Praise for R. J. Ellory
‘An awesome achievement . . . a thriller of such power, scope and accomplishment that fanfares should herald its arrival’
Guardian
‘Voodoo and murders and gothically imposing southern dynasties – what’s not to like? There are moments of genuine chills, fearsomely speedy page-turning and real humour . . . an enjoyable summer read’
Observer
‘A great read’
Irish Examiner
‘R. J. Ellory sets out his stall with terrific vim and a gripping premise in his latest thriller . . . an energetic and winning exercise in pulp fiction with a Southern Gothic flavour’
Metro
‘Ellory’s complex procedurals feel influenced by The Wire and the hard-boiled cop thrillers of the 1970s. The accumulation of detail is accompanied by a powerful sense of location and wellpaced action sequences. In this siren-filled world there are no easy answers. The result is vivid storytelling with a dark heart and an angry conscience’
Financial Times
‘Classic noir, a journey to the dark corners of man’s foolishness, where nothing is ever what it seems and no one can ever be trusted. Ellory is beginning to sound like the master [James Ellroy]. I can think of no higher praise’
Daily Mail
‘A pedal to the metal thriller’
Irish Independent
‘Ellory’s the real deal, giving us another horrific chunk of smalltown American violence, neglect and psychopathy. ****’
Daily Mirror
The Devil and The River
R. J. ELLORY
Contents
Cover
Praise for R. J. Ellory
Title Page
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
By R.J. Ellory
About the Author
Copyright
‘What’s past is prologue’
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
1
Wednesday, July 24, 1974
When the rains came, they found the girl’s face. Just her face. At least that was how it appeared. And then came her hand—small and white and fine like porcelain. It surfaced from the black mud and showed itself. Just her face and her hand, the rest of her still submerged. To look down toward the riverbank and see just her hand and her face was surreal and disturbing. And John Gaines—who had lately, and by providence or default, come to the position of sheriff of Whytesburg, Breed County, Mississippi, and before that had come alive from the nine circles of hell that was the war in Vietnam, who was himself born in Lafayette, a Louisianan from the start—crouched on his haunches and surveyed the scene with a quiet mind and a steady eye.
The discovery had been called in by a passerby, and Gaines’s deputy, Richard Hagen, had driven down there and radioed the Sheriff’s Office dispatcher, Barbara Jacobs, and she had called Gaines and told him all that was known.
A girl’s face has surfaced from the riverbank.
When Gaines arrived, Hagen was still gasping awkwardly, swallowing two or three mouthfuls of air at a time. He bore the distressed and pallid hue of a dying man, though he was not dying, merely in shock. Hagen had not been to war; he was not inured to such things as this, and thus such things were alien and anathema to his sensibilities. The town of Whytesburg—seated awkwardly in the triangle between the Hattiesburg-intent I-59, and the I-18, itself all fired up to reach Mobile—was a modest town with modest ways, the sort of place they rolled up the sidewalk at sunset, where such things as these did not occur too frequently, which was a good thing for all concerned.
But Gaines had been to war. He had seen the nine circles.
And sometimes, listening to the small complaints of smaller minds—the vandalized mailbox, the illegally parked car, the spilled trash can—Gaines would imagine himself walking the complainant through a burned-out ville. Here, he would say, is a dead child in the arms of her dead mother, the pair of them fused together for eternity by heat and napalm. And here is a young man with half a face and no eyes at all. Can you imagine the last thing he might have seen? And the complainant would be silent and would then look at Gaines with eyes wide, with lips parted, with sweat-varnished skin, both breathless and without words. Now, Gaines would say to them, now let us speak of these small and inconsequential things.
There were parts of humanity that were left behind in war, and they would never be recovered.
But this? This was enough to reach even Gaines. A dead girl. Perhaps drowned, perhaps murdered and buried beneath the mud. It would be a raw task to excavate her, and the task had best begin before the rains returned. It was no later than ten, but already the temperature was rising. Gaines predicted storms, perhaps worse.
He called to Hagen, told him to radio Dispatch and get people out here.
“What people?” Hagen asked.
“Call your brother. Tell him to come with his camera. Get Jim Hughes and both his boys. That should do us. Tell ’em to bring shovels, rope, buckets, a couple of blankets, some tarps, as well.”
“Should I tell ’em why, Sheriff?”
“No. You just tell ’em they’re needed for an hour or more. And get Barbara checking for any outstanding missing persons reports for teenage white girls. I don’t know of any, but have her check.”
Hagen went to the black-and-white. Gaines walked down to the riverbank and stood twelve or fifteen feet from the girl. If he could have washed off her face, maybe he would have recognized her.
Ninety-three percent of abduction victims were dead within three hours. Dead before anyone even knew they were missing. Couldn’t file a missing persons report for forty-eight hours. Do the math. It didn’t work out well in most cases.
Gaines’s heart then began an awkward rhythm, a flurry of irregular beats, not dissimilar to the rush of medic-administered Dexedrine he’d been given in-country. This will keep you awake, he was told back then, and he had taken it and then stayed awake for hours, awake until his nerves screamed for some small respite.
Now—once again—his throat was tight, as if a hand had closed around it. He felt sick. His mouth was dry. He was unable to blink, the dry surfaces of his eyes adhered to his inner lids.