After he had given him his instructions he had given him two thousand dollars in cash, enough for a couple of weeks in a cheap motel. On handing it over the man had asked him a question.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Ryan – do you mind if I address you by your first name?’

Gleason shrugged his shoulders.

‘Their’s not to make reply,’ he replied. The lines came from a poem his mother had taught him.

‘What? Who are you? Why do you always wear that thing over your face?’

‘Their’s not to reason why.’

‘What is it anyway – a ski mask?’

‘Their’s but to do and die.’

He opened the door for him to leave. As he watched Gleason step out into the sunlight he said under his breath.

‘Into the valley of death.’

Like he said he should always have been a writer.

60

Susan Gable stared at the letter and thought of her daughter. Sara-Jane had been dead for seven months now, but the passing of time hadn’t made it any easier to bear. If anything it was harder than ever.

Last week it would have been Sara-Jane’s second birthday. She had even bought her a cute puppy, a cuddly toy called Biscuit, and had got as far as the check out before she remembered that Sara-Jane wasn’t around to enjoy it. She had just put the gift down, along with the rest of her shopping, and walked out of the store quietly. By the time she had got back to her car she was sobbing hysterically. She had driven home through a veil of tears. She had let herself into the empty house. She had gone into her bedroom and opened the drawer where she kept some of Sara-Jane’s things. A lock of her dark hair. A photograph of her taken soon after her birth. A couple of her romper suits that she had brought up to her face and which still smelt of her. Or was she imagining that?

She reread the letter again for what must have been the tenth or eleventh time. Could she take it seriously? The fact that she had not thrown it in the trash when she first received it meant something, she supposed. She had typed the name, Carl Reckard, into Google, but nothing came up apart from an entry about a West Virginian insurance salesman and some genealogical information about a German family. She had typed in the address in the Fernando Valley into the search engine and saw the layout of the street. One day she had driven past it – just out of curiosity, she told herself, nothing more than that – and had seen that the house had been cordoned off by the cops. She had slowed right down, had thought about asking one of the officers guarding the police seal what had happened there. But when one of the cops stared straight at her, almost as if he recognised her, she put her foot on the gas and sped off.

Perhaps the cops had got this guy. But surely she would have heard something. She scoured the news and the internet, including the LAPD’s own web site, but nothing came up.

She placed the letter on the table and decided to call Joe. Perhaps he had some information. She took out her cell from her purse and dialled his number, her hands shaking. The last time she had spoken to him she had called him a fucking bastard. She had told him she blamed him for the death of their daughter. If he hadn’t have wanted to fuck her that night her little Sara-Jane would still be alive. They had been having the same argument for months now. In the end he couldn’t take it any more. He had moved out. He had called her a psycho bitch. She had called him a murderer. Words had been said that could not be unsaid.

‘Hi, Joe, it’s Sue,’ she said softly.

‘Hi.’ He sounded distant. ‘What do you want?’

‘Listen – I know you’re still angry with me –‘

‘What would you think if you’d been blamed for the murder of your own daughter?’

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry.’ She wasn’t actually, but she knew she had to say that to get him to listen to her. ‘I didn’t meant that. You know how hard it’s been for me.’

There was silence on the line.

‘Anyway, I just wondered if you’d heard anything from the cops? If there were any nearer solving this thing.’

‘What do you think? ’

‘I don’t know. I was just –‘ She thought about telling him about the letter. No. He’d just tell her to throw it in the trash. ‘Okay. Not to worry. Maybe see you soon?’

‘Yeah, that would be good. I’ll call you.’

Both of them knew that their marriage was over. That there was no way back. That these were empty words.

She was about to say something else when the phone in the hall rang. ‘I’ve got to go, but if you hear anything, will you let me know.’

‘Sure, will do.’

‘Bye.’

She cut the connection on her cell and ran to the phone. Perhaps it was the cops. Perhaps they had been questioning this Reckard guy for a few days and had only now managed to wrestle a confession out of him.

‘Hello?’

‘Is this Susan Gable?’ The voice was polite, authoritative. In fact, it sounded like a cop’s voice.

‘Yes? Is that the police?’

‘In a way. Yes. I suppose you could say that.’

‘What do you mean?’

There was a pause on the line.

‘Did you get the letter I sent?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Did you get the letter?’

‘Yes. What’s going on here?’

‘I’ve got some more information about the person who killed your daughter.’

She felt her throat tighten. She could not speak.

‘Do you want to hear it?’

She desperately wanted to respond, but she was paralysed by a feeling of – what was it exactly? An anticipation, something much more powerful than sexual desire, an emotion more terrifying than anything she had ever felt before.

‘I take that as a ‘yes’. Carl Reckard is no longer at the address mentioned in the letter.’

She swallowed, moved her lips, cleared her throat.

‘So the – the cops have him, right?’

‘No, not exactly. He left the house before the cops arrived.’