“Like the lads on the board said, those could’ve been a bird. They’re not proof of some mad animal. Any man who wasn’t stressed to fuck would’ve thrown them in the bin, forgotten all about them.”

“And the squirrel skeletons? Were those a bird too? I’m not a wildlife expert, any more than Pat was, but I have to tell you: if we’ve got some bird in this country that’ll decapitate squirrels, eat the flesh and line up the leftovers, nobody told me.”

Richie rubbed the back of his neck and watched my screen saver spiral in slow geometric patterns. He said, “We didn’t see the skeletons. Pat didn’t keep those. The leaves, yeah; the skeletons, the bit that would’ve actually proved there was something dangerous up there, no.”

The flash of irritation made me clamp my jaw tight for a second. “Come on, old son. I don’t know what you keep in your bachelor pad, but I promise you, a married man who tells his wife he wants to store squirrel skeletons in the wardrobe is in for a short sharp shock and a few nights on the sofa. And what about the kids? You think he wanted the kids finding those?”

“I don’t know what the man wanted. He’s all about showing his wife that this yoke exists, but when he gets solid proof, he backs right off: ah, no, couldn’t do that, wouldn’t want to freak her out. He’s dying to get a look at it, but when the pest-control fella says he should get in a specialist: ah, no, waste of money. He’s begging this board to help him figure out what’s up there, he offers to post photos of the flour on the attic floor, photos of the leaves, but when he finds the skeletons—and they could’ve had teeth marks on them—not a word about pics. He’s acting …” Richie glanced sideways at me. “Maybe I’m wrong, man. But he’s acting like, deep down, he knows there’s nothing there.”

For a strong, fleeting second I wanted to grab him by the neck and shove him away from the computer, tell him to piss off back to Motor Vehicles, I would handle this case myself. According to the floaters’ reports, Pat’s brother Ian had never heard anything about any animal. Neither had his old workmates, the friends who had been at Emma’s birthday party, the few people he had still been e-mailing. This explained why. Pat couldn’t bring himself to tell them, in case they reacted like everyone else, from strangers on discussion boards to his own wife; in case they reacted like Richie.

I said, “Just asking, son. Where do you think the skeletons materialized from? The pest-control guy saw them, remember. They weren’t all in Pat’s mind. I know you think Pat was going off his rocker, but do you seriously think he was biting the heads off squirrels?”

Richie said, “I didn’t say that. But no one except Pat saw the pest-control guy, either. We’ve only that post to say that he ever called someone in. You said yourself: people lie, on the internet.”