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Prologue
1. Another Normal Day
 It
was just another normal day, much like any other. Liam Connor
didn't know it would be the last normal day of his life.
Liam was fifteen. He was a bright boy, never top in his
class at anything, but always up there. He fitted in. He had
lots of friends. He had parents he admired, and he split his
time between boarding school and living with his mother and
father in their comfortable town house on the outskirts of
Norwich. His life could hardly have been more settled.
Liam Connor had been living a lie. Only ... it turned out
that it was a lie no-one had thought to let him in on.
Liam Connor was about to find this out.
#
Liam jumped out of the train as soon as the door would open.
It was a Friday evening in the middle of May and normally
he would be at school over the weekend. Today, though, they'd
granted him an exeat, special permission to leave early and
head for home. His father was back from his travels, and Liam
and his parents were going to spend the weekend together.
Liam left the station with his bag over his shoulder and
crossed onto Riverside Road. A few minutes later he was on
New Chapel Road, which cut across one corner of the Heath.
Almost home.
He was hot from the walk, and from carrying his weekend
bag in the May sunshine. It was only a couple of weeks since
he'd last been home, but then it had just been him and Mum.
His father worked for the Government and travelled a lot.
Ministry of Defence, Liam thought, although he wasn't sure.
One time when he'd asked, his dad had just given one of his
winning smiles and shaken his head. "Sorry, Liam. I can't
tell you what I do. Top secret. If I told you I'd have to
kill you..." Liam liked to think that was true, but he suspected
his father did something altogether un-glamorous: more carpet
fitter or catering consultant than 007.
Liam paused, and let his bag slide from his shoulder, catching
the strap in one hand as it slithered down his arm. He rolled
his shoulders, wondering why he'd packed so much just for
a weekend.
The house looked just the same as it always did. Detached,
set back from the road, slightly shielded from view by three
silvery eucalyptus trees. There was no sign of anybody at
home, no car in the drive. It was probably in the garage,
he thought, although Mum hardly ever bothered to park it in
there.
He crunched a diagonal route across the drive, then crossed
the small patch of front lawn.
The front door was open a short way, as if it had been left
for him, or as if someone had casually forgotten to close
it upon leaving. He pushed on it gently and it was at that
moment that he started to understand that something was very
seriously wrong.
He paused on the doorstep. A blackbird clacked angrily from
the fence. A car went slowly past, classical music playing
softly on the stereo. Somewhere, he heard the whine of a distant
lawnmower.
He didn't know what it was, but he knew that something was
wrong. Despite all the normal sounds and smells, despite the
fact that nothing was obviously amiss, his heart raced and
sweat broke out across his brow.
He dropped his bag and went inside.
The hall was no different to usual. Polished floorboards,
dark wood panelling covering the lower half of the walls,
stairs off to the left turning at right-angles after five
steps. A tall mirror was on the wall in front of him. His
short blond hair stood in haphazard tufts and spikes and automatically
he reached up to smooth it. He could see the apprehension
in his own eyes.
"Hello?" His voice sounded strong. It didn't betray the
tension he felt. They taught you to project your voice at
school.
He turned to the right and pushed at the living room door.
Inside, it was as if a whirlwind had struck.
He went in.
The sofa had been tipped over onto its back, and Liam could
see that the fabric panel stretched across its base frame
had been slashed, as if someone had been searching for something.
The armchair was on its side, slit open, too. The antique,
glass-paneled bookcase had been tipped forward and broken
glass was scattered over the floor around it. The Lucien Freud
print of a greyhound had been ripped out and its frame smashed.
Family photographs and books had snowstormed across the floor.
A wooden-backed chair that had once stood against the wall
by the bay window had been smashed into the widescreen TV,
and now stuck out into the room like some weird kind of sculpture.
Liam stood very still.
Now he regretted having called out. What if they were still
here? Whoever "they" were...
He couldn't hear anything from within the house, only the
distant sounds of normal life from outside.
Mum ... Dad ... where were they? Was this the aftermath
of some kind of row between them? But his parents never fought.
Had they been here when this happened...?
He went through to the dining room, and it was in a similar
state, the Welsh dresser tipped forward across the table,
smashed crockery spread over the table and floor.
He hoped his parents hadn't been here. He didn't want to
find them ... broken.
In the kitchen, all the cupboards were open, their contents
emptied onto the floor. Out in the garden, nothing seemed
to have been touched.
He went to the stairs and hesitated. Should he make a lot
of noise, or go up silently? Or should he just leave?
He went up, treading carefully.
He stood on the landing and eyed the half-open doors: his
parents' room, his room, the spare, the bathroom. Everything
remained silent.
He nudged the first door open with the toe of his school
shoe. There was more upheaval in his parents' room, but it
looked less violent here. Clothes had been dragged out of
the wardrobes and drawers, but nothing had been smashed. Liam
could almost kid himself that this was just the normal mess
of busy lives.
In the spare room, boxes had been ripped open, and the papers
from his parents' desks were everywhere. Their computers were
on the floor, cases ripped off, gutted. The bathroom seemed
largely untouched.
He hesitated again before the door of his own bedroom, then
went in.
Suddenly it was just a normal day again. Back home for the
weekend. His bed, his World Cup football chart, the crystal
radio set he had built at Christmas, his science-fiction books.
The window was open on the first catch: his mother must have
been airing the room ahead of his return.
He shut the door and sat on the bed, pulling his knees up
to his chest, suddenly shaking quite uncontrollably. He jammed
his eyes tightly shut and tensed his whole body, struggling
to control the tremors. He felt sick and he felt scared.
What had happened here? Where were Mum and Dad?
They knew he was coming home on the early evening train.
Why weren't they waiting for him? Why wasn't Dad in the kitchen
cooking one of the huge feasts he liked to prepare, and Mum
in the living room, righting the furniture and clearing up
the mess?
It must have been kids. Vandals. Or burglars, stealing anything
they could carry and then trashing the place just for the
hell of it.
So why weren't Mum and Dad here?
He took his phone out of his trouser pocket and flipped
it open. No missed calls, no unread texts. He called Dad's
mobile but only got through to the answering service. The
same with Mum's.
He tried another number. On the fourth ring it was answered.
"Yes?" said a familiar voice. "What is it?"
"Kath," said Liam. "It's me. Little brother."
"Oh, hi. How's things, littl'un?"
"I... Do you know where Mum and Dad are?"
"No, why should I?" Kath hardly ever spoke to their parents,
even though she only lived a couple of miles away across the
city. "Where are you, Liam? You okay?"
"I'm home. I came back for the weekend. They're not here.
I don't know where they are."
"Probably out shopping or something. You sure they were
expecting you? It's not half-term yet, is it?"
"They invited me back, Kath. Listen ... the house ... the
place has been trashed. Something terrible has happened here.
I don't know what to do."
There was a silence, then. Eventually, Liam broke it. "Are
you still there, Kath?"
"I'm here, littl'un." Her voice had changed, the tone suddenly
flat and tired. "Are you okay, Liam? Have you spoken to anyone?
Have you called the police?"
"I've only just got here," he said. "No-one's here. I tried
Mum and Dad's mobiles but they didn't answer."
"Okay. Listen to me. You need to get yourself out of there.
Come away right now -- over here to my place. Once you're
here we can work out what to do. Do you understand?"
Liam was only too glad to hear this. All of a sudden the
thing he wanted most in the world was to get out of this place.
Downstairs, the front door banged open against the doorstop,
a familiar sound to Liam.
"Hey, Kath," he said, rising from the bed. "I heard the
door. It's probably Mum and Dad. I'll call you back." He ended
the call and slipped his phone back in his pocket.
Easing his bedroom door open, he stepped softly out onto
the landing.
It was silent downstairs. Maybe it had just been a breeze
catching the door, swinging it open against the doorstop.
Then there was another sound, a muttered word. It was a
man's voice, too soft for Liam to be sure but it could easily
be his father.
He peered down the stairwell. He saw the top of a man's
head. Dark hair cut short. Balding on the crown. No, not his
father. Liam could see a corner of the hall mirror from here,
and what he could see of the man's face confirmed this. The
man's features were too sharp, his face too thin. His dark
eyes flicked about, giving him the air of a twitchy animal.
Liam kept his head down. If he could get back to his room,
he could climb out of the window and lower himself and then
drop to the back lawn.
Just then, deep in his trouser pocket, his phone rang.
#
The man looked up and saw Liam. His mouth opened, but no
sound escaped. He reached for the banister and stepped onto
the stairs.
Liam backed away, but the man came up quickly. He was tall,
wearing a shabby grey suit and a dark tie loose at the neck.
He had the kind of dark, peppered stubble that could never
be shaved away. "I don't think you're going to answer that,
are you?" he said in a London accent.
Liam reached for his pocket, but didn't take out the phone.
He glanced towards his bedroom door, but realised his chance
of escaping through the window had gone. He eyed the gap between
the man and the top of the stairs, wondering if he could barge
past.
"Don't even think about it," said the man. "Even if you
get past me there's a Constable on the door."
Constable ... "You're police?" said Liam, relief flooding
in. The phone kept repeating its tune.
"What did you think I was?"
"I... Something's happened," said Liam. "Downstairs. Up
here, too." The phone stopped. A second later, it started
up again.
"Looks like we caught you red-handed, doesn't it?" said
the man.
It took a moment for Liam to work out what he was implying.
"What do you mean? It wasn't ... I live here.
I've just got here and found it like this." The phone stopped
after three rings this time, and remained silent.
"Why should I believe that?"
"Downstairs," said Liam. "I can prove it."
The man stepped aside. There are some people you just dislike
immediately, and this was one of them. The lop-sided smirk
on his face, the twitchy movements of his eyes, the way he
seemed to make accusations with everything he said. "You first,"
he said, waving a hand towards the stairs.
Liam stepped past him and headed down. Through the open
front door he could see the back of a man in police uniform
and it was only then that he realised he had seen no proof
that this man following him down the stairs actually was a
policeman, as he claimed. The sight of the uniform reassured
him.
In the front room, Liam stooped to retrieve one of the photographs
from the floor. It was one his mother had taken: Liam and
his father at Christmas. The two of them: blond, grey eyes,
the same rounded features. He handed it to the man, who squinted
at it and then stared at Liam. He shrugged. "Looks like you,"
he said. "You know how it seemed." That seemed to be it, as
far as apologies went. "This your dad? Where is he? Where
are your parents?"
"I don't know," said Liam. "They should have been here."
"So who did all this, then?"
"How should I know?" Liam's head was hurting now, a deep
throbbing ache behind the eyes. "I don't know what's going
on."
"Is anything missing?"
Liam shrugged. Only his parents.
"So what do they do? Your parents." As he spoke, the policeman
walked slowly around the room, poking at the debris with his
feet, occasionally squatting to pick something up for a closer
look.
"Mum works in a research centre at the university. Medical
research. Dad..." He stopped, flashing back to how his father
always avoided the question of exactly what he did for a living
-- something that involved a lot of travel, a lot of meetings
in London, a lot of secrecy.
"Yes?"
"He works for a government department. Civil Service. He's
away a lot."
"Why would anyone want to do this?"
Liam shrugged again. "They're missing," he said. "My parents.
They should be here but they've disappeared. What are you
going to do?" He rubbed at his aching head.
"We'll do what we can. Has anything like this happened before?"
Liam shook his head. Everything had been pretty much perfect
before. A comfortable life, an easy existence. Oddly, he realised
that the sun seemed to shine from a blue sky in all of his
childhood memories. Life really had been good.
But now... Now his head hurt.
"My sister," he said. "I need to get to my sister."
...end of extract
see also: more info about the
book, the Erased
pictures,
and
Flesh and Blood can be ordered through Amazon.
It's also available at BOL,
WH Smith's
Internet Bookshop and other online booksellers, and all
decent bookshops.
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