THE UNWILLING SON an absolutely gripping mystery thriller that will take your breath away

by Jane Adams

  ‘It was a different world then. One with greatness in it. Gods and magic and things we now hear only in legends. They had seeded the Earth, Katie, so long ago, our scientists have trouble even counting it. They made life come into a barren world and none of them wanted to see it die, even though their elders said that this was often the way of things and that they should let things be.

  ‘They taught us that mankind is like the angels falling. Some fall a long, long way.’

  Katie watched him as he moved around the room. There was no natural light and the illumination was provided by small spots set into the vaulted ceiling like so many stars. There were no furnishings apart from large cushions piled up on the floor. Katie sat down on these, watching the dark-haired man.

  At the back of the big room Katie could glimpse two doors. One, he said, led through to the kitchen. One to the bathroom. She had used the bathroom earlier, but there had been no window and no other doors. She was afraid now, though fascinated. Wishing herself elsewhere and regretting her impulse to go with him.

  ‘Will you let me go?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not ever?’

  ‘Not yet, later . . . I don’t know.’

  He went through to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar, and she could hear him urinating. She crept to the basement entrance and tried the door, even though she had seen him lock it. His bike was parked close by. The smell of hot exhaust and oil was sharp in her nose.

  She heard the toilet flush and water run into the bowl as he turned on the tap, and she crept back to her place on the cushions. She heard the water splashing as though he was taking time to wash, not just rinse, his hands and she wondered if she might be able to lock him in, though she couldn’t remember seeing a lock on the outside of the door. And it still wouldn’t solve the problem of how to get out. It might give her some time to look around though. She decided to try.

  As she reached the door he came out. He’d removed his shirt.

  ‘I . . . er . . . needed the bathroom,’ she said.

  He stood aside and as she passed him she caught sight of his back reflected in the bathroom mirror. Other eyes stared back at her. Four images tattooed there and a fifth loosely sketched in waiting to be finished. Katie recognized one face. Ian Thomason, she had seen his picture in the papers. The image was fresh and new, unlike the other three, which were obviously older. At the edge of the boy’s hair the skin was reddened as though irritated and there were faint signs of scabbing as it began to heal.

  ‘Did you kill them?’ Katie whispered.

  The young man regarded her thoughtfully for a moment.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said.

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It was twenty-four hours since Simon Ellis had been abducted and Dave Beckett was no further on. He stared out of his office window frustrated by the lack of progress. Where was he? Was he still alive?

  Across town, Katie’s parents lay in bed both pretending to be asleep, each determined to let the other rest, until they could stand the deception no longer. Guy got up and dressed silently.

  ‘You’re going out again?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s better than doing nothing. Stay here in case she calls,’ he added, not realizing the irony in what he’d said.

  * * *

  At the scene of Simon Ellis’s abduction a few hardy journalists still kept vigil, along with a couple of officers standing on the balcony outside the flat. The heavy rain had emptied the streets.

  Inside the flat, someone had turned on the lights. They shone yellow in the grey dawn, a soiled beacon to welcome no one home.

  * * *

  Ray forced himself to eat breakfast with Sarah and they watched the television news. Nothing had happened overnight and the report simply rehashed the incidents of the day before.

  In the papers there were photographs of Sommers House and also of himself and Dave Beckett. He had expected this, but still was not happy about it. One of the national papers had used a photograph of Ray from eleven years before, when he had attended Roger Joyce’s funeral on behalf of the force. It was presented alongside a new picture of himself and Beckett leaving the police HQ in Mallingham. There was a report, outlining his background and explaining how he came by his injuries. Ray found himself projected as an old-fashioned copper fighting police corruption and getting fried for his troubles. He groaned and Sarah took the paper off him.

  ‘Expect anything less, did we? Always were bloody naïve.’

  He rubbed at his scarred face. A reflex these days whenever he was stressed.

  ‘Hope springs eternal, I suppose.’

  Sarah snorted rudely. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘get yourself off then. You know you’re only being polite.’ She smiled at him sympathetically. ‘Or are you just avoiding the inevitable?’

  He got up and fetched his coat. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said.

  * * *

  Katie was sitting on the giant cushions eating breakfast and reading the morning papers. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry that there was no mention of her. Dave Beckett must be trying to keep her out of it.

  ‘They’ll be looking for you,’ Katie told the biker. ‘Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?’

  ‘He protects me. I won’t be seen unless I want to be.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Katie told him bluntly with more courage than she felt. ‘You went into a shop. You ride the noisiest bike I’ve ever heard. You can’t just hide yourself.’

  He said nothing. In the kitchen the electric kettle switched off. He stood up and suddenly Katie saw him standing in the kitchen though she had no recollection of having seen him cross the room. She looked around uncomfortably and wasn’t hungry anymore.

  ‘What are you?’ Katie demanded when he came back into the room.

  ‘What do you want me to be?’

  ‘Don’t play games with me. It’s not clever.’ She bit her lip. She sounded like a petulant child and sensed that this was not the way to handle him. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said finally. ‘Who looks after you?’

  He smiled. ‘Man is like an angel falling,’ he recited in his faraway sing-song voice. ‘Some fall further than others, Katie, and I guess Harrison Lee fell about as far as Lucifer himself.’

  ‘Harrison Lee? He killed those boys? I thought he was dead. He can’t be who takes care of you.’

  ‘What’s dead, Katie? What’s it mean? Have you ever asked yourself that? Harrison Lee said that death was like alchemy. A transmutation of the soul from one state to the next. It happens to all of us, many, many times.’

  ‘Did you kill them?’ Katie asked again. ‘Those kids tattooed on your back?’

  He thought about it for what felt like a long time. ‘Maybe I did,’ he said finally. ‘What’s certain is they died because of me.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It had been a quiet day. Beckett had been away for most of it, leaving Ray to go through the records of Lee’s interviews alone. Reading through brought back even more clearly the changing mood of the first investigation. The initial shock of the first death, then bewilderment and outrage, ending in desperation as the third child died. The fear that there would be more and the anxiety caused by such seemingly motiveless and random acts. As a police officer, Ray had always been grateful for a clear motive. It often made the tracking of a suspect so much easier. Not understanding the reasons behind the deaths took away initial leads and their subsequent developments. It was like working in a vacuum, nothing to push against and no air to breathe.

  Then, Lee’s arrest, the discovery of objects in his house that made direct connections to the crimes. The feeling almost of exultation as the evidence grew and they knew that all they needed was the confession to make it complete. Reading Lee’s statements, Ray was reminded just how much the man had played with them. His glee as he forced them to wait for the confession he had already decided he would make, but on his own terms and in his own
good time.

  * * *

  Katie’s fear had given way to boredom. He had gone out for a time during the day, come back and fallen asleep. Then he had woken suddenly and, without saying a word to her, gone through to the kitchen and prepared food. It seemed to Katie that he continued with his life pretty much as though she was not there. It was hard in a place with no natural light to judge the time. Her watch told her one thing but the constant light levels, neither daytime bright nor night dark, confused her body and made her feel like she existed in eternal dusk.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she had asked him, and he had looked at her strangely as though the idea made no sense.

  ‘Call me Nathan,’ he had said at last. It was the name of Lee’s third victim.

  ‘Is that your name?’

  ‘It’s . . . a . . . name. Call me Nate.’

  She discovered that he had painted all of the images on the walls himself, as closely as he could remember to the originals in the temple of the Eyes of God.

  ‘Did I ever go there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only saw you that one time.’

  ‘You told me to hide.’

  He nodded slowly but did not seem inclined to discuss it further. He would, Katie feared, drift off into another of his reveries. To distract him she asked him how long it had taken for him to paint the images on the walls.

  ‘Time,’ he said. ‘I don’t know, a lot of time. At first, I didn’t know how and I had to do and then redo them to get it right.’

  ‘Why?’

  Nathan looked at her with eyes that were distant and beautiful. ‘To remind me,’ he said.

  * * *

  Martha had gone to church, or rather the church had come to her. The gathering at St Leonard’s had been spontaneous, word spreading from one person to the next until what had been a half-expressed idea became a reality.

  For the first time in five years candles were lit where the altar had once stood and prayers were said in what had now been designated deconsecrated ground. Martha was amazed at how many had come. Faces she knew from her work on the streets or the missing persons register. Others that she did not recognize. They had come to pray, even those who rarely resorted to prayer, as if that act of coming together and willing acts undone could make it so.

  Martha wept openly, and so did many more. They held candles and they stood in silence. From time to time someone would move to the front of the church and speak, saying out loud what so many felt.

  ‘O God, why did you let this happen to our children?’

  ‘O Lord Jesus, please let the police catch this madman before he kills again.’

  ‘God, if you’ve got any power left in this world, help them catch this bastard.’

  Martha listened, whispering her own prayers, knowing they would not be answered this time any more than they had been the last.

  The door opened again. The media had got wind of this and had come to see. Martha moved deeper into the crowd. It was unlikely that anyone would recognize her after all this time, but she had no wish to take a chance. Journalists and cameramen crowded just inside the door at the back, huddled close, like uninvited guests at a funeral, come to pay their respects but with no right to approach the coffin.

  Martha felt she could no longer bear what was going on or cope with the emotions that filled the old church. Trying hard not to draw attention to herself, she began to look for an escape route. Rowena stood by the door to the vestry, beckoning her. Gratefully, Martha slipped through the curtain and into the robing room.

  ‘I’ve undone the little door,’ Rowena said. ‘The one in the basement.’

  Martha kissed her gratefully. She had forgotten the old door to the boiler house. There was a way through from the choir school.

  Martha followed Rowena out into the cold damp night. She breathed deeply. The air was fresh and it restored her a little. She turned towards the road, trying not to look at the pile of rubble where the child’s body had lain.

  ‘How is the job?’ she asked, desperate for distraction.

  ‘It’s going to be good, I think. I’ve not seen much of your friend, but his partner’s nice. Old-fashioned, very British, if you know what I mean.’

  Martha nodded. ‘Have they learned anything yet?’

  ‘I don’t know, Martha. As I told you, Ray’s out a lot. He’s working with the officer in charge this time, a DI Beckett, and trying to get information out of George is like trying to prise open fresh clams.’

  Martha nodded again. She had expected nothing less. Ray and his partner were far too professional to gossip with someone they hardly knew.

  She glanced up sharply and Rowena followed the direction of her gaze. Some way off the roar of a motorcycle shredded the evening silence.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Edwin Farrant, representing New Vision, appeared on breakfast television. He was an elderly man with a neat white beard and a shock of silver hair. His jacket of heather-coloured Harris Tweed and grey flannel trousers lent him an air of old-style respectability that went well with his soft, educated voice.

  The presenter was obviously impressed, Ray thought, as he watched the performance on Sarah’s television. He felt better this morning. Against the odds, he’d managed to get some sleep. He had a strong suspicion that one of the sleeping pills from Sarah’s medicine cabinet had gone into his last cup of tea, but he wasn’t about to probe too deeply. Though he did wonder how long she’d had them and if sleeping pills had a sell-by date. He’d certainly never known her take one in the six months that he’d been involved with her.

  ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’ Sarah intoned solemnly.

  Ray shook his head. ‘Used cars aren’t his style. Phoney diplomas maybe. The kind of degree you can get through the post for fifty quid.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Even so, you have to admit he’s impressive-looking.’

  Ray shrugged and eyed her suspiciously. ‘He’s got con man written all over him.’

  ‘And Martyn Shaw hasn’t?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe he has.’

  Sarah raised a sceptical eyebrow as though frankly amazed that Ray should have time for any of it. ‘So, what makes this one different?’

  ‘Listen to him.’ Ray gestured at the television.

  ‘My group only want to be left in peace to pursue our own beliefs,’ Farrant was saying. ‘We’ve worked hard for acceptance, kept ourselves right out of the media gaze, and we were beginning to regain our respectability. To see all of that good work destroyed is unbearable.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter that three kids are dead as long as they’re left alone,’ Ray commented harshly.

  ‘And yet,’ the interviewer said, ‘you’ve come on national television this morning, right into the public eye. That’s hardly in keeping with your low profile, Mr Farrant.’

  Farrant shifted in his seat so that he could look her straight in the eye. ‘I have come here to show the public just how ordinary and how unashamed we are. We have done nothing. We are normal, law-abiding citizens who are proud to face the world because we know that we will be adjudged open and innocent.’

  ‘From which you infer that the Eyes of God do have something to hide?’

  ‘I have never said that. I would just point out that they have chosen to cut themselves off. Close their doors without statement or interview. You need only to look at the film of Sommers House to see what a climate of fear exists there. They will not even show their faces.’ He paused dramatically and Ray’s stomach tightened. He could guess what was coming next.

  It came. With an expression full of concern and an eye to the camera, Farrant said quietly, ‘And I need remind no one, I’m sure, that there are still children there, at Sommers House.’

  Ray realized that he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled sharply. Farrant was no longer an object of the slightest humour. In that one statement he had upped the stakes for everyone concerned. ‘Bastard!’ he said.

  * * *

 
Irene Jones had been troubled by dreams. In her dream she had walked with the Prophet beside the lake close to where he now had his headquarters. The sky was slate-grey with a weak sun trying to push through and the water reflected the deepest inky blue. Sunlight caught the waves as the wind whipped them into being, the silvered spray falling coldly on her skin.

  It should have been a peaceful scene, but Irene was afraid. The lowering sky preyed upon her senses, depressing her mood despite its innate drama. She had the feeling that they were being watched and kept trying to glance back over her shoulder to see who was there, but each time she turned it was as though she whipped around full circle and found herself once more gazing out over the open water. Facing the darkening sky.

  And then she saw him. A slight figure walking along the beach towards them. Dark hair and slight build, stripped to the waist despite the cold and barefoot, though he left no footsteps on the sand and shingle beach.

  The Prophet was talking to her, though Irene could not work out what he said. His voice, as so often in dreams, seemed to come from very far away. He did not seem to see the young man, though he was looking straight towards him. He seemed completely ignorant of his presence there on the beach. And all the time Irene could feel the pressure of invisible eyes upon her back. Piercing the skin with the strength of their focus and concentration.

  She tried hard to tell the Prophet this. To point out the young man and warn him about the one who watched them. But her voice had gone, disappeared, and she no longer remembered how to speak. The young man had paused and turned to face the water. He did nothing to acknowledge them but simply waited until their path led them past him before turning again and walking back the way that they had come.