‘Hey. You don’t need to tell me: I can put your mind at rest right now and tell you it’s not true what Mounties used to do with their horses.’

That had been unnecessary.

But he laughed and she was relieved to see that he didn’t register her aggression. ‘No. It’s more up your street, Mrs Hunt. It’s about the Kinchuinicks.’

‘Oh?’

Her tone was wary. He tried to look reassuring, to look less like a cop. The radio on his shoulder foiled him as it crackled into life for a second, and he turned it down to a faint buzz with an apologetic glance. ‘We talked to a man today, I can’t say who for reasons of privacy, but he said there was a Kinchuinick phrase, a rhyme, and I wonder if you’ve heard it?’

‘We have a book full of the things. Let’s hear it.’

He looked at his shoes. ‘It’s pretty crude. The guy said that Kinchuinick women used to say it to their boys before they reached puberty. Presumably to prepare them for manhood.’

She leaned back in her chair and smiled.

‘Oh ho. You think it’s delicate. I wish white women said it to their sons, Staff Sergeant: it should be inscribed in stone above every high school entrance. I know it very well. And I wish I could say it in Siouan, ’cause it rhymes you know, but it goes, The Kinchuinick man makes life with his penis but he should live life with his heart.’

Craig lit up. He slapped his palms together then pointed at her with a delighted finger. ‘That’s it. You know it.’

‘Sure. It’s still in use far as I know. I think they were trying to teach a primitive form of birth control with it. Fat chance.’

He sat looking satisfied for a moment as she waited for his next question. It was completely unrelated.

‘Do they use animals in any rituals at all?’

‘Use them? Like how?’

‘I don’t know. Do something with them that results in their death. Anything. Anything ritualistic at all.’

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘You sound like those journalists.’

‘What journalists?’

‘You just missed two morons who wanted to speak to Sam about how he was preparing himself against what they seemed to think was an Indian-killer. Not very accurate given that the boy was a white Californian.’

Craig’s face grew a mask. She noted it and leaned forward.

‘What?’

‘That was the other thing, Mrs Hunt. I wanted to tell you before you heard it, but seems like I’m way behind here. Daniel Hawk is dead.’

Her hand gripped the edge of Nicholson’s book. ‘Dead.’