Those words, that accent, the idea that she was not as dead as the others. "That chain."

Steven, the voice said, and although he jumped, Tom did not stand and run. He should have. Any sane thought would have told him to run as fast as he could. But sanity seemed to be setting with the sun, inviting in its own breed of darkness.

"My dead son," he whispered to the air.

Not dead, Daddy.

"I'm not your daddy."

There were tears, the unmistakeable sound of sobbing inside his head. I know, the voice whispered at last, I just wanted to say it again.

"Not dead?"

You didn't find him, his skelington?

"No." She said skeleton like a kid, with a "g" in there. I wouldn't have made that up, would I? If I were imagining all this?

Then he's not dead. He's … gone.

"Gone where?"

Silence, loaded with potential. He could feel something in his mind, a presence remaining, hanging quietly back.

"I'm not talking to you," Tom said, shaking his head and standing.

Please—

"No, I don't mean I don't want to, I just mean I'm not. It can't be. This isn't happening." Tom turned to leave. He would abandon everything he had done for the sake of his mind; losing it would not help Jo, not on this anniversary of Steven's death. And he was dead. His son was dead. Thinking any other way would drive Tom mad. He smiled, almost laughed, wondering how true madness compared to what was happening to him now.

He pinched the back of his hand until his nails drew blood, then wondered what germs would invade his bloodstream from the muck on his skin.

"I'm going home," he said, setting out for the hole beneath the fence.

Not that way! Bad man, nasty man, big badwolf!

"I'm not hearing this."

This way, another way, please Daddy!

"I'm not your—"

He's come to kill you and—

"You can't know this."

A loaded silence again, filled with a promise of something incredible. I know so much more, the little girl said. And though she still sounded scared and panicked, her words held power and control beneath the surface.

"I'm leaving." But even as Tom set off across the Plain, he heard the distant sound of a car engine from beyond the artificial boundary bank.

That's him, the voice said, quieter and more controlled. He's a bad man. Very bad. He has only death in his head.

"And you have life?"

No, freedom. I don't want to be here anymore, Daddy. Please come and get me, pick me up, hold me and hug me and I'll tell you where to take us to be safe. The man's coming now! I can feel him. Misterwolf!

Tom heard the engine's tone change as the vehicle came to a stop. It rumbled on for a moment and then cut out. He strained to hear the car door opening and closing, but it was too far away. I could be doing this to myself, he thought, making this up to try to cover what I've done. He looked down at his filthy hands and clothes, tainted with soil from a grave. The back of his hand still bled. The blood was startlingly red against the mud drying across his pale skin. Autumn colours.

What would he tell Jo?

I'll help you find Steven, the little girl said. My name is Natasha.

"How do you know my son's name?"

It's at the front of your mind. And Jo, as well—

"My wife." In my mind … so what else does she see, know of me?

Please, take me out of here, out of the hole. Come and take me, and I'll show you what happened here. I can, you know. My real Daddy told me how. If you touch me I can show you, even though I'm …

"What?" Tom asked, scanning the fence for any signs of movement. "What are you? Dead? Dead and wrapped in chains?"

Wrapped in chains because I'm not dead, the little girl's voice said.

"Not dead?" Tom turned and looked back at the dark hole in the ground, the fragmented bodies arranged beside it.

Please, I'm very scared. And lonely. Take me, hold me, and I'll show you everything. And if you believe, I'll try to help you find Steven. Please!

"Why would you do that?" He was talking to the air, the Plain, the sinking sun, and yet already he was certain he would receive an answer. Tom felt peculiarly comfortable with his newfound madness. Perhaps acceptance was insanity in its purest form.

Because my Daddy loved me, and I think you love Steven the same way.

"Where is your Daddy?"

Daddy! the voice shrieked, and Tom winced as if he had been punched. Daddy is here! With me! He's here in these chains, and Mummy and my little brother, all dead now, with—

"With their heads cut off."

Natasha was silent for a few seconds, and Tom heard her sobbing again. They wanted me to be alive. Down here, alive, with all the crawling things. She sounded so vulnerable, so small, such a child.

"They?"

There's time to tell… but not too much. Not now. No time now!

Tom looked back over his shoulder at the mound, the small wood where he had found the crawl space beneath the fence, and he wondered how he could explain this new madness to Jo. He had always been the strong one, the one to comfort her when tears came and memories shadowed the present. Now, covered in mud and with the stench of old corpses on his skin, how could he possibly explain?

In the dusky light he saw someone climbing the fence.

It's him! Mister Wolf! Help me, please, don't let him put me back in!

Tom tried to imagine being buried alive, thrown down into the pit with all those bodies, surrounded by dead family. But the thought that galvanised him into action was the certainty that if he were discovered, he would never get away from here. He had uncovered a horrendous crime, a monstrous lie. Madness or no madness, he had to flee.

And whether Natasha was real or a made-up presence in his mind, she was about to take control.

Cole parked a hundred feet behind the other car. He remained in his Jeep for a few minutes, lights off, scanning the surrounding area for any signs that he was being observed. He kept reminding himself that this was a fifty-five-year-old office worker he was following, but caution had always been his way. It had saved his life more than once and now, so close to this place, his hackles were up.

He had not been here for ten years.

He stepped from the Jeep, shut the door quietly and rested one hand on the pistol in his pocket. Day was slipping into dusk, and he wanted to investigate Roberts' car before full darkness fell. This was a bad time of day to be sneaking around with one hand on his .45 … but yet again, he reminded himself of who he was following. Roberts was hardly going to be perched on a hillside with the cross-hairs of a .30-30 centred on the back of Cole's head.

Still …

Glancing left and right, Cole quickly made his way to the parked car. He approached from the passenger side, keeping well away from the vehicle, closing in only when he was certain it was empty. He tried the door. Roberts had left the car unlocked. Other things on his mind.

Yeah, his dead son.

Cole shook his head. There was no time for pity.

He climbed the bank and stood at the security fence, staring out across the Plain. Although he had not been here since that fateful day ten years before, he could still remember every detail about this place, every point of reference that would lead him to where the bodies were buried. To his right lay the small wood, to his left in the distance a slight hill that was already merging with the darkness, and in front of him, somewhere past the fence, would be the rock shaped like a rugby ball standing on end. He sniffed the air and remembered the scent of the moors, closed his eyes briefly and heard the familiar silence. Even the feel of the place on his skin and in his guts was something he still understood so well; that gravity, that sense of the raw power of nature sleeping here. He was back, and it felt as though he had never been away, as if every day of the intervening ten years had been wiped from existence. God knew he had lived that day in his nightmares enough times to make it last forever.