The Whisper Man(37)

A woman by the wall was nodding to herself. Pete recognized it as the kind of action he had made in the deepest throes of his addiction, pining for a drink and riding out the pain.

“The body has been removed from the scene and a postmortem will take place this morning. We have an estimated time of death somewhere between three and five P.M. yesterday. Assuming this is Neil Spencer, he was found in roughly the same place he went missing, which may be significant. We also believe Neil was killed at a different location, presumably wherever he had been held. Fingers crossed that forensics will give us some clue as to where that might be. In the meantime, we’ll be going over all the CCTV in the area. We’ll be knocking on every door in the vicinity. Because I am simply not having this monster wandering around Featherbank undetected. I’m not having it.”

She looked up. Despite the obvious tiredness and upset, there was fire in her eyes now.

“All of us here—we’ve all worked on this investigation. And even if we’d steeled ourselves, this is not the result any of us were hoping for. So let me be absolutely clear. It will not be allowed to stand. Do we agree?”

Pete glanced around again. A few nods here and there; the room coming back to life. He admired the sentiment and acknowledged the need for it right now, but he also remembered giving equally angry speeches twenty years ago, and while he had believed them at the time, he knew now that things not only stood whether you wanted them to or not, but that sometimes they followed you forever.

“We did everything we could,” Amanda told the room. “We didn’t find Neil Spencer in time. But make no mistake, we are going to find the person that did this to him.”

And Pete could tell that she believed what she was saying just as passionately as he had all those years ago. Because you had to. Something awful had happened on your watch, and the only way to ease the pain was to do everything you could to put it right. To catch whoever was responsible before they hurt anybody else. Or at least try.

We are going to find the person that did this.

He hoped that was true.





Twenty-four


It was astonishing how quickly life could revert to normal when it had to.

After the police left, I decided there was no point in either Jake or me trying to go back to sleep, and as a result, by half past eight, I felt half dead on my feet. I went through the motions of preparing him breakfast and getting him ready for school. After what had happened, it seemed ridiculous, but I had no excuse for keeping him home. In fact, given his performance in front of the officers earlier on, a horrible part of me wanted not to be around him right now.

While he ate cereal, still refusing to speak to me, I stood in the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and downed it in one. I didn’t really know what to do or how to feel. With just a handful of hours’ distance, the events of the night seemed distant and surreal. Could I be sure I’d seen what I’d seen? Perhaps it had been my imagination. But no, I had seen it. A better father—an average one, even—would have convinced the police to take him seriously. A better father would have a son who talked to him, not undermined him. Who could see that I was just scared for him and trying to protect him.

My hand tightened around the glass.

You’re not your father, Tom.

Rebecca’s quiet voice in my head.

Never forget that.

I looked down at the empty glass in my hand. My grip was too tight on it. That awful memory came back to me—shattering glass; my mother screaming—and I put it down on the counter quickly, before I could start to fail in an altogether worse way.



* * *



At quarter to nine, Jake and I walked to school together, him trailing along to the side of me, still resisting any attempts at conversation. It was only when we reached the gates that he finally spoke to me.

“Who’s Neil Spencer, Daddy?”

“I don’t know.” Despite the subject matter, I was relieved that he was talking to me. “A boy from Featherbank. I think he went missing earlier this year; I remember reading something about it. Nobody knows what happened to him.”

“Owen said he was dead.”

“Owen sounds like a charming little boy.”

It was clear that Jake was thinking about adding something to that, but then he changed his mind.

“He said I was sitting in Neil’s chair.”

“That’s stupid. You didn’t get a place in the school because this Neil kid went missing. Someone else moved to a new house like we did.” I frowned. “And anyway, they’d have all been in a different classroom last year, wouldn’t they?”

Jake looked at me curiously.

“Twenty-eight,” he said.

“Twenty-eight what?”

“Twenty-eight children,” he said. “Plus me is twenty-nine.”

“Exactly.” I had no idea if that was true, but I went with it. “They have classes of thirty here. So wherever Neil is, his chair is waiting for him.”

“Do you think he will come home?”

We stepped into the playground.

“I don’t know, mate.”

“Can I have a hug, Daddy?”

I looked down at him. From the expression on his face now, last night and this morning might as well not have happened at all. But then, he was seven. Arguments were always resolved in his time and on his terms. In this instance, I was too tired not to accept that.