One

Jane entered the front bedroom. The man was lying in a pool of blood. He could have been any age between twenty and sixty. A gunshot wound had opened up his thigh; he'd cut his trouser leg up the seam and the two halves of fabric hung off him like grey skin. He'd stitched himself shut but the wound had become infected. His head seemed dented. Blood had flowed and coagulated there; it sheened the shoulders of his biker jacket and it cracked whenever he moved. His skin was as pale and lustreless as wax. He was scut-bearded. A silver hoop glinted in his earlobe. He viewed Jane through a curtain of white, ratty hair. Jane wondered how much blood he'd lost. The walnut stock of a rifle was buried in his armpit. The barrel pointed at the floor. His bloodied fingers lifted and rested, lifted and rested on the trigger, the polished thumbhole. His other hand played in the fans of blood, drawing shapes, fingering the crassamentum. That bothered Jane more than the weapon.

'That's a nice gun,' Jane said.

'Too right. It's even got a ventilated butt.'

'It and me both,' Jane said.

The man laughed. There was death in it. He coughed and Jane saw him taste it, what was coming to him. It caused his face to screw up.

'Those prison issue?' Jane asked, nodding at his clothes.

'Yeah.'

'Where were you?'

'Lindholme. About fifteen miles from here. If you're travelling by crow.'

'What were you in for?'

'Stealing sweets off kids.'

Jane waited.

'Rape. Manslaughter.' He pronounced it man's laughter. 'I was bored. It was something to do.'

'How did you get this far?'

'Walked.'

'In that state?'

The man coughed, shook his head. 'I was attacked,' he said. 'Fucking crazy bitch comes running out the farmhouse, carrying this gun. She was screaming. I ran off but she shot me in the leg. She'd killed everyone in her family. Husband, two sons. Baby daughter. Claire. Told me that she'd always wanted a girl and it was their last try at it. Meant to pull the trigger on herself next but couldn't bring herself to do it. Told me that if I didn't shoot her, she'd kill me too.'

'You didn't kill them?'

'I didn't kill them.'

They regarded each other for a while. The man was in too much pain for Jane to gauge his honesty.

'So you shot her?'

'I shot her, yes. What else could I do?'

'So where is she? There's only four bodies in the room downstairs.'

'Outside.'

'Mind if I check?'

'I'm not lying.'

'Still . . .'

'Knock yourself out. Down in the barn.'

Jane bit his lip and eyed the gun. He'd be dead before he made one step to wrestle it from the man. 'I'll be here when you get back. I'm not going anywhere.'

He was turning to go when the man said: 'You been here a day earlier, could have been you she got hold of. Think about that, lucky fuck.'

Downstairs Jane pulled Becky to one side. Aidan was scooping rice into a pan.

'There's a guy upstairs,' he murmured. 'He doesn't know you're down here, I think. He's in pretty bad shape.'

'You want me to help him?'

'He's beyond it. He has a gun. I think he's dangerous, but he won't be able to make it down here. I need to check something out. I'm going to the barn. If you hear anything, movement upstairs, you shout at me, loud as you can.'

'OK.'

'He shoots me, you take Aidan and fast out the front door. Not the back. No trying to save me. OK?'

'OK.'

Jane went straight outside and moved fast to the barn. His back seemed to expand. He wouldn't hear the shot; but there might be enough time to see his heart as it exited his chest. He glanced to his left just before he met the collapsed barn wall and thought he saw skulking figures down by a clump of Corsican pine trees. Inside the barn he found the woman almost immediately. She was sitting up against the far wall, a photograph album in her hands. A single gunshot to her left eye. Jane looked around for something to cover the body but there was nothing. He noticed half a dozen big rats eyeing him and wondered whether they'd got started on the woman somewhere he couldn't see.

'Jesus,' he said, and picked her up. He blanched at the stiff, cold weight of her. The sudden change of position drew a sigh from her lungs that brushed his neck and made him cry out, but he did not drop her. He made to take the album from her hands but it wasn't going anywhere. He heard the scamper of claws as he took the body outside but the rats would not follow him into the field.

He got into the kitchen and Becky was saying, 'Oh, Richard.' And Aidan was saying, 'Who's she? Is she dead?'

'Don't let him in here,' Jane snapped as he kicked open the door to the living room. He put the woman next to her baby and covered them both. Could he have done to Cherry and Stan what this woman had managed to do to her family? No. No way. He didn't have it in him. He could kill himself, he reckoned, but not his boy. You survive and you think you're chosen for something special. You can't believe your luck. And then you find yourself envying the dead.

He closed the door and told Becky to wait with Aidan.

'I want to come with you.'