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‘Coming up the path with the two women and the overdose?’

‘That was Cris. He’s always blowing his mind. I won’t touch that stuff. Anyway. Lizzie and John have been going on about how the healer becomes the warrior, and how they were waiting for someone, waiting for the healer to show up, waiting for jingle‐jangle… and it’s got something to do with Cristián’s fits… and I keep having these dreams…’ She took a shuddering breath and started to cry. ‘The healer becomes the warrior.’

Macbeth said, ‘I’ll bet your parents blamed you when things got broken or went missing.’

Molly sniffed. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Things moved when you were around. Vases fell off tables. When you were angry, the phone rang sometimes, but no one was there.’

Molly’s mouth was as open and round as an O. She fingered her crucifix.

‘Mmm,’ said Macbeth. ‘Tell me about your dreams.’

Molly told him. MacB asked, ‘Is that the same as when you’re, ah, tripping?’

‘I don’t take acid any more,’ she said again. ‘There was one really good trip at the beginning, one real blast into the arms of God. And then all it did was make me sick. All I saw was blue and cobwebs.’

‘Blue, eh,’ said Macbeth, as though this held some mystical significance of which he was aware.

Molly’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘You want to know what the really weird part is?’

‘I do,’ said MacB.

‘I dreamed that little man.’ Molly’s voice was almost inaudible. ‘And I dreamed one of the women he has with him.’

Macbeth nodded sagely, trying to disguise the fact that his heart was racing. It’s the real thing, he thought, muddledly. ‘Are you the only one who has these dreams?’

Molly shook her head. ‘I think Cristián has much worse dreams. That’s why he’s always having these terrible trips. I mean, you’re supposed to get used to acid after a while.’

‘Your friends don’t want me around,’ he said. ‘How can I find out more about whatever they’re doing?’

‘They’ve got stuff in the basement,’ said Molly. ‘They don’t let anyone else down in there. But I went down there once when they were out. I could leave the window open, you could come in and have a look…’

* * *

Bernice began to ascend the pyramid. The air was hot and close, smelling of flowers and fresh‐cut stone, and something else, something metallic. She was speaking to the priests who helped her up the slippery steps. Her voice echoed away in the hot wind, incomprehensible.

The pyramid’s top was flat, its broad back supporting two stone houses, flanked by huge statues of idiot‐faced men gripping tall banners of feathers. The plumes danced in the wind, tracing coloured curves against the searing blue of the sky.

At the front of the shrines was a great chunk of stone like a truncated, blood‐stained bed. The priests led Bernice to it, her shoes slipping in the precious liquid. ‘One day they’re not going to fall for his tricks, his clever strategies, you know. They’re not going to join in the game. They’ll just crush the life out of him.’

They laid her down on the stone. Blood soaked through the back of her shirt as the priests gripped her wrists and ankles, bending her backwards.

There was a priest with a knife. He felt the texture of blue and black paint on his face, and the coarseness of the stone blade in his palm. The knife had a little face of its own, a toothy mouth and a beady white eye that looked up at him.

One of the feathers from the banner tore itself loose and whirled away on the hot wind.

He said something to her in the language like rain, something important, and snapped awake, the answer to the riddle flying away with the feathers, falling over the waters of the lake.

He was sitting at the writing desk in his hotel room. Benny was standing behind him. She had come into the room without waking him up. That was disturbing. So was her question.

‘How long have you known?’

His eyes tracked down to his own face in the mirror. He startled, just for an instant, as though… it were someone else.

He turned away from the mirror to face her. ‘How long have you known?’ he said.

‘Normally,’ she said, ‘you’re like a cat. Cats