But the workings of the RCMP were of little interest or worry to Calvin. He was waiting for something else. He knew it would come. He had felt it reaching out for him on his arrival, probing with a malicious finger at the new uncomfortable bump that had appeared under its dark, deepening skin. And he knew it would deal with that bump when it was done with its other duties. He might as well be warm and comfortable when it got round to him.

Under the tiny round table a ring of dried blackened herbs encircled Calvin’s chair, big enough to contain him, but small enough to avoid being kicked by the waitress who came to fill his mug with fresh coffee from time to time. Anyway, her attentions had been wavering when she realized that Calvin was going to be a one-cup-lasts-all-afternoon wonder, and for the last fifteen minutes he’d been alone with his cooling mug. She’d have thrown him out earlier, but there had been all the excitement with the cops, and she kind of liked the smell round him. Weird, but there it was.

So Calvin waited. And when it came he was not surprised, and was prepared enough to hide his fear. The waitress noticed the old Indian guy in the window had a companion she hadn’t seen come in, and was quietly pleased. She went to fill Calvin’s mug and ask the tall, blond man if he wanted to see the menu. He turned his pale handsome face up to her and smiled, creasing his ice-blue eyes. ‘Just coffee, thanks.’

‘Sure. Regular, espresso, cappuccino?’

‘Regular. Black.’

‘Sure.’

She walked away with the plastic menu still under her arm, disappointed there would be no rib experience happening at table nine in the window.

Calvin looked at it with something like wonder. That the waitress hadn’t seen what he was seeing now was the most astonishing thing. How had mankind become so blind, he wondered? What else stalked the earth in such naked form that went unseen by the modern car-driving, computer-punching, TV-watching populace? He shuddered with a weary sigh as he studied the crude approximation of a human form sitting in the chair opposite him. Dark clouds swirled and bubbled beneath the illusion of skin and behind the face there were yawning jaws, row upon row of filthy ragged teeth, hungry for something it could not have.

Yet.

Calvin detected an irritated stirring in its obscene, cloudy form. The old shaman’s composure was clearly not what it had expected. He remembered Sam’s face running down the alley, eyes rolling in his head like a startled horse, and thought how this creature must be getting a taste for the fear it could conjure. He let it speak first.

‘Do you like what you see, Indian scum?’