Becker moved his hands again. ‘What can I do?’

‘Want me to spell it out, Staff Sergeant? Call him back. Tell McGee he can’t see Katie Hunt until we’ve found and arrested the wagon-burner.’

Becker shrugged in his discomfort and called through the open door. ‘Alice. Get the guys outside the Hunt house to go in and pull out McG … Staff Sergeant McGee.’ He looked at his audience of two. ‘He turns his radio off. Phone’s off the hook. The press.’

They looked back at him, unimpressed.

‘Well. You asked.’

Craig remained silent, looking into the empty fireplace as though Katie’s voice were coming from there. He’d said nothing all the way through Katie’s bizarre recounting of Billy and his crazy dreams. Now she’d finished, she expected some response. Katie looked at him, studying his ashen face. He looked ten years older than he had last night.

‘What are you thinking?’

He looked up at last. ‘That you shouldn’t give a nine-year-old boy sleeping pills.’

She sighed. ‘No. You shouldn’t.’

Craig watched her writhe on the unintentional spit of guilt he’d skewered her with, and softened his voice. ‘You accept his reason for being frightened by Sam?’

‘I accept that he was scared by a dream and not by anything Sam did to him in real life. Yes. Very much so.’

‘But not the rest?’

‘Come on, Craig. He’s been in shock.’

‘Bart was killed, Katie. You were there. Not a dream. We’ve got the dog in a plastic bag down in the morgue, with an evidence number tied to what’s left of it. You’re telling me you believe that Sam was killing the dog out of mercy to save it from … what was it … killing itself while possessed?’

Katie got up from the sofa and walked over to the window. The curtains were drawn and she fingered them with her back to the policeman.

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Then why believe Billy about Sam not hurting him? And why did your loving husband kill the dog if it wasn’t like Billy said? If it wasn’t a demon in there?’

She whirled round at him, eyes blazing. ‘I don’t fucking know. I’m just telling you what Billy told me. Okay?’

‘And believing the bits you want to. Because they make life more comfortable.’

Katie pursed her mouth and lowered her voice. ‘And that’s so terrible is it?’

‘It’s not helpful.’

Craig was looking up at her with those tired haunted eyes. Katie almost felt sorry for him. But she was the victim in this room, not him. Her anger rose again.

‘So you can sit there, smug in your policeman’s scepticism, disbelieving it all and that’s somehow helpful is it? Forgive me for reminding you of four little words, Staff Sergeant. Back to square fucking one.’

‘That’s five words.’

‘Whatever.’

‘And you’re wrong.’

‘Yeah?’