Page 24

Twenty-Two

Notify my son.

John puts the note in the glove box and then gets out of the car.

He looks down at the photograph he’s brought with him: at the image taken of him in the woods with the body of a woman he now believes to be Rose Saunders. His arrogance in investigating the photograph took him to Darren Field’s door, which in turn has led to Field’s death. He’s sure of that now, and the guilt he feels is stronger than ever. But perhaps he can at least try to make amends of some kind before acting on it.

Across the road, the police station is lit by an angle of early evening sunlight.

John hasn’t been inside since his last day at work the year before. It had been an uneventful final shift that seemed like an afterthought at the time; to all intents and purposes, he might as well have already left. At six o’clock, there was a haphazard informal gathering at which the super had said a few words, but there had been no drinks afterward, no gifts or decorations, nothing you could call a proper send-off. John had been happy enough with that. He had spent most of that last day feeling like an outdated piece of office equipment that nobody would miss when it was taken away, assuming they even noticed it was gone at all.

The building looks strange to him now. It’s still familiar, of course; he spent far too many years working there for it not to be. But it’s also alien, like an old home for which he no longer has the keys or any right to enter.

The door opens.

Liam Fleming emerges from the police station, a blustery energy about him. John puts the photograph in his pocket and steels himself. It’s Fleming he needs to talk to: the guilt demands a confession. He needs to tell the man everything and confess just how badly he’s failed. Whatever the resulting humiliation might be, he deserves that and more. And the Reach is always there.

He leans away from the wall and heads quickly across the street, aiming to meet the man a short distance from the door.

“Liam,” he calls over.

But he’s misjudged the distance. And while Fleming clearly hears him, and sees him approaching, the man keeps walking, and is already past him when John gets to the other side of the road.

“Liam—”

Fleming comes to a stop on the pavement a short distance away. He doesn’t turn around. There is a tension to him, though, like a man trying his best to walk away from a bar fight, but who keeps being called back inside against his will.

“What is it, John? I’m really busy.”

“It’s about her,” John says. “The woman in the woods.”

Fleming sighs.

“I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with a civilian. You know that.”

“I know. But hear me out.”

Fleming turns around deliberately slowly. When they used to work together, John often noted a look of contempt on the man’s face, and perhaps Fleming sometimes caught a mirror of it reflected on his. But there’s nothing at all there now. Fleming’s expression is blank, as though he won the battle between them a long time ago, and hasn’t wasted much time thinking about John since.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and gestures out with his elbows.

“What then?”

“I—”

John stops. The emotion has brought him here. He hasn’t rehearsed what he needs to say, and now that the moment has arrived, he doesn’t know where to start. In the face of Fleming’s indifference, he feels even more stupid than before, not just for his mistakes but for his inability to express them. He glances at the wall back across the street, where Daniel used to wait for him sometimes after work, and it occurs to him that his son would be able to explain the situation. Daniel would weave an account together that Fleming would take seriously. Whereas John has only ever been as good with words as he has been with everything else.

Fleming frowns.

“You all right, John? You seem upset.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’ve been crying.”

And again, John says nothing. Fleming’s line is straight out of the bully’s playbook: pretend concern designed to belittle. He hasn’t been crying. Has he? He remembers that time when he walked into Daniel’s bedroom after he left for university, and has to resist the urge to touch his face now to check. Perhaps Fleming is right and it happened without him realizing.

“I haven’t been crying,” he says.

“Well, you look like you have.” Fleming’s frown deepens, the fake concern going up a notch. “And you look very tired . Is it bothering you, or something? I know it’s not a pleasant thing to stumble upon, an old man out walking like that.”

“No,” he says. “I’m glad it was me who found her.”

“Okay. I mean, that’s a little odd . But okay.”

As opposed to a tourist finding her , John thinks.

Because I’ve seen terrible things before.

But he doesn’t say those things out loud. It would only buy into Fleming’s narrative and feed him further lines— not really, John; you never handled anything as serious as that —but it’s also because his words just now have tripped his thoughts and caused them to stumble.

I’m glad it was me who found her.

That was what he’d said to Sarah, but that had been before he’d discovered the connections to the Pied Piper. It has become obvious that he didn’t really find the woman’s remains at all. They were left for him personally. He’s being manipulated, which means there is some kind of game being played here: one strung with trip wires and scattered with traps. In both of the accounts he’s heard, the victims were warned not to talk to the police about what happened or else they would be taken next. Assuming Darren Field is dead now, that might well be John’s fault. But if someone else watched Field die, then what if—by John giving his own account to Fleming now—he seals their fate too?

What if he makes everything worse?

It feels like, all his life, he’s had form on that score.

“Is it something you forgot in your statement?” Fleming says. “Because I know you’re putting a brave face on things now, but I remember how upset you were at the time.”

Tell him , John orders himself.

Just get the photograph out and tell him.

But his hand doesn’t move, and the words won’t come. He looks back over at the wall again. Daniel would know what to do. Not only would he have figured out exactly what to say to Fleming, he would probably have already prepared a profile of the man responsible. Right now, John can hardly think straight.

What is the right thing to do?

Fleming shifts his stance, losing his patience.

“Look, John,” he says. “It’s highly unlikely you missed anything that’s going to help us at this point. We know what we’re doing. We’ve got everything in hand.”

“Right,” John says quietly.

“What I think you should do is forget about it. Get some therapy or something. Your boy can probably put you in touch with someone, right? And then maybe just try to enjoy your retirement as best you can. Work on all those little cases you imagine you’re going to solve.”

The words smart. He had no idea Fleming knew about that. He remembers talking about them with a few of the other officers sometimes, never imagining it going any further. Now he pictures them all laughing at him behind his back. Because why wouldn’t they?

“Right,” he says again.

“And for God’s sake… get a long fucking sleep or something.”

Finally, John looks back at him.

“Yes,” he says. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

And maybe he won’t.

He does try though. Instead of driving to the Reach, he goes to the shop and buys food, then unloads it carefully into the fridge. He cooks an elaborate dinner and then eats it alone at the kitchen table with a glass of good red wine from his cellar. He attempts to keep going.

But while he chews slowly and methodically, he barely tastes the meal. When he attempts to read for a time, the sentences are too slippery and he can’t get a purchase on them. In the shower before bed, beneath the deafening hiss of the water, he imagines furtive movement in the house beneath him, but each time he cuts off the spray he hears nothing beyond the thud of his own heartbeat.

Last thing of all, he checks the doors and windows and turns off the lights inside the house one by one.

And then he lies awake in bed, the silence ticking softly.

After a time, his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness of the room, and the pale shape of the punch bag becomes a still figure that seems to be hanging in the air watching him.

He imagines it’s Daniel.

Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?

I almost did, he thinks.

There had been a moment earlier, walking home after his conversation with Fleming, when John had thought about calling his son: telling him everything; asking him for advice; seeking his counsel. He had got close enough to take out his mobile and navigate to Daniel’s number, his finger hovering over the green call icon for an age before he put the phone back in his pocket.

Whatever is happening here, it’s his responsibility. He needs to deal with it himself. But maybe it’s not just the guilt that’s stopped him. He is proud of Daniel; his son has overcome the trauma of his childhood and grown into an impressive man. And maybe John wants something he can add to the ledger of his own life. All too often, he’s felt little more than a footnote or crossing-out in someone else’s.

He thinks:

Because I want you to be proud of me too, my son.

So what would I do?

John considers that. If this really is a game, like in one of those books downstairs, then he has to work out the rules. That’s what Daniel would do. John needs to know what winning and losing look like and understand the best way to play, and to do that, he has to learn the layout of the board and get an idea of where the pieces are right now.

He has to find the games master.

John reaches out and flicks the light back on. Then he gets out of bed and walks slowly over to his desk.

To the box files waiting for him there on the bottom shelf.

How did you find a child who never existed?

That was the question that had confounded John when he resumed his research into the Pied Piper case. No child had been reported missing. And the police investigation had been rigorous and comprehensive.

But while most of the world accepted that the boy at the rest area had been Robbie Garforth—because who else could it have been?—there were still pockets of speculation online. John read all the theories. The boy’s parents hadn’t cared enough to report him missing. He’d been sold to the killer like contraband. He was the man’s child, and his birth had gone unrecorded.

None of those ideas sat right with John.

He sat there, illuminated by the computer screen, rubbing his jaw in thought. The police investigation had been thorough, but there were always budgets and constraints to consider—always limits in terms of what efforts were deemed reasonable. But there was nobody looking over his shoulder right then demanding results. The only budget that mattered could be paid for with his time. And it occurred to him that a man who did not give up—a man who kept going—might be able to go beyond what was reasonable .

Look at it from a different angle , he told himself.

Work from first principles.

He knew the boy had never been reported missing, and so the first assumption he made was that a child must have disappeared without it being recognized as an abduction at the time. Somehow, a boy had vanished from the face of the earth without there being any suspicion of foul play.

The second assumption he made was based more in hope than logic, and it was this:

Someone must have loved this child.

John didn’t want to believe in a world in which that wasn’t true. But whoever had loved him had not come forward, and there had to be a reason for that. And so, in opposition to the theories that the boy had come from a broken home in which nobody cared about him, John found himself wondering if the real explanation might perhaps be the exact opposite.

If it was possible that someone had cared too much .

The data he required was fragmented across different systems, to which he had varying levels of access, and it took several weeks to amass. The number of files he gathered was eye-watering. It turned out that five years’ worth of deaths by suicide amounted to many thousands of records.

He opened the first file and read the details of the inquest. It was immediately apparent that there was no possible connection to the Pied Piper. He was looking for someone who had taken their own life after losing a child. But he kept reading the file anyway. It seemed wrong, having opened it, not to read the person’s story. It felt important for someone to see, to care, to remember.

One person a night , he told himself. That’s all.

No pressure. No expectations.

And years passed.

John looks at the bottom shelf now.

The first box file is back where he replaced it earlier. But his attention is drawn to the seven others beside it. The final one fits in perfectly. It’s as though a part of him knew how much work would be required when he started—how much space he needed to leave—if not quite how long it would take to do so. That last box was slid into place four years ago. He hasn’t touched it since.

He takes it down now.

Opens it slowly and takes out a piece of paper.

I’m sorry, James , he thinks.

I always assumed you were dead.