I leaned over to my briefcase, flicked it open and pulled out Emma’s drawing, the one we had found stashed away in Conor’s flat. I laid it on the blanket on Jenny’s lap. For a second I thought I smelled the cool harvest sweetness of wood and apples.

Jenny’s eyes slammed tight. When they opened she stared out the window again, her body twisted away from the drawing as if it might leap for her.

I said, “Emma drew this the day before she died.”

That spasm again, jerking her eyes closed. Then nothing. She gazed at the leaves turning the light, like I wasn’t there.

“This animal in the tree. What is it?”

Nothing at all, this time. Everything Jenny had left was going into shutting me out. Soon she wouldn’t hear me any more.

I leaned in, so close I could smell the chemical flowers of her shampoo. The nearness of her made the hairs on the back of my neck rise in a slow cold wave. It was like leaning cheek to cheek with a wraith. “Mrs. Spain,” I said. I put my finger on the plastic evidence envelope, on the sinuous black thing draped along a branch. It smiled out at me, orange-eyed, mouth wide to show triangular white teeth. “Look at the drawing, Mrs. Spain. Tell me what this is.”

My breath on her cheek made her lashes flicker. “A cat.”

That was what I had thought. I couldn’t believe I had ever seen it like that, as some soft, harmless thing. “You don’t have a cat. Neither do any of your neighbors.”

“Emma wanted one. So she drew one.”

“That doesn’t look like a cuddly house pet to me. That looks like a wild animal. Something savage. Not something any little girl would want snuggled up on her bed. What is it, Mrs. Spain? Mink? Wolverine? What?”

“I don’t know. Something Emma made up. What does it matter?”

“It matters because, from everything I’ve heard about Emma, she liked pretty things. Soft, fluffy, pink things. So where did she come up with something like this?”

“I don’t have a clue. School, maybe. On the telly.”

“No, Mrs. Spain. She found this at home.”

“No she didn’t. I wouldn’t let my kids near some wild animal. Go ahead: look through our house. You won’t find anything like that.”

I said, “I’ve already found it. Did you know Pat was posting to internet discussion boards?”

Jenny’s head whipped around so fast I flinched. She stared at me, eyes frozen wide. “No he wasn’t.”

“We’ve found his posts.”

“No you haven’t. It’s the internet; anyone can say they’re anyone. Pat didn’t go online. Only to e-mail his brother and look for jobs.”

She had started shaking, a tiny unstoppable tremor that juddered her head and her hands. I said, “We found the posts via your home computer, Mrs. Spain. Someone tried to delete the internet history, but he didn’t do a very good job: it took our lads no time to get the info back. For months before he died, Pat was looking for ways to catch, or at least identify, the predator living inside his walls.”