Now he’ll tell me he’s been expelling demons, or little green gods, or whatever they are, since I was in rompers.

But he didn’t.

‘I’m sure,’ he soothed. ‘And I’m sure you’re good at what you do. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of fakers and posers. You know their kind. And I know yours, miss, because I’ve seen it many times before.

‘They’re usually not as pretty as you’ – finally a trace of accent, pretty coming out as purty – ‘but their condescending attitude toward pain they have never felt themselves, pain they can’t even conceive of, is always the same. They work in sickrooms, they work with patients who are in varying degrees of distress, from mild pain to deepest, searing agony. And after awhile, it all starts to look either overdone or outright fake to them, isn’t that so?’

‘That’s not true at all,’ Kat said. What was happening to her voice? All at once it had grown small.

‘No? When you bend their legs and they scream at fifteen degrees – or even at ten – don’t you think, first in the back of your mind, then more and more toward the front, that they are lollygagging? Refusing to do the hard work? Perhaps even fishing for sympathy? When you enter the room and their faces go pale, don’t you think, ‘Oh, now I have to deal with this lazy slug of a thing again’? Haven’t you – who once fell from a tree and broke your arm, for the Lord’s sake – become more and more disgusted when they beg to be put back into bed and be given more morphine or whatever?’

‘That’s so unfair,’ Kat said … but now her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Once upon a time, when you were new at this, you knew agony when you saw it,’ Rideout said. ‘Once upon a time you would have believed in what you are going to see in just a few minutes, because you knew in your heart that a malignant outsider was there. I want you to stay so I can refresh your memory … and the sense of compassion that’s gotten lost along the way.’

‘Some of my patients are whiners,’ Kat said, and looked defiantly at Newsome. ‘I suppose that sounds cruel, but sometimes the truth is cruel. Some are malingerers. If you don’t know that, you’re blind. Or stupid. I don’t think you’re either.’

He bowed as if she had paid him a compliment – which, in a way, she supposed she had.

‘Of course I know. But now, in your secret heart, you believe all of them are malingerers. Like a soldier who’s spent too long in battle, you’ve become inured. Mr Newsome is invaded, I tell you. Infested. There’s a demon inside him so strong it has become a god, and I want you to see it when it comes out. It will improve matters for you considerably, I think. Certainly it will change your outlook on pain.’

‘And if I choose to leave?’

Rideout smiled. ‘No one will hold you here, Miss Nurse. Like all of God’s creatures, you have free will. I would not ask others to constrain it, or constrain it myself. But I don’t believe you’re a coward, merely calloused. Case-hardened.’

‘You’re a fraud,’ Kat said. She was furious, on the verge of tears.

‘No,’ Rideout said, once more speaking gently. ‘When we leave this room – with or without you – Mr Newsome will be relieved of the agony that’s been feeding on him. There will still be pain, but with the agony gone, he’ll be able to deal with mere pain. Perhaps even with your help, miss, once you’ve had a necessary lesson in humility. Do you still intend to leave?’

‘I’ll stay,’ she said, then said: ‘Give me the lunchbox.’

‘But—’ Jensen began.

‘Give it over,’ Rideout said. ‘Let her inspect it, by all means. But no more talk. If I am meant to do this, it’s time to begin.’

Jensen gave her the long black lunchbox. Kat opened it. Where a workman’s wife might have packed her husband’s sandwiches and a little Tupperware container of fruit, she saw an empty glass bottle with a wide mouth. Inside the domed lid, held by a wire clamp meant to secure a thermos, was an aerosol can. There was nothing else. Kat turned to Rideout. He nodded. She took the aerosol out and looked at the label, nonplussed. ‘Pepper spray?’

‘Pepper spray,’ Rideout agreed. ‘I don’t know if it’s legal in Vermont – probably not would be my guess – but where I come from, most hardware stores stock it.’ He turned to Tonya. ‘You are—?’

‘Tonya Marsden. I cook for Mr Newsome.’

‘Very nice to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I need one more thing before we begin. Do you have any sort of club? A baseball bat, perhaps?’

Tonya shook her head. The wind gusted again; once more the lights flickered and the generator burped in its shed behind the house.

‘What about a broom?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Fetch it, please.’

Tonya left. There was silence except for the wind. Kat tried to think of something to say and couldn’t. Droplets of clear perspiration were trickling down Newsome’s narrow cheeks, which had also been scarred in the accident. He had rolled and rolled, while the wreckage of the Gulfstream burned in the rain behind him.

I never said he wasn’t in pain. Just that he could manage it, if he’d only muster half the will he showed during the years he spent building his empire.

But what if she was wrong?

Even if I am, that doesn’t mean there’s some sort of living tennis ball inside him, sucking his pain the way a vampire sucks blood.

There were no vampires, and no gods of agony … but when the wind blew hard enough to make the big house shiver in its bones, such ideas seemed almost plausible.

Tonya came back with a broom that looked like it had never swept so much as a single pile of floor-dirt into a dustpan. The bristles were bright blue nylon. The handle was painted wood, about four feet long. She held it up doubtfully. ‘This what you want?’

‘I think it will serve,’ Rideout said, although to Kat he didn’t sound entirely sure. It occurred to her that Newsome might not be the only one in this room who had slipped a few cogs lately. ‘I think you’d better give it to our skeptical nurse. No offense to you, Mrs Marsden, but younger folks have quicker reflexes.’

Looking not offended in the slightest – looking relieved, in fact – Tonya held out the broom. Melissa took it and handed it to Kat.

‘What am I supposed to do with it?’ Kat asked. ‘Ride it?’

Rideout smiled, briefly showing the stained and eroded pegs of his teeth. ‘You’ll know when the time comes, if you’ve ever had a bat or raccoon in the room with you. Just remember: first the bristles. Then the stick.’

‘To finish it off, I suppose. Then you put it in the specimen bottle.’

‘As you say.’

‘So you can put it on a shelf somewhere with the rest of your dead gods?’

He didn’t respond to this. ‘Hand the spray can to Mr Jensen, please.’

Kat did so. Melissa asked, ‘What do I do?’

‘Watch. And pray, if you know how. On my behalf, as well as Mr Newsome’s. For my heart to be strong.’

Kat, who saw a fake heart attack coming, said nothing. She simply moved away from the bed, holding the handle of the broom in both hands. Rideout sat down beside Newsome with a grimace. His knees popped like pistol shots.

‘Listen to me, Mr Jensen.’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll have time – it will be stunned – but be quick, just the same. As quick as you were on the football field, all right?’

‘You want me to Mace it?’

Rideout once more flashed his brief smile, but Kat thought he really did look ill. ‘It’s not Mace – that’s illegal even where I come from – but you’ve got the idea, all right. Now I’d like silence, please.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Kat propped the broom against the bed and ran her hands first up Rideout’s left arm, then his right. She felt only plain cotton cloth and the man’s scrawny flesh beneath.

‘Nothing up my sleeve, Miss Kat, I promise you.’

‘Hurry up,’ Newsome said. ‘This is bad. It always is, but the goddam stormy weather makes it worse.’