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his five minute spree as thief he’d not found a watch to steal, so the only sense he had of time passing was the slow progression of the constellations overhead. The air became cold, then bitter, but he kept up his painful pace, avoiding the roads wherever possible, though they would have been easier to walk than the ploughed and seeded ground. This caution proved well founded at one point when two police vehicles, book-ending a black limousine, slid all but silently down a road he had a minute ago crossed. He had no evidence whatsoever for the feeling that seized him as the cars passed by, but he sensed more than strongly that the limo’s passenger was Decker, the good doctor, still in pursuit of
understanding
.
4
    Then, Midian.
    Out of nowhere, Midian. One moment the night ahead was featureless darkness, the next there was a cluster of buildings on the horizon, their painted walls glimmering grey blue in the starlight. Boone stood for several minutes and studied the scene. There was no light burning in any window, or on any porch. By now it was surely well after midnight, and the men and women of the town, with work to rise to the following morning, would be in bed. But not one single light? That struck him as strange. Small Midian might be – forgotten by map-makers and signpost writers alike – but did it not lay claim to one insomniac?; or a child who needed the comfort of a lamp burning through the night hours? More probably they were in wait for him – Decker and the law – concealed in the shadows until he was foolish enough to step into the trap. The simplest solution would be to turn tail and leave them to their vigil, but he had little enough energy left. If he retreated now how long would he have to wait before attempting a return, every hour making recognition and a rest more likely?
    He decided to skirt the edge of the town and get some sense of the lie of the land. If he could find no evidence of a police presence then he’d enter, and take the consequences. He hadn’t come all this way to turn back.
    Midian revealed nothing of itself as he moved around its south eastern flank, except perhaps its emptiness. Not only could he see no sign of police vehicles in the streets, or secreted between the houses, he could see no automobile of any kind: no truck, no farm vehicle. He began to wonder if the town was one of those religious communities he’d read of, whose dogmas denied them electricity or the combustion engine.
    But as he climbed toward the spine of a small hill on the summit of which Midian stood, a second and plainer explanation occurred. There was nobody
in
Midian. The thought stopped him in his tracks. He stared across at the houses, searching for some evidence of decay, but he could see none. The roofs were intact, as far as he could make out, there were no buildings that appeared on the verge of collapse. Yet, with the night so quiet he could hear the whoosh of falling stars overhead, he could hear
nothing
from the town. If somebody in Midian had moaned in their sleep the night would have brought the sound his way, but there was only silence.
    Midian was a ghost town.
    Never in his life had he felt such desolation. He stood like a dog returned home to find its masters gone, not knowing what his life now meant or would ever mean again.
    It took him several minutes to uproot himself and continue his circuit of the town. Twenty yards on from where he’d stood, however, the height of the hill gave him sight of a scene more mysterious even than the vacant Midian.
    On the far side of the town lay a cemetery. His vantage point gave him an uninterrupted view of it, despite the high walls that bounded the place. Presumably it had been built to serve the entire region, for it was massively larger than a town Midian’s size could ever have required. Many of the mausoleums were of impressive scale, that much was clear even from a distance, the layout of avenues, trees and tombs lending the cemetery the