Текст книги "The Wolf in Winter"

Автор книги: John Connolly

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

26

In the living room of Hayley Conyer’s house, Morland steepled his hands over his face, closed his eyes and made a prayer of thanks to a god in whom he did not believe. It was force of habit, and no more than that. It looked good for him to go to church on Sundays. All of the most influential citizens in Prosperous were members of one congregation or another. Some even believed. Just like their ancestors back in England who had carved faces into the walls of their church, their faith could encompass more than one deity. Morland was not of their kind. He no longer even knew what he believed in, apart from Prosperous itself. All he could say for sure was that no Christian god impinged on his consciousness.

He was weary from arguing, but at least his view had prevailed, for now. As the guardian of the church it was Warraner and not Morland who had Hayley’s ear in times of crisis, but on this occasion Morland had managed to sway Hayley. He had been helped by the absence of two members of the board: Luke Joblin was attending a realtors’ convention in Philadelphia, and Thomas Souleby was currently under observation at a sleep clinic in Boston, having recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea. In times of crisis Hayley could act without a vote from the board, but Morland had convinced her that the situation was not that desperate. The detective was simply asking questions. There was nothing to link the death of the girl’s father to the town, and the girl herself was no more. Unless the detective could commune with the deceased he would find his avenues of inquiry quickly exhausted.

Hayley Conyer poured the last of the tea into her cup. It must have been cold and unbearably strong by now, but she was not one to let it go to waste. To her right sat Warraner, his face frozen. That was the other thing: Warraner had wanted them to take action but he couldn’t specify what kind of action. Killing the detective wasn’t an option, and Warraner had no solution of his own to offer. He just didn’t like seeing Morland get his way. Warraner would rather have been the king of nothing than the prince of something.

‘I’m still not entirely happy,’ said Warraner. ‘This man is a threat to us.’

‘Not yet,’ said Morland, for what seemed like the hundredth time. He removed his hands from his face. ‘Not unless we make him a threat.’

‘We’ll discuss it again when Thomas and Luke have returned,’ snapped Hayley. She seemed as weary of Warraner as Morland was. ‘In the meantime, I want to be informed the moment he returns to Prosperous, if he returns here. I don’t want to have to wait to hear it from the pastor.’

Warraner’s face thawed into a smile. Morland didn’t react. He simply wanted to be gone from the house. He stood and took his coat from the chair.

‘If he comes back, you’ll know,’ said Morland.

He was hungry. Julianne would have done what she could to save some dinner for him, but it would still be dried to hell and back by now. He’d eat it, though, and not just because he was hungry. He’d have eaten it even if Hayley Conyer had force-fed him caviar and foie gras during their meeting. He’d eat it because his wife had prepared it for him.

‘Good night,’ said Morland.

‘Just one more thing, Chief,’ said Hayley, and Morland stiffened as surely as if she’d inserted a blade into the small of his back.

He turned. Even Warraner seemed curious to hear what it was she had to say.

‘I want the girl’s body moved,’ said Hayley.

Morland looked at her as though she were mad.

‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘I’m far from kidding. This detective’s presence in Prosperous has made me uneasy, and if that body is discovered, we’ll all be fucked.’

Warraner looked shocked. Even Morland was surprised. He hadn’t heard Hayley Conyer swear in a coon’s age.

‘I want the girl’s remains taken beyond the town limits,’ she continued. ‘Far beyond. How you dispose of her is your own concern, but get her gone, do you understand?’

In that moment, Morland hated Hayley Conyer more than he had ever hated anyone before. He hated her and he hated Prosperous.

‘I understand,’ he said.

This time, he didn’t call her a bitch. He had a stronger word for her instead, and he used it all the way home. He’d dig up the body the next day, just as he had been told, but he wouldn’t do it alone, because fucking Harry Dixon would be right there alongside him.

‘Fuck!’ shouted Morland, as he drove. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

He slammed the steering wheel hard in time with each use of the word, and the wind tugged at the branches of the trees as around him the woods laughed.

27

There were three towns within a two-mile radius of Prosperous’s limits. Only one, Dearden, was of any significant size; the other two were towns in the same way that Pluto used to be a planet, or a handful of guys standing at a crossroads counted as a crowd.

Every town has someone who is a royal pain in the ass. This role divides pretty evenly between the sexes, but the age profile is usually consistent: over forty at least, and preferably older still; usually single, or with the kind of spouse or partner who is either lost in hero-worship or one step away from murder. If a meeting is held, they’re at it. If change is in the air, they’re against it. If you say it’s black, they’ll say it’s white. If you agree that it’s white, they’ll reconsider their position. They’ve rarely held an elected position, or if they once did, then no one was crazy enough to reelect them. Their self-appointed role in life is to ensure that they’re nobody’s fool, and they want as many people as possible to know it. Because of them, things get done more slowly. Sometimes, things don’t get done at all. Very occasionally, they inadvertently do some good by preventing from happening that which might ultimately have proved to be unbenefcial or actively destructive to their community, but they manage to do so only on the basis that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

If a town is sufficiently large, there may be many such persons, but Dearden was only big enough to contain a single entity. His name was Euclid Danes, and even a cursory Internet search in connection with Dearden threw up Euclid’s name with a frequency that might lead one to suspect that he was the only living soul in town. In fact, so omnipresent was Euclid Danes that even Dearden was not big enough to contain him, and his sphere of influence had extended to encompass parts of Prosperous too. Euclid Danes owned a couple of acres between Prosperous and Dearden, and it appeared that he had made it his lifelong business to singlehandedly resist the expansion of Prosperous to the south. His land acted as a buffer between the towns, and he had steadfastly and successfully fought every attempt by the citizens of Prosperous to buy him, or force him, out. He didn’t seem interested in money or reason. He wanted to keep his land, and if by doing so he irritated the hell out of the wealthy folk up the road, then so much the better.

Euclid Danes’s house was the original bad neighbor nightmare: poorly kept, with a yard that was a kissing cousin to wilderness and littered with pieces of unidentifable machinery which, with a little work and a lot of chutzpah, might even have qualified as some form of modern sculpture. An original Volkswagen Beetle stood in the drive. In an open garage beyond stood the skeleton of a second Beetle, scavenged for parts.

I parked and rang the doorbell. From somewhere at the back of the house came the sound of excited barking.

The door was opened by a stick-thin woman in a blue housecoat. A cigarette smoldered in her right hand. In her left she held a small mongrel puppy by the scruff of the neck.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘I was looking for Euclid Danes.’

She took a drag on the cigarette. The puppy yawned.

‘Jesus, what’s he done now?’ she said.

‘Nothing. I just wanted to ask him a few questions.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m a private investigator.’

I showed her my identifcation. Even the puppy looked more impressed by it than she did.

‘You sure he’s not in trouble?’

‘Not with me. Are you Mrs Danes?’

This provoked a burst of laughter that deteriorated into a ft of coughing.

‘Jesus Christ, no!’ she said, once she’d recovered. ‘I’m his sister. There’s nobody desperate enough to marry that poor sonofabitch, or if there is then I don’t want to meet her.’

I couldn’t see a wedding ring on her finger either. Then again, she was so thin that it would have been hard to make one ft, or if it did the weight would have unbalanced her. She was so skinny as to be almost sexless, and her hair was cut shorter than mine. If it hadn’t been for the housecoat and the pale twig legs that poked out from under her skirt, she could have passed for an elderly man.

‘So, is Mr Danes around?’

‘Oh, he’s around somewhere, just not here. He’s on his throne, holding court. You know where Benny’s is?’

‘No.’

‘Head into town and take the first left after the intersection. Follow the smell of stale beer. When you find him, tell him to get his ass home. I’m cooking meatloaf. If he’s not sitting at the table when it comes out of the oven, I’ll feed it to the dogs.’

‘I’ll be sure to let him know.’

‘Much appreciated.’ She held the puppy up at eye level. ‘You want to buy a puppy?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘You want one for free?’

The puppy, seeming to understand that it was the object of discussion, wagged its tail hopefully. It was brown, with sleepy eyes.

‘Not really.’

‘Damn.’

‘What’ll you do with it?’

She looked the puppy in the eyes.

‘Feed it meatloaf, I guess.’

‘Right.’

She closed the door without saying another word. I remained where I was for a few moments, the way you do when you’ve just had something that might have passed for a conversation if you weren’t paying attention, then got back in my car and went to look for Benny’s.

Benny’s wasn’t hard to find. Dearden was no metropolis, and there was only one intersection of any size at the heart of town. It didn’t even have a signal, just a quartet of stop signs, and Benny’s was the sole business on its street. Actually, Benny’s was the sole anything on its street. Beyond it lay only woods. Benny’s was a squat redbrick building whose sign had been provided by the Coca-Cola Company at least thirty years earlier, and was now faded and yellowed. It also lacked a possessive apostrophe. Maybe Benny didn’t like to boast. If so, it was a wise move.

A certain odor comes with a bar that isn’t cleaned regularly. All bars smell of it a little – it’s a product of spilt beer that has ingrained itself into the floors and storage spaces, along with whatever chooses to propagate in old yeast – but Benny’s smelled so strongly of it, even from outside, that birds flying through the air above were at risk of alcohol-induced disorientation. Benny’s had added an extra component to the stink by combining it with old grease: the extractors at the back of the building were caked with it. By the time I got to the door Benny’s had put its mark on me, and I knew that I’d end up stinking of the place all the way home, assuming my arteries didn’t harden and kill me first.

Curiously, it didn’t smell as bad inside, although that would have been difficult under the circumstances. Benny’s was more of a restaurant than a bar, assuming you were prepared to be generous with your definition of a restaurant. An open kitchen lay behind the counter to the left, alongside a couple of beer taps that suggested microbrews were regarded as a passing fad. A menu board on the wall above had adjustable plastic letters and numbers arranged into the kind of prices that hadn’t changed since Elvis died, and the kind of food choices that had helped to kill him. The tables were Formica, and the chairs wood and vinyl. Christmas tree lights hung on all four walls just below the ceiling, providing most of the illumination, and the décor was old beer signs and mirrors.

And you know, it was kind of cool, once my eyes had adjusted to the gloom.

Music was playing low: ‘Come Together’, followed by ‘Something’. Abbey Road. A big man in an apron stood at the grill, flipping burgers.

‘How you doin’,’ he said. ‘Waitress will be with you in a minute. How is it out there?’

‘It’s cold. Clear skies, though.’

‘Weather Channel says it could go down to ten degrees tonight.’

‘At least you’re warm in here.’

He was sweating over the grill. Nobody was going to have to salt a hamburger.

‘I always got insulation.’

He patted his massive belly, and I instantly recalled Candy back in the Tender House in Bangor, watching her weight and counting marshmallows. It reminded me of why I was here.

A compact middle-aged woman with huge hair materialized out of the darkness. I had already begun to make out half a dozen figures scattered around, but it would have taken a flashlight shone on their faces to discern their features.

‘Table, hon?’ said the woman.

‘I was looking for Euclid Danes,’ I said. ‘His sister told me he might be here.’

‘He’s in his office,’ she said. ‘Table at the back. She send you to bring him home?’

‘Apparently she’s cooking meatloaf.’

‘I can believe it. She can’t cook nothing else. Get you a drink?’

‘Coffee, please.’

‘I’ll make it extra strong. You’ll need it if you’re going to stay awake listening to his ramblings.’

Euclid Danes looked like his sister in male drag. They might even have been twins. He was wearing a shabby blue suit and a red tie, just in case he was suddenly required to interfere in someone else’s business. The table before him was covered with newspapers, clippings, random documents, assorted pens and highlighters and a half-eaten plate of French fries. He didn’t look up as I stood over him, so lost was he in annotating a sheaf of reports.

‘Mr Danes?’ I said.

He raised his right hand while the fountain pen in his left continued to scrawl across the page. His notes were longer than the report itself. I could almost hear the rise of frustrated sighs at some future meeting as Euclid Danes stood, cleared his throat and began to speak.

A long time went by. My coffee came. I added milk. I took a sip. Oceans rose and fell, and mountains collapsed to dust. Finally Euclid Danes finished his work, capped his pen and aligned it with the paper on which he had been working. He clasped his hands and looked up at me with young, curious eyes. There was mischief in them. Euclid Danes might have been the bane of life in Dearden, but he was smart enough to know it, and bright enough to enjoy it.

‘How can I help you?’ he said.

‘You mind if I take a seat?’

‘Not at all.’ He waved at a chair.

‘Your French fries?’ I said, pointing at the plate.

‘They were.’

‘Your sister is going to be annoyed that you’ve eaten.’

‘My sister is always annoyed, whether I eat or not. Is she now hiring detectives to monitor my habits?’

I tried not to show surprise.

‘Did she call ahead?’

‘To warn me? She wouldn’t do that. She’s probably at home praying that you make me disappear. No, I read the papers and watch the news, and I have a good memory for faces. You’re Charlie Parker, out of Portland.’

‘You make me sound like a gunfghter.’

‘Yes, I do, don’t I?’, he said, and his eyes twinkled. ‘So how can I help you, Mr Parker?’

The waitress appeared and freshened my coffee.

‘I’d like to talk to you about Prosperous,’ I said.

Chief Morland picked up Harry Dixon at his home. He didn’t inform Harry why he needed him, just told him to get his coat and a pair of gloves. Morland already had a spade, his pickax and flashlights in the car. He was tempted to ask Bryan Joblin to join them but instead told him to wait with Harry’s wife. Morland didn’t want her to panic and do something stupid. He could see the way she was looking at him while Harry went to fetch his coat, like he was ready to put her husband in the ground, but it hadn’t come to that, not yet.

‘It’s all right,’ said Morland. ‘I’ll bring him back in one piece. I just need his help.’

Erin Dixon didn’t reply. She sat at the kitchen counter, staring him down. She won, or he let her win. He wasn’t sure which. In either event, he simply looked away.

Bryan Joblin was sitting by the fire, drinking a PBR and watching some dumb quiz show. Bryan was useful because he didn’t think much, and he did what he was told. A purpose could always be found for men like that. Empires were built on their backs.

‘How long is he going to stay here?’ said Erin, pointing at Bryan with her chin. If Bryan heard her, he didn’t respond. He took another sip of his beer and tried to figure out on which continent the Republic of Angola was situated.

‘Just until the next girl is found,’ said Morland. ‘How’s that coming along?’

‘I’ve driven around some, as has Harry,’ said Erin. ‘It would be easier if we could move without that fool tagging along with us everywhere.’

Bryan Joblin still didn’t react. He was lost in his show. He’d guessed Asia, and was smacking the arm of his chair in frustration. Bryan would never serve on the board of selectmen, not unless every other living thing in Prosperous, cats and dogs included, predeceased him.

Morland knew that Bryan alternated his vigils between Harry and his wife. He was currently helping Harry out with an attic conversion on the outskirts of Bangor. Bryan might not have been smart, but he was good with his hands once he worked up the energy to act. In practical terms there wasn’t much Bryan could do if either Harry or Erin decided to try something dumb while he was with the other spouse, but his presence was a reminder of the town’s power. It was psychological pressure, albeit with a physical threat implied.

‘As soon as we have a girl, he’ll be gone,’ said Morland. ‘You brought him on yourselves. You brought all of this on yourselves.’

Harry had reappeared with his coat. He’d taken his time. Morland wondered what he’d been doing.

Harry patted his wife gently on the shoulder as he passed her. She reached out to grasp his hand, but it was too late. He had moved on.

‘You have any idea how long we’re going to be?’ he asked Morland.

‘Couple of hours. You got gloves?’

Harry removed a pair from his pocket. He always had gloves. They were part of his uniform.

‘Then let’s go,’ said Morland. ‘Sooner we get started, sooner we finish.’

* * *

Euclid Danes asked me why I was interested in Prosperous.

‘I’d prefer not to say,’ I told him. I didn’t want the details to end up in one of Euclid’s files, ready to be raised at the next meeting.

‘You don’t trust me?’ said Euclid.

‘I don’t know you.’

‘So how did you find out about me?’

‘Mr Danes, you’re all over the Internet like some kind of cyber rash. I’m surprised that the residents of Prosperous haven’t paid to have you taken out.’

‘They don’t much care for me up there,’ he admitted.

‘I’m curious to know what your beef is with that town. You seem to be expending a lot of energy to insert splinters under the fingernails of its citizenry.’

‘Is that what they are – citizenry?’ he said. ‘I’d say “cultists” was a better word to use.’

I waited. I was good at waiting. Euclid pulled a sheet of blank paper from a sheaf and drew a circle at the center of the page.

‘This is Prosperous,’ he said. He then added a series of arrows pointing out toward a number of smaller circles. ‘Here are Dearden, Thomasville and Lake Plasko. Beyond them, you have Bangor, Augusta, Portland. Prosperous sends its people out – to work, to learn, to worship – but it’s careful about whom it admits. It needs fresh blood because it doesn’t want to start breeding idiots in a shallow gene pool, so in the last half-century or so it’s allowed its children to marry outsiders, but it keeps those new family units at arm’s length until it’s sure that they’re compatible with the town. Houses aren’t sold to those who weren’t born in Prosperous, nor businesses either. The same goes for land, or what little the town has left to develop. Which is where I come in.’

‘Because Prosperous wants to expand,’ I said, ‘and you’re in the way.’

‘Give that man a candy bar. The original founders of the town chose a location bounded by lakes, and marshland, and deep woods, apart from a channel of land to the southeast. Basically they created their own little fortress, but now it’s come back to bite them. If they want their children to continue to live in Prosperous then they need space on which to build, and the town has almost run out of land suitable for development. It’s not yet critical, but it’s getting there, and Prosperous always plans ahead.’

‘You make it sound like the town is a living thing.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Euclid. ‘All towns are a collection of organisms forming a single entity, like a jellyfish. In the case of Prosperous, the controlling organisms are the original founding families, and their bloodlines have remained unpolluted. They control the board of selectmen, the police force, the school board, every institution of consequence. The same names recur throughout the history of Prosperous. They’re the guardians of the town.

‘And just like a jellyfish, Prosperous has long tentacles that trail. Its people worship at mainstream churches, although all in towns outside Prosperous itself, because Prosperous only has room for one church. It places children of the founding families in the surrounding towns, including here in Dearden. It gives them money to run for local and state office, to support charities, to help out with donations to worthwhile causes when the state can’t or won’t. After a couple of generations it gets so that people forget that these are creatures of Prosperous, and whatever they do aims to benefit Prosperous first and foremost. It’s in their nature, from way back when they first came here as the remnants of the Family of Love. You know what the Family of Love is?’

‘I’ve read up on it,’ I said.

‘Yeah, Family of Love my old ass. There was no love in those people. They weren’t about to become no Quakers. I think that’s why they left England. They were killing to protect themselves, and they had blood on their hands. Either they left or they were going to be buried by their enemies.’

‘Pastor Warraner claims that may just have been propaganda. The Familists were religious dissenters. The same lies were spread about Catholics and Jews.’

‘Warraner,’ said Euclid, and the name was like a fly that had somehow entered his mouth and needed to be spat from the tip of his tongue. ‘He’s no more a pastor than I am. He can call himself what he wants, but there’s no good in him. And to correct you on another point, the Familists weren’t just dissenters: they were infiltrators. They hid among established congregations and paid lip service to beliefs that weren’t their own. I don’t believe that’s changed much down the years. They’re still an infection. They’re parasites, turning the body against itself.’

It was a metaphor I had heard used before, under other circumstances. It evoked unpleasant associations with people who unwittingly sheltered old spirits inside them, ancient angels waiting for the moment when they could start to consume their hosts from within.

Unfortunately for Euclid Danes, his talk of jellyfish and parasites and bloodlines made him sound like a paranoid obsessive. Perhaps he was. But Euclid was smart – smart enough, at least, to guess the direction of my thoughts.

‘Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Sounds like the ravings of a madman?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that strongly.’

‘You’d be in the minority, but it’s easy enough to prove. Dearden is decaying, but compared to Thomasville it’s like Las Vegas. Our kids are leaving because there’s no work, and no hope of any. Businesses are closing, and those that stay open sell only stuff that old farts like me need. The towns in this whole region are slowly dying, all except Prosperous. It’s suffering, because everywhere is suffering, but not like we are. It’s insulated. It’s protected. It sucks the life out of the surrounding towns to feed itself. Good fortune, luck, divine providence – call it what you will, but there’s only so much of it to go around, and Prosperous has taken it all.’

The waitress with the big hair came by to offer me yet more coffee. I was the only person in the bar who seemed to be drinking it, and she clearly didn’t want to waste the pot. I had a long ride home. It would help me to stay awake. I drank it quickly, though. I didn’t think there was much more that Euclid Danes could tell me.

‘Are there others like you?’ I asked.

‘Whackjobs? Paranoiacs? Fantasists?’

‘How about “dissenters”?’

He smiled at the co-opting of the word. ‘Some. Enough. They keep quieter about it than I do, though. It doesn’t pay to cross the folk up in Prosperous. It starts with small things – a dog going missing, damage to your car, maybe a call to the IRS to say that you’re taking in a little work on the side to cover your bar tab – but then it escalates. It’s not only the economy that has led to businesses closing around here, and families leaving.’

‘But you’ve stayed.’

He picked up his fountain pen and unscrewed the cap, ready to return to his papers. I glimpsed the name on the pen: Tibaldi. I looked it up later. They started at about $400 and went up to $40,000. The one that Euclid Danes used had a lot of gold on it.

‘I look like the crazy old coot who lives in a rundown house with more dogs than bugs and a sister who can only cook meatloaf,’ he said, ‘but my brother was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, my nephews and nieces are lawyers and bankers, and there’s nothing anyone can teach me about playing the markets. I have money and a degree of influence. I think that’s why they hate me so much: because, except for an accident of birth, I could have been one of them. Even though I’m not, they still feel that I should side with wealth and privilege because I’m wealthy and privileged myself.

‘So Prosperous can’t move against me, and it can’t frighten me. All it can do is wait for me to die, and even then those bastards will find I’ve tied so much legal ribbon around my land that humanity itself will die out before they find a way to build on it. It’s been good talking with you, Mr Parker. I wish you luck with whatever it is that you’re investigating.’

He put his head down and began writing again. I was reminded of the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, when Gene Wilder dismisses Charlie and tries to lose himself in his papers until the boy returns the Everlasting Gobstopper as a token of recompense. I hadn’t shared all that I knew with Euclid because I was cautious. I had underestimated and misjudged him, although I thought Euclid might have done the same with me.

‘A homeless man named Jude hanged himself down in Portland not long ago,’ I said. ‘He was looking for his daughter before he died. Her name was Annie Broyer. He was convinced that she’d gone to Prosperous. There’s still no trace of her. I think she’s dead, and I’m not alone in believing it. I also think that she may have met her end in Prosperous.’

Euclid stopped writing. The cap went back on the pen. He straightened his tie and reached for his coat.

‘Mr Parker, why don’t you and I take a ride?’

It was already dark. I had followed Euclid Danes to the northwestern limit of the town of Dearden. His fence marked the boundary. Beyond it lay woodland: part of the township of Prosperous.

‘Why haven’t they built here?’ I asked. ‘The land’s suitable. It would just mean knocking down some trees.’

Euclid took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it on the ground. There was a hole in the earth, perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, or a little more. It was partly obscured by undergrowth and tree roots.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. I’ve found three of them over the years, but there may be more. I know for sure that there are a couple around that old church of theirs. I haven’t seen them myself for some time – as you can imagine, I’m persona non grata in Prosperous – but I have it on good authority from others who’ve been there.’

‘You think the ground is unstable?’

‘Might be. I’m no expert.’

I was no expert either, but this wasn’t karst terrain, not as far as I was aware. I hadn’t heard of any Florida-style sinkholes appearing in the area. The hole was curious, unsettling even, but that might have been a vague atavistic dread of small, enclosed places beneath the earth, and the fear of collapse they brought with them. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but then I’d never been trapped in a hole below the ground.

‘What made it?’

Euclid killed the flashlight.

‘Ah, that’s the interesting question, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ll leave that one with you. All I know is that I have meatloaf waiting, with a side of indigestion to follow. I’d ask you to join me, but I like you.’

He began to walk back to his car. I stayed by the fence. I could still make out the hole, a deeper blackness against the encroaching dark. I felt an itching in my scalp, as though bugs were crawling through my hair.

Euclid called back a final piece of advice when he reached his car. He was driving a beautiful old ‘57 Chevy Bel Air in red. ‘I like them to know I’m coming,’ he had told me. Now he stood beside its open door, a chill breeze toying with his wispy hair and his wide tie.

‘Good luck with those people up there,’ he said. ‘Just watch where you put your feet.’

He turned on the ignition and kept the Chevy’s lights trained on the ground in front of me until I was safely back at my own car. I followed him as far as his house, then continued south, and home.

On the outskirts of Prosperous, Lucas Morland and Harry Dixon were staring at another hole in the ground. At first Harry had been struck by the absurd yet terrible thought that the girl had actually dug herself out, just as he had dreamed, and what had crawled from that grave was something much worse than a wounded young woman who could name names. But then their flashlights had picked out the big paw prints on the scattered earth and the broken bones and the teeth marks upon them. They found the head under an old oak, most of the face gnawed away.

‘I told you,’ said Harry to Morland. ‘I told you I saw a wolf.’