Spittle stretched like an elastic band from Jones’s lips as he sobbed, “I already told you the truth. Oh God, please don’t-” He broke off as Harlan pressed harder. The blade drew blood as his Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively.
Somewhere in some deep, dark part of Harlan, the same frenzy that’d overtaken him earlier stirred. He pictured himself slashing at Jones until he was as unrecognisable as his paintings. The unbidden thought vibrated through his mind and down his arm. When it reached the knife, Jones flinched as if from an electric shock. “Okay, I’ll talk,” he gasped, his voice deflating to a hoarse whisper as fear sucked the last dregs of resistance out of him. “You’re right. My drawing and that photo you showed me are of the same place.”
An almost euphoric sense of relief swept through Harlan, and not just because he may well have got one step closer to finding Ethan. It’d shocked him nearly as much as it had Jones to realise that he hadn’t been bluffing. He really would’ve killed Jones if he had to. “You’ve been there?”
“A long time ago. Before I went to prison.”
“What year? What month?”
“2003. I don’t remember what month. It was hot, so I guess it was summertime.”
“Did you go alone?”
There was a pause. The blade twitched against Jones’s throat, prompting him to speak. “No. Someone took me.”
“Who? What’s their name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t fucking bullshit me.”
“I’m not. He never told me his name and I never asked it. Sometimes it’s best that way.”
“Well what does he look like?”
“I dunno what he looks like now, but back then he had long dark hair and a beard. I used to call him the Prophet, y’know, ’cos he looked like something out of the Bible.”
“What about height and build?”
“About the same as you, I think. I can’t really remember. It was that long ago.”
“How did you meet?”
“He sold toys on the street in the city centre. This other guy I knew pointed him out to me because he’d seen him at an offenders’ hostel.”
“A sex offender’s hostel?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he do time for?”
“I dunno. You don’t ask questions like that, do you? Anyway, I used to buy things from him occasionally — stuffed toys, cheap plastic jewellery, things like that — and we got to talking about photography.”
“Why did he take you to the storm-drain?”
“He said he had some photographs I might be interested in buying. So we drove out there to take a look at them.”
Thinking about what Jim had told him, Harlan shuddered as he felt that primal urge of frenzy nibble at the edges of his mind again. As if sensing this, Jones continued quickly, “I only went there the once.”
“Just to buy photos?”
“Yes.”
Harlan tapped the charcoal drawing. “That seems to suggest you went there for a lot more than photos.”
“I didn’t do that drawing, the Prophet did. He started doing art when he was inside, same as me. I saw it on his wall and, well, I liked it, so I asked if I could buy it. He gave it me for nothing.”
Squinting at the drawing, Harlan saw that the lower half of the adult figure’s face was indeed slightly misshapen, as if they had a beard. His brow puckered as something occurred to him. “Are you saying that was hanging on the wall of the storm-drain?”
Jones winced as if he’d let something slip unintentionally. He winced again as a slight movement of the blade brought a fresh trickle of blood from his throat. “No. It was on the wall of his caravan. He took me there as well as the drain.”
“Where is this caravan?”
“In some woods ten or fifteen miles away from the drain.”
“On a site?”
“No. It’s on its own. There’s nothing else for miles around but trees.”
“Did he live there?”
“I dunno. I don’t think so. I think he just used it for storing photos and other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Homemade videos, stuff like that.”
“So where does he live?”
“How the hell would I know? I haven’t seen him since the day he gave me that drawing.” A tremor passed through Jones’s bloated frame. He swallowed a groan. “Look, I’ve told you everything I know. What else do you want from me?”
Harlan’s eyes flicked between Jones and the drawing as he considered the question. This guy, the Prophet, obviously had a record. He’d spent time in prison and in a sex offenders’ hostel. He was, or used to be, very distinctive looking. His fingerprints might even be on the drawing. Given time, that was probably more than enough for the police to track down his identity. But there was no time. “I want you to show me where the caravan is.”
“I don’t know if I can. It was years-” Jones fell silent at the warning in Harlan’s eyes. He heaved a wheezy breath of resignation. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“You’ll do more than try. Where’s the backdoor key?”
“In my left trouser pocket.”
Harlan pulled out a thick bundle of keys. “Is the gate key on here?”
“Yes.”
As Harlan flicked through the bundle, Jones nodded to indicate the required keys. Harlan gagged Jones once more and hurried to the backdoor. As fast as his trembling hands would allow, he twisted open the half-a-dozen deadbolts and other locks securing the door and gate. He sprinted towards his car, pulling up sharply at the end of the alley. Peering around the corner, he saw a couple of fire-engines shrouded in the smoke billowing from the garage. Several firemen were aiming a jet of water at the flames stretching through a hole in the roof. Others had formed a loose cordon in front of a crowd of onlookers. No one seemed to notice Harlan as he ducked into his car and drove into the alleyway. If they had, he reflected, they’d most likely assume he was removing his car from harm’s way. He braked in front of the gate, popped the boot and darted back into the house. His heart gave a lurch when he saw that Jones’s eyes were closed. He anxiously searched for a pulse and found one as thin as a spider’s thread. He slapped Jones’s face, and the bound man’s eyelids flickered open. He cut the tape wrapped around Jones’s legs, then thrust his hands under his sweat-drenched armpits and hauled him upright. As Harlan guided him to the car, Jones swayed and reeled like a ship in heavy seas, almost capsizing both of them several times.
Jones shook his head and tried weakly to pull away from Harlan when he saw the open boot. He squealed as if he’d been stabbed as Harlan shoved him into it, flipped his legs in after him and slammed it shut. Breathless, Harlan jumped behind the steering-wheel and accelerated away hard. He braked equally hard as a couple of police cars passed the end of the alley, lights flashing, sirens wailing. Jones hammered at the boot. “Don’t waste your time. There’s no one around to hear you,” said Harlan, but Jones kept at it until they were beyond the sound of the sirens. At an inconspicuous speed, Harlan drove on through the night-time sounds of the city, which seemed strangely muffled and distant, as if they came from deep inside a tunnel.
Chapter 15
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.”