He leaned forward, gazing up into Dobey’s downturned face.
‘Vernay is dead. I thought you might like to know that. He was, even by the lowest of standards, a wretched specimen, although perhaps Karis told you enough about him for you to be aware of this already. He thrived on rape, but a taste for rape will eventually land a man in jail, so Vernay decided to sacrifice the novelty of fresh meat for the security of the familiar. I think Karis was perhaps the second or third woman he’d taken, although he claimed to have held her in genuine affection. It was what made her different, he said, although eventually she’d have ended up like the others, sleeping in the dirt beneath his basement floor. I believe he was considering letting her child live. I didn’t bother to ask him why, for obvious reasons. As you yourself noted, there’s only so much a man can bear to hear.
‘Of course, it’s possible that one of the others might also have become pregnant by Vernay, but didn’t carry to term. Again, it wasn’t a subject I cared to pursue. Clearly, though, Karis’s pregnancy caused Vernay to take a new approach. Perhaps he just liked the idea of growing his own victim, because he never struck me as the paternal kind.
‘But when Karis disappeared, it became important that Vernay should also disappear. If she began talking to the right people, who knew what forces might arrive at Vernay’s door? Karis, Karis: what trouble you have caused us all.’
Quayle checked his watch.
‘We really must be going, Mr Dobey. Think of your fine widow. Think of your young staff. Tell us the truth, and we’ll be far from here before any of them wakes to the dawn. But if I find out later that you’ve lied, I guarantee we’ll come back and continue our investigations through them.’
Dobey began to sob. He’d managed to restrain himself until now, but it was all coming to an end, and he did not want his last act on this earth to be the betrayal of Karis Lamb.
‘We sent her to a safe house in Chicago,’ he said, ‘but she only stayed one night. When the volunteer went to check on her, she was already gone. But she called me about a week later. She wanted to thank me, and let me know she was okay.’
‘And where did she call from?’
‘Portland, Maine.’
‘Who was the contact there?’
‘There was none, or no one I can name. By then, Karis was on her own. She said she was heading to Canada.’
‘And that’s all you know?’
‘Yes, I swear.’
Quayle stood.
‘Then we’re done.’
Mors approached Dobey for the final time, still holding her surgical pouch. Dobey tried to pull away, fearing the scalpel, but Quayle restrained him while the woman produced not a blade, but a bottle and a syringe.
‘It won’t hurt,’ said Quayle. ‘It will be just like falling asleep.’
Mors filled the syringe, tapped the needle, and reached for Dobey’s left arm. And as the point pierced his skin, Dobey spoke to Quayle.
‘You’re dead and you don’t even know it.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
Dobey felt the drug invade his veins, progressing rapidly up his arm to his shoulder.
As his eyes began to close, he said, ‘Out there is someone who will put an end to you. You’ll be torn apart, and no one will give a damn except to celebrate your passing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Quayle. ‘The world does not work that way.’
‘You know,’ said Dobey, ‘you talk too much.’
And thus he died.
16
Not only a skull now: ribs, a femur, finger bones intertwined over a female pelvic cavity, here and there the yellow masses of saponification, partly shrouded in brownish-gray skin and the tattered remnants of the clothing and sacking in which the woman had been interred.
Because sometimes the dead rise, and wake to a dream of life.
17
Parker’s meeting with Moxie Castin was postponed for a few days due to an indisposition on the lawyer’s part, which Parker put down to Moxie’s consistent ingestion of sugary carbonated beverages, but which the lawyer claimed was flu.
The delay was fortunate, because the black dog came upon Parker, a sadness that turned the world to gray. He retreated to his home, turned off his phone, and waited for Jennifer to come.
And to the north, the men and women gathered in ever-greater numbers: police and wardens; experts in bodies and experts in bone; all in the service of nameless remains.
All for the woman in the woods.
18
Holly Weaver stood by Daniel’s bed. She hadn’t read him a story that night, or the night before. When she offered, Daniel replied only that he was tired, and she could read to him another time. Holly tried to hide how grateful she was for the respite, and especially that she would not have to recite the story she had written for him. She was not certain she could have made it to the end without breaking.
Holly wondered if Daniel was already growing out of the need to have her near him before he slept, and if this was the unpicking of the first stitch, presaging a time when she would no longer have him beside her at all, when he would leave for college, or work, or a lover’s bed, perhaps never to return.
But what if it happened before then? What if they took him away?
She kissed Daniel, and tried to silence the voice in her head. It had been with her since Daniel’s birth, but it was speaking more insistently since the discovery of the body in the woods.
What if they find out what we did?
‘Good night, Daniel. I love you.’
‘Good night, Mom. I love you too.’
What if they come?
19
Parker watched the sun shine low on the marshes, shedding gold upon the sea. It rose, set, and was gone. One day, then two. The house echoed to the sound of his footsteps, and his alone. He embraced the solitude. He was a man still grieving, and a grief so old could no longer be shared. It had to be endured alone.
How long now since they had been taken from him, his wife and first child? Did it even matter any more? His years with them were slowly being stolen away, months coalescing into minutes, days into seconds. He felt himself losing memories. Susan and Jennifer, mother and daughter, were drifting into dream. This was why he had to close his door to the demands of others, even if only for a little while. In silence could he mine for recollection, and restore the beloved to remembrance.
And if he waited long enough, a different hush might descend, a listening quietude.
He sat in stillness by his window as daylight paled, anticipating the cusp, the moment when the shadows teetered on the brink of absolute absorption by descending night, until he thought he glimpsed her: movement where no movement should be, a lost girl flitting like a moth against the landscape, her ruined face blessedly hidden by hair and forest and almost-night.
Jennifer: the lost daughter.
The dead daughter.
Only then did he speak.
‘Tell me.’
And in speaking he caused motion to cease, all but the gentle tilt of the child’s head as she heard her father through the barrier of walls, through the mesh of bare branches, through the mists that tried always to smother his words.
tell you … what?
‘Tell me who I am.’
you are my father ‘Tell me why I am here.’
to die ‘To what end?’
i cannot say ‘I am tired of not knowing.’
you mustn’t be afraid ‘And yet I am.’
i will be with you when it comes ‘And Sam?’ His other daughter, the living child, to whom the dead also spoke.
she will not be there at the end ‘But will she be safe?’
she is always safe ‘I’m sorry I failed you.’
you did not fail me ‘I’m sorry I was not there to protect you.’
you could not have protected me ‘Had I been with you—’
then you would have died beside me, beside us ‘I wanted that. I wanted the pain to end.’
you mustn’t be selfish, daddy Daddy.
‘You don’t understand.’
i do
‘I cannot go on like this.’
but you must ‘Why?’
because they’re gathering ‘Who is gathering?’
because they’re close ‘Who is close?’
the not-gods ‘The Not-God?’