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bedcover, but when morning came he could never wake up. Ruth suspected that he didn’t want to wake up, the way things were.
    â€˜Craig, honey?’
    â€˜Whuh?’
    â€˜Craig, honey, I have to go to work. I’ll call you later.’
    He opened his eyes and blinked at her as if he didn’t know who she was. ‘ Whuh ?’
    â€˜I’m going now. I’ll call you later, OK? Don’t forget that Ammy has to be at school by eight.’
    â€˜Urgggh. OK.’
    â€˜Are you going out today?’
    â€˜What day is it?’
    â€˜Tuesday.’
    â€˜Tuesday? Damn it. I have to go over to the Mayfield Drive development. Meet those assholes from Kraussman Brothers. I doubt I’ll get back to the studio till gone twelve.’
    â€˜OK. That’s OK. I’ll call you then, OK?’
    She kissed him on the forehead, and then kissed the faint scar on his left cheek. When she and Craig had first met at college, he had told her that he had been cut across the face when he was fighting with a local gang, but his mother had later told her that he had fallen off his bicycle when he was six, the first time his father had taken off his training-wheels. He dragged up the comforter to cover his face.
    She stood beside the bed for a moment, looking at his dark hair sprouting out. ‘I love you, you daydreamer, you,’ she said, although she probably said it too quietly for him to hear her.
    As she went back along the landing, she saw that Amelia’s bedroom door was an inch ajar, and that Amelia was watching her. She decided to say nothing. Amelia could never sulk for very long; it wasn’t in her nature.
    â€˜Bye, Ammy,’ she called out. ‘I’ll see you after school, OK?’
    Amelia didn’t answer right away, but as Ruth went down the stairs, she suddenly came out of her room and leaned over the banister rail.
    â€˜Mom – don’t go.’
    â€˜What? I have to go. Bill Docherty’s off sick so there’s only Jack Morrow and me.’
    â€˜You shouldn’t go, Mom. Please. Something’s not right.’
    Ruth hesitated. Amelia was looking genuinely worried.
    â€˜What do you mean, something’s not right?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I can’t explain it.’
    â€˜Sweetheart, I have to go. It’s my job. But I promise I’ll be careful, OK?’
    Amelia bit her lip, but didn’t say anything else. Ruth blew her a kiss and then whistled for Tyson, who came careering out of the kitchen with his leash in his mouth.
    Ruth looked upstairs again, but Amelia had gone back into her room and closed the door.

THREE
    L ast night’s storm had blown over to the north-east and it was a dry, gusty morning. The sky was a strong artificial blue, like a hand-colored postcard, and rusty-colored leaves were rattling along the streets as if they were warning Ruth that winter wasn’t far away.
    Six emergency vehicles were already parked outside the pale green house on the corner of South McCann and West Maple: an engine, an ambulance, the arson investigation truck and two vans, including the battalion chief’s new red-and-white Dodge, and a police squad car. Ruth parked up behind them and climbed out of her battered white Windstar. She lifted the tailgate to let Tyson jump out, and to drag out the heavy metal case which contained her investigator’s tool kit.
    This was a neat, tree-lined neighborhood, shabby-genteel, and it was usually so quiet that it looked as if nobody lived here. Ruth had been called out here only once, about three years ago, when an irascible old woman had complained that her neighbor had deliberately used paint-thinner to set fire to her conifer hedge, because it was blocking the sunlight to his patio. This morning, however, there was a crowd of more than thirty local residents gathered on the sidewalk, as well as a reporter and a photographer from the Kokomo Tribune .
    Jack Morrow and Bob Kowalski, the