Silent Children (43 page)

She used a forefinger that was all at once steady as a ruler to slide the note off the pad. The sheets of paper were almost the same: the pad was square, the loose page was more rectangular by less than half an inch, yet that made all the difference. Ian had brought the note into the house from somewhere else, but why? She remembered finding it in the open drawer with next door's keys on top. The sounds she'd seemed to hear as she awoke could have been in Janet's house.

She pulled the drawer out and grabbed the keys and strode to the front door. It was less than half open when she halted it and the spread of the light from the hall onto the path. A car was switching off its headlamps as it coasted to a hushed stop outside her gate. It was Jack's.

He caught sight of her as he eased the door shut. He looked as taken aback by her advancing down the path as she was bewildered to see him. "I'm coming," he said, so quietly that she had to tell herself he could only be speaking to her.

She had an abrupt sense of knowing less than she thought she did. As she unlatched the gate he frowned past her at the lit hall. "What are you—" he murmured with an urgency she understood no more than his next question. "Why have you come out?"

"I was going to ask you something rather like that myself."

"You..." His frown dug itself deeper, and turned from her to the house, and pulled his eyes wide. "Isn't there anyone..."

"You're going to have to finish a few more of your sentences if I'm expected to understand what you want."

He stepped onto the path and ducked toward her as if the frown was tugging his head lower. "Are we alone?"

"I can't see anyone but us, can you? That isn't to say we aren't being watched, meeting in the middle of the night like this and me not dressed for it."

"Watched from your house, you mean."

"I wish I did."

His gaze flickered toward it, and his frown seemed not to know what to do with itself. "You aren't just having to say that."

"Why on earth would I, Jack? What's all this about?"

"Christ." Louder, but still not to her, he said "Christ, it was a trick."

"I'm glad you told me that or I'd have no idea what's going on."

"Leslie, I've none either." He met her eyes, and his frown cleared. "Wait though, maybe I have. Did someone phone you? Is that why you're up?"

"Nobody's called me since yesterday."

"He will, though. That has to be it. He's going to call me at your house."

"Is everything meant to be obvious to me now?"

"Sorry. It's only just getting that way for me." He held out his hands and risked touching hers. "Do you mind if we do this inside? There may be a call any second."

"Do what. Jack?"

"I'll try to tell you the truth."

"What sort of problem are you saying that will be?"

"For you to believe it, mostly, I guess."

"Another instalment, you mean?" She was having to deal with too much all at once, not least with her uncertainty how she felt about his reappearance, when she was supposed to be finding Ian. "I've got to go next door first," she said, and stepped around Jack. "Just tell me who'll be calling you on my phone."

He was already making for it, and she was about to enquire what was so important that he'd neglected to ask her permission when he stopped and waited for her to lock gazes with him. "The truth?" he said.

"What else, and nothing but."

"My father."

It was his expression—hoping much more than expecting she would believe him, but resigned to either—that made her unable to laugh at his words. The night grew intensely present around her—the dark and all it might hide. Jack saw her fail to dismiss what he'd said, and backed toward her hall. "Do you mind if I..."

Though his belated politeness was almost comical, it still wasn't in her to laugh. She had to go after him, not just to learn everything but to hear it before Ian could. "We both will. Next door can wait. Hurry," she said.

She didn't know whose urgency she was expressing, his or her own. She was at his heels by the time he reached the threshold. She held onto the latch so as not to slam the door behind them in her haste. As Jack stood by the phone she dropped Janet's keys in her pocket and leaned against the door, though her wakefulness and the situation were reluctant to let her stay in one place. "Your father," she urged.

"He isn't dead. He faked it when he knew he was going to be found out, I figure. He must have thought one of my mother's residents would make a great witness to persuade everyone he was dead because he'd be taken in himself."

"But you've been in touch with your father."

"He called me, that's right. If you were going to say it could have been some joker pretending to be him, I wish—"

"I wasn't. I was wondering why he would contact you if he wanted everyone believing he was dead."

"Seems like he read I would be writing about him. Maybe he wanted to make sure I got it right. Only now he—"

"Tell me something. Did he get in touch with you while you were living here?"

"He called me a couple of times. That was the first I heard from
him after he was meant to have drowned. It was before you knew who I was."

"Which was why you didn't bother telling anyone a killer was still alive, you mean."

"I know. I'm sorry, believe me. I've no excuse. I just didn't think he would be dangerous any longer, not when he was having to hide and he'd let me know he was." Jack dragged at his frown with his fingertips. "Why doesn't he call? He said I had to be here by now. He must have been meaning to contact me here, and he'd only do that by phone, wouldn't he? It doesn't make any other kind of sense."

"Look, let's say I believe he's alive. What sense can you see that I can't in him calling you at my house when he's supposed to be pretending he's dead?"

"Maybe this is the only place he could think of to phone me except at my mother's. That's where he sent me here from, but he said he was here. I'm certain that's what he told me," Jack insisted, and she saw him shake off the notion that she might have been forced to conceal his father. "Unless he doesn't know where he is any more. Christ, I hope that's not it, that his mind—"

"Slow down. There's another question to sort out. Why is he calling you at all?"

"He needs me to drive him somewhere. He mustn't feel safe wherever he's hiding. That's some of it, but..."

"Go on. Jack. Nothing but the truth, remember."

"It won't just be him I'm driving."

That was more than Leslie's nerves would let her stay still for.

She darted forward and made her hands drop for fear of how painfully she would have grabbed Jack. "What are you saying?"

"He's got a child with him. I'm sure he took her so I wouldn't be able to give him away, and that has to mean he won't harm her. Only..."

"Finish it. Don't do that, don't keep stopping."

"I guess it isn't so uncommon a name, is it, but he said she's called Charlotte."

"How long have you known that?" Leslie said once she was able to move her stiff lips.

"Since maybe ten minutes ago. Since I last spoke to him. It's been longer than that now, it's been too—" Jack's eyes widened, and then the gap between his lips did. "Hold it," he gasped.

"What, Jack? What?"

"He said he'd see me in ten minutes. I don't believe his mind's that far gone yet. When he said see he meant it. He's somewhere close by. Where?"

Leslie pulled out the keys as she spoke. "They're away on holiday next door, but I'm sure I heard someone in there just before. I thought it was Ian. He could have used these to get in."

"Suppose it was Ian as well?"

Leslie took a breath to retort, only to discover she wasn't sure what to say. "That's it," Jack declared. "I couldn't figure how my father knew where to call me, but if Ian found out and then—"

He sucked in whatever his next word might have been and twisted round to glare at the wall the houses had in common. Leslie clutched at the keys with her free hand, because otherwise they would have fallen from her shocked grasp. The next moment she and Jack were sprinting for the front door. They'd heard a man's shout through the wall—a shout of triumph. Though it had done without words, there was no mistaking its significance. It was the cry of the victor in a game of hide-and-seek.

It was the boy's fault as usual, Hector thought, but all the same he sang to him. He used his hands that were locked behind the boy's knees to bend his captive's body almost double, and leaned his weight on the cushion that covered the boy's face. He resisted an urge to sing louder as if that might help him overcome the struggles the boy was straining to perform, because the point was to stifle any row that might waken the boy's playmate upstairs. Perhaps he was singing to give himself some peace, some patience that would help him wait for the boy to give up attempting to resist the inevitable. But the stubborn body was still sweating to unbend itself when a car appeared at the end of the road.

Hector craned to peer over the net curtain that obscured the lower half of the window. The headlamps died as the car halted outside the house next door, and John climbed out to gaze toward that house. Though he was late, Hector no longer resented that: it had given him time to deal with the boy, after all—but the trouble was that he hadn't finished. As he sat harder on the cushion over the boy's face he saw John open the neighbouring gate. Hector could catch his attention, he only had to find something within reach that he could throw at the window—and then the boy's mother appeared on her path.

So the boy had managed to ruin Hector's plan. Hector hauled the legs toward himself in a rage and pressed all his weight down on the boy's face while he sang the lullaby softer and sweeter than ever. He saw John and the woman walk around each other on the path, exchanging words he couldn't hear. The woman glanced towards Hector more than once, but he had to believe she couldn't see him for the net curtains and the dimness. Then John vanished in the direction of her house, followed by the woman, and the boy's legs jerked and went limp.

Hector wasn't to be fooled. He held onto the boy's legs while he raised himself very tentatively from the cushion. When the body under him didn't betray any movement, he crooked one arm behind the knees and snatched the cushion off the face. The eyes were closed, but there was no telling what the mouth might be up to behind the gag: suppose the tape was hiding a grin at Hector's credulousness? He found the end of the tape to unwrap the head—he almost fell for that temptation. Instead he pinched the lashes of the right eye between fingers and thumbs and leaned close.

He saw the lower lid twitch as his grip plucked out a hair. Surely the boy couldn't stand that without flinching unless he was at peace, but Hector continued tugging until the upper lid peeled back. The eye was blank white, more like a marble that had been inserted in the socket. He found the spectacle unexpectedly dismaying. "Close your eyes good night," he murmured, releasing the eyelid, which stayed ajar over a glistening crescent of white until he pulled it down. He tiptoed in a crouch across the room to retrieve the knife before heading swiftly for the hall. He wanted to hear what was being said next door—not, if John had any sense, about him.

He'd stepped into the hall and was lifting his smile toward the silence upstairs—at least there was one babe in the wood that knew she was meant to stay asleep—when the woman's voice beyond the wall grew clear as a radio that had just been tuned in. "He's supposed to be pretending he's dead."

For a moment Hector was so thrown he thought she was referring to her son, and peered at the body on the sofa to reassure himself it hadn't moved—and then he heard John say "Maybe this is the only place he could think of to phone me except at my mother's."

He'd betrayed Hector. He wasn't able to keep quiet about him, which showed he couldn't be trusted at all. The knife in Hector's fist swung to point toward his betrayer, but as he restrained himself from jabbing at the wall with it, John's next words reached him.

"That's where he sent me here from, but he said he was here. I'm certain that's what he told me."

Hector covered his mouth to suppress a laugh. The knife touched his lips and his delighted out-thrust tongue like a kiss that tasted metallic as blood. John was having to explain his presence to the woman, and he was at such a dead loss he could think of nothing to tell her except the truth. They didn't know where Hector was, and he wouldn't be there much longer. He only had to ensure that he wouldn't be leaving anyone capable of raising the alarm while he made himself scarce. He couldn't risk staying or even just stealing away when at any moment the girl might waken and find she was alone and start a fuss that might be heard next door. He felt as if the boy's body were urging him to be far away before it was found—as if the boy were having a last try at making it harder for him to think.

He didn't want to use the knife. It might be quick, but he was afraid that its effect wouldn't be peaceful—wouldn't look that way to him, at any rate. He slipped it into his pocket and ran on tiptoe into the front room to snatch the cushion from beside the couch. It was wet with the boy's saliva, which seemed to promise that the babes would be going to sleep together as they should. He'd nothing against the girl, after all—he just wanted her to be peaceful, and if having a companion with her would help, that was her choice to make. "He needs me to drive him somewhere," John was saying through the wall, and Hector was able to grin at him. He didn't need John's help any longer, he was safest by himself, as he always had been. He hugged the cushion and stroked it as he ran upstairs on his toes, singing under his breath.

"Now I lay you down to sleep, Close your eyes good night. Angels come your soul to keep, Close your eyes good night..."

It had often occurred to him at these moments, but never so intensely as now: he was one of the angels himself—the angel that brought peace into the lives of children who were crying out for it. What he was about to do was inevitable, not to mention desirable, and he found himself wondering why it had taken him so long until he recalled how the boy had interrupted him. The interruption was done with, and even the boy turned out to have his uses. "Your playmate's waiting for you," he murmured at the door propped open with the stool. "Him and the other sleepy children."