The Whisper Man(9)

Neil’s parents were interviewed again.

“Did your son express any concerns about unwanted attention from other adults?” Amanda said. “Did he mention being approached by anyone?”

“No.” Neil’s father looked affronted by the very idea of it. “I’d have fucking well done something about that, wouldn’t I? And for fuck’s sake, don’t you think I’d also have mentioned it before now?”

Amanda smiled politely.

“No,” Neil’s mother said.

But less firmly.

When Amanda pressed her, the woman said that actually she did recall something. It hadn’t occurred to her to report it at the time, or even when Neil went missing, because it had been so strange, so stupid—and anyway, she’d been half asleep at the time, so she hardly even remembered it.

Amanda smiled politely again, while also resisting the urge to rip the woman’s head off.

Ten minutes later she was in the upstairs office of her superior, Detective Chief Inspector Colin Lyons. Whether from the tiredness or the nerves, she was having to stop her leg from jittering slightly. Lyons himself just looked pained. He had been closely involved in the investigation and understood as well as Amanda did the situation they were now likely to be facing. Even so, this recent development was not one he’d wanted to hear.

“This doesn’t go to the media,” Lyons said quietly.

“No, sir.”

“And the mother?” He looked at her suddenly, alarmed. “You’ve told her not to mention this in public? At all?”

“Yes, sir.”

Of fucking course, sir. Although Amanda doubted it had been necessary. The tone of some of the press was already judgmental and accusatory, and Neil’s parents had enough culpability to deal with already without deliberately copping to more.

“Good,” Lyons said. “Because Jesus Christ.”

“I know, sir.”

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a few seconds, breathing deeply. “Do you know the case?”

Amanda shrugged. Everybody knew the case. That wasn’t the same thing as knowing it.

“Not everything,” she said.

Lyons opened his eyes and sat there staring at the ceiling.

“Then we’re going to need some help,” he said.

Amanda’s heart sank a little at that. For one thing, she’d worked her self to the brink these last two days, and she didn’t relish the thought of having to share any spoils of the case now. For another, there was also the specter that was being acknowledged here. Frank Carter. The Whisper Man. Assuaging fear among the public was going to get harder now. Impossible, even, if this new detail got out.

They would have to be very careful indeed.

“Yes, sir.”

Lyons picked up the phone on his desk.

Which was how, as the time of Neil Spencer’s disappearance ticked close to the end of that crucial forty-eight-hour period, DI Pete Willis became involved in the investigation again.





Seven


Not that he wanted to.

Pete’s philosophy was a relatively simple one, ingrained in him over so many years that it was now more implicit than consciously considered: a blueprint on which his life was built. The devil finds work for idle hands.

Bad thoughts find empty heads.

So he kept his hands busy and his mind occupied. Discipline and structure were important to him, and after the nonresult at the waste ground he had spent most of the last forty-odd hours doing exactly what he always did.

Early that morning had found him in the gym in the basement of the department: overhead presses; side laterals; rear deltoids. He worked on a different body part each day. It wasn’t a matter of vanity or health, more that he found the solitude and concentration involved in physical exercise a comforting distraction. After three-quarters of an hour, he was often surprised to discover his mind had been mercifully empty for most of it.

That morning, he had managed not to think about Neil Spencer at all.

He had then spent most of the day upstairs in his office, where the multitude of minor cases piled on his desk provided ample distraction. As a younger, more impetuous man, he would probably have yearned for greater excitement than the trivial crimes he was dealing with, but today he appreciated the calm to be found in boring minutiae. Excitement was not only rare in police work, it was a bad thing; usually it meant someone’s life had been damaged. Wishing for excitement was wishing for hurt, and Pete had had more than enough of both. There was comfort to be had in the car thefts, the shoplifting, the court appearances for endless banal offenses. They spoke of a city ticking quietly along, never quite perfect, perhaps, but never falling apart either.

But while he’d had no direct involvement with the Neil Spencer investigation, it was impossible to avoid it entirely. A small boy, when missing, cast a large shadow, and it had become the most prominent case in the department. He heard officers talking about it in the corridors: where Neil might be; what might have happened to him; and the parents, of course. The latter was quieter speculation, and had been officially discouraged, but he kept hearing it anyway—the irresponsibility of letting a little boy walk home alone. He remembered similar talk from twenty years ago and walked on quickly, no more disposed to entertain it now than he had been back then.

Just before five o’clock that evening, he was sitting quietly at his desk, already considering what he would do that evening. He lived alone and socialized rarely, so his habit was to work his way through cookbooks, often making elaborate meals before eating them alone at the dinner table. Afterward, he would watch a film or read a book.