Peterson’s den was a small, dark, square, masculine space. It was in the back corner of the house and had two outside walls with two windows. The drapes were made of thick plaid material and were drawn back, open. The other two walls had three doors in them. The door back to the family room, plus maybe a closet and a small bathroom. The remainder of the wall space was lined with yard-sale cabinets and an old wooden desk with a small refrigerator on it. On top of the refrigerator was an old-fashioned alarm clock with a loud tick and two metal bells. Out in the body of the room there was a low-slung leather chair that looked Scandinavian, and a two-seat sofa that had been pulled out and made up into a narrow bed.

Reacher sat down on the bed. Peterson took two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and twisted the tops off and pitched the caps into a trash basket and handed one of the bottles to Reacher. Then he lowered himself into the leather chair.

He said, ‘We have a situation here.’

Reacher said, ‘I know.’

‘How much do you know?’

‘I know you’re pussyfooting around a bunch of meth-using bikers. Like you’re scared of them.’

‘We’re not scared of them.’

‘So why pussyfoot around?’

‘We’ll get to that. What else do you know?’

‘I know you’ve got a pretty big police station.’

‘OK.’

‘Which implies a pretty big police department.’

‘Sixty officers.’

‘And you were working at full capacity all day and all evening, even to the point where the off-duty chief and the off-duty deputy chief had to respond to a citizen’s call at ten o’clock in the evening. Which seems to be because most of your guys are on roadblock duty. Basically you’ve got your whole town locked down.’

‘Because?’

‘Because you’re worried about someone coming in from the outside.’

Peterson took a long pull on his beer and asked, ‘Was the bus crash for real?’

Reacher said, ‘I’m not your guy.’

‘We know you’re not. You had no control. But maybe the driver is our guy.’

Reacher shook his head. ‘Too elaborate, surely. Could have gone wrong a thousand different ways.’

‘Was he really fighting the skid?’

‘As opposed to what?’

‘Causing it, maybe.’

‘Wouldn’t he have just killed the engine and faked a breakdown? Nearer the cloverleaf?’

‘Too obvious.’

‘I was asleep. But what I saw after I woke up looked real to me. I don’t think he’s your guy.’

‘But he could be.’

‘Anything’s possible. But if it was me, I would have come in as a prison visitor. Chief Holland told me you get plenty of them. Heads on beds, six nights a week.’

‘We know them all pretty well. Not too many short sentences out there. The faces don’t change. And we watch them. Anyone we don’t know, we call the prison to check they’re on the list. And they’re mostly women and children anyway. We’re expecting a man.’

Reacher shrugged. Took a pull from his bottle. The beer was Miller. Next to him the refrigerator started humming. Warm air had gotten in when Peterson had opened the door. Now the machinery was fighting it.

Peterson said, ‘The prison took two years to build. There were hundreds of construction workers. They built a camp for them, five miles west of us. Public land. There was an old army facility there. They added more huts and trailers. It was like a little village. Then they left.’

‘When?’

‘A year ago.’

‘And?’

‘The bikers moved in. They took the place over.’

‘How many?’

‘There are more than a hundred now.’

‘And?’

‘They’re selling methamphetamine. Lots of it. East and west, because of the highway. It’s a big business.’

‘So bust them.’

‘We’re trying to. It isn’t easy. We have no probable cause for a search out there. Which isn’t normally a problem. A meth lab in a trailer, life expectancy is usually a day or two. They blow up. All you need to do is follow the fire department. All kinds of volatile chemicals. But these guys are very careful. No accidents yet.’

‘But?’

‘We caught a break. A big-time guy out of Chicago came west to negotiate a bulk purchase. He met with their top boy right here in Bolton. Neutral ground, and civilized. He bought a sample out the back of a pick-up truck in the restaurant parking lot, right where we had dinner.’

‘And?’

‘We have a witness who saw the whole transaction. The Chicago guy got away, but we grabbed the dope and the money and busted the biker. He’s in the county lock-up right now, awaiting trial.’

‘Their top boy? Didn’t that give you probable cause to search his place?’

‘His truck is registered in Kentucky. His driver’s licence is from Alabama. He claims that he drove up here. He says he doesn’t live here. We had nothing to link him to. We can’t get a warrant based on the fact that he dresses like some other guys we’ve seen. Judges don’t work that way. They want more.’

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘We’re going to roll him. We’ll offer him a plea bargain and he’ll give us what we need to clean out the whole mess.’

‘Has he agreed?’

‘Not yet. He’s waiting us out. Waiting to see if the witness forgets stuff. Or dies.’

‘Who’s the witness?’

‘A nice old lady, here in town. She’s seventy-plus. Used to be a teacher and a librarian. Perfect credibility.’

‘Is she likely to forget stuff or die?’

‘Of course she is. That’s how these people do it. They scare the witnesses. Or kill them.’

‘Which is why you’re worried about strangers coming to town. You think they’re coming for her.’

Peterson nodded. Said nothing.

Reacher took a long pull on his bottle and asked, ‘Why assume it will be a stranger? Couldn’t the bikers come over and take care of it for themselves?’

Peterson shook his head. ‘We’re all over any biker who shows up in town. As you saw tonight. Everyone watches for them. So it won’t be a biker. It would be self-defeating. Their whole strategy is to deny us probable cause.’

‘OK.’

Peterson said, ‘Someone else is on his way. Has to be. On their behalf. Someone we won’t recognize when he gets here.’

REACHER TOOK A THIRD LONG PULL ON HIS BOT TLE AND SAID, ‘IT’S not the bus driver.’

Peterson asked, ‘How sure are you?’

‘How much money are these guys getting for their meth?’

‘Two hundred bucks a gram, as far as we know, and we guess they’re moving it in pick-up trucks, which is a whole lot of grams. They could be making millions.’

‘In which case they can afford professionals. A professional hit man with a day job as a bus driver is an unlikely combination.’

Peterson nodded. ‘OK, it’s not the bus driver. Mr Jay Knox is innocent.’

‘And you can vouch for all the prison visitors?’

‘We watch them. They hit the motels, they get on the shuttle buses to the prison, they come back, they leave the next day. Any change to that pattern, we’d be all over them, too.’

‘Where’s the witness?’

‘At home. Her name is Janet Salter. She’s a real sweetie. Like a storybook grandma. She lives on a dead-end street, fortunately. We have a car blocking the turn, all day and all night. You saw it.’

‘Not enough.’

‘We know. We have a second car outside her house and a third parked one street over, watching the back. Plus women officers in the house, the best we’ve got, minimum of four at all times, two awake, two asleep.’

‘When is the trial?’

‘A month if we’re lucky.’

‘And she won’t leave? You could stash her in a hotel. Maybe in the Caribbean. That’s a deal I would take right now.’

‘She won’t leave.’

‘Does she know the danger she’s in?’

‘We explained the situation to her. But she wants to do the right thing. She says it’s a matter of principle.’