I could find those people. It’s not why I’m here, but it wouldn’t be difficult, and in truth it’s exactly what I’m trained for. To ask the question, to follow the leads, to build up a picture, a shape of events; not just this happened, then this, then this, but a story. A coherent whole that answers not only the first question—What happened?—but the ones that follow. How? Why?

It’s not why I’m here.

I’ve almost returned to the now-familiar garden wall when a small movement catches my eye. There’s a cat, gray and sleek but slender in a way that suggests this creature has no intention of being merely a house cat, slowly stalking something I can’t see. From the angle of the cat’s gaze, I guess the quarry must be on the other side of the iron gate. The cat inches forward, her haunches bunched underneath and her tail swaying slowly but deliberately behind her. I try to spy whatever it is that she has spotted, but I can’t see anything on the long expanse of green lawn. No doubt my eyes are less keen than hers, particularly in the fading light. I inch myself forward to get a better look, and she turns her head slowly to me then dispassionately returns her focus to the prey, which, judging by the cat’s continued stillness, hasn’t been scared off by my movement. The cat is now less than a meter from the gate, and what she is staring at through the ironwork ought to be only just inside the garden, but there’s still nothing I can discern. The sun is beginning to set behind the Manse, in a glorious spread of golds and reds that the news reader earlier told me is in part due to the concentration of volcanic particulates in the atmosphere. I like it, this knowledge of unexpected consequences—it makes me appreciate the sunset more.

The cat, though, is not focused on the sunset. Instead she moves suddenly, not through the gate as I expected—the bars are plenty far enough apart for her to slip through—but leaping lightly onto the top of the drystone wall. She picks her way carefully around the top, repeatedly turning her head to focus on a spot within the garden. With the cat gone, I move toward the gate myself, glancing again at the Manse.

There’s a figure in the attic window. In less than a heartbeat it’s gone, without moving, as if swallowed directly into the air.