The Whisper Man(66)

“Are we going to be on television?” he said excitedly.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh.”

Pete had been following our car the whole journey, and he parked sideways behind us now, then got out quickly. The reporters approached him, and I peered around to watch as he spoke to them.

“What’s going on, Daddy?”

“Hang on.”

Jake was straining to see as well.

“Is that—?” he said.

“Oh, fuck.”

There was a moment of silence in the car after that. I stared at the small group that had gathered around my father, dimly aware that he was smiling politely at them, explaining things with a conciliatory shrug, and that a few of the reporters were nodding. But my attention was focused on one of them in particular.

“You said the f-word, Daddy.”

Jake sounded awed.

“Yes, I did.” I turned away from the sight of Karen, standing among the reporters, a notepad in her hand. “And yes. That’s Adam’s mother back there.”



* * *



“Are we going to be on television, Pete?” Jake said.

I closed the front door behind us and put the chain on.

“I’ve already told you that, Jake. No, we are not.”

“I’m just asking Pete as well.”

“No,” Pete said. “You aren’t. Just like your daddy told you. That’s what I was talking to the people outside about. They’re reporters, and so they’re interested in what happened here, but I was reminding them that it has nothing to do with you two.”

“It sort of does,” Jake said.

“Well, sort of. But not really. If you’d known more, or were more involved, then it would be different.”

I shot Jake a look at that, hoping he’d understand from my expression that this was not the time to say anything else about the boy in the floor. He glanced at me and nodded, but wasn’t about to let the matter drop quite so easily.

“Daddy did find him.”

“Yes,” Pete said. “But that’s not information that’s been released to the people out there. As far as they’re concerned, the two of you are not really part of the story. That’s the best way to keep it for now, I think.”

“Okay.” Jake sounded disappointed. “Can I look around and see what they’ve done?”

“Of course.”

He disappeared upstairs. Pete and I waited by the front door.

“I meant what I said,” he told me after a moment. “You don’t need to worry. The media won’t want to prejudice any trial. I can’t stop you from talking to them, obviously, but all they know is the remains were found here, so I don’t think they’ll be that interested in you. And they’ll be very careful around Jake.”

I nodded, feeling sick. That might be all the media officially knew, but I’d told Karen so much yesterday that it was hard to keep track of it all. She knew about the nighttime visitor attempting to abduct Jake. The fact that it was me who had found the body. That Pete was my father—my abusive father. And I was quite sure I’d said things I couldn’t even remember right now.

I’m good at finding things out.

At the time, it had just been a conversation with a friend; I hadn’t realized I was spilling everything to a fucking reporter. And it hurt. She should have told me. It had felt like she’d been genuinely interested in me, but now I wasn’t so sure about that. On the one hand, there was no way she could have known in the beginning that I was connected to the case. But on the other, at no point in our conversation had she suggested that she really wasn’t the person I should be telling everything to.

My father frowned.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

But I would have to check the damage from that conversation later. In the meantime, there was no way I was going to tell my father about it.

“Are we safe here?” I said.

“Yes. Norman Collins isn’t going to be released anytime soon, and even if he was, there’s nothing of interest to him here anymore. Not for any of the others either.”

“Others?”

He hesitated.

“People have always been interested in this house. Collins told me it was the neighborhood scary house. Kids would dare each other to come near it. Take photographs and things.”

“The scary house. I’m tired of hearing about that.”

“That’s just kid stuff anyway,” Pete said. “Tony Smith’s remains are gone. That was all Collins was ever interested in. Not you or Jake.”

Not me or Jake. But I kept thinking back to seeing Jake at the bottom of the stairs that night, with the man talking to him through the mail slot. I couldn’t remember the exact words I’d heard, but I could recall enough to know he’d been trying to persuade Jake to open the door, and I wasn’t convinced it had only been the keys to the garage he was interested in.

“What about Neil Spencer?” I said. “Has Collins been charged with his murder?”

“No. But we have a number of suspects now. We’re closing in. And believe me, I wouldn’t let you both come back if I didn’t think it was safe.”

“You couldn’t stop me.”