The Wolf in Winter

22

Prosperous looked like a lot of Maine towns, except that those towns lay mostly Down East and were kept wealthy by tourists who didn’t balk at spending fifty dollars on decorative lobster buoys. But Prosperous was well off the tourist trail, and its stores and businesses relied on local trade to remain solvent. Driving down Main Street I took in the antique streetlamps and the carefully maintained storefronts and the absence of anything resembling a chain store. Both coffee shops were small and local, and the pharmacy looked old enough to be able to fill out prescriptions for leeches. The Prosperous Tap reminded me of Jacob Wirth’s in Boston, even down to the old clock hanging above the sign, and the general store at the edge of town could have been dropped into the nineteenth century without attracting even a single sidelong glance.

That morning I had done a little reading up on Prosperous in the library of the Maine Historical Society in Portland before making the journey northwest. Prosperous’s home ownership rate was as close to 100 percent as made no difference, and the median value of property inside the town limits was at least 50 percent higher than the state average. So too was median household income, and the number of residents who held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Meanwhile, if Prosperous had any black residents they were keeping themselves well hidden, and it was the same for Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans. In fact, if the census figures were correct, Prosperous had no foreign-born residents at all. Curiously, the number of residents per household was much higher than the state average as well: nearly four, while the average was 2.34. It seemed that kids in Prosperous liked to stay home with mom and dad.

There was one other strange fact that I discovered about Prosperous. Although its percentage of military veterans was roughly proportional to its size, none of the townsfolk had ever been fatally wounded while serving their country. Not one. All had returned home safely. This extraordinary feat had been the subject of an article in the Maine Sunday Telegram following the return of Prosperous’s last serving soldier from Vietnam in 1975. The town’s good fortune was ascribed to the ‘power of prayer’ by its pastor, a Reverend Watkyn Warraner. His son, Michael Warraner, was the town’s current pastor. While there were various Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian houses of worship in the surrounding towns, the only church within the town limits was the tiny, and peculiarly named, Congregation of Adam Before Eve & Eve Before Adam, and it was of this flock that Michael Warraner was apparently shepherd.

Which was where things got really interesting: Prosperous’s church, which was stone built and barely large enough to hold more than twenty people, had been transported to Maine in its entirety from the county of Northumbria in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Each stone of the church was carefully marked and its position in the structure recorded, then all were carried as ballast on the ships that brought the original congregation to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1703. From there, these pilgrims journeyed north to Maine and, over a period of decades, eventually founded the town of Prosperous and rebuilt their church, which had been placed in storage for the duration.

The reason why they left Northumbria, and took their church building with them, came down to religious persecution. The Congregation, as it became known, was an offshoot of the Family of Love, or the Familists, a religious sect that emerged in sixteenth-century Europe. The Family of Love was secretive, and reputedly hostile to outsiders to the point of homicide, although that may just have been anti-Familist propaganda. Marriage and remarriage was kept within the sect, as was the precise nature of its followers’ beliefs. As far as I could make out, the Familists believed that hell and heaven existed on earth, and there was a time preceding Adam and Eve. In the seventeenth century, the majority of Familists became part of the Quaker movement, with the exception of a small group of Northumbrian members who rejected a formal rapport with the Quakers or anyone else, and continued to worship in their own way, despite efforts by King Charles II to crack down on nonconformist churches in England. All officials in towns were required to be members of the Church of England, all clergy had to use the Book of Common Prayer, and unauthorized religious gatherings of more than five people were forbidden unless all were members of the same family. The Familists were among those persecuted in this way.

But it seemed that the sect proved hard to suppress. The Familists learned to hide themselves by joining established churches while continuing to conduct their own services in secret, and they maintained that charade during the worst years of the crackdown on nonconformism. Also, as intermarriage between families was common, they could easily circumvent the rule about religious gatherings.

In 1689, the parliament in London passed the Toleration Act, which gave nonconformists the right to their own teachers, preachers and places of worship, but it seemed that some Familists had already made the decision to abandon the shores of England entirely. It may have been that they had simply grown weary of hiding, and had lost faith in their own government. The only hint of a deeper discontent lay in the footnotes of an essay I found entitled ‘The Flight West: NonConformist Churches and the Goodness of God in Early New England Settlements’, in which it was suggested that the Familists who formed the Congregation had been forced out of England because they were so nonconformist as to be almost pagan.

This corresponded to a couple of paragraphs in Jude’s book on church architecture, which stated that the Congregation’s church was notable for its carved figurines, including numerous ‘foliate heads’, part of a tradition of carving ancient fertility symbols and nature spirits on Christian buildings. Such decorations were routinely tolerated, even embraced, on older houses of worship. They were a kind of tacit recognition by the early church fathers of the link between the people and the land in agrarian communities. In the case of the building that eventually found its way to Maine, though, the general consensus among the sect’s opponents was that the heads were more than merely decorative: they were the object of Familist worship, and it was the Christian symbols that were merely incidental. As I parked just off Main Street, it struck me as odd that a congregation with a history of concealment should have placed enough value on an old church building to transport it across the Atlantic Ocean. This might be a church worth seeing.

The interior of the town office, housed in a brownstone nineteenth-century building with a modern extension to the rear, was bright and clean. When I asked to see the chief of police, I was directed to a comfortable chair and offered coffee while a call was put through to his office. The coffee came with a cookie on a napkin. If I stayed long enough, someone would probably have offered me a pillow and a blanket. Instead, I passed the minutes looking at the images of Prosperous through the years that decorated the walls. It hadn’t changed much over the centuries. The names on the storefronts remained mostly the same, and only the cars on the streets, and the fashions of the men and women in the photographs, gave any clues to the passage of time.

A door opened to my right, and a man in uniform appeared. He was taller than me and broader in the back and shoulders, and his neatly pressed dark blue shirt was open at the neck to reveal a startlingly white T-shirt beneath. His hair was dark brown. He wore rimless bifocal spectacles, and a SIG as a sidearm. All things considered, he looked like an accountant who worked out most evenings. Only his eyes spoiled the effect. They were a pale gray, the color of a winter sky presaging snow.

‘Lucas Morland,’ he said, as he shook my hand. ‘I’m chief of police here.’

‘Charlie Parker.’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr Parker,’ he said, and he appeared to mean it. ‘I’ve read a lot about you. I see you’ve already been given coffee. You need a top off?’

I told him I was fine with what I had, and he invited me to step into his office. It was hard to tell what color the walls might be as they were covered with enough certifcates and awards to render paint pretty much redundant. On his desk were various photographs of a dark-haired woman and two dark-haired boys. Chief Morland wasn’t in any of them. I wondered if he was separated. Then again, he may just have been the one taking the photographs. I was in danger of becoming a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of guy. Or a ‘glass emptier’ guy.

Or maybe a ‘What glass?’ guy.

‘You have a nice town,’ I said.

‘It’s not mine. I just look out for it. We all do, in our way. You considering moving here?’

‘I don’t think I could afford the taxes.’

‘Try doing it on a cop’s salary.’

‘That’s probably how communism started. You’d better keep your voice down or they’ll start looking for another chief.’

He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach. I noticed that he had a small belly. That was the problem with quiet towns: there wasn’t much that one could do in them to burn calories.

‘Oh, we have all kinds here,’ said Morland. ‘Did you notice the motto on the sign as you came into town?’

‘I can’t say that I did.’

‘It’s easy to miss, I guess. It’s just one word: Tolerance.’

‘Pithy.’

He looked out the window and watched a stream of elementary school kids waddle by, each with one hand clinging tightly to a pink rope. It was a clear day, but cold, and they were wrapped in so many layers that it was impossible to see their faces. Once the kids had disappeared from view, and he was content that nothing had befallen them, or was likely to, he returned his attention to me.

‘So how can I help you, Mr Parker?’

I handed him a copy of a photograph of Jude that I’d found at the Portland Help Center. It had been taken at a Christmas lunch the previous year, and Jude was smiling in a tan suit and white shirt accessorized by a piece of tinsel in place of a tie. A pedant would have pointed out that the suit was too close to cream for the time of year, but Jude wouldn’t have cared.

‘I was wondering if you’d seen this man around Prosperous recently, or if he’d had any contact with your department,’ I said.

Morland wrinkled his nose and peered at the photograph through the lower part of his bifocals.

‘Yes, I recall him. He came in here asking about his daughter. His name was …’

Morland tapped his fingers on his desk as he sought the name.

‘Jude,’ he said finally. ‘That was it: Jude. When I asked him if that was his first or last name, he told me it was both. Is he in trouble, or did he hire you? Being honest, he didn’t seem like the kind of fella who had money to be hiring private detectives.’

‘No, he didn’t hire me, and his troubles, whatever they were, are over now.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘He was found hanged in a basement in Portland about a week ago.’

Morland nodded.

‘I think I recall reading something about that now.’

The discovery of Jude had merited a paragraph in the Press Herald, followed by a slightly longer feature in the Maine Sunday Telegram about the pressures faced by the city’s homeless.

‘You say that he was asking about his daughter?’

‘That’s right,’ said Morland. ‘Annie Broyer. He claimed that someone at a women’s shelter in Bangor told him that she was headed up this way. Apparently she’d been offered a job here by an older couple, or that was the story he’d heard. He wanted to know if we’d seen her. He had a photograph of her, but it was old. He described her well, though, or well enough for me to be able to tell him that no young woman of that description had found her way into this town, or none that I knew of, and I know them all.’

‘And was he happy with that?’

Morland’s face bore an expression I’d seen a thousand times. I’d probably worn it myself on occasion. It was the face of a public servant who just wasn’t paid enough to deal with the unhappiness of those for whom the reality of a situation wasn’t satisfactory.

‘No, Mr Parker, he was not. He wanted me to take him to every house in Prosperous that might be occupied by an older couple and have me show them the photograph of his daughter. In fact, he went so far as to suggest we ought to search the houses of everyone over sixty, just in case they had her locked up in their home.’

‘I take it that wasn’t an option.’

Morland spread his hands helplessly.

‘He hadn’t reported his daughter missing. He didn’t even know if she was missing. He just had a feeling in his bones that something was wrong. But the more we got into it, the more apparent it became that he didn’t really know his daughter at all. That was when I discovered that she’d been living in a women’s shelter and he was homeless and they were estranged. It all got sort of messy from there.’

‘What did you do in the end?’

‘I made a copy of the photograph, put together a description of his daughter to go with it, and told him I’d ask around. But I also tried to explain to him that this wasn’t the kind of town where people took in street women they didn’t know and offered them beds in their homes. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot of towns where anyone would behave in that way. The story just didn’t ring true. He gave me a couple of numbers for shelters and soup kitchens where a message could be left for him, and then I gave him a ride to Medway so he could catch the bus back to Bangor.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘The offer of a ride to Medway wasn’t one that he could refuse.’

Morland gave me the long-suffering public servant expression again.

‘Look, it was a last resort. He said he was going to get a cup of coffee, and next thing I knew he was stopping folks on the streets to show them the picture of his daughter, and taping crappy photocopies to streetlights. I’d told him that I’d do what I could to help him, and I meant it, but I wasn’t going to have a bum — even a well-dressed bum — harassing citizens and defacing public property. I like my job, Mr Parker, and I want to keep it. Most of the time it’s easy, and even when it’s hard, it’s still kind of easy. I like this town too. I grew up here. My father was chief of police before me, and his father before him. It’s our family business, and we do it well.’

It was quite a speech. I’d have voted for him if he ran for office.

‘So you drove Jude to Medway’ — I resisted suggesting that Jude had literally been given the bum’s rush — ‘but I’ll venture that he didn’t take the hint.’

Morland puffed his cheeks.

‘He started calling my office two or three times a day, asking if there had been any progress, but there was none. Nobody here had seen his daughter. He’d been given bad information. But he wouldn’t accept that, so he came back. This time, he didn’t pay me the courtesy of a visit, just went from house to house, knocking on doors and peering in windows. Naturally, I started getting telephone calls from panicked residents because it was getting dark. He was lucky he didn’t get himself shot. I picked him up and kept him in a cell overnight. I told him I could have him charged with criminal trespass. Hell, he even ended up in the cemetery more than half an hour after sunset, like that fella in Dickens.’

‘Magwitch,’ I said.

‘That’s the one.’

‘What was he doing in the cemetery?’

‘Trying to get into the church. Don’t ask me why: we keep it locked, and visits are only by appointment. We’ve had incidents of vandalism in the past. Do you know about our church?’

I told him that I did, and I’d be curious to see it before I left, if that was possible. Morland perked up slightly at the prospect of my leaving town. He was tiring of talking about the problems of dead bums and their daughters.

‘In conclusion, the next morning I drove him back to Medway — again — and told him that if he showed his face in Prosperous one more time he would be arrested and charged, and he’d be no help to his daughter from a jail cell. That seemed to get through to him, and apart from a phone call or ten, that was pretty much the last I saw or heard of him, until now.’

‘And nobody in town knew anything about his daughter?’

‘No, sir.’

‘But why would his daughter have said that she was going to Prosperous if someone hadn’t given her reason to do so? It sounds like an odd story to make up.’

‘She might have been trying to impress the other street people. Worst case, she spoke to someone in Bangor who told her they were from Prosperous when they weren’t. It may be that this Jude was right, and something did happen to her, but if so, it didn’t happen to her here.’

Morland returned the photo of Jude, and got to his feet. We were done.

‘So you want to see the church before you go?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ I said. ‘At least you won’t have to drive me to Medway after.’

Morland managed a thin smile, but said nothing. As I stood, I let my arm brush one of the photographs on the desk. I caught it before it hit the floor, and returned it to its place.

‘Your family?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Good-looking boys. No girls?’

Morland gave me a peculiar look, as though I had intimated something unpleasant about him and the nature of his familial relations.

‘No, no girls,’ he said. ‘I’m happy about that, I got to say. My friends with daughters tell me they’re more trouble than boys. Girls will break your heart.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Jude’s daughter certainly broke his.’

Morland took the photograph from me and restored it to its place on his desk.

‘You had a daughter, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She died,’ I added, preempting whatever might have followed. I was used to it by now.

‘I know,’ said Morland. ‘I’m sorry. You have another little girl now, don’t you?’

I looked at him curiously, but he appeared nothing but sincere.

‘Did you read that somewhere too?’ I asked.

‘You think there’s anyone in Maine law enforcement who doesn’t know your history? This is a small-town state. Word gets around.’

That was true, but Morland still had a remarkable memory for the family histories of men he had never met before.

‘That’s right, I have another little girl,’ I conceded.

Morland seemed on the verge of saying something, then reconsidered, contenting himself with, ‘Maybe if this man Jude hadn’t walked out on his family, his daughter might not have ended up the way she did.’

Morland had a point — Jude, had he still been alive, might even have agreed with him — but I wasn’t about to point the finger at Jude’s failings as a husband and a father. I had my own guilt to bear in that regard.

‘He tried to make up for it at the end,’ I said. ‘He was just doing what any father would have done when he came looking for her in Prosperous.’

‘Is that a criticism of how he was treated by my department?’

Morland didn’t bristle, but he wasn’t far off it. ‘My department’, I noted, not ‘me’.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You just did what any chief of police would have done.’

That wasn’t quite the truth, but it was true enough. Maybe if Morland had a daughter of his own he might have behaved more compassionately; and if Jude hadn’t been a bum, and his daughter a homeless ex-junkie, Morland might have tried a little harder — just a little, but sometimes that’s all it takes. I didn’t say any of this aloud, though. It wouldn’t have helped, and I couldn’t guarantee that, in his position, and with his background, I would have behaved any differently.

We walked from his office. Morland told the receptionist that he was heading out to the chapel. She looked surprised, but said nothing.

‘This woman, Annie Broyer, you think she’s dead?’ asked Morland as we stepped outside.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I hope not.’

‘So you’re going to keep looking for her?’

‘Probably.’

‘And you’ve been hired to do this by whom?’

‘I haven’t been hired by anyone.’

‘So why are you looking for her?’

‘Because nobody else will,’ I said.

Morland took this in, then told me to follow his car.

He was still shaking his head as he pulled away.

23

The Blessed Chapel of the Congregation of Adam Before Eve & Eve Before Adam, to give it its full title, was situated in the middle of a forest about half a mile northwest of Prosperous. A road marked private, and secured with a lock and chain for which Chief Morland had a key, wound through the woods until it came to iron railings painted black, within which lay the town’s original cemetery and the church itself. Morland parked his car on a narrow strip of grass beside the railings, and I parked on the road. There was a gate in the railings, also kept closed with a lock and chain, but it was already open when we arrived.

‘I gave Pastor Warraner a call along the way and asked him to join us,’ said Morland. ‘It’s just good manners. The church is in his care. I have a key, but it’s only in case of an emergency. Otherwise, I leave all such matters to him.’

I looked around, but I could see no sign of the pastor. The church was even smaller and more primitive than I had expected, with walls of rough-hewn gray stone, and a western orientation instead of the more usual eastern. I did one full circuit of the building, and it didn’t take long. A heavy oak door seemed to be the only point of entry or exit, and it had two narrow windows on its northern and southern walls, sealed with glass from within and bars without. The wall behind what I presumed to be the altar was blank and windowless. The roof was relatively new, and appeared incongruous above the ancient stones.

The main decorative features, in the form of the faces for which the church was famous, were in the upper corners of each wall, creating a kind of Janus effect where they met, an impression compounded by the fact that the lengths of carved ivy and branches of which the decorations were composed flowed between the faces and continued along the upper lengths of the walls, so that the visages all appeared to spring from the same source. They had weathered over the centuries, but not as much as might have been expected. Intricate constructions of stone leaves formed a protective screen around them, from which the faces peered out. They reminded me of childhood and fairy tales, and of the way in which the markings on the trunks of very old trees sometimes took on the appearance of contorted, suffering people, depending on the light and the angle at which they were examined.

But what struck me most was the sheer malevolence of the expressions on the carvings. These were not manifestations of gentle emotions nor signifers of hope. Instead, they boded only ill for all who looked on them. To my mind, they had no more place on a church building than a pornographic image.

‘What do you think?’ said Morland, as he joined me.

‘I’ve never seen anything like them before,’ I said, which was the most neutral reply I could offer.

‘There are more inside,’ he said. ‘Those are just the opening acts.’

As if on cue, the door to the chapel opened and a man stepped out.

‘Pastor Warraner,’ said Morland, ‘this is Mr Parker, the detective I told you about.’

Warraner wasn’t what I had expected of a cleric who had charge of a building that was almost a millennium old. He wore jeans and battered work boots, and a brown suede jacket that had the look of a garment long reached for instinctively when warmth and comfort were required. He was in his late forties, with heavily receding hair, and as we shook hands I saw and felt the calluses on his skin, and caught a faint smell of timber and wood shavings on him.

‘Call me Michael,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I was around to say hello.’

‘Do you live nearby?’ I asked. I hadn’t seen any other vehicle when we arrived.

‘Just the other side of the woods,’ he said, gesturing over his right shoulder with his thumb. ‘Five minutes on foot. Same time that it takes me in my truck by the less scenic route, so it makes more sense to walk. May I ask what brings a private detective to our town?’

I stared at the church carvings, and they stared back. One had its mouth wide open, and a tongue poked obscenely from between its carved lips. It seemed to mock any hope I might have of finding Annie Broyer alive.

‘A homeless man named Jude came to Prosperous recently,’ I said. ‘Chief Morland tells me that he may have trespassed on the church grounds in the course of one of those visits.’

‘I remember,’ said Warraner. ‘I was the one who found him here. He was very agitated, so I had no choice but to call Chief Morland for assistance.’

‘Why was he agitated?’

‘He was concerned about his daughter. She was missing, and he was under the impression that she might have come to Prosperous. He felt he wasn’t getting the help he needed from the police. No offense meant, Chief.’

‘None taken,’ said Morland, although it was hard to tell if he was sincere as he had kept his sunglasses on against the glare of winter sun on snow. I barely knew Morland, but I had already figured him for a man who guarded any slights jealously, nurturing them and watching them grow.

‘Anyhow, I tried to calm him down, but I didn’t have much success,’ said Warraner. ‘I told him to leave the grounds, and he did, but I was worried that he might attempt to break into the church, so I called the chief.’

‘Why would you think he’d want to break into the church?’ I asked.

Warraner pointed at the faces looming above his head.

‘Disturbed people fixate,’ he said, ‘and this wonderful old building provides more opportunities for fixation than most. Over the years we’ve had attempts to steal the carvings from the walls, and to deface them. We’ve found people — and not just young ones either but folk old enough to know better — having sex on the ground here because they were under the impression it would help them to conceive a child, and, of course, we’ve been visited by representatives of religious groups who object to the presence of pagan symbols on a Christian church.’

‘As I understand it, this town was founded by the Familists, and it was originally their church,’ I said. ‘Their belief system strikes me as more than a complicated variation on Christianity.’

Warraner looked pleasantly surprised at the question, like a Mormon who had suddenly found himself invited into a house for coffee, cake and a discussion of the wit and wisdom of Joseph Smith.

‘Why don’t you step into my office, Mr Parker?’ he said, welcoming me into the chapel.

‘As long as I’m not keeping you from anything important,’ I said.

‘Just kitchen closets,’ he said. ‘I run a joinery service.’

He fished a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

‘So you’re not a full-time pastor?’

Warraner laughed. ‘I’d be a pauper if I was. No, I’m really just a caretaker and part-time historian. We no longer have services here: the Familists are no more. The closest we have are some Quaker families. The rest are mainly Baptists and Unitarians, even some Catholics.’

‘And what about you?’ I said. ‘You still keep the title of “pastor”.’

‘Well, I majored in religion at Bowdoin, and studied as a Master of Divinity at Bangor Theological Seminary, but I always did prefer woodworking. Still, I guess you could say that the theological gene runs in the family. I hold a weekly prayer group, although often I’m the only one praying, and there are people in town who come to me for advice and guidance. They tend to be folk who aren’t regular churchgoers but still believe. I don’t probe too deeply into what it is that they do believe. It’s enough that they believe in some power greater than themselves.’

We were in the church now. If it was cold outside, it was colder still inside. Five rows of hard wooden benches faced a bare altar. There were no crosses, and no religious symbols of any kind. Instead, the wall behind the altar was dominated by a foliate face larger than any that decorated the exterior. Two slightly smaller faces of a similar kind were visible between the windows.

‘Do you mind if I take a closer look?’ I said.

‘By all means,’ said Warraner. ‘Just watch your step. Some of the stones are uneven.’

I approached the altar along the right aisle of the church. As I passed, I glanced at the first of the faces. It was more detailed than the ones outside, and had a grinning, mischievous expression. As I looked at it more closely, I saw that all of its features were made from stone recreations of produce: squash, pea pods, berries, apples and ears of wheat. I had seen something like it before, but I couldn’t recall where.

‘Wasn’t there an artist who painted images like this?’ I asked Warraner.

‘Giuseppe Arcimboldo,’ he replied. ‘I’ve always meant to study up on him, but there never seems to be enough time. I imagine that he and the creators of these carvings would probably have had a lot to discuss, particularly the intimate connection between man and the natural world, had they not been separated by the ages.’

I moved to the altar and stood before the carving on the wall. If the face on the right was almost cheerful — albeit in the manner of someone who has just watched a puppy drown and found it amusing — and evoked images of the earth’s bounty, this one was very different. It was a thing of roots, thorns and nettles, of briars, bare winter bushes and ivy. Branches bristling with spines poured from its open mouth and seemed both to form its features and to suffocate them, as though the image were tormenting itself. It was profoundly ugly, and startlingly, vibrantly present, an ancient being brought to life from dead things.

‘It’s the same visage, or the same god, depending upon one’s inclination,’ said Warraner from behind me.

‘What?’

He pointed to his right at the face made from produce, to his left at another constructed from blossoming flowers, and finally at a fourth face that I had not noticed before as it was above the door: a face composed of straw and leaves that had just begun to wither and die.

‘All versions of a similar deity,’ said Warraner. ‘In the last century the name “Green Man” was coined for him: a pagan god absorbed into the Christian tradition, a symbol of death and rebirth long before the idea of the resurrection of Christ came into being. You can see why a building decorated in such a manner would have appealed to the Familists, a sect that believed in the rule of nature, not God.’

‘And are you a Familist, Pastor Warraner?’ I asked.

‘I told you,’ he answered. ‘The Familists no longer exist. Frankly, it’s a shame. They were outwardly tolerant of the views of others while repudiating all other religions entirely. They refused to carry arms, and they kept their opinions and beliefs to themselves. They attracted the elite, and had no time for the ignorant. If they were still around today, they’d regard most of what passes for organized religion in this country as an abomination.’

‘I read that they were accused of killing to defend themselves,’ I said.

‘Propaganda,’ said Warraner. ‘Most of those allegations came from John Rogers, a sixteenth-century cleric who hated Christopher Vitel, the leader of the Familists in England. He called the Family of Love a “horrible secte”, and based his attacks on depositions given by dissenting ex-Familists. There’s no evidence that the Familists ever killed those who disagreed with them. Why should they? The sect’s members were quietists: they didn’t even publicly identify themselves, but hid among other congregations to avoid being identified and put at risk.’

‘Like religious chameleons,’ I said, ‘blending into the background.’

‘Exactly,’ said Warraner. ‘Eventually they simply became what they pretended to be.’

‘Except the ones who traveled here to found Prosperous.’

‘And in the end even they vanished,’ said Warraner.

‘Why did the Familists leave England?’ I said. ‘It wasn’t clear from the little that I could find out about them. As far as I can tell, religious persecution was already dying when they departed. Why fee when you’re no longer threatened?’

Warraner leaned against a pew and folded his arms. It was a curiously defensive gesture.

‘The Familists entered a state of schism,’ he said. ‘Disagreements arose between those who advocated following the Quaker way, and those who wished to adhere to the sect’s original belief system. The traditionalists feared being named as something more dangerous than dissenters, particularly when it was suggested that the building we’re in should be razed. They viewed this church as the wellspring of their faith, which was probably why those who had chosen to follow an alternative path so desired its destruction. A wealthy cadre of the faithful came together to save the church, and their sect, from annihilation. The result was an exodus to New England, and the founding of Prosperous.’

He glanced at his watch.

‘Now, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I really do need to get back to my kitchen closets.’

I took one more look at the largest of the faces on the wall, the image of a winter god, then thanked him and joined Morland, who had waited throughout by the door. We watched Warraner lock the chapel with a key from a heavy ring, and check that it was securely closed.

‘One last thing,’ I said.

‘Yes?’

He sounded impatient. He wanted to be gone.

‘Wasn’t Christopher Vitel a joiner too?’

Warraner thrust his hands into his pockets and squinted at me. The sun was setting, and the air was growing colder, as though the chill inside the chapel had permeated the outside world while the door was open.

‘You really have done your homework, Mr Parker,’ he said.

‘I like to keep myself informed.’

‘Yes, Vitel was a joiner. It was used against him by his enemies to suggest that he was nothing but a vagabond.’

‘But he was much more than that, wasn’t he? I understand that he was also a textile merchant in the Low Countries, and it was there that he encountered the founder of the Familists, Hendrik Niclas, except at that time he was Christopher Vitell. He dropped the second “l” when he returned to England to spread the doctrine of the Familists, effectively giving himself a new identity.’

‘That may be true,’ said Warraner. ‘Such changes of spelling were not uncommon at the time, and may not even have been deliberate.’

‘And then,’ I continued, ‘around 1580, when the government of Queen Elizabeth was hunting the Familists, Vitel simply disappeared.’

‘He is not present in the historical record from that time on,’ said Warraner. ‘It’s not clear why. He may have died.’

‘Or assumed another identity. A man who changed his name once could easily do so again.’

‘What are you suggesting, Mr Parker?’

‘Maybe preaching isn’t the only talent you inherited from your genes.’

‘You should have been a historian, Mr Parker. A speculative one, perhaps, but a historian nonetheless. But then, isn’t historical research a form of detection too?’

‘I suppose it is. I hadn’t really considered it.’

‘But in answer to your suggestion, I have no idea if my line stretches back to Vitel, but I would consider myself blessed indeed if that were the case.’

He tested the door one last time, and began walking toward the gate.

‘It’s been interesting talking to you, Mr Parker,’ he called back just before he reached it. ‘I hope you get to visit us again sometime.’

‘I think I’ll be back,’ I said, but only Morland heard me.

‘It’s a dead end,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here.’

‘You may be right,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure what it is that I’m looking for, so who’s to know?’

‘I thought that you were looking for a missing girl.’

‘Yes,’ I said, as Warraner vanished into the woods without a backward glance, ‘so did I.’

Morland escorted me from the churchyard and locked the gate behind us. I thanked him for his time, got in my car and drove away. I thought he might have followed me to the town limits to make sure that I was leaving, but he didn’t. When I turned right, he went left to go back to Prosperous. I kept the radio off, and played no music as I drove. I thought about Jude, and Morland, and my time with Pastor Warraner. One small detail nagged at me. It might have been nothing, but like a fragment of thorn buried in my flesh, it itched at me as I headed south, and by the time I reached Bangor it was impossible to ignore.

Warraner had not asked me anything more about Jude, or my reasons for visiting Prosperous, once we had left the subject of Jude’s intrusion on the cemetery. It might simply have been the case that Warraner wasn’t curious about Jude or his missing daughter. He may have become distracted as we talked about his beloved chapel. Or there was a third possibility: Warraner didn’t ask about Jude because he already knew that Jude was dead, but if that was so, why not mention it? Why not ask who had hired me, or why I had come so far north to ask about a homeless man? Yes, Morland could have told Warraner the reason for my visit while I was following him to the churchyard, but if so, then why would Warraner have bothered to ask me the same question a second time?

My headlights caught bare branches and twisted trees, and every shadow concealed the face of the Green Man.

24

Morland drove to the outskirts of Prosperous and sat in his car, drinking coffee from his Thermos and watching the cars enter and leave the town. His Crown Vic rested on a small hill partially concealed by trees, a site that he often used as the location for a speed trap when the mood took him. His father had shown him this location, pointing out to him the sweet spot, the perfect position from which to watch without being seen while also giving an unrestricted view of the road. On this occasion Morland left the radar gun in its case. He didn’t want to be disturbed. He wanted to think.

Hayley Conyer would have to be informed of the detective’s visit, and it was better that Morland should be the one to do it rather than Pastor Warraner. Who knew what poisons Warraner would pour into Hayley’s ear? It was the pastor who had shouted loudest for the killing of the man named Jude, even as Morland tried to divert the board from a course of action that had now brought a dangerous man down upon them.

For the detective was dangerous, of that Morland had no doubt. The chief had not been busy when the detective arrived at the town office, and could have seen him immediately, but he had taken time to compose himself, to run through the possible reasons for the man’s visit. Morland had been surprised when the detective mentioned Jude’s name, but had hidden it well. He had struggled harder to retain his composure when the detective had wanted to visit the chapel, but he shouldn’t have: it was a perfectly understandable request to make given the unusual nature of the building, although Morland had offered the detective an opening by mentioning that Jude had been arrested on church grounds. As for Warraner, he regularly received letters and e-mails from interested parties asking for permission to visit, even if he was careful to limit such visits to those whose reasons were entirely without ulterior motive.

But Morland believed that the detective did nothing without an ulterior motive. He wasn’t the kind of man to go sightseeing at an old church simply because he had time on his hands. He was looking for connections. Morland could only hope that he had left Prosperous without making any. The chief ran over the details of their conversation again and again, adding what he’d heard of the detective’s discussion with Warraner. Morland tried to see the situation through the detective’s eyes, and by the time the Thermos was empty he had decided there was nothing about the day’s business that could have added to any half-formed suspicions the detective might have brought with him. It had been a fishing expedition, nothing more, and the hook had come back bare. Still, Morland hadn’t like the way the detective watched Warraner as the pastor departed, or his suggestion that the girl’s disappearance might not be the sole purpose of his visit. His first hook might not have caught on anything, but the detective had left others trailing.

Morland climbed from the car and went into the bushes to take a leak. It was dark now but the moon shone silver on the small body of water known as Lady’s Pond. This was where the women of Prosperous would go to congregate and bathe, undisturbed by their menfolk, in the early decades of the township. Morland wondered how many of them knew of the town’s true nature, even then. Probably only a handful, he thought. More of the townsfolk understood Prosperous now, but far from all. Some chose to be blind to it, and others were deliberately kept in the dark. It was strange, thought Morland, how generations of Prosperous families had never been entrusted with the truth yet still had reaped its benefits. It was stranger still that the town’s secret had remained undiscovered by outsiders over the centuries, even allowing for the killings that had occurred in order to silence those who were ready to betray it. Perhaps it was a circular argument: the town was always at risk because it required murder to survive, but by spilling blood it accrued the blessings that enabled it to keep that risk to a minimum, and assure the town’s continued prosperity. Put that way, it sounded simple, logical.

Morland wondered if, like his father and grandfather before him, he had become such a monster that he almost failed to notice his own moral and spiritual deformity any more.

The issue of betrayal brought him back to the Dixons. It had been Morland’s decision to place Luke Joblin’s son with them. He hoped that Bryan Joblin’s presence would keep the Dixons in line and force them to act according to the board’s wishes, but he had his doubts. If the Dixons actually managed to produce a girl to replace Annie Broyer, Morland would give up coffee for a year.

But there was a part of the chief that hoped Harry Dixon was right — that the fact of the girl’s killing and the soaking of her blood into the soil of Prosperous might be enough. The town was hurting, but not as much as the rest of the state. People were getting by. Morland imagined a situation where Pastor Warraner informed the board that all was now well and the chapel remained quiet, so no further action was required. But Warraner was both fanatical and weak, and Morland had not yet decided if the latter quality was useful or dangerous. It depended upon the circumstances, he supposed, but it meant that Warraner had a habit of attacking from behind when it came to disputes. He was no honest broker. Morland wished that Warraner’s father were still alive and in charge of the chapel. Old Watkyn Warraner had been a cautious man by all accounts, and he steered the congregation through more than half a century without blood being spilt more than once. It was the longest such period of contentment that the town had known.

Well, we’re paying for it now, thought Morland. Two bodies — one here and one in Portland — and it appeared that they were not enough. Now a detective was asking questions, a strange man with a reputation for excavating long-buried secrets and annihilating his enemies. Under the circumstances, Warraner could argue that the spilling of blood was more necessary than ever, for only by blood would the town be saved, and the selectmen might well be inclined to agree. They were all old and fearful — even Hayley Conyer, except that she just hid her fear better than most. Younger people were needed on the board, but most of the town’s youth weren’t ready to take on the burden of protecting Prosperous. It took decades for the town to seep into one’s soul, for the recognition of one’s obligations to it to form. It was a kind of corruption, a pollution passed down through generations, and only the oldest were corrupt and polluted enough to be able to make the tough decisions required to keep the town alive.

Morland used a bottle of water to wash his hands clean before drying them on the legs of his trousers. It was time to talk with Hayley Conyer. He called his wife and told her that he would be home late. No, he wasn’t sure when. He knew only that a long evening stretched ahead.

Morland drove to the Conyer house and parked outside. The drapes were drawn on all the windows, but a sliver of light was visible from her mausoleum of a living room. He wasn’t surprised to find her home. Unless she was out on board business, Hayley was always home. Morland couldn’t remember the last time she’d left town for more than a couple of hours. She was afraid the place would collapse into the ground without her. That was part of the problem, of course.

‘Bitch,’ he said, softly, as he stepped from the car. The wind whipped the word away, and he found his right hand twitching involuntarily, as if hoping to catch the insult before it reached the ear of Hayley Conyer.

He rang the doorbell, and Hayley answered.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you—’ Morland began to say, but Hayley held up a hand to interrupt him.

‘It’s quite all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

She invited him to step inside, then led him to the living room, where Pastor Warraner had already made himself at home in an armchair.

‘Shit,’ said Morland.

25

The woman on desk duty at the Tender House in Bangor was named Molly Bow, and she looked like she should have been fixed to the prow of a sailing ship. She was big and weathered, but attractive in a matronly way, and at one point I had to take a couple of steps back to avoid being crushed by her breasts as she passed me to get to a filing cabinet in her office.

‘Comin’ through,’ she said as I fattened my back against a wall. She gestured at her bosom. ‘I was born large. Backache apart, it’s been useful in life. People make an effort to get out of my way.’

Once again I had an image of a schooner or, better still, a man-of-war cleaving a path through the waves, but I kept my eyes fixed on a neutral spot on the opposite wall, well above chest height.

The Tender House had no signs outside to mark its presence. It was located in a pair of adjoining clapboard buildings surrounded by a white picket fence that was only slightly higher than those of its neighbors. Two cars were parked in the drive, which was secured by an automatically operated steel gate, also painted white. Inside the front door of the main building was a waiting room containing toys, a library of self-help books, boxes of tissues, large containers of secondhand clothes organized according to type and size, from infant to adult, and, in a discreet corner, toothbrushes, toothpaste and toiletries. Behind the reception desk was a small playroom.

The Tender House wasn’t a homeless shelter but rather a ‘crisis center’ for women, where homelessness was only one of the problems it tackled. It catered for victims of domestic and sexual abuse, runaways, and women who simply needed a place to stay while they tried to improve their situation. Its staff liaised with police and the courts, advising on everything from restraining orders to educational and job opportunities, but it generally steered the long-term homeless toward other agencies and centers.

‘Got it,’ said Bow, waving a file. She licked an index finger and flipped through some pages. ‘We had her for about eleven days, apart from the fifth night when someone broke out a couple of half gallons of Ten High over by Cascade Park. We had some sore heads the next day, Annie’s among them.’

‘Was she an alcoholic?’

‘No, I don’t think so. She’d been a user, but she claimed to be clean by the time she arrived at our door. We made it clear to her that we had a zero tolerance policy when it came to drugs. If she got high, she’d be back on the streets.’

‘And alcohol?’

‘Officially we’re down on that too. Unofficially, we give some leeway. Nothing on the premises, and no intoxication. Actually, I was disappointed when Annie came back to us all raw from the Ten High. I had her pegged as a young woman who was genuinely trying to change her life. We sat her down and had a talk with her. Turned out her estranged father had come looking for her, and her presence in town had thrown her. She was offered a sip or two to steady herself, and it all got sort of blurry for her after that.’

‘Did she say anything about her relationship with her father?’

Bow was clearly reluctant to share confidences. I could understand her reservations.

‘Annie is missing, and her father is dead,’ I said.

‘I know that. He hanged himself in a basement down in Portland.’

I gave it a couple of seconds.

‘He was found hanging in a basement in Portland,’ I corrected her. It was minor, but it was important.

Molly sat behind her desk. She’d been standing until then. We both had. As she sat, so did I.

‘Is that why you’re here — because you don’t think it was suicide?’

‘So far I don’t have any proof that it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘A couple of small details are just snagging like briars.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the fact that he loved his daughter, and clearly wanted to reestablish contact with her. He had spoken of heading up here to be closer to her. He’d also gone to a lot of trouble to pull together some money in the days before he died. He succeeded too. Those aren’t the actions of a suicidal man.’

‘What was the money for?’

It struck me that I was on the wrong side of an interrogation: I should have been asking the questions, not her, but sometimes you had to retreat an inch to gain a foot.

‘To support him as he tried to find his daughter. I think he was also hoping to hire me to help look for her.’

‘So how much money did he manage to collect?’

‘More than a hundred dollars.’

‘Do you work that cheap?’

‘Funny, you’re the second person who’s asked me that. I could have given him a couple of hours, or more if I took the time from some of my wealthier clients.’

‘Isn’t that unethical?’

‘Only if I don’t tell them I’m doing it. You pay by the hour, even if the job only takes five minutes. I don’t do fractions. Look, do you think I might get to ask a question at any point?’

Bow smiled. ‘You just did.’

Hell.

She leaned back in her chair, like a reigning champ who had dispensed with another challenger to her crown, then threw me a bone of consolation.

‘I’m joshing with you,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised how many people I get in here asking questions about the women in our care. I have to be careful, for their sakes.’

‘What kind of people?’

‘Sometimes we have women who turn tricks when times are desperate, and a john will come looking for one of them just because he’s a creep, or he’s got a beef about the service he received, or he liked it so much he wants a second bite. We get husbands and boyfriends trying to take back their possessions, because the kind who come storming in here mostly regard women as chattel. Oh, they’ll do their best to dress it up as nicely as they can — they want to talk things over, to give the relationship another try, and they’re sorry for whatever it is that they’ve done, which usually involves a fist or a boot, often with a little domestic rape thrown in along the way — but I’ve developed a nose for the worst of them. It’s not hard. As soon as you put an obstacle in their way the threats start to emerge, but those ones are usually pretty dumb along with it. They mooch around in the hope that they’ll be able to snatch their woman off the street, but we have a good relationship with the Bangor PD, and they’ll get here before I’ve hung up the phone.

‘But we’ve had men try to break in, or beat up volunteers. Last year, one even tried to burn us down by starting a fire at the back door. At the same time, we try to keep channels of communication open between women and their families. This is a place to which women — and their children — come when they’re desperate. It isn’t a long-term solution. We make that clear to them from the start, but I’ve been seeing some of the women who pass through these doors on and off for the past ten years. They just get older and more bruised. There are times when I wonder how far we’ve come as a society where women are concerned. Whenever I turn on the TV to hear some jackass in a blazer bleating about feminists I want to set him on fire, and don’t get me started on those dumb bitches who find themselves on the top of the pile only to reject the whole concept of feminism, as though their success wasn’t built on the struggles of generations of women. I defy them to spend one day here with a forty-year-old woman whose husband has been stubbing out cigarettes on her for so long that he has to search for a spot where it still hurts, or a nineteen-year-old girl who has to wear diapers because of what her stepfather did to her, and tell me that they’re not feminists.’

What was strange about her speech was that, by the end of it, she was still leaning back in her chair and her voice had not grown even slightly louder. It was as though she had seen too much to want to expend valuable energy on useless rage. Better to direct it into more productive channels.

‘And where did Annie ft into all this?’

Molly’s fingers stroked the file, as if Annie Broyer were seated on the floor beside her and she was still capable of consoling her, of offering her some assurance that the world might be gentler with her in time.

‘She was deserted by her father, and her mother died when she was still a teenager. That doesn’t mean she had to become an addict, and find herself on the streets, but she did. She wasn’t weak, though. She had real strength to her. I don’t like to use the word “rescue”, or make out like I’m on some kind of mission to turn around the life of every woman who passes through our doors. It’s just not possible, and we do what we can here, but there was something about Annie, something bright and untouched. It was why I let the drinking go, and the fact that she couldn’t keep curfew to save her life—’

She suddenly stopped talking as she became aware of the dual meaning of what she had just said. A spasm of pain convulsed her, and she looked away.

‘But that’s not what happened, is it?’ I said. ‘She didn’t vanish from the streets in the night.’

‘No,’ she said, once she was certain that her voice would not break, although she still did not look at me. ‘She came in the sunlight, and she packed her bags and left. I wasn’t even here. She asked one of the other volunteers to thank me for what I’d done, but I hadn’t done anything, not really.’

She touched the file again.

‘Do you think she’s dead?’ she asked.

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. I hate to say it, but yes: I have a feeling of absence. I have no sense of her in the world. Do you think—?’

‘What?’

‘Is it possible that her father might have hurt her — killed her — and then taken his own life out of remorse?’

I thought about what I knew of Jude.

‘No, I don’t believe so.’

‘Call me a cynic,’ she said, ‘but I had to ask. He wouldn’t have been the first.’

The office was very quiet for a time. The silence was disturbed by a young woman who appeared at the reception desk from somewhere upstairs. She wore a yellow T-shirt that extended to her thighs, and she was almost unbearably beautiful. She had hair so blond that it shone white, and her skin was without blemish. She held in her arms a girl of two or three who might have been her daughter or, given the youth of the woman who carried her, perhaps even her younger sister. The child had clearly been crying, but the sight of two adults silenced her. She laid her face against the young woman’s neck and watched me carefully.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the older girl. ‘She wants hot milk, but we finished our milk earlier. I was hoping—’

She proffered a plastic cup, the kind with a lid and a perforated mouthpiece.

‘Sure, honey,’ said Molly, accepting the cup. ‘Just take a seat. I won’t be but a minute.’

Molly went to the refrigerator, removed a half-gallon container of milk, and disappeared into the little kitchen that adjoined the reception area. I could see the young woman from where I sat, and she could see me. I smiled at the child in her arms. She didn’t smile back, but peered out from under the safety of the older girl’s chin before burying her face in her chest. I decided not to bother either of them and went back to finding interesting spots on the wall at which to stare. Eventually Molly returned with the hot milk, and the two children — because that’s what they were — vanished back upstairs.

‘Do I even want to know?’ I asked, as Molly returned.

‘It’s bad,’ said Molly, ‘but we’ve had worse. There’s always worse. That’s the hell of it. And we don’t usually allow men on the premises after five, so your presence here probably threw her some. Don’t take it personally. Sorry, where were we?’

‘Annie, and the day she left the shelter.’

‘Right.’

‘I’d like to talk to the woman who saw her last. Is she still here?’

Molly nodded.

‘Candice, but she likes being called Candy.’

‘Will she speak with me?’

‘Probably, but you’ll have to be patient. She’s special. You’ll see …’

Candy was in her late thirties. She wore pink bunny slippers, oversized jeans and a T-shirt that announced she would work for cookies. Her hair was red and unruly, and her face was speckled with acne. Her eyes were slightly too small for her face, but she had a radiant smile. Had Molly not told me beforehand about her, I might not have guessed that she had mild Down syndrome. Molly told me that women like Candy were often referred to as ‘high-functioning’, but it was a phrase that was generally disliked in the Down community as it implied a hierarchy among those with the condition. Candy was the daughter of the shelter’s original founders. Both were now deceased, but Candy remained. She cleaned the rooms, helped around the kitchen and provided company and consolation to those who needed it. As Molly put it, ‘Candy gives good hugs.’

Candy took a seat on the couch in the office while Molly made her a mug of hot chocolate.

‘Not too much marshmallow,’ warned Candy. ‘I’m watching my weight.’

She patted her belly, but still looked disappointed when the hot chocolate arrived with a weight-watcher’s sprinkling of tiny marshmallows.

‘Oh,’ she said. She poked disconsolately at the melting islands of pink and white. ‘Not many marshmallows.’

Molly raised her eyes to heaven.

‘You told me you were watching your weight,’ she said.

‘I am watching my weight,’ said Candy. ‘But I’m not fat. It’s all right. Don’t worry.’

She stuck out her lower lip and gave a long-suffering sigh. Molly went to the kitchen and returned with enough marshmallows to cover the entire surface of the hot chocolate and then some.

‘Thank you,’ said Candy. ‘Very kind.’

She slurped noisily at her drink, and surfaced with a chocolate mustache.

‘Aaahh. That’s good.’

Molly placed a hand on Candy’s arm.

‘Charlie here would like to ask you about Annie,’ she said.

‘Annie?’

‘Yes. You remember Annie.’

Candy nodded.

‘Annie was my friend.’

Molly had said that Candy had been unusually fond of Annie, and Annie in turn had been particularly good with Candy. Some of the women in the shelter found it harder to deal with Candy than others. They treated her like a defective, or a child. Annie did neither. She simply treated Candy as Candy.

‘Do you remember when you saw her last?’ I said.

‘January twenty-second,’ said Candy. ‘A Tuesday.’

‘Can you tell me what you talked about?’

Candy’s eyes welled up.

‘She told me she was going away. Got a job. I was sad. Annie was my friend.’

Molly patted her on the arm again.

‘Did she say where the job was?’ I asked.

‘Prosperous.’ Candy struggled with the word slightly so that it came out as ‘Prospuss.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. She said. She told me she was going to Prospuss. She had a job. Was going to clean, like Candy.’

‘And did she mention who had given her the job?’

Candy thought.

‘No. They had a blue car.’

‘How do you know? Did you see them?’

‘No. Annie told me.’

‘Candy is very interested in cars,’ Molly explained.

‘I like to know colors,’ said Candy. ‘What color is your car?’

‘I have two cars,’ I said.

‘Two cars!’ Candy said, clearly shocked. ‘What color?’

‘One red, and one blue. I used to have a green car too, but—’

‘Yes? But?’

‘I didn’t really like the color.’

Candy considered this. She shook her head.

‘I don’t like green. Like red.’

‘Me too.’

Candy grinned. We’d bonded. Clearly anyone who preferred red cars to green could not be all bad.

‘Annie didn’t tell you the make of car, did she?’ I said.

‘No, just blue.’

‘And the people who owned it, did she tell you anything about them?’

‘They were old.’

She took another sip of her hot chocolate.

‘How old?’ I asked. ‘Older than I am?’

Candy giggled. ‘You’re not old.’

‘So older?’

‘I think so.’ She yawned. ‘Tired. Time for bed.’

We were done. Candy stood to leave, carefully holding her mug of hot chocolate so that it didn’t spill.

‘Candy, is there anything else you can tell me about Annie?’ I said.

The blue car was something, but it wasn’t much.

‘Annie told me she’d write to me,’ said Candy. ‘She promised. But she didn’t write.’

She turned her attention back to Molly.

‘Must go to Prospuss,’ said Candy. ‘Find Annie. Annie’s my friend.’

‘Charlie is going to look for Annie,’ said Molly. ‘Aren’t you, Charlie?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll look for Annie.’

‘Tell her Candy said she must write,’ said Candy. ‘Mustn’t forget her friend Candy.’

With that she trotted off to her room. Molly and I said nothing else until we were sure she was gone.

‘She would have written,’ said Molly. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint Candy.’

She swallowed hard.

‘If I’d been here when she left, I’d have made sure that she gave us details of where she was going. I’d have asked to meet these people who were offering her work. But all of the full-time staff were at a meeting that day with the Department of Health and Human Services over on Griffin Street, and we just had volunteers manning the shelter. Volunteers and Candy.’

Anything I might have had to say would have sounded trite, so I said nothing. Instead I took one of my business cards from my wallet and handed it to her.

‘If you or Candy can think of anything else that might help me, or if anyone else comes around asking about Annie, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call. Also …’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t think Candy should talk too much about that blue car. I think it might be better if she kept it to herself.’

‘I understand. We didn’t lie to Candy, did we? You are going to keep looking for Annie? I mean, I’d hire you myself if I could afford to.’

‘You forget: I work cheap.’

This time she didn’t smile.

‘Somehow, I don’t believe that’s true. What you charge and how you work are two different things.’

I shook her hand. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Molly showed me to the door. As she opened it, there was movement behind us. Candy was sitting on the stairs, just out of sight of the office.

She was crying, crying beyond consolation.

I found Shaky in his bed at the Oxford Street Shelter. They’d done their best to keep him comfortable while the wound to his head was healing. He still had a headache, and his scalp had begun to itch, but otherwise he was doing as well as could be expected for someone who had been hit over the head with a liquor bottle. I put him in my car and took him to the Bear for a burger and a beer. When he was settled into his seat with a rodeo burger on order and a Shipyard Old Thumper in a glass before him, and Cupcake Cathy had fussed over him some, I told him a little of the day I’d had. After all, I was working for him. I’d made him pay me a dollar while he was lying on the hospital gurney. One of the nurses had taken it amiss, and my reputation at Maine Medical was now probably lower than most ambulance chasers.

‘So he definitely went to Prosperous?’ said Shaky.

‘He didn’t just go there, he got run out of town. Twice. The first time politely, the second time less so.’

‘He could be a stubborn man,’ said Shaky.

‘He was a bright one too,’ I said. ‘Brighter than I am at least, because I’m still not sure what he was doing nosing around an old church.’

‘Do you believe what that cop told you?’

‘I’ve no reason not to. The job Jude’s daughter spoke of could have fallen through. She might have changed her mind about it, or that old couple, if they existed at all, could have reconsidered their Good Samaritanism while she left to get her bags. Or she might just have been unlucky.’

‘Unlucky?’

‘She was a vulnerable woman living on the streets. There are men out there who’d regard someone like her as easy prey.’

Shaky nodded and took a long sip of his beer.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve met enough of them in my time, and they don’t all sleep on mats on floors.’

‘You may be right,’ I said. ‘In my experience the worst of them wear suits and drive nice, well-maintained vehicles. But one thing is certain: as far as the services in Bangor are concerned, Annie dropped off the radar on the day she spoke about that job. I went by the women’s shelter on my way back down here, and nobody has seen or heard from her since then.’

‘And this woman, this Candy, she’s certain Annie said she was going to Prosperous?’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean Prosperous is where she ended up.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Go back there. Look for a blue car. See what happens.’

‘Wow, good plan. You have it all worked out. And people pay you for that?’

‘Not a lot,’ I said, pointedly. ‘And, sometimes, not at all.’

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.’

Morland said nothing, but began gathering up what he could retrieve of the remains. Harry joined him. They couldn’t find all of the girl. The wolf, or some other scavenger, had carried parts of her away. There was an arm missing, and most of one leg.

Evidence, thought Morland. It’s evidence. It would have to be found. For now, all he could do was put what they could collect of the girl into more of the plastic sheeting, put it in the car and refill the grave. Nothing like this, nothing so terrible, so unlucky, had happened in Prosperous for generations. If the girl hadn’t run. If Dixon and his bitch wife hadn’t let her escape …

Morland wanted to punch Harry. He wanted to kill him. It was the Dixons’ fault, all of it. Even if Harry and Erin located a suitable girl, Morland would find a way to make them pay. Hell, if Erin herself wasn’t so fucking old and worn, they could have used her. But no, the town didn’t feed on its own. It never had. Those from within who transgressed had always been dealt with in a different way. There were rules.

They taped up the plastic, forming three packages of body parts. After that they drove north for an hour, far beyond Prosperous, and reburied what was left of the girl. The stench of her stayed with them both all the way to town. Later, back in their own homes, both men scrubbed and showered, but still they could smell her.

Erin Dixon knocked at the bathroom door fifteen minutes after the shower had stopped running and her husband had still not emerged. Bryan Joblin had fallen asleep in the armchair by the fire. She had thought about killing him. She was thinking about killing a lot lately.

‘Harry?’ she called. ‘Are you okay?’

From inside the bathroom she heard the sound of weeping. She tried the door. It was unlocked.

Her husband was sitting on the edge of the tub, a towel wrapped around his waist and his face buried in his hands. She sat beside him and held him to her.

‘Can you smell it?’ he asked her.

She sniffed him, smelling his hair and his skin. She detected only soap.

‘You smell fine,’ she said. ‘You want to tell me what happened?’

‘No.’

She went to the bathroom doorway and listened. She could still hear the sound of Joblin snoring. She closed the door and returned to her husband, but she kept her voice to a whisper, just in case.

‘Marie Nesbit called me earlier on my cell phone while that asshole was snoring his head off,’ she said.

Marie was Erin’s closest friend. She worked as a secretary at the town office, and was from one of the founding families, just like the Dixons. Her husband Art was an alcoholic, but gentle and sad for the most part rather than violent. Erin had long provided her with a sympathetic ear.

‘She told me that a detective came to town, asking about the girl.’

Harry had stopped weeping.

‘Police?’

‘No, a private investigator, like on TV.’

‘Did she say who had hired him?’

‘No. She only overheard the start of what he had to say. She didn’t want to be seen spying.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Parker. Charlie Parker. I googled him on my phone, then erased the history. He’s been in the newspapers.’

So that’s why Morland wanted the girl’s body moved. The detective had come, and Morland had gotten scared. No, not just Morland. He might have been chief, but Morland did what he was told to do by the board. The order to dig up the corpse had probably come from Hayley Conyer herself, but a wolf had reached it first. First the girl, then the detective, now the wolf. The town was starting to unravel.

‘Harry,’ said Erin. ‘I’ve decided: I’m not going to find them another girl.’

He nodded. How could they, after setting the last one free? How could a couple who had wished for, but never been given, their own daughter collude in the killing of someone else’s child?

‘They’ll be monitoring the detective,’ said Harry. ‘That’s how they work. We can’t contact him, not yet. Maybe not ever.’

‘So what will we do?’

‘It’s like I said. We’ll leave, and soon. After that we’ll decide.’

Erin gripped his hand. He squeezed it in return.

‘When?’

‘A couple of days. No more than that.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

She kissed him. His mouth opened beneath hers, but before they could go any further they were disturbed by a knocking on the door and Bryan Joblin said, ‘Hey, are you two in there?’

Erin went to the door and unlocked it. Joblin stood bleary-eyed before her, smelling of his cheap beer. He took in Erin, and Harry standing behind her, his towel around his waist, his body angled to hide his now diminishing hard-on.

‘Havin’ some fun?’ said Joblin. ‘Shit, you got a bedroom. We all got to use this room, and I need to piss …’

28

Chief Morland rarely dreamed. He was curious about this fact. He understood that everybody dreamed, even if they didn’t always remember their dreams when they woke, but they could retain details of some of them at least. His wife dreamed a lot, and she had a recall of her dreams that bordered on the exhaustive. Morland could only bring to mind a handful of occasions on which he had woken with some memory of his dreams. He couldn’t associate them with any particularly difficult or traumatic moments in his life. It wasn’t as though his father died, and that night he dreamed, or he was plagued by nightmares following the time he nearly sent his car into a ditch at high speed after sliding on black ice, and was certain that his moment had come. He couldn’t pinpoint that kind of cause and effect.

But he dreamed on the night that he and Harry Dixon found the girl’s scattered remains. He’d gone to bed late because he’d been thinking about the wolf. He should have believed Dixon on that first night, when he claimed to have seen an animal on the road. He should have connected the sighting with the garbage bags that had been torn apart, and Elspeth Ramsay’s missing dog, but his mind was on other matters, like a girl with a hole in her chest, and the Dixons and their tales of cloth and wood splinters, and the slow decline in the fortunes of his town that had to be arrested.

And it had been decades since a wolf was last seen in the state. The St Lawrence formed a natural barrier, keeping them in Canada, and that suited Morland just fine. He was aware that some in Maine were in favor of the reintroduction of wolves, arguing that they’d been an important part of the ecosystem until they’d been slaughtered out of existence. You could make the same argument for dinosaurs and saber-toothed cats as far as Morland was concerned, but that wasn’t a reason for trying to bring them back. What might happen to a kid who got lost in the woods, maybe separated from parents who were hiking the trails? What about an adult stumbling and breaking a leg, and suddenly finding himself surrounded by a wolf pack — what would happen then? The same thing that happened to Elspeth Ramsay’s hound, perhaps, or the same thing that happened to the girl, except at least she was dead when the wolf started to gnaw on her. The world was full of do-gooders, but it was left to men like Morland to clean up their mess.

He poured himself a finger of bourbon. Just as he rarely dreamed, so too he only occasionally consumed hard liquor. He wondered if the two might not be connected. Didn’t matter. Tonight was different. Tonight he’d gone to dig up a body and found that a wolf had done it for him, forcing him to scrabble in the dirt for bone and rotting meat and scraps of plastic and cloth. He’d seen dead bodies before — suicides, accidental shootings, traffic collisions, and the regular actions of mortality that called for the local cops to break a window or kick in a door because someone had been selfish enough to pass away without giving prior notice to his friends, relatives and neighbors. Morland had never killed anyone himself, unlike his old man, but Daniel Morland had prepared his son well for the responsibility that would eventually pass to him when he became chief of police, and Morland had been surprised at how dispassionately he’d viewed the girl’s body following the shooting. It reminded him of the sense of passing sadness he felt upon looking down at a deer felled in the course of a hunt.

He took a sip of bourbon and tried to pretend he was chief of police in a normal town. A ‘normal town’: his own words made him laugh aloud, and he covered his mouth like a child who feared being caught doing something naughty. The only thing normal about Prosperous was the way it proved that, over time, individuals could habituate themselves to the most appalling behavior. So many of the townsfolk, even the ones most closely involved in its secrets, regarded themselves as ‘good’ people, and not without reason. They looked after their families, and they abided, for the most part, by the law. Politically, Prosperous was the most liberal town in this part of Maine: Proposition 1 to allow same-sex marriage in the state had passed by as much of a majority in Prosperous as it had in Portland, and it leaned slightly Democrat or liberal independent in elections. But the older citizens of Prosperous understood that the town was built on a lie, or a truth too terrible to be named. Some of them preferred to pretend not to know, and nobody begrudged them their show of ignorance. They weren’t suited to leadership. In the end it always came down to the original families, to the founders. They looked after the town for all.

Morland finished his drink. He should have called Hayley Conyer to tell her of the wolf and the turmoil at the grave site, but he did not. He’d had his fill of Hayley. The call could wait until the morning. Tomorrow he would see about putting together a hunting party, and they’d find the wolf and kill it quietly. Thomas Souleby had an old hound that might be useful in picking up the wolf’s scent. Morland didn’t know much about hunting wolves, apart from what he’d learned that evening from Google, but opinion seemed to be divided on the usefulness of packs of dogs in a hunt. Some said that a wolf would run from them, but in Wisconsin a couple of hundred dead hunting dogs said otherwise. Elspeth Ramsay’s missing mongrel suggested that this wolf wasn’t above taking down a domestic animal if it had the chance. No matter: Prosperous wasn’t overflowing with the kind of dogs that might be useful in a confrontation with a wolf anyway, not unless he had missed a news flash about the hidden strength of labradoodles. Trapping seemed to be the most effective way to deal with the animal, but they might be lucky enough to get it under their guns first, although right now luck was in short supply.

He went to bed. He kissed his wife. She mumbled something in her sleep.

He dreamed.

In his dream, Prosperous was burning.

The headlines in the newspapers over the days that followed were all very similar: TRIPLE TRAGEDY STRIKES SMALL TOWN; MAINE TOWN MOURNS ITS DEAD; TROUBLE COMES IN THREES FOR CLOSEKNIT COMMUNITY …

In Afghanistan, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter carrying four US ‘military advisors’ and crew went down in Kandahar. Three of the men survived the crash, which was caused by a mechanical failure, but they did not survive the firefight with the Taliban that followed. In the shadowy corners of the Internet a photograph circulated of three severed heads placed in a line on the sand. Two of them were identified as Captain Mark Tabart and Staff Sergeant Jeremy Cutter, both natives of Prosperous, Maine.

On the same day that the two soldiers died, a woman named Valerie Gillson rounded a bend between Dearden and Prosperous and saw a wounded fawn lying in the middle of the road. The animal appeared to have been struck by a vehicle, for its back legs were twisted and broken. It scrabbled at the road with its front hooves and thrashed its head in agony. Valerie stepped from her car. She couldn’t leave the animal in distress, and she couldn’t run it over to put it out of its agony: she’d never be able to drive her car again. She took out her cell phone and called the police department in Prosperous. Chief Morland would know what to do. The number rang, and Marie Nesbit, who was on dispatch duty that day, picked up the call.

‘Hi, Marie? This is Valerie Gillson. Yes, I’m fine, but I’m about a mile south of town and there’s a wounded deer in the middle of the road. It’s in a lot of pain and I don’t—’

She stopped talking. She had just noticed that there was something tangled around the back legs of the deer. It looked like wire. No, not wire: roots, or thick briars — she wasn’t sure which. They extended into the undergrowth. It was almost as if the wounded deer had been placed there as bait. Instinctively she raised her phone and took a photograph of the deer’s legs.

She heard Marie’s voice asking if she was still okay.

‘Sorry, Marie, I just noticed—’

Valerie Gillson never got to tell Marie what she had seen because at that moment a logging company truck took the bend behind her just a fraction too fast. The driver swerved to avoid the car and struck Valerie instead, killing her instantly. Her cell phone was recovered in the aftermath. On it was the last photograph that Valerie had taken: the hindquarters of a deer, its legs entwined with dark roots.

But of the deer itself, there was no sign.

And in the gunsmithery at the back of his store, Ben Pearson was carrying his favorite hunting rife to the workbench. The gun was the same one that he had used to kill Annie Broyer. Chief Morland had advised him to get rid of it, and Ben knew it made sense to do as Morland said. The bullet had gone straight through the girl, and Ben hadn’t been able to find any trace of it, try as he might. The rife linked him to murder, and it didn’t matter how much time and effort he’d put into customizing it so that there wasn’t a gun to rival it for miles. It had to be taken apart and destroyed.

He had been thinking a lot about the dead girl. He didn’t regret what he’d done. If she’d escaped, that would have been the end for all of them, but he had a lingering sense of transgression. The girl hadn’t been his to kill. She had been sourced for a particular reason. She was the town’s girl. She belonged to Prosperous, and her life was the town’s to take. By killing her, he had deprived it of its due. That had never happened before, not in the long history of the community. Ben feared that, if another girl wasn’t found soon, there could be repercussions. He would bury the rife in the woods. It would represent his own small sacrifice, an act of recompense.

For the first, and last, time, Ben stumbled in his workshop, a place that he had known for decades. As he fell, his finger slipped inside the trigger guard. The rife should not have been loaded. As far as Ben was concerned, the rife could not have been loaded. He was obsessively careful about such matters, and never left a round chambered.

The bullet tore through his chest, nicking his heart.

And he held his beloved rife in his arms as he died.

29

I had been anticipating the call from Euclid Dane ever since the first reports began to link the deaths of the soldiers in Afghanistan to the town of Prosperous. A traffic fatality and an apparently accidental shooting in the same town in the space of twenty-four hours would have been unlikely to attract quite the same degree of media interest, but the addition of the military casualties, and the manner in which the soldiers had died, brought attention to Prosperous, and not just from the local and state outlets. The nationals turned their gaze on the town, and it was featured on the websites of the New York Times and USA Today. The task of dealing with the media fell to Hayley Conyer, the head of the board of selectmen. (One unfortunate local TV reporter inadvertently referred to it as the board of ‘selectpersons’ within earshot of Conyer, and was lucky to escape with his life.) She handled her role well. She was polite, dignified, and distant. She gave the reporters just enough to keep them from prying further, but in repeating the same soundbites over and over, along with ongoing pleas for privacy, she managed to dull their curiosity. Prosperous weathered the storm of attention for a few days, and then subsided into a traumatized calm.

Euclid called me on the third day, when Prosperous was already starting to slide from prominence in the bulletins.

‘Looks like Prosperous has emptied its barrel of good fortune,’ he said. He didn’t sound triumphant, but concerned.

‘It happens,’ I said.

‘Not to Prosperous.’

‘I guess they’ll just have to deal with it.’

‘That’s what worries me. I received a call early this morning. There was no caller ID. The voice was male, but I didn’t recognize it. He told me that my bullshit wasn’t going to be tolerated any longer, and if I didn’t keep my mouth shut I’d be put in a hole in the ground, and my bitch sister too. His words, not mine. I like my sister, apart from her cooking. I was also warned not to go shooting my mouth off to strangers in Benny’s.’

‘Somebody ratted you out.’

‘Money’s scarce in Dearden, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was being paid a little on the side to keep an eye on me, but I thought you should know about the call. With all that’s happened over the last day or two, Prosperous is going to be in pain, and wounded animals lash out.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you, Mr Danes.’

Euclid Danes said goodbye and hung up.

I waited until the remains of the soldiers were repatriated, and the bodies laid in the ground, before I returned to Prosperous.

It was Pastor Warraner’s daughter who alerted him to the presence of a man in the cemetery.

Warraner had almost finished the final detailing on the last of the kitchen cabinets. It was an out-of-town order from a banker and his wife in Rockland, and they hadn’t even blinked at his estimate, even though he’d added a premium of twenty percent to what was already an expensive quote. The recent tragedies, and their implications for the town, would not force him to miss his deadline. He was already a week ahead when the deaths occurred, for which he was grateful: he could not work well with fear in his heart, and his pace had slowed during the Prosperous’s recent troubles.

The board was scheduled to meet the following evening, now that the media circus had collapsed its tents and departed to seek out new miseries and misfortunes. Warraner had pressed for an earlier conclave but Hayley Conyer had resisted. The presence of the newspapers and TV cameras, and the unwelcome attention they brought on Prosperous, had disturbed her, adding to her shock and grief at the four deaths. She and Ben Pearson had been close, even though their personalities had differed vastly. There was an element of the Brahmin to Hayley, while Ben had been an earthy Mainer through and through. Unlike so many others in Prosperous, Ben Pearson had no fear of Hayley Conyer, and she had admired his independence of thought. It made her respect his opinion more than those of the other board members, and she usually tended to listen when he disagreed with her, and adapt her views and actions accordingly.

Now there was another vacancy on the board. Under ordinary circumstances, the remaining members would have come up with the names of suitable candidates and presented them to the townsfolk for rubber-stamping, but Prosperous was in crisis and this was not the time for an election. The board would continue with only five members, and Morland and Warraner would remain as observers who could offer advice and arguments, but were still not entitled to vote.

The soldiers, along with Valerie Gillson and Ben Pearson, were all buried in the new cemetery to the south. Nobody had been interred in the grounds of the old church since the end of the last century, not even deceased members of the senior families whose surnames already adorned so many stones in the churchyard. It was Warraner’s father who had decreed that the cemetery was now closed to interments, and nobody had questioned his decision. The only reason he had given was this:

Why risk disturbing what is at rest?

In recent days his son had issued an even more restrictive edict. The cemetery and church were out of bounds to all. Nobody was to trespass there, and while the media was in town Morland and his deputies, aided by the most trustworthy of the younger citizens, had maintained a twenty-four-hour vigil to ensure that visitors and reporters were kept away. Had Warraner been asked for a reason, he would have given this one:

Why risk disturbing further what is no longer at rest?

Now here was his youngest daughter telling him that a man was walking among the stones, and taking photographs of the church with his phone. Warraner was so incensed that he did not even go to the house to get a coat but ran in his shirtsleeves through the woods, ignoring the cold, ignoring too the branches that pulled at him even as he recalled the final photograph on Valerie Gillson’s cell phone, the image of a deer with its legs bound by briars, a deer that had been crippled and laid out as bait …

He burst from the woods and saw the intruder.

‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘That’s private property and sacred ground. You’ve no right to be in there.’

The stranger turned, and at the sight of him Pastor Warraner immediately understood that the town’s troubles had just increased considerably.

I watched Warraner as he came to a halt at the iron railing that surrounded the cemetery. He was breathing heavily, and a scratch to his neck was bleeding into his shirt collar.

‘What are you doing in the cemetery?’ he asked.

I walked toward him. He watched my progress carefully.

‘Same as last time,’ I said. ‘Trying to find a missing girl.’

‘She’s not here, and you’re disturbing the peace of the dead.’

I sidestepped a tilting stone cross. The names and dates on it were so old and faded as to be entirely illegible.

‘Really? I’ve found that it takes a lot to wake the dead, unless some were never quite asleep to begin with.’

‘This is neither the time nor the place for mockery, Mr Parker. Our town has been through a difficult period.’

‘I’m aware of that, Mr Warraner,’ I said. ‘And I’m entirely serious.’

I was facing him now. His hands gripped the railing so tightly that his knuckles showed white against his skin. I turned to the right and continued walking, forcing him to keep pace with me.

‘The gate is to your left,’ he said.

‘I know. That’s how I got in.’

‘It’s locked.’

‘It was locked. I found it open.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I suppose you could call Chief Morland and ask him to dust it for fingerprints. Or you could just buy a better lock.’

‘I fully intend to call Chief Morland,’ said Warraner. ‘I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.’

His hands searched his pockets for his cell phone but came up empty. I offered him mine instead.

‘Feel free to call, but I was planning to pay him another visit anyway, just as soon as I’ve finished here.’

I saw that Warraner was tempted to take my phone, but even he could appreciate the absurdity of doing so. The threat of police involvement was of limited effectiveness if the person being threatened was only a middleman away from calling the cops on himself.

‘What do you want, Mr Parker?’ he said.

I paused beside a hole in the ground. It was similar to the one that Euclid Danes had pointed out to me close to the edge of his own land.

‘I was wondering what this might be?’

I had stumbled across the hole by accident — literally: I had almost broken my ankle in it.

‘It’s a fox den,’ he said.

‘Really?’

I knelt and examined it. An active den usually retained signs of the animal’s comings and goings, but this had none. The ground around it was undisturbed.

‘It’s big for a fox hole,’ I said, ‘and I don’t see any sign of foxes.’

‘It’s an old den,’ said Warraner. Hostility flowed from him in waves.

‘Do you have many old dens around here?’

‘Possibly. I’ve never taken the time to count them. For the last time, I want you to leave this place. Now.’

If we’d both been nine years old and in a schoolyard I could have asked him to make me, or inquired about what he might do if I refused, but it didn’t seem appropriate in a cemetery, and I’d annoyed him enough for now. He tracked me back to the gate, and examined the lock once I was back on the right side of the fence. I hadn’t been forced to break it: two decades of friendship with Angel had taught me the rudiments of picking. Warraner wrapped the chain from gate to fence and secured it.

‘Do you want to follow me to the police department?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Warraner. ‘I know you’ll go there. You have more questions to ask, don’t you? Why can’t you just leave us in peace?’

‘Questions always remain, even when things work out. It comes with the territory.’

‘With being a self-righteous prick who can’t allow a town to mourn its dead?’

He savored the word ‘prick’. I’d been called worse, but not by anyone with a degree in divinity.

‘No, with being human. You should try it, Mr Warraner, or Pastor Warraner, or whatever title you’ve chosen to give yourself. Your dead are past caring, and your mourning will do them no good. I’m searching for a missing girl. If she’s alive, she’s in trouble. If she’s dead, someone else is. As an individual who professes to be a man of God, I’d suggest that your compassion is currently misdirected.’

Warraner plunged his hands into the pockets of his jeans as though fearing the damage he might otherwise inflict upon me. He was a big man, and strong as well. If he got his hands on me he’d do some harm. Of course, I’d shatter one of his knees before he got that close, but it wouldn’t look good on my résumé. Still, all of his weight was on his left leg, which was ramrod straight. If he moved, I’d take him.

Warraner breathed deeply to calm himself and recover his dignity. The moment passed.

‘You know nothing of my god, Mr Parker,’ he said solemnly.

I looked past him and took in the ancient stones of his church, and the leering faces visible in the fading afternoon light.

‘You may be wrong about that, Pastor.’

He stayed at the gate as I drove away, his hands deep in his pockets, his gaze fixed upon me, standing in the shadow of his church.

In the shadow of his god.

30

Chief Morland was looking out the window of his office as I pulled up outside his department. If he was pleased to see me, he was trying manfully to hide it. His arms were folded, and he stared at me without expression as I walked up the path. Inside there was a strained silence among the staff, and I guessed that not long before Chief Morland had been shouting into a telephone receiver at Pastor Warraner. Nobody offered me coffee and a cookie. Nobody even wanted to catch my eye.

Morland’s door was open. I stood on the threshold.

‘Mind if I come in?’

He unfolded his arms. ‘Would it matter if I did?’

‘I can talk to you from here, but it seems kind of childish.’

Morland gestured me inside and told me to close the door. He waited for me to sit before doing the same himself.

‘You’ve been keeping my phone busy,’ he said.

‘Warraner?’

‘The pastor was just the most recent caller. We’ve had reports of a man in a car like yours casing properties, and I already sent a deputy out to take a look. If you’d been driving your fancy Mustang I’d have known it was you, but you seem to have left your toy automobile back in Portland today.’

‘I was trying to be discreet.’

‘The pastor didn’t think so. Maybe you failed to notice the sign that read “Private Property” out by the cemetery?’

‘If I paid attention to every sign that read “Private Property” or “No Entry”, I’d never get anything done. Besides, I figured that after the last tour I was practically a member of the congregation.’

‘It doesn’t have a congregation.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that. I still find it strange that a religious sect would go to the trouble of hauling a church across the Atlantic, rebuild it brick by brick, and then just shrug and walk off.’

‘They died out.’

‘You’re speaking metaphorically, right? Because the descendants of the original settlers are still here. This town has more old names than the Bible.’

‘I’m no historian, but there are plenty of folk in this town who consider themselves one,’ said Morland. ‘The Familists faded away. I’ve heard it said that the worst thing to happen to the Family of Love was leaving England. They survived because they were hunted and oppressed, and there’s nothing guaranteed to harden a man’s convictions more than to be told he can’t follow his own beliefs. With freedom to worship also came the freedom not to worship.’

‘And where do you worship, Chief?’

‘I’m a Catholic. I go to Mary Immaculate down in Dearden.’

‘Are you familiar with a man there called Euclid Danes?’

‘Euclid’s a Methodist, although they’d disown him if they weren’t so short on bodies to fill their seats. How do you know him?’

He didn’t blink, didn’t look away, didn’t rub his left ear with his right hand or scratch his nose or whatever it is that men and women are supposed to do when they’re lying or trying to hide knowledge, but he might just as well have. Morland was well aware that I’d been speaking with Euclid Danes. He wouldn’t have been much of a chief of police if he wasn’t, not in a town like Prosperous. So he pretended, and I let him pretend, and each of us watched the other act.

‘I found him on the Internet,’ I said.

‘Looking for a date?’

‘He’s a little old for me, although I bet he cleans up nicely.’

‘Euclid’s not very popular in this town.’

‘He wears it as a badge of pride. In his place, I might do the same. Are you aware that he’s been threatened?’

‘He’s always being threatened. Doesn’t do much good, though.’

‘You sound almost as though you approve.’

‘He’s one stubborn man standing in the way of the expansion of a town and the money that would bring into the local economy.’

‘As you yourself said, there’s nothing likely to make a certain kind of man more resolute than to find himself threatened for his beliefs.’

‘I don’t think the First Amendment guarantees your right to be an asshole.’

‘I think that’s precisely what it does.’

Morland threw his hands in the air in despair. ‘Jesus, if I closed my eyes I could almost be talking to Danes himself, and you don’t know how unhappy that makes me. So you talked to Danes? Go you. I’ll bet he told you all about how rich old Prosperous is bad, and its people are jerks just because they look after their own. I could give a fuck what Danes says. We’re weathering the recession, and we’re doing okay. You know why? Because we support one another, because we’re closeknit, and that’s helped us get through the bad times.

‘In case you haven’t noticed, Mr Parker, this town has taken a kicking recently. Instead of busting into old cemeteries, you should go to the new one and pay your respects to the two boys we just buried there. Their crosses won’t be hard to find. They have fags beside them. Close by you’ll find fresh earth over Valerie Gillson’s grave, and the messages her kids left on it for her. Look to your right and a pile of flowers marks where Ben Pearson is resting. Four dead in twenty-four hours, a town in mourning, and I have to deal with your bullshit.’

He had a point. I just chose to ignore it.

‘I’m looking for an older couple,’ I said, as though he had never spoken. ‘Sixties at least, at a guess, although you know how young people are: when you’re in your twenties, everyone over forty looks old. This couple owns a blue car. I saw a few blue cars during my ride through your very clean town, but I resisted the impulse to start knocking on doors until we’d spoken. You could save me time by giving me the names and addresses of anyone who might ft the criteria.’

I took a small hardback notebook from my pocket, slipped the minipen from the spine, and waited. I felt like a secretary poised to take dictation.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Morland.

‘I have a witness who says that the people who took Annie Broyer to this town were an older couple in a blue car. I thought I might try talking to older couples with blue cars. Sometimes the simplest options are the best. You’re welcome to come along, unless you’re preparing some more stump speeches.’

There was a knock at the door behind me.

‘Not now,’ said Morland.

The door opened a fraction. I turned to see one of the secretaries poke her head in.

‘Chief, I—’

‘I said, “Not now!”’

The door quickly closed again. Morland hadn’t taken his eyes from me throughout the brief exchange.

‘I told you when you came through last time that there’s no evidence the woman you’re looking for ended up in Prosperous.’

‘I think she did.’

‘Has she been reported missing?’

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘So you’re looking for a street person, a former junkie, who has probably fallen back into her old ways, and you want me to help you accuse seniors of kidnapping her?’

‘Seniors, and younger,’ I corrected. ‘And only ones with access to a blue car.’

‘Get out.’

I closed my notebook and restored the minipen to the spine.

‘I guess I’ll just have to go through the DMV.’

‘You do that. Nobody here fits your bill. That girl is not in Prosperous. If I see you within the town limits again, you’ll be charged with trespass and harassment.’

I stood. I’d filled my aggravation quota for the day.

‘Thank you for your time, Chief,’ I said, as I left the office. ‘You’ve been a big help.’

He took it as sarcasm — I could see it on his face — but I was speaking the truth.

I had never told Morland that Annie Broyer was an ex-junkie.

The wolf continued to circle the town. He had returned to the place in which he found the store of meat and bone below ground, but only the scent of it remained now. For a time the streets had been filled with even more light and noise and men than before, and the activity had caused the wolf to fee into the woods, but his hunger had driven him back. He tore apart a garbage bag and fed on the chicken carcasses he smelled inside before slipping back into the woods. He remained thin, and even through the double layer of his fur his ribs shone sharply carved. The temperature had started to drop again: that night it would plummet to -7 degrees. The wolf’s thick sub-cuticle of fat had become depleted over the winter months as his body fed upon itself. The food from the town was sustaining him, but the damage had already been done. Instinct warned him to seek shelter from the cold, to find a dark hidden place with warmth. In his youth, members of the pack had sometimes colonized abandoned fox dens, and the wolf now sought a hole in the ground in which to hide. The pain was spreading through his body, and he could put no weight on his damaged limb.

South of the town, he picked up the smell of a deer. The spoor was old, but the wolf identified the pain and panic that had marked the deer’s final moments. He paused, wary now. The deer had died in terror, and beneath the sweet stink of prey the wolf could detect another smell, one that was unfamiliar and yet set his senses jangling. The wolf had no predators, aside from man. He would even take on a grizzly in a fight for food, and his pack had once come upon, and consumed, a hibernating black bear. The fear that the wolf now felt reminded him of his fear of man, yet this was no man.

But the scent of the deer drew the wolf on. The wolf fattened his ears against his head and arched his back as a car passed. The light vanished, the sound faded, and he continued to pick his way through the trees until at last he came to a clearing.

In the clearing was a hole. Beside it, almost hidden by roots and branches, lay the deer. The wolf narrowed his eyes and pulled back his ears. His tail pointed straight out, parallel to the ground. The threat came from the hole. Now the wolf snarled, and his fur bristled. He crouched in anticipation of an attack. His senses were flooded by the smell of the deer. He would fight to eat.

And then the wolf’s tail moved, withdrawing fully between his legs. He thrust out his tongue and lowered his hindquarters, his eyes still fixed on the hole but his muzzle pointing up. His back arched again, just as it had when the car passed, but this time it was a gesture not of fear but of active submission, the respect that one animal pays to the dominant other. Finally the wolf approached the deer while maintaining a careful distance from the hole. Briars entangled around the deer’s hind legs came away easily as the wolf pulled at the remains. Despite his weariness and hunger, he did not start to feed until he had managed to drag the deer as far from the hole in the ground as he could. The smell of danger grew fainter. The threat from the dominant animal was receding, moving farther away.

Moving deeper into the earth.

The doorbell rang in Chief Morland’s house. Morland’s wife went to answer, but he told her that he would take care of it. He had barely spoken to her since coming home, and had not eaten dinner with the family. His wife said nothing, and did not object. Her husband rarely behaved in this way, but when he did he usually had good cause, and she knew better than to press him on it. He would tell her of his troubles in his own time.

Thomas Souleby stood on the doorstep. Beside him was a man whom Morland did not know. He wore heavy tan boots, and his body was hidden beneath layers of clothing. His red beard was thick, flecked here and there with gray. In his right hand he held a wolf trap on a length of chain.

The two visitors entered the house, and the door closed softly behind them.