That’s no excuse and you know it, he thought, turning as the van rolled, pivoting with it. Fire your weapon! Fire your goddam weapon!

But he didn’t, and as the van turned left on to Hyacinth, he saw there was no license plate on the back… and what about the silver gadget on the roof? What in God’s name had that been?

On the other side of the street, Mr and Mrs Carver were sprinting into the parking lot of the E-Z Stop. Josephson was behind them. The black man glanced to the left and saw the red van was gone-it had just disappeared behind the trees which screened the part of Hyacinth Street which ran east of Poplar-and then bent over, hands on knees, gasping for breath.

Collie walked across the street, tucking the barrel of the.38 into the back of his pants, and put his hand on Josephson’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”

Brad looked up at him and smiled painfully. His face was running with sweat. “Maybe,” he said.

Collie walked over to the yellow rental truck, noting the red wagon nearby. There were a couple of unopened sodas lying inside it. A 3 Musketeers candybar lay beside one of the rear wheels. Someone had stepped on it and squashed it.

Screams from behind him. He turned and saw the Reed twins, their faces very pale beneath their summer tans, looking past their dog to the boy crumpled on his lawn. The twin with the blond hair-Jim, he thought-began to cry. The other one took a step backward, grimaced, then bent forward and vomited on to his own bare feet.

Crying loudly, Mrs Carver lifted her son back out of the truck. The boy, also bawling at maximum volume, threw his arms around her neck and clung like a limpet.

“Hush,” the woman in the jeans and the misbuttoned shirt said. “Hush, lovey, it’s over. The bad man’s gone.”

David Carver took his daughter from the arms of the man lying awkwardly over the seat and enfolded her.