As Harlan passed into the sheltering dark of a street of unlit warehouses, his mask of implacable resolve slipped and his breath came in a sharp exhalation. He pulled over, tremors of revulsion running through him as he thought about how close he’d come to killing Jones. He’d been forced to go down into a place inside himself that he’d seen but never visited before, and the call of the darkness that lurked there had proved almost irresistible. He could still feel its voice at the back of his brain, like an itch demanding to be scratched. He flung open the door and sucked in lungfuls of the night. “Focus, focus,” he murmured over and over. Gradually the tremors subsided.
Harlan got out of the car and opened the boot. Jones goggled up at him, his face slick with sweat. As Harlan peeled away his gag, he gasped for breath like a drowning man pulled out of the water. “I’m claustrophobic,” he wheezed. “Please don’t keep me in here any longer.”
“I won’t, but try anything funny and it’s straight back in here. Understand?”
Jones nodded. Harlan helped him out of the boot and into the front passenger seat. Jones cried out as his weight came down on his pulverised hands. Giving him a warning look, Harlan cut the tape binding his wrists. He rebound his hands in front of him.
“Which way?” asked Harlan.
“Just get onto the motorway and I’ll tell you when to leave it.”
As fast as he dared, Harlan drove to the motorway. He kept one eye on the road and one on Jones. Jones watched him right back as if trying to work out what he was thinking. “I know who you are,” he said suddenly, eyes widening with realisation. “You’re that guy who killed Susan Reed’s husband. I’ve seen your face on the news. Your name’s H…Ha…”
“Harlan Miller.”
“Yeah, that’s it. You used to be a copper, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So you know you’ll never get away with this.”
“Who said anything about getting away with this?”
“You want to go back to prison?”
“I want to find Ethan Reed.”
“I understand. I get it. You want to save the boy to make up for what you did to his old man. But you and I both know he’s long beyond saving. Whoever took him did his thing and killed him weeks-”
“Shut up,” broke in Harlan, a twitch pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“Look, what I’m saying is there’s no need for this. You tell your copper mates about the caravan and they’ll find it in no time. Just let me go. Let me go now and I promise I won’t give your name to-”
“One more fucking word and it’s back in the boot for you.”
Jones grimaced at the threat. He fell to studying his hands. A great shudder racked him. “Maybe it’s best if you kill me,” he murmured. “Because if I can’t paint, I…I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I don’t know what I’ll do. The threat implicit in those words made Harlan go cold. He didn’t doubt for a second that Jones had been, at least to some degree, telling the truth when he’d said that painting kept him straight. Without it, surely it was just a matter of time before he answered the call of his own darkness. And then more people — children, their parents, relatives and friends — would suffer. The cycle of devastated lives would continue, expanding and intersecting like ripples in a pond. And, Harlan reflected with a mounting sense of guilt, it would be his fault. Unless, unless…The itch in his mind became a burning, and spread. No, he said silently but vehemently to himself, no! He wound down his window. Tears sprung into his eyes as the air hit him like ice-water. The heat receded again. But for how long? he wondered darkly. For how long?
They stayed on the M1 and then the M62 for nearly an hour and a half, passing fields of crops and livestock, lonely industrial estates, and the sleeping outskirts of Wakefield, Leeds and Huddersfield, before crossing the black peaty spine of the Pennines. “Come off here and head towards Saddleworth,” said Jones, gesturing at a junction, beyond which hills loomed like solid shadows in the moonlight.
Twenty minutes or so after leaving the motorway, having been directed into a snarl of narrow lanes, Harlan asked with a note of doubt and warning in his voice, “How much further?”
“Shh,” hissed Jones, looking intently at the passing landscape. “Let me concentrate.” He pointed at a humpbacked stone bridge that crossed a stream. “I remember that. It’s not far now.”
The moon was hidden from sight as they passed into a mixed wood of towering deciduous trees and pine plantations. “There!” said Jones, pointing at a wooden gate with a sign on it that read ‘PRIVATE NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY."
“Are you sure this is it?” asked Harlan.
“Yes. I remember laughing because some joker had scratched out the L in public.” Jones didn’t smile at the joke now.
As Harlan turned off the road, the car’s headlights illuminated a narrow wheel-rutted track cutting between uniform ranks of pine trees. He got out of the car and approached the gate. It was secured with a chain and padlock, but the frame was so soft with rot that he was able to loosen a nail and unhook the chain. He drove through the gate, then closed it, returned the chain to its place and pushed the nail back in with his thumb — if anyone else came to the gate that night, he didn’t want to give them a hint someone had been through it.
“How far to the caravan?” asked Harlan.
Jones shrugged. “About a mile, I think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, I think, I think. What do you expect? Like I told you, I haven’t been here for donkey’s years.”
Harlan leaned in close to Jones, eyes glinting like steel beads. “Well you need to do better than just think. You need to be certain. If this friend of yours, the Prophet is-”
“He’s not my friend,” Jones was quick to point out. “He’s just someone I bought some stuff off.”
“Whatever. If he’s already at the caravan, I don’t exactly want to announce our arrival.”
“Okay, okay. Just give me a moment.” Jones closed his eyes, forehead wrinkling as he dredged through his memories. “These pine trees go on for a couple of hundred yards, then…then the road goes down into a dip where it crosses a stream. That’s where the pines stop and the oaks and beeches start. From there it’s about two or three hundred yards to a clearing set off to the right of the road. That’s where the caravan is.”
Harlan drove slowly along the track. Like Jones had said, after a short distance it descended into a valley with a shallow, boggy stream at its bottom. The car rocked from side to side as it wallowed through the mud and climbed the stream’s far bank. The trees closed in thickly on either side, their branches brushing the car, almost blotting out the sky. Harlan had a sense that he was entering somewhere cut off from the rest of the world. He’d used to love such isolated places before becoming a copper. But the longer he’d been in the job, the more their silence and secrecy made him uneasy. Where another person saw a romantic spot to spend a night or two, he saw somewhere where someone could commit murder and hide a body without fear of being seen or heard. He switched off the headlights and crawled along for another hundred yards or so, watching for a gap in the trees where he could pull off the track. There wasn’t one. He stopped the car. He didn’t like leaving it in full view, but he couldn’t risk continuing any further until he’d checked the caravan out. He popped the boot and turned to Jones.
“No, please, please don’t make me go back in there,” begged Jones. “I’m not gonna try to get away. I mean, come on, where would I go out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Harlan got out of the car and made his way around to Jones, who recoiled from him, shaking his head frantically. He took out his knife and brought the blade close to Jones’s face. Jones stopped struggling. Dragging in a quivering breath, he stood out of the car and shuffled to the boot. He lay limp and resigned as Harlan wrapped more tape around his ankles and mouth. Harlan retrieved the torch from the backseat, before heading along the track. He covered the lens with his fingers, letting out just enough light to illuminate his way. Again, Jones’s memory proved reliable — after maybe two hundred yards, the wall of trees gave way on the right to an overgrown grassy clearing. The caravan, a tiny oval tourer, its roof livid with mould, was set to the back of the clearing. No lights showed in its windows. There was no car outside it, but the grass was flattened in places as though one had been there recently. To its right was a roughly built shelter, a beard of vines dangling from its tarpaulin roof.
Resisting the urge to investigate further, Harlan made his way back to the car. He drove past the clearing, stopping out of sight of it around a bend. Thinking about ringing Jim, he checked his phone. It had no signal. There’d be no calling for backup out here.
Harlan returned for a closer look at the caravan and shelter. Rusty petrol drums and gas canisters were stacked beneath the sagging tarp. There was also an old petrol powered generator from which wires ran to a battery beneath the caravan. A spade and pickaxe leant against the generator. Harlan’s eyebrows drew together as he stooped to inspect the spade. Its flat blade was caked with damp earth, as though it’d recently been used. Behind the shelter a faint trail was visible in the long grass. Harlan followed it to the tree-line. Beyond that the trail disappeared into a mulchy mass of fallen leaves. He approached the caravan and tried its door. Locked. He turned his attention to the nearest window. The rubber seal was rotted and cracked. With a punch of his palm, he jammed the blade of his screwdriver through it. A quick jerk dislodged the latch. He opened the window, pulled aside a mildewy curtain and shone his torch into the caravan.
At first glance, the place looked abandoned — the floor was strewn with soggy newspaper, apparently put down to soak up the multiple leaks in the roof; the walls were studded with mould; several of the cupboards stood open and bare; pile of pots and pans festered in a pool of grease-filmed water in the sink. A closer look, however, revealed signs that someone had been there recently — a rolled up sleeping-bag and pillow wrapped in clear plastic to keep the damp out were stowed on a built-in sofa; a plate still glistening with baked-bean juice and a glass half-full of milk stood on a fold-up table.
Harlan hauled himself through the window, wincing as he sent several plates crashing to the floor. He closed the window and drew the curtain back across it, before continuing his exploration. He tried a light switch. Nothing happened. He sniffed the milk. It was sour but not curdled. Perhaps a week old, he reckoned, maybe less. He opened the cupboards. In one there were several litres of bottled water, a jar of instant coffee and a box of matches. In another there were tins of baked beans and soup and half a pack of stale biscuits. In a third there was a coil of rope that could’ve been used for tying people up or hanging clothes out to dry. There was no sign of the photos and videos Jones had spoken about. A partially dismantled television sat on a shelf in an alcove, but there was no video-player. There were two doors other than the entrance. Harlan opened one and reflexively clapped his hand over his nose. The door led to tiny toilet cubicle. The toilet was full almost to the brim with rust-coloured, stinking water. He thought about the spade, reflecting that whoever had been staying here had probably used it to dig a toilet in the woods. The second door opened into a cupboard that contained a dustpan and brush, a couple of toilet rolls and some empty clothes-hangers.
Harlan frowned as a thought crossed his mind. Had Jones been feeding him a line of bullshit about coming here with the Prophet? Did the Prophet even exist? Maybe Jones had made him up to buy himself some time? Maybe this was just some place where Jones had stayed before. Harlan shook his head. The fear in Jones’s face and voice hadn’t lied. Still, he was relieved he hadn’t had the chance to phone Jim. At least, if it came to it, he could question Jones further. A shudder passed through him as a voice piped up in his mind, what if you lose control? What if this time you can’t stop yourself from killing him? He shoved the voice away. The ‘what ifs’ were irrelevant. What had to be done, had to be done. It was as simple as that. His pulse jumped at a sound from outside — the whine of an engine grinding its way along in low gear.
Snapping off his torch, Harlan peered between the curtains. The approaching vehicle’s headlights danced crazily as it negotiated the rutted track. He was about to climb out the window and dash into the woods, but there was no time. The vehicle was already swaying into view. As its twin beams fell on the caravan he squinted, struggling to make out what kind of vehicle it was. It wasn’t a transit van, that much was obvious. But it was much bigger than a normal car. Some kind of four-wheel drive, maybe. The vehicle pulled up outside the caravan. Its engine fell silent and the driver’s side door opened. A figure got out and walked in front of the still blazing headlights. Before he scurried into the toilet, Harlan caught a glimpse of a masculine physique — stocky, but close enough in build to the man Kane had described to plausibly be him — beneath a thick head of long black hair. He covered his nose with one hand as the stench hit him again, the other felt for the knife in his pocket. As a key clicked in a lock and the front door squeaked open, he raised the knife, ready, if necessary, to slash whoever was coming.
The floor trembled slightly as footsteps advanced into the kitchen area. There was a pause. A sniff, as if the footsteps’ owner had caught a whiff of an unfamiliar scent. Followed by a sound of clinking crockery, which Harlan guessed was the plates being picked up from the floor and returned to the sink. His muscles tensed for action. A few seconds passed. The footsteps moved towards the far end of the caravan. There was a tearing sound of Velcro being peeled apart. A low grunt as something heavy was lifted. Then the footsteps came back to the front door and went out. The door was left open. A moment later the footsteps returned. Another grunt as something else was carried outside. A minute crawled by and still the door remained open. A faint whiff of smoke — not wood smoke, but an acrid smell of burning petrol and plastic — cut through the toilet’s fumes. Harlan’s ears caught the crackle of flames. The photos and videos, he thought. They were here and the fucker’s burning them. He’s burning the evidence.
Harlan resisted an urge to rush outside and restrain the Prophet. Assuming that was really who it was, there was a lot more at stake than the loss of physical evidence. The questions uppermost in his mind were: where did that trail in the grass lead? What did the woods conceal? He could perhaps find out by questioning the Prophet like he’d questioned Jones. But he was reluctant to do so whilst there was a chance that the Prophet might unwittingly lead him to the answers he sought. At the same time, whether or not the front door was open, he couldn’t risk remaining in the toilet. If the Prophet suddenly jumped in his car and drove off, Harlan would lose him. Similarly, if the Prophet headed off into the woods, Harlan had to be ready to follow him the instant he made a move.
Harlan opened the door a crack and peered out. The headlights of the vehicle, which he could see now was a mud-spattered green Landrover, had been switched off. The glow of a fire away to its right was reflected in its windscreen. Harlan closed the toilet door behind himself, and hunkering low, moved to the opposite end of the caravan. The sofa’s cushions had been removed, exposing a hollow, now empty interior. Harlan parted the curtains a finger’s breadth. The Prophet, with his sleeves pushed up, was prodding at the fire with the spade, his eyes as black as the hair on his forearms in its flickering light. He was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a green bomber jacket that fitted tightly around his bull-neck. He had no beard, but there was a heavy stubble on his jaw. His shoulder-length hair framed an angular face pitted with what looked like acne scars. Harlan estimated him to be mid-thirties. Forty at the most. As the Prophet watched the fire eat away at two cardboard boxes, his jaw twitched like Harlan’s pulse, and his face twisted in a grimace of rage. He flung the spade away suddenly, shouting, “Fuck!” He lowered his head, rubbing roughly at his eyes. Then, his shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath, he retrieved the spade and continued his prodding. When the boxes and their contents, which Harlan couldn’t make out from where he was, had burnt down to glowing embers, the Prophet approached the caravan again.
Harlan crouched down, flattening himself against the wall between the end of the kitchen unit and the sofa. Dry mouthed but calm enough to hold himself as still as a beast of prey, he listened to the Prophet climb the little flight of metal steps outside the caravan. The door slammed shut, shaking the flimsy structure. The lock clicked back into place. Harlan lifted his head above the window sill in time to see the Prophet striding towards the woods, torch in hand, the spade resting on his shoulder. He waited until the Prophet was under the trees, before opening the window and clambering out. He couldn’t see the Prophet anymore, but the beam of his torch was visible. As quickly and quietly as possible, he pursued it. It was dark as the bottom of a well under the dense canopy of oak and beech. Branches snagged his clothes and scratched his face, his feet stubbed against roots, but he didn’t slow his pace until he was as close as he dared get to the Prophet.
Down they went, deeper and deeper into the valley, as if they were descending into an abyss. The silence of the woods hammered against Harlan’s ears. He winced at every twig that snapped or dry leaf that crunched beneath his feet. The Prophet stopped. Harlan hid behind a tree, heart loud as a drum in his chest, certain he’d been made. The Prophet swung his torch from side to side as if searching for something, then started walking again. Down, down, deeper, deeper and still deeper he unknowingly led Harlan. Harlan lost all track of time and distance in the cloying darkness. Despite his fear of being heard, he drew ever closer to the Prophet. If he lost him here, he knew chances were he’d never find him again or his way out of the woods. Suddenly, the light disappeared. Harlan felt a rush of something like vertigo as the world seemed to dissolve around him. Hands outstretched, groping blindly, he took several steps and stumbled to his knees. He crawled through the undergrowth, and after maybe a minute, found himself at the edge of a grassy, bowl-like depression. The Prophet was stood at the bottom of the depression, digging up sods of turf and pilling them neatly to one side.
He’s digging a grave for Ethan, was Harlan’s first thought. But he quickly questioned it. The depression was open to the night sky. Why dig a grave somewhere visible from above when you could just as easily do it under cover of the trees? There was little chance of a helicopter passing overhead. Still, it was an unnecessary risk. Another possibility occurred to him as the Prophet’s spade clanged against something metallic — maybe he’s digging something up. But what? More photos? A corpse? For the same reason, neither possibility struck him as likely.
The Prophet cleared away a square of turf about three feet by three feet, exposing a rusty sheet of metal secured with a chain and padlock. A length of plastic pipe slightly longer than the depth of the turf protruded from the centre of the sheet. What the hell’s that for? wondered Harlan. His heat began to thump wildly against his ribs as the answer came to him — it’s an air-pipe. The metal sheet’s a trapdoor. This is where he keeps them. This is where the fucker keeps his victims. The Prophet unlocked the padlock, and bracing his legs, lifted the inch-thick sheet. It fell back on its hinges with a dull thud. He retrieved his torch and shone it down into a round hole about as wide as his shoulders. Gripping the torch between his teeth, he lowered himself into the hole.
Harlan waited a few seconds, before squirming down the bank to the edge of the hole, which radiated a faint yellowish light. The hole went straight down for about six feet, then turned at a right angle. A string of fairy lights hooked up to a battery illuminated a sandy-floored narrow tunnel whose regular angled rock walls bore the marks of pickaxes. This was obviously an entrance to some kind of disused mine or cave system that’d caused the ground to subside. The hole smelt of musty earth with a faint, underlying coppery scent that impelled Harlan to climb into it. The tunnel descended gently, curving to the left. Taking out his knife, stooping to avoid hitting his head, Harlan hurried forward. He was less concerned about being heard now than he was by what the object of his pursuit might be doing. The Prophet had already gotten rid of anything incriminating at the caravan. More than likely he was going to do the same down here too.
As Harlan advanced, the underlying smell grew heavier, thicker. It was a smell he knew only too well, one that always made his throat tight. The tunnel flared suddenly into a cave whose outermost fringes were shrouded in darkness. He stood motionless, ears straining. Not a sound.
The cave was natural. It had jagged walls. Gnarled roots poked through its ceiling. The fragments of rock they’d dislodged were scattered over the uneven floor. Oh Christ, please don’t let it be Ethan, thought Harlan, as the smell drew him towards the far side of the cave, where the darkness was as impenetrable as the walls. Stomach like a clenched fist, he switched on his torch. Its beam illuminated a dirty tarp wrapped like a chrysalis around something. Kneeling, he peeled away the tarp and saw what he’d known he would — a corpse. A tiny breath of relief escaped him. It wasn’t Ethan. The corpse was months, perhaps even years old. It was rotted down almost to a skeleton. Parchment-like shreds of skin encased its bones. Its stomach and eye sockets were hollow. Its mouth hung open in a grotesque parody of a smile. Wisps of boyishly short blonde hair still clung to its skull. From its size, Harlan estimated the body to be that of a child of between seven and ten years old. He wondered why it hadn’t been buried. He could think of only one reason: the Prophet kept it here as a kind of trophy. He’d read case-studies of killers who kept parts or even the whole of their victims’ bodies, using them to re-live their crimes over and over again. But he’d never encountered it himself.
Harlan’s face creased up so that his features seemed to turn in on themselves, leaving only his blazing eyes staring out. Even in death, the child hadn’t been allowed to rest. The same feeling that’d rushed over him as he tortured Jones swelled inside him again. The same only much, much stronger. He didn’t resist it. He allowed it to pick him up and carry him back to the fairy lights, which ended at a tunnel opening braced with timbers. Ducking into it, he hurried onward. As the tunnel wound deeper into the earth, its ceiling lowered until he was stooped almost double. He came to a split in the tunnel. One branch angled rightwards and down. The other turned to the left, climbing gently. He paused, trying to decide which way to go. After a moment, he moved to the right, urged on by an inner voice that said, keep going deeper, deeper!
The air got thicker and harder to breathe. Sweat stung Harlan’s eyes. After several minutes, he heard something that caused him to pause. The sound came again. It was a faint clink, like a chain rattling. He switched off his torch and felt his way forward. His nostrils flared at a foul smell. Not a smell of death, but a smell of life festering in its own filth. The walls closed in to a gap just wide enough for him to turn sideways and squeeze through. After a short distance, they widened again and the pale electric glow of more fairy lights shimmered up ahead. Barely daring to breathe, he advanced to the edge of a roughly circular cave about fifteen feet in diameter.
The cave’s floor was littered with empty soup and soft-drink cans, water bottles, crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers. In one corner stood a metal bucket brimful with human waste. In the opposite corner was a mouldering mattress with a young boy sat on it, knees drawn up against his chin, arms wrapped around the blades of his shins. The boy’s legs and feet were bare. A chain led from a medieval-looking shackle on one of his ankles to a hoop bolted to the wall. A ragged blanket was wrapped around his narrow shoulders. His grimy, pinch-cheeked face, lank hair and the fear flowing from his trapped eyes gave him the look of some small, helpless animal. Harlan recognised him instantly, even though he no longer looked much like his picture in the newspaper. The boy was Jamie Sutton. The Prophet was sat on a deckchair in the centre of the cave, facing Jamie, his back to Harlan. His hands were clasped at his chin as if in prayer.
Harlan padded towards the Prophet. He raised a finger to his lips as Jamie’s eyes flicked at him. Ten feet. His heart hammered so loudly he was certain the Prophet must hear it. Five feet. A bead of sweat dripped from his chin and exploded on the floor. Gasping, the Prophet started to stand and turn. With the speed of a striking snake, Harlan sprang at him, wrapping an arm around his throat. With his other arm, he locked in the choke-hold. The Prophet rammed his head back against Harlan’s face, bringing a stream of blood from his nose. Tucking his head down, Harlan cranked his arm tighter against the Prophet’s Adam’s apple. His breath grating like sandpaper in his lungs, the Prophet staggered around, flinging ineffective elbows at Harlan. Finally, his arms dropped to his sides and his legs began to buckle. In a last-ditch attempt to dislodge Harlan, he flung himself backward. As Harlan slammed into the sandy floor, pain crackled up his spine and all his breath was driven from him. But still he clung on grimly, wrapping his legs around the Prophet’s midriff to prevent him from twisting free. The Prophet rolled onto his front, and exerting what strength remained in his powerful, thickset body, managed to rise to his hands and knees. Arms burning, Harlan squeezed and squeezed. Suddenly unconsciousness stole the Prophet’s resistance away. He collapsed. But Harlan continued to squeeze, driven on by the force of what was inside. It was only Ethan’s face flashing through his mind that stopped him from crushing the Prophet’s windpipe.
Breathing heavily, Harlan released his grip. The Prophet’s face was colourless, except for a bluish tinge to his lips. Harlan felt for a pulse and found one. He quickly turned his attention to the boy. As he reached for the shackle, Jamie flinched away from him. “It’s okay, Jamie,” Harlan reassured him. “I’m here to help you.” Jamie stiffened, trembling slightly, but remained motionless as Harlan examined the clasp. There were brownish-red, infected-looking sores where it had rubbed the skin off the boy’s ankle. It was secured with a padlock. “Where’s the key?”
Jamie pointed to the Prophet. Harlan stooped over him to search his pockets and found a bundle of keys in the first one he put his hand into. He tried them on the padlock until he found one that fitted. Jamie grimaced as Harlan removed the clasp. The instant he was free, he scuttled naked to a pile of dusty clothes in a corner and began pulling them on. His body was mottled with bruises, streaked with scratches, and crusted with excrement. His ribs and backbone were prominent from starvation, like a concentration camp victim.
Rage pushed up inside Harlan, almost choking him. He grabbed the Prophet’s wrists and dragged him to the mattress. The shackle didn’t fit around the Prophet’s meaty ankle, but Harlan squeezed until the metal clasp bit deep enough into his flesh that he could click the padlock shut. The Prophet stirred and groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
Harlan turned to Jamie, who was crouched now by the cave’s entrance, tense as a rabbit near a wolf. Gently taking hold of the boy’s wrist, he guided him into the tunnel out of sight of the Prophet. “Listen, Jamie, before we can leave this place I need to ask you something. Have you seen anyone else down here other than that man in there and me?”
Jamie shook his head.
“Are you sure? This is very important. There may be another boy like you here somewhere.”
Jamie nodded. He pulled at Harlan’s arm, urging him onward. Harlan shook his head, prising Jamie’s hands away. He jerked his chin at the cave. “I need you to wait here while I talk to him.”
Eyes like full moons, Jamie shook his head again more vehemently. His lips quivered, but no words came. He seemed to have been struck mute by the trauma of his experiences.
Harlan gave him a steady, reassuring look. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, I promise. Do you believe me?”
Jamie didn’t nod — his trust in adults had been destroyed too completely for that — but he stopped shaking his head.
Harlan handed Jamie his torch, then returned to the cave. The Prophet’s colour had improved, but he still hadn’t regained consciousness. Taking out his knife, Harlan crouched to slap him. “Wake up!” The Prophet’s eyelids flickered. Harlan hit him again hard enough to split his lip. As the Prophet’s eyes popped wide, Harlan pressed the knife against his throat. “Where’s Ethan Reed?”
“Wha…Who?” the Prophet said, groggily.
“Don’t give me that. You know who the fuck I’m talking-” Harlan broke off as, out of the side of his eye, he glimpsed the Prophet pulling something out of his jacket pocket — something that caught the light with a glimmer. He moved his arm to block the Prophet’s thrust, but he wasn’t fast enough. He felt the knife blade grind against his hipbone as it went in. There was an intense sensation of pressure, more like he’d been hit with a hammer than stabbed. He slashed at the Prophet’s hand, opening a bone-deep gash across the back of it. The Prophet jerked the blade free and made another thrust. It bit nothing more substantial than air, as Harlan flung himself sideways. Scrambling upright, the Prophet lurched after Harlan, but the chain whipped his foot from under him. Nostrils flaring like an enraged bull, he sprang back upright and stood at the full extent of the chain, knife held ready to strike.
Harlan faced him, teeth gritted, hand clutched to his side. He could feel blood seeping warmly through his clothes. A dull throbbing ache was spreading outwards from the wound. He looked at the Prophet’s knife. It had a tide-mark about halfway up its five or six inch blade. Deep enough to have pierced internal organs. Why the fuck didn’t you search all his pockets? he thought with bitter self-contempt. How could you make such a fucking rookie mistake? The pain was fast intensifying, growing hotter. Soon, experience told him, it would feel like boiling fat was being pumped into the wound. He’d been stabbed once before back when he was a uniformed copper, just a flesh wound, but the pain had quickly become almost unbearable, making him shake uncontrollably. He knew he had to move fast, try and make it back to his car before that stage of shock overtook him. But his desperate desire to find out where Ethan was held him in place. He glanced around for something he could use to knock the knife out of the Prophet’s hand. His gaze fixed on the deckchair. Wincing, he picked it up.
“Come on then!” snarled the Prophet, echoing Robert Reed’s last words.
When Harlan heard that, he knew. If he attempted to tackle the Prophet, one of them was going to die. Either way, that wouldn’t help Ethan. But if it was himself, the Prophet might have time to break free and recapture Jamie. No matter what, he couldn’t allow that to happen. Better to call in the police, let them deal with him. Besides, the Prophet was already facing life in prison. So, unlike Jones, he had nothing to gain by hiding the truth.
Holding the chair up like a shield, in case the Prophet threw the knife at him, Harlan backed out of the cave. Once he was inside the tunnel, he dropped the chair, and limped to the boy. It felt like there was a nail lodged in the wound, pushing deeper into his hipbone with every step. A look of relief came into Jamie’s eyes when he saw Harlan. But the anxiety returned to them as Harlan pulled up his sweatshirt. The wound was about two inches long, its clean edges yawning apart to a width of about half an inch. Dark red blood seeped steadily from it. Already his left trouser leg was soaked down to the knee. He pulled off his sweatshirt and cut it into two strips. One he folded into a thick pad and pressed against the wound. The other he tied tightly over the pad.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Harlan said to Jamie, taking back the torch.
Moving as fast as he could bear to, Harlan made his way back along the tunnel. When he came to the T-junction, he paused, shining his torch into the left-hand tunnel. “Ethan!” he shouted. His voice echoed back at him, but there was no other response. Still, he hesitated to continue, wondering if he had the strength to check out the tunnel. The tremors in his legs and the waves of dizziness crashing over him told him he didn’t. Jamie tugged at his hand, urging him to take the tunnel that led to the first cave. Heaving a painful sigh, Harlan allowed himself to be pulled along. Clearly knowing the way out, Jamie moved ahead of Harlan, pausing every few paces to glance back, his eyes shining like saucers in the torchlight. Harlan’s left leg dragged ever more heavily. Several times he staggered and almost fell. But when they reached the cave, and his nostrils caught the stench of the corpse, some hidden reserve of strength welled up inside him. Picking up his pace, he waved Jamie onwards. Beyond the cave, a cool draught of night air blew in from the tunnel’s entrance, soothing his feverishly hot face. He gulped down lungfuls of it.
When they reached the hole, Jamie scrambled out of it as if the Devil was nipping at his heels. Harlan dragged himself up after him and grasped the trapdoor. As he strained to lift it, pain exploded like a grenade in his hip. His grip on the metal sheet started to slip, but Jamie rushed forward to help. Between them, they managed to flip it shut. Harlan locked the padlock and fell breathless on the ground. He lay on his back, shivering like grass in the wind. Above him, the stars swam in and out of focus. After a moment, fighting nausea, he struggled to his feet and looked at the encircling trees. It was only then that the realisation hit him that he was lost. Without the Prophet’s guidance, he had little or no chance of finding his way to the caravan. He was going to have to go back down into the tunnels, tackle the Prophet and force him to lead them there. It was either that or risk wandering in circles in the woods until he fell unconscious from the pain or loss of blood. Heart heavy as a lump of lead, he looked at the trapdoor. Jamie tugged at his arm again. “Do you know the way to the caravan?” Harlan asked him hopefully.
Jamie nodded. Briefly closing his eyes with relief, Harlan handed him the torch and gestured for him to lead the way. They clambered up the grassy bank and entered the deeper darkness beneath the leaf canopy. Occasionally, Jamie paused, shining the torch this way and that, before continuing onwards. Even though the night was cool, sweat poured off Harlan. At shortening intervals, he was forced to lean, panting, against a tree and wring out the makeshift bandage like a wet dishcloth. The blood leaking from him was no longer blood it was molten lava, scorching its way down his leg and squelching in his shoe. Every step now was pure agony. He stared at his feet, thinking, one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving. Keep moving or die.
After about twenty minutes, although it seemed more like twenty hours to Harlan, they emerged into the clearing to the left of the caravan. The car was only a couple of hundred yards up the dirt track, but it might as well have been a hundred miles away. As Harlan tried to move, the world went blurry with the pain. For a moment he stood swaying on the edge of unconsciousness. Then he saw Jamie’s face. The boy was staring at the caravan as if transfixed, mouth working mutely, tears streaming down his cheeks. The sight pulled Harlan back from the brink. His gaze moved beyond the boy to the Landrover. He took the Prophet’s keys out of his pocket. There was an ignition key amongst the bunch. There was a risk that in using the Landrover he would contaminate physical evidence, but he didn’t see any other choice. Jamie blinked as Harlan tapped his shoulder and pointed to the vehicle.
With Jamie supporting Harlan by the elbow as best he could, they moved torturously slowly towards the Landrover. The key fitted. Harlan hauled himself behind the wheel, groaning with relief as he took his weight off his injured hip. He glanced at the backseat while Jamie ran around to the front passenger door. There was a pharmacy prescription bag sealed with a label on it. He picked it up and read the label. ‘Mary Webster. 1831 Wilmslow Road, Parrs Wood, Manchester’. A faint ripple of surprise passed through him. He’d assumed the Prophet would out of practical and psychological necessity be a loner, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Who was Mary Webster? he wondered. The Prophet’s wife? His partner in crime? Was he one half of a murderous duo cast in the mould of Brady and Hindley? It was possible, of course, but unlikely. More probably it was his mother. Whoever she was, she was in for a big shock when the police came to batter down her door and tear her home apart. She’d be in for an even bigger shock, one she’d likely never recover from, when she learnt what they were searching for. And so the trail of devastated lives would continue on and on with no apparent end.
Exhaling a burning breath, Harlan reversed onto the track and slammed the gear-stick into first. Even cushioned by the four-by-four’s suspension, every bump in the dirt was like a twist of a torturer’s rack, squeezing more nausea up from the pit of his stomach. Halfway to the main road, he braked, threw open his door and vomited. There wasn’t much to bring up. He’d eaten little other than doughnuts for days. Finally, they made it to the road. Harlan checked his phone. There was a signal. He called Jim.
“What is it?” his ex-partner asked brusquely. “Things are kind of crazy here right-”
“I’ve got him,” interrupted Harlan, his voice was low and hoarse with agonised exhaustion.
“Got who? Are you alright? You sound terrible.”
“The guy who snatched Jack Holland. I found Jamie Sutton as well. He’s alive.”
There was a moment of silence, as if Jim was struggling to take in what he’d heard. Then he said, “Where are you?”
As Harlan described as best he could where they were, he examined the blood soaked makeshift bandage. “And send an ambulance. I’ve been…” His voice slurred off. Without him even realising it, his eyes slid shut and his head nodded. Suddenly he was with Tom at the park, pushing him on a swing. Tom was laughing, kicking his feet high, his thick brown hair blowing in the wind. A perfectly happy scene, but something about it made Harlan uneasy. More than that, it made him angry. So angry he wanted to scream and claw at it, tear it to shreds.
“Harlan, are you still there? Talk to me?”
Jim’s voice jerked Harlan away from Tom. With difficulty, he lifted his head. “Hurry, Jim.”
“Someone’s already on the way. Don’t hang up, Harlan. Stay on the line with me until they get there.”
“I’ll try.” Harlan seemed to hear his own voice from a distance. He leant his head against the window. The pain wasn’t so bad anymore. He knew that probably wasn’t a good sign.
“We’ve got a helicopter up. Can you see it?”
Harlan rolled his eyes glassily at the sky. “No.”
“Keep looking. Tell me when you do.”
Harlan gazed up at the stars. His eyes drifted as he wondered dimly about how Jamie knew the path through the woods. The answer seemed obvious. The boy had been moved from the cave to the caravan enough times that he could find his way between the two even in the dark. But for what purpose? From Jamie’s reaction to the caravan, the answer to that also seemed chillingly obvious.
He looked at Jamie. The boy was sat hunched down, hands clasped in his lap. Even after everything that’d just happened, he met Harlan’s gaze warily. “Did that man, the one from the cave, take you to see someone else at the caravan?” Harlan hated to ask the question, but he had to know.
Jamie nodded.
“Was it a man?”
Jamie shrugged.
“Were you blindfolded?”
Tears shimmered in Jamie’s eyes as he shook his head.
“Did the person wear a mask?”
Another nod.
“Did…did…” Harlan stumbled over his words. The world was turning grey at the fringes. Merciful blackness beckoned. Just one or two more questions, he told himself, then you can let go. “Did this person take photos of you?”
Jamie shook his head and gestured in the air. Harlan wrinkled his brow, not understanding. Then realisation hit him. “They drew you.”
Jamie nodded. The tears finally spilled over.
“It’s okay,” said Harlan, barely murmuring the words. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t going to be okay. Never. Ever. Harlan returned his gaze to the stars. One was brighter than the others. It hadn’t been there before. He watched it moving nearer. He heard a distant sound. Whump, whump, whump, like a pounding heart. Then his eyelids slammed down and it felt like when Kane hit him with the bat, only this time he was falling into warm, dark water.