Straight away the group scattered across the land, frayed strands of a single piece of fabric, exploring by instinct rather than design, a strategy encouraged by their spiritual leader, Arthur. The old man believed that the way to find his eldest son was not by order, like they had been doing for the last eighteen days, but by a form of chaos. But this chaos meant that overall progress slowed and instead of ten kilometres a day they barely managed half that, the direction of travel random, guided by one cop who didn’t want to be there and another who cared little for the emotional well-being of the group but more for making a name for himself.

Chandler did what he could, sticking close to Arthur and his son but regularly losing them, the boy scampering off on his own and slipping behind some rocks, or disappearing over the edge of a ridge causing Chandler to frantically scramble after him – only to find him engrossed by a shiny black insect in the dirt or tearing at the bark of a tree as if in his own backyard.

But the child was merely impetuous. It was Arthur who worried Chandler more. The old man’s mind was disintegrating. Chandler was left with trying to distract him from the search, discussing everything from the vastness of space to the latest football scores, doing his best to keep the awful truth from entering and consuming the old man’s brain.

34

The day began with the publication of the preliminary forensic report. It confirmed what Chandler already knew: all six victims had been strangled with rope. Not the same rope, which was unfortunate for the investigators. There wasn’t much else to note in it other than his delicate retrieval of the manacles had proved a bust, any DNA or fingerprint evidence destroyed in the blaze. He had been hoping it would at least confirm which one of them had been chained up. The report included confirmation that the perp was right-handed. Both Gabriel and Heath were right-handed so it didn’t add anything. Traces of blood found on some of the less-damaged tools matched DNA with a couple of the buried victims, but again nothing regarding the suspects, the plastic handles melted into unrecognizable shapes like the death masks of the victims forensics were currently trying to piece together to aid identification.

What could be determined given the deterioration of the corpses was that the most recent victim – a male in his early thirties of slight build – had been dead three to four weeks. Bones in both legs had been broken but had since healed, childhood injuries rather than ones inflicted by his killer. Other than that, there were no signs of torture or mutilation, offering Chandler some relief that their killer might not have been quite as sadistic as believed. Deranged enough, however, to send at least six people to their maker.