Foster shook his head and rubbed his weary eyes.
Had the Lord's work been done?
However, all was not lost. Foster could not understand why Gary had not been killed and dragged out into the garden where his spilled blood would atone for the misdemeanours of the past. He clung to the idea that Gary might have got away.
An outline of what had happened the night before was beginning to emerge. Gary had arrived at the safe house on Monday evening with the two officers charged with protecting him for the next forty-eight hours. The officers were Adrian Sullivan and Sylvia Tweedy -- he made it his business to find out their names, and personally call their next of kin to offer his sympathies, because he felt responsible. Sullivan was to take the nights, Tweedy the day, each sleeping while the other watched, entertained and kept an eye on Gary. After a couple of days they would be rotated and other officers drafted in.
The pathologist's estimate was that Sullivan was shot dead shortly after ten the night before, Tweedy around the same time. He had been lured into opening the front door and been shot as soon as he did so. She had not gone to bed and after seeing her fallen colleague had tried to reach the panic button but had been cut down with two shots, one to the back and the other to her head.
It was the last fact that offered a lacuna of hope. The killer had decided to take out both of Gary's minders, which gave the boy time to be alerted to the trouble and an opportunity to scarper, a skill at which he'd become extremely adept. But how had he got out? The window in his room was open. Foster prayed he had escaped that way rather than been dragged out by the killer.
He went over the possibilities once more. There were two options: either Gary got away or the killer got him.
He hoped to God it was the former. The idea that the kid was dead, when he knew how close they were to catching the killer and saving him, would be one he couldn't bear.
As he sat on the sofa while the dawn sun came up, it crossed his mind that there wasn't much more he could take of this. Yet another sorrow, just one in a long line, would be the one that pushed him out of the force for good. His future, and any hope for it, was tangled up in the fate of that brown-eyed boy.
He took a deep breath and let it out. There was no sign of forced entry. The abductor entered through the front door like a guest. There had been a chain on the door and a spyhole. Cops in places like this didn't open the door to everyone who stopped by. Foster had pieced together what happened. The killer had set the car alarm off. It was a windy night. Sullivan, hearing it go and thinking it had been set off by a sudden gust, would have gone out to see to it and been gunned down as soon as he showed himself.
But how had he found Gary?
Foster had spent the night hours pondering that question.
Gary was taken down to an underground car park and then driven here. He never laid a foot outside police headquarters. Yet there was still only one convincing answer. The killer must have followed Gary there. God only knew how.
He needed a diversion. It was late in Utah, but not too late for him to call Heather and get an update. She sounded breathless, irritated almost. He apologized for calling late.
She appeared to calm herself.
'Just wondered what the latest was?' he asked.
She explained their foray into Liberty City and what they had found in the temple ledger. The names of the dead, baptized and converted to the TCF by proxy. Foster was so numb it took some time for her words to sink in.
'Is everything OK, sir?' she inquired, after a long silence.
'Not really. Gary Stamey has gone missing from the safe house.'
'Oh, God.'
'Yeah, two cops shot dead. Either the killer got Gary or he managed to get away. It's not clear. I'm holding on to the hope that at least we didn't find the body in the garden but, who knows?' He sighed. It wasn't something he wanted to spend too long thinking about. 'So someone in Liberty knows that Drake, Stamey and his boy are dead. We have to assume they know who's doing it then. I'll get on to Harris but God knows what the Yanks are going to think about going in all guns blazing. The locals can close ranks and deny anything. Not much we can do if that's what happens.'
'There's one thing,' Heather said. 'The name of the person who was baptized on behalf of the dead was Leonie Walker.'
'You don't think . . . ?'
'Could be coincidence.'
'Could be. Where are you now?'
At a motel, about six miles out of Liberty. Wondering what to do next. We don't think we were followed. I don't fancy going back without a posse. This is smalltown America. We have to presume they're armed.'
'Don't move a muscle,' Foster urged. 'Harris didn't want you going there in the first place -- when he finds out, he'll go apeshit, but at least you got something out of it. You confirmed a link. Let us think of the next step. Sit tight.
Have a hot dog and some root beer or something.'
Heather laughed. We have a room and a TV. No amusement for miles around.'
'Sounds cosy. Amuse yourselves.'
She laughed again. When she stopped, the silence was long and profound. 'He'll be OK, sir. One thing we know about that kid is he knows how to escape and evade capture.'
'I hope you're right,' he said, and meant it.
Outside, from the fields behind the house, Foster could hear barking. Sniffer dogs. Maybe they'd find the kid in a hole, or up a tree. With a lurching stomach, he also knew they might have found his murdered corpse. He didn't speak, trying to glean from the animals' excitement whether Gary had been found.
'Got to go,' he said, lifting his weary frame, breathing deeply to retain his brave face.
He went into the garden, breath misting in the frosty air, through a back gate towards a lone oak tree, branches bare, standing sentry on a hill. A group of uniforms were already gathering and he could hear the lone yelp of a frustrated police dog. As he neared, he saw one of the cops bend down but he couldn't see what he was tending because it was beyond the brow of the small hill. He felt sick, he felt empty, and he felt forlorn. Another cop went down on his haunches.
A policewoman stationed outside the back gate called across to him. 'Look,' she said, pointing.
Foster followed her finger. On the straw-coloured grass were a few spots of blood. He said nothing. Just carried on walking towards the group on the hill. He plunged his hands deep in his voluminous pockets, so no one could see they were shaking.
He reached the crest of the hill. Foster closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened them.
Nothing. Just a dirt track.
The two policemen were still on their haunches. One saw Foster.
'The scent stopped around here,' one explained. 'There are some fresh tyre tracks. A car, we reckon.'
Foster followed the snaking route of the dirt track. It seemed to run eastward away from the house back towards the main road.
'There are some spots of blood back there. Get forensics out here. I want the whole field roped off and a fingertip search started straight away.'
'Do you reckon it's the killer's car?' a cop in uniform asked.
'I do. He's got him. If he's not killed him here, then he needs him for something. Don't ask me what. But once he's got what he needs I know he'll kill him. He has to achieve atonement.' He glanced around the field, at the pale-blue sky and the denuded tree. We need to find him and find him today.'
14
The motel room was part of a single-storey, U-shaped complex looking out over a deserted car park. It
