“A tunnel,” broke in
Harlan, frowning. “What kind of tunnel?”
“I’ll get to that in a
minute. So anyway, the kid’s in this tunnel and it’s almost pitch black, but he
can see daylight in the distance. He unties his legs and tries to make a run
for it, but he can’t because his feet are numb from having the circulation cut
off. So, get this, he crawls on his hands and knees until the feeling comes
back. At the end of the tunnel there’s an overgrown drainage ditch. As Jack’s
climbing out of the ditch, he hears a man’s voice shouting something. He
doesn’t look to see who the voice belongs to. He runs into some nearby woods
and hides. He hears somebody moving through the undergrowth, but he doesn’t
dare lift his head to look at them. When he can’t hear anyone anymore, he starts
running again. Beyond the woods, there’s a road. He flags down a passing car.
The driver calls us. Turns out, Jack was taken to a disused storm-drain twenty
or so miles to the east of where he was snatched.”
As Harlan listened to
Jim, his frown deepened until a furrow like a knife wound was cut into his
forehead. “Are you at the storm-drain now?”
“Yeah. It’s a scary
fucking place, right out in the middle of nowhere. You could scream your head
off and nobody would ever hear.”
“Can you send me a
photo of it?”
“Sure. But why? What
are you thinking?”
“I’m not exactly sure.
I just need to see it.”
“Okay. Hold on a
second. I’m sending it.”
Harlan’s phone beeped.
He opened the photo and stared at it in silence, his heart pounding in his
throat. As Jim had described, the drainage ditch was choked with nettles and
brambles. A path had been beaten through them to a circular brick drain roughly
six feet in diameter, protruding from the base of a steep grassy bank. The
drain’s entrance was covered with a rusty metal grille that’d been bent
outwards. Beyond the grille was a darkness so thick it seemed as solid as the
brick encircling it. A shudder ran through him as his mind superimposed an
image onto the photo of two figures drawn in silhouette – an adult and a child
holding hands.
“So come on, Harlan,
out with it,” said Jim. “I can hear that brain of yours ticking over.”
Harlan opened his mouth
to tell him about Jones’s drawing, but shut it again without saying anything.
There was no way Jones was directly involved with Jack Holland’s abduction, not
with all the heat that was on him. And a drawing hardly proved that Jones knew
anything about what went on at the storm-drain. But Harlan felt certain down to
the marrow of his bones that he did. He felt equally certain that the police
wouldn’t be able to get anything out of Jones, not unless they could find some
physical evidence – DNA from a semen stain on the mattress, maybe – to link him
to the drain. But even if they could, which seemed highly unlikely, that kind
of forensic work took time – time Ethan, assuming beyond all optimistic hope
that he was still alive, didn’t have. If Ethan and Jack’s kidnapper was one and
the same, whoever it was would most likely be attempting to destroy any
incriminating evidence, burning it, throwing it away, burying it.
You’re the
only chance Ethan’s got
, thought Harlan with rising nausea,
you have to
act, and act now
. Tyres screeching, he swerved sharply onto a slip-road.
“Are you going to tell
me what’s on your mind or do I have to guess?” asked Jim.
“I can’t talk anymore
right now.”
Jim’s breath rasped
down the line as if he’d expected that answer. “One more thing before you hang
up. We found some photos in the drain. Photos of boys, some of them little more
than–” Even more uncharacteristically, rage clogged his throat. It was a few
seconds before he could continue. “Whatever you need to do to get this fucker,
Harlan, you do it.”
“I will.”
Harlan hung up and
concentrated on the road. He drove as if he saw Ethan in front of him, tied up,
waiting to be slaughtered. He stopped to rush into an all-night supermarket.
The checkout girl gave him an uneasy look when he dumped the contents of his
basket – parcel-tape, a screwdriver set, a torch, matches, a can of lighter
fluid, a Stanley knife, gloves, a hooded sweatshirt and a Halloween mask – in
front of her. He paid with cash and sprinted to his car. Twenty minutes later
he was at the end of William Jones’s street, scanning the vehicles parked along
the kerb. His gaze fixed on a van with tinted windows opposite Jones’s house.
Was it an unmarked police vehicle? If, as seemed likely, it was, he was going
to need some kind of diversion.
Harlan pulled out of
sight of the van, put on the sweatshirt and got out of his car. He approached a
row of lock-up garages at the end of Jones’s street, jammed a screwdriver into
the lock of the first one he came to and twisted. The lock wouldn’t budge. He
tried the next garage along. This time the lock gave and he lifted the door
just enough to duck under it. The garage was empty, except for some dusty old
furniture. He quickly piled up several chairs, sprayed lighter fluid over them
and put a lighted match to them. As flames whooshed up, he sprinted back to his
car. He hunched down in his seat, burning with anticipation. It was like he’d
set a fire in his head as well as the garage. He concentrated on his breathing,
focusing his mind. By the time the two men appeared from the end of the street,
he’d restored an icy clarity to his thoughts. The way they moved, the way the
carried themselves, told him they were plainclothes coppers. One of them spoke
into a mobile phone – no doubt, phoning for a fire engine – while the other
approached the garage, from which thick black smoke was billowing.
Harlan slunk out of his
car, darting into the shadows of the alleyway behind Jones’s house. When he saw
the gate to Jones’s backyard, he knew there was no way he could break through
it. The gate and surrounding frame had been reinforced with steel bars. A
glance at the top of the gate told him there was no way he was climbing over it
either, not without tearing himself to shreds. Coils of razor wire had been
strung along it and the wall. The house was as secure as a fortress, or a
prison, depending on how you looked at it. There was only one way he was
getting in – the front way.
Harlan ran to the
opposite end of the street from the burning garage. Slowing to walking pace, he
approached Jones’s front door. The plainclothes policemen still stood watching
the fast growing fire. He raised his fist to knock, but hesitated. Again,
flames licked at his brain, illuminating Robert Reed’s blood-streaked, dead
face.
Focus
, he told himself sharply,
focus
.
You have to
forget Rob Reed
.
Forget you’re human
.
You’re a machine that won’t
stop until its job is done
. He rapped his knuckles against the door – a
policeman’s knock, heavy and commanding – and turned his back to it. A moment
later, a familiar voice piped up nervously from behind the door. “Who is it?
What do you want?”
“Police, Mr Jones. Is
everything okay?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t it
be?”
“There’s a fire at the
end of the street. I need you to open the door, please.”
“Why?”
“So that I can visually
verify you’re okay. Orders from Detective Chief Inspector Garrett.”
There was the sound of
several locks being undone. The door opened a crack. Harlan whirled around and
slammed his foot into it with all the force of his desperate fear for Ethan,
breaking a chain lock and sending Jones reeling onto his back. Pulling on the
Halloween mask, he sprang inside the hallway and shut the door. Winded, gasping
for breath, Jones grasped at a radiator, trying to haul himself upright with
his good arm. He cried out as Harlan kicked his hand away from the radiator.
Harlan grabbed Jones’s foot and twisted, flipping him onto his belly. Driving
his knee into the small of Jones’s back, he snatched out the Stanley knife and
pressed it to his throat. “Do exactly as I say or I’ll cut your throat,” he
hissed through his teeth.
“Oh Christ, oh fuck,
not you again,” whimpered Jones, recognising Harlan’s voice. “I’ve already told
you–”
“Shut the fuck up. You
know how this works. You don’t speak unless I ask you a direct question.”
Harlan bound Jones’s
mouth with packing tape. Jones let out a muffled scream as Harlan yanked his
injured arm out of its sling and twisted it behind his back. He rapidly rolled
the tape around and around Jones’s arms and legs, then he locked the front
door. His ears caught the faint but unmistakable wail of fire-engine sirens as
he dragged Jones into the living-room. The place was in an even worse state
than the last time he’d been there – cans and bottles strewn everywhere, as
well as mouldering fragments of food that looked as though they’d been gnawed
on by mice. The smell brought bitter saliva to Harlan’s mouth. Swallowing it,
he hurried upstairs, removing all the paintings from the walls. He dumped them
in a pile on the living-room floor, before tearing the tape away from Jones’s
mouth. He stabbed a finger at the drawing of the figures holding hands outside
the tunnel. “Where is that?”
“I already told you,
it’s nowhere.”
“Wrong answer.” Harlan
slashed one of the paintings with his knife.
Jones’s eyes bulged as
though he’d been kicked. “Don’t! Please, don’t!”
Harlan reached for
another painting. “The truth.”
“It is the truth.”
The Stanley knife
sliced through more layers of paint and canvas. Harlan flung aside the ruined
artwork and started in on another.
“Stop,” cried Jones.
Harlan looked at him
with steel-cold eyes. “No more bullshit. Either you tell me what I want to know
or I’m going to shred all of them.”
Jones’s tongue flicked
at his lips, which quivered as though they were about to speak, but no sound
came from them. Harlan re-gagged him. Then he started slashing at the
paintings. And the more he slashed, the more his movements took on a frenzied
intensity, as though some barrier inside him had broken, unleashing a barrage
of pent up rage and frustration. Once he was finished with the paintings on the
floor, he started shredding those on the walls. Oblivious to the pain in his
injured elbow, Jones writhed and twisted like a crazed animal, desperately
trying to free his arms. Finally, Harlan attacked the painting on the easel, obliterating
the scene of the children on the swings with almost gleeful savagery.
Breathless and sweating behind his mask, he squatted down, peeled back Jones’s
gag and pointed at the only piece of artwork still intact – the little charcoal
drawing.
“Where is that place?”
Jones stared at Harlan
through a sheen of tears, his eyes burning with acid hate. “You fucker, you
bastard,” he hissed hoarsely.
Harlan moved the knife
towards the drawing. He had no intention of damaging such a potentially
important piece of evidence, but he figured the bluff was worth a shot.
“Why? Why do you want
to know where it is?” Jones asked as the blade touched the canvas, a note of
pleading replacing the anger in his voice.
“So it is somewhere
real and not just something from your imagination.”
“I…I didn’t say that.”
Harlan took out his
phone. Watching intently for Jones’s reaction, he showed him the photo of the
storm-drain. “Does that place look familiar to you?”
Jones didn’t show the
faintest hint of recognition. He looked at the photo blankly – perhaps just a
shade too blankly. “No.”
“I think it does. I
think you’ve been there.”
“Why the hell would I
have been there?”
“To abuse and maybe
even murder children.”
Jones’s puffy
alcoholic’s face scrunched into a horrified red ball. “You’re off your fucking
head.”
Harlan opened his mouth
to ask another question, but closed it again as a siren blared past the house.
Soon the street would be swarming with firemen and police, making it almost
impossible for him to get away unnoticed. He needed answers fast, and as he’d
feared, it was clearly going to take more than questioning to get them. He
gagged Jones, then looked around for something hard and heavy. His gaze fixed
on the old truncheon, which was leant, handle up, against the foot of the
armchair. Jones moaned through his gag as Harlan rolled him onto his side and
twisted his arms so that his fingers were splayed out flat on the floorboards.
Harlan snatched up the truncheon, raising it overhead, his knuckles showing
bone-white where they gripped it. One second passed, two, three and still the
truncheon didn’t descend. Harlan’s breath came rapidly through the mask’s
mouth-hole.
Ethan’s life depends on you
, he shouted silently at himself.
Do it
!
Fucking do it
!
Harlan brought the
truncheon down on Jones’s fingers with bone-crunching force. Jones let out a
scream that was loud even through the gag. Harlan hit his fingers again. He
waited for Jones’s screams to subside, before removing his gag. “Now will you
tell me?” He managed to keep his voice cold and level, even though his insides
were reeling and churning.
Jones stared up at him,
eyes swollen with fear and hate, breath rasping with agony. He said nothing.