‘Come along, Thomas,’ said Luke. He spoke gently but firmly, the way one might speak to an elderly relative who refused to do what was best for him. ‘It’s time to go …’

56

The call came through the following evening as Morland was preparing for bed. He was fresh out of the shower, and had changed into pajama pants and an old Red Sox T-shirt. He was quietly eating a late-night sandwich in the dark prior to hitting the sack and maybe spending some quality time with his wife. They hadn’t made love in over a week. Understandably, Morland hadn’t been in the mood. His wife didn’t like him eating late at night but Morland took the view that what she didn’t know, or couldn’t prove, wouldn’t hurt her. It was, he thought, true of so many things.

He had just returned from a visit to Souleby’s bitch wife Constance at her daughter’s house, accompanied by Luke Joblin and three representatives of the most senior families. They’d commented upon Constance Souleby’s lovely grandchildren, and the fine house in which her daughter and son-in-law lived, for the best kind of threat was the one that didn’t sound like a threat at all, the kind that planted bad pictures in the imagination. Becky, Constance’s daughter, offered coffee, but nobody accepted.

‘What have you done with Thomas?’ Constance asked Morland, once the pleasantries were done with.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We just want him to stay out of the way until after the election. We don’t need him interfering, and you know he’ll interfere. He’s safe.’

The election was scheduled for Saturday. Elections to the board were always held on Saturdays, just to be sure that the maximum number of people could vote.

‘Why hasn’t he called me?’

‘If you want him to call, we’ll have him do that,’ said Luke Joblin, all reasonableness and reassurance. ‘We had to take away his cell phone. You understand why.’

If Constance Souleby did understand, she wasn’t giving any sign of it.

‘You had no right,’ she said, ‘no right.’

‘The town is changing, Mrs Souleby,’ said Morland. ‘We just barely survived the mess of the last couple of weeks. That can’t happen again. There can be no more blood spilled in Prosperous. The old board, and all that it did, has to be consigned to history. We have to find a way to survive in the twenty-first century.’

A shiver of unease ran through the three representatives of the senior families, two men, one woman, all as old as any in the town. Morland had convinced them of the necessity for change, but it didn’t mean that they weren’t frightened by it.

‘Thomas can adapt,’ said Constance. She was trying not to plead, but it bled into her voice nonetheless.

‘That’s not the issue,’ said Morland. ‘The decision has been made.’

There was nothing more to be said. Morland, Joblin and the three other visitors got to their feet. Someone mumbled an awkward goodbye, to no reply.

Morland was almost at his car when he heard Constance Souleby begin to wail. Luke Joblin heard it too. Morland could see him tense, even as he tried to ignore the old woman’s cries.

‘Why did you tell her that her husband would call her?’ said Morland. Thomas Souleby wouldn’t be calling anyone ever again. There would probably be no body. Once the elections were concluded, he would be reported missing.

‘I was trying to keep her calm.’

‘You figure it worked?’ said Morland, as the cries rose in intensity and then were smothered. Morland could almost see Constance Souleby’s daughter holding her mother’s head, kissing her, shushing her.

‘No, not really,’ said Joblin. ‘You think she knows?’

‘Oh, she knows.’

‘What will she do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You sound very certain of that.’

‘She won’t turn on the town. It’s not in her blood.’

Now, as he listened to the ringing of his cell phone, he wondered if he had been right to sound so confident. Great change was always traumatic, and with trauma came actions that were unanticipated and out of character.

His wife appeared on the stairs, come to see where he was. She was wearing a sheer nightgown. Through it he could see the curves of her body. He tossed the remains of the sandwich in the sink before she noticed. He’d get rid of them in the morning. He was usually awake before her.

‘Can’t you ignore it?’ she asked.

‘Just let me see who it is.’

He went to the hall and looked at the display.

Warraner.

He had yet to tackle the pastor. Rumors of what Morland was proposing had certainly already reached him. Warraner would have to be convinced of the necessity of acceding to the will of the town, but it would not be easy. Still, he could continue to tend his church, and he could pray to his god behind the silence of its walls. Perhaps the pastor also hoped that, when bad times came, the town would turn once again to the church, and the old ways could resume. If that was the case, Morland thought that Warraner’s prayers to his god would have to be powerful as all hell, because Morland would send Warraner the way of Hayley Conyer and Thomas Souleby before he let another girl end up kneeling by a hole in the cemetery.

Morland considered ignoring the call, but he remained the chief of police. If Warraner wanted to argue, Morland would put him off until the morning, but if it was something more urgent …

He hit the green button.

‘Pastor,’ he said. ‘I’m just about to go to bed.’

‘There’s a homeless man in the church grounds,’ said Warraner. ‘He’s shouting about a murder.’

Shit.

‘I’m on my way,’ said Morland.

He looked to his wife.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

But she was already gone.

Warraner hung up the phone. In a corner of the living room lay the body of Bryan Joblin. It was Joblin’s misfortune to have been present at Warraner’s house when the men arrived, and to have reached for his gun at the sight of them. Joblin had died instantly. He had recently fixed his eye on Warraner’s eldest daughter Ruth, a development about which Warraner had been deeply unhappy. That problem, at least, now appeared to have been solved.

Nearby, Warraner’s wife and children were under a gun. One not dissimilar to it was only inches from the pastor’s face. If he focused on the muzzle – and he was focusing, because it was very, very close to him – the masked face of the man holding the weapon became a blur. Warraner could only see one or the other properly, but not both: the instrument of killing, or the man who might let him live.

‘You did good.’

Warraner couldn’t reply. It was all that he had been able to do just to keep his voice steady as he spoke to Morland. He managed to generate some spittle in his mouth, and found his voice.

‘What’s going to happen to my family?’

‘Nothing,’ replied the gunman. ‘Although I can’t promise the same for you.’

The Prosperous Police Department kept one officer on duty at night. In the event of an emergency, that officer could call the chief, or even the Maine State Police, but so far no nighttime incident had ever been sufficiently serious to require the assistance of the MSP. The officer on duty that night was named Connie Dackson, and she was trying to rewire the plug on the coffee machine when two men entered the Town Office. One carried a shotgun, the other a pistol. Both wore black ski masks.

‘Not a move,’ said the one holding the shotgun, which was now pointing at Dackson.

Nobody had ever pointed a gun at her before. She was so scared that she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. She was forced facedown on the floor, and her hands were secured with her own cuffs. A gag was placed over her mouth, and she was shown into the town’s single holding cell. It was over one hundred years old, just like the building that housed it. The bars were green, and Dackson had a clear view through them as the two men began disabling the department’s entire communications system.