The Boy Who Saw: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

by Simon Toyne

  ‘Benoît Amand.’

  Laurent rolled his eyes and pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Let me find out if the juge d’instruction has been appointed yet, see if I can’t get someone assigned who’s a little friendlier to our cause.’

  ‘Wait,’ LePoux said, his eyes going wide as he remembered. ‘He asked the Arab if there was a Josef Engel living here. It must be him. He must have killed him.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Laurent said.

  ‘Why would I lie?’

  ‘No reason,’ Belloq cut in, trying to calm the situation again. ‘But this does shine a different light on things.’

  LePoux frowned. ‘How?’

  ‘Because,’ Laurent explained, ‘it means we know this man was here in search of Josef Engel, consequently we can also assume we know what he was looking for.’

  ‘The list?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  LePoux’s face creased in confusion. ‘And how is that useful?’

  ‘Because, if he does have the list,’ Belloq said as patiently as he could, ‘it means we can get to him and we can take it back.’

  LePoux was always the last to understand. He was more of a blunt instrument than a scalpel, a vicious dog you kept on a chain, putting up with the barking because there might be a time when you needed its bite. A time like this.

  16

  Amand pushed through the large glass door of the Commissariat and headed to the inner offices. ‘Where is everyone?’

  Sergeant Henri DuBois looked up from his computer. ‘Isn’t Parra out there?’

  ‘No.’

  Henri twisted the points of his moustache and shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s gone back to the crime scene. Take a look at this. I ran Monsieur Creed’s name through the crime database and he popped up on an Interpol warrant. Three weeks ago, practically a whole town blew up in Arizona and the authorities would very much like to talk to him about it.’

  Amand stepped up to the screen and studied the report. ‘Have you contacted anyone?’

  ‘I called the sheriff’s office.’ Amand scanned another window showing an article from an Arizona newspaper complete with photographs of a white stone church with a large crack in one wall and bodies lying in the shade of some trees under plastic sheets.

  ‘What did the sheriff say?’

  ‘Nothing. Turns out he’s one of the bodies lying under the trees. And look at this …’ Henri scrolled down to a note at the bottom of the Interpol alert.

  Subject is believed to have recently absconded from a private Mexican psychiatric facility run by the ICP (Institute of Criminal Psychology). He is highly intelligent and extremely dangerous. DO NOT APPROACH. If sighted, observe at a distance and alert nearest local tactical force to make the arrest (DEA, SWAT, etc). Any sightings should be IMMEDIATELY reported to this emergency number.

  A number was listed beneath that looked like a satellite phone. ‘Did you call it?’

  ‘It’s a recorded message. I left your name and this number. But that’s not all. A few minutes ago we got a call about some tourist whose dog found a bloody shirt in a garden. I sent Pierre to check it out.’

  ‘Pierre!?’

  ‘He was right around the corner.’

  Amand grabbed the desk mic that connected to the police radio network. ‘Josef Engel’s shirt isn’t missing, it was folded on a chair in his atelier. Call Parra. Find out where he is.’ Amand pushed the call button. ‘Car vingt-sept, come in. Where are you, Pierre?’

  There was a brief pause before a reply crackled back.

  ‘This is vingt-sept. I’m on the Rue de la Chevalier Noir, over.’

  ‘Get back in position right away.’

  ‘OK. I was heading back anyway. The address Henri gave me must be wrong. That house is shuttered up and there’s a thick stack of mail inside the door. No one’s been here for a while.’

  Amand glanced at Henri, who was frantically dialling Parra’s number. ‘Get back to Marie-Claude’s house as fast as you can and make sure she’s OK.’

  He disconnected and reached for his own phone. The tightness in his chest had returned, a combination of his recent brisk walk and the feeling that everything was drifting away from him. He found Marie-Claude’s number and was about to dial it when he heard a slightly muffled sound across the room, like someone plucking a banjo. It was coming from a jacket hanging on the coat stand by the stairs. Parra’s ringtone. Parra’s jacket. He hadn’t gone anywhere. Parra was still in the building.

  ‘Call Marie-Claude,’ Amand said, moving towards the jacket and the stairs leading down to the cells. He remembered the words on the Interpol alert:

  He is highly intelligent and extremely dangerous. DO NOT APPROACH.

  And Parra was down there.

  Alone.

  17

  The sudden sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen made Marie-Claude jump. She ignored it and carried on stuffing comics into a backpack that already contained her laptop and purse. She knew the day ahead was going to be long and painful and wanted to be prepared. She was also avoiding the conversation she needed to have with Léo.

  ‘Phone’s ringing, Mama.’

  His voice made her jump. She turned and tried smiling down at the little figure standing in the doorway but her heart wasn’t in it and she saw in his eyes that it had come out all wrong.

  ‘Grampy’s dead, isn’t he?’ Léo said, taking her by surprise. ‘Uncle Benny came to tell you he died.’ He stepped forward, arms held out to her, and she sat on the bed and hugged him tight.

  She could feel her grief, dark and heavy inside her like a stone laid on top of her heart bringing tears that she tried to hold back.

  ‘It’s OK, Mama,’ Léo said. ‘It’s OK to be sad when people die. You don’t have to pretend you’re happy because of me.’

  He returned the hug and she let the tears spill and felt the instant relief of it. ‘OK, Léo, I won’t. I promise.’

  She should have known it was pointless trying to sugarcoat or hide anything from her son. Sometimes she wondered if he was more together and grown-up than she was, the things he seemed to see, the things he picked up about people just by looking at them with those serious eyes of his. He had his great-grandfather’s eyes, eyes that looked like they’d seen too much. Maybe that was why she tried so hard to protect him, not wanting to add more sorrow to the sadness already there. Or maybe she was just being a mother.

  In the kitchen, the phone stopped ringing. She kissed his hair and pulled away from him a little to look into his face. ‘You’re right,’ she said, holding his face in her hands. ‘It is OK to be sad when someone dies. Only Grandpa didn’t just die.’ She took a breath, pausing at the precipice of what she was about to tell him. ‘Somebody killed him.’

  Marie-Claude waited for some kind of reaction, tears or anger or fear, instead Léo nodded and turned to look at the rucksack. ‘Is that why we’re leaving?’ he said. ‘Because the person who killed Grampy might come for us next?’

  ‘No, chéri, no.’ She took hold of him and held his small body as tight as she dared. She’d screwed up again. She shouldn’t have told him. Not like this. It was too much for a seven-year-old to take on. All the disruption, the visit from Amand, packing a bag with no explanation, then the final flourish of parental genius – the blunt revelation that his great-grandfather had been murdered. No wonder he was confused and scared. She was scaring herself. She was a mess. She should have taken him to school and let him have a normal day while she dealt with everything, like a grown-up was supposed to.

  The knock on the door made them both jump and she caught the look of anxiety in Léo’s eyes. ‘Don’t be scared, chéri, it’s probably Uncle Benny again, or the other policeman.’ She stood up and paused by the door. ‘Put your shoes on and I’ll take you to school, or you can come with me to the Commissariat. Up to you.’

  Léo scanned the messy floor for his trainers but couldn’t see them. His mama never asked him to tidy his bedroom, not like some of his friends’ mot
hers who seemed to think that toys and books were not meant to be played with. That was why she was such a great mum, though Léo could tell sometimes she thought she wasn’t – like now.

  He followed her into the hallway and looked past where she had stopped by the hall mirror to dab her eyes with a tissue. His Spidey-sneaks were by the front door, close to where a dark shape shifted on the other side of the frosted glass. Léo felt coldness flowing from it like river water and a deep red flickered through the black revealing a shape at the heart of it, a regular-sized man but surrounded in a dark cloud of feathery blackness as if midnight had come to call.

  His mama finished dabbing her eyes and started walking towards the door. Léo’s mouth went dry and he leaped forward, all instinct, and grabbed her hand.

  ‘Hey.’ She turned to him, saw the fear in his face. ‘What’s up, Léo?’

  He tugged at her hand, shaking his head and trying to pull her back up the hallway and into his bedroom. He raised his finger to his lips and pointed at the shadow. He knew she couldn’t see what he was seeing. To her the shape at the door would look like a regular person, but Léo knew it wasn’t. He didn’t know what was standing on the other side of that door and he didn’t want to find out. He tugged at his mama’s hand, his mind casting around for the right words to say to stop her from opening the door. She didn’t like it when he talked about the colours he saw and all he could think of was:

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bad,’ he pointed up the hallway to where the cold shadow shifted by the front door.

  ‘Look, Léo,’ she said, dropping to his level. ‘I know this is turning into a bit of a crazy day, but nothing bad’s going to happen. I promise.’

  Léo stared past her at the shifting shadow. ‘It will,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t open the door. There’s a darkness there. Something black and red. Please don’t open the door.’ He was crying now.

  She looked at him, her eyes pink from crying and sharp with concern, her colours swirling and mixing to muddiness. He wanted to hold her and stir in some of his lightness, but his own colours were faded with fear too.

  He felt the coldness shift and looked past her to see the dark shape moving away behind the frosted glass. He blinked, not quite believing it had gone. It moved along the front of the house and slipped into the passage that ran down the side and continued to move, heading to the back of the house now, not gone, but shifting, looking for a different way in.

  18

  Amand ran down the spiralling stone steps to the cells, thinking of the bloody mess he’d found in Josef Engel’s atelier that morning.

  … DO NOT APPROACH … the Interpol alert had warned.

  He is highly intelligent and extremely dangerous …

  The air grew colder as he descended and the ache in his chest was like a steadily tightening steel band around his lungs. He reached the bottom and burst through the door into the white-painted corridor, the overhead lights headache-bright.

  The cell where Solomon Creed was being held was at the furthest end of the corridor. Amand moved quickly towards it, his hand resting on the grip of his gun and remembering how easily Solomon had taken it from him last time. He had given it back though. Why would he do that if he was the dangerous maniac the Interpol alert suggested? Parra was probably taking his statement, that was all. Amand listened through his hammering heartbeat for the murmur of voices but heard nothing.

  He could see inside the cell through the small window in the door. White-painted walls. An empty chair. An evidence envelope and a blank statement form on the table with an uncapped pen next to it. Then he saw Parra, sitting in the second chair, bolt upright and facing forward, eyes closed, hands placed flat on the table. There was no one else in the room.

  Amand ducked below the window and rose on the other side, checking the cell from his new angle. No one there either but the window was small and there was a sizeable blind spot where Solomon would be hidden from view if he was standing close to the wall. And he had to be in there. Had to be.

  ‘Monsieur Creed,’ Amand called out, his voice sounding too loud in the trapped confines of the corridor. ‘Step into view, please. Step into view and sit down at the table.’

  Parra opened his eyes and looked around like he had just woken up. Amand watched to see if he might give him a fix on where Solomon was but he seemed confused.

  ‘Parra,’ Amand called out. ‘You OK?’

  Parra nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m … yes.’

  He moved slightly so Parra could see him. ‘Show me where he is. Look at him now so I can see where he is.’

  Parra looked around. ‘Who?’

  Amand pulled his gun from the holster and pointed it at the floor. ‘Listen to me, Parra. I want you to stand up and open the door, OK?’ Parra nodded but didn’t move. ‘Just stand up, open the door, step into the corridor and close the door behind you.’

  Parra looked down at his hands on the tabletop. ‘I can’t,’ he said, confusion and panic fraying his voice. ‘My hands are stuck.’

  He stood and his chair clattered away across the hard floor. He tugged at his hands and the whole table moved, metal legs shrieking against the stone floor.

  ‘You’re not stuck,’ Amand called out. ‘Your hands moved.’

  Parra yanked backwards again in panic, dragging the table across the floor into a part of the cell that Amand couldn’t see. He dug into his pocket, found the key and jammed it into the lock.

  Parra had moved to the right, which suggested Solomon must be on the left. The key slotted home and the shriek of metal on stone escaped through the opening door. Amand raised his gun and ducked his head through the door as another shriek of metal on stone ripped through the air. He swept his gun left and stared at the corner. There was no one there. Solomon Creed had vanished.

  19

  He raised the bayonet as he neared the back of the house and stopped at the corner to survey the small garden. A child’s bike lay on the ground next to a plastic sandpit. Such a small bike. He knew the boy was inside the house and what had to happen if he went inside. The police officer would not be gone long. He would have to be quick. Make the woman tell him where the list was and leave no witnesses.

  He looked away from the bike and remembered the video he’d been watching instead, using it to sharpen his nerve in the same way he had sharpened the blade of the bayonet the night before. He knew the Second World War had not ended seventy years ago. It raged still, and there were always casualties in war, innocents sacrificed on the altar of a higher purpose.

  He felt the weight of the bayonet. He needed to be like the blade, solid and sharp and clear of purpose – a tool made for war. He needed to be strong, like Wotan was strong – godlike and unrelenting. The woman and her son were mistakes of history. Her grandfather should have died in the war and they should never have been born. He raised the bayonet, the blade angled forward, stepped round the corner and into the yard.

  The back door was partially glazed and he caught his reflection in it, black and featureless, a shadow. The kitchen beyond was empty, the remains of breakfast abandoned on the surfaces: a jug of coffee on a hot plate, a bowl by the sink with a spoon in it. He could see the hallway beyond the kitchen and another door on the far side, closed and with superhero cartoons stuck to it and something that made his heart lift. An omen. Showing him the way. Calling him on.

  He tried the handle. Locked. Turned the bayonet over, gripped the blade with his gloved hand and swung it hard. The metal eagle’s head struck the glass and the window shattered and glass scattered across the tiles. He reached through the jagged hole and unlocked the door from the inside. More glass fell as he pushed the door open and crunched beneath his boots as he marched through the warm coffee-smelling kitchen towards the thing that had spoken to his higher purpose.

  He flipped the bayonet over again so the blade was pointing out and entered the hallway. To his left was the front door; a pile of shoes and coats; another door reve
aling a bedroom. To his right was an empty bathroom. They had to be in the boy’s bedroom. Nowhere else they could be.

  He stopped in front of the closed door and stared at the omen that had spurred him on. Thor looked back at him, teeth gritted, hammer held aloft with lightning flashing around it. Thor, son of Wotan.

  He gripped the bayonet. Held it up. Then kicked open the door.

  20

  Amand steered Parra back to his desk in the main office and handed him a cup of coffee. ‘What happened?’

  Parra passed the cup from one hand to the other. ‘I can’t exactly … he was.’ He put the cup down and studied his hands.

  ‘Tell me what you remember.’

  Parra pushed his hands together. Pulled them apart. Turned them over. In the background, Henri was speaking urgently on the phone, putting out an alert to local and national police and giving them Solomon’s description.

  ‘I went to take a statement,’ Parra said, studying his hands. ‘He said he remembered seeing something.’ Parra frowned again, struggling to remember. ‘He said he’d been walking down some steps to get to the house, a long flight of stone steps that disappeared into the morning mist, and he asked me to picture them, said it would help me understand what he’d seen. His voice was … he was really persuasive, like he was genuinely trying to help. He told me, he suggested I close my eyes to help me picture them. So I did. And he was right, I could see the stairs exactly as he described them, a long set of stone steps disappearing into mist.

  ‘He kept talking the whole time, telling me to breathe slowly and imagine myself walking down the steps, said it would help me understand what had happened at the house. I kept thinking I would reach the bottom, that the sun would burn the mist away and everything would become clear.’ He shook his head. ‘But I never got to the bottom. The steps kept going down, and I kept walking, and the mist kept on getting thicker. And all the time his voice was in my head, talking to me, telling me to relax, asking me things.’