Contents

About the Book

Title Page

Too Much Time

Read on for an extract from Past Tense

About the Author

Copyright

About the Book

Roughly one significant crime is committed in the US every three seconds. So it’s not unlikely to find yourself witnessing one. Jack Reacher is minding his own business in a town in Maine when he sees a youth snatching a woman’s bag, and, like a good citizen, steps in to stop him. Politely invited by the cops to act as a witness, will Reacher be treated as the perfect patsy for a crime he didn’t commit?

Too Much Time is a new novella which sees Jack Reacher, hero of no fixed abode, finding himself on the wrong side of the law. It is also available in No Middle Name, the complete Jack Reacher short story collection.

Too Much Time

Lee Child

TOO MUCH TIME

SIXTY SECONDS IN a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week, fifty-two weeks in a year. Reacher ballparked the calculation in his head and came up with a little more than thirty million seconds in any twelve-month span. During which time nearly ten million significant crimes would be committed in the United States alone. Roughly one every three seconds. Not rare. To see one actually take place, right in front of you, up close and personal, was not inherently unlikely. Location mattered, of course. Crime went where people went. Odds were better in the centre of a city than the middle of a meadow.

Reacher was in a hollowed-out town in Maine. Not near a lake. Not on the coast. Nothing to do with lobsters. But once upon a time it had been good for something. That was clear. The streets were wide, and the buildings were brick. There was an air of long-gone prosperity. What might once have been grand boutiques were now dollar stores. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Those dollar stores were at least doing some business. There was a coffee franchise. There were tables out. The streets were almost crowded. The weather helped. The first day of spring, and the sun was shining.

Reacher turned into a street so wide it had been closed to traffic and called a plaza. There were café tables in front of blunt red buildings either side, and maybe thirty people meandering in the space between. Reacher first saw the scene head-on, with the people in front of him, randomly scattered. Later he realized the ones that mattered most had made a perfect shape, like a capital letter T. He was at its base, looking upward, and forty yards in the distance, on the crossbar of the T, was a young woman, walking at right angles through his field of view, from right to left ahead of him, across the wide street direct from one sidewalk to the other. She had a canvas tote bag hooked over her shoulder. The canvas looked to be medium weight, and it was a natural colour, pale against her dark shirt. She was maybe twenty years old. Or even younger. She could have been as young as eighteen. She was walking slow, looking up, liking the sun on her face.

Then from the left-hand end of the crossbar, and much faster, came a kid running, head-on towards her. Same kind of age. Sneakers on his feet, tight black pants, sweatshirt with a hood on it. He grabbed the woman’s bag and tore it off her shoulder. She was sent sprawling, her mouth open in some kind of a breathless exclamation. The kid in the hood tucked the bag under his arm like a football, and he jinked to his right, and he set off running down the stem of the T, directly towards Reacher at its base.

Then from the right-hand end of the crossbar came two men in suits, walking the same sidewalk-to-sidewalk direction the woman had used. They were about twenty yards behind her. The crime happened right in front of them. They reacted the same way most people do. They froze for the first split second, and then they turned and watched the guy run away, and they raised their arms in a spirited but incoherent fashion, and they shouted something that might have been Hey!

Then they set out in pursuit. Like a starting gun had gone off. They ran hard, knees pumping, coat tails flapping. Cops, Reacher thought. Had to be. Because of the unspoken unison. They hadn’t even glanced at each other. Who else would react like that?

Forty yards in the distance the young woman scrambled back to her feet, and ran away.

The cops kept on coming. But the kid in the black sweatshirt was ten yards ahead of them, and running much faster. They were not going to catch him. No way. Their relative numbers were negative.

Now the kid was twenty yards from Reacher, dipping left, dipping right, running through the broken field. About three seconds away. With one obvious gap ahead of him. One clear path. Now two seconds away. Reacher stepped right, one pace. Now one second away. Another step. Reacher bounced the kid off his hip and sent him down in a sliding tangle of arms and legs. The canvas bag sailed up in the air and the kid scraped and rolled about ten more feet, and then the men in the suits arrived and were on him. A small crowd pressed close. The canvas bag had fallen to earth about a yard from Reacher’s feet. It had a zipper across the top, closed tight. Reacher ducked down to pick it up, but then he thought better of it. Better to leave the evidence undisturbed, such as it was. He backed away a step. More onlookers gathered at his shoulder.

The cops got the kid sitting up, dazed, and they cuffed his hands behind him. One cop stood guard and the other stepped over and picked up the canvas bag. It looked flat and weightless and empty. Kind of collapsed. Like there was nothing in it. The cop scanned the faces all around him and fixed on Reacher. He took a wallet from his hip pocket and opened it with a practised flick. There was a photo ID behind a milky plastic window. Detective Ramsey Aaron, county police department. The picture was the same guy, a little younger and a lot less out of breath.

Aaron said, ‘Thank you very much for helping us out with that.’

Reacher said, ‘You’re welcome.’

‘Did you see exactly what happened?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Then I’ll need you to sign a witness statement.’

‘Did you see the victim ran away afterwards?’

‘No, I didn’t see that.’

‘She seemed OK.’

‘Good to know,’ Aaron said. ‘But we’ll still need you to sign a statement.’

‘You were closer to it all than I was,’ Reacher said. ‘It happened right in front of you. Sign your own statement.’

‘Frankly, sir, it would mean more coming from a regular person. A member of the public, I mean. Juries don’t always like police testimony. Sign of the times.’

Reacher said, ‘I was a cop once.’

‘Where?’

‘In the army.’

‘Then you’re even better than a regular person.’

‘I can’t stick around for a trial,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m just passing through. I need to move on.’

‘There won’t be a trial,’ Aaron said. ‘If we have an eyewitness on the record, who is also a military veteran, with law enforcement experience, then the defence will plead it out. Simple arithmetic. Pluses and minuses. Like your credit score. That’s how it works now.’

Reacher said nothing.

‘Ten minutes of your time,’ Aaron said. ‘You saw what you saw. What’s the worst thing could happen?’

‘OK,’ Reacher said.

It was longer than ten minutes, even at first. They hung around and waited for a black-and-white to come haul the kid to the police station. Which showed up eventually, accompanied by an EMS truck from the fire house, to check the kid’s vital signs. To pass him fit for processing. To avoid an unexplained death in custody. Which all took time. But in the end the kid went in the back seat and the uniforms in the front, and the car drove away. The rubberneckers went back to meandering. Reacher and the two cops were left standing alone.

The second cop said his name was Bush. No relation to the Bushes of Kennebunkport. Also a detective with the county. He said their car was parked on the street beyond the far corner of the plaza. He pointed. Up where their intended stroll in the sun had begun. They all set out walking in that direction. Up the stem of the T, then a right turn along the crossbar, the cops retracing their earlier steps, Reacher following the cops.

Reacher said, ‘Why did the victim run?’

Aaron said, ‘I guess that’s something we’ll have to figure out.’

Their car was an old Crown Vic, worn but not sagging. Clean but not shiny. Reacher got in the back, which he didn’t mind, because it was a regular sedan. No bulletproof divider. No implications. And the best legroom of all, sitting sideways, with his back against the door, which he was happy to do, because he figured the rear compartment of a cop car was very unlikely to spontaneously burst open from gentle internal pressure. He felt sure the designers would have thought of that consideration.

The ride was short, to a dismal low-built concrete structure on the edge of town. There were tall antennas and satellite dishes on its roof. It had a parking lot with three unmarked sedans and a lone black-and-white cruiser all parked in a line, plus about ten more empty spaces, and the stove-in wreck of a blue SUV in one far corner. Detective Bush drove in and parked in a slot marked D2. They all got out. The weak spring sun was still hanging in there.

‘Just so you understand,’ Aaron said. ‘The less money we put in our buildings, the more we can put in catching the bad guys. It’s about priorities.’

‘You sound like the mayor,’ Reacher said.

‘Good guess. It was a selectman, making a speech. Word for word.’

They went inside. The place wasn’t so bad. Reacher had been in and out of government buildings all his life. Not the elegant marble palaces of D.C. necessarily, but the grimy beat-up places where government actually happened. And the county cops were about halfway up the scale, when it came to luxurious surroundings. Their main problem was a low ceiling. Which was simple bad luck. Even government architects succumbed to fashion sometimes, and back when atomic was a big word they briefly favoured brutalist structures made of thick concrete, as if the 1950s public would feel reassured the forces of order were protected by apparently nuclear-resistant facilities. But whatever the reason, the bunker-like mentality too often spread inside, with cramped airless spaces. Which was the county police department’s only real problem. The rest was pretty good. Basic, maybe, but a smart guy wouldn’t want it much more complicated. It looked like an OK place to work.

Aaron and Bush led Reacher to an interview room on a corridor parallel to the detectives’ pen. Reacher said, ‘We’re not doing this at your desk?’

‘Like on the TV shows?’ Aaron said. ‘Not allowed. Not any more. Not since 9/11. No unauthorized access to operational areas. You’re not authorized until your name appears as a cooperating witness in an official printed file. Which yours hasn’t yet, obviously. Plus our insurance works best in here. Sign of the times. If you were to slip and fall, we’d rather there was a camera in the room, to prove we were nowhere near you at the time.’

‘Understood,’ Reacher said.

They went in. It was a standard facility, perhaps made even more oppressive by a compressed, hunkered-down feeling, coming from the obvious thousands of tons of concrete all around. The inside face was unfinished, but painted so many times it was smooth and slick. The colour was a pale government green, not helped by ecological bulbs in the fixtures. The air looked seasick. There was a large mirror on the end wall. Without doubt a one-way window.

Reacher sat down facing it, on the bad-guy side of a crossways table, opposite Aaron and Bush, who had pads of paper and fistfuls of pens. First Aaron warned Reacher that both audio and video recording was taking place. Then Aaron asked Reacher for his full name, and his date of birth, and his Social Security number, all of which Reacher supplied truthfully, because why not? Then Aaron asked for his current address, which started a whole big debate.

Reacher said, ‘No fixed abode.’

Aaron said, ‘What does that mean?’

‘What it says. It’s a well-known form of words.’

‘You don’t live anywhere?’

‘I live plenty of places. One night at a time.’

‘Like in an RV? Are you retired?’

‘No RV,’ Reacher said.

Aaron said, ‘In other words you’re homeless.’

‘But voluntarily.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I move from place to place. A day here, a day there.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I like to.’

‘Like a tourist?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Where’s your luggage?’

‘I don’t use any.’

‘You have no stuff?’

‘I saw a little book in a store at the airport. Apparently we’re supposed to get rid of whatever doesn’t bring us joy.’

‘So you junked your stuff?’

‘I already had no stuff. I figured that part out years ago.’

Aaron stared down at his pad of paper, unsure. He said, ‘So what would be the best word for you? Vagrant?’

Reacher said, ‘Itinerant. Distributed. Transient. Episodic.’

‘Were you discharged from the military with any kind of diagnosis?’

‘Would that hurt my credibility as a witness?’

‘I told you, it’s like a credit score. No fixed address is a bad thing. PTSD would be worse. Defence counsel might speculate about your potential reliability on the stand. They might knock you down a point or two.’

‘I was in the 110th MP,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m not scared of PTSD. PTSD is scared of me.’

‘What was the 110th MP?’

‘An elite unit.’

‘How long have you been out?’

‘Longer than I was in.’

‘OK,’ Aaron said. ‘But this is not my call. It’s about the numbers now, pure and simple. Trials happen inside laptop computers. Special software. Ten thousand simulations. The majority trend. A couple of points either way could be crucial. No fixed address isn’t ideal, even without anything else.’

‘Take it or leave it,’ Reacher said.

They took it, like Reacher knew they would. They could never have too much. They could always lose some of it later. Perfectly normal. Plenty of good work got wasted, even on slam-dunk successful cases. So he ran through what he had seen, carefully, coherently, completely, beginning to end, left to right, near to far, and afterwards they all agreed that must have been about all of it. Aaron sent Bush to get the audio typed and printed, ready for Reacher’s signature. Bush left the room, and Aaron said, ‘Thank you again.’

‘You’re welcome again,’ Reacher said. ‘Now tell me your interest.’

‘Like you saw, it happened right in front of us.’

‘Which I’m beginning to think is the interesting part. I mean, what were the odds? Detective Bush parked in the D2 slot. Which means he’s number two on the detective squad. But he drove the car and now he’s doing your fetching and carrying. Which means you’re number one on the detective squad. Which means the two biggest names in the most glamorous division in the whole county police department just happened to be taking a stroll in the sun twenty yards behind a girl who just happened to get robbed.’

‘Coincidence,’ Aaron said.

Reacher said, ‘I think you were following her.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because you don’t seem to care what happened to her afterwards. Possibly because you know who she is. You know she’ll be back soon, to tell you all about it. Or you know where to find her. Because you’re blackmailing her. Or she’s a double agent. Or maybe she’s one of your own, working undercover. Whichever, you trust her to look out for herself. You’re not worried about her. It’s the bag you’re interested in. She was violently robbed, but you followed the bag, not her. Maybe the bag is important. Although I don’t see how. It looked empty to me.’

‘Sounds like a real big conspiracy going on, doesn’t it?’

‘It was your choice of words,’ Reacher said. ‘You thanked me for my help. My help in what exactly? A spontaneous split second emergency? I don’t think you would have used that phrase. You would have said wow, that was something, huh? Or an equivalent. Or just a raised eyebrow. As a bond, or an icebreaker. Like we’re just two guys, shooting the shit. But instead you thanked me quite formally. You said, Thank you very much for helping us out with that.’

Aaron said, ‘I was trying to be polite.’

Reacher said, ‘But I think that kind of formality needs a longer incubation. And you said with that. With what? For you to internalize something as that, I think it would need to be a little older than a split second. It would need to be previously established. And you used a continuous tense. You said I was helping you out. Which implies something ongoing. Something that existed before the kid snatched the bag and will continue afterwards. And you used the plural pronoun. You said thanks for helping us out. You and Bush. With something you already own, with something you’re already running, and it just came off the rails a little bit, but ultimately the damage wasn’t too bad. I think it was that kind of help you were thanking me for. Because you were extremely relieved. It could have been much worse, if the kid had gotten away, maybe. Which is why you said thank you very much. Which was way too heartfelt for a trivial mugging. It seemed more important to you.’

‘I was being polite.’

‘And I think my witness statement is mostly for the chief of police and the selectmen, not a computer game. To show them how it wasn’t your fault. To show them how it wasn’t you who just nearly screwed up some kind of a long-running operation. That’s why you wanted a regular person. Any third party would do. Otherwise all you would have is your own testimony, on your own behalf. You and Bush, watching each other’s back.’

‘We were taking a stroll.’

‘You didn’t even glance at each other. Not a second thought. You just chased after that bag. You’d been thinking about that bag all day. Or all week.’

Aaron didn’t answer, and got no more opportunity to discuss it, because at that moment the door opened and a different head was stuck in. It gestured Aaron out for a word. Aaron left and the door snicked shut behind him. But before Reacher could get around to worrying about whether it was locked or not, it opened up again, and Aaron stuck his head back in and said, ‘The rest of the interview will be conducted by different detectives.’

The door closed again.

Opened again.

The guy who had stuck his head in the first time led the way. He had a similar guy behind him. Both looked like classic New England characters from historic black-and-white photographs. The product of many generations of hard work and stern self-denial. Both were lean and wiry, all cords and ligaments, almost gaunt. They were wearing chino pants, with checked shirts under blue sport coats. They had buzzed haircuts. No attempt at style. Pure function. They said they worked for the Maine Drug Enforcement Administration. A statewide organization. They said state-level inquiries outbid county-level inquiries. Hence the hijacked interview. They said they had questions about what Reacher had seen.

They sat in the chairs Aaron and Bush had vacated. The one on the left said his name was Cook, and the one on the right said his name was Delaney. It looked like he was the team leader. He looked set to do all the talking. About what Reacher had seen, he said again. Nothing more. Nothing to be concerned about.

But then he said, ‘First we need more information on one particular aspect. We think our county colleagues went a little light on it. They glossed right over it, perhaps understandably.’

Reacher said, ‘Glossed over what?’

‘What exactly was your state of mind, in terms of intention, at the moment you knocked the kid down?’

‘Seriously?’

‘In your own words.’

‘How many?’

‘As many as you need.’

‘I was helping the cops.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘I saw the crime. The perpetrator was fleeing straight towards me. He was outrunning his pursuers. I had no doubt about his guilt or innocence. So I got in his way. He wasn’t even hurt bad.’

‘How did you know the two men were cops?’

‘First impressions. Was I right or wrong?’

Delaney paused a beat.

Then he said, ‘Now tell me what you saw.’

‘I’m sure you were listening in, the first time around.’

‘We were,’ Delaney said. ‘Also to your continued conversation afterwards, with Detective Aaron. After Detective Bush left the room. It seems you saw more than you put in your witness statement. It seems you saw something about a long-running operation.’

‘That was speculation,’ Reacher said. ‘It didn’t belong in a witness statement.’

‘As an ethical matter?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Are you an ethical man, Mr Reacher?’

‘I do my best.’

‘But now you can knock yourself out. The statement is done. Now you can speculate to your heart’s content. What did you see?’

‘Why ask me?’

‘We might have a problem. You might be able to help.’

‘How could I help?’

‘You were a military policeman. You know how this stuff works. Big picture. What did you see?’

Reacher said, ‘I guess I saw Aaron and Bush following the girl with the bag. Some kind of surveillance operation. Surveillance of the bag, principally. When the thing happened they ignored the girl completely. Best guess, maybe the girl was due to hand the bag off to an as yet unknown suspect. At a later stage. In a different place. Like a delivery or a payment. Maybe it was important to eyeball the exchange itself. Maybe the unknown suspect is the last link in the chain. Hence the high-status eyewitnesses. Or whatever. Except the plan failed because fate intervened in the form of a random purse-snatcher. Sheer bad luck. Happens to the best of us. And really no big deal. They can run it again tomorrow.’

Delaney shook his head. ‘We’re in murky waters. People like we’re dealing with here, if you miss a rendezvous, you’re dead to them. This thing is over.’

‘Then I’m sorry,’ Reacher said. ‘But shit happens. Best bet would be get over it.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Not my monkeys,’ Reacher said. ‘Not my circus. I’m just a guy passing by.’

‘We need a word about that, too. How could we get ahold of you, if we needed to? Do you carry a cell phone?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do folks get ahold of you?’

‘They don’t.’

‘Not even family and friends?’

‘No family left.’

‘No friends either?’

‘Not the kind you call on the phone every five minutes.’

‘So who even knows where you are?’

‘I do,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s enough.’

‘You sure?’

‘I haven’t needed rescuing yet.’

Delaney nodded. Said, ‘Let’s go back to what you saw.’

‘What part?’

‘All of it. Maybe it ain’t over yet. Could there be another interpretation?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ Reacher said.

‘What kind of thing would be possible?’

‘I used to get paid for this kind of discussion.’

‘We could trade you a cup of county coffee.’

‘Deal,’ Reacher said. ‘Black, no sugar.’

Cook went to get it, and when he got back Reacher took a sip and said, ‘Thank you. But on balance I think it was probably just a random event.’

Delaney said, ‘Use your imagination.’

Reacher said, ‘Use yours.’

‘OK,’ Delaney said. ‘Let’s assume Aaron and Bush didn’t know where or when or who or how, but eventually they were expecting to see the bag transferred into someone else’s custody.’

Reacher said, ‘OK, let’s assume.’

‘And maybe that’s exactly what they saw. Just a little earlier than anticipated.’

‘Anything’s possible,’ Reacher said again.

‘We have to assume secrecy and clandestine measures on the bad guys’ part. Maybe they gave a decoy rendezvous and planned to snatch the bag along the way. For the sake of surprise and unpredictability. Which is always the best way to beat surveillance. Maybe it was even rehearsed. According to you the girl gave it up pretty easily. You said she went down on her butt, and then she sprang back up and ran away.’

Reacher nodded. ‘Which means you would say the kid in the black sweatshirt was the unknown suspect. You would say he was due to receive the bag all along.’

Delaney nodded. ‘And we got him, and therefore the operation was in fact a total success.’

‘Easy for you to say. Also very convenient.’

Delaney didn’t answer.

Reacher asked, ‘Where is the kid now?’

Delaney pointed to the door. ‘Two rooms away. We’re taking him to Bangor soon.’

‘Is he talking?’

‘Not so far. He’s being a good little soldier.’

‘Unless he isn’t a soldier at all.’

‘We think he is. And we think he’ll talk, when he comes to appreciate the full extent of his jeopardy.’

‘One other major problem,’ Reacher said.

‘Which is?’

‘The bag looked empty to me. What kind of a delivery or a payment would that be? You won’t get a conviction for following an empty bag around.’

‘The bag wasn’t empty,’ Delaney said. ‘At least not originally.’

‘What was in it?’

‘We’ll get to that. But first we need to loop back around. To what I asked you at the very beginning. To make sure. About your state of mind.’

‘I was helping the cops.’

‘Were you?’

‘You worried about liability? If I was a civilian rendering assistance, I get the same immunity law enforcement gets. Plus the kid wasn’t hurt anyway. Couple of bruises, maybe. Maybe a scrape on his knee. No problem. Unless you got some really weird judges here.’

‘Our judges are OK. When they understand the context.’

‘What else could the context be? I witnessed a felony. There was a clear desire on the part of the police department to apprehend the perpetrator. I helped them. Are you saying you’ve got an issue with that?’

Delaney said, ‘Would you excuse us for a moment?’

Reacher didn’t answer. Cook and Delaney got up and shuffled out from behind the crossways table. They stepped to the door and left the room. The door snicked shut behind them. This time Reacher was pretty sure it locked. He glanced at the mirror. Saw nothing but his reflection, grey tinged with green.

Ten minutes of your time. What’s the worst thing could happen?

Nothing happened. Not for three long minutes. Then Cook and Delaney came back in. They sat down again, Cook on the left and Delaney on the right.

Delaney said, ‘You claim you were rendering assistance to law enforcement.’

Reacher said, ‘Correct.’

‘Would you like to revisit that statement?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No,’ Delaney said.

‘Why not?’

‘We think the truth was very different.’

‘How so?’

‘We think you were taking the bag from the kid. The same way he took it from the girl. We think you were a second surprising and unpredictable cut-out.’

‘The bag fell on the ground.’

‘We have witnesses who saw you bend down to pick it up.’

‘I thought better of it. I left it there. Aaron picked it up.’

Delaney nodded. ‘And by then it was empty.’

‘Want to search my pockets?’

‘We think you extracted the contents of the bag, and handed them off to someone in the crowd.’

‘What?’

‘If you were a second cut-out, why wouldn’t there be a third?’

‘Bullshit,’ Reacher said.

Delaney said, ‘Jack-none-Reacher, you are under arrest for felonious involvement with a racketeer-influenced corrupt organization. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney before further questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, then one will be appointed for you, on the taxpayers’ dime.’

Four county cops came in, three with handguns drawn and the fourth with a shotgun held at port arms across his body. Across the table Cook and Delaney merely peeled back their lapels to show off Glock 17s in shoulder holsters. Reacher sat still. Six against one. Too many. Dumb odds. Plus nervous tension in the air, plus trigger fingers, plus a completely unknown level of training, expertise, and experience.

Mistakes might be made.

Reacher sat still.

He said, ‘I want the public defender.’

After that, he said nothing at all.

They handcuffed his wrists behind his back and led him out to the corridor, and around two dogleg corners, and through a locked steel door in a concrete frame, into the station’s holding area, which was a miniature cell block with three empty billets on a narrow corridor, all the far side of a booking table that was currently unoccupied. One of the county cops holstered his weapon and stepped around. Reacher’s handcuffs were removed. He gave up his passport, his ATM card, his toothbrush, seventy bucks in bills, seventy-five cents in quarters, and his shoelaces. In exchange he got a shove in the back and sole occupancy of the first cell in line. The door clanged shut, and the lock tripped like a hammer hitting a railroad spike. The cops looked in for a second more, like people at the zoo, and then they about-turned and walked back past the booking table and out of the room, one after the other. Reacher heard the steel door close after the last of them. He heard it lock.

He waited. He was good at waiting. He was a patient man. He had nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there. He sat on the bed, which was a cast concrete structure, as was a little desk, with an integral stool. The stool had a little round pad, made of the same thin vinyl-covered foam as the mattress on the bed. The toilet was steel, with a dished-in top to act as a basin. Cold water only. Like the world’s lousiest motel room, further stripped back to the unavoidable minimum requirements, and then reduced in size to the barely bearable. The old-time architects had used even more concrete than elsewhere. As if prisoners trying to escape might exert more force than atom bombs.

Reacher kept track of time in his head. Two hours ticked by, and part of a third, and then the youngest of the county uniforms came by for a status check. He looked in the bars and said, ‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ Reacher said. ‘A little hungry, maybe. It’s past lunchtime.’

‘There’s a problem with that.’

‘Is the chef out sick?’

‘We don’t have a chef. We send out. To the diner down the block. Lunch is authorized up to four dollars. But that’s the county rate. You’re a state prisoner. We don’t know what they pay for lunch.’

‘More, I hope.’

‘But we need to know for sure. Otherwise we could get stuck with it.’

‘Doesn’t Delaney know? Or Cook?’

‘They left. They took their other suspect back to their HQ in Bangor.’

‘How much do you spend on dinner?’

‘Six and a half.’

‘Breakfast?’

‘You won’t be here for breakfast. You’re a state prisoner. Like the other guy. They’ll come get you tonight.’

An hour later the young cop came back again with a grilled cheese sandwich and a foam cup of Coke. Three bucks and change. Apparently Detective Aaron had said if the state paid less than that, he would cover the difference personally.

‘Tell him thanks,’ Reacher said. ‘And tell him to be careful. One favour for another.’

‘Careful about what?’

‘Which mast he nails his colours to.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Either he’ll understand or he won’t.’

‘You saying you didn’t do it?’

Reacher smiled. ‘I guess you heard that before.’

The young cop nodded. ‘Everyone says it. None of you ever did a damn thing. It’s what we expect.’

Then the guy walked away, and Reacher ate his meal, and went back to waiting.

Another two hours later the young cop came back for the third time. He said, ‘The public defender is here. She’s going through the case on the phone with the state guys. They’re still in Bangor. They’re talking right now. She’ll be with you soon.’

Reacher said, ‘What’s she like?’

‘She’s OK. One time my car got stole and she helped me out with the insurance company. She was in my sister’s class in high school.’

‘How old is your sister?’

‘Three years older than me.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Did you get your money back for your car?’

‘Some of it.’

Then the guy went and sat on the stool behind the booking table. To give the impression of proper prisoner care, Reacher supposed, while his lawyer was in the house. Reacher stayed where he was, on the bed. Just waiting.

Thirty minutes later the lawyer came in. She said hello to the cop at the desk, in a friendly way, like a person would, to an old high school classmate’s kid brother. Then she said something else, lawyer-like and quietly, about client confidentiality, and the guy got up and left the room. He closed the steel door behind him. The cell block went quiet. The lawyer looked in the bars at Reacher. Like a person at the zoo. Maybe at the gorilla house. She was medium height and medium weight, and she was wearing a black skirt suit. She had short brown hair with lighter streaks, and brown eyes, and a round face, with a downturned mouth. Like an upside-down smile. As if she had suffered many disappointments in her life. She was carrying a leather briefcase too fat to zip. There was a yellow legal pad poking out the top. It was covered with handwritten notes.

She left the briefcase on the floor and went back and dragged the stool out from behind the booking table. She positioned it outside Reacher’s cage and climbed up on it, and got comfortable, with her knees pressed tight together, and the heels of her shoes hooked over the rail. Like a regular client meeting, one person either side of a desk or a table, except there was no desk or table. Just a wall of thick steel bars, closely spaced.

She said, ‘My name is Cathy Clark.’

Reacher said nothing.

She said, ‘I’m sorry I took so long to get here. I had a closing scheduled.’

Reacher said, ‘You do real estate too?’

‘Most of the time.’

‘How many criminal cases have you done?’

‘One or two.’

‘There’s a large percentage difference between one and two. How many exactly?’

‘One.’

‘Did you win?’

‘No.’

Reacher said nothing.

She said, ‘You get who you get. That’s how it works. There’s a list. I was at the top today. Like the cab line at the airport.’

‘Why aren’t we doing this in a conference room?’

She didn’t answer. Reacher got the impression she liked the bars. He got the impression she liked the separation. As if it made her safer.

He said, ‘Do you think I’m guilty?’

‘Doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what I can do.’

‘Which is?’

‘Let’s talk,’ she said. ‘You need to explain why you were there.’

‘I have to be somewhere. They need to explain why I would have given up my co-conspirator. I delivered him right to them.’

‘They think you were clumsy. You intended merely to grab the bag, and you knocked him over by mistake. They think he intended to keep on running.’

‘Why were county detectives involved in a state operation?’

‘Budgets,’ she said. ‘Also sharing the credit, to keep everyone sweet.’

‘I didn’t grab the bag.’

‘They have four witnesses who say you bent down to it.’

Reacher said nothing.

She said, ‘Why were you there?’

‘There were thirty people in that plaza. Why were any of them there?’

‘The evidence shows the boy ran straight towards you. Not towards them.’

‘Didn’t happen that way. I stepped into his path.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You think I’m guilty.’

‘Doesn’t matter what I think,’ she said again.

‘What do they claim was in the bag?’

‘They’re not saying yet.’

‘Is that legal? Shouldn’t I know what I’m accused of?’

‘I think it’s legal for the time being.’

‘You think? I need more than that.’

‘If you want a different lawyer, go right ahead and pay for one.’

Reacher said, ‘Is the kid in the sweatshirt talking yet?’

‘He claims it was a simple robbery. He claims he thought the girl was using the bag as a purse. He claims he was hoping to get cash and credit cards. Maybe a cell phone. The state agents see that as a rehearsed cover story, just in case.’

‘Why do they think I didn’t run too? Why would I stick around afterwards?’

‘Same thing,’ she said. ‘A rehearsed cover story. As soon as it all went wrong. You saw them grab your pal, so you both switched to plan B, instantly. He was a mugger, you were helping law enforcement. He would get a trivial sentence, you would get a pat on the head. They anticipate a certain level of sophistication from both of you. Apparently this is a big deal.’

Reacher nodded. ‘How big of a deal, do you think?’

‘It’s a major investigation. It’s been running a long time.’

‘Expensive, do you think?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘At a time when budgets seem to be an issue.’

‘Budgets are always an issue.’

‘As are egos and reputations and performance reviews. Think about Delaney and Cook. Put yourself in their shoes. A long-running and expensive investigation falls apart due to random chance. They’re back to square one. Maybe worse than that. Maybe there’s no way back in. Lots of red faces all around. So what happens next?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Human nature,’ Reacher said. ‘First they shouted and cussed and punched the wall. Then their survival instinct kicked in. They looked for ways to cover their ass. They looked for ways to claim the operation was in fact a success all along. Agent Delaney said exactly that. They dreamed up the idea the kid was a part of the scam. Then they listened in when Aaron was talking to me. They heard me say I don’t live anywhere. I’m a vagrant, in Aaron’s own words. Which gave them an even better idea. They could make it a twofer. They could claim they bagged two guys and ripped the heart out of the whole damn thing. They could get pats on the back and letters of commendation after all.’

‘You’re saying their case is invented.’

‘I know it is.’

‘That’s a stretch.’

‘They double-checked with me. They made sure. They confirmed I don’t carry a cell phone. They confirmed no one keeps track of where I am. They confirmed I’m the perfect patsy.’

‘You agreed with the idea the kid was more than a mugger.’

‘As a hypothetical,’ Reacher said. ‘And not very enthusiastically. Part of a professional discussion. They flattered me into it. They said I know how this stuff works. I was humouring them. They were making shit up, to cover their ass. I was being polite, I guess.’

‘You said it was possible.’

‘Why would I say that, if I was involved?’

‘They think it was a double bluff.’

‘I’m not that smart,’ Reacher said.

‘They think you are. You were in an elite MP unit.’

‘Wouldn’t that put me on their side?’

The lawyer said nothing. Just squirmed on her stool a little. Uneasiness, Reacher figured. Lack of sympathy. Distrust. Even revulsion, maybe. A desire to get away. Human nature. He knew how this stuff worked.

He said, ‘Check the timing on the tape. They heard me say I have no address, and the mental cogs started turning, and pretty soon after that they had hijacked the interview and were in the room with me. Then they left again later, just for a minute. For a private chat. They were confirming with each other whether they had enough. Whether they could make it work. They decided to go for it. They came back in and arrested me.’

‘I can’t take that to court.’

‘What can you take?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Best I can do is try for a plea bargain.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Completely. You’re going to be charged with a very serious offence. They’re going to present a working theory to the court, and they’re going to back it up with eyewitness testimony from regular Maine folk, all of whom are either literally or figuratively friends and neighbours of the jury members. You’re an outsider with an incomprehensible lifestyle. I mean, where are you even from?’

‘Nowhere in particular.’

‘Where were you born?’

‘West Berlin.’

‘Are you German?’

‘No, my father was a Marine. Born in New Hampshire. West Berlin was his duty station at the time.’

‘So you’ve always been military?’

‘Man and boy.’

‘Not good. People thank you for your service, but deep down they think you’re all screwed up with trauma. There’s a substantial risk you’ll be convicted, and if you are, you’ll get a long custodial sentence. It will be far safer to plead guilty to a lesser offence. You’d be saving them the time and expense of a contested trial. That counts for a lot. It could be the difference between five years and twenty. As your lawyer I would be delinquent in my duty if I didn’t recommend it.’

‘You’re recommending I do five years for an offence I didn’t commit?’

‘Everyone says they’re innocent. Juries know that.’

‘And lawyers?’

‘Clients lie all the time.’

Reacher said nothing.

His lawyer said, ‘They want to move you to Warren tonight.’

‘What’s in Warren?’

‘The state pen.’

‘Terrific.’

‘I petitioned to have you kept here a day or two. More convenient for me.’

‘And?’

‘They refused.’

Reacher said nothing.

His lawyer said, ‘They’ll bring you back tomorrow morning for the arraignment. The courthouse is in this building.’

‘So I’m going there and back in less than twelve hours? That’s not very efficient. I should stay here.’

‘You’re in the system now. That’s how it works. Nothing will make sense ever again. Get used to it. We’ll discuss your plea in the morning. I suggest you think about it very seriously overnight.’

‘What about bail?’

‘How much can you pay?’

‘About seventy bucks and change.’

‘The court would regard that as an insult,’ she said. ‘Better not to apply at all.’

Then she slid down off her stool and picked up her overstuffed bag and walked out of the room. Reacher heard the steel door open and close. The cell block went quiet again.

Ten minutes of your time. What’s the worst thing could happen?

Another hour went by, and then the young cop came back in. He said the state had authorized the same six dollars and fifty cents for dinner that the county would have spent. He said that would get most anything on the diner’s menu. He recited a list of possibilities, which was extensive. Reacher thought about it for a moment. Chicken pot pie, maybe. Or pasta. Or an egg salad. He mused out loud between those three. The cop recommended the chicken pie. He said it was good. Reacher took his word for it. Plus coffee, he added. Lots of it, he emphasized, a really serious quantity, in a flask to keep it warm. With a proper china cup and saucer. No cream, no sugar. The cop wrote it all down on a slip of paper with a stub of a pencil.

Then he said, ‘Was the public defender OK?’

‘Sure,’ Reacher said. ‘She seemed like a nice lady. Smart, too. She figures it’s all a bit of a misunderstanding. She figures those state guys get a bit over-enthusiastic from time to time. Not like you county people. No common sense.’

The young cop nodded. ‘I guess it can be like that sometimes.’

‘She says I’ll be out tomorrow, most likely. She says I should sit tight and trust the system.’

‘That’s usually the best way,’ the kid said. He tucked the slip of paper in his shirt pocket, and then he left the room.

Reacher stayed on his bed. He waited. He sensed the building grow quieter, as the day watch went home and the night watch came in. Fewer people. Budgets. A rural county in an underpopulated part of the state. Then eventually the young cop came back with the food. His last duty of the day, almost certainly. He was carrying a tray with a china plate with a metal cover, and a white fluted fat-bellied plastic coffee flask, and a saucer topped with an upside-down cup, and a knife and a fork wrapped in a paper napkin.

The plastic flask was the key component. It made the whole assemblage too tall to fit through the horizontal pass-through slot in the bars. The kid couldn’t lay the flask down on its side on the tray. It would roll around and the coffee would spill out all over the pie. He couldn’t pass it upright on its own through a regular part of the bars, because they were too close together for its fat-bellied shape.

The kid paused, unsure.

Twenty-four years old. A rookie. A guy who knew Reacher as nothing worse than a placid old man who spent all his time on his bed, apparently relaxed and resigned. No shouting, no yelling. No complaints. No bad temper.

Trusting the system.

No danger.

He would balance the tray one-handed on steepled fingers, like a regular waiter. He would take his keys off his belt. He would unlock the gate and slide it open with his toe. His holster was empty. No gun. Standard practice everywhere in the world. No prison guard was ever armed. To carry a loaded weapon among locked-up prisoners would be just asking for trouble. He would step into the cell. He would hook his keys back on his belt and juggle the tray back into two hands. He would turn away, towards the concrete desk.

Which relative positioning would offer a number of different opportunities.

Reacher waited.

But no.

The kid was the kind of rookie who got his car stolen, but he wasn’t totally dumb. He put the tray on the floor outside the cell, just temporarily, and he took the coffee pot off it, and the cup and saucer, and he placed them all on the tile the wrong side of the bars, and then he picked up the tray again and fed it through the slot. Reacher took it. To get a drink, he would have to put his wrists between the bars and pour on the outside. The cup would fit back through. Maybe not on its saucer, but then, he wasn’t dining at the Ritz.

The kid said, ‘There you go.’

Not totally dumb.

‘Thanks,’ Reacher said anyway. ‘I appreciate it.’

The kid said, ‘Enjoy.’

Reacher didn’t. The pie was bad and the coffee was weak.

An hour later a different uniform came by to collect the empties. The night watch. Reacher said, ‘I need to see Detective Aaron.’

The new guy said, ‘He isn’t here. He went home.’

‘Get him back. Right now. It’s important.’

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher said, ‘If he finds out I asked but you didn’t call him, he’ll kick your ass. Or take your shield. I hear there are budget issues. My advice would be don’t give him an excuse.’

‘What’s this all about?’

‘A notch on his belt.’

‘You going to confess?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You’re a state prisoner. We’re county. We don’t care what you did.’

‘Call him anyway.’

The guy didn’t answer. Just carried the tray away and closed the steel door behind him.

The guy must have made the call, because Aaron showed up ninety minutes later. About halfway through the evening. He was wearing the same suit. He looked neither eager nor annoyed. Just neutral. Maybe a little curious. He looked in through the bars.

He said, ‘What do you want?’

Reacher said, ‘To talk about the case.’

‘It’s a state matter.’

‘Not if it was a simple mugging.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘You believe that?’

‘It was a credible way to beat surveillance.’

‘What about me as the second secret ingredient?’

‘That’s credible too.’

‘It would have been a miracle of coordination. Wouldn’t it? Exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.’

‘You could have been waiting there for hours.’

‘But was I? What do your witnesses say?’

Aaron didn’t reply.

Reacher said, ‘Check the timing on the tape. You and me talking. Picture the sequence. Delaney got a hard-on for me because of something he heard.’

Aaron nodded. ‘Your lawyer already passed that on. The homeless patsy. Didn’t convince me then, doesn’t convince me now.’

‘Beyond a reasonable doubt?’ Reacher asked.

‘I’m a detective. Reasonable doubt is for the jury.’

‘You happy for an innocent man to go to prison?’

‘Guilt and innocence is for the jury.’

‘Suppose I get acquitted? You happy to see your case go down in flames?’

‘Not my case. It’s a state matter.’

Reacher said, ‘Listen to the tape again. Time it out.’

‘I can’t,’ Aaron said. ‘There is no tape.’

‘You told me there was.’

‘We’re the county police. We can’t record a state interview. Not our jurisdiction. So the recording was discontinued.’

‘It was before that. When you and I were talking.’

‘That part got screwed up. The previous stuff got erased when the recording was stopped.’

‘It got?’

‘Accidents happen.’

‘Who pressed the stop button?’

Aaron didn’t answer.

‘Who was it?’ Reacher said.

‘Delaney,’ Aaron said. ‘When he took over from me. He apologized. He said he wasn’t familiar with our equipment.’

‘You believed him?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

Reacher said nothing.

‘Accidents happen,’ Aaron said again.

‘You sure it was an accident? You sure they weren’t making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear? You sure they weren’t covering their tracks?’

Aaron said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘You never saw such a thing happen?’

‘What do you want me to say? He’s a fellow cop.’

‘So am I.’

‘You were, once upon a time. Now you’re just a guy passing by.’

‘One day you will be, too. You want all these years to count for nothing?’

Aaron didn’t answer.

Reacher said, ‘Right back at the beginning you told me juries don’t always like police testimony. Why would that be? Are those juries always wrong?’

No response.

Reacher said, ‘Can’t you remember what we said on the tape?’

‘Even if I could, it would be my word against the state. And it ain’t exactly a smoking gun, is it?’

Reacher said nothing. Aaron gazed through the bars a minute more, and then he left again.

Reacher lay on his back on the narrow bed with one elbow jammed against the wall and his head resting on his cupped hand. Check the timing on the tape, he had said. He ran through what he remembered of his first conversation with Aaron. In the green bunker-like room. The witness statement. The preamble. Name, date of birth, Social Security number. Then his address. No fixed abode, and so on and so forth. He pictured Delaney listening in. A tinny loudspeaker in another room. In other words you’re homeless, Aaron had said. Delaney had heard him say it. Loud and clear. How long did he take to spot his opportunity and come barging in?

Too long, Reacher thought.

There had been the bravura bullshit about PTSD and the 110th, and some lengthy dickering from Aaron about whether his testimony would be helpful or hurtful, and then the testimony itself, careful, composed, coherent, detailed, clear and slow. Then the private chat afterwards. After Bush had left the room. The speculation, and the semantic analysis backing it up. You said, Thank you very much for helping us out with that. And so on. All that stuff. Altogether seven minutes, maybe. Or eight, or nine.

Or ten.

Too much time.

Delaney had reacted to something else.

Something he heard later.

At ten o’clock in Reacher’s head there was the heavy tramp of footsteps in the corridor outside the steel door. The door opened and people came in. Six of them. Different uniforms. State Police. Prisoner escorts. They had Mace and pepper spray and tasers on their belts. Handcuffs and shackles and thin metal chains. They knew what they were doing. They made Reacher back up against the bars and stick his hands out behind him, through the meal slot. They cuffed his wrists, and held tight to the link, and squatted down and put their hands in through the bars, the same way he had poured his coffee, but in reverse. They put shackles around his ankles, and linked them together, and ran a chain up to his handcuffs. Then they unlocked his gate and slid it open. He shuffled out, small clinking steps, and they stopped him at the booking desk, where they retrieved his possessions from a drawer. His passport, his ATM card, his toothbrush, his seventy bucks in bills, his seventy-five cents in quarters, and his shoelaces. They put them all in a khaki envelope and sealed the flap. Then they escorted him out of the cell block, three ahead, three behind. They walked him around the dogleg corners, under the low concrete ceilings, and out to the lot. There was a grey-painted school bus with wire on the windows parked next to the wrecked SUV in the far corner. They pushed him inside and planted him on a bench seat in back. There were no other passengers. One guy drove and the other five sat close together up front.

They got to Warren just before midnight. The prison was visible from a mile away, with bright pools of arc light showing through the mist. The bus waited at the gate, idling with a heavy diesel clatter, and spotlights played over it, and the gate ground open, and the bus drove inside. It waited again for a second gate, and then shut down in a brightly lit space near an iron door marked Prisoner Intake. Reacher was led through it, and down the right-hand spur of a Y-shaped junction, to the holding pen for inmates as yet unconvicted. His cuffs and chains and shackles were removed. His possessions in their khaki envelope were filed away, and he was issued with a white jumpsuit uniform and blue shower shoes. He was led to a cell more or less identical to the one he had just left. The gate was slid shut, and the key was turned. His escort left, and a minute later the light clicked off and the block was plunged into noisy and restless darkness.

The lights came back on at six in the morning. Reacher heard a guard in the corridor, unlocking one gate after another. Eventually the guy showed up at Reacher’s door. He was a mean-looking man about thirty. He said, ‘Go get your breakfast now.’

Breakfast was in a large low room that smelled of boiled food and disinfectant. Reacher lined up with about twelve other guys. The kid in the black sweatshirt was not among them. Still in Bangor, Reacher figured, at the state DEA’s HQ. Maybe talking, maybe not. Reacher arrived at the serving station and got a spoonful of bright yellow mush that might have been scrambled eggs, served on a slice of what might have been white bread, with a melamine mug half full of what might have been coffee. Or the water left over from washing the previous night’s dishes. He sat on a bench at an empty table and ate. The inmates all around him were a mixed bunch, mostly squirrelly and furtive. The back part of Reacher’s brain ran an automatic threat assessment, and found nothing much to worry about, unless tooth decay was contagious.

When breakfast was over they were all corralled out for a compulsory hour of early-morning exercise. The jail part of the installation was much smaller than the prison part, and therefore it had a correspondingly smaller yard, about the size of a basketball court, separated from the general population by a high wire fence. The fence had a gate with a bolt but no lock. The guard who had led them out took up station in front of it. Beyond him a wan spring dawn was coming up in the sky.

The bigger part of the yard was full of men in jumpsuits of a different colour. Hundreds of them. They were milling about in groups. Some of them looked like desperate characters. One of them was a huge guy about six-seven and three hundred pounds. Like a caricature of an old Maine lumberjack. All he needed was a plaid wool shirt and a two-headed axe. He was bigger than Reacher, which was a statistical rarity. He was twenty feet away, looking in through the wire. Looking at Reacher. Reacher looked back. Eye to eye. The guy came closer. Reacher kept on looking. Dangerous etiquette, in prison. But looking away was a slippery slope. Too submissive. Better to get any kind of hierarchy issues straightened out right from the get-go. Human nature. Reacher knew how these things worked.

The guy stepped close to the fence.

He said, ‘What are you looking at?’

A standard gambit. Old as the hills. Reacher was supposed to get all intimidated and say nothing. Whereupon the guy would say you calling me nothing? Whereupon things would go from bad to worse. Best avoided.

So Reacher said, ‘I’m looking at you, asshole.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘An asshole.’

‘You’re dead.’

‘Not yet,’ Reacher said. ‘Not the last time I checked.’

At which exact moment a big commotion started up in the far corner of the big yard. Later Reacher realized it was precisely timed. Whispers and signals had been passed through the population, diagonally, man to man. There was distant shouting and yelling and fighting. Searchlights sparked up in the towers and swung in that direction. Radios crackled. Everyone rushed over. Including the guards. Including the guard at the small yard’s gate. He slipped through and ran into the crowd.

Whereupon the big guy moved the opposite way. In through the unattended gate. Into the smaller yard. Straight towards Reacher. Not a pretty sight. Black shower shoes, no socks, an orange jumpsuit stretched tight over bulging muscles.

Then it got worse.

The guy snapped his arm like a whip and a weapon appeared in his hand. From up his sleeve. A prison shiv. Clear plastic. Maybe a toothbrush handle sharpened on a stone, maybe six inches long. Like a stiletto. A third of its length was wrapped with surgical tape. For grip. Not good.

Reacher kicked off his shower shoes.

The big guy did the same.

Reacher said, ‘All my life I’ve had a rule. You pull a knife on me, I break your arms.’

The big guy said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘It’s completely inflexible, I’m afraid. I can’t make an exception just because you’re a moron.’

The big guy stepped closer.

The other men in the yard stepped back. Reacher heard the fence clink as they pressed up tight against it. He heard the distant riot still happening. Manufactured, therefore a little halfhearted. Couldn’t last for ever. The searchlights would soon swing back. The guards would regroup and return. All he had to do was wait.

Not his way.

‘Last chance,’ he said. ‘Drop the weapon, and get down on the ground. Or I’ll hurt you real bad.’

He used his MP voice, honed over the years to a thing of chill and dread, all floating on the unhinged psycho menace he had been as a kid, brawling in back streets all over the world. He saw a flicker of something in the big guy’s eyes. But nothing more. Wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to fight it out.

Which he was suddenly very happy about.

Because now he knew.

Ten minutes of your time. You saw what you saw.

He didn’t like knives.

He said, ‘Come on, fat boy. Show me what you got.’

The guy stepped in, rotating on the way, leading with the shiv. Reacher feinted to his left, and the shiv jerked in that direction, so Reacher swayed back to his right, inside the trajectory, and aimed his left hand inside-out for the guy’s wrist, but mistimed it a little and caught the guy’s hand instead, which was like gripping a softball, and he pulled on it, which turned the guy more, and he slammed a triple right jab to the guy’s face, bang bang bang, a blur, all the while crushing the guy’s right hand as hard as possible, shiv and all. The guy pulled back, and the sweat on Reacher’s palm greased his exit, until Reacher had nothing but the shiv in his grip, which was OK, because it was a pick not a blade, sharp only at the point, and it was plastic, so Reacher put the ball of his thumb where the tape ended and snapped it like turning a door handle.

So far so good. At that point, about three seconds in, Reacher saw his main problem as how the hell he was going to make good on his promise to break the guy’s arms. They were huge. They were thicker than most people’s legs. They were sheathed and knotted with slabs of muscle.

Then it got worse again.

The guy was bleeding from the nose and the mouth, but the damage seemed only to energize him. He braced and roared like the kind of guy Reacher had seen on strongman shows on afternoon cable in motel rooms. Like he was psyching himself up to pull a semi truck in a harness or lift up a rock the size of a Volkswagen. He was going to charge like a water buffalo. He was going to knock Reacher down and pummel him on the ground.

The lack of shoes didn’t help. Kicking barefoot was strictly for the health club or the Olympic Games. Rubbery shower shoes were worse than none at all. Which Reacher supposed was the point of making prisoners wear them. So kicking the guy was off the menu. Which was a sad limitation. But knees would still work, and elbows.

The guy charged, roaring, arms wide as if he wanted to catch Reacher in a bear hug. So Reacher charged too. Straight back at him. It was the only real choice. A collision could be a wonderful thing. Depending on what hit who first. In this case the answers were Reacher’s forearm and the big guy’s upper lip. Like a wreck on the highway. Like two trucks crashing head-on. Like getting the guy to punch himself in the face.

The prison sirens went off.

Big picture. What did you see?

The searchlights swung back. The riot was over. The prison yard went suddenly quiet. The big guy couldn’t resist. Human nature. He wanted to look. He wanted to know. He turned his head. Just a tiny spasm. An instinct, instantly crushed.

But enough. Reacher hit him on the ear. All the time in the world. Like hitting a speed ball hanging down from a tree. And no one has muscles on his ear. All ears are pretty much equal. The smallest bones in the body are right there. Plus all kinds of mechanisms for maintaining balance. Without which you fall over.

The guy went down hard.

The searchlights hit the fence.

Reacher took the big guy’s hand. As if to help him up. But no. Then as if to shake respectfully, and congratulate him warmly on a valiant defeat.

Not that, either.

Reacher drove the broken shiv through the guy’s palm, and left it sticking out both sides, and then he stepped away and mingled with the others by the door. A second later a searchlight beam came to rest on the guy. The sirens changed their note, to lockdown.

Reacher waited in his cell. He expected the wait to be short. He was the obvious suspect. The others from the small yard were half the big guy’s size. So the guards would come to him first. Probably. Which could be a problem. Because technically a crime had been committed. Some would say. Others would say offence was the best kind of self-defence, which was still mostly legal. Purely a question of interpretation.

It would be a delicate argument to make.

What’s the worst thing could happen?

He waited.

He heard boots in the corridor. Two guards came straight to his cell. Mace and pepper spray and tasers on their belts. Handcuffs and shackles and thin metal chains.

One said, ‘Stand by to turn around on command and stick your wrists out through the meal slot.’

Reacher said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll find out.’

‘I’d appreciate sooner rather than later.’

‘And I’d appreciate half a chance to use my taser. Which one of us is going to get what he wants today?’

Reacher said, ‘I guess neither would be best for both of us.’

‘I agree,’ the guy said. ‘Let’s work hard to keep it that way.’

‘I still want to know.’

The guy said, ‘You’re going back where you came from. You have your arraignment this morning. You have half an hour with your lawyer beforehand. So put your street clothes on. You’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. You’re supposed to look the part. Or we ain’t being constitutional. Or some such thing. They say jail uniforms look like you’re already guilty. That’s where prejudice comes from, you know. The judicial system. It’s right there in the word.’

He led Reacher out of the cell, small clinking steps, and his partner crowded in from behind, and they met a team of two state prisoner escorts, in an airlock lobby, halfway in and halfway out of the place, where responsibility was handed over from one team to the other, who then led Reacher onward, out to a grey prison bus, the same kind of thing he had ridden in on. He was pushed down the aisle and dumped on the rearmost bench. One of the escorts got in behind the wheel to drive, and the other sat sideways behind him with a shotgun in his lap.

They retraced the journey Reacher had made in the opposite direction less than twelve hours previously. They covered every yard of the same pavement. The two escorts talked all the way. Reacher heard some of the conversation. It depended on the engine note. Some of the words were lost. But he got plenty of gossip about the big guy found knocked down in the small yard that morning. No one was yet implicated in the incident. Because no one could understand it. The big guy was a month away from his first parole hearing. Why would he fight? And if he didn’t fight, who would fight him? Who would fight him and win and drag him back to the small yard like some kind of trophy?

They shook their heads.

Reacher said nothing.

The drive back took the same duration, just shy of two hours, the same night and day, because their speed was not limited by visibility or traffic, but by a slow-revving engine and a short gearbox, good for stopping and starting in cities and towns, but not so good for the open road. But eventually they pulled into the lot Reacher recognized, next to the stove-in wreck of the blue SUV, and Reacher was beckoned down the aisle, and off the bus, and in through the same door he had come out of. Inside was a lobby, lockable both ends, where his chains and cuffs were taken off, and he was handed over to a two-person welcoming committee.

One person was Detective Bush.

The other person was the public defender, Cathy Clark.

The two prisoner escorts turned around and left double quick. Anxious to get going. Back later. Couldn’t keep a bus standing idle. They gave the impression they had many different jobs that day. Many bits and pieces. Maybe they did. Or maybe they liked a long lazy lunch. Maybe they knew somewhere good to go.

Reacher was left alone with Bush and the lawyer.

Just for a second.

He thought, you got to be kidding me.

He tapped Bush high on the chest, just a polite warning to the solar plexus, like a wake-up call, enough to cause a helpless buzzing in all kinds of retaliatory muscles, but no real pain anywhere else. Reacher stuck his hand in Bush’s pocket and came out with car keys. He put them in his own pocket, and shoved the guy in the chest, quite gently, as considerately as possible, just enough to send him staggering backward a pace or two.

He didn’t touch the lawyer at all. Just pushed past her and walked away, head up and confident, under the low ceilings, through the dogleg corridors, and out through the front door. He went straight to Bush’s car, in the D2 slot. The Crown Vic. Worn but not sagging, clean but not shiny. It started first time. It was already warmed up. The prisoner escorts were already beyond it. They were on their way to their bus. They didn’t look back.

Reacher took off, just as the first few wait a damn minute faces started showing at doors and windows. He turned right and left and left again, on random streets, aiming at first for what passed for downtown. The first squad car was more than two whole minutes behind him. Starting out from the station house itself. A disgrace. Others were worse. It was not the county police department’s finest five minutes.

They didn’t find him.

Reacher called on the phone, just before lunch. From a pay phone. The town still had plenty. Cell reception was poor. Reacher had quarters, from under café tables. Always a few. Enough for local calls at least. He had the number, from a business card pinned up behind the register in a five-and-dime even cheaper than the dollar stores. The card was one of many, as if together they made a defensive shield. It was from Detective Ramsey Aaron, of the county police department. With a phone number and an e-mail address. Maybe some kind of neighbourhood outreach. Modern police did all kinds of new things.

Evidently the number on the card rang through to Aaron’s desk. He answered first ring.

He said, ‘This is Aaron.’

Reacher said, ‘This is Reacher.’

‘Why are you calling me?’

‘To tell you two things.’

‘But why me?’

‘Because you might listen.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m a long way out of town by now. You’re never going to see me again. I’m afraid your uniformed division let you down badly.’

‘You should give yourself up, man.’

‘That was the first thing,’ Reacher said. ‘That ain’t going to happen. We need to get that straight from the get-go. Or we’ll waste a lot of energy on the back and forth. You’ll never find me. So don’t even try. Just give it up gracefully. Spend your time on the second thing instead.’

‘Was that you at the prison? With the parolee that got beat up?’

‘Why would a parolee be in prison?’

‘What’s the second thing?’

‘You need to find out exactly who the girl with the bag was, and exactly who the kid in the sweatshirt was. Names and histories. And exactly what was in the bag.’

‘Why?’

‘Because before you tell me, I’m going to tell you. When you see I’m right, maybe you’ll start paying attention.’

‘Who are they?’

Reacher said, ‘I’ll call again later.’

He was in the diner down the block. Where his lunch and his dinner had come from. The safest place to be, amid all the panic. No one in there had ever seen him before. No cop was going to come in for a coffee break. Not right then. Out of the question. And the police station was the eye of the storm, which meant for a block all around the squad cars were either accelerating hard to get away and go search some other distant place, or braking hard as they came back in again, all negative and disappointed and frustrated. In other words there was visual drama and emotion, but therefore not very much patient looking out through the car windows at the immediate neighbourhood surroundings.

The phone was on the wall of a corridor in the back of the diner, with restrooms left and right, and a fire door at the end. Reacher hung up and walked back to his table. He was one of six people sitting alone in the shadows. No one paid him attention. He got the feeling strangers were not rare. At least as a concept. There were old photographs on the wall. Plus old-time artefacts hung up on display. The town had been in the lumber business. Fortunes had been made. People had been in and out constantly for a hundred years, hauling loads, selling tools, putting on all kinds of mock outrage about prices.

Maybe some part of the town was still working. A lone sawmill here or there. Maybe some people were still coming by. Not many, but enough. Certainly no one stared in the diner. No one hid behind a newspaper and surreptitiously dialled a phone.

Reacher waited.

He called again, a random number of minutes after the first hour had gone by. He cupped his hand over his mouth, so the background noise wouldn’t sound the same twice. He wanted them to think he was always on the move. If they thought he wasn’t, they would start to ask themselves where he was holed up, and Aaron seemed a smart enough guy to figure it out. He could step right in and pull up a chair.

The phone was answered on the first ring.

Aaron said, ‘This is Aaron.’

Reacher said, ‘You need to ask yourself a transportation question. Six guys took me to Warren last night. But only two guys brought me back this morning. Six guys was a lot of overtime in one evening. Overkill, some might say, for one prisoner in a bus. Especially when budgets are an issue. So why did it happen that way?’

‘You were an unknown quantity. Better safe than sorry.’

‘Then why didn’t I get the same six guys again this morning? They don’t know me any better now than they did last night.’

Aaron said, ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me why.’

‘Two possibilities. Not really competing. Kind of interlinked.’

‘Show me.’

‘They really, really wanted to get me there last night. It was important I went. My lawyer put in a reasonable request. They said no. They signed off on an unnecessary round trip that did nothing but waste gas and man hours. They assigned six guys to make sure I got there safe and sound.’

‘And?’

‘They didn’t expect me to leave again this morning. So they didn’t assign escorts. So when it came to it they had to scramble an odd-job crew who already had a bunch of other stuff to do today.’

‘That doesn’t make sense. Everyone expected you to leave again this morning. For the arraignment. Standard procedure. Common knowledge.’

‘So why the scramble?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘They weren’t expecting me to leave.’

‘They knew you had to.’

‘Not if I was in a coma in the hospital. Or dead in the morgue. Which normally would be a surprise event. But they knew well in advance. They didn’t arrange round trip transportation.’

Aaron paused a beat.

He said, ‘It was you up at the prison.’

Reacher said, ‘The guy didn’t even know me. We had never crossed paths before. Yet he came straight for me. While his pals staged a diversion far away. He was coming up for parole. My guess is Delaney was the guy who busted him, way back in the day. Am I right?’

‘Yes, as it happens.’

‘So they made a deal. If the big guy took care of me, under the radar, then Delaney would speak up for him at his parole board hearing. He would say he was a reformed character. Who better to know than the arresting officer? People assume some kind of a mystical connection. Parole boards love all that shit. The guy would have walked. Except he didn’t get the job done. He underestimated his opponent. Possibly he was badly briefed.’

‘You’re admitting felony assault.’

‘You’ll never find me. I could be in California tomorrow.’

Aaron said, ‘Tell me who the girl was. And the boy in the sweatshirt. Show me you know what you’re talking about here.’

‘The boy and the girl were both stooges. Both blackmailed into playing a part. Probably the girl had just gotten busted. Maybe her second time. Maybe even her first. By the state DEA. By Delaney. She thinks he’s making up his mind about whether to drop it. He proposes a deal. All she has to do is carry a bag. He proposes a similar deal to the boy. A minor bust could go away. He could get back to Yale or Harvard or wherever he’s from with his record unblemished. Daddy need never know. All he has to do is run a little and grab a bag. The boy and the girl don’t know each other. They’re from different cases. Am I right so far?’

Aaron said, ‘What was in the bag?’

‘I’m sure the official report says it was either meth or OxyContin or money. One or the other. A delivery, or a payment.’

‘It was money,’ Aaron said. ‘It was a payment.’

‘How much?’

‘Thirty thousand dollars.’

‘Except it wasn’t. Think about it. What makes me exactly the same as the boy and the girl, and what makes me completely different?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘Three people in the world could testify that bag was empty all along. The girl and the boy, because they had to carry it, so they knew it was light as a feather, and then later me, because it sailed up in the air a yard from my face, and I could see there was nothing in it. It was obvious.’

‘How are you different?’

‘He controls the boy and the girl. But he doesn’t control me. I’m a wild card running around in public saying the bag was empty. That’s what he heard. On the tape. That’s what he reacted to. He couldn’t let me say that. No one else was supposed to know the bag was empty. It could ruin everything. So he deleted the tape and then he tried to delete me.’

‘You’re arguing ahead of the facts.’

‘That’s why he asked how people get ahold of me. He found out he could put me in a potter’s field and no one would ever know.’

‘You’re speculating.’

‘There’s only one way this thing works. Delaney stole the thirty grand. He knew it was coming through. He’s DEA. He thought he could get away with it if he staged a freak accident. I mean, accidents happen, right? Like if your house sets on fire, and the money is all in the sofa. It’s an operating loss. It’s a rounding error. It’s the cost of doing business for these guys. They don’t trust their mothers, but they know that shit happens eventually. One time I read in the paper where some guy lost nearly a million dollars, all eaten up by mice in his basement. So Delaney figured he could get away with it. Without getting his legs broken. All he had to do was put on a bold face and stick to his story.’

‘Wait,’ Aaron said. ‘None of that makes sense.’

‘Unless.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Say it out loud. See how ridiculous it sounds.’

‘None of that makes sense, because OK, Delaney might know thirty grand is coming through, but how does he get access to it? How does he dictate who carries what in a bag? And when and where and by which route?’

‘Unless,’ Reacher said again.

‘This is crazy.’

‘Say it.’

‘Unless Delaney is walking on the dark side of the street.’

‘Don’t hide behind flowery language. Say it out loud.’

‘Unless Delaney is himself a link in the chain.’

‘Still kind of flowery.’

‘Unless Delaney is secretly a drug dealer as well as a DEA agent.’

‘Thirty grand might be about right for the kind of franchise fee he has to pay. For the kind of dealer he is. Which is not big. But not small-time either. Probably medium-sized, with a relatively civilized clientele. The work is easy. He’s well placed to help himself out with legal problems. He makes a decent living from it. Better than his pension is going to be. It was all good. But even so, he started to get greedy. This time he wanted to keep all the money for himself. He only pretended to pass along his boss’s share. The bag was empty from the get-go. But no one would know that. The police report would list thirty grand missing. Any gossip about what eyewitnesses saw would make it sound exactly like a freak robbery. His boss might write it off as genuine. Maybe Delaney planned to do it once a year. Kind of randomly. As an extra little margin.’

‘Still makes no sense,’ Aaron said. ‘Why would the bag be empty? He would have used a wad of cut-up newspaper.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Reacher said. ‘Suppose the kid had blown it? Suppose he missed the tackle? Or chickened out beforehand. The girl might have gotten all the way through. The real people might have taken the bag. Newspaper would be hard to explain. It’s the kind of thing that could sour a relationship. Whereas an empty bag could be claimed as reconnaissance. A dry run, looking for surveillance. An excess of caution. The bad guys couldn’t complain about that. Maybe they even expect it. Like employee of the month competitions.’

Aaron said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘I’ll call again soon,’ and he hung up the phone.

This time he moved on. He went out the back of the diner, and across one exposed street corner, and into an alley alongside what might once have been an elegant furniture showroom. He scouted out a phone on the back wall of a franchise tyre shop. Maybe where you called a cab, if the shop didn’t have the right tyres.

He backed into a doorway, and waited. The police station was now two blocks away. He could still hear cars driving in and out. Speed and urgency. He gave it thirty more minutes. Then he headed for the tyre shop. For the phone on the wall. But before he got there a guy came out the back of the building. From where the customers waited for their cars, on mismatched chairs, with a pay machine for coffee. The guy had buzzed hair and a blue sport coat over a checked shirt, with tan chino pants below.

The guy had a Glock in his hand.

From his shoulder holster.

Delaney.

Who pointed the gun and said, ‘Stop walking.’

Reacher stopped walking.

Delaney said, ‘You’re not as smart as you think.’

Reacher said nothing.

Delaney said, ‘You were in the police station. You saw how basic it was. You gambled they couldn’t trace a pay phone location in real time. So you talked as long as you wanted.’

‘Was I right?’

‘The county can’t do it. But the state can. I knew where you were. From the start. You made a mistake.’

‘That’s always a theoretical possibility.’

‘You made one mistake after another.’

‘Or did I? Because think about it for a minute. From my point of view. First I told you where I was, and then I gave you time to get here. I had to hang around for hours. But never mind. Because here you are. Finally. Maybe I’m exactly as smart as I think.’

‘You wanted me here?’

‘Face to face is always better.’

‘You know I’m going to shoot you.’

‘But not yet. First you need to know what I said to Aaron. Because I gambled again. I figured you would know where the phone was, but I figured you couldn’t tap in and listen. Not instantly and randomly anywhere in the state. Not without warrants and subpoenas. You don’t have that kind of power. Not yet. So you knew about the call but you didn’t hear the conversation. Now you need to know how much more damage control will be necessary. You hope none at all. Because getting rid of Aaron will be a lot harder than me. You’d rather not do it. But you need to know.’

‘Well?’

Reacher said, ‘Let’s talk about county police technology. Just for a moment. I was safe as long as I was talking. They’re basic, but it’s not exactly the Stone Age in there. At least they can get the number after the call is over. Surely. They can find out who owns it. Maybe they even recognize it. I know they call that diner from time to time.’

‘So?’

‘So my guess is Aaron knew where I was pretty early. But he’s a smart guy. He knows why I’m yapping. He knows how long it takes to drive from Bangor. So he sits tight for an hour or two, just to see what comes out of the woodwork. Why not? What’s he got to lose? What’s the worst thing could happen? And then you show up. A crazy theory is proved right.’

‘You saying you got reinforcements here? I don’t see any.’

‘Aaron knew I was in the diner. Now he knows I’m a block or two away. It’s all about where the pay phones are. I’m sure he figured that out pretty early. My guess is he’s watching us right now. His whole squad is watching us, probably. Lots of people. It’s not just you and me, Delaney. There are lots of people here.’

‘What is this? Some kind of psy-ops bullshit?’

‘It’s what you said. It’s a gamble. Aaron is a smart guy. He could have picked me up hours ago. But he didn’t. Because he wanted to see what would happen next. He’s been watching for hours. He’s watching right now. Or, maybe he isn’t. Because maybe he’s actually a dumb guy all along. Except did he look dumb to you? That’s the gamble. I have to tell you, personally, I’m betting on smart. My professional advice would be close your mouth and lie down on the ground. There are witnesses everywhere.’

Delaney glanced left, at the back of the tyre shop. Then right, at the derelict showroom. Ahead, at the narrow alley between. Doors and windows all around, and shadows.

He said, ‘There’s no one here.’

Reacher said, ‘Only one way to be sure.’

‘Which is?’

‘Back up to one of the windows and see if someone grabs you.’

‘I ain’t doing that.’

‘Why not? You said no one is here.’

Delaney didn’t answer.

‘Time to cast your vote,’ Reacher said. ‘Is Aaron smart or dumb?’

‘He’s going to see me shoot a fugitive. Doesn’t matter if he’s smart or dumb. As long as he spells my name right, I’ll get a medal.’

‘I’m not a fugitive. He sent Bush and the lawyer to meet me. It was an invitation. No one chased after me. He wanted me gone. He wanted some bait in the water.’

Delaney paused a beat.

He glanced left. Glanced right.

He said, ‘You’re full of shit.’

‘That’s always a theoretical possibility.’

Reacher said nothing more. Delaney glanced all around. Old brick, gone rotten from soot and rain. Doorways. And windows. Some glassed and whole, some punched out and ragged, some just blind holes in the wall, with no frames left at all.

One such was on the ground floor of the nearby derelict showroom. Chest-high above the sidewalk. About nine feet away. A little behind Delaney’s right shoulder. It was a textbook position. The infantry would love it. It commanded most of the block.

Delaney glanced back at it.

He edged towards it, crabwise, his gun still on Reacher, but looking back over his shoulder. He got close, and he sidled the last short distance, diagonally, craning backward, trying to keep an eye on Reacher, trying to catch a glimpse inside the room, both at once.

He arrived at the window. Still facing Reacher. Backing up. Glancing over his shoulders, left and right. Seeing nothing.

He turned around. Fast, like the start of a quick there-and-back glance. For a second he was face-on to the building. He went up on his toes, and he put his palms on the sill, Glock and all, temporarily awkward, and he levered himself up as high as he could and he bent forward and stuck his head inside for a look.

A long arm grabbed him by the neck and reeled him in. A second arm grabbed his gun hand. A third arm grabbed his coat collar and tumbled him over the sill into the darkness inside.

Reacher waited in the diner, with coffee and pie all paid for by the county police department. Two hours later the rookie uniform came in. He had driven to Warren to get the khaki envelope with Reacher’s stuff in it. His passport, his ATM card, his toothbrush, his seventy bucks in bills, his seventy-five cents in quarters, and his shoelaces. The kid accounted for it all and handed it over.

Then he said, ‘They found the thirty grand. It was in Delaney’s freezer at home. Wrapped up in aluminium foil and labelled steak.’

Then he left, and Reacher laced his shoes again and tied them off. He put his stuff in his pockets and drained his cup and stood up to go.

Aaron came in the door.

He said, ‘Are you leaving?’

Reacher said yes, he was.

‘Where are you going?’

Reacher said he had no idea at all.

‘Will you sign a witness statement?’

Reacher said no, he wouldn’t.

‘Even if I ask you nicely?’

Reacher said no, not even then.

Then Aaron asked, ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t put guys in that window?’

Reacher said, ‘He was nervous by that point. He was about to make mistakes. Opportunities would have presented themselves. I’m sure I would have thought of something.’

‘In other words you had nothing. You were gambling everything on me being a good cop.’

‘Don’t make a whole big thing out of it,’ Reacher said. ‘Truth is, I figured it would be about fifty-fifty at best.’

He walked out of the diner, away from town, to a left-right choice on a county road, north or south, Canada one way and New Hampshire the other. He chose New Hampshire and stuck out his thumb. Eight minutes later he was in a Subaru, listening to a guy talk about the pills he got to ease his back. Nothing like them. Best thing ever, the guy said.

ONE

JACK REACHER CAUGHT the last of the summer sun in a small town on the coast of Maine, and then, like the birds in the sky above him, he began his long migration south. But not, he thought, straight down the coast. Not like the orioles and the buntings and the phoebes and the warblers and the ruby-throated hummingbirds. Instead he decided on a diagonal route, south and west, from the top right-hand corner of the country to the bottom left, maybe through Syracuse, and Cincinnati, and St Louis, and Oklahoma City, and Albuquerque, and onward all the way to San Diego. Which for an army guy like Reacher was a little too full of navy people, but which was otherwise a fine spot to start the winter.

He was looking forward to it.

He didn’t get far.

He walked inland a mile or so and came to a county road and stuck out his thumb. He was a tall man, more than six feet five in his shoes, heavily built, all bone and muscle, not particularly good-looking, never very well dressed, usually a little unkempt. Not an overwhelmingly appealing proposition. As always most drivers slowed and took a look and then kept on going. The first car prepared to take a chance on him came along after forty minutes. It was a year-old Subaru wagon, driven by a lean middle-aged guy in pleated chino pants and a crisp khaki shirt. Dressed by his wife, Reacher thought. The guy had a wedding ring. But under the fine fabrics was a working man’s body. A thick neck and large red knuckles. The slightly surprised and somewhat reluctant boss of something, Reacher thought. The kind of guy who starts out digging post holes and ends up owning a fencing company.

Which turned out to be a good guess. Initial conversation established the guy had started out with nothing to his name but his daddy’s old framing hammer, and had ended up owning a construction company, responsible for forty working people, and the hopes and dreams of a whole bunch of clients. He finished his story with a little facial shrug, part Yankee modesty, part genuine perplexity. As in, how did that happen? Attention to detail, Reacher thought. This was a very organized guy, full of notions and nostrums and maxims and cast-iron beliefs, one of which was at the end of summer it was better to stay away from both Route One and I-95, and in fact to get out of Maine altogether as fast as possible, which meant soon and sideways, on Route Two straight west into New Hampshire. To a place just south of Berlin, where the guy knew a bunch of back roads that would get them down to Boston faster than any other way. Which was where the guy was going, for a meeting about marble countertops. Reacher was happy. Nothing wrong with Boston as a starting point. Nothing at all. From there it was a straight shot to Syracuse. After which Cincinnati was easy, via Rochester and Buffalo and Cleveland. Maybe even via Akron, Ohio. Reacher had been in worse places. Mostly in the service.

They didn’t get to Boston.

The guy got a call on his cell, after fifty-some minutes heading south on the aforementioned New Hampshire back roads. Which were exactly as advertised. Reacher had to admit the guy’s plan was solid. There was no traffic at all. No jams, no delays. They were bowling along, doing sixty miles an hour, dead easy. Until the phone rang. It was hooked up to the car radio, and a name came up on the navigation screen, with a thumbnail photograph as a visual aid, in this case of a red-faced man wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard. Some kind of a foreman on a job site. The guy at the wheel touched a button and phone hiss filled the car, from all the speakers, like surround sound.

The guy at the wheel spoke into the windshield pillar and said, ‘This better be good news.’

It wasn’t. It was something to do with an inspector from a municipal buildings department, and a metal flue liner above a fireplace in an entrance lobby, which was properly insulated, exactly up to code, except that couldn’t be proved visually without tearing down the stonework, which was by that point already three storeys high, nearly done, with the masons booked on a new job starting the next week, or alternatively without ripping out the custom walnut millwork in the dining room on the other side of the chimney, or the millwork in the closet above, which was rosewood and even more complicated, but the inspector was being a hardass about it and needed to see for himself.

The guy at the wheel glanced at Reacher and said, ‘Which inspector is it?’

The guy on the phone said, ‘The new one.’

‘Does he know he gets a turkey at Thanksgiving?’

‘I told him we’re all on the same side here.’

The guy at the wheel glanced at Reacher again, as if seeking permission, or offering an apology, or both, and then he faced front again and said, ‘Did you offer him money?’

‘Five hundred. He wouldn’t take it.’

Then the cell signal ran out. The sound went garbled, like a robot drowning in a swimming pool, and then it went dead. The screen said it was searching.

The car rolled on.

Reacher said, ‘Why would a person want a fireplace in an entrance lobby?’

The guy at the wheel said, ‘It’s welcoming.’

‘I think historically it was designed to repel. It was defensive. Like the campfire burning in the mouth of the cave. It was intended to keep predators at bay.’

‘I have to go back,’ the guy said. ‘I’m sorry.’

He slowed the car and pulled over on the gravel. All alone, on the back roads. No other traffic. The screen said it was still searching for a signal.

‘I’m going to have to let you out here,’ the guy said. ‘Is that OK?’

‘No problem,’ Reacher said. ‘You got me part of the way. For which I thank you very much.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Whose is the rosewood closet?’

‘His.’

‘Cut a big hole in it and show the inspector. Then give the client five commonsense reasons why he should install a wall safe. Because this is a guy who wants a wall safe. Maybe he doesn’t know it yet, but a guy who wants a fireplace in his entrance lobby wants a wall safe in his bedroom closet. That’s for damn sure. Human nature. You’ll make a profit. You can charge him for the time it takes to cut the hole.’

‘Are you in this business too?’

‘I was a military cop.’

The guy said, ‘Huh.’

Reacher opened the door and climbed out, and closed the door again behind him, and walked far enough away to give the guy space to swing the Subaru around, gravel shoulder to gravel shoulder, across the whole width of the road, and then to take off back the way he had come. All of which the guy did, with a brief gesture Reacher took to be a rueful good-luck wave. Then he got smaller and smaller in the distance, and Reacher turned back and continued walking, south, the way he was headed. Wherever possible he liked to maintain forward momentum. The road he was on was a two-lane, wide enough, well maintained, curved here and there, a little up and down. But no kind of a problem for a modern car. The Subaru had been doing sixty. Yet there was no traffic. None at all. Nothing coming, either way. Total silence. Just a sigh of wind in the trees, and the faint buzz of heat coming up off the blacktop.

Reacher walked on.

Two miles later the road he was on curved gently left, and a new road of equal size and appearance split off to the right. Not exactly a turn. More like an equal choice. A classic Y-shaped junction. Twitch the wheel left, or twitch the wheel right. Your call. Both options ran out of sight through trees so mighty in places they made a tunnel.

There was a road sign.

A tilted arrow to the left was labelled Portsmouth, and a tilted arrow to the right was labelled Laconia. But the right-hand option was written in smaller writing, and it had a smaller arrow, as if Laconia was less important than Portsmouth. A mere byway, despite its road being the same size.

Laconia, New Hampshire.

A name Reacher knew. He had seen it on all kinds of historic family paperwork, and he had heard it mentioned from time to time. It was his late father’s place of birth, and where he was raised, until he escaped at age seventeen and joined the Marines. Such was the vague family legend. Escaped from what had not been specified. But he never went back. Not once. Reacher himself had been born more than fifteen years later, by which time Laconia was a dead detail of the long-ago past, as remote as the Dakota Territory, where it was said some earlier ancestor had lived and worked. No one in the family ever went to either place. No visits. The grandparents had died young and were rarely referred to. There were apparently no aunts or uncles or cousins or any other kind of distant relatives. Which was statistically unlikely and suggested a rift of some kind. But no one other than his father had any real information, and no one ever made any real attempt to get any from him. Certain things were not discussed in Marine families. Much later as a captain in the army Reacher’s brother Joe was posted north and said something about maybe trying to find the old family homestead, but nothing ever came of it. Probably Reacher himself had said the same kind of thing, from time to time. He had never been there either.

Left or right. His call.

Portsmouth was better. It had highways and traffic and buses. It was a straight shot to Boston. San Diego beckoned. The Northeast was about to get cold.

But what was one extra day?

He stepped right, and chose the fork in the road that led to Laconia.

At that same late-afternoon moment, nearly thirty miles away, heading south on a different back road, was a worn-out Honda Civic, driven by a twenty-five-year-old man named Shorty Fleck. Next to him in the passenger seat was a twenty-five-year-old woman named Patty Sundstrom. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, both born and raised in Saint Leonard, which was a small faraway town in New Brunswick, Canada. Not much happened there. The biggest news in living memory was ten years previously, when a truck carrying twelve million bees overturned on a curve. The local paper reported with pride that the accident was the first of its kind in New Brunswick. Patty worked in a sawmill. She was the granddaughter of a guy from Minnesota who had slipped north half a century earlier, to beat the draft for Vietnam. Shorty was a potato farmer. His family had been in Canada for ever. And he wasn’t particularly short. Maybe he had been once, as a kid. But now he figured he was what any eyewitness would call an average-looking guy.

They were trying to make it non-stop from Saint Leonard to New York City. Which by any standard was a hardcore drive. But they saw a big advantage in doing it. They had something to sell in the city, and saving a night in a hotel would maximize their profit. They had planned out their route, looping west to avoid the summer people heading home from the beaches, using back roads, Patty’s blunt finger on a map, her gaze ranging ahead for turns and signs. They had timed it out on paper, and figured it was a feasible course of action.

Except they had gotten a later start than they would have liked, due a little bit to general disorganization, but mostly due to the Honda’s ageing battery not liking the newly crisp autumnal temperatures blowing in from the direction of Prince Edward Island. The delay put them in a long line at the U.S. border, and then the Honda started overheating, and needed nursing along below fifty miles an hour for an extended spell.

They were tired.

And hungry, and thirsty, and in need of the bathroom, and late, and behind schedule. And frustrated. The Honda was overheating again. The needle was kissing the red zone. There was a faint grinding noise from under the hood. Maybe the oil was low. No way of telling. All the dashboard lights had been on continuously for the last two and a half years.

Shorty asked, ‘What’s up ahead?’

Patty said, ‘Nothing.’

Her fingertip was on a wandering red line, which was labelled with a three-digit number, and which was shown running north to south through a jagged shape shaded pale green. A forested area. Which was obvious just from looking out the window. The trees crowded in, still and dark, laden down with heavy end-of-summer leaves. The map showed tiny red spider-web lines here and there, like the veins in an old lady’s leg, which were presumably all tracks to somewhere, but nowhere big. Nowhere likely to have a mechanic or a lube shop or radiator water. The best bet was about thirty minutes ahead, some ways east of south, a town with its name printed not too small and semi-bold, which meant it had to have at least a gas station. It was called Laconia.

She said, ‘Can we make another twenty miles?’

Now the needle was all the way in the red.

‘Maybe,’ Shorty said. ‘If we walk the last ten of them.’

He slowed the car and rolled along on a whisker of gas, which generated less new heat in the engine, but which also put less airflow through the radiator vanes, so the old heat couldn’t get away so fast, so in the short term the temperature needle kept on climbing. Patty rubbed her fingertip forward on the map, keeping pace with her estimate of their speed. There was a spider-web vein coming up on the right. A thin track, curling through the green ink to somewhere about an inch away. Without the rush of high-speed air coming in through her leaky window she could hear worse noises from the engine. Clunking, knocking, grinding. Faint, but definitely there.

Then up ahead on the right she saw the mouth of a narrow road. The spider-web vein, right on time. But more like a dark tunnel through the trees. At the entrance on a frost-heaved post was nailed a board, on which were screwed ornate plastic letters, and an arrow pointing into the tunnel. The letters spelled the word Motel.

‘Should we?’ she asked.

The car answered. The temperature needle was jammed against the stop. Shorty could feel the heat in his shins. The whole engine bay was baking. For a second he wondered what would happen if they kept on going. People talked about automobile engines blowing up and melting down. Which were figures of speech, surely. There would be no actual puddles of molten metal. No actual explosions would take place. Would they? No, it would just conk out, peacefully. Or seize up. It would coast gently to a stop. In the middle of nowhere, with no passing traffic and no cell signal.

‘No choice,’ he said, and braked and steered and turned in to the tunnel. Up close they saw the plastic letters on the sign had been painted gold, with a narrow brush and a steady hand, like a promise, like the motel was going to be a high-class place. There was a second sign, identical, facing drivers coming the other way.

‘OK?’ Shorty said.

The air felt cold in the tunnel. Easily ten degrees colder than the main drag. The trees met overhead. Last fall’s leaf litter and last winter’s mud were mashed together on the shoulders.

‘OK?’ Shorty said again.

They drove over a wire lying across the road. A fat rubbery thing, not much smaller than a garden hose. Like they had at gas stations, to ding a bell in the kiosk, to get the pump jockey out to help you.

Patty didn’t answer.

Shorty said, ‘How bad can it be? It’s marked on the map.’

‘The track is marked.’

‘The sign was nice.’

‘I agree,’ Patty said. ‘It was.’

They drove on.

TWO

THE TREES COOLED and freshened the air, so Reacher was happy to keep up a steady four miles an hour, which for his length of leg was exactly eightyeight beats a minute, which was exactly the tempo of a whole bunch of great music, so it was easy time to pass. He did thirty minutes, two miles, seven classic tracks in his head, and then he heard real sounds behind him, and turned around to see an ancient pick-up coming crabwise towards him, as if each of the wheels wanted to go in a different direction.

Reacher stuck out his thumb.

The truck stopped. An old guy with a long white beard leaned across inside and wound down the passenger window and said, ‘I’m going to Laconia.’

‘Me too,’ Reacher said.

‘Well, OK.’

Reacher got in, and wound the window back up. The old guy pulled out and wobbled back up to speed.

He said, ‘I guess this is the part where you tell me I need to get new tyres.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Reacher said.

‘But at my age I try to avoid large capital expenditures. Why invest in the future? Do I have one?’

‘That argument is more circular than your tyres.’

‘Actually the frame is bent. I was in a wreck.’

‘When?’

‘Close on twenty-three years ago.’

‘So this is normal to you now.’

‘Keeps me awake.’

‘How do you know where to point the steering wheel?’

‘You get used to it. Like sailing a boat. Why are you going to Laconia?’

‘I was passing by,’ Reacher said. ‘My father was born there. I want to see it.’

‘What’s your last name?’

‘Reacher.’

The old guy shook his head.

He said, ‘I never knew anyone in Laconia named Reacher.’

The reason for the previous Y-shaped fork in the road turned out to be a lake, wide enough to make north–south drivers pick a side, right bank or left bank. Reacher and the old guy squirmed and shuddered along the right bank, which was mechanically stressful, but visually beautiful, because the view was stunning and the sun was less than an hour from setting. Then came the town of Laconia itself. It was a bigger place than Reacher was expecting. Fifteen or twenty thousand people. A county seat. Solid and prosperous. There were brick buildings and neat old-fashioned streets. The low red sun made them look like they were in an old-time movie.

The squirming pick-up truck wobbled to a stop at a downtown corner. The old guy said, ‘This is Laconia.’

Reacher said, ‘How much has it changed?’

‘Around here, not much.’

‘I grew up thinking it was smaller than this.’

‘Most people remember things bigger.’

Reacher thanked the guy for the ride, and got out, and watched the truck squeal away, each tyre insisting the other three were wrong. Then he turned away and walked random blocks, getting a sense for what might be where, in particular two specific destinations for start of business the next day, and two for immediate attention that evening, the first being a place to eat, and the second being a place to sleep.

Both were available, in a historic-downtown kind of way. Healthy food, no place more than two tables wide. No hotels in town, but plenty of inns and plenty of bed and breakfasts. Which was fine. Reacher wasn’t about to walk ten miles the wrong way just to save a buck. And then ten miles back. He was strict with himself, but he wasn’t an idiot.

He ate at a narrow bistro because a waitress smiled at him through the window, after a moment of embarrassment when she brought him his order. Which was some kind of salad with roast beef in it, which was the menu choice he felt was most nutritious. But when it came it was tiny. He asked for a second order, and a bigger plate. At first the waitress misunderstood. She thought there was something wrong with the first order. Or the size of the plate. Or both. Then she caught on. He was hungry. He wanted two portions. She asked if there was anything else he needed. He asked for a bigger cup for his coffee.

Afterwards he tracked back to lodgings he had seen, on a side street near the city offices. There was room at the inn. Vacation time was over. He paid a premium price for what the innkeeper called a suite, but what he called a room with a sofa and way too many floral patterns and feather pillows. He shovelled a dozen off the bed and put his pants under the mattress to press. Then he took a long hot shower, and climbed under the covers, and went to sleep.

The tunnel through the trees turned out to be more than two miles long. Patty Sundstrom traced its curves with her finger on the map. Under the Honda’s wheels was greyed and pitted blacktop, the finished surface completely washed away in places by runoff water, leaving shallow potholes the size of pool tables, some of them bare ribbed concrete, some of them gravelled, some of them full of leaf mould slop still wet from springtime, because overhead the leafy canopy was thick and unbroken, apart from one spot where no trees grew for twenty-some yards. There was a bar of bright pink open sky. Maybe a narrow seam of different dirt, or a sudden underground escarpment of solid rock, or a hydraulic oddity with no ground water, or too much. Then the sliver of sky was behind them. They were back in the tunnel. Shorty Fleck was going slow, to save the shocks and nurse the motor. He wondered if he should put his headlights on.

Then the canopy thinned for a second time, with the promise of more to come, like a big clearing was on its way, like they were arriving somewhere. What they saw was the road ahead coming out of the trees and running in a straight line through a couple acres of flat grassland, the thin grey ribbon suddenly naked and exposed in the last of the daylight. Its destination was a group of three substantial wooden buildings, laid out one after the other on a sweeping right-hand curve, maybe fifty yards between the first and the last. All three were painted dull red, with bright white trim. Set against the green grass they looked like classic New England structures.

The closest building was a motel. Like a picture in a kid’s book. Like learning your ABCs. M is for Motel. It was long and low, made of dull red boards, with a pitched roof of grey asphalt shingle, and a red neon Office sign in the first window, and then a louvred door for storage, and then a repeating pattern, of a broad window with an HVAC grille and two plastic lawn chairs under it, and a numbered door, and another broad window with the same grille and the same chairs, and another numbered door, and so on, all the way to the end. There were twelve rooms, all in a line. But there were no cars parked out front of any of them. Looked like zero occupancy.

‘OK?’ Shorty said.

Patty didn’t answer. He stopped the car. In the distance on the right they saw the second building was shorter from end to end, but much taller and deeper from front to back. Some kind of barn. But not for animals. The concrete ramp to the door was conspicuously clean. There was no shit, to put it bluntly. It was a workshop of some kind. Out front were nine quad-bike ATVs. Like regular motorcycles, but with four fat tyres instead of two slicks. They were lined up in three ranks of three, with exact precision.

‘Maybe they’re Hondas,’ Patty said. ‘Maybe these guys would know how to fix the car.’

On the end of the line the third building was a regular house, of plain construction but generous size, with a wraparound porch, which had rocking chairs set out on it.

Shorty rolled the car forward, and stopped again. The blacktop was about to end. Ten yards short of the motel’s empty lot. He was about to bump down on to an owner-maintained surface that his expert potato-farmer eye told him was made up of equal parts gravel, mud, dead weeds, and live weeds. He saw at least five species he would rather not have in his own dirt.

The end of the blacktop felt like a threshold. Like a decision.

‘OK?’ he said again.

‘The place is empty,’ Patty said. ‘There are no guests. How weird is that?’

‘The season is over.’

‘Like flicking a switch?’

‘They’re always complaining about it.’

‘It’s the middle of nowhere.’

‘I guess it’s a getaway vacation. No hustle, no bustle. People enjoy that.’

Patty was quiet a long moment.

Then she said, ‘I guess it looks OK.’

Shorty said, ‘I think it’s this or nothing.’

She traced the structure left to right, the plain proportions, the solid roof, the heavy boards, the recent stain. Necessary maintenance had been performed, but nothing flashy. It was an honest building. It could have been in Canada.

She said, ‘Let’s take a look.’

They bumped down off the blacktop and rattled across the uneven surface and parked outside the office. Shorty thought a second and shut the motor down. Safer than letting it idle. Maybe the molten metal and the explosions weren’t just figures of speech. If it didn’t start up again, too bad. It was already near enough where it needed to be. They could ask for room one, if necessary. They had one huge suitcase, full of the stuff they planned to sell. It could stay in the car. Apart from that they didn’t have many bags to haul.

They got out of the car and stepped into the office. There was a guy behind the reception counter. He was about Shorty’s own age, and Patty’s, mid-twenties, maybe a year or two more. He had short blond hair, combed neatly, and a good tan, and blue eyes, and white teeth, and a ready smile. But he looked a little out of place. At first Shorty took him to be like a summer thing he had seen in Canada, where a well-bred kid is sent to do a dumb job in the countryside, for the purposes of building his résumé, or expanding his horizons, or finding himself, or some such. But this guy was five years too old for that. And behind his greeting he had a proprietorial air. He was saying welcome, for sure, but to my house. Like he owned the place, Shorty thought.

Maybe he did.

Patty told him they needed a room, and that they wondered if whoever looked after the quad bikes could take a look at their car, or, failing that, they would surely appreciate the phone number of a good mechanic. Hopefully not a tow truck.

The guy smiled and asked, ‘What’s wrong with your car?’

He sounded like every young guy in the movies who worked on Wall Street and wore a suit and a tie. Full of smooth confidence. Probably drank champagne. Greed is good. Not a potato farmer’s favourite type of guy.

Patty said, ‘It’s overheating and making weird banging noises under the hood.’

The guy smiled a different kind of smile, this one a modest but commanding junior-master-of-the-universe grin, and he said, ‘Then I guess we should take a look at it. Sounds low on coolant, and low on oil. Both of which are easy to fix, unless something is leaking. That would depend on what parts are needed. Maybe we could adapt something. Failing that, as you say, we know some good mechanics. Either way, there’s nothing to be done until it cools right down. Park it outside your room overnight, and we’ll check it first thing in the morning.’

‘What time exactly?’ Patty asked, thinking about how late they were already, but also thinking about gift horses and mouths.

The guy said, ‘Here we’re all up with the sun.’

She said, ‘How much is the room?’

‘After Labor Day, before the leaf-peepers, call it fifty bucks.’

‘OK,’ she said, although not really, but she was thinking about gift horses again, and what Shorty had said, which was it’s this or nothing.

‘We’ll give you room ten,’ the guy said. ‘It’s the first we’ve refurbished so far. In fact we only just finished it. You would be its very first guests. We hope you will do us the honour.’

THREE

REACHER WOKE UP after three in the morning. All the clich s: snapped awake, instantly, like flicking a switch. He didn’t move. Didn’t even tense his arms and legs. He just lay there, staring into the dark, listening hard, concentrating a hundred per cent. Not a learned response. A primitive instinct, baked deep in the back of his brain by evolution. One time he had been in Southern California, fast asleep with the windows open on a beautiful night, and he had snapped awake, instantly, like flicking a switch, because in his sleep he had smelled a faint wisp of smoke. Not cigarette smoke or a building on fire, but a burning hillside forty miles away. A primeval smell. Like a wildfire racing across an ancient savannah. Whose ancestors outran it depended on which of them woke up fastest and got the earliest start. Rinse and repeat, down hundreds of generations.

But there was no smoke. Not at one minute past three that particular morning. Not in that particular hotel room. So what woke him? Not sight or touch or taste, because he had been alone in bed with his eyes shut and the drapes closed and nothing in his mouth. Sound, then. He had heard something.

He waited for a repeat. Which he considered an evolutionary weakness. The product was not yet perfect. It was still a two-step process. One time to wake you up, and a second time to tell you what it was. Better to do both together, surely, first time out.

He heard nothing. Not many sounds were lizard-brain sounds any more. The pad or hiss of an ancient predator was unlikely. The nearest forest twigs to be ominously stepped upon and loudly broken were miles away beyond the edge of town. Not much else scared the primitive cortex. Not in the audio kingdom. Newer sounds were dealt with elsewhere, in the front part of the brain, which was plenty vigilant for the scrapes and clicks of modern threats, but which lacked the seniority to wake a person up from a deep and contented sleep.

So what woke him? The only other truly ancient sound was a cry for help. A scream, or a plea. Not a modern yell, or a whoop or a cackle of laughter. Something deeply primitive. The tribe, under attack. At its very edge. A distant early warning.

He heard nothing more. There was no repeat. He slid out from under the covers and listened at the door. Heard nothing. He took a feather pillow from a stack on the floor and held it over the peephole. No reaction. No gunshot through the eye. He looked out. Saw nothing. A bright hallway, with no one in it.

He lifted the drapes and checked the window. Nothing there. Nothing on the street. Pitch dark. All quiet. He got back in bed and smacked the pillow into shape and went back to sleep.

Patty Sundstrom was also awake at one minute past three. She had slept four hours and then some kind of subconscious agitation had forced its way through and woken her up. She didn’t feel good. Not deep inside, like she knew she should. Partly the delay was on her mind. At best they would get to the city halfway through the day. Not prime trading hours. On top of which was the fifty extra bucks for the room. Plus the car was an unknown quantity. It might cost a fortune. If parts were required. If something had to be adapted. Cars were great until they weren’t. Even so, the engine had started when they came out of the office. That was something, at least. The motel guy didn’t seem too worried about it. He made a reassuring face. He didn’t come to the room with them. Which was good too. She hated people crowding in, showing her where the light switch was, and the bathroom, judging her stuff, acting all obsequious, wanting a tip. The guy did none of that.

But still she didn’t feel good. She didn’t know why. The room was pleasant. It was newly refurbished, as promised, every inch. The wallboard was new, and the ceiling, and the trim, and the paint, and the carpet. Nothing adventurous. Certainly nothing flashy. It looked like an apples-for-apples update of what tradition would have had there before, but newly straight and true and smooth and solid. The AC was cold and quiet. There was a flat-screen television. The window was an expensive unit, with two thick panes of glass sealed in thermal gaskets, with an electric roller blind set in the void between. You didn’t tug on a chain to close it. You pressed a button. No expense spared. Only problem was, the window itself didn’t open. Which she would worry about in a fire. And generally she liked a breath of night air in a room. But overall it was a decent place. Better than most she had seen. Maybe even worth fifty bucks.

But she didn’t feel good. There was no phone in the room, and no cell signal, so after half an hour they had walked back to the office to enquire about using the motel’s landline for hot food delivery. Pizza, maybe. The guy at the desk had smiled a rueful smile and said he was sorry, but they were way too remote for delivery. No one would come. He said most guests drove out to a diner or a restaurant. Shorty looked like he was going to get mad. As if the guy was saying, most guests have cars that work. Maybe something to do with the rueful smile. Then the guy said, but hey, we’ve got pizzas in the freezer down at the house. Why don’t you come eat with us?

Which was a weird meal, in a dark old residence, with Shorty and the guy and three others all the same. Same age, same look, with some kind of same-wavelength connection between them. As if they were all on a mission. There was something nervous about them. After some conversation she concluded they were all maxed-out investors in the same new venture. The motel, she assumed. She assumed they had bought it and were trying to make a go of it. Whatever, they were all extremely polite and gracious and talkative. The guy from the reception desk said his name was Mark. The others were William, Douglas and Peter. They all asked intelligent questions about life in Saint Leonard. They asked about the hardcore drive south. Again Shorty looked like he was going to get mad. He thought they were calling him dumb for setting out in a bad car. But the guy who said he looked after the quad bikes, who was Peter, said he would have done exactly the same thing. Purely on a statistical basis. The car had run for years. Why assume it would stop now? The odds said it would keep on going. It always had before.

Then they had said goodnight and walked back to room ten, and gone to sleep, except she had woken up four hours later, agitated. She didn’t feel good, and she didn’t know why. Or maybe she did. Maybe she just didn’t want to admit it. Maybe that was the issue. Truth was, deep down, she guessed she was probably mad at Shorty himself. The big trip. The most important part of their secret plan. He set out in a bad car. He was dumb. He was dumber than his own potatoes. He couldn’t invest a buck upfront? What would it have cost, at a lube shop with a coupon? Less than the fifty bucks they were paying for the motel, that was for sure, which Shorty was also pestering her to agree was a creepy place run by creepy people, which was a conflict for her, because really she felt like a bunch of polite young men were rescuing her, like knights in shining armour, from a predicament caused entirely by a potato farmer too dumb to check his car before setting out on about a thousand-mile trip to, oh yeah, a foreign country, with, oh yeah, something very valuable in the trunk.

Dumb. She wanted air. She slipped out of bed and padded barefoot to the door. She turned the knob, and pressed her other hand on the frame for balance, so she could ease the door open without a sound, because she wanted Shorty to stay asleep, because she didn’t want to deal with him right then, as mad as she was.

But the door was stuck. It wouldn’t move at all. She checked it was properly unlocked from the inside, and she tried the knob both ways, but nothing happened. The door was jammed. Maybe it had never been adjusted properly after installation. Or maybe it had swelled with the summer heat.

Dumb. Really dumb. Now was the one time she could use Shorty. He was a strong little fireplug. From throwing hundred-pound bags of potatoes around. But was she going to wake him up and ask him? Was she hell. She crept back to bed and got in alongside him and stared at the ceiling, which was straight and true and smooth and solid.

Reacher woke again at eight o’clock in the morning. Bright bars of hard sun came past the edges of the drapes. There was dust in the air, floating gently. There were muted sounds from the street. Cars waiting, and then moving off. A light at the end of the block, presumably. Occasionally the dulled blare of a horn, as if a guy in front had looked away and missed the green.

He showered, and retrieved his pants from under the mattress, and dressed, and walked out in search of breakfast. He found coffee and muffins close by, which sustained him through a longer reconnaissance, which brought him to a place he figured might have good food hiding under multiple layers of some kind of faux-retro irony. He figured it would take a smarter guy than him to decode them all. The basic idea seemed to be someone’s modern-day notion of where old-time lumberjacks might have dined, on whatever it was that old-time lumberjacks ate, which in the modern day seemed to be interpreted as one of every fried item on the menu. In Reacher’s experience lumberjacks ate the same as any other working man, which was all kinds of different things. But he had no ideological objection to fried food as such, especially not in generous quantities, so he played along. He went in and sat down, briskly, he hoped, as if he had thirty minutes before he had a tree to fell.

The food was fine, and the coffee kept on coming, so he lingered longer than thirty minutes, watching out the window, timing the hustle and the bustle, waiting until the people in the suits and the skirts were safely at work. Then he got up and left his tip and paid his check, and walked two of the blocks he had scouted the night before, towards the place he guessed he should start. Which was the records department of the city offices. Which had a suite number all its own, on a crowded multi-line floor directory, outside a brick-built multi-purpose government building, which because of its age and its shape Reacher figured had once contained a courtroom. Maybe it still did.

The suite he was looking for turned out to be one of many small rooms opening off a grand mezzanine hallway. Like a corridor in an expensive hotel. Except the doors were half glass, which was pebbled in an old-fashioned style, with the department name painted on it in gold. Over two lines, in the case of the records department. Inside the door was an empty room with four plastic chairs and a waist-high enquiry counter. Like a miniature version of any government office. There was an electric bell push screwed to the counter. It had a thin wire that ran away to a nearby crack, and a handwritten sign that said If Unattended Ring For Service. The message was carefully lettered and protected by many layers of clear tape, applied in strips of generous length, some of which were curled at the corners, and dirty, as if picked at by bored or anxious fingers.

Reacher rang for service. A minute later a woman came through a door in the rear wall, looking back as she did so, with what Reacher thought was regret, as if she was leaving a space dramatically larger and more exciting. She was maybe thirty, slim and neat, in a grey sweater and a grey skirt. She stepped up to the counter but she glanced back at the door. Either her boyfriend was waiting, or she hated her job. Maybe both. But she did her best. She cranked up a warm and welcoming manner. Not exactly like in a store, where the customer was always right, but more as an equal, as if she and the customer were just bound to have a good time together, puzzling through some ancient town business. There was enough light in her eyes Reacher figured she meant at least some of what she was saying. Maybe she didn’t hate her job after all.

He said, ‘I need to ask you about an old real estate record.’

‘Is it for a title dispute?’ the woman asked. ‘In which case you should get your attorney to request it. Much faster that way.’

‘No kind of dispute,’ he said. ‘My father was born here. That’s all. Years ago. He’s dead now. I was passing by. I thought I would stop in and take a look at the house he grew up in.’

‘What’s the address?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you remember roughly where it is?’

‘I’ve never been there before.’

‘You didn’t visit?’

‘Never.’

‘Perhaps because your father moved away when he was young.’

‘Not until he joined the Marines when he was seventeen.’

‘Then perhaps because your grandparents moved away before your father had a family of his own. Before visits became a thing.’

‘I got the impression my grandparents stayed here the rest of their lives.’

‘But you never met them?’

‘We were a Marine family. We were always somewhere else.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘But thank you for your service.’

‘Wasn’t my service. My dad was the Marine, not me. I was hoping we could look him up, maybe in a register of births or something, to get his parents’ full names, so we could find their exact address, maybe in property tax records or something, so I could drop by and take a look.’

‘You don’t know your grandparents’ names?’

‘I think they were James and Elizabeth Reacher.’

‘That’s my name.’

‘Your name is Reacher?’

‘No, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Castle.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ Reacher said.

‘Likewise,’ she said.

‘I’m Jack Reacher. My dad was Stan Reacher.’

‘How long ago did Stan leave to join the Marines?’

‘He would be about ninety now, so it was more than seventy years ago.’

‘Then we should start eighty years ago, for a safety margin,’ the woman said. ‘At that point Stan Reacher would be about ten years old, living at home with his parents James and Elizabeth Reacher, somewhere in Laconia. Is that a fair summary?’

‘That could be chapter one of my biography.’

‘I’m pretty sure the computer goes back more than eighty years now,’ she said. ‘But for property taxes that old it might just be a list of names, I’m afraid.’

She turned a key and opened a lid in the countertop. Under it was a keyboard and a screen. Safe from thieves, while unattended. She pressed a button, and looked away.

‘Booting up,’ she said.

Which were words he had heard before, in a technological context, but to him they sounded military, as if infantry companies were lacing tight ahead of a general advance.

She clicked and scrolled, and scrolled and clicked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Eighty years ago is just an index, with file numbers. If you want detail, you need to request the physical document from storage. Usually that takes a long time, I’m afraid.’

‘How long?’

‘Sometimes three months.’

‘Are there names and addresses in the index?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s really all we need.’

‘I guess so. If all you want to do is take a look at the house.’

‘That’s all I’m planning on doing.’

‘Aren’t you curious?’

‘About what?’

‘Their lives. Who they were and what they did.’

‘Not three months’ worth of curious.’

‘OK, then names and addresses are all we need.’

‘If the house is still there,’ he said. ‘Maybe someone tore it down. Suddenly eighty years sounds like a real long time.’

‘Things change slowly here,’ she said.

She clicked again, and scrolled, fast at first, scooting down through the alphabet, and then slowly, peering at the screen, through what Reacher assumed was the R section, and then back up again, just as slowly, peering just as hard. Then down and up again fast, as if trying to shake something loose.

She said, ‘No one named Reacher owned property in Laconia eighty years ago.’

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About the Author

Lee Child is one of the world’s leading thriller writers. He was born in Coventry, raised in Birmingham, and now lives in New York. It is said one of his novels featuring his hero Jack Reacher is sold somewhere in the world every nine seconds. His books consistently achieve the number-one slot on bestseller lists around the world and have sold over one hundred million copies. Two blockbusting Jack Reacher movies have been made so far. He is the recipient of many awards, most recently the CWA’s Diamond Dagger for a writer of an outstanding body of crime fiction, the International Thriller Writers’ ThrillerMaster, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award.

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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press

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Copyright © Lee Child 2018
Cover design: Stephen Mulcahey
Images: Johnny Ring and Shutterstock

Lee Child has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473562653

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