"Autopsya that's what it's called, isn't it?"

Mary Thorp's voice stayed low, completely controlled. No sobbing. No shaking. No hysterics. Policewoman Susan Derry knew there was a h.e.l.l of a lot of pent up emotion inside the woman. She sensed it building like a volcano ready to rip its top. The policewoman steeled herself, ready for the outburst of emotion to come. She'd seen it before. But the violence of that release would still be shocking.

"Autopsya" The woman repeated the unfamiliar word. "Autopsya autopsy. It won't hurt him will it, when they cut?"

The policewoman shook her head.

"No, of course it wouldn't, would it?" Mary Thorp licked her lips. They were chapped and sore looking. "It can't hurt him, because he's dead. And it's my fault." She locked her eyes onto those of the policewoman. "Did you know that I could have stopped Liam being killed?"

"It's not your fault, Mary."

"You don't know what really happened? When the letter camea"

"What letter?"

"The letter I found under the stone outside." Mary Thorp nodded toward the door. "I should have done what the letter told me to do."

"This letter was from Joe Budgen?"

"No, of course not." She sounded irritated as if asked an absurd question. "It was the start of the letters again. It's happened before. Ask anyone. But I ignored it. I thought it was kids playing stupid tricksa I just threw it away. And when another came I did the same. And it wasn't-"

"Mary, sit down," the policewoman said. Here comes the dam burst. She checked that the box of tissues were nearby. They were. But if anything, before the tears there might come anger. She also did a quick take of the kitchen to make sure there were no knives or heavy objects Mary might grab.

But Mary Thorp continued in that rapid whisper. "Kids and their tricks. We've seen it all before. Stones thrown at the windows, dog s.h.i.t through the front door. That's when everyone thought Stevo had snitched on Joe, but that wasn't true. So when the letters started I thought it was just more of the same. Just kids p.i.s.sing us about. But what I should have done is take that chocolate straight up to- "

"Chocolate?"

"The letter told me to take chocolate up to the cemetery and leave it on the grave."

"Mary, sorry, I don't understand. What grave?"

"Jess Bowen's. Oh, you're not local, then? Otherwise you'd know. It's famous round here. But if I'd just done what the letter saida if I'd left the chocolate up therea everything would be all right. None of this would have happened. Liam would still be up in his bed, fast asleepa oh G.o.da G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d." She rocked now, her hand to her mouth. But there were no tears.

"Mary, take it easy. Here, sit down."

Mary did as she was told. But now something had loosened inside of her. She continued speaking-words joining seamlessly together. "See, just one lousy bar of chocolate. All I had to do was what the letter said. None of this would have happened. Everything would have been all right; but now he's having that autopsy done to him; they won't hurt him, will they? I couldn't bear it if I thought they were hurting him."

"They'll look after Liam, Mary."

"If you get one of those letters, Susan. And-and it's got those demands. You do everything it asks. Everything. Because it'll tear your life apart if you don't."

The policeman came to the doorway. He caught the policewoman's eye and tilted his head by way of a question. She went across to her colleague.

He whispered, "What's she been saying?"

The policewoman kept her voice low so Mary wouldn't hear. "Nothing that makes sense. If you ask me she's completely out of it."

"Did the Doc give her any knock-out drops?"

"He did. Not that they've had any effect."

"Put her to bed anyway."

"Keith, she doesn't look like she's ready to sleep yet, does she?"

"She might, once she's in bed."

"All right then." She sighed, relenting. "But I'll stay near her bedroom where I can keep an eye on her."

"Pizza?"

"Show some respect, Keith. For just once in your life."

"I'll take that as a 'no' then, shall I?"

3.

"Careful, Val, the garlic bread's hot."

"Oh, I'm ready for this."

"See, I told you that good honest toil on the land would give you an appet.i.te."

"It's toning up my thigh muscles, too."

"Really? Let me feel."

"John Newton, that isn't thigh muscle."

"Nowhere near?"

"No."

"You'll have to give me a conducted tour of your body later."

"John, stop it." She giggled.

"Show me every nook and cranny."

"Shha Paul will hear."

"No, he won't. He's watching something unsavory on television in his bedroom."

"If you don't move your hand I'll scream."

"Yell your face off, my dear, because here in the Water Mill no one can hear you scream." He'd switched on the Vincent Price impression again. "Now come here. I want to suck your neck."

"You try and I'll chuck your garlic bread out the window."

"All right then, I surrender. Wine?"

"Need you ask?"

John filled her gla.s.s. This was one of his real pleasures of the day. A late supper, with Elizabeth asleep in bed and Paul ready to turn in for the night. The time was approaching eleven. Outside, a moon showed its face through the trees, turning the stream into a vein of glittering silver.

As was their habit, they'd taken scatter cushions across to the observation window set in the floor above the millrace. Below them, waters tumbled in a chaotic mix of dazzling whites and glistening blacks. As always there was something deeply mysterious about that water. How it raced through the tunnel beneath the house to be briefly caught by spotlights set in the tunnel wall. John sat, his upper half supported on one elbow. Although he couldn't hear the roar of the torrent he could feel its vibration tickle up through his bones. There, he made a deal with himself after the hectic (and completely unproductive day). He'd knuckle down early tomorrow and finish Chapter 1. If inspiration really caught hold he might crack on with the outline, too. Then he could have the book package to his agent ahead of schedule.

He pushed thoughts of the book aside. Val sat cross-legged on the gla.s.s in shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair was still shower wet and she looked incredibly desirable to John as he sipped his wine. If it weren't for supper on the plates he'd be tempted to suggest an early night.

"At least Elizabeth is sleeping," Val said. "I thought her chin would be sore after the fall."

"She's made of tough stuff."

"Mmm, but you should see the graze across her chest, too. She must have been going way too fast."

"Maybe she'll learn from it. I was nearly a basket case after I found her. Tomato?"

"Please."

He speared a slice and slipped it onto her plate. "My nerves can't take any more of Elizabeth's spillsa oops."

"Or any of your spills. That red wine better not reach my best new rug."

"Don't worry. I'll mop it up."

As Val sat eating her garlic bread John pressed a piece of kitchen tissue to the splash of red wine on the millrace gla.s.s. Immediately the absorbent tissue sucked the wine from its surface. He finished off by rubbing the gla.s.s clean.

"There. Not a mark."

As he rubbed he happened to look down into the water.

White foam appeared to battle with the dark water for domination of the observation chamber below. As he looked he saw something solid surge up out of the water. It stood proud of the foam, gleaming beneath the spotlights.

"Val."

"Hmm?"

"You've missed it."

"Missed what?"

He'd only seen it for a second, but now he found his heart beating hard. His palms had grown clammy; his fingers stuck to the gla.s.s as perspiration oozed. Which was a ridiculous reaction really. Because all he had seen was a face.

And that face, with the wide eyes, and the mouth stretched into a surprised O, was printed on the side of Elizabeth's ball. The one that had been s.n.a.t.c.hed by the stream earlier in the day and sent plunging under the house. Where no doubt it had been caught in the tunnel before eventually working loose to bob up into the observation chamber right under his nose. He took a swallow of wine. His movements were jerky and the rim of the gla.s.s clicked against his teeth.

That's what he had seen-just the ball. It had to be the ball because it couldn't be anything else, could it? OK, so his imagination had exaggerated the image into a face with colossal eyes that bulged at him; the whites of those eyes riddled with purple veins as fat as earthwormsa yet still his heart hammered against his ribs just as if he'd had the shock of his life.

"Go on then, John, don't keep me in suspense," Val said. "What did you see?"

"Incrediblea it was Elizabeth's ball. It must have been caught on some obstruction in the tunnel."

Val popped an olive into her mouth. "Then with luck it might turn up downstream in the morning."

"It might," he agreed.

Then once more he found his attention drawn back to the window set in the floor. A window that was like a single great eye that gazed into the heart of some dark and secret place.

4.

After dark the Necropolis becomes a vast and lonely wilderness. Decades of neglect have left it overgrown with hogweed, nettles, hemlock and gra.s.s that reach to your elbows.

Through this wilderness Mary Thorp pushed forward into the depths of the cemetery.

Monuments to eighty thousand dead marched away beneath the trees with military precision. While a bone white moon revealed the heads of stone angels and cherubs. There were slabs engraved with names, dates, poetry; statements of how the occupants of graves died: burnt up by fevera drowned by accidenta succ.u.mbed to influenzaa To Mary Thorp the gravestones, the trees, the cemetery, the whole world was nothing but a meaningless blur. She walked in her nightdress, barefoot, her hair tumbling in wild disorder. Her bare legs had been stung a dozen times by nettles. Broken gla.s.s littered the ground. A cut that ran from her big toe to heel oozed with blood. She noticed none of that.

Mary walked as if she was asleep. Her eyes gla.s.sy. No expression on her face. In one hand she held a carrier bag. One of the few things she was conscious of was the weight of the bar of chocolate in the bottom of it. I'm herea I brought you what you wanta now make everything right again. Bring my baby back to mea Trees broke the moonlight, so it looked like a thousand laser beams shone down. They picked out chunks of headstone and crumbling urns. A dog's skull in the gra.s.s glowed dazzling white. In one moonbeam her b.l.o.o.d.y footprint shone a luscious strawberry red.

She cut through the labyrinth that formed the Vale Of Tears. The iron doors to the tombs all locked tight against the outside world. Tonight these ghostly houses of the dead lay in absolute silence. She walked on unafraid. Being alone in the cemetery tonight didn't affect her any more than the nettle stings and gash in her foot. Her baby was all that mattered now. If only she could leave that bar of chocolate on the gravea just as the letter demandeda she was convinced she could turn back time. She knew in her heart of hearts that she would return home to find the two cops vanished from the kitchen. And she would find Liam asleep in his cot.

There was a power in this cemetery that could do just that. It had the power to create as well as to destroy.

Hold onto that thought, Mary, she told herself. Hold it tight.

She pa.s.sed beneath the stone archway, and climbed the slope out of the Vale of Tears. Graffiti covered the huge wall that held back the hillside to form a sheer cliff face thirty feet high. On the ground were empty beer cans, broken wine bottles, spent condoms, a syringe or two. Someone had even rigged a swing from a tree. High on beer and marijuana, with s.e.xual excitement crackling in the air, daredevil kids would run, grab the rope and swing out above the roofs of the tombs thirty feet below. But one slip and they'd be joining the dead beneath them in more ways than one.

Now, even in near darkness, she had no problem in finding the grave of Jess Bowen. Barefoot, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y footprints, she walked along the path.

There it was.

A single slab lying flat on the ground, as large as a tabletop. At one end, as if mourning over the grave, was the statue of the weeping boy. As she approached the stone a breeze stirred the branches, sending whispering noises through the wood toward her. She glanced to her left where the ground fell away sheer to the labyrinth of crypts below. Skelbrooke village lay in darkness. Maybe the policewoman had discovered the bed empty by now. Not that it mattered. She was here. She had the chocolate.

Quickly, she went to the grave, brushed away leaves from the stone slab, then as if setting down an offering before an altar, she placed the chocolate beneath the deeply chiseled name: JESS BOWEN.

"There," she whispered. "You've got what you asked for. Now give Liam back to me."

The marble eyes of the weeping boy stared down at the chocolate. Its face blank. A dead silence filled the cemetery.