The Whisper Man
Page 31
And the Whisper Man, of course.
It was a daunting prospect, because it was all such a jumble, and there was also so much I didn’t know and perhaps never would. But then again, I wasn’t sure that in itself was a problem. The truth of something can be in the feeling of it as much as the fact.
I stared at the screen.
Rebecca.
Only one word, and even that was wrong. Jake and I had moved to this house for a fresh start, and as much as Rebecca was an integral part of the story, I realized it shouldn’t be about her. That was the whole point. My focus needed to be elsewhere now.
I deleted her name.
Jake, I typed.
There is so much I want to tell you, but we’ve always found it hard to talk to each other, haven’t we?
I hesitated.
So I’ll have to write to you instead.
That was when I heard Jake whispering.
I sat completely still, listening to the silence that followed the noise, and which now seemed to fill the house more ominously than before. Seconds ticked by—long enough for me to begin to believe I had imagined the sound. But then it came again.
In his room on the other side of the hall, Jake was talking very quietly to someone.
I put the laptop to one side and stood up carefully, then made my way out into the hall as silently as I could. My heart was sinking a little. Over the last two weeks, there had been no sign at all of the little girl or the boy in the floor, and although I was happy to let Jake be himself, I had been relieved about that. I didn’t relish the possibility of them returning now.
I stood in the hallway, listening.
“Okay,” Jake whispered. “Good night.”
And then nothing.
I waited a little longer, but it was clear that the conversation was over. After a few more seconds, I walked across the hall and stepped into his room. There was enough light from behind me to see that Jake was lying very still in his bed, entirely alone in the room.
I moved over to the bed.
“Jake?” I whispered.
“Yes, Daddy?”
He sounded barely there.
“Who were you talking to just now?”
But there was no reply, beyond the gentle rise and fall of the covers over him, and the steady sound of his breathing. Perhaps he had just been half asleep, I thought, and talking to himself.
I tucked the covers over him a little better, and was about to head back to the door when he spoke again.
“Your daddy read that book to you when you were young,” he said.
For a moment I said nothing. I just stared down at Jake, lying there with his back to me. The silence was ringing now. The room suddenly felt colder than it had before, and a shiver ran through me. Yes, I thought. He probably did. It hadn’t been a question, though, and there was no way Jake could have known. I didn’t even remember it happening myself. But, of course, I’d told Jake the book was a childhood favorite of mine, so I supposed it was a natural assumption for him to make. It didn’t mean anything.
“He did,” I told Jake quietly. “Why did you say that?”
But my son was already dreaming.
Sixty-nine
The letter was waiting for Amanda when she got home, but she didn’t open it straightaway.
It was obvious from the HMP Whitrow stamping who it was going to be from, and she was unwilling to face that right now. Frank Carter had haunted Pete for twenty years—taunting him; playing with him—and she was damned if she was going to read him gloating about that on the day Pete died. Not that Carter could have known about that when he sent this, of course—but then, the man seemed to know everything somehow.
Fuck him, though. She had better, more important things to do.
She left the letter on the dining room table, poured herself a large measure of wine, and then raised the glass.
“Here’s to you, Pete,” she said quietly. “Safe journey.”
And then, despite herself, she started crying—which was ridiculous. She’d never been prone to tears. Had always taken pride in being calm and dispassionate. But the investigation had changed her. And there was nobody here to see it right now, she supposed, so she decided it was fine to let herself go. It felt good. She wasn’t even crying for Pete, she realized after a while, so much as allowing all the emotion of the past few months to come pouring out. Pete, yes. But also Neil Spencer. Tom and Jake Kennedy. All of it. It was as though she had been holding her breath for weeks, and the sobbing now was a deep exhalation she had desperately needed.
She drank the wine and poured another.
Having spoken to Tom, and knowing what she did now, she imagined getting drunk probably wasn’t what Pete would have wanted. But he would also have understood. In fact, she could imagine the understanding look he would be giving her if he could see her right now—it would be just like some of the others he’d given her. One that said: I’ve been there, and I get it, but it’s not something we can talk about, can we?
He’d understand, all right. The Whisper Man case had taken up the last twenty years of his life. After everything that had happened, she imagined it might end up doing the same to her if she wasn’t careful. Perhaps that was all right, though—maybe that was the way it was even meant to be. Some investigations stayed with you, sinking their claws in and hanging on, so that you would always have to drag them behind you no matter how hard you tried to dislodge them. Before this, she had always imagined she would be impervious to that—that she would be a climber like Lyons, not weighed down the way Pete had been—but she knew herself a little better now. This was something she was going to be carrying for a long time. That was the kind of cop it had turned out she was. Not the sensible kind at all.
So be it.
She downed the wine and poured a third.
There were positives to cling to, of course, and despite everything, it was important to do that. Jake Kennedy had been found in time. Francis Carter was in prison. And she would always be the woman who had caught him. She had worked herself to the bone, doing everything she could, and she had not been found wanting. When the hour had come, she had filled every fucking second of it.
Eventually, she steeled herself and opened the letter. She was drunk enough by then not to care anymore what Frank Carter might have to say. What did he matter? Let the fucker write what he wanted. His words would bounce off her, and he would still be rotting where he was afterward, and she would still be here. It wasn’t like with Pete. Carter had nothing to hold over her. No way of hurting her.
A single sheet of paper, almost entirely empty.
If Peter can still hear, Carter had written, tell him thank you.
Seventy
Francis sat in his cell, waiting.
He had spent these two weeks in prison in a state of anticipation, but something in the world had clicked today, and he had known that it was finally time. Past lights-out, he was sitting patiently on his bunk in the darkness, still fully dressed, his hands resting on his thighs. He listened to the metallic echoes and the catcalls of the other convicts gradually dying away around him. He stared almost blindly at the rough brickwork of the opposite wall.
Waiting.
He was a grown man, and he was not afraid.
They had done their best to make him so, of course. When he’d first been brought to the prison, on remand and still unconvicted, the guards had been professional but also either unable or unwilling to hide their hatred for him. Francis had killed a little boy, after all, and—perhaps even worse in their eyes—a police officer. The body search had been overly robust. He had been allowed to keep his own clothes, but had been confined to a single cell and not allowed to mix with the other prisoners. The latter was allegedly for his own protection, but there had been frequent bangs and clatters against his door, threats hissed and whispered from the walkway outside, and beyond the occasional call to knock it off, the guards had sounded bored and done little to stop it. Francis thought they enjoye
d it.
Let them.
He waited. It was warm in the cell, but his skin was singing, his body was trembling slightly. But not with fear.
Because he was a grown man. And he was not afraid.
The first time he had seen his father was a week ago, in the prison canteen. Even at mealtimes Francis was kept separate from the other inmates, and so he had been seated at a table by himself, with a guard watching over him as he ate the slop that had been provided. Francis thought they gave him the most disgusting portions they could, but if that were the case then the joke was on them. He had eaten much worse. And he had survived far harsher treatment than this. Spooning up a mouthful of cold mashed potato, he had told himself for the hundredth time that this was all just a test. Whatever they threw at him, he would endure. He would earn what—
And then he had turned his head and seen his father.
Frank Carter walked through the door to the canteen as if he owned the whole prison, ducking slightly, his presence immediately immense in the hall. A mountain of a man. The guards, most of them shorter than him by a head, kept a respectful distance. A group of other inmates flanked him, all of them wearing orange prison uniforms, but his father stood out among them, clearly the leader of the group. He did not appear to have aged. To Francis, his father seemed almost supernaturally large and powerful, as though, if he wanted, he could walk through the walls of the prison and emerge unscathed, covered with dust.
As though he could do anything.
“Hurry up, Carter.”
The guard prodded him in the back. Francis ate the mash, thinking that the man could soon be made to regret doing that. Because his father was king in here, and that made Francis royalty. As he ate, he stole surreptitious glances over at the table where his father was holding court. The prisoners there were laughing, but it was too far away for Francis to tune out the other noises and hear what they were saying. His father wasn’t laughing, though. And while Francis thought some of the others occasionally looked his way, his father never did. No—Frank Carter just ate quickly, occasionally dabbing at his beard with a napkin but otherwise staring straight ahead of him as he chewed, as though he had serious business on his mind.
“I said hurry up.”
In the intervening days, Francis had seen Carter on a handful of other occasions, and each time it was the same. He was impressed anew by the size of the man—always towering over the figures around him, like a father surrounded by children. And each time he had seemed entirely unaware of Francis. Unlike the coterie of fawning men around him, he never even looked in Francis’s direction. But Francis felt him constantly. Lying alone in his cell at night, his father was a solid presence, throbbing somewhere just out of reach beyond the thick door and the steel walkways.
The anticipation had built steadily until, today, he had known the moment was coming.
I am a grown man, Francis thought now.
And I am not afraid.
The prison had fallen as quiet as it ever did. There were still distant noises, but his own cell was so silent that he could hear himself breathing.
He waited.
And waited.
Until, finally, he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway outside, the sound simultaneously both cautious and excited. Francis stood up, his heart beating with hope, listening more carefully now. It was more than one person. There was soft laughter followed by hushing sounds. The rattling of keys. Which made sense—his father would have access to anything he wanted in here.
But there was also something almost taunting about the noise.
Outside the cell, someone whispered his name.
Fraaaaancis.
A key turned in the lock.
And then the door opened.
Frank Carter stepped into the cell, the solid bulk of the man filling the doorway. There was just enough light for Francis to be able to see his father’s face, to see the expression there, and—
And—
He was a child again.
And he was terrified.
Because Francis remembered the expression on his father’s face only too well. It was the look he had always worn when he would come to Francis’s bedroom at night and order him to get up, to get downstairs, because there was something he needed to see. Back then, the hatred he saw had been constrained by necessity and directed at others in his place. But here and now, finally, there was no longer any need for constraint.
Help me, Francis thought.
But there was nobody to help him here. No more than there had been anyone all those years ago. There was nobody to call to who would come.
There never had been.
The Whisper Man walked slowly toward him. With his hands trembling, Francis reached down and took hold of the bottom of his T-shirt.
And then he pulled it up to cover his face.
Acknowledgments
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a number of people—firstly to my fabulous agent, Sandra Sawicka, along with Leah Middleton and everyone else at Marjacq. Joel Richardson is my editor at Michael Joseph in the UK, and his patience and advice along the way have been invaluable. I would also like to thank Emma Henderson, Sarah Scarlett, Catherine Wood, Lucy Beresford-Knox, Elizabeth Brandon, and Alex Elam for their hard work and support, and Shan Morley Jones, Elizabeth Catalano, and Dave Cole for catching my mistakes. Huge thanks are due to Will Staehle and Anne Twomey in the U.S. for such a gorgeous cover, Ryan Doherty for his editorial input, and to everyone else at Celadon for their hard work on the book. I have been bowled over by each and every one of you, and I cannot thank you enough.
In addition, the crime fiction community is famous for its warmth and generosity, and I’m constantly grateful to enjoy the support and friendship of so many amazing writers, readers, and bloggers. You’re all ace. I need to raise an extra-large glass—a beaker, even—to the Blankets. You know who you are.
Finally, thanks to Lynn and Zack for absolutely everything—not least, putting up with me. This book is dedicated to both of you, with so much love.
Founded in 2017, Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, publishes a highly curated list of twenty to twenty-five new titles a year. The list of both fiction and nonfiction is eclectic and focuses on publishing commercial and literary books and discovering and nurturing talent.
A Note About the Author
ALEX NORTH was born in Leeds, England, where he now lives with his wife and son. The Whisper Man was inspired by North’s own little boy, who mentioned one day that he was playing with “the boy in the floor.” Alex North is a British crime writer who has previously published under another name. You can sign up for email updates here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One: July
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Part Two: September
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Part Three
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Part Four
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
F
orty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-eight
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Part Five
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Sixty
Sixty-one
Sixty-two
Sixty-three
Sixty-four
Sixty-five
Sixty-six
Part Six
Sixty-seven
Sixty-eight
Sixty-nine
Seventy
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE WHISPER MAN. Copyright © 2019 by Alex North. All rights reserved. For information, address Celadon Books, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.celadonbooks.com
Cover design by Will Staehle
ISBN 978-1-250-31799-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-25771-0 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to right availability)
ISBN 978-1-250-31797-1 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250317971
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First Edition: August 2019