The man stands up, and towers over me, as big as a mountain. He shambles away into the forest, and the trees part for him, and I understand that I am to follow. There is something he wants to show me, something he needs me to see.
I trail after him through the wood. He’s like a bear, a monster, blotting out the view ahead. I struggle to keep up, but I don’t want to get lost and let him down. The forest closes up behind me as quickly as it opens up for him ahead, and I’m amazed by the control he has here.
He stops suddenly and holds one red hand out, with the fingers splayed. I stop and move to his side. He rests his huge red hand on my shoulder, and my skin tingles where he touches me. This close, he smells of earth and meat, and I can feel his enormous chest expanding slowly beside me, and his breath rattles in his throat as he breathes. I want to lean into the weight and strength and protection of him. I want to see his face, but I know I’m not worthy yet.
The woods go on a short distance in front of us. Then there is what looks like a yard, and it’s far more brightly illuminated than the place where we are standing. Someone is there. He won’t be able to see us because of the darkness, but I can see him.
It’s James.
My heart starts beating harder then, because I know it’s finally working. What he’s taught me and told me is coming true. One by one, I will lead us to him.
I am about to call out to James when I wake up.
* * *
After I finished, I checked the date again. And then scanned through the entry for a second time, giving myself time to think. The room had gone silent, and I was aware of the others staring at me, waiting for my reaction—wondering whether it was going to be me or Charlie who won this particular exchange. Everything felt balanced on a knife edge.
I glanced up at Charlie. He was watching me curiously, and I could hold his gaze for only a second before looking back down at the book again.
Because I had no idea what to say.
What I had just read—what was still in front of me right now—was impossible. Two people could not share a dream. And yet I was equally sure there had been no collusion between James and Charlie. The shock I’d seen on James’s face had been genuine.
I felt the seconds ticking by, and with each one the frustration built up inside me. Try as I might, I couldn’t work out how to unravel the magic Charlie had performed here. But I had to say something, and my stubborn desire to stand up to him was stronger than ever. There was something wrong here, I knew. Something dangerous, even. What I didn’t know was how to deal with it.
I closed the diary and dropped it casually on the desk in front of Charlie, and then tried to sound as dismissive as I could.
“So who’s Mister Red Hands, then?”
TEN
NOW
“Michael practically lived down here.”
Mary Price spoke softly, as though the air in the front room were delicate and she was worried her voice might bruise it.
Amanda looked around. It was true that remnants of Michael Price’s life were still casually scattered about. There was a glass table over by the window with what looked like the boy’s homework laid out on the surface; a pile of hoodies was slumped awkwardly over the back of one of the wooden chairs. A set of black headphones was stretched over the arm of the couch, and by the television, Amanda saw game cases spread across the floor beside a PlayStation. The room looked as though Michael had been here only moments earlier and would be back again shortly.
But when Amanda’s gaze moved back to the boy’s parents, it was immediately obvious he would not. Mary Price looked pale and shocked. Her husband, Dean, was sitting beside her on the couch, his face blank, with one hand tightly clenching his knee. Talking to relatives of victims was the part of the job Amanda found the most difficult. Especially recently, she found it hard not to take on their pain as her own, to imagine them standing beside her at the crime scene and to absorb the impact of their grief. The feeling of loss and absence in the room right now was almost unbearable for her.
Lock it away, she imagined her father telling her. You need to keep yourself detached.
But she couldn’t.
“That’s partly our fault, I know,” Mary was saying. “We could never afford much. Michael’s had the same room since he was eight. It’s too small for a teenager—just space for a bed and some drawers, really. God, I’ve been such a terrible mother.”
Amanda looked at Dean Price, waiting for him to comfort his wife. But the man seemed so far away right then that she wasn’t sure he’d even heard.
“You shouldn’t say that. I’m sure you both did your best.”
“Do you have children?” Mary said.
God, no. Amanda still vividly remembered a pregnancy scare in her early twenties; it had genuinely been one of the worst things that had ever happened to her.
“No, not yet.”
“It’s worthwhile, but it can be so hard. Michael was always a quiet boy, but he got so silent when he was older. Didn’t want to talk to his mom, of course.” Mary looked at her husband, who was still staring off into the distance. “You two got on better recently, though, didn’t you? That was nice for you both. Made him feel a bit less lonely, I think.”
Mary patted his knee.
Dean didn’t respond, and Mary turned back to Amanda.
“That’s why I didn’t mind him gaming so much. He let his guard down a bit then, you see. Forgot I was here. It was good to hear him interacting with people.”
“Most of his friends were online?”
“Well, they weren’t friends, really. Just strangers he was playing against. That’s … that’s why I was so pleased when he seemed to have met some friends in the real world.”
Mary fell silent and Amanda shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This was going to be difficult. But it needed to be done. Apart from anything else, the two of them deserved to know what had happened.
“As you may be aware,” she said, “two boys have now been charged with your son’s murder. They’re due to appear in court early next week.”
Dean Price came to life.
“Elliot Hick,” he said. “And Robbie Foster.”
He spoke slowly and deliberately, but remained staring at the opposite wall. Amanda hesitated. The boys hadn’t been named in the press, but there seemed little point in keeping this information from the parents. They already knew. Everybody did. That was the kind of community Featherbank was. It became that way after the Whisper Man all those years ago.
“Hick and Foster had been friends since childhood,” Amanda said. “Am I right in thinking your son only started hanging around with them earlier this year?”
“That’s right.” Mary nodded. “They asked him to sit with them.”
Which was what Hick had told them. The three boys started sitting together at school, and then on weekends they would go to the quarry. Michael Price had been eager for the company, Hick said. Almost painfully grateful for it. The way he had described it made it sound like the two of them had adopted a stray puppy. In the light of what had happened, the thought of that made Amanda feel sick.
On Saturday morning, Michael had met Hick and Foster at the waste ground as usual, and the three boys had walked to the quarry together. Presumably, Michael had been expecting more of the friendship and companionship he’d been looking for all his life and thought he’d now found. But this time his two supposed friends had brought their knives and dream diaries with them. Killing Michael had been their intention from the very beginning. And the user known as CC666 had told them everything they needed to know to replicate what Charlie Crabtree had done.