by Alex North
“Please stop, Jake.”
And he did. His hand was trembling so much he could hardly hold the marker. He was pressing it down so hard that the portal was beginning to cut through the paper.
“I’ve done as well as I can,” he said. “I can’t do it.”
George had given him four sheets to work on, and he’d used three already trying to replicate the picture of the house and its garden. But it was too complicated. A part of him suspected George had done that deliberately—that it was a test, the same way that the disgusting breakfast had been. With the tests at school, you could tell that the teachers wanted you to pass, but he didn’t think that George wanted that at all. When Mrs. Shelley had put him on yellow that first day, Jake thought that she probably hadn’t wanted to. But with George, it felt like he was looking for any excuse to put him straight onto red.
So he’d tried. He’d done his best. And there was one sheet left, so he was drawing a battle. It was good to be creative, wasn’t it?
Daddy always liked his pictures.
But he didn’t want to think about Daddy right now. He started drawing again. Around and around. And maybe the little girl was right, but he couldn’t stop himself now. It was all that was holding back the panic, even though his hand seemed to be totally out of control, so maybe this was panic after all—
The door opened at the bottom of the stairs.
Around and around.
Footsteps coming up.
And then there was so much ink on the sheet that the paper tore. The figure popped out.
You’re safe now, Jake thought.
And then George entered the room.
He was smiling, but it was all wrong. Jake thought it was like George had put on a parent costume, except it was uncomfortable and didn’t fit, and what he really wanted to do was take it off as quickly as possible. Jake didn’t want to see what might be underneath. He stood up, his heart trembling as hard as his body was.
“Now, then!” He walked across. “Let’s see how you’ve done.”
He stopped a short distance away. He could see the picture.
The smile disappeared.
“What the fuck is that?”
Jake blinked at the swear. As he did, he realized there were tears in his eyes. He had started crying without even noticing, and the urge to let himself—to break down and sob—was tremendous. It was only the look on George’s face that stopped him. George wouldn’t want real emotion. If Jake broke down, then George would simply wait until he was finished and then give him something to really cry about.
“That’s not what I told you to draw.”
“Show him the others,” the little girl said quickly.
Jake rubbed his eyes and then pointed down at the drawings he’d been meant to be doing. I want my Daddy. The words were bubbling up inside him, threatening to come out.
“I did my best,” Jake said. “I couldn’t do it.”
George looked down, examining the pictures blankly. The room was silent for a few seconds, the air humming with threat.
“These aren’t good enough.”
Despite himself, the comment stung Jake. He knew he was no good at drawing, but Daddy always said he liked them anyway, because—
“I tried my best.”
“No, Jake. Evidently you didn’t. Because you gave up, didn’t you? You had another sheet to practice on, and you decided to do … this instead.” George waved his hand contemptuously at the battle scene. “Things in this house cost money. We do not waste them.”
“Say sorry,” the little girl told him.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough, Jake. Not good enough at all.”
George was staring down at him very gravely. It looked like he was struggling to control himself, because his hands were trembling. And Jake knew that the drawing was just an excuse. Deep down, George wanted to be angry with him. His hands were trembling because he was trying to decide if this was enough of an infringement to let his anger fly.
He made up his mind.
“And so you’re going to have to be punished.”
And then George became totally still. The costume came away. Jake could see all the goodness and kindness falling away from him, as though they had only ever been pretend, things that could be discarded as easily as pulling off a T-shirt. There was a monster standing in front of him. And he was alone here with it. And it was going to hurt him.
Jake retreated until the backs of his calves were against the small bed.
“I want my daddy.”
“What?”
“Daddy! I want my daddy!”
George started to move closer, but then Jake jumped at the sound of an alarm somewhere in the house below, and George stopped where he was. Very slowly, he turned his head and stared back toward the staircase. The rest of his body remained angled toward Jake.
Not an alarm, Jake realized.
Someone was ringing the doorbell.
Sixty-two
On the second floor, seething with rage, Francis ducked quickly into his bedroom and pulled on a white robe. He was supposed to be sick, after all. He also forced himself to calm down enough to hide the rage he felt. It was good to keep it close to the surface, though. Accessible. He might need it.
The fucking doorbell.
Still ringing. He headed downstairs. It wouldn’t be the police, he decided. If anything ever brought them to his door, their arrival would be considerably less polite than this. He looked out through the peephole in the front door, the bell ringing loudly and incessantly in his ear. The glass gave a fish-eye view of the steps and garden, and he saw Tom Kennedy leaning on the bell, a look of wild determination on his face. Francis recoiled slightly. How the fuck had Kennedy found him? What could have brought him here but not the police?
And why would he even want his son back?
Francis stepped back from the door. There was no need to answer it—surely Kennedy would go away soon. It was madness to think the man might stay there much longer.
And yet the doorbell continued ringing.
Francis thought again about the look on the man’s face, and he wondered if perhaps Kennedy really was insane. If that was what losing a child, even one as blatantly uncared-for as Jake, might do to a man.
Or if perhaps he’d misjudged.
He rested his forehead against the door, bare inches from the man outside now, feeling Kennedy’s presence as a tingle in the front of his skull. Was it possible that Jake was loved, after all? That his father cared about him so much that his abduction had driven him to such extremes? The idea sent an explosion of loss and hopelessness through Francis. It wouldn’t be fair if that was true. None of this was fair. Little boys didn’t matter that much to anyone. He had known it all along deep down, but he was certain of it now. They were worthless. They deserved nothing but—
The bell kept ringing.
“All right,” he called out loudly.
Kennedy must have heard him, but he didn’t relent. Francis walked quickly into the kitchen, selected a small, sharp knife from the draining rack, and slid it into the pocket of the robe. Finally, the bell stopped. Francis put the feeling of loss away inside him and brought the anger back up again, keeping it just out of sight.
Get rid of him.
Deal with the boy.
Then he put on his best face and went back to the door.
Sixty-three
“All “right.”
I was so surprised when I heard the voice from behind the door that I forgot to take my finger off the bell.
I’d given up expecting anyone to answer. By that point it was more that I had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been standing there. I had just become intent on ringing that bell, as though by holding it down I could somehow save Jake.
I stepped back, then turned around and looked at Karen. She was waiting in the car, watching me anxiously, her phone pressed to her ear. She’d insisted
on calling the police, so I’d left her with DI Beck’s details. She stared back at me now, shaking her head.
I turned again to the door, with no idea what was going to happen next. I’d been running on adrenaline since looking through Jake’s Packet of Special Things, and now that I was here, I had no idea what the hell I was going to say to George Saunders, or what I was even going to do.
A key in the lock.
The memory of seeing my father last night came back to me. The injuries that had been inflicted on him. He had been a fit, capable man, and yet whoever had attacked him had overwhelmed him easily. He had been unarmed, and perhaps taken by surprise, but even so. What use was I going to be?
I hadn’t thought this through well enough.
The door opened.
I expected it to be on a chain, with Saunders only half visible, perhaps peering guiltily out. But he opened it fully and confidently, and I was immediately taken aback by the sight of him. He was average-looking in every way, and while I guessed he was in his twenties, he looked much younger. There was a soft, childlike sense to him. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone appear so harmless.
“George Saunders?” I said.
He nodded sleepily, then pulled the white robe he was wearing more tightly around him. His hair was messy and unkempt, and the expression on his face suggested that he had only just woken up, and was both bewildered and slightly irritated about it.
“You work at Rose Terrace School, right?”
He squinted at me.
“Yeah. Right.”
“My son goes there. I think you might teach him.”
“Oh. Well, no, I don’t teach. I’m just an assistant.”
“Year three. Jake Kennedy.”
“Right. Yeah, I think he’s in my class. But what I meant is, it’s his teacher you’d need to talk to.” He frowned, but more out of sleepy confusion than suspicion, as though the thought had only just occurred to him. “And at the school too. How did you even get my address?”
I looked at him. His face was pale, and he was shivering slightly despite the heat of the morning. He really did look ill. And yes, slightly perturbed by my presence, but not about it being me in particular. Just uneasy about a parent turning up on his doorstep.
“It’s not really about his schoolwork,” I said.
“What is it about, then?”
“Jake is missing.”
Saunders shook his head, not understanding.
“Someone took him,” I said. “Just like Neil Spencer.”
“Oh, Jesus.” He looked genuinely aghast at that. “I’m so sorry. When did this…?”
“Last night.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he said again, then closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “That is awful. Awful. I haven’t really had much to do with Jake, but he seems like such a nice kid.”
He is, I thought. But I also noted Saunders’s use of the present tense, and began doubting myself more. The evidence that had led me here was paper thin, and in the flesh Saunders looked like someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And he seemed genuinely surprised by the news that Jake had been abducted—upset, even.
I held up the picture of the butterfly.
“Did you draw this for him?”
Saunders peered at it.
“No. I’ve never seen that before.”
“You didn’t draw this?”
“No.”
He took a step back. I was holding the sheet of paper up, my hand trembling, and he was responding exactly the way anyone would when faced with a man like me on their doorstep.
“What about the boy in the floor?” I said.
“What?”
“The boy in the floor.”
He stared at me, more obviously horrified now. It was the kind of horror that came from gradually understanding he was being accused of something, and if he was faking it, then he was a phenomenal actor.
This is a mistake, I thought.
But even so.
“Jake,” I shouted past him.
“What are you—?”
I leaned up against the doorframe, almost chest to chest with Saunders now, and shouted again.
“Jake!”
No answer.
After a few seconds of silence, Saunders swallowed. The noise it made was so hard that I could hear it.
“Mr.… Kennedy?”
“Yes.”
“I can understand you’re upset. I really can. But you’re scaring me. I don’t know what’s going on, but I really think you should go now.”
I looked at him. The fear in his eyes was obvious, and I thought it was real. His whole body was frozen in a flinch. He was the kind of timid man you could force down into a huddle just by raising your voice, and it seemed I was halfway there.
Saunders was telling the truth.
Jake wasn’t here, and I—
And I—
I shook my head, taking a step back.
Lost now. Completely lost. It had been a mistake coming here. I needed to do what I’d been told to and get back to Karen’s house before I could do any more damage. Before I could fuck things up any more than I already had.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Mr. Kennedy—”
“I’m sorry. I’m going now.”
Sixty-four
Wait here.
What choice did he have? None.
Jake sat on the bed, gripping the edges with his hands. When George had left, he’d locked the door at the bottom of the stairs. The bell had still been ringing then. The sound had continued for another minute or so before finally stopping, and so Jake assumed that George must have answered it, and was probably still talking to whoever was at the door. Otherwise, surely he would be back up here? Doing what he’d been planning to do before whoever it was called around.
Maybe not if I’m good, he thought.
Maybe if he waited here then George would like him again.
“You know that’s not true, Jake.”
He turned his head. The little girl was sitting on the bed beside him, and she had her serious face on again. But it was different now. She looked scared, but also full of quiet determination.
“He’s a bad man,” she said, “and he wants to hurt you. And he’s going to hurt you if you let him.”
Jake wanted to cry.
“How am I supposed to stop him?”
She smiled softly, as though they both knew the answer to that question. No, no, no. Jake looked over at the corner of the room, where the short corridor led to the stairs. There was no way he could go down there. He couldn’t face what might be waiting at the bottom.
“I can’t do that!”
“But what if it’s Daddy at the door?”
Which was exactly what Jake had hardly been daring to think. That maybe Daddy did want to find him after all, and that somehow he had, and that it was him who was downstairs now.
It was too much to hope for.
“Daddy would come up and get me.”
“Only if he knows you’re here. He might not be sure.” She thought about it. “Maybe you need to meet him halfway.”
Jake shook his head. It was too much to ask.
“I can’t go down there.”
The little girl was silent for a moment.
Then:
“Tell me about the nightmare,” she said quietly.
Jake shut his eyes.
“It’s about finding Mummy, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve never told anybody about it before, not even Daddy. Because you’re so scared of it. But you can tell me now.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she whispered. “I’ll help you. You walk into the living room, and the house feels empty. Daddy’s not there, is he? He’s still outside. So you walk across the living room.”
“Don’t,” Jake said.
“It’s sunny.”
He scrunched his eyes shut, but it didn’t help. He could remember the angle o
f sunlight through their old back window.
“You walk so slowly, because you can feel that something is wrong. Something is missing. Somehow, you already know that.”
And now he could see the back door, the wall, the handrail.
All revealed in stages.
And then—
“And then you see her,” the little girl said. “Don’t you?”
This wasn’t a nightmare, so there was no way to wake up and stop the image from appearing. Yes, he saw Mummy. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, her head tilted to one side and her cheek resting against the carpet. Her face was pale, even slightly blue, and her eyes were closed. It had been a heart attack, Daddy told him afterward, which didn’t make sense because that was something that happened to older people. But Daddy said that sometimes it happened to younger people too, maybe if their hearts were too … and then he’d trailed off and started crying. They both had.
But that was afterward. In that moment, he’d just stood there, understanding what he was seeing in a way his mind couldn’t make sense of, because the feelings were all too big.
“I saw her,” he said.
“And?”
“And it was Mummy.”
Just Mummy. Not a monster. The monstrous thing was how it had made him feel and what it meant. In that moment, it had seemed like a part of him was lying there instead, and that he would never have the words to describe the world of emotions that exploded inside him, as big as the way the Big Bang had made the universe.
But it had just been Mummy. He didn’t need to be scared of her.
“We need to go downstairs now.” The little girl put her hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
Jake opened his eyes and looked at her. She was still there, and somehow more real than ever, and he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone who loved him so much.
“Will you go with me?” he said.
She smiled.
“Of course I will. Always, my gorgeous boy.”
Then she stood up, and reached out, and took his hands, pulling him to his feet.