The Whisper Man

by Alex North

Neil had spent today at his father’s house. His mother and father were separated, which the man considered a good thing. Both parents were alcoholics, functioning to wavering degrees. Both found life considerably easier when their son was at the other’s house, and both struggled to entertain him when he was with them. In general, Neil was left to occupy and fend for himself, which obviously went some way to explaining the hardness the man had seen developing in the boy. Neil was an afterthought in his parents’ lives. Certainly, he was not loved.

An old television had been dumped against one of the bushes, its grey screen bulging but intact. The man watched as Neil gave it an exploratory nudge with his foot, but it was too heavy to move. The thing must have looked like something out of another age to the boy, with grilles and buttons down the side of the screen and a back the size of a drum. There were some rocks on the other side of the path. The man watched, fascinated, as Neil walked over, selected one, and then threw it at the glass with all his strength. Pock. A loud noise in this otherwise silent place. The glass didn’t shatter, but the stone went through, leaving a hole starred at the edges like a gunshot. Neil picked up a second rock and repeated the action, missing this time, then tried again. Another hole appeared in the screen. He appeared to like this game. And the man could understand why. This casual destruction was much like the increasing aggression the boy showed in school. It was an attempt to make an impact on a world that seemed so oblivious to his existence. It stemmed from a desire to be seen. To be noticed. To be loved. That was all any child wanted, deep down. The man’s heart, beating more quickly now, ached at the thought of that. He stepped silently out from the bushes behind the boy, and then whispered his name.

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 non-result 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 department’s gym: 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.

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 offences. They spoke of a city ticking quietly along,

A flyer was attached to the lamp post at the end of his street – one of the many MISSING posters that had been put up in the previous weeks by Neil Spencer’s family. There was a photograph of the boy, details of his clothing, and an appeal for witnesses to come forward with information. Both the image and the text had faded under the incessant beating of the summer sun, so that driving past it now, it reminded him of wrinkled flowers left at the scene of an old accident. A little boy who had disappeared was beginning to disappear for a second time.

I remembered approaching the bright kitchen along the dark hall, hearing the noises coming from in there. My mother’s voice was angry but quiet, as though she thought I was still asleep and was trying to keep me safe from this, but the man’s voice was loud and uncaring. All their words overlapped. I couldn’t make out what either of them was saying, only that it was ugly, and that it was building towards a crescendo – accelerating towards something awful. The kitchen doorway. I reached it just in time to see the man’s red face contorted in rage and hatred as he threw the glass at my mother as hard as he could. To see her flinch away, far too late, and to hear her scream. The last time I’d ever seen my father.

‘You mean you want to come in and look around, or something?’ He nodded gratefully. ‘It’s a terrible imposition, I know, but I would appreciate being able to do so immensely. This house holds such special memories for me, you see.’ Again, his tone was so ostentatiously formal that I almost laughed. But I didn’t, because the idea of having this man in my house set my nerves on edge. He was dressed so properly, and his manner was so absurdly polite, that it all felt like some kind of disguise. Despite the apparent lack of physical threat, the man seemed dangerous. I could picture him stabbing someone with a sliver of a knife, looking into their eyes and licking his lips as he did so. ‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid.’ The prissy manner faded immediately, and a hint of annoyance crept on to his face. Whoever he was, he was clearly used to getting his own way.

Notice the tempo of the story. Something eventful happens, a rise up, and then there's emptier text to cool off the interaction.

The room was small, but because every surface was painted white it had the sensation of infinite space. A place without walls.

He was dressed in pale blue overalls, and was manacled at the hands and feet. Still sporting the familiar shaved head and ginger goatee. As always, he ducked slightly as he shuffled in, even though he didn’t need to. At six foot five and seventeen stone, Carter was an enormous man, but he never missed an opportunity to make himself seem bigger.

A physical description that builds on characterization. Nice..

Pete nodded. Whenever he visited, it always surprised him how Carter seemed to be not only surviving his incarceration but thriving on it. Much of his time appeared to have been spent in the prison gym, and yet, while he remained as physically formidable as he had been at the time of his arrest, there was also no denying that the years in prison had softened him in some way. He looked comfortable. Sitting there now, with his legs splayed and one beefy arm resting on the chair arm, he might have been a king lounging on a throne, surveying a courtier. It was as though, outside these walls, Carter had been a dangerous animal, angry and at war with the world, but caged in here with his celebrity status and coterie of fawning fans, he’d finally found a niche in which he could relax.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I had the most extraordinary dream last night.’ Pete forced a smile. ‘Did you? Jesus, Frank. I’m not sure I want to know.’ ‘Oh no, you do.’ Carter settled back, then laughed to himself. ‘You really do. Because the boy was there, you see? The Smith boy. At first, as I’m dreaming, I’m not sure it’s him, because all those little bastards are the same, aren’t they? Any one of them will do. Plus his top is all pulled up over his face so I can’t see it properly, which is the way I like it. But it’s him. Because you see, I remember what he was wearing, right?’ Blue jogging bottoms. Little black polo shirt. Pete didn’t say anything. ‘And someone’s crying,’ Carter said. ‘But it isn’t him. For one thing, he’s long past the crying stage by now; that’s all done with. And the sound’s coming from off to one side anyway. So I turn my head, and I spot them both there – the mother and father. They’ve seen what I’ve done to their boy and they’re sobbing – all their hopes and dreams, and look what I’ve gone and done.’ He frowned. ‘What are their names?’ Again, Pete didn’t reply. ‘Miranda and Alan.’ Carter nodded to himself. ‘I remember now. They were in court that time, weren’t they? You sat with them.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Right. So, Miranda and Alan are crying these big fat tears, and they’re looking at me. Tell us where he is. They’re begging me, you see? It’s a bit pathetic, but all that does is remind me of you, and I think to myself, Peter wants to know that too, and he mig...

All the buildup for Frank Carter (quiet text) leading up to this high-tempo moment for payoff.