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

by Jane Adams

  Nathan quickened his pace. He could feel James too now. He was at the far side of the building, as far away from the child as it was possible to go. Nathan slipped through the stairwell door. It hung sideways from a single hinge, half blocking his exit. The child was to his left now. He could hear the muffled cries more clearly, plaintive and distressed, and for a moment he was back eleven years before with the child in the cellar of the Markham house. He found himself looking back over his shoulder, half expecting that Lee would be standing there.

  But no. That had been the third victim of Lee’s obsession. There had not been a fourth. Lee would not be there this time and neither, if he kept his head, would James.

  The child lay on a pile of sacking in what had once been the loading bay, the level of the floor dropped down from that of the main warehouse. He had a blanket draped over him, but Nathan could see that his hands and feet were tied with rope and that his eyes and mouth were covered by dirty rags tied untidily in place. The makeshift gag stopped the child from crying out but not from making sounds and his muffled sobs echoed around the bay.

  Nathan moved quietly towards him, but the boy heard and his body stiffened and the cries changed, becoming more alarmed. Nathan knelt at his side and tugged the blindfold free. There was little illumination in the bay. Nathan’s eyes had grown accustomed to the dark but the boy blinked rapidly and Nathan realized he could not see anything. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he whispered. ‘Look, I’ve come to help.’

  He reached into his pocket and removed a knife and a torch. Switching the torch on, he lay it on the concrete floor so that the boy could see his face. ‘Don’t scream,’ Nathan warned, ‘or he’ll come and find us.’ He removed the gag and began to cut the ropes that bound his hands and feet. ‘My name is Nathan,’ he told the boy. ‘I’m going to get you home but we must be quiet and we must move fast. You understand?’

  The boy nodded, his eyes wide and scared. ‘Will he come back? What if he comes back?’

  Gently, Nathan placed a finger against the boy’s lips for silence. ‘Can you stand?’

  He eased the child up onto his feet, knowing that the pain of returning blood was going to be unbearable and debilitating. He would have to carry him. He reached down and picked up the torch, then swung the child lightly across his shoulder and began to run back across the warehouse, sacrificing silence, this time, for pure speed.

  James burst out of the far room just as Nathan reached the door. With a scream of fury, he flung himself across the concrete distance between himself and Nathan, but Nathan was through the door and running hard, trying not to fall on the muddy, rubble-strewn ground, heading back towards his bike.

  The boy was crying now, cold and scared and pained by the blood returning to his hands and feet. Nathan hauled the bike off the stand and swung himself aboard, kicking hard at the pedal, praying that the Domi wouldn’t let him down. Wouldn’t play hard to get, as these old machines so often could. It took three kicks, the third hitting the compression stroke and throwing his leg sideways before it gave in and roared into life. The boy was screaming, watching James clearing the distance between them and the warehouse. Running madly, slipping in the mud that turned the ground into a quagmire. Nathan hauled the child aboard and took off fast, dropping the clutch too rapidly, the front wheel skidding across the ground.

  ‘Just hang on tight,’ he yelled. ‘Just hang on to me and don’t let go.’

  It was advice the boy did not need. He clung to Nathan, fingers clawed around his waist. The bike roared, the sound of the pipes cracking harshly in the damp air. They cleared the bridge and headed back into Mallingham, revs hitting the red line, and it was only when they had put about a mile between themselves and James that Nathan slowed. He headed back towards his old home in the basement, to where he knew there would still be officers on watch. He paused only for the briefest of moments ten feet away from the nearest man before urging the child to get down and thrusting a piece of paper into his hand. And then he was gone, leaving the boy and the two uniformed officers staring after him.

  Chapter Forty-four

  By early the following morning everything was in place for Katie’s return to Mallingham. News of Marcus Ellwood’s dramatic liberation was all across the media, replacing scheduled programmes and filling the bulletins. It was the first break in an otherwise dire situation and a feeling of, in Ray’s opinion, unfounded optimism pervaded the police station and Mallingham itself. Ray’s worry was that this would force James into action. That he would abduct another child and kill them as quickly as the first ones had died. No one could really understand why he had delayed this time.

  All the more reason why Katie’s plan must work.

  Shaw and Beckett were already at the hotel when Ray arrived. George was to be part of Katie’s escort. The manager and his staff had been briefed on a need-to-know basis, being told that this was vital to the investigation but not exactly why their hotel had been taken over by the police.

  There were armed police in the surrounding buildings and at ten o’clock Emma Thorn arrived, muffled up in winter clothes. She went straight to what would be Katie’s room. Emma was a fraction taller than the girl, a little heavier, but with her blonde hair loose and cut for the occasion the match at a distance would be good enough.

  Ray, being briefed by Beckett, knew that Nathan and James would soon get wind of all this. The manager had to inform his staff. The comings and goings, the discreet police presence, the odd glimpses that the public would get of armed police on nearby roofs, all this was enough to ensure that security would be as leaky as the proverbial sieve — which in this case was exactly what was wanted. Only Katie’s departure from the hotel was to be guarded. That was the most important thing of all.

  Beckett went on the lunchtime news to issue a statement about the fourth child. Ray watched his performance on the television in the hotel room. Katie sat beside him on the bed, her hands clenched nervously in her lap. She kept glancing towards the window, as though she expected James Morgan to burst through at any moment and drag her away.

  ‘You all know by now that at approximately eleven-fifteen last night Marcus Ellwood was found, safe and well. For the moment we want to keep the circumstances of his recovery unpublicized but, suffice it to say, it’s the first break we’ve had in this investigation and we are confident that it will lead to an arrest very soon.’ He paused, waving down the storm of questions. ‘I can’t give you more details. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the reasons for that, but Marcus is in hospital, with his grandparents. He was cold and exhausted and, I’m told, very hungry, but he’s not been harmed and we’re expecting him to be released from hospital later today.’ He looked expectantly at the assembled journalists waiting for their new questions.

  ‘Douglas Hemmings, Inspector. The Mallingham Post. Will you comment on the rumours that there has been a further abduction? A young girl by the name of Katie Fellows. She was the child found the night the chapter house where Lee’s lot based themselves was blown up.’

  ‘I can assure you that Katie Fellows has not been abducted,’ Beckett said smoothly.

  He looked for the next question, but Hemmings was not giving up. that easily and it appeared he was not the only one to be onto Katie’s story. ‘Carter, Inspector. BBC. The neighbours say that Katie’s family have been away from their home for several days now and that Mrs Fellows told them Katie had run away. She thought Katie might be heading for Mallingham. Is there a connection between the girl and the dead boys?’

  Beckett hesitated for a split second. He had known for some time that this was bound to get into the media. He played it instinctively, knowing that he had to be seen to be giving something. ‘We’ve tried to keep Katie and her family out of the spotlight,’ he said, as though reluctantly, ‘but yes, it’s true that when Katie heard about Lee’s death she panicked. You have to understand that Katie was scarred by her involvement with Lee. The man terrified her, threatened that he’d come back for her one day,
even if he had to die to do it. Katie really believed that she’d put the past behind her, where it belonged, but when she heard that Lee had died the old fears came flooding back. The girl has been through a great deal, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Her biggest fear was that Lee would somehow threaten her family and she ran away to try to protect them.’

  There were murmurs among the crowd. There was more to this and they knew it, but Beckett wasn’t going to give.

  ‘You’ll be glad to know,’ he went on, ‘that Katie is safe and well and has been reunited with her family, though not unnaturally they prefer to keep a low profile until this is over. They’ve decided to stay with friends for a while until they feel ready to go home.’

  There were more questions about Katie, but Beckett ignored them. As he was about to go, though, someone threw a question at him that he could not ignore.

  ‘Inspector, is it true that letters were sent to DCI Bryant warning him that this might happen, but that he chose to ignore the warnings?’

  A ripple of interest moved through the crowd.

  Beckett turned back and sat down again, knowing that he couldn’t get away without tackling this, though truth to tell it had caught him off guard.

  ‘I’d be interested in knowing your sources,’ he began. Laughter greeted that and gave him a moment more to think. When he replied, it was with caution and he felt for his words. ‘After the first deaths eleven years ago and the arrest of Harrison Lee people within his organization feared that someone else might try to continue. Lee ritualized the murders, though we’re still unclear as to his actual intent. Probably only Lee could have told us that and I can assure you all that he never did.

  ‘He boasted, however, that locking him away would not stop what he called his work from going on and Martyn Shaw, when he took control of what was left of the Eyes of God, believed that we should be made aware of these threats.

  ‘I knew nothing about this until two days ago, but yes, DCI Bryant had been warned. At the time, though, eleven years ago, those warnings must have seemed incredible and far-fetched. And DCI Bryant is now dead. I’m sure, had he lived, he would have not hesitated to remind this investigation of these warnings, though whether or not that would have affected our actions in this case I cannot say.’

  He rose then and made clear that the press conference really had come to an end. The shouted questions as he walked away told him that the media were far from satisfied. He’d have given a lot to know where the journalist had got his information. It would not have been from Shaw, of that he was certain. But Farrant. Farrant would almost certainly have known about Lee’s threats and about Shaw’s feeling that he had to warn Bryant.

  Would Bryant have talked to Farrant? Beckett wondered. Would Farrant have assured him that this was just Martyn Shaw making yet more trouble? If so and this had been instrumental in Bryant’s dismissing Shaw and hiding the fact that he’d been warned, then Farrant could well have cost them far more than just time.

  Chapter Forty-five

  It had been decided that Katie should remain in the hotel until late evening to give time for Nathan and James to convince themselves that she was there.

  By mid-afternoon Nathan was in the street at the rear of the hotel and wondering what Ray was playing at. He figured it must be some kind of trap for James and felt his anger rising at their risking Katie in this way. He had trusted Ray Flowers, believing he would protect Katie, and now to find that she was back here, exposed and vulnerable again, seemed like an outrage.

  He was aware of James moving parallel to him only a street away, hiding himself among the crowds of shoppers gathered for the Saturday afternoon. He was aware also of the police presence, sometimes glimpsed, sometimes just sensed, and knew that James would sense them too, not that it would stop him. James was angry now. He had gone beyond the capacity for reason, long gone. He had imbibed the sanctified blood of the first three chosen and the only thing that puzzled Nathan was why he had not killed the other boy. The one the papers said was called Marcus Ellwood. That afternoon, though, he had figured it out. Katie was to be the fourth, the same as last time. The boys, then Katie, then three more. He had no orders from Morgan to kill the fourth until he had Katie. The pattern had been broken, the taking of the fourth boy so soon, mistaken and opportunistic. James had to correct the error.

  And the timing was right, Nathan felt, though he could not explain why. It was something James knew, some rule that Lee’s spirit told him to obey. James needed Katie, he needed her tonight.

  * * *

  In the hotel the hours passed between tension and boredom. Fear is a hard and tiring thing to sustain and Katie had watched videos with her parents, even laughing at the jokes. At last it was time for her to go. She wanted to stay now, scared of what might happen to her parents or to Emma Thorn, weighed down with responsibilities that had nothing to do with who she was, only with what Lee had believed she might be. She had gone downstairs wearing Emma’s coat and hat and thick scarf, and left through the back way with George, the delivery van that was to be her means of escape pulled right up to the hotel door.

  In the darkness, Nathan had found a place to hide.

  A street away in the door of a closed shop, James felt his presence and was reassured. Nathan wanted to protect the girl. Tonight Nathan would find out just how strong Lee’s soul could be.

  An hour later, George phoned to say that she was safe back at the house. Everyone else settled back down to wait, satisfied at least that Katie was out of the way.

  Chapter Forty-six

  It was Martyn Shaw who first realized that there was something wrong. Since Katie left he had been sitting motionless in one of the armchairs placed close by the curtained window. His eyes were shut and his hands lay still upon his knees. He was meditating, Ray had supposed. Or whatever it was that prophets did. Ray himself lay upon the bed. Too wired to sleep but letting his thoughts ramble and glad his companion was in no mood to talk.

  It was some twenty minutes after George’s call that Martyn opened his eyes and looked at Ray.

  ‘Call George,’ he said. ‘Do it now.’

  Ray sat up, the urgency in Shaw’s voice transmitting itself to him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it. Something’s not right.’

  Ray picked up his mobile. George’s phone rang out and then switched to the message service. He tried again with the same result. Then he found the safe-house number that George had given him and dialled that. This time he was routed through Dignan’s exchange before his call was allowed to go through. Moments later he was off the bed and heading for the door.

  ‘George never arrived,’ he told Shaw.

  Within minutes Beckett was mobilizing his people and the helicopter was in the air following the route the van would have taken from the hotel. Ray stood beside the door, taking in the scene. The hotel room now crowded with people. Katie’s parents furious and hysterical, Emma Thorn doing her best to calm them down. Beckett shouting down the phone. He turned to Shaw.

  ‘With me,’ he said.

  Shaw was gazing into the middle distance, his eyes unfocused, as though he was staring at something very far away.

  ‘Nathan’s here. James hurt him, I can feel his pain.’

  Ray’s look was less than sympathetic. He shouted to Beckett that they were going out, that he had an idea and would call in en route. Beckett was too wrapped up to argue. ‘Call Dignan,’ Ray told him. ‘Fill him in. You might need more backup.’

  ‘Now where’s Nathan?’ he demanded as he led Shaw from the room. ‘And where the fuck has James taken Katie and George?’

  ‘The Markham house,’ Shaw said, his tone so certain that Ray shot him a suspicious look.

  ‘This a feeling,’ he asked, ‘or something more?’

  Shaw smiled grimly. ‘My feeling was right about George,’ he said. ‘But it’s also logical. Think about it. You’ve driven Nathan from his home. Nathan gave the child the location of the warehouse, so
now it’s swarming with police. Where else is there to go?’

  Ray nodded. ‘It makes sense,’ he admitted. It was remote and familiar and if they had possession of the van . . . How many men had George provided? How had James overpowered them? Just what the hell was going on?

  * * *

  They did not have to look far for Nathan. He was leaning on Ray’s car, blood pouring down his face.

  Ray fished the first aid kit from the boot and left Shaw to patch him up, ushering them both into the rear of the old Volvo.

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘He hit me with something. I think he thought he’d killed me when I went down. He’s got Katie, hasn’t he?’

  Ray nodded. ‘George as well. What the fuck went wrong, Nathan?’

  ‘You’re asking me? You stupid bastards set this up.’

  He sighed, leaning back in the seat and allowing Martyn Shaw to clean the long wound on his head.

  ‘He should be in hospital,’ Shaw said.

  ‘When I’ve got a minute I’ll drop him off. Tell me, Nathan, what did we do wrong?’

  ‘You gave him Katie. You brought her down into the street just where he was waiting. He’s not stupid, Ray. You all thought, oh, he’s just some psycho, some poor, disturbed, unthinking moron. You don’t realize, do you, any of you? James isn’t stupid and he isn’t blind. He knows and feels more than any of you lot ever will. He might not live by your rules, you might not understand him, but he’s being guided by Lee’s soul and he’s got complete faith in that. He doesn’t care who or what he has to go through to make this thing work, because he doesn’t see it. Any of it. He doesn’t act as if it’s there and so it’s not.’

  Ray shook his head. ‘I don’t get you, Nathan. There were armed men in that van.’