Hirsch said, ‘I want you to call Sergeant Brandl. She’ll know what to do.’

He gave her the number, U-turned—hearing Hansen’s body shift in its restraints—and shot back towards the ruins, then onto Hamel Road. Gave himself a moment to think. Roesch would have gone via Tiverton. A longer route on better roads. If she’d cut through behind the Razorback, the GPS coordinates would have stopped her at Craig’s camp, well before the hayshed. Or she’d got lost. Or…Whatever. Her present location was what mattered.

Hirsch pulled up at the driveway entrance for 6 Hamel Road, unsure of his next move. With the house over a small rise, he was invisible to Roesch. But he’d lose that advantage if he drove in. She’d hear him coming and have time to ambush him.

He’d have to walk in.

Blocking the driveway with the Toyota—it might slow her down if she bolted—he got out, locked up, unholstered his pistol and ran upslope towards the house. Halfway there his phone rang. Jesus. He switched it to silent as he fumbled it from his pocket and checked the screen. Sergeant Brandl.

She’s spoken to Nan, he thought. He’d better answer. If he moved even a step he might lose his signal.

‘Sergeant,’ he said, his voice low.

Her voice crackled. ‘Is what Mrs Washburn told me true? The sisters are alive? And Sergeant Roesch of all people is trying to shoot them?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sound short of breath. What’s going on?’

‘I’m on foot, just approaching the house now, and—’

‘Wait for backup,’ she said briskly. ‘That’s an—’

And he’d lost the signal.

He lay on his stomach at the top of the rise. Nan Washburn’s Volvo was parked at a crazy angle in front of the car-shed, all of its doors open, Roesch’s car behind it. Roesch stood in the open, apparently addressing the shed, looking, from the way she moved her arms as if she was laying down the law.

No sound from the shed.

Hirsch ran at a crouch down the slope, keeping to the edge of the track, ready to duck into the meagre shelter of the cypresses that lined it. He heard Roesch shouting, then cajoling, as he neared the bottom. Was she unravel-ling? When he was within twenty metres of her, she swung around and he froze in the lee of a tree trunk.