As they pass the work site, Dee hears Ted come to a halt ahead. The trees are thinning, perhaps into a clearing. She crouches among the bulldozers. Ahead, to the east, she hears the sound of a shovel cutting the earth. She hears whispering. She shivers. It must be Ted, but his voice sounds strange, like leaves rustling or the creak of living wood. Her calves and thighs cramp but she doesn’t dare move. If she can hear Ted, he can hear her. The moon climbs and the night seems to grow warmer. Perfect weather for snakes. Shut up, brain, Dee thinks grimly. What can Ted be doing? She thinks about trying to edge closer but her every movement sounds loud as a gunshot. She sits and listens. Time passes, she doesn’t know how much, it might be an hour or longer. His whispering and the rhythmic cut of the shovel mingle with the night sounds of the forest.

At last there comes the sound of boots approaching and Dee starts. She has been teetering on the edge of sleep. She crawls quickly on numb legs under a digger. The moon is behind a gauzy screen of cloud but she can see enough. Ted carries something heavy on his back. The shovel in his hand is crusted with earth. He has dug something up. She struggles to her feet as silently as she can.

At the top of the rise to the west the moon gleams on still water. The lake, no more than a mile distant. An hour’s hike between Ted’s house and the place where Lulu went missing, Dee thinks, burning inwardly. Tonight Ted has proved that he can cover ground quickly with a heavy load. Yet the police just let him go. No matter what she tells them, they’ll probably just let him go again. They don’t care. Lazy, burned out, incompetent … Dee realizes that she is trembling. She reaches out blindly, and grasps a slender branch for support. The forest seems full of sibilant whispers. The dry scratching of a long belly sliding over leaves. Ophidiophobia, she tells herself. That’s all it is, Dee Dee. But now even the word is like a snake. It makes coils in her mouth.

She tries to take the next step. Tries not to think of what might be lying in wait on the ground in front of her. There are no snakes here, she repeats firmly to herself. All the snakes are asleep underground. They are more afraid of you than you are of them. But her breath comes fast. Her feet are welded to the ground. She is scared of the forest, of being lost in the trees, of being alone in the dark with a murderer. Most of all she is scared of the tree roots, which seem to twitch, looking at her with vertical pupils in the moonlight.