‘What is a god without believers? It is just a myth waiting to be forgotten.’
Warraner gaped. To him, this was blasphemy.
‘But what will become of the town?’
‘The town will survive. It’ll just be a town like any other.’
Bile rose up and caught in Morland’s throat, the acidity bringing tears to his eyes. How could Prosperous ever be a normal town? The blood had permeated it too thoroughly. It was mired in redness and sin.
‘No,’ said Warraner, ‘it can never be that.’
And Morland was sure that Warraner had missed the point.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said Warraner. ‘Some vague concept of justice isn’t sufficient to explain this man’s actions.’
‘Justice is never vague,’ said Morland. ‘The law only makes it seem that way. And as for this man …’
Morland been thinking about the detective a lot. In reading up on him he believed that, on some level, he almost understood him. When Morland spoke again, he was talking as much to himself as to Warraner.
‘I don’t think he’s afraid of dying,’ said Morland. ‘He doesn’t seek out death, and he’ll fight it until the end, but he’s not frightened of it. I think he’s in pain. He’s been damaged by loss, and it’s left him in agony. When death does come for him, it’ll end his pain. Until then, nothing that anyone can visit on him will be worse than what he’s already experienced. That makes him a formidable enemy, because he can endure more than his opponents. And the things he’s done, the risks he’s taken for others, they’ve won him allies, and some of them may be even more dangerous than he is, because they don’t share his morals. If he has a weakness, it’s that he’s a moral being. Where possible, he’ll do the right thing, the just thing, and if he does wrong, he’ll bear the guilt of it.’
‘You respect him.’
‘You’d have to be a fool not to.’
‘But you sound almost as though you like him.’
‘Yes,’ said Morland. ‘It may be that I like him even better than I like myself.’
He stepped down into Hayley Conyer’s garden and lit a cigarette. She wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t care. His position had been made clear to him: the inconsequentiality of his role in the town’s affairs, the hollowness of his authority. After all this was over, he would have to resign. If he was fortunate, the board would accept his resignation and allow him to take his family and leave. Otherwise it could force him to stay on, a pitiful figure only good for issuing parking violations and speeding tickets.
Although it could do worse.
He felt the end of things approaching, had felt it ever since the shooting of the girl. The arrival of the detective had merely compounded what Morland already knew. Even with the coming of spring there would be no rebirth, not for Prosperous. Perhaps that might even be for the best.
He took a long drag on his cigarette, and thought of wolves.
*
The wolf smelled the meat. The wind carried it to him. He had been resting in the shelter of a fallen tree, sleeping fitfully and feverishly through his pain, when the scent of blood came. The wolf had only nibbled at the dead deer he had been permitted to take. The meat had tasted wrong, infected by the manner of the deer’s dying.
The wolf rose slowly. He was always stiff when he first stood, even if he had been lying down for only a short time, but the promise of fresh meat was enough to spur him on.
With the moon full in the sky, and blood in the air, he limped south.
35
It was Thomas Souleby who summoned Morland and Warraner back inside. By then Morland had finished one cigarette and started another. The curtains at the living room window moved, and he glimpsed a face peering out at him. It might have been Hayley Conyer, but he couldn’t be sure. He stamped out the remains of the second cigarette on the gravel, and considered leaving it there for the old bitch to find in the morning, but thought better of it. There was no percentage in pettiness, even if it did offer a passing sense of satisfaction.
Souleby sniffed at him as he reentered the house.
‘She’ll smell it on you,’ said Souleby. ‘It’s one thing smoking a sly one, another bringing the evidence into her home.’
Morland didn’t look at him. He didn’t want Souleby to see his desperation, his grim sense that it was important, above all things, to let the detective be. The more he had paced and smoked, the more he dreaded what was to come.
‘She’ll smell worse on me once all this is over,’ said Morland. ‘This whole town is going to stink of blood.’
And Souleby did not try to deny it.
Morland knew what they had decided as soon as he entered the dining room. He supposed he had known even before he left them to their deliberations, but the vindictively triumphant expression on the portion of Kinley Nowell’s face not obscured by his mask removed any lingering doubt.
Now that her victory was assured, Hayley Conyer was content to soften her attitude toward her chief of police – because that, of course, was how she thought of him: ‘her’ chief of police, ‘her’ board, ‘her’ town. She waited for him to take his seat, and smiled in the manner of a prospective employer preparing to break bad news to an unsuccessful job candidate.
‘We’ve decided to deal with the detective,’ she said.
‘There will be repercussions,’ said Morland.
‘We have taken that possibility into account. The finger of blame will point … elsewhere.’
Morland noticed that Conyer now had a sheet of paper in front of her. While he watched, she took a pen from the pocket of her cardigan and drew a symbol on the page. Wordlessly, she passed it to him.
Morland didn’t touch the sheet. He didn’t have to, for he could see what she had drawn clearly enough, but neither did he want to touch it. Conyer had drawn a trident. It was the symbol of the Believers. An already difficult and dangerous situation was about to become potentially disastrous.
‘They will know that it was us,’ said Morland.
‘He’s right,’ said Souleby. He looked genuinely frightened. Clearly this element of Conyer’s plan had not been discussed. ‘It goes beyond the bounds of common sense.’
‘They won’t know if we are careful,’ said Conyer. ‘And we are always careful.’
That was a lie, but Morland did not call her on it. If they had been truly careful, then the detective would never have set foot in their town.
Nowell pulled off his mask.
‘And what matter if it becomes known that it was us?’ he rasped. ‘The Believers were not many to begin with, and the detective has taken care of the rest.’
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Morland. ‘There may be others. They hide. It’s in their nature. And then there is the matter of the Backers. They have always maintained links with the Believers. There may even be Believers among them. They could have acted against the detective, but they chose not to. Making the decision to remove him for them may not be appreciated.’
‘No blame will accrue to us,’ Conyer insisted.
‘You can’t be certain,’ said Morland.
He felt a migraine coming on. He rubbed at his temples, as though that might somehow ward off the pain and nausea. He was weary. He should have just kept his mouth shut, because this was a pointless discussion. The battle was lost, and soon the war would be as well.
‘You’re right: I can’t be certain,’ said Conyer.
Morland glanced up in surprise.
‘But they can,’ she concluded.
Morland heard movement behind him, and two shadows fell across the table.
It had all been a farce: the meeting, the arguments, the final private discussion. The decision had been made long before. These two would not have been present otherwise. They did not travel unless killing was imminent.
‘You don’t have to worry about the detective any longer, Chief Morland,’ said Conyer. ‘Our friends will take care of him for us. For now, though, the Dixons remain your responsibility. I want them watched. If they try to run, I want them stopped.
‘And if they get beyond the town limits,’ she added, ‘I want them killed.’
They drifted from the meeting. Nobody spoke. Morland went outside to smoke another cigarette, and watched them go. He didn’t care what Hayley Conyer thought of his nicotine addiction. It was the least of his worries. Anyway, his days as chief of police were now definitely numbered. She had emasculated him back in the living room, just as assuredly as if she had used on him the blade with which she had threatened Bryan Joblin. It was then appropriate somehow that it was only Luke Joblin who lingered after most of the others had departed, Souleby leaving alone, Ayton taking responsibility for the fading vileness of Kinley Nowell.
Morland offered Joblin a smoke, and he accepted.
‘I knew you hadn’t really given up.’
Joblin had spent the last couple of months trumpeting the fact that he’d kicked cigarettes, although he boasted loudest when his wife was near.
‘Barbara thinks that I have,’ said Joblin. ‘I don’t know which is costing me more, the cigarettes or the breath mints.’
Together they watched the rear light of the last car disappear as the vehicle turned on to the road and headed toward town.
‘Something on your mind, Luke?’ said Morland.
‘I’m worried,’ said Joblin.
‘About Bryan?’
‘Jesus, no. You’re right: he’s not bright, but he can take care of himself. If you need help with the Dixons, you can rely on him. He’s a stand-up young man.’
Bryan Joblin wasn’t a stand-up anything. He was borderline psychotic, with a deep wellspring of viciousness and sexual deviancy from which to draw, but Morland kept that opinion to himself. He had few friends on the board, and he didn’t need to alienate Luke Joblin too.
Joblin took a long drag on the cigarette. ‘No, it’s the Backers. I don’t understand why we didn’t approach them. We don’t want to cross them. They could crush us. We should have spoken to them before we acted, but Hayley shot down that idea as soon as it was raised. Why?’
‘Because we worship different gods,’ said Hayley Conyer from behind them.
Morland hadn’t even heard her approach. One second they were alone, and the next she had materialized at their backs.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Joblin, although it wasn’t clear if he was apologising for his criticism of the decision, or the fact that he’d been caught smoking in Conyer’s yard, or both. He looked for somewhere to put out the cigarette. He didn’t want to drop it. Finally he settled for lifting the sole of his left shoe and stubbing the butt out on the leather. It left a scorch mark. He would have to hide the shoe until he found time to get new soles made. His wife would wonder what a reformed smoker was doing stubbing out cigarettes on $300 shoes. Morland took the butt from him and put it in his now empty pack.
‘Don’t be,’ said Conyer. ‘It is at the root of all that we do here, all that we’re trying to protect. We are not like the Backers, and their god is not like our god. Theirs is a wicked god, an angry god.’
‘And ours?’ said Morland.
He saw Warraner standing on the porch steps, watching them. Behind him, two figures waited in the hallway.
Hayley Conyer laid a gentle hand on Morland’s forearm. It was a peculiarly intimate gesture, equal parts consolation, reassurance and, he recognized, regretful dismissal.
‘Ours,’ she said, ‘is merely hungry.’
The wolf had found the meat: a slab of bloody venison haunch. He circled it, still wary despite his need, but at last he could no longer resist.
He took two steps forward, and the trap snapped shut upon his paw.