The Whisper Man(25)

It won’t.

The sensible coppers let it go. DCI Lyons was like that, she was sure, because that was the only way to climb—with as little weight holding you down as possible. Before Neil Spencer went missing, she’d imagined she would be the same, but she was no longer quite so sure. And if she’d initially thought Pete Willis was calm and detached, then looking at him now made her reevaluate that first impression. He was just good at keeping the world at a distance, she thought, and Frank Carter was a man who could get closer to him than most.

Not so surprising, given the history they shared, and the fact that one of Carter’s victims had never been found—a kid who had effectively gone missing on Pete’s watch. She glanced at her computer screen and saw the familiar photo of Neil Spencer in his football jersey. His absence was an actual physical ache inside her, and no matter how much she tried not to think about it, the feeling of failure worsened every day. She couldn’t imagine how bad it might feel after twenty years. She didn’t want to end up like the man across from her now.

It won’t come to that.

“Talk me through the accomplice theory again,” she said.

“There’s very little there, really.” Pete opened his eyes. “There’s a witness report of an older man with gray hair talking to Tony Smith that doesn’t match Carter. And then there are some overlaps on the abduction windows.”

“Pretty thin stuff.”

“I know. Sometimes people want things to be more complicated than they really are.”

“It’s possible for him to have committed these crimes entirely alone. Occam’s razor states that—”

“I know what Occam’s razor states.” Pete ran his hand through his hair. “Do not multiply entities unnecessarily. The simplest solution that fits all the facts is the one you go with.”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s what we do here, isn’t it? We get our guy, and we prove he’s done it, and that’s enough for us. So we tie a bow around the investigation, stick it in the filing cabinet, and move on. Case closed, job done. On to the next.”

She thought about Lyons again. About climbing.

“Because that’s what we have to do,” she said.

“But sometimes it’s not good enough.” Pete shook his head. “Sometimes things that look simple turn out to be much more complicated, and the extra stuff ends up being missed.”

“And the extra stuff in this case,” she said, “could include someone getting away with murder?”

“Who knows? I’ve tried not to think about it over the years.”

“I think that’s wise.”

“But now we have Neil Spencer. We have the whispers and the monster. And we have Frank fucking Carter sitting there, knowing something about it.”

She waited.

“And I don’t know what to do about it,” Pete said. “Carter isn’t going to tell us anything. And we’ve been over his known associates a hundred times. They’re all clear.”

Amanda thought about it. “Copycat?”

“Possibly. But Carter wasn’t guessing back in that room. The whispers never made it to the press, and he knew about them. No visitors aside from me. The correspondence he receives is all vetted. So how does he know?”

His frustration was suddenly so palpable that she was surprised he didn’t hit the table. Instead, he shook his head again and looked away to one side. At least it had brought him back to life a little, Amanda thought. That was a good thing. Fuck calm—she was a keen believer in the idea that rage was a good motivator, and God knew there were times when you needed something to keep you going. At the same time, she could tell that a great deal of Pete’s anger was directed inward: that he blamed himself for not having been able to get to the truth. And that was no good. She was an equally keen believer in the idea that guilt was about as unhelpful as emotions got. Once you let guilt get ahold of you, the bastard never let go.

“Carter was never going to help us,” she said. “Not willingly.”

“No.”

“The dream about Tony Smith—?”

He waved it away.

“That’s just business as usual. I’ve heard all that before. I have no doubt he killed Tony, and that he knows exactly where he left him. But he’s never going to say. Not when it’s something to hold over us. Over me.”

It was clear to her now how much going to see Carter took out of Pete. And yet, as hard as it must be, he went regardless—still put himself through the ordeal, because finding Tony Smith meant that much to him. But Carter had found a new game to play now, and they had to focus on that. While she understood Pete’s turmoil, the fact remained that Tony Smith had been dead for a long time, while Neil Spencer could still be alive.

Was still alive.

“Well, he’s got another hold over us now,” Amanda said. “But remember something. You said that you go to see him in case he gives information away by accident.”

“Yes.”

“Well, he has—he knows something, doesn’t he? That can’t have happened by magic. So we have to work out how.”

When he didn’t reply, she thought about it herself.

No visitors. No unvetted correspondence.

“What about friends inside?” she said.