‘They’ve had me looking into the possibility of demonic possession of active shooters,’ she said. Active shooters being individuals who arm themselves and then pop out to kill as many innocent bystanders as possible. There had been a definite upward trend in both incidents and casualty rates since the turn of the century, and since gun control was off the table the FBI had been looking for other preventative measures. Kimberley had actually found literature on the subject from, of all places, the Centers for Disease Control. They’d commissioned a 1995 study that hinted, very obliquely, that some incidents of mass murder could not be solely attributed to normal criminality or psychological conditions. The study had never been officially released and no follow-up had ever been authorised. So Kimberley had gone on a road trip around the US interviewing all the surviving gunmen that would talk to her.

I thought of Mr Punch and the trail of bloody mayhem he’d left behind him and asked if she had any confirmed cases.

‘That’s hard to say,’ said Kimberley. ‘Half the time the shooter kills himself or is shot dead by first responders. And the rest all have their own sad stories.’ They’d been abused or victimised or they just plain didn’t like the way the world had treated them and had decided to teach it a lesson.

But there had been one interview Kimberley had conducted in Florence, Arizona. A thirty-six year old white male who’d inexplicably woken up one morning, shot his wife and then driven over to his mother-in-law’s house to shoot her, too, and only missed making the FBI’s list of mass killers because he’d been tackled by the postman before he could open up at the local 7-Eleven.

He claimed, during his interview with Kimberley, that he’d been possessed by the spirit of a bear.

‘“An old bear,” he said. From a time before the arrival of the white man – an angry old bear,’ said Kimberley.

I asked if she’d believed him.

‘Have you ever heard a bear?’ she asked. ‘One that’s really angry? Nothing else sounds like a bear. It’s got that kind of deep breathy bark. Let’s just say I have heard it twice. Once when I was out hunting with my dad and again when I was talking to the shooter in Florence.’ She paused – to see how I was taking it, I think – before continuing. ‘Not literally, but like an echo or . . . I’m not sure.’

‘A memory?’ I said, and Kimberley gave me a hard look.

‘You do you know what I’m talking about,’ she said, ‘don’t you?’

‘It’s called vestigia,’ I said. ‘It’s sort of like an afterglow from magic. Although, to be honest, sometimes it’s just stuff you make up in your head . . . or even a memory triggered by an association with something somebody says or does.’