Valley of Lights

TWENTY-FOUR

The ghoul.

There was a name that suited him as well as any, and after the end of the shift that evening I sat in my car in the station yard for a while and tried to see if I could get it to come as a natural part of my thinking about him. But I couldn't. Whenever he came into my mind it was always either as Woods or Winter or sometimes even Mercado, human names and human faces with that other and much uglier aspect only dimly glimpsed behind.

I hoped that it wouldn't cause me to be soft on him, when the time came.

I'd been given a tough grilling by the firearms investigators and this, on top of everything else, had left me keyed-up and edgy. Instead of driving straight home from the yard I turned north, and a half-hour later I was getting out of the car at the same spot on the mountain road where I'd pulled in with Loretta and Georgie on the day of the zoo trip. I leaned against the side of the car, shivering a little in the evening chill. Now, as then, the lights of the valley were glowing before me like a scattered handful of diamond dust, a network of life that spread for miles but which was contained by the distant hills, themselves no more than a dark sketch against a dying sunset. What I hadn't told Loretta was that this was somewhere that I'd found myself on the night that Eloise passed away, a long night of driving and driving with no purpose in mind other than to fill myself with the dead feeling that comes after mile upon mile of empty road. I suppose I must have stopped lots of places, but this was the only one that I ever remembered, and returned to; seeing not a city but a deep, dark bowl of stars, and knowing that unless something was going to take this memory away, then I was never going to leave.

And I'd been right. My life had been in pieces once, but instead of running away I'd fitted them together again and I was whole. I think that this, more than anything else, had kept me together over the last few weeks. I had no big theories about the ghoul, all that I knew of him was what I'd seen; he was like a night-train passing through, headlamp masked and numbers covered, emerging from darkness and heading for an unknown destination, with human lives a convenient fuel for his fires. I had no doubt that we mattered to him about as much as the day-old chicks did to the hawks in the zoo… but I was the one who'd refused to run and had grown because of it, whereas he was running all the time. He might consider himself to be the ultimate predator, but I believed that it was the prey, in the end, who would have the stronger hold on life.

We would come through, I told the valley of lights. It would cost, but we would come through.

The chill was starting to get through to me. I had a jacket in the car, but instead I got in and started the engine and set off for home.

I was pretty sure that I'd be getting a call the next morning, and for some strange reason I slept better that night than I had in weeks. As the hour of eleven approached I was showered and dressed and ready with the day's question, and I had the radio on so that I could keep an exact track of the time as they counted down towards the on-the-hour news.

But then with about five minutes to go, somebody came and knocked on my door.

I stayed quiet and hoped that they'd go away but the radio was my let-down, proving that somebody was home – that, and the car outside, I suppose. I heard a female voice calling, 'Hello, Sergeant?' and so then I had to go over and open the door.

I looked out at her through the bug screen. She was standing on my little porch, well-tailored, trim, and put into soft-focus by the gauze. I said, 'What can I do for you?'

'I'm Angela Price from KTAR News,' she said. 'Can I speak to you for a minute?'

I opened the bug screen for a better look. And what do you know? It was exactly who I'd thought it was, the green-eyed radio reporter that I'd last seen on the Headquarters steps, racing late to the Chief's murder conference with her recorder slung over her shoulder. I said, 'Yeah, I know you,' and I saw her eyebrows go up.

'Did we meet before?' she said.

'No, but we've hung around a lot of the same places. Listen, if it's about the shooting yesterday, I'm not allowed to say anything about it.'

'That was you?' she said. 'I'm sorry, I didn't know.'

'Oh,' I said, a little bit disappointed.

'The department didn't release your name yet, they only said that a patrol sergeant was involved.'

'Well, do me a favor and don't say it was me that told you. I'm in enough trouble as it is.' If it wasn't about that, I was wondering exactly what was it that she wanted me for? But then again I didn't want to ask, because that would involve me in some long explanation and I was almost certain that my phone was going to ring in three minutes' time.

'Trouble?' she said. 'I thought there was talk of you getting some kind of citation.'

'That's half of it. The other half is talk about putting me on a disciplinary charge to cure my delusions of being the avenging angel. But please, that's all I'm going to say.'

She said, 'But that isn't even why I'm here,' and she glanced hopefully over my shoulder into the room beyond. 'Can't I just come in for five minutes?'

With eyes like those, I'll bet she was more used to having men run ahead of her to rearrange the furniture so that she wouldn't have to tire herself out zigzagging around too much. But I said, 'Maybe we can meet later. I'm expecting an important call on the hour and I don't dare miss it.'

'Well,' she said, 'I won't keep you as long as that,' and somehow she'd turned my objection into an invitation and was walking in, and there was I letting her.

Belatedly I said, 'Please, this is really too important for me to risk,' but she was already setting her bag on the table near the phone.

She said, 'Does the name Bobby Winter mean anything to you?'

I was still by the door. I closed it.

'What about him?' I said.

My gun was over in the bedroom on the bedside table, and I'd have to pass her to get to it. I watched her, looking for anything that might betray her as a vessel for the same kind of Trojan-horse trick that had been played with Michaels, but nothing jumped out at me. Could he be that good?

She said, 'Two kids came into the newsroom yesterday afternoon and told me a story about how a friend of theirs had vanished after a bad crack on the head. They said that a Sergeant Alex Volchak had turned up the next day and told them that he was, quote, on the case. But then when they tried to phone in some new information, they were told that no file had been opened for Winter in the records computer.'

'What new information?'

'Somebody saw him on the street and he walked straight past them. I mean someone who knew him well, and he didn't even show a spark of recognition. The way it looks, the kid's not only lost his memory but he's leading a complete new life.'

This could be it, I realised, this could be the break in the clouds. He was cocky, he'd been careless. I said, 'Where was he seen?' But Angela Price smiled and I realised then that there was going to be yet another kind of price involved here.

She said, 'Now wait a minute. Sergeant. Are we agreeing to help each other?'

'Yeah,' I said, my mind racing, 'I mean… look, I need to know,' and that was when the phone started to ring.

'There's your call,' she said, as if she expected me to break off and take it with her standing there, but I picked up her bag and handed it to her and tried to steer her around and towards the door, saying, 'I know, why don't you wait in your car,' and she somehow turned it into a neat evasion and left me heading for the door all by myself.

She said, 'You just reminded me, I have some pills I have to take. Can I get a glass of water first?'

'In the kitchen,' I said, knowing that I was beaten because I simply didn't have the time to mess around. 'Help yourself.' And as she went through and started to look for a glass, I picked up the phone and turned my back on the kitchen door and wondered if I'd be able to make it so that my end of the conversation wouldn't mean anything if it was overheard.

Winter was there. 'Morning, Alex,' he said, businesslike. 'Usual rules, and then I suppose you want to talk.'

Which I took to mean that he wanted to talk. I said, 'Put her on,' and he handed over the phone to Georgie.

'Hi, Alex,' she said.

'Hello, Georgie. I heard about your mother last night, she's doing fine.'

'I know,' Georgie said. 'He rings the hospital and lets me listen.'

'He does?'

'He pretends to be all kinds of people. He can get them to tell him anything.'

'Yeah,' I said, 'I'll bet.' Behind me in the kitchen I could hear the distinctive sound of tablets being rattled out of a bottle along with the water being run cold in the basin, so it seemed that this part of Angela Price's excuse had been real, at least. I'd been assuming that it was something they taught them when they went to foot-in-the-door school. I went on, 'Here's what I want to know, Georgie. I want you to think back to the day we went to the zoo. Of all the different animals we saw, can you remember which ones you liked the best?'

'The monkeys, I guess.'

I felt my heart sinking. The possibility that I hadn't wanted to face, that Georgie might have suffered for Winter's frustration and defeat yesterday, rose up before me now.

But then she said, 'Ho, wait, I know what you mean. You're thinking about the baby chicks.'

'Yeah, Georgie,' I was able to say after a few moments, 'that's what I was thinking about.'

Angela Price had wandered back through from the kitchen with her glass of water, and she was doing a lousy job of pretending to show an interest in the cheap prints that I'd hung on the walls. Even I don't see that much in them, and I bought the damn things.

But then I had a brainwave, something so simple and so obvious that I wondered why it had taken me until now to come up with it.

I caught her eye, and beckoned her over.

She didn't need asking twice. What she'd overheard so far must have intrigued her, but that was nothing compared to what was on its way. Georgie was saying, 'He wants the phone back, now,' and so we said goodbye and I waited for Winter to come on the line. I turned the phone slightly, so we'd both be able to hear.

Winter said, 'What did you think of the show yesterday, Alex?'

'You ought to be asking those kids, or the woman who got scared half to death.'

'This is supposed to bother me? I thought you knew me better than that.'

'I know I'm not too impressed by any kind of performance over a safety net like yours. Have you thought over my proposal?'

'You mean, one-to-one at high noon, with all guns blazing? I'll admit that I'm tempted. It's an intriguing scenario.'

I could almost hear the cogs and wheels whirring away in Angela Price's mind only inches from me. I was almost afraid that Winter might hear them, too. I said, 'Yeah, but you'd cheat. You'd still take out insurance.'

'Of course I would,' he said. 'How else could I have lived so long?'

'You really want to live forever?'

'There is no forever. There's only now.'

Angela Price was frowning now. She'd picked up on the antagonism between us, but she was mystified by the details. So in an attempt to steer us onto more accessible ground, I said to Winter, 'Let the child go, and face me.'

'Sure,' he said lightly. 'What kind of face would you like to see?'

'How about the Encanto Park killer?'

There was a long silence. Glancing to the side, I could see that Angela Price's eyes were wide-open in surprise… and they were shining with a light all of their own.

Winter said, 'Are you trying to trace this call?'

'No,' I said.

'Never lie to me, Alex,' he said. 'Just sit 'back and watch the show, and think about the day when you'll be the star of it. Because that day's coming sooner than you think.'

And then he hung up, and after a moment I did the same.

Then I looked at Angela Price and said, 'That was Bobby Winter.'

She nodded. She walked up and down a little, trying to get it all straight in her mind before we went any further. Winter had suspected me of having the call traced, that was why he'd hung up so fast, which meant that he was ringing from somewhere that he regarded as a base. Somewhere that he wanted to protect, somewhere that he couldn't leave in a hurry.

Somewhere that he kept his insurance, in the form of those empty shells pulled back from the brink of death.

Angela Price said, 'What was that about a child?'

'He's holding my neighbour's kid,' I said. 'You see why I want to find him?'

'And he's the Encanto Park killer?'

'He's all messed up. He thinks he's a lot of things. I got onto him and he found out about it, and this is his way of keeping my hands tied. How do you see why I want to know where he was sighted?'

She took this in, added it to what she already knew. I wanted her to make up her own picture, because she sure as hell wouldn't believe mine.

She said, 'Before we go any further. I'm in on this, right?'

'I kind of thought you might want to be. You want to make a deal?'

'Depends on the terms.'

'You can follow me around and watch the whole thing,' I said, 'as long as you don't get in the way and you don't ask questions. You want to try making sense of it, you work it out for yourself.'

'Is this the department talking, or just you?'

'The department isn't involved,' I said flatly. 'This is just me and him.'

'Oh, wow,' she said, starry-eyed and looking into the distance, but I knew that it wasn't because of me – she was seeing what her report was going to be like when it came out as an exclusive, I Walked with the Manhunter or High Moon in the Valley of the Sun or some other heap of purple-prose guano.

I said, 'I don't care how I come out of this, but we've got to start moving now. He's probably planning to hit somebody tonight, that's the show he's talking about – and I don't want to be wasting time looking for those two kids and hauling them out of class, so how about it?'

She dug in her bag, brought out some keys.

'We can go in my car,' she said.