‘Somebody has to pay for this,’ I say.

‘Somebody already has.’

‘But not the right person.’ I tuck the end of the envelope back into itself. ‘The police are close. All of this, ifs unravelling. You had your chance to help, but you didn’t take it. This was your chance for redemption, Father.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid, Theo. Bruce Alderman, he was a

good man. And Sidney — well, inside he is a good man too, and one who right now is attending to his son. Respect that. Let him mourn, and let the police deal with him.’

I walk to the door and Father Julian doesn’t get up. He doesn’t make any attempt to follow me.

“I can’t do that,’ I say.

He shakes his head, but doesn’t offer any more words of

wisdom. I leave him in his office and I walk back past the pictures of Jesus and his buddies. I wonder what they would think of the priest’s decision to keep the secrets shared with him to himself, whether they’d agree with his convictions or whether they’d tell him he was a fool. I wonder if right now Father Julian is praying for guidance.

At the front of the church is an alcove in which a registry

— thick and divided up into sections, the covers leather with gold script across them — rests on a pedestal. It’s sorted alphabetically, and those sections are broken down chronologically. I go through the pages, looking for more connections between the girls and

the times they went missing. I can’t find anything. There’s also a large reference map pinned on the wall; it has the cemetery

divided up into numbered sections like a street map. It’s all I need to find my next two locations.

The first one is a grave. It’s close to the back of the houses further up the street, about as far away from the church and the lake to the east as it can get while still being within the boundaries of the cemetery. I drive as close as I can before getting out and walking. There is a pathway that leads through some more trees, and suddenly I’m in an area of the cemetery that feels isolated.

I figure Alderman won’t be back anytime soon, so he’s not about to drive past my car and see that I’m here. I figure he’s sitting in a bar somewhere getting drunk, or he’s driving around, trying to work out where exactly to put my daughter. Or he’s parked up

on the side of the road, coming to his senses, wondering what

in the hell he’s doing. Maybe getting ready to bite down on a

bullet. Like father like son. Only that’s not a real possibility. Ten years ago, maybe, Alderman might have been the kind of guy to

question his actions. But not now.

The day’s getting brighter. Getting warmer. But I still feel cold inside. I walk around the gravestones, each one a story, each one a memory. Some good, some bad. These people all influenced

other people’s lives. They made differences. They met other

people and paired up and made little people while they made

futures together. Some died of old age. Others of disease. The messages on the gravestones are all similar. They’re sentiments, they’re statements, they’re final messages left to the world in the hope they will never be forgotten.

The one I want is tidy — no weeds, no long grass — but there are no flowers there either. I stand in front of it for about a minute before heading back to my car.

The second location is a large shed at the far northeast corner of the cemetery. It’s separated from the cemetery first by a wooden fence, then by a line of poplars. It’s about the same size as my house, but there are no inner walls or partitions to hold up the roof. It’s full of garden tools and sacks of grass seed and plant seed. There’s a tractor and a ride-on lawn mower and a digger.

The tools that were needed yesterday to exhume Henry Martins

were here all along, parked in a row. Instead contractors came and used their own equipment, and I wonder how different things

would be now if they hadn’t. I take a look at the place, but nothing stands out — there are so many possible murder weapons in here, if we take a week to examine each of them. This shed could be a crime scene.

There is a stack of cinderblocks beneath one of the benches.

Hanging up on a nail near the window is a coil of green rope.

I reach up and roll it between my fingers. It’s made up of hundreds of individual strands of what looks like hemp. It’s the same stuff that was connected to the bodies, and would have swelled when

it got wet. Thousands of people in this city probably use it.

I walk over to the digger. There is fresh dirt on the teeth

of the scoop. Sidney Alderman used it to bring my little girl up into the light. He probably laid her in the giant claw and drove her back here in it. I look around for Emily, but she isn’t here.

The shed could easily be the place where four young women

met their deaths. I stand in the centre and slowly turn around, covering each angle with my eyes. Two wheelbarrows. Pieces

of plywood. Buckets. Boot prints with chunks of dirt; bits and pieces of wood, tarps, ropes, workbenches. A horrible place to die. The air is musty, and I can smell oil and grass clippings.

There are cobwebs and stains and warped boards and cracks in

the glass. There are patches of rust in the roof and plastic buckets set below to catch the rain. There are shelves full of mechanical parts — levers, cogs, engine bits, most of them rusted.

I climb into the digger and start it up. The seat is uncomfortable, and has sharp splits in the vinyl where the foam bleeds through and looks like snow. I pull up a lever to slide the seat back. I’ve never driven one of these machines before, but the simplicity of the levers and pedals makes it easy enough after a few minutes’

practice. The digger vibrates as I roll forward. It bounces up and down with every small dip in the shingle road. The wheels leave deep imprints in the wet lawn.

I drive back to the grave.

Getting my daughter back is the priority, and anything that

happens in between I’ll put down to God’s will. That ought to

keep Father Julian happy.

chapter twenty-two

There is an abyss. Those it waits for can stand on the precipice, some live there, and then there are those who sink into the depths as if attached to cinderblocks. I’m not sure where I stand, and that might be one of the problems with the abyss — you never

really know if you can keep dropping lower. That’s what the last two years have been like. I slid into the abyss, and what I saw down there frightened me; since then, I’ve been doing what

I can to pull myself away. Perhaps, though, all I’ve been doing is staying at the same depth, just waiting for one more moment to sink me lower.

I think that moment is here. I don’t know. I hope the fact I’m indulging in some self-evaluation means I’m aware of the slide, just as an insane man can’t be insane if he is wondering if he is.

A man who thinks he has sunk as far as he can perhaps hasn’t

sunk that far at all. The problem is, when you’re sinking and not looking for a life preserver to pull you back, then perhaps you really are gone.

I try making another call, but Sidney doesn’t answer. His phone is switched on, because it goes to voicemail after five rings. He’s probably sitting there staring at it. He’s got my dead daughter in the back of his car and that means he’s going to ignore my

calls. He’s got his own dead son whom he has to start making

arrangements for lying on a slab of steel in a cold morgue with a sheet draped over him. He has to start picking out coffins and flowers and headstone engravers. He has to pick out a suit for his son, and a funeral home, and he has to let people know so they can show up. He’s got a lot on his mind. But he has to figure out first what he’s going to do with Emily. And he’s worrying about what I’m going to do to him.