“Jaysus,” Richie said. “They’re a bit harsh.”

“This? Hardly. If you got online more, you’d know this is nothing. It’s a wilderness out there; the normal rules don’t apply. Decent, polite people who don’t raise their voices from one year’s end to the next buy a modem and turn into Mel Gibson on tequila slammers. Compared to a lot of the stuff you see, these guys were being real sweethearts.”

Pat had seen it Richie’s way, though: when he came back, he came back furious. Look you pack of wankers I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL OK???? I know you spend all your time on this board but I actually have a fucking LIFE, if I was going to waste my time messing w someones head it wouldnt be you lot of losers, just trying to deal w WHAT IS IN MY ATTIC + if you useless twats cant help me w that then you can FUCK OFF. And he was gone.

Richie whistled softly. “That there,” he said, “that’s not just the internet talking. Like you said, Pat was a level-headed guy. To get like that”—he nodded at the screen—“he must’ve been well freaked out.”

I said, “He had reason to be. Something nasty was in his home, scaring his family. And everywhere he turned, people refused to help him. Wildwatcher, the pest-control guy, this board here: all of them basically told him to bugger off, it wasn’t their problem; he was on his own. In his place, I think you’d be well freaked out too.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Richie reached out to the keyboard, glancing at me for permission, and scrolled back up to reread. When he was done he said, carefully, “So. No one but Pat ever actually heard this yoke.”

“Pat and Jack.”

“Jack was three. Kids that age, they’re not the best with what’s real and what’s not.”

“So you’re with Jenny,” I said. “You figure Pat was imagining it.”

Richie said, “Your man Tom. He wouldn’t swear to it that there was ever an animal in the attic.”

It was after half past eight. Down the corridor, the cleaner was playing chart music on her radio and singing along; outside the incident-room windows, the sky was solid black. Dina had been AWOL for four hours. I didn’t have time for this. “And he wouldn’t swear there wasn’t, either. But you feel that this somehow supports your theory that Pat slaughtered his family. Am I right?”

Richie said, picking the words, “We know he was under plenty of stress. There’s no two ways about that. From what he says on here, sounds like the marriage wasn’t doing great, either. If he was in bad enough shape that he was imagining things … Yeah, I think that’d make it more likely he went off the deep end.”

“He didn’t imagine those leaves and that piece of wood that appeared in the attic. Not unless we did too. I may have my issues, but I don’t believe I’m hallucinating quite yet.”