The mud has dried upon him. It keeps him warm. He feels like an unbaked golem, something half formed, incomplete. Were the sun to shine he would bake hard as clay.

Up ahead, angry voices. Men in wetsuits and life vests, grumbling as they wheel out the big orange dinghy from the brick boathouse up ahead.

He lays flat. Listens, holding his breath.

‘Can’t bloody get in again, Lucas …’

‘Taking it too seriously mate …’

‘Be nothing, I promise you – a log in the pissing water …’

‘And then she told me it was normal at my age, and just to wash more often, and …’

‘It was a good cup of tea that one. Just right. Not the same in a thermos, is it?’

‘Close it. Keys. I’m not having it, though I swear, it might be for the best …’

He presses his face to the earth. The ground smells musky. Meaty perhaps, as if blood were spilled here, seeping into the earth and feeding the high trees and the fruit-rich bramble bushes with its thick, red goodness.

Voices, nearby. Children, now. Children laughing, running forward towards the damp, puddle-pocked little swing park. Slides, roundabouts, a red rope climbing frame, bright against the wall of trees that mark the entryway to the little wood.

He wriggles forward. Feels a surge of pain: the hot, metallic grinding of bone biting down on unprotected bone. Smothers his gasp and reaches into the pocket of his mud-calked trousers. Fumbles at the little dimple packet of medication. Stuffs a muddy, bitter handful into his dry mouth and swallows them like sweets. Feels the numbness take effect almost at once. Feels his body expand and soften, puddling into the earth.

He wriggles forward. Sights the pile of red-gold corruption; the great pile of leaves and sticks and brambles gathered up by the railings like a wall of thorns.

Looks beyond it, to the sea, to the distant pin-prick of the disappearing boat.

Feels the familiar, comforting bulge of the hammer and nails; the plastic and metal and tape of the taser.

Wriggles forward, to the place where the McAvoy children come to play.

SIXTEEN

McAvoy and his thoughts: alone at last.

He shivers, as if a breeze from an unlocked crypt were playing with his hair. He’d wanted time to think. Needed somewhere out of the wind, and away from prying eyes.

‘Fuck,’ he mumbles, chewing at his lip. ‘There’s no way … no way …’

Realizes he has mooched down the little side path around the property and found himself in the tatty back garden at the rear of the cottage. There’s little to no barrier between the garden and the great swathe of empty farmland beyond. The concrete posts sunk into the ground more than a century ago are hanging crookedly; rusting wire sagging around clumps of damp grass and tangled weeds. Even somebody with limited physical ability could get through this excuse for a fence. He thinks again of the water’s edge at Stone Creek. Could it be significant? Could somebody have come in from the water and wreaked bloody havoc at the first house they saw? McAvoy has been present at murder scenes where every potential motive came to nought when the culprit was eventually found. Some people killed because they liked the feeling. To some, the victim’s death was so much more important than their life.