Light from the mansion’s floor-to-ceiling windows lay moated across the aluminium decking that bordered the house. He passed under the security light fitted over the front doors and the shadow of his hood scrolled down his face. He circled the house. Lakeside stood a shirtless and stocky man leaning on the deck rail, looking out into the water. His flesh was covered in dark licks of blood and it steamed in the cold. Hearing footsteps, he turned. An expressionless face gave way to paling fear at the sight of the hooded and malformed figure carrying a splitting maul. He contracted and backed up into the house, palms raised.

Dolan stalked him through sliding glass doors into an extensive living area where a canvas oil painting of a Dobermann spanned an entire wall. When the man turned to run, Dolan buried the axe side of the splitting maul in the back of his head. He was dead before he hit the floor. Dolan set his boot on the handprint tattoo inked between the scapulae and levered free the maul. He listened. Nothing but the low rumble of a fire recessed in a rectangular hole in a wall. He moved deep into the house.

Along a spotlit hallway of bare white walls, he came to a door that opened into a low-lit office. A flawlessly dressed woman of about fifty sat smoking a joint behind a large steel desk bare save for an ashtray, a glass of red wine and a bulky orange case. He entered the office and the woman saw him and stood up. 195Raw-boned and noseless, he looked more skull than face. She paled and tried to speak but the words came apart in her mouth.

At the far end of the room a naked grey-headed man sat in a wooden armchair on a sheet of plastic. Head hung, chin resting on breastbone, body marbled with blood. Nails had been driven through his wrists into the chair arms and through his feet into the floorboards. Wires linked to a truck battery had been fed into slashes in his legs and armpits, his neck, down the length of his penis. He was lit by a TV hooked up to a camcorder. The TV angled for his eyes only.

‘Henry.’ The woman directed her calls at the door behind Dolan. ‘Henry.’

‘He’s not coming.’

‘You, get the fuck out of my house. Now.’

She called for Henry again as she quailed into the corner behind the desk. He set the splitting maul on the desk beside the case and moved towards her, taking one of her fending hands by the wrist and holding it to his heart, making her feel its slow thump. She turned her head to his leaning face. He made a sound like sniffing, taking in her scent through the black teardrop eaten through the middle of his face. He ran his eyes down hers as he put her under.