"Can you tell me the reason for your concern?"

Because her phone's out of order, he thought. Why didn't he call the phone company, get them to check the line?

Because there was a serial killer hunting mediums in Norfolk and his ex-wife was a medium, and she was in Norfolk, and she'd seen him. He'd seen her. He knew her.

He'd fallen asleep. He needed to move, not be wasting time on the phone.

But they could get there quicker than he could.

"Look, my ex-wife's name is Elizabeth Willis. She goes by Beth. She's been helping the police investigating the killings in Norfolk. I can't get in touch with her. I'm worried about her, OK?"

"Hold on, Sir."

He held on. Paced with the phone wedged between his ear and shoulder. Aware of the cheap plastic clock ticking away on the wall. Aware of the sun working its way around the earth. A man with black raven wings...

"Sir?" The woman came on the phone and the vision fled. Peter tried to hold onto it, but he couldn't.

"Yes?"

"Our records show that there was a call out to Elizabeth Willis' home last night. I can tell you that as of last night she was fine. No charges are pending, so I..."

"Can you tell me if she's all right now?"

"I can put you through to the Norfolk police."

"Do that."

"I'm transferring. Please stay on the line."

He paced some more while he waited. A raven watched him from the windowsill outside. For some reason he didn't like it. Creepy fucking birds. He pulled the curtains and heard it caw even through the glass, like it was angry.

Another operator came on the line.

"How can I help you?"

Jesus, he thought. Why couldn't they talk to each other?

He sighed, began thrusting things into his bag while he was on the phone. He ran though his speech again, this time quicker. Feeling something pulling at him, urgent, and getting further away with each minute he was on the phone. He realized what it was. Beth, receding. Leaving for good. Dying.

"Sir?"

He'd stopped talking, staring into space.

"Sorry..." he said. He tried to remember how far he'd gotten in the speech, what he'd been saying, but he couldn't.

The feeling was getting so strong he couldn't concentrate. He had to move. Something was calling him. A pull, toward Beth, and he couldn't deny it.

"Sir? Are you there?"

He hung up the phone without replying. He picked up his bag, leaving two suits in the room's cheap wardrobe, yanked the door open and marched down to the elevator. Went straight past reception without paying.

"Excuse me..." someone said behind him, but he was already in the parking lot, into his car. He drove a company car, and it was reliable. It started the first time, and he pulled out onto the street without checking to see if anyone was coming.

The motel's slip road led straight onto the highway. Five-thirty in the morning, the roads slick and the sky still dark, speeding as fast as he dared. He could feel that sense of doom growing with each passing mile. Something was coming for Beth. It was a premonition. It was such a powerful feeling, and he'd never felt anything like it. This must be how Beth felt all the time.

Beth.

He looked up and saw smoke ahead and in the smoke he thought he saw wings spreading wide. He blinked and saw it was just the smoke, blowing into the dark sky.

"Ah, fuck."

He couldn't see what was happening, but the cars in front of him slowed, flashing emergency lights. The traffic crawled then stopped altogether.

Peter hit the steering wheel. He swore harder than he'd ever sworn in his life.

He hated himself for falling asleep, for leaving Beth alone while a killer came for her. But it didn't make a damn bit of difference. He couldn't get past the traffic. There was nothing he could do. Nothing at all.

For the next hour he watched as the emergency vehicles worked on the fire. He didn't move. He couldn't even use the shoulder. It was full of a burning truck and two smashed cars. A helicopter landed in a field and took off again pretty soon after.

He couldn't shake the impression that the smoke looked like wings, spreading and folding in again. As the night turned to day, he watched the smoke rolling across the road, waiting for the crash to clear, waiting to move on, hating himself because he felt death all around.

There was nothing but death in front of him. He knew that was right, just as he knew that he could do nothing about it.

Chapter Fifty.

The clouds blew away and took the rain with them. The sun shone hard and bright into Beth's bedroom as she woke from a troubled sleep and remembered the night before.

He'd been there. In her house. Next to her, like a lover, sharing her bed.

She leapt from the bed before turning to see the indent where someone had been. Too big for Miles.

Suddenly, she felt sick. He'd been here. In her bedroom...

God.

She put on her bathrobe and rushed through the cold hall into the kitchen. The two officers were in her kitchen, looking tired and gray. Not dead.

"Did he come back?" she said, knowing the answer anyway. Their presence meant that he had not.

If he had, she doubted they'd still have their heads. For a second she saw their heads sitting on the table, answering her, blood dripping down on her floor to join the rest of the stains there that she could never wash clean, because the memory of the blood would always live on.

"Who?" asked one of the officers. He had a cup of tea. Not bothered, not scared. Just having a morning cup of tea, passing the time with his colleague.

He hadn't come back, then. She tried to remember what had happened after he'd climbed in bed with her.

"What happened?"

"You were pretty frightened," he said. He had stained yellow teeth. She thought you had to look presentable to be a policeman. But then Coleridge was hardly presentable. He looked like a fat tramp in a suit. "You passed out. We put you to bed. Don't worry, we've been here all night. Nothing."

It wasn't nothing, though. He'd been in her bed. Her fucking bed.

But it was nothing to do with these two. It wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. Maybe hers. She'd been courting the Devil for years, now, hadn't she? Since Miles' death, maybe. Could have been before that.

Why else would he mark her out?

Why couldn't he leave her alone?

"Did you hear from Coleridge?" she said, because these two, happily drinking their tea, looking forward to their beds, they didn't have any other answers she needed to hear.

"No. But we're being relieved in an hour. Might get news soon. It's still early."

"What time is it?"

"Eight."

"What time's Coleridge's shift start?"

The policeman shrugged. "Don't know. Probably pulling an all-nighter. Most of us are. The cop killed yesterday."

"Call him."

"I don't know where he's stationed." He changed his tune when he saw her glare. "I'll call, though. Shouldn't be too hard to find out."

The policeman with the yellow teeth fussed about with his radio, while his partner drank her tea. She didn't know how she felt about that, but in the grand scheme of things it was a small indiscretion. After all, they'd been up all night, while she'd been asleep.

He tried his radio, but it wouldn't work. Beth walked into the hall and tried the phone, but that was dead, too.

She knew it was him. He'd done something.

Was she surprised? Not at all.

She was on her own, then.

She walked along the cold tiles back to the kitchen.

"I can't get through on the phone either. Can you take me out today?"

"I can't. Not now. Our relief's due in twenty minutes. I'd wait until then."

Beth nodded and went to get dressed. She forwent the shower. She didn't have time. The sun was up but the sun was quick in the winter. When dark came she'd be at his mercy again.

There was no reason to think he was a night creature, but she suspected he was. She didn't think daylight would burn him up, like a vampire. But the more she thought about it, the more she was sure she was right. And there was more. She thought it was the form of the thing. The way he'd appeared to her at first, slashed her son's throat. "I can touch you here, I can touch you there." Something like that.

And the head in the box. Like he was showing off.

He was proud of himself. Proud of his abilities.

Pride comes before the fall. Her mother used to say that to her all the time. She'd tried not to be prideful when she was young, then she got older and her life turned gradually to shit, and after that, what did she have to be proud of?

Would his pride be his downfall? Could she somehow use that?

She laughed out loud. The chatter from the kitchen stopped suddenly. She put her hand over her mouth and chuckled again. She couldn't help it, but the thought of doing anything but dying was just so damn funny.

She didn't have any doubt that she'd die. She couldn't see any way she wouldn't. She couldn't fight him. She couldn't reason with him. He was coming, and when he came she'd die.

But she wouldn't go quietly.

She heard a car pull up outside. She finished dressing quickly and went to meet the relief.

She needed to get out, because as much as she was resigned to dying, she didn't want to. All the years she'd tortured herself, ever since Miles' death, she couldn't have cared one way or the other.

Now death was so close, she found she was reluctant to give herself over to it.

She wanted to fight, but if she was going to fight him, she would need something of his.

Chapter Fifty-One.

The police car pulled up without a fuss. No sirens wailing, no lights flashing. The policemen stepped out and walked up to her door slowly, no rush, just taking it easy. Out for a fucking stroll.

Beth was at the door waiting. She pulled on her big coat as they approached, ready to go, desperate to be doing something other than waiting for him to come to her again.

She remembered his words, now. "I'm going to kill you tonight."

Maybe, she thought. But then maybe I'll have a surprise for you.

"You're the relief, right?" she said as soon as their feet hit the sand, about twenty feet shy of her front steps.

"Yes, Mrs. Willis. We'll be here all day. I'm Sergeant Read, this is Hind. How are you?"

"Shit-scared."

"We tried to get in touch, but we couldn't get through on the phone or the radio. I have some news. We caught him last night. A man called Gregory Sawyer. There was...evidence in his house."

Beth shook her head.

"It's a sweet lie, Sergeant, but you don't believe it anymore than I do."