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Which was how, as the time of Neil Spencer’s disappearance ticked close to the end of that crucial forty-eight-hour period, DI Pete Willis became involved in the investigation again.
When you go after something as hard as he had, there were few things as irritating as someone who could have had it more easily but never seemed to want it.
Twenty years ago, the remains of four of the missing boys had been found in Frank Carter’s house, but the body of his final victim,
Tony Smith, had never been recovered. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Carter was responsible for all five murders, and he himself had never denied it. But it was also true that there were certain inconsistencies within the case. Nothing that could have exonerated the man: just little strands that left the investigation frayed and untidy. One of the abductions was estimated to have occurred within a certain time period, but Carter had an alibi for most of it, which didn’t make it impossible for him to have taken the boy, just stretched the likelihood somewhat. There were witness
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“The CCTV we have suggests Neil Spencer did walk in the direction of the waste ground, but somewhere in the vicinity he vanished. The search has drawn a blank so far. All the locations he’s likely to have wandered into by accident have been cleared. He’s not with friends or other family members. Naturally, we’re forced to consider other possibilities. DI Beck?”
“But I interviewed the parents again an hour ago. Looking for anything that might have been missed. Any kind of lead. And his mother told me something. She hadn’t mentioned it before because she thought it was stupid.”
A little boy missing. Frank Carter. An accomplice. Beck added the final piece now. “A few weeks ago, Neil woke his mother in the middle of the night. He said that he’d seen a monster outside his window. The curtains were open, like he really had been looking out, but there was nothing there.” She paused. “He said it had been whispering things to him.”
“If you leave a door half open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken.”
A little boy was missing. A little boy needed to be found and brought home.
This is what you lose by drinking. This is why it’s not worth it.
“If you’re lonely, sad, and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you.”
“That was never made public,” he said. Another connection to Carter. “No real blood.” He peered around the body. “Not enough, anyway—not for those injuries. He was killed elsewhere.” “Looks that way.” “That’s a difference between our new man and Carter. Carter killed those children where I found them, and he kept them in his house. He never made any attempt to dump the remains.” “Apart from Tony Smith.”
Neil Spencer had been held somewhere for two months before he was killed. He had been looked after. And then something had changed. Afterward, he had been returned to the place he’d been abducted from. Like a present, he thought.
In Neil Spencer he had found a troubled child who needed to be rescued and cared for, and he had believed that he was the one to do so. He would help and nurture Neil. House him. Care for him. It had never been his intention to hurt him.
He had chosen badly—that was all. Neil had been a mistake, and that wouldn’t happen again. The next little boy would be perfect.
By now they all knew what had been found last night. Before today, a child had been missing. Now a child was dead.
