collins didn’t recognize Pete, but Pete remembered him well enough. Twenty years had barely changed him, beyond his monk’s hair having grown bright white. The top of his head was mottled and red, like something angry that needed to be burst. And even though he was presumably relaxing at home, he was dressed almost absurdly formally, in a dapper little suit and waistcoat.
Pete held out his identification.
“Hello, Mr. Collins. I’m DI Peter Willis. You might not remember me, but we met a few times years ago?”
Collins’s gaze flicked from the identification to Pete’s face, and then his expression became tight and tense. He remembered, all right.
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
Pete put the ID away.
“Can I come in for a chat? I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”
Collins hesitated, glancing behind him into the shadowy depths of the house. Pete could already see beads of sweat appearing on the man’s forehead.
“It’s not the most convenient time. What is it regarding?”
“I’d prefer to talk inside, Mr. Collins.”
He waited. Collins was a stuffy little man, and Pete was confident he wouldn’t want the silence to become awkward. After a few seconds, Collins relented.
“Very well.”
The door closed, and then opened fully this time. Pete stepped into a drab square of hallway, with stairs leading straight up ahead to a misty landing. The air smelled old and musty, but with a trace of something sweet to it. It reminded him of the ancient school desks from his childhood, where you’d open the top and smell wood and old bubble gum.
“How can I help you, DI Willis?”
They were still standing at the bottom of the stairs, far too cramped for Pete’s liking. This close, he could smell Collins, sweating beneath his suit. He gestured to the open door to what was obviously the living room.
“Perhaps we can go through there?”
Again Collins hesitated. Pete frowned.
What are you hiding, Norman?
“Of course,” Collins said. “This way, please.”
He led Pete into the living room. Pete was expecting to be met with squalor, but the room appeared tidy and clean, and the furniture was newer and less old-fashioned than he would have imagined. There was a large plasma screen attached to one wall, while the others were covered with framed artwork and small glass display cases.
“Are you … all right, Mr. Collins?”
“Oh, yes.” Collins nodded curtly. “May I ask again what this is regarding?”
“A little over two months ago, you went to see an inmate named Victor Tyler in HMP Whitrow.”
“That I did.”
“And what was the purpose of that visit?”
“To talk to him. The same purpose as my other visits.”
“You’ve visited him before?”
“Indeed. Several times.”
Collins was still standing motionless, as if he’d been posed. Still smiling politely.
“Can I ask what you discussed with Victor Tyler?”
“Well—his crime, of course.”
“The little girl he killed?”
Collins nodded. “Mary Fisher.”
“Yes, I know her name.”
A ghoul. That was what Collins had always struck Pete as—a strange little man, obsessed with the kind of darkness that others instinctively shied away from. Collins was still standing there smiling, as though waiting patiently for this business to be concluded and for Pete to leave, but the smile was all wrong. Collins was nervous, Pete thought. Hiding something. And Pete was aware that he had grown still himself—that there was an uncomfortable lack of movement in the room—so he walked over to one wall, idly examining some of the pictures and items that Collins had framed and mounted there.
The drawings were strange. Up close, it became apparent how childlike many of them were. His gaze moved here and there, over stick figures, amateurish watercolors, and then his attention was drawn to something more unusual. A red plastic devil mask. It was the kind of item you’d find in a cheap fancy dress shop, but for some reason Collins had encased it in a thin rectangle of glass and hung it on his wall.
“A collector’s item, that.”
Collins was suddenly beside him. Pete resisted the urge to shout, but couldn’t stop himself from taking a step away.
“A collector’s item?”
“Indeed.” Collins nodded. “It was worn by a fairly notorious murderer during the crimes he committed. It cost a small fortune to acquire, but it’s a handsome piece, and the source and paperwork are impeccable.” Collins turned quickly to look at Pete. “All completely legal and aboveboard, I assure you. Was there anything else I could help you with?”
Pete shook his head, trying to make sense of what Collins had just said. Then he looked at some of the other items on the wall. It wasn’t just pictures, he realized. Several of the frames contained notes and letters. Some were clearly official documents and reports, while others were handwritten, scrawled on cheap notepaper.
He gestured at the wall, feeling slightly helpless.
“And … these?”
“Correspondence,” Collins said happily. “Some personal, some acquired. Forms and paperwork from cases, as well.”
Pete stepped away again, this time moving all the way back to the middle of the room. And then he turned, looking this way and that. As he understood what he was seeing, the feeling of unease deepened, folding over inside him, drawing the heat away from his skin.
Drawings, mementos, correspondence.
Artifacts of death and murder.
He had been aware before now that there were people in the world who were driven to acquire such macabre things, and that there were even thriving online marketplaces dedicated to the activity. But he had never before stood in the heart of such a collection. The room around him seemed to be throbbing with menace, not least because this was clearly not simply a collection, but a celebration. There was reverence in the way these things had been put on display.
He looked at Norman Collins, who remained standing by the wall. The smile had disappeared from the man’s face now, his expression replaced by something altogether more alien and reptilian. Collins had not wanted to let Pete in, and he had clearly hoped to conclude the conversation without Pete noticing his pictures and ornaments. But there was a sneer of pride on his face now—a look that said he knew how abhorrent Pete must find his collection, and that a part of him relished it. That he was even above Pete in some way.
All completely legal and aboveboard, I assure you.
And so Pete simply stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do, unsure if he even could do anything. Then his cell phone rang, jolting him. He took it out—Amanda—and then turned away, speaking quietly as he pressed the phone hard to his ear.
“Willis here.”
“Pete? Where are you?”
“I’m where I said I would be.” He noticed the urgency in her voice. “Where are you?”
“I’m at a house on Garholt Street. We’ve got a second body.”
“A second?”
“Yes. But these remains are much older—it looks like they’ve been hidden for a long time.”
Pete tried to take in what he was hearing.
“The house here was sold recently.” Amanda sounded a little breathless, as though she were still trying to process all this too. “The new owner found the body in a box in the garage. He also made a report that someone might have attempted to abduct his son last night. And your man Norman Collins—it looks like he’s been creeping at the property. Owner puts him at the scene. I think Collins knew the body was there.”
Pete turned around quickly then—suddenly aware of a presence. Collins had magicked himself closer once again. He was standing right next to Pete now, his face near enough that Pete could see the pores of his skin and the blankness in his eyes. The air was singing with menace.
“Is there anything else, DI Willis?” Collins whispered.
Pete took a step away, his heart beating hard.
“Bring him in,” Amanda said.
Twenty-nine
I parked a road away from Jake’s school, thinking that it should have been reassuring to have a policeman in the car with me.
I’d been frustrated that the officers who called around that morning hadn’t taken my nighttime visitor and the attempted abduction of my son as seriously as they should. That had certainly changed now, but there was nothing remotely comforting about it. It meant all this was actually happening. It meant that the danger to Jake was real.
DS Dyson looked up.
“We’re here?”
“It’s just round the corner.”
He slipped his cell into his suit trousers pocket. Dyson was in his fifties, but had spent the journey from the police station silently absorbed with something on his phone, like some kind of teenager.
“Okay,” he said. “I want you to behave exactly as you usually would. Pick your son up. Chat with the other parents, or whatever it is you normally do. Take your time. I’ll have you in sight throughout, and I’ll just be keeping an eye on the other people present.”
I tapped the steering wheel. “DI Beck told me you’d already arrested the man responsible.”
“Sure.” Dyson shrugged, and from his manner, it was clear that he was simply following an order and going through the motions. “It’s just a precaution.”
A precaution.
That was the same word DI Amanda Beck had used at the police station. Things had moved quickly after the police arrived at my house and I’d shown them what I’d found. In the intervening time, Norman Collins had been arrested, which brought it home to me all too clearly what could have happened to Jake last night. But with Collins in custody, my son should have been safe.
So why the escort?
Just a precaution.
It hadn’t reassured me at the police station, and it didn’t now either. The police were a capable, powerful resource to have behind me, and yet it still felt as if Jake wouldn’t be safe until he was right next to me. Someplace where I could look after him.
Dyson melted away behind me as I walked to the school
, and it was surreal to think I was being covertly shadowed by a police officer. But then, the whole day had been off-kilter and unworldly. With events moving so swiftly, I still hadn’t processed the fact that I’d found human remains, most likely those of a child, on my property. The reality of that hadn’t hit me yet. I’d given my statement at the police station dispassionately, and it would be typed up and waiting for me to sign after I picked up Jake. I still had no idea what was going to happen after that.
Just behave normally, Dyson had told me, which was a completely impossible instruction under the circumstances. But when I reached the playground, I saw Karen leaning against the railings, hands stuffed into the pockets of her big coat, and figured that talking to her was about as normal as anything else. I walked in and leaned against the railings beside her.
“Hello there,” she said. “How’s tricks?”
“Tricky.”
“Ha-ha.” Then she looked at me properly. “Although that’s not actually a joke, is it, by the look of things. Bad day?”
I breathed out slowly. The police hadn’t explicitly told me I couldn’t talk to anyone about the day’s events, but I suspected it would be wise not to, yet. Aside from anything else, I had absolutely no idea where to begin.
“You could say that. It’s been a very complicated twenty-four hours. I’ll tell you about it properly some time.”
“Well, I’ll look forward to that. I hope you’re okay, though. No offense, but you look like shit.” She thought about it. “Although that probably is quite offensive, isn’t it? Sorry. I always say the wrong thing. Bad habit.”
“It’s fine. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Your son’s imaginary friends keeping you up?”
I actually laughed.
“That’s closer to the truth than you know.”
The boy in the floor.
I thought of the rusty-looking bones, and the hollow-eyed skull with its crest of jagged cracks. The beautiful colors of the butterflies Jake couldn’t have seen, but had somehow drawn. And as much as I wanted him out here right now, I was also slightly unnerved by the prospect. Unnerved by him. My sensitive son, with his sleepwalking and his imaginary friends, and the way he talked to people who weren’t there, who told him frightening rhymes and tried to scare him.