Rooble exchanged a look with his colleague and leaned closer. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah, he had the same, like... scars on his face. But...’ Dante seemed to be searching for the right words but couldn’t find them.
‘But what?’ Rooble said impatiently.
‘But Lobo had this, like... this very expressive face. This guy here, his face was dead. He was like a walking dead man, if you get my meaning. And then his hands...’
‘You already told us about the tattoo.’
‘Yeah yeah, but that wasn’t all.’
Kay was walking along the rough track. The trees had taken on the shading of autumn, but still clung on to their leaves. She stopped at a decaying sign which related that the forest around her was a so-called white cedar forest, and that some of the trees were over 250 years old. The place was also home to a unique fauna. Here, she read, one could encounter the red-shouldered hawk, the red-headed woodpecker, coyotes, badgers and deer. Depending on the season one might also see bison, black bears and wolves. Kay shuddered, hoped it wasn’t the season for any of them, and continued along the track. Gradually it began to narrow, the trees on both sides grew thicker, and she noticed that the wild sound of birdsong that had accompanied her walk so far had now stopped, the way sound stops when a stranger enters a local bar. Or, she thought, when those living in an area watch in tense excitement as someone walks toward a danger that only they can see.
She pushed aside the branches that dangled across the path and hindered her view, then heard a rustling sound that told her she was approaching a stream. Another sound carried from deep in the forest, like a machine gun. That’s the type of association you get from growing up in Englewood, she thought, and concluded it was probably a woodpecker. Suddenly the track ended. Or rather, it divided at a T-junction, with the two forks turning left and right and following the stream in front of her. A mailbox had been lashed with wire to the top of a rusty iron pole driven into the ground. It was difficult to imagine a mailman making his way all the way out here, but at least the box had a name on it in white paint: RT CLUB. Across the nine-foot-wide, murky-green stream she saw planking that had once formed a primitive bridge but was now broken in the middle. Mrs Holte had explained that the house lay a few hundred yards away once you crossed the stream, but the forest was too thick for Kay to see anything. She glanced down at her shoes. Trainers. Made for city walking. New and expensive and dazzling white. She edged her way out along the planks, jumped, making it with her right but not her left foot, which splashed down and sank into the revolting, squelching bed of the stream, before she was able to pull herself up and reach the other side.
The track ahead was now almost invisible, but in a while she saw the outlines of a house through the trees. It was so quiet she could hear her own heart beating, and the thick foliage above her blocked most of the sunlight. She came to a halt where the track ended. In front of her was a meadow of long grass with a red-painted, single-storey wooden building behind it. Though there was no approach road and the building lay in the middle of a forest her first thought was that it looked like some kind of garage or warehouse. The tall grass, the paint that was flaking off the walls and the lack of any well-trodden path leading up to it all suggested that the place had not seen visitors for several years. Kay pulled out her gun and held it before her as she stepped out into the open. Moving quickly to avoid being an easy target, all senses alert, she saw no visible sign of movement, heard no sound. She saw something fastened above the door. It looked almost like the kind of heraldic device families in stately homes have hanging above the entrance. Kay had to approach closer to confirm that it really was what she thought it was.
A squirrel holding a deer-hunting rifle.
The squirrel’s fur was torn, probably by some bird of prey. Kay walked to one of the windows. She brushed aside the cobwebs, cupped her hands and tried to peer inside but found herself staring at a wooden shutter that must have been nailed across on the inside. The other windows were covered in the same way. Maybe the idea was to discourage thieves, or to stop people seeing what was inside. Or maybe it was both.
Kay put her back against the wall beside the door, gripped her pistol hard.
‘Police! Open the door!’
The total silence that followed did not give Kay the feeling she was alone. Instead she felt as though a thousand ears were listening. She held her breath. No sounds from inside. She studied the lock on the door. It was shiny, new-looking.
Kay hesitated.
She didn’t have a search warrant and the lock looked pretty solid. And there was something about the place that gave her the feeling that anyone who went in there alone would regret it. Best to pull back and return later with backup and a warrant.
So then why was she still standing there, staring at the door?
Was it because of how she’d run through the backstreets of Englewood with her father chasing after her, and how she had promised herself that if she got out of there alive she would never be afraid of anything ever again? Because the way to escape from her father, from Englewood and from that whole life that waited for her there was to be braver than she really was? Because breaking free meant breaking the rules?
Kay Myers turned and walked quickly back the way she had come. This time she timed the jump from one broken half of the plank to the other just right. She braced herself and jerked the mailbox and the rusty iron pole up out of the ground, took off the mailbox then headed back toward the house carrying the bar on her shoulder. She noticed the sound of birdsong had returned. Now it sounded hysterical. As if all the tension was too much for them and they were warning of danger.
Kay wedged the sharp end of the pole into the gap between the door and the frame. Leaned her body weight against it. Heard the creak of the woodwork and saw the door move slightly. She could still stop. Because wasn’t this exactly what Walker had been talking about when he signalled ‘don’t trip up’? Don’t mess it up for yourself just before you break the tape? Kay hesitated. Then, with a tormented screeching sound, the wood around the lock split and the door flew open.
Kay breathed out. Then she stepped inside. Held the gun in front of her with both hands.
Dust whirled up in a little snowstorm in the sharp sunlight falling through the open doorway and it took a moment for her eyes to adapt to the dark inside.
She stopped breathing.
Blinked as her brain tried to deal with the sight that met her eyes. She mustn’t panic now, mustn’t let fear take hold. So the first thing she told herself was that they couldn’t harm her, they were all dead. That it was only the poses in which they had been arranged that made them look as though they were alive.
It worked. Slowly panic released its hold and she started to breathe again.
Directly in front of her a fox was standing on its hind legs and holding in its forepaws a saw with which it was cutting itself in half. Next to it was a two-headed coyote with the teeth of one head sunk into the throat of the other. Behind them, a massive elk holding a broken toy pedal car in its antlers. Beside it a white unicorn, its side pierced by a swordfish dangling in mid-air.
Behind the stuffed animals hung a banner: THE ROGUE TAXIDERMY CLUB.
Kay looked around. There were small, closed studios lining the walls. Carpentry workshops, she thought, because through doors that were ajar she could see lathes and tools. In one she saw a kind of mannequin in the shape of a hare made out of wire. She counted eight of these booths. Each had a nameplate. Only one was locked, secured by a large padlock. Kay read the nameplate: Emily Lunde, RT Club. The name meant nothing to her. Peering between two planks into the interior she could see the walls of the booth were lined on the inside with some kind of insulation. She located a light switch by the door and the neon tubes in the ceiling blinked a couple of times before coming on and lighting up the whole room. She picked up the metal spike and wedged it into the crack in Emily Lunde’s booth door. Pushed hard on it. Instead of the padlock snapping off the soft wood of the plank bent outward. Soon it was so far out she was able to see inside.