‘Where?’

‘Driver’s s-seat. Climb in.’

I do as Bruce Alderman says, trying to stay as calm as possible as he climbs into the seat behind me.

chapter eleven

Too much training and not enough experience. That’s my

problem. Plus the training never detailed anything like this. It was more a general thing, like a commonsense warning. If a gun is pointed at you in close proximity, stay calm. Try to talk your way out of it. It’s advice I would’ve figured out even if I’d never learned it.

‘D-d-don’t try anything,’ Bruce says, so I don’t. I don’t fight for the gun. I don’t open the door and try to run. Don’t do any of this because it’d be pointless, unless the point was to get shot.

Instead I slowly adjust my body so I can turn my head and

face him. The gun looks huge, but only because of the viewing

angle and I’m not the one holding it. There are two hands on

the handle. Both are shaking. A finger is wrapped around the

trigger.

It strains my eyes to keep the barrel in focus, but I keep them strained. If Bruce Alderman wanted me dead, he’d have done it

already, but I feel as though if I take my eyes off the barrel I’m going to die.

‘What do you want?’

“I d-d-don’t know,’ he says, and his answer is a problem. If he doesn’t know, that means he has no plan, and that makes him far more dangerous, and it means maybe he is planning on shooting

me. Maybe that’s where his plan is taking him.

His hands keep shaking, the gun rising and falling with minute motions.

‘You must want me for something,’ I say. ‘Probably to tell me

something. Right? To tell me you had nothing to do with the

dead girl we found?’

‘Why were you t-talking to my f-f-father?’

‘I was looking for you.’

‘You s-started this,’ Bruce says. ‘If it hadn’t been for you,

everything w-w-would be okay. It would be okay’

No, it wouldn’t be okay. Hasn’t been okay for Rachel Tyler for some time now.

‘Why is that?’ I ask.

‘What did my father say?’

‘You’re dad’s a real affable guy. He had plenty to say’

He pushes himself back into the seat but keeps the gun levelled at my head.

‘You think I k-k-killed those girls?’

I don’t answer. I look at Sidney Alderman’s house and wonder

what he’s doing right now. Could be Sidney knew his son was

out here waiting for me and was putting on a show, his own little performance of misdirection. Could be he didn’t know. It’s not like they could have anticipated my coming here. Bruce must

have been here all along, or he followed me from the church.

‘Please, “I … I need you to drive away from here.’

I turn back towards him and stare at the gun barrel. ‘Drive?

Where to?’

“I don’t — I don’t know’

‘I’m not a taxi service. I’m not going to take you somewhere

where you can kill me in private. You want to do that, you do

it here, and maybe your old man can help you dispose of my

body. Or you might luck out and the cops will hear the gunshot.

They’re not that far away.’

‘Is that w-what you want?’ he asks, pushing the gun forward

a few more inches. ‘You think I w-won’t do it? You think I’ve got something to lose by doing it?’

‘I don’t think that’s your plan,’ I say, trying to sound calm, ‘and I don’t think you’re going to pull that trigger. You’d have done it already. You want to tell me something. Maybe you want to confess. Maybe you want to tell me all about it before putting a bullet in my chest.’ His hands start to shake a little more. I figure I’m only a few shakes away from getting the back of my

head splashed on the windscreen. ‘But you don’t want that to

happen here.’

‘Maybe you’re wrong.’

I think about my wife. If I’m wrong, I won’t be seeing her

again. If I’m wrong — and if I’m lucky — maybe I’ll be seeing my daughter. Only problem there is I don’t believe in an afterlife.

I think of Bridget, already alone and about to become even more so. Except that she’d stare out the window as my death made the newspapers and TV and she’d never feel the loss.

‘So where do you want to go?’

Away from here. N-now.’

I manage to shift my eyes from the barrel to his pale face.

His features have sunken since the afternoon, as if the bubble of paranoia holding them in place is slowly deflating. His eyes dart nervously back and forth, unable to fix on any one thing for more than a fraction of a second, like he’s hyped up on drugs. There are beads of sweat dangerously close to rolling into his reddened eyes. Behind him, further up the road, dead people are being

found in other dead people’s places. I look back at the gun, then at his eyes. Back and forth, back and forth, his eyes are looking for something — whether for help or for the demons that have

chased him his entire life, who knows? Could be he’s looking for his caretaker father to take care of this.

‘Please,’ he repeats, more begging than demanding.

I turn around, and it’s hard to keep looking ahead with the

weight of the gun trying to pull my eyes back. I swing the car around, wondering if the old man is watching any of this from his filth-covered windows, or even if he can see through them. In the rear-view mirror the house in the glow of my brake lights looks like it’s set on Mars. I head past the cemetery, past the dozen or so people helping the dead and ignoring, for the time being, the living. I pass the large iron gates that look like they were sculpted two thousand years ago to guard some Greek mythological

fortress. I pass the church parked back from the road. I’m not sure what Bruce Alderman’s plans are, and I wish at least he was.

I pick a direction and stick to it.

We stop at the first intersection behind a beaten-up pickup

with a sun-faded bumper sticker on the back saying Oral Me. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.’

The caretaker doesn’t answer.

“I can help you.’

‘Help me?’

‘You must want something.’

“Nobody can give me what I want.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. It’s impossible. Unless you can turn back time. Can

you? Can you make the last ten years disappear?’

His stutter has gone and I suspect that’s because we’re away

from the cemetery. Or, more accurately, away from his dad. He

sounds like he did this afternoon when I spoke to him briefly

before the digger came along and unearthed all these questions.

He also sounds as if his question is genuine, as if he’s holding out hope that maybe I can make the impossible happen. I hope it’s

not part of his plan.

‘You’re not the only one who wishes they could turn back

time. All I can do is listen to what you have to say. And then I can give you some options. You want to tell me why you killed

Rachel Tyler?’

‘You know her name?’ he says, instead of denying it like an

innocent man would.

‘I’m a quick learner.’

‘That’s why you’re looking for me, because you think I killed

those girls.’

‘You want me to think otherwise?’

‘I never killed anybody,’ he says.

“huh. Is that why you were in such a hurry to leave this

afternoon that you stole the truck? Is that why you’ve got a gun to my head? Doesn’t seem like the path an innocent man would

be taking.’

‘You don’t know that,’ he says. ‘Can’t know that. You’d be

doing the same thing.’

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be.’

The intersection clears and we carry on, getting hooked into

the flow of other traffic.

‘You have an office, right?’

‘Why?’

‘You must do. All Pis have offices.’

“I don’t know all the Pis in this world. Half of them could be working out of their cars for all I know. Or their houses.’