‘Because Prosperous wants to expand,’ I said, ‘and you’re in the way.’

‘Give that man a candy bar. The original founders of the town chose a location bounded by lakes, and marshland, and deep woods, apart from a channel of land to the southeast. Basically they created their own little fortress, but now it’s come back to bite them. If they want their children to continue to live in Prosperous then they need space on which to build, and the town has almost run out of land suitable for development. It’s not yet critical, but it’s getting there, and Prosperous always plans ahead.’

‘You make it sound like the town is a living thing.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Euclid. ‘All towns are a collection of organisms forming a single entity, like a jellyfish. In the case of Prosperous, the controlling organisms are the original founding families, and their bloodlines have remained unpolluted. They control the board of selectmen, the police force, the school board, every institution of consequence. The same names recur throughout the history of Prosperous. They’re the guardians of the town.

‘And just like a jellyfish, Prosperous has long tentacles that trail. Its people worship at mainstream churches, although all in towns outside Prosperous itself, because Prosperous only has room for one church. It places children of the founding families in the surrounding towns, including here in Dearden. It gives them money to run for local and state office, to support charities, to help out with donations to worthwhile causes when the state can’t or won’t. After a couple of generations it gets so that people forget that these are creatures of Prosperous, and whatever they do aims to benefit Prosperous first and foremost. It’s in their nature, from way back when they first came here as the remnants of the Family of Love. You know what the Family of Love is?’

‘I’ve read up on it,’ I said.

‘Yeah, Family of Love my old ass. There was no love in those people. They weren’t about to become no Quakers. I think that’s why they left England. They were killing to protect themselves, and they had blood on their hands. Either they left or they were going to be buried by their enemies.’

‘Pastor Warraner claims that may just have been propaganda. The Familists were religious dissenters. The same lies were spread about Catholics and Jews.’

‘Warraner,’ said Euclid, and the name was like a fly that had somehow entered his mouth and needed to be spat from the tip of his tongue. ‘He’s no more a pastor than I am. He can call himself what he wants, but there’s no good in him. And to correct you on another point, the Familists weren’t just dissenters: they were infiltrators. They hid among established congregations and paid lip service to beliefs that weren’t their own. I don’t believe that’s changed much down the years. They’re still an infection. They’re parasites, turning the body against itself.’

It was a metaphor I had heard used before, under other circumstances. It evoked unpleasant associations with people who unwittingly sheltered old spirits inside them, ancient angels waiting for the moment when they could start to consume their hosts from within.

Unfortunately for Euclid Danes, his talk of jellyfish and parasites and bloodlines made him sound like a paranoid obsessive. Perhaps he was. But Euclid was smart – smart enough, at least, to guess the direction of my thoughts.

‘Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘Sounds like the ravings of a madman?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that strongly.’

‘You’d be in the minority, but it’s easy enough to prove. Dearden is decaying, but compared to Thomasville it’s like Las Vegas. Our kids are leaving because there’s no work, and no hope of any. Businesses are closing, and those that stay open sell only stuff that old farts like me need. The towns in this whole region are slowly dying, all except Prosperous. It’s suffering, because everywhere is suffering, but not like we are. It’s insulated. It’s protected. It sucks the life out of the surrounding towns to feed itself. Good fortune, luck, divine providence – call it what you will, but there’s only so much of it to go around, and Prosperous has taken it all.’

The waitress with the big hair came by to offer me yet more coffee. I was the only person in the bar who seemed to be drinking it, and she clearly didn’t want to waste the pot. I had a long ride home. It would help me to stay awake. I drank it quickly, though. I didn’t think there was much more that Euclid Danes could tell me.

‘Are there others like you?’ I asked.

‘Whackjobs? Paranoiacs? Fantasists?’

‘How about “dissenters”?’

He smiled at the co-opting of the word. ‘Some. Enough. They keep quieter about it than I do, though. It doesn’t pay to cross the folk up in Prosperous. It starts with small things – a dog going missing, damage to your car, maybe a call to the IRS to say that you’re taking in a little work on the side to cover your bar tab – but then it escalates. It’s not only the economy that has led to businesses closing around here, and families leaving.’

‘But you’ve stayed.’

He picked up his fountain pen and unscrewed the cap, ready to return to his papers. I glimpsed the name on the pen: Tibaldi. I looked it up later. They started at about $400 and went up to $40,000. The one that Euclid Danes used had a lot of gold on it.

‘I look like the crazy old coot who lives in a rundown house with more dogs than bugs and a sister who can only cook meatloaf,’ he said, ‘but my brother was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, my nephews and nieces are lawyers and bankers, and there’s nothing anyone can teach me about playing the markets. I have money and a degree of influence. I think that’s why they hate me so much: because, except for an accident of birth, I could have been one of them. Even though I’m not, they still feel that I should side with wealth and privilege because I’m wealthy and privileged myself.

‘So Prosperous can’t move against me, and it can’t frighten me. All it can do is wait for me to die, and even then those bastards will find I’ve tied so much legal ribbon around my land that humanity itself will die out before they find a way to build on it. It’s been good talking with you, Mr Parker. I wish you luck with whatever it is that you’re investigating.’

He put his head down and began writing again. I was reminded of the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, when Gene Wilder dismisses Charlie and tries to lose himself in his papers until the boy returns the Everlasting Gobstopper as a token of recompense. I hadn’t shared all that I knew with Euclid because I was cautious. I had underestimated and misjudged him, although I thought Euclid might have done the same with me.

‘A homeless man named Jude hanged himself down in Portland not long ago,’ I said. ‘He was looking for his daughter before he died. Her name was Annie Broyer. He was convinced that she’d gone to Prosperous. There’s still no trace of her. I think she’s dead, and I’m not alone in believing it. I also think that she may have met her end in Prosperous.’

Euclid stopped writing. The cap went back on the pen. He straightened his tie and reached for his coat.

‘Mr Parker, why don’t you and I take a ride?’

It was already dark. I had followed Euclid Danes to the northwestern limit of the town of Dearden. His fence marked the boundary. Beyond it lay woodland: part of the township of Prosperous.

‘Why haven’t they built here?’ I asked. ‘The land’s suitable. It would just mean knocking down some trees.’

Euclid took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it on the ground. There was a hole in the earth, perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, or a little more. It was partly obscured by undergrowth and tree roots.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. I’ve found three of them over the years, but there may be more. I know for sure that there are a couple around that old church of theirs. I haven’t seen them myself for some time – as you can imagine, I’m persona non grata in Prosperous – but I have it on good authority from others who’ve been there.’