But it was the third thing he realized that made him scream, since the other observations took on new meaning. McEwan’s head, neck and one shoulder lay in a black puddle by the wall, the mouth pulled back into a rictus, a white knob of spine protruding like a handle from the severed neck. The upper half of his torso was half-concealed beneath the bed and part of a leg showing behind the stove suggested that the other half might be found there.

Saul’s scream was thin and reedy, and as he fled from the cabin he stopped making the piping shriek only when he gagged and retched, finally vomiting into the snow as his legs gave way and pitched him forward.

His throat was burning with the acid of the bile and from the gasping breaths of a runner, as he flailed up the icy trodden trail to the tunnel.

From a distance, his white face was a cartoon, with its down-turned black crescent of gaping mouth and wide boggling eyes. And the men who watched him come stood still and waited, as though delaying whatever disastrous news this staggering madman ran to deliver, would make it better when it reached them.

Duncan Muir watched the cook’s approach with the others, and when the hysteric arrived and fell at their feet he fought back the moisture that was rising to his eyes in fear. Behind them in the rock, the tunnel entrance yawned like a mouth, and below them their cabins between the trees waited silently in the snow for their return.

34

The wipers heaved against the snow, each sweep testing the strength of the motor. Billy watched them scraping back and forward as his Mom drove slowly in silence. His straight hair poked a few exploratory tendrils out from his woollen hat and he toyed with one that hung over his eye.

Katie was still wrestling with the urge to ask Billy big questions. But just the asking risked wrecking her family, never mind the answers. She had to believe in what she had. Any other way led to an abyss that was too deep, too dark and terrifying to even contemplate peering over its edge. Billy shifted in his seat, and she used the tiny movement as an event to kick-start a normal conversation.

‘Okay over there, Billy Boy?’

Her son nodded, not looking at her. Where was the boy who sang terrible pop songs in the passenger seat, and whose childish chatter about his day couldn’t be silenced at any price? She swallowed and braced herself to be cheerful, but her voice still sounded unnatural and high when she continued.

‘Miss Root showed me your painting.’

Billy stared straight ahead. She glanced at him as she steered the Toyota down the busy main street towards Mrs Chaney’s.

‘What was it about Billy?’