Page 27

Twenty-Four

“I don’t know why, but it’s the lights in the trees I remember most,” Johnson said. “Maybe because everything else is too horrible. But it’s also because they seemed so out of place—like a fairy tale. Like I was being taken away into a wood by a monster.”

“There’s no such thing as monsters,” I said.

“Fucking hell,” he said. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said?”

The three of us sat in silence for a moment.

His question was reasonable. The account he had just given us matched what had happened to Rose Saunders. He had been abducted last week, late one night, after drinking in a pub: a quiet, out of the way place, because the ones nearby were always busy and threatening. He had left his drink at one point to go to the toilet. He remembered leaving the pub, and that the cold air had made him feel woozy and sick, and then nothing until the forest and the fairy lights.

Until he had been forced to watch a man die.

I looked around now.

His living room was small and sparsely furnished. There was just a settee and chairs, and a plywood table with a portable television. Johnson was sitting at the end of the settee, Sarah and I on a chair each. A window took up most of one wall, and we were high enough up that it had felt like being in the sky when we first walked in: bright and airy despite the claustrophobia of the room. But everything seemed darker now.

I glanced over at Sarah. She was staring down at the floor.

“And you’re sure it was Darren Field?” I said.

“I’m sure.” He nodded miserably. “I knew Darren back then. We were the same age, so we hung about a bit. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, but he hadn’t changed that much. As soon as I set eyes on him, there was this jolt of recognition. And somehow I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That it was about that day. That the man behind me was him .”

“But the man never said anything?”

“Just what I told you already. What he said afterward: that if I went to the police, then I’d be next. But he didn’t need to say anything for me to know who he was. Because think about it: who else could it be?”

“You saw the boy that day.”

“Yeah. The same as you did. I thought he was just some little shit looking to shoplift. I didn’t realize he needed help.”

Not the same as me, I thought. Johnson might have felt culpable for doing nothing that day, but he was only a bystander. I had known for certain the boy needed help, and I had been too scared to give it.

“You told the police it was Robbie Garforth you saw,” I said.

“Because they showed me a photograph. It looked like him, so I figured it had to be. And you know what? I think I even wanted it to be. That’s a horrible thing to admit, but it’s true.”

“Why did you want it to be Robbie?”

“Because that meant the man was the Pied Piper—that he’d been right there . I know that sounds sick, but I was obsessed with serial killers back then. And if it hadn’t been Robbie I saw, then it wasn’t such a big deal, was it? Not as much of a story to tell people.”

He shook his head.

On the face of it, he seemed disgusted with himself for having thought that way, but I wondered if that was really true, or if he was attempting to put psychological distance between the past and the present. If he wasn’t that person anymore then it was unfair to be held responsible for his actions. I didn’t do it; it wasn’t me. But not only had he created the website, he had maintained it. If his obsession back then really was a source of shame to him, he had done little to hide it since.

I leaned forward and spoke as gently as I could.

“Michael, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Whatever you did back then, what is happening right now is not your fault.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“You have experienced something terrible,” I continued, as though I hadn’t heard him. “Something that is beyond most people’s capacity to imagine. And I want you to understand that whatever you’re feeling right now is a rational response to the trauma you’ve suffered.”

“I haven’t suffered.”

“You have.”

“Not like Darren suffered. You weren’t there. You don’t know what suffering is.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But I have counseled people who have undergone similar experiences. And I do know that kind of trauma is not something that easily leaves you. Perhaps you weren’t hurt like Darren was, but you were hurt. You are a victim here too. That’s the first thing I want you to accept.”

“What’s the second thing?”

I took a deep breath.

“That you need to talk to the police.”

“No.”

“Michael—”

“No!” He shook his head again, more firmly than before. “For fuck’s sake, did you really not listen to anything I told you? No. No!”

“Michael—”

But he put his head down and cupped his hands over his ears, and just kept shouting that word— No! —over and over again. Sarah looked at me helplessly, shocked by the sudden change in his demeanor.

Detached , I thought.

Calm.

“I know it won’t be easy,” I said .

Johnson’s voice grew louder; it seemed inevitable that someone in a neighboring flat would hear him. But I forced myself to continue speaking quietly and deliberately. If he saw my words as an attack, I knew that a part of him would be intently focused on them.

“It will be frightening. But it’s the right thing to do. Other people who were there that day have been killed. This man has to be stopped. He—”

Johnson looked up at me.

“ That’s exactly what I’m doing. If I don’t go to the police, he does stop! I mean, are you fucking stupid or something? Do you not understand?” He gestured frantically around the room. “ This is how I stop him. This is how I save however many of us are left. By doing nothing. ”

Someone pounded on the wall next door.

Ignore it , I told myself.

You can do this.

“We don’t know that will make him stop,” I said. “I don’t think we know enough about him yet to be sure why he’s doing this or what he wants.”

“He told me! If I talk to the police—”

“The police can keep you safe.”

“Oh God,” Johnson said. “They aren’t going to believe me. You’re out of your fucking mind.”

More banging from next door.

“There’s corroborating evidence,” I said. “I think that—”

“No, I’m going to forget it ever happened. Because I think that’s what he wants. He wants to punish the people who were there. He wants someone to take on the suffering and live with it. Because we could have helped him, and we didn’t. And now he wants at least one of us to wallow in the guilt from that.”

“We need to talk to the police,” I said.

“No! No, no, no!”

“Michael—”

The pounding on the wall intensified. I could hear shouting from behind the plaster, and then felt Sarah put her hand on my arm .

“Dan,” she said. “Stop.”

I looked down. Without realizing it, my fists were clenched.

“We should go,” Sarah said.

Johnson was incoherent now, his body racked by sobs. Despite myself, I wanted to grab hold of him. Drag him out of here.

Force him to go to the police if that was what it took.

Careful, my son.

At the sound of my father’s voice, the anger retreated a little. I took a deep breath and then relaxed my hands. Then I got a business card out of my wallet and put it down on the settee beside him.

“If you change your mind,” I said. “Call me. It might help just to talk.”

“ Dan ,” Sarah said.

“I’m coming.”

But even out in the corridor, I felt the urge to turn back. I stood by the closed door for a moment, trying to think what I could say to convince Johnson. There must have been words, surely? I should have been able to find them. I was supposed to be able to do that.

Sarah was already heading away, back in the direction of the elevator. Finally, I started after her. It was clear that the encounter in the flat had scared her badly, and I imagined she was also worried that one of Johnson’s neighbors was about to come out and confront us.

She needn’t have worried about that. As I followed her past the flat next door, I could hear that the banging sound had stopped now. Most likely, whoever lived there had just been angry at being disturbed.

Nobody sees , I thought.

And nobody cares.