‘That’s enough, whatever. Hand him over.’
‘But we’ve got a connection, this little fellow and me. We’re bonded, flesh and blood. You don’t know how much I love him.’
‘What the blazes are you burbling on about? I said, hand him over.’
Jaws looked across at Rob and winked at him. ‘I love this little fellow because he’s my grandson – and that bloke standing right next to you, that’s my son.’
‘What? You’re mental, you are.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Jaws. He bent his head down and kissed Timmy on the forehead, and then he carefully lifted him up and passed him over to Vicky. Vicky took him and immediately hurried him out of the hallway and into the drawing room.
Rob stayed where he was, staring at Jaws in disbelief. ‘I’m not your son, whoever the hell you are.’
‘Oh yes, you are, mate. Do you want to take a DNA test? I was one of the first ones that fucking Herbert Russell trapped in this house, pardon my French, but at first he didn’t catch on that when the moon was full, we always had a few hours of being real. We couldn’t leave the house but we was real. Solid.
‘One day during the fulness he had a row with his missus like you wouldn’t believe. Yelling at her, whacking her. He was a right fucking bastard. She come running upstairs and into one of the bedrooms to get away from him, and so I went in after her to give her some comfort. Well, she fucking deserved it, I can tell you. She was a lovely woman, lovely. We got talking and I calmed her down and after that we spent the night together.’
‘You made my mother pregnant?’
‘Not on purpose, mate, but I didn’t have a johnny, did I?’
‘But how do you know that I’m yours?’
‘Because your mum and your dad never slept together for nearly six months after that. I know, because I used to come out at night and stand there for hours and watch her sleeping. I used to watch you, too, when you was growing up. Sometimes I used to kip under your bed, just to hear you breathing. So don’t try and tell me that I wasn’t a good father to you, as much as I could be.’
Rob didn’t know what else to ask him, or what else to say. The conversation that he had overheard between his father and his mother now made perfect sense, and so did the fact that he bore no resemblance to his father at all.
It was DC Cutland, though, who came to the most damning conclusion of all.
‘The DNA on that hammer that was used to kill Herbert Russell… that must have been yours, Shearing. Did you kill Herbert Russell?’
Jaws did nothing but give him one of his condescending smiles. ‘What do you reckon, Mr Dick?’
*
It took a little over half an hour for all the whisperers to be identified. Thirteen prisoners from Dartmoor who still had unfinished sentences were taken to one side and handcuffed, including Jaws. Five more police officers arrived from Crownhill so that they could all be boarded into a van and driven back to prison.
The whisperer called Wellie was first out of the front door, but he had taken only two steps before he pitched sideways onto the granite paving stones and lay there shuddering. DC Cutland knelt down beside him to see if he could give him CPR, but when he turned him over onto his back he was shocked to see that he had aged at least twenty years. His moustache was white, most of his hair had fallen out, and his face was puckered and wrinkled. His heart had stopped beating and it was clear that he was dead.
‘Guv,’ said DC Cutland. ‘Come and look at this. He’s only snuffed it.’
DI Holley bent down beside him. Wellie was staring up at them with pearl-white eyes and his mouth hanging open.
‘Christ. Maybe we should—’ DI Holley began, but it was too late. The remaining twelve prisoners had already been led in a straggling line out of the front door, and as they came outside they all showed instant and dramatic signs of aging. Professor Corkscrew dropped to his knees, coughing. Yet another prisoner staggered and fell over sideways, hitting his head on the paving stones. After less than half a minute, only eight of them were left standing, and the rest were lying on the ground, either gasping for breath or dead.
Bartram appeared in the doorway, almost blocking it.
‘No!’ shouted DC Cutland. ‘Stay inside!’
But Bartram took two steps forward and immediately thumped face first into the porch. His long leather jerkin fell flat, and by the time DC Cutland reached him his russet curls were iron-grey and there was nothing inside his jerkin but bones and dust.
The last to come out was Father Thomas. DC Cutland made no attempt to stop him. He could see now that what was happening to all the whisperers was nothing more than their real age catching up with them. They had remained suspended for decades, some of them, while the ones they called pilgrims had lived out their lives and grown older and died. Now it was their turn.
It looked as if Father Thomas knew what was going to happen to him. He stepped over Bartram’s jerkin with his eyes lifted to heaven and his hands pressed together in prayer. He cried out, ‘Lord! Turn back the clock!’ but he managed to take only three steps before his head dropped down into the neck of his cassock and he collapsed like a demolished chimney.
Rob had heard the shouting. He left Vicky in the drawing room and hurried to the front door to see what was happening.
DI Holley said, ‘Don’t come out, Mr Russell. It looks like time has taken its toll.’
Rob looked across the courtyard, where the eight remaining prisoners were waiting for the police van to be reversed up to
