The Whisper Man

by Alex North

  “Twenty years?”

  “Possibly.” Dale hesitated, knowing what Pete was asking, then gestured at a second gurney beside them. “We also have these additional items, which were recovered from the scene. There’s the box itself, of course—the remains were brought here in it to help preserve them. The clothes were underneath the bones.”

  Pete took a step closer. The clothes were old and matted with cobwebs, but Dale and his team had extracted them carefully, and they rested now in the same intact, neatly folded pile they had been stored in. He didn’t need to move them to see what they were.

  Blue jogging pants. Little black polo shirt.

  He turned and looked again at the remains. The case had exerted such a hold on him all these years, and yet this was the first time he’d ever seen Tony Smith in real life. Until now there had only ever been the photographs of a little boy frozen forever in time. With just the slightest of differences in circumstances, Pete might have passed a twenty-six-year-old Tony Smith on the street today without ever having heard the name. He stared down at the small, broken frame that had once supported and held a human being, along with all the inherent possibilities of what it might become.

  All their hopes and dreams, and look what I’ve gone and done.

  Pete pushed Frank Carter’s words out of his head, and stared down in silence for a few seconds, wanting to take in the enormity of the moment. Except he realized that it wasn’t there, no more than Tony Smith himself was present in the empty shell of bones on the gurney. Pete had been held in orbit by this missing little boy for so long, his whole life circling the mystery of his whereabouts. But now that center of gravity was gone and his trajectory felt unaltered.

  You search for something, and you find it, and there you are still.

  “We found several of these in the box,” Dale said.

  Pete turned to see the pathologist leaning over at the waist, hands in his pockets, staring at the cardboard box that Tony Smith had been found in. Moving closer, Pete saw the man’s attention was directed toward a butterfly stuck in the cobwebs there. It was obviously dead, but the colored patterns on its wings remained clear and vivid.

  “The corpse moth,” Pete said.

  The pathologist looked at him with surprise.

  “I never took you for a butterfly fan, Detective.”

  “I saw a documentary once.” Pete shrugged. He’d always figured that he watched and read to kill time, and was slightly surprised himself to find some of the knowledge had stuck. “I have a lot of evenings to fill.”

  “That I can believe.”

  Pete dredged his memory for details. Despite its name, the corpse moth was a butterfly. It was native to the country, but relatively rare, and the program he’d watched had followed a team of eccentric men trailing through fields and hedgerows trying to catch sight of it. They’d found one at the end. The corpse moth was attracted to decaying flesh. Pete himself had never seen one, but ever since watching the documentary, he’d found himself scanning the country lanes and hedgerows he searched on weekends, wondering if their presence might provide some indication that he was looking in the right place.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out to find a message from Amanda. He read it quickly: an update on the case. After a night in the cells, it appeared that Norman Collins had reevaluated his no-comment position and was now prepared to talk to them. She wanted Pete back there as soon as possible.

  He put the phone away, but lingered for a moment, looking at the cardboard box in front of him. It was strapped with overlapping layers of brown parcel tape: a container that had clearly been sealed and reopened and sealed again many times over the years. The box would now be sent for forensic analysis in the hope of finding fingerprints. Pete’s gaze moved over its surface now, imagining the invisible hands that might have touched it over the years. He pictured people pressing their fingertips against it, the cardboard a surrogate skin encasing the bones secreted within.

  Prized among collectors.

  For a moment he wondered if such people had imagined a heartbeat. Or if they had gloried in the absence of one.

  Thirty-nine

  Seated across from Amanda and Pete in the interview room, Norman Collins’s lawyer sighed heavily.

  “My client is prepared to admit to the murder of Dominic Barnett,” he said. “He categorically denies any involvement in the abduction and murder of Neil Spencer.”

  Amanda stared at him, waiting.

  “However, my client is prepared to make a full and frank statement regarding his knowledge of the remains found on Garholt Street yesterday. He has no desire for you to waste resources on him, potentially endangering another child, and he believes what he has to say may help you locate the individual actually responsible for the killing.”

  “Which we very much appreciate.”

  Amanda smiled politely, even though she knew bullshit when she heard it. Sitting mutely on the other side of the desk, Collins looked diminished and wounded. He was not a man built for imprisonment, and a night in custody had erased the smugness he’d displayed in here yesterday. The fact that he was finally going to talk brought her little pleasure, because it was clearly motivated by self-interest rather than any desire to save lives. There was no better nature in there; he’d simply had time to realize that talking to them—giving his side of the story—might do him some good in the long run. That it might look better for him if he cooperated and was seen to help.

  But now wasn’t the time to show disgust. Not if he really could help.

  She leaned back. “So—talk to us, Norman.”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “You knew that Tony Smith’s remains were in that garage, didn’t you? Let’s start there.”

  Collins was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the table between them, gathering himself. Amanda glanced at Pete, sitting beside her, and saw that he was doing the same. She was worried about him. He seemed more subdued than ever, and had hardly spoken to her after arriving at the department. It seemed like there had been something he was on the verge of telling her, but for some reason he had held it back. This was going to be hard for him, she knew. He’d come straight from viewing what were almost certainly the remains of Tony Smith, a boy he had searched for, for so long, and now he was set to hear the truth about what had happened all that time ago. The years might have hardened him on the surface, but she didn’t want to think of all his old wounds tearing open again.

  “I understand what you think of my interests, my hobby,” Collins said quietly. She turned her attention back to him. “And I understand what many people think of them. But the fact remains that I am well respected in my field. And I’ve acquired a reputation over the years as a collector.”

  A collector. He made it sound benign—respectable almost—but she had seen details of his collection. What kind of individual was drawn to the material that he had spent so many years acquiring? She pictured Collins and the people like him as rats scurrying around in the dark underbelly of the Internet. Doing their deals and making their plans. Chewing at the wires of society. When Collins looked up at her now, the disgust she felt must have been obvious on her face.

  “It’s really no different from interests other people have,” he said defensively. “I learned long ago that my hobby was considered niche by most, and abhorrent by a few. But there are others who share it. And I have proved trustworthy over the years, which has allowed me access to more important pieces than others.”

  “You’re a serious dealer?”

  “A serious dealer in serious things.” He licked his lips. “And like any such dealings, there are open forums and there are private ones. My interest in the Whisper Man case was well known in the latter. And several years ago I was made aware that a certain … experience might be open to me. Assuming I was willing to pay, of course.”

  “What was this experience?”

  He stared back at her for a moment, and then answered a
s though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “To spend time with Tony Smith.”

  A moment of silence.

  “How?” she said.

  “In the first instance, I was told to visit Victor Tyler in prison. Everything was arranged through Tyler. Frank Carter knew about it, but he had no interest in being directly involved. The procedure was that Tyler would vet the people who came to him. I was pleased to pass that particular test. Upon receipt of funds delivered to Tyler’s wife, I was directed to an address.” Collins grimaced. “I wasn’t surprised to be sent to Julian Simpson.”

  “Why?”

  “He was an unsavory sort. Poor personal hygiene.” Collins tapped his head. “Not entirely all there. People used to make fun of him, but they were all frightened of him, really. The house too. It’s a strange-looking place, don’t you think? I remember children used to dare each other to go into the garden. They’d take photographs of each other there. Even before then—back when I was a child—people thought of it as the local scary house.”

  Amanda glanced at Pete again. His face was inscrutable, but she could imagine what he must be thinking. Julian Simpson’s name had never come up in the case at the time. The police had known nothing of the man or his scary-looking house. And that was entirely understandable. There were people like Simpson in every community, their reputations among the young not necessarily based on anything real, and certainly not to the extent that adults would think anything of them.

  But regardless, she knew Pete would blame himself for this.

  “What happened next?” she asked Collins.

  “I went to the house on Garholt Street,” he said. “After paying more money to Simpson, I was made to wait in a downstairs room. After a time, he returned with a sealed cardboard box. He cut it open carefully. And there … there he was.”

  “For the record, Norman…?”

  “Tony Smith.”

  Amanda could hardly bring herself to ask the question.

  “And what did you do with Tony’s remains?”

  “Do with them?” Collins sounded genuinely shocked. “I didn’t do anything with them. I’m not a monster—not like some of the others. And I wouldn’t have wanted to damage an exhibit like that even if it had been allowed. No, I simply stood there. Paying my respects. Imbibing the atmosphere. You may find this hard to understand, but it was one of the most powerful hours of my life.”

  Jesus, Amanda thought. He looked like a man remembering some lost love.

  Of all the scenarios she had been imagining taking place, his answer was simultaneously the most banal and the most horrifying. The time spent with a murdered little boy’s body had clearly bordered on a religious experience for him, and imagining him standing there, believing he had some special connection with the sad remains in a box at his feet, was as awful in its own way as anything she could have thought of.

  Beside her, Pete leaned forward slowly.

  Not like some of the others. Whatever toll the account was taking on him, he just sounded weary right now—tired all the way down to his soul. “Who were the others, Norman? And what did they do?”

  Collins swallowed.

  “This was after Dominic Barnett took over—after Julian died. I think the two of them were friends, but Barnett didn’t have the same level of respect. Things deteriorated under his care.”

  “Is that why you killed him?” Amanda said.

  “Barnett wouldn’t grant me access anymore—not after the last time. I had to protect the exhibit! Tony needed to be kept safe.”

  “Tell us about the others, Norman,” Pete said patiently.

  “This was after Barnett took over.” Collins hesitated. “I’d visited several times over the years, but for me it was always the same. I was paying my respects, and I wanted to be on my own with Tony. But once Barnett was in charge, there started to be others there too. And they were not as respectful as me.”

  “What did they do?”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Collins said. “I left—I was disgusted. And Barnett refused to refund me. He even sneered at me. But what could I do?”

  “Why were you so disgusted?” Pete said.

  “The last night I went, there were five or six other people there. All fascinated by the case. A mixture of types—you’d be surprised, honestly—and I got the impression that some of them had traveled a great distance. But it wasn’t like the other times. They started … touching the bones. It was completely unacceptable. I tried to intervene, but Barnett just laughed at me. He didn’t care at all.”

  Collins swallowed.

  “So you left?” Amanda asked.

  “Yes. I couldn’t bear it. When I’d visited in the past, it was like being in a church. It was quiet and reverential. I felt the presence of God. But with those people there. Not respecting Tony. Not respecting Frank’s work…”

  He trailed off again.

  “Norman?”

  Finally, he looked up.

  “It was like standing in hell.”

  * * *

  “Do you believe him?” Amanda said.

  They were back in the incident room. Pete was leaning on his desk, staring intently down at the CCTV photographs of the people who had visited Victor Tyler in prison over the years. Her own gaze moved across them. There were men and women here. The young and the old. A mixture of types, Collins had told them. You’d be surprised, honestly.

  “I believe Collins didn’t kill Neil Spencer.” Pete waved his hand over the photographs. “But as to this…”

  And then he fell silent, expressing the same disbelief that she was feeling herself. In the course of her career, she had witnessed enough horror that people’s capacity for cruelty was no longer shocking. She had stood at crime scenes and accidents and watched the crowds gather or the passing vehicles slow down for a glimpse of the carnage. She understood the pull of death. But not this.

  “Do you know why they called him the Whisper Man?” Pete said quietly.

  “Because of Roger Hill.”

  “That’s right.” He nodded slowly. “Roger was Carter’s first victim. The family home was being renovated at the time, and Roger told his parents he’d heard someone whispering outside his window before he was abducted. Carter owned the scaffolding firm that was working on the place. That was what first brought him to our attention.”

  “Grooming his victim.”

  “Yes. Carter had the opportunity there, but the strange thing is, the parents of the other boys all claimed their children heard whispers too. There was no obvious connection to Carter, but they heard it all the same.”

  “Maybe they did.”

  “Maybe so. Or perhaps it’s just that the name was in the newspaper by then, and it planted ideas in people’s heads. Who knows? Whatever, it stuck. The Whisper Man. I’ve always hated that name.”

  She waited.

  “Because I wanted him to be forgotten, you see? I didn’t want him to have a title. But right now it seems to fit him perfectly. Because the whole time he’s been whispering. And people—these people—have been listening.” He spread the photographs out with his hand. “And I think one of them more closely than the others.”

  Amanda looked at the photographs again. He was right, she thought. From everything Collins had said, it was clear that many of the individuals in front of her now had walked a fair distance down a path toward outright evil. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that one of them—drawn ever onward by Frank Carter’s whispers—had walked further down that path than others. The best of these people were evil sycophants, but one of them was something worse.

  A student.

  Somewhere among these people, she thought, they would find Neil Spencer’s killer.

  Forty

  After Jake had gone to bed that night, I sat in the living room of the safe house with a glass of white wine and my laptop.

  Even though I was still attempting to process the events of the last few days, I was also aware that I did need
to write. That seemed impossible under the present circumstances, but the money I had left wouldn’t last forever. Even more than that, it felt important to be working on something, not just to distract myself from what was happening, but because it had always been that way. That was who I was. That was what I needed to reclaim.

  Rebecca.

  I deleted the rest of what I’d written and stared at her name. My idea the other day had been to begin to write down my feelings and trust that some kind of narrative would eventually emerge from the fog. But it was difficult to pin down my feelings right now, never mind attempt to translate them into something as simple as words.

  My mind drifted back to what Karen had said in the café this morning. Perhaps it’s something you can write about in one of your books. And the fact that she’d looked me up online. I knew how I felt about that now, because it brought a small flash of excitement. She was interested in me. Was I attracted to her? Yes. I just wasn’t sure I was allowed to be. I looked at Rebecca’s name on the screen. The excitement dissipated, replaced by guilt.

  Rebecca.

  I typed quickly.

  I know exactly what you’d think about that, because you were always so much more practical than me. You’d want me to get on with my life. You’d want me to be happy. You’d be sad, of course, but you’d tell me that’s the way life works. In fact, you’d more than likely tell me not to be so fucking stupid.

  But the thing is, I’m not sure I’m ready to let you go yet.

  Maybe it’s me that feels I shouldn’t be happy. That I don’t deserve—

  The doorbell rang.

  I closed the laptop and headed downstairs, anxious that it wouldn’t ring again and wake up Jake. At the door, I rubbed my eyes a little, grateful that I hadn’t started crying. Even more so when I opened the door and saw my father standing there.

  “DI Willis,” I said.