Page 122 of The Man Made of Smoke

He nodded.

I thought about the newspaper article I’d read in the car.

DCI Smith declined to comment on reports that further remains had been discovered following Aspinall’s arrest.

When the police arrived at the compound that night, the whole area had been immediately cordoned off. The searches they made were thorough and comprehensive. And on the third day, while investigating a patch of land in one of the pens, they found four sets of human remains buried in the ground there. Initial examination of the bones recovered suggested that they belonged to males between the ages of five and fifteen, and that the bodies had been there for a long time, possibly decades. The information had yet to be released to the public, but I knew that recent DNA tests had finally established the identities of all four boys.

Sean Loughlin. Paul Deacon. Charlie French.

And James Palmer.

The farm had obviously been abandoned and derelict for years before Aspinall chanced upon it, and the precise chain of ownership was murky and unclear. The most recent entry on the land registry suggested it belonged to a man named William MacGuire, who had inherited it from his father. But that had been many years ago, and there were no other surviving records of MacGuire. There were no photographs of the man. No available DNA. Beyond the farm, and the bodies left there, he appeared to have left no trace on the world at all. It might never be proved beyond doubt that he was the Pied Piper, but it seemed likely to me. Never a monster at all. Just a man.

But none of that explained what had led Aspinall there.

“Years of searching,” I said. “What happened on the day you found it?”

He didn’t reply.

“Craig?” I prompted.

Nothing.

I stood up, making it clear I was going to leave—

“I heard him.”

—and then I sat back down again slowly.

“Heard who?” I said.

“My boy.”

I waited.

“It was like I was lost that day,” he said. “I was driving down all these roads and had no idea where I was. It was the middle of nowhere, everything overgrown. I was looking for him, but I was ready to give up. And then I heard him calling out to me. It was only for a second, but his voice was clear as day. He was shouting out for help. That’s when I saw the path in the trees.”

“Which you followed.”

“I did.”

Aspinall nodded.

“And when I got there, it felt like I was home.”

As I looked at him now, I saw that the rage had faded from his eyes. He seemed helpless, haunted, and for a moment, I could see the little boy in him. His expression reminded me of James Palmer’s that day at the rest area.

“Did you bring it?” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

I reached into my file and produced a piece of paper. The best I could offer Aspinall was a color photocopy. The original had been discovered in his house, tucked away insideThe Man Made of Smoke, but it was something that Aspinall had kept and lived with for far longer than he’d had the book.

I slid it over the table to him.

It was a letter that he had received many years ago, during that final spell in prison. As he rested his hands on it now, they obscured most of the page, but I could see the awkward handwriting at the top.

To Dad.

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