Thorn had struggled as to what to do about the priest. He could simply send the police in his stead, and they could take Tassone to jail. But the charge would be harassment, and Thorn, as complainant, would have to appear. The priest would be interrogated. The issue would become public. The newspapers would have a feast, capitalizing on the rantings of an insane man. He couldn't have it. Not now, not ever. There was no way of knowing what the priest would say. His fixation centered around the birth of the child; a macabre coincidence that it was an area in which Thorn had something to hide. As an alternative to the police, perhaps Thorn could send an emissary to pay the man off, or threaten him into going away. But that would also mean involving an outsider.

He thought of Jennings, the photographer, and almost followed the impulse to call him, to tell him he had located the man he was looking for. But that wouldn't do either. There could be nothing more dangerous than involving a member of the press. Yet he wished there were someone. Someone he could share it with. For in truth he was frightened. He was afraid of what the priest would say.

Thorn took his own car that morning, explaining to Horton that he wanted some time to be by himself, and he drove all morning, avoiding the office for fear he would be questioned about where he was going for lunch. It occurred to him that he could simply ignore the priest's demand, that the rebuff might finally make him lose interest and go away. But that wasn't satisfactory either, for Thorn himself sought the confrontation. He needed to face the man down and hear everything he had to say. He had said Katherine was in danger, that she would die unless Thorn came. It was not possible that Katherine was in danger, but it pained Thorn that she too had become a focal point in the demented man's mind.