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now!” came a voice from the crowd.

  Realising he had won the fight Bruce didn't waste any time. He turned to the others: “We're going to find this bastard and give him what he deserves. We'll search the whole island until we get him. He can't hide. We know this island—this is our home—we'll get him!”

  The crowd roared in assent.

  “Wayne? Wayne?! Get here!” Bruce summoned.

  “I'm here,” Wayne said as he pushed through the crowd. I recognised him immediately. We had almost been friends a long time ago. It seemed like an even longer time since we had last spoken. Wayne had different friends now and apparently Bruce was one of them. I can't say I would ever miss either man’s company.

  “This is what we’re gonna do. Wayne, you start at the dock and move east. The rest of us'll start on the east side and meet you halfway. If you find him … well, you know what to do.”

  Wayne nodded and his posse made their way out. Bruce began to lead the rest away, then he stopped and looked straight at me. There was a vicious glint in his eye.

  “You,” he said. “You're gonna come with us.”

  I glanced at Travis, but his eyes were down. No help there. “I don't think so,” I replied.

  Bruce walked over and leaned in till I could feel his breath on my cheek. He spoke as though his whispers were laced with strychnine: “You're gonna come with us. You've never belonged here since you came back. Everyone knows you were the last person to see Aaron alive, and there you were hanging around at Gail's house this morning as well. So, yeah, you're gonna come with us.”

  I'd seen a hint of what had happened to Gail and Evan, and their families, and I knew that we might all end up the same way. But that moment was the first, and maybe the only time that I felt the same fear that possessed the others. We weren’t scared of the same thing, however. Bruce had about as much chance of tracking down a murderer that night as I did of being invited to join his family for Christmas dinner. Without someone to pin the crime on I fully expected him to exercise his thirst for justice on me instead. Trying to run at that point would just as surely have sealed my fate. I had no choice but to go.

  Two hours later dusk was falling and our group had found nothing. Bruce had led us halfway around the island, his righteous energy just about keeping the rest of his followers moving. I'd considered making a break for it on more than one occasion, but I couldn’t see the point. The fire was fading from the search party and I didn’t want to do anything to help rekindle it. Sooner or later people would start drifting away by themselves, and I'd go with them.

  As agreed Wayne and the others were waiting for us at the halfway mark. Wayne looked as weary as the rest of his group. The only person with any energy left appeared to be Bruce. He was so energised he was just about falling out of his skin.

  “Find anything?” he asked.

  Wayne shook his head. “Nothing. What do you want to do now?”

  Then things happened with a chilling suddenness. Bruce paused in his indecision and that was all the time it took for someone in Wayne's group to say: “We didn't see a gravestone—any of you lot see a gravestone?”

  “No the gravestone's at—” someone started to reply. Bruce shot the speaker a vicious glance but it was already too late.

  Wayne frowned. I could see him come painfully close to piecing it all together. “What …?”

  I decided to finish the puzzle for him. Condemn me all you like, for the good it'll do now, but whoever’s side I was on that night it definitely wasn't Bruce's.

  “It's at yours isn't it?” I said, looking straight at Bruce. “The gravestone's at your house. That's why you've got everyone hunting all over the rest of the island, hoping no one would find it.”

  Wayne nodded to someone by his side. The man ran off, heading back into town.

  Bruce started to panic, imploring the others: “We've got to find them. You didn't see what they did to Gail. I'm not going back to be butchered in my own house. We've got to find them. I'm not going back!”

  I saw the crowd slowly move away from Bruce and side up to Wayne instead. Bruce looked around desperately. For a moment his eyes even fell on me, as if I'd offer him any support. “Well, you cowards can all give up—I'm carrying on!”

  He turned, making as if to stride off. Wayne said: “Stop him” and a dozen pairs of hands stopped him getting more than a few steps.

  Wayne spoke out, with new authority now. “You all know what happened to Gail and her family. That's not happening to anyone else here.”

  He pointed to Bruce: “You've been marked. No one else.”

  There was a general sound of agreement from the others. At that moment Wayne's sidekick came running back, the breath wheezing its way in between his words. “Yeah, there's a grave right outside his house. Tried to cover it with his dustbin …”

  “You thought we wouldn't find out?” Wayne said to Bruce. “Thought someone else would bite your bullet too? No, you're going back, before any of us gets taken down with you.”

  Bruce scoured the crowd, searching for one friendly face, but even he knew it was futile. He slumped.

  “Bring him,” Wayne ordered, then he held up a hand. “Just a minute,” he said, looking around.

  “Bruce?” he asked. “Where's your wife?”

  Now Bruce started struggling again. “No, please.”

  “Is she there? Is she at home?” asked Wayne.

  “I know where she'll be,” someone offered, quickly looking away when he caught the look of open-mouthed despair on Bruce's face that this act of betrayal produced.

  “Get her,” Wayne ordered. “Bring her back. Can't risk someone else getting marked on her account. I reckon we lock the whole family at home. Only way to be sure.”

  Bruce made a run for it, but got no more than five feet before being wrestled brutally to the ground. That was the end of any fight from him.

  Wayne walked over. “You're going back to your house,” he ordered. “And you're gonna stay there. But when this bastard comes for you we'll get him. Maybe you'll be lucky and we'll get him before he gets you, but he'll come for you sooner or later and we'll all be there waiting. Don't you worry about that. Come on!”

  I suppose I wish I could say I felt remorse as they dragged Bruce screaming back to his doorstep. The truth is I only felt relief that no one was looking at me anymore, and I didn't feel much of that. Now I was nothing more than another man in the mob. I didn't make any effort to help out. I just followed the rest of them to Bruce's house so I could see what happened next.

  There was more screaming when we got there. It came from a woman I assumed was Bruce's wife. She was fighting. At least three men had hold of her, dragging her towards the house. A few other men were restraining an older woman, her mother I guessed. She was struggling with every ounce of her strength to protect her daughter. It was one of the ugliest scenes I had ever witnessed.

  Perhaps Wayne thought so too. “Be a man why don't you?” he implored Bruce. “You want everyone to see your wife screaming like that?”

  Remarkably some of the dignity returned to Bruce's broken posture. He was trembling, but he just about managed to look Wayne in the eye and promised: “We'll be waiting in there. If they come for us, we'll be waiting for you. Friend.”

  Then he went over to his wife. After a few words they walked, arms wrapped tightly around each other, into the house. The woman's mother stayed by the front gate, obviously fighting an urge to run after them. As they entered the house, closing the door behind them, there was an almost audible sigh of release from those gathered outside. The tension dropped. A few people even sat down.

  At that moment my attention was drawn to the gravestone. It was sitting, as I expected it to be, close to one of the front windows of the house. An upturned bin lay a few feet away. As far as I could tell it was the same gravestone I'd seen in Aaron's garden. Probably the same one that had been outside Evan's house.

  I was certain, at that moment, that whatever happened that night
we wouldn't be able to save the two people inside that house. I wandered over to Wayne.

  “So what's the plan now?” I asked him.

  “What?” he replied, caught unawares.

  “Your plan. Are we watching in shifts? All staying here until something happens? Is anyone keeping watch? What's the plan?”

  Wayne shrugged. Of course he hadn't thought this far. There was a reason he had spent most of his life following Bruce's lead. Until tonight.

  I directed his attention away from the house. A few of his people were already walking off. “If this is something you think we can stop then tonight's our best chance to do it,” I said. “But how are we going to manage that if your people won't even stick around?”

  “Hey!” Wayne shouted. Some of the stragglers stopped and turned back. The others kept going.

  “Listen up,” he began. “We've got to stay on watch. We've all got to stay here. If the bastard comes tonight we can stop him for good.”

  “Sod it, I'm not sticking around here!” came one reply, but most stopped to listen.

  “What are we going to do?” someone asked. “Bait him?”

  “We should lay a trap,” suggested someone else.

  “As if he's going to turn up with us all standing outside,” claimed another voice.

  Wayne was well out of his depth: “Uh, well, uh, we'll wait out of sight.”

  “Someone should stay near the house.”

  Wayne nodded: “Okay, yes, someone stay near the house.”

  “Yeah, whoever stays by the house