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.
