Thomas King’s home wasn’t what I expected.
‘He doesn’t bring the children here,’ I said immediately.
As Sam looked up, he agreed.
There were stone steps that led up to latticed glass doors. As I climbed and looked through the glass, I could see that the building was made up of flats. There was a column of doorbells with names next to them. Thomas was at the top. Flat 10. He obviously lived on the top floor. I looked through the doors, my hands cupped around my eyes to give me a better view. No sign of a lift.
I stepped back and shielded my eyes against the streetlight; the day was moving into dusk and the sky was turning deep pink on its western fringes. As I looked up, I saw that the top floor was an attic apartment, with two narrow windows looking out over bowling greens. The location was good, tall buildings in a long line with views over the hills, but I had expected more grandeur for the home of a young doctor.
‘He couldn’t bring a child into here and go unnoticed,’ I said. ‘Too many stairs, an uncarpeted hallway,
too much risk of the child waking up and making a noise.’
‘So where should we look?’ asked Sam.
I pointed through the door. ‘We start in there and see where it takes us.’
I jabbed a doorbell, one of the ones lower down. A frail voice came over the intercom. ‘Hello?’
‘Good evening, madam. I’m from Blackley Police. We need to speak to you about something you might have seen this morning from your window.’
I knew that I was moving into dangerous territory, impersonating the police, but Sam said nothing. We heard a buzz and went inside.
The hallway smelled of stewed cabbage, none of the exotic spices you might find in a trendier apartment block. The hall floor was dark wood, laid in herringbone style, with a dark brown carpet running down the middle of the stairs. It was warm, as if everyone had the heating on full. I could hear a television blaring loudly, it sounded like the news.
As we made our way up the stairs, a door opened in front of us. A frail old lady appeared, supported by a stick, hunched over and bow-legged.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ I said, my voice reassuring, ‘but we got the number wrong. It’s the next one up we need.’
The old lady smiled and turned to go back into her flat, and we kept on going up, until after three flights of stairs we came to the top landing. There were more flats on that floor, but at the end we could see a door with a frosted glass panel and a number 10 on the wall next to it. The attic flat. I looked round at Sam. He was
expressionless, and so I knocked on the door, three quick raps.
We said nothing as we waited, but when there was still silence a few seconds later, I knocked again. Still nothing.
‘Let’s break in,’ offered Sam.
‘Won’t it make anything we find inadmissible?’ I asked, unsure. ‘He’ll get away with it.’
Sam shook his head. ‘This isn’t America. We still allow the occasional abuse of power if it throws up something useful. And anyway, you’re missing the obvious point.’
‘Which is?’ I queried.
Sam raised his elbow. ‘You’re talking about police powers. We’re civilians.’ And before I could stop him, he smashed his elbow into the top pane, by the Yale lock, the crash of glass loud along the landing.
I saw blood creep along the cloth of his suit, a piece of glass stuck into his arm, but still he reached through and turned the lock.
The door swung open.
‘We’ll be trespassing if you go in there,’ I said, a final note of caution.
‘And my son will still be missing,’ he replied, and stepped into the flat.
Thomas King paced as he looked at Henry, saw that he still had his face buried in his arms, but now he was turned into the corner.
‘Are you listening?’ whispered Thomas, the hiss loud in the cold room. ‘They should love you more than this. You understand that, don’t you?’
The little boy didn’t look up.
‘Why aren’t you listening?’ Thomas shouted, and he stepped forward quickly. Henry curled into a ball and squealed in terror.
Thomas held out his hand, which shook slightly in the shadow from the small lamp, and knelt down. Henry tried to move away but he was pressed up against the wall.
‘They know now what it feels like to be without you,’ he said. ‘How they miss your laughs, your tears.’ He stroked the boy’s hair gently. He felt a tear trickle down his own cheek. There wasn’t long left.
I shielded my nose with my arm as we entered the hallway of Thomas King’s flat. One side was lined with shopping bags, piled high on top of each other. Flies buzzed the air over them and I grimaced at the stench. I looked inside one of them. It contained food, bread, now mouldy, and when I looked in another I saw meat. It was crawling, small white maggots writhing in the bag.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered. ‘You hear about old men who get like this, when they finally lose grip on reality, but Thomas King is young.’
‘He knows his life is on a timer,’ said Sam. ‘He’s known it for some time,’ and then he went into the living room. I took some photographs of the hallway, and then followed him.
When I went into the room, I was taken aback. The carpet was virtually invisible. It was covered in papers. Newspapers, old calendars, medical journals, magazines. And among those, scribbled notes, drawings. I picked
up a piece of paper. It was a ramble, just words written randomly, like a list of grievances, no punctuation, the paper scored heavily where he had obviously dug in hard with the pen. I put it into my pocket and then took more photographs of the room.
Sam scurried through the papers, looking for something, a sign, a clue. He turned towards some drawers and began to root through those. Then I whirled round as he shouted out, ‘What are these?’
Sam was holding up a small shoebox. He had taken off the lid and was looking into it.
‘What have you got?’ I asked, and stepped closer.
Sam reached into the box and pulled something out, small and white. It was a business card, showing large hands over a small head. As Sam held out the box, I saw that there were more in there, a whole batch.
‘Shit!’ he said.
I whistled. ‘The final confirmation.’ I took a picture on my phone and sent it to Laura.
Sam paled. ‘We can’t wait for the police to arrive,’ he said, the box on the floor now, his fingers moving frantically, skimming over paperwork, brochures, old magazines. He was scattering them on the ground.
‘Do you know what you are looking for?’ I asked.
Sam shook his head. ‘If he hasn’t brought Henry here, then he has access to somewhere else. There might be something here somewhere. Keep looking.’
We pulled all the drawers out, Sam tipping the contents of the bottom one onto the floor, and then he was on his knees, pushing papers around. There were bank statements, travel journals, maps.
‘What’s this?’ he said.
I turned round and saw him with a small black notebook. He opened it and read out loud,
‘Jess Goldie. Dream Journal 2.’
We both looked at each other. As he leafed through it, I thought he was going to keel over.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Listen to this,’ he said, his voice quiet, and then he started to read.
‘Boy scared, struggling. See him with someone. Know him. Man, young, but can’t place him. He’s doing something bad. Shouting for mother. Can hear crying. Know him, so familiar, but face always turned away. Heart breaks. Young boy, so hurt.’
‘How old is that entry?’ I asked.
‘Ten days ago,’ he said, and I could tell that we both realised what it meant.
I watched Sam as he flicked through quickly, trying to make sense of the other entries, when I was distracted by something.
I stepped forward to a large wooden bureau that stood against a wall, the top filled with books, the parts below pulled out to make a writing desk. It was what was on top that made me go quiet. I rested my hand on Sam’s shoulder.
‘Just stop,’ I said.
He looked round, his eyes wide. ‘What is it?’
I pointed to a picture frame, with an old black and white picture inside. It showed a large house, with twin gables on the front, three storeys, and a large church door in the centre.
‘Where is that?’ I asked.
Sam looked at the picture, and then back at me. ‘It’s where Harry grew up, his old children’s home. There’s the same picture in the office.’
‘And Jimmy King?’
Sam nodded. ‘He modelled his own home on it when he had it built a few years ago.’
I felt sick. I had been looking in the wrong place all this time.
‘Is it still there?’ I asked.
‘For now. Jimmy bought up the streets a few years ago. He’s waiting for planning permission to build new houses there. Why?’
I pulled out the painting that had taken me to the King house earlier that day, the one that had led me to Danut, then to the surgery, and to Thomas King’s flat. I showed it to Sam.
‘Eric painted it not long before he died,’ I said.
Sam looked at it, and recognised the shape straightaway. It was the same outline. The two gables, peaked high in front of a bright moon.
And then we both turned to rush for the door, our feet crunching on the broken glass.
We raced through Blackley, the Stag’s engine echoing loudly, the town centre going past in a blur, just shop shutters and traffic lights, and started to climb one of Blackley’s steep hills. The moon lit up the sky ahead, but it was mostly hidden behind the shadow of the viaduct, the dark arches in silver silhouette.
‘Tell me more about this place,’ I asked.
Sam didn’t answer at first, just gripped the door handle as I dropped down a gear to take us faster up the rise. When he spoke eventually, his voice was quieter, more measured.
‘It was called the Four Gables,’ he said. ‘Two at the front, two at the back. Harry and Jimmy grew up there. Neither knew their parents. All they remember is the Four Gables. The kids grew up scared, so Helena said. The carers were a mean bunch. Used to lock the kids in their rooms so they wouldn’t get into trouble. No visitors were allowed, and all the staff had canes.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago, things were different then, but for Christ’s sake, they were just children. That should have counted for something.’
‘It made them the people they are.’
Sam laughed harshly. ‘That’s the problem. Harry is cold. I’ve never seen him show any affection, not once, and I’m not sure I even know the man. He has a shield, and no one gets near him.’
I thought back to my own upbringing, my father’s strength, my mother’s fun. ‘Sounds like it robbed him of his childhood, but it must have been hard for so many people back then. Postwar, poverty, no luxuries.’
‘It’s important,’ said Sam, through gritted teeth, ‘because they went on to have children of their own and they had had no parent to learn from, just a set of dictators. My wife had a Four Gables child as her father, and she is one of the loneliest people I know. Thomas King is the same, and he has my son.’
I didn’t answer. I watched the road ahead, just a blur of streetlights. A flash went off behind me. A speed camera, bright in the mirrors.
I thought about the Four Gables. It gave some sense to Thomas’s actions: he was reminding parents to love their children. He just didn’t have the emotional capacity to channel his intentions better. Victims just create more victims. A vicious circle.
Sam’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
‘Four Gables had a motto,’ he said.
‘Strength in Unity.
Harry takes it literally, thinks it is his family against the world. It’s even on a sign in his hallway. Jimmy must be the same. Helena knows how it works. The family sticks together through everything, that was the plan, but Helena saw it differently. It was all about doing what Harry wanted, without question. It looks like Jimmy’s kids were more
devoted. Luke lied for Thomas. Thomas killed the girl who dumped Luke. Jimmy arranged alibis. It was the Kings looking after themselves at everyone else’s expense.’
We hit a dip in the road, and sparks flew from the exhaust as the suspension bottomed out.
I felt the noise of the car take on a different sound as we hit the rutted streets near to our destination. The area was awaiting demolition, just streets of empty houses, waiting for planning permission to build new estates with curving streets and open driveways. As we crossed parallel terraces, we saw that they were all boarded up. We glanced quickly down each one, looking for the Four Gables.
We saw it on the last street, before our way was blocked off by the railway. I screeched to a halt.
Sam was about to leap out when I placed my hand on his arm.
‘We need to surprise him. Don’t give him time to get away.’
Sam looked at me as I said it, and I thought he was going to shrug me off, but instead he nodded. I went back two streets and we both stepped out. I felt my pocket for my camera.
It was the silence that struck me first. The streets and houses were empty as we walked and my nerves were keen. I whirled round at any sound; the rustle of paper that blew along the pavement, the tapping of an old telephone cable against the front of a deserted house. Sam had a torch, although the streetlights provided enough light to see. But it wasn’t just the streets that made me nervous. It was the alleyways that ran between the streets, with no
lighting to show who might be there. The windows were all boarded up, but some of the boards hung down where someone had gone in to steal the copper piping.
I tried to see into the shadows, but Sam walked forward, didn’t give me time, as he took us towards the Four Gables.
As I turned a corner, I paused. It was in front of us, at the end of the street, the last house before a high brick wall, a dark block next to the dead end. The twin gables were high, with Gothic peaks that scratched at the stars, the moon behind making the roof shine like sheet metal.
I turned to Sam. ‘Do you think Henry is there?’
He didn’t answer. He was looking at the Four Gables.
‘Sam?’
He looked round at me, his eyes wide with fear. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to find in there. What if we find Henry and he’s…’ and then I saw his eyes fill with tears as he realised he couldn’t say the word.
‘We’ll find him,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure I believed it.
He started to walk, speeding up until he was running, his footsteps like loud clicks in the empty street. My heart jumped as I heard a noise behind me. I looked round. There was nothing there. I ran to catch up with Sam.
We stopped in front of the Four Gables. The church doors were heavy and black, studded with metal. I pointed to an engraved stone above them. I could make out the words.
‘Strength in Unity’
, I whispered, the words sounding loud. ‘It was the first thing they saw when they arrived.’
‘And the last thing they saw when they left.’
I looked around and realised that getting in wouldn’t be easy. The rest of the houses on the street were protected only by chipboard and Jimmy King’s reputation, but the Four Gables was different. The windows had metal shutters and entry was blocked by fences, six feet high, joined together by padlocked chains. I looked along for a weak point.
‘The only way is over,’ I whispered.
‘And if he’s in there, he’ll hear us.’
My nerves tingled. I glanced along the street. I thought I saw someone slink back into a shadow, but it could have been my imagination running wild.
Then I definitely heard something. A rumble. The chains began to jingle against the fence.
‘Smoke and mirrors,’ I whispered quickly.
Sam looked at me, confused, but then he heard the same thing I had. He looked at the fence and then back at me and nodded.
The noise got louder. I could feel it in my feet, and then it grew louder still, turning into a steady rattle. It was a train, and it would pass just behind the house before it rumbled over the viaduct and weaved its way through the cotton valleys of Lancashire. More importantly, it would hide the noise we would make.
We both looked at each other and then jumped at the fence. The sections clanged against each other, but it was the steady rhythm of the train that filled our ears, and as we dropped down on the other side we heard it fade away as it started to cross the viaduct.
We were in.
* * *
Laura burst into Egan’s office, Dawson just behind her.
Egan looked up from his papers. ‘He’s teaching you bad habits,’ he said, irritated. ‘Try knocking next time.’
‘We’ve got him.’
‘Him?
Who is
him
?’
‘The abductor. The murderer. Both.’
Egan sat back and folded his arms. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Thomas King is your killer,’ said Pete, ‘and Thomas King is the person who has been abducting children all summer.’
Egan laughed scornfully. ‘Thomas King?’
Pete nodded. ‘Luke King’s older brother.’
‘I know who he is. I thought you were all set on the younger brother.’
‘Thomas King has these,’ said Laura, and she showed Egan her phone, with the picture of the calling cards piled up in the box.
Egan stopped laughing.
Pete’s eyes widened. ‘So what are you going to do? We’ve given you a lead.’
Egan didn’t answer. He looked at Pete, his face filled with uncertainty.
‘Where did you get those?’ he asked, but his voice was quieter now.
‘Sam Nixon,’ said Laura quickly. ‘The cards were in Thomas King’s flat. A boxful.’
Egan exhaled loudly and then pulled on his lip.
‘We have to move, sir, before any other children are taken.’
‘I know that,’ said Egan, his voice filled with resignation. ‘Where is Sam Nixon now?’
‘On his way to the Four Gables,’ replied Laura.
Egan scowled. ‘Why is he going there?’
‘Because he thinks Thomas is there.’ And then Laura told Egan all that they had found out. About Thomas King attending the dream meetings. She told him what Danut had said, that Thomas King had been in the Audi that night, and that there had been blood in the car. She told him that Doctor Thomas King had left his job because of an unusually high number of patient deaths. And that Eric Randle had dreamt of the Four Gables.
Egan stood up and walked quickly towards the door. ‘C’mon, Dawson, you’re coming with me.’
‘Where to?’
‘To Jimmy King’s house. If you’ve both fucked up, I want you to be there to apologise in person. And you,’ and he pointed at Laura, ‘get some people up to the Four Gables. If Thomas King is there, bring him in.’
As Egan left the room, Pete and Laura grinned to themselves, and then followed.
We stood in front of the doors.
‘Get your torch out,’ I whispered.
‘But he’ll see us.’
‘We want him to, now that we’re in, because it might make him move, and we’ll be near enough to hear where he goes.’
I heard Sam reach into his pocket, and then when he clicked the torch on, he asked, ‘Do you think this is the best way in?’
As he swung his beam around, I looked up. The doorframe was covered in dirt and there were cobwebs on the door, but I saw that it looked cleaner around the handle, as if it had been used more recently.
‘It might be the only way in,’ I replied.
My gut churned with nerves. Sam was deathly quiet. Then I heard a noise, a rustle. We both stood and held our breath, listened, and then we heard another rustle. It was something moving quickly, lightly. Then something ran across my foot. I jumped back, startled. ‘Shit!’ I exclaimed, my heart beating fast, and then I laughed, a mix of embarrassment and relief. ‘It must have been a rat or something.’
Sam said nothing. He looked scared. Not because of what might happen to him, I suspected, but of what he might find in there.
I reached out and pushed at the door.
The hinges were stiff, and at first I didn’t think the doors were going to shift, but slowly, noisily, they opened into a large hallway. Stones on the floor made screeching noises as the door passed over them.
Sam leaned in and flashed his torch inside. The ceiling was high, with dirty walls, once whitewashed, now grubby from decades of disuse, decorated by graffiti. ‘Tez’, ‘Baz’, ‘Jules 84’, ‘Tracy 4 Kenny’. The stairs swept upwards from the centre of the hallway, grand and imposing, and then split to landings on both sides. I looked forward and saw doorways, just dark shadows.
‘Shit,’ I heard Sam whisper.
‘What is it?’
‘It is just like Jimmy King’s house. He really has built a replica to live in.’
Sam swept his torch around the hallway again. I could hear a dripping noise, a steady sound that echoed. Our feet crunched on stones and broken bottles, loud like gunfire.
‘If it is an absolute copy, Thomas will know his way around.’
Sam looked at me, his face dark and eerie. ‘I know that,’ he said quietly, and then edged forward.
Our feet shuffled along on loose chippings, our clothes brushed against the dust and grime on the walls. I twitched my nose at the smell, of damp and mould. Sam shone his torch into the first room, one of the two at the front. Once a splendid living room, with a plaster rose on the high ceiling and a large stone fireplace, it looked abandoned now. There was a desk in one corner, with a drawer on the floor, dusty and neglected.
We went further along the hall, to the next room. It was the kitchen, with a large stainless-steel table and cupboards around the room. I felt jumpy. I was waiting for the blow all the time, for someone to step out of the shadows. We were about to step away when I thought I saw something.
‘Sam, get your torch in here again.’
‘What is it?’ I heard him say in my ear. Then, as he shone the torch, he saw it too. ‘Shit,’ he said, and he grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into me. ‘He’s here.’ I heard him slump back against the doorframe, as if to stop himself from falling.
I licked my lips, my mouth now completely dried up. I clenched my fist and I felt my fingernails dig deep into my palms.
‘We have to keep going,’ said Sam, his voice hoarse with emotion.
I didn’t have to answer.
‘Where next?’ I asked instead, but it was Sam who answered the question by turning around.
My hands felt slick, my breathing fast, sweat prickling across my forehead. Where was Laura? I thought, as we moved back into the hallway. As Sam moved on, the kitchen went dark again. I wanted to have just one last look. But I didn’t need to. I had seen it, I’d known what it was straightaway.
It was in the corner of the room, in the shadows, cobwebs dancing above it. It was Henry’s coat, just as Sam had described it. Navy blue with white stripes along the arm.
I followed Sam into the cold and darkness of the house.