61 Hours

breaking the chain.’
    ‘Worse than that,’ Reacher said.
    Peterson nodded. ‘I know. Their guy isn’t on his way. We missed him. He’s already here.’

THIRTEEN
    T WICE P ETERSON TRIED TO GET OUT OF THE SQUAD ROOM AND twice he had to duck back to answer a phone. Eventually he made it to the corridor. He looked back at Reacher and said, ‘You want to ride along with me?’
    Reacher asked, ‘You want me there?’
    ‘If you like.’
    ‘I really need to be somewhere else.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘I should go introduce myself to Mrs Salter.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I want to know the lie of the land. Just in case.’
    Peterson said, ‘Mrs Salter is covered. I made sure of that. Don’t worry about it.’ Then he paused and said, ‘What? You think they’re going to move on her today? You think this dead lawyer is a diversion?’
    ‘No, I think they’re breaking the chain. But it looks like I’m going to be here a couple of days. Because of the snow. If thatescape siren goes off any time soon, then I’m all you’ve got. But I should introduce myself to the lady first.’
    Peterson said nothing.
    Reacher said, ‘I’m trying to be helpful, that’s all. To repay your hospitality.’
    Peterson said nothing.
    Reacher said, ‘I’m not your guy.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘You could be helpful at the crime scene.’
    ‘You’ll be OK. You know what to do, right? Take plenty of photographs and pay attention to tyre tracks and footprints. Look for shell cases.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘But first call your officers in Mrs Salter’s house. I don’t want a big panic when I walk up the driveway.’
    ‘You don’t know where she lives.’
    ‘I’ll find it.’
    In summer it might have taken ten minutes to find Mrs Salter’s house. In the snow it took closer to thirty, because lines of sight were limited and walking was slow. Reacher retraced the turns that the prison bus had made, struggling through drifts, slogging through unploughed areas, slipping and sliding along vehicle ruts. It was still snowing hard. The big white flakes came down on him, came up at him, whipped all around him. He found the main drag south. He knew that ahead of him was the restaurant. Beyond that was the parked cop car. He kept on going. He was very cold, but he was still functioning. The new clothes were doing their job, but nothing more.
    There were cars heading north and south, lights on, wipers thrashing. Not many of them, but enough to keep him on the shoulder and out of the tyre tracks, which would have been easier going. He guessed the roadway under the snow was wide, but right then traffic was confining itself to two narrow lanes near the centre, made of four separate parallel ruts. Each passing car confirmed the collective decision not to wander. With eachpassing tyre the ruts grew a little deeper and their side walls grew a little higher. The snow was dry and firm. The ruts were lined on the bottom with broken lattices of tread prints, smooth and greasy and stained brown in places.
    Reacher passed the restaurant. The lunch hour was in full swing. The windows were fogged with steam. Reacher struggled on. Four hundred yards later he saw the parked cop car. It had pulled out of the southbound ruts and broken through the little walls and made smaller ruts of its own, like a railroad switch. It had parked parallel with the traffic and was completely blocking the side street. Its motor was turned off but its roof lights were turning. The cop in the driver’s seat was not moving his head. He was just staring through the windshield, looking neither alert nor enthusiastic. Reacher slogged through a wide turn and approached him from his front left side. He didn’t want to surprise the guy.
    The cop buzzed the window down. Called out, ‘Are you Reacher?’
    Reacher nodded. His face felt too cold for coherent speech. The cop’s name plate said
Montgomery
. He was unshaven and overweight. Somewhere in his late twenties. In the army his ass would have been kicked to hell and back a hundred times. He said, ‘The Salter house is ahead on the left. You can’t miss it.’
    Reacher struggled on. There were no big ruts in the side street. Just two lone tracks, one car coming, one car going. The tracks were already mostly refilled with snow. The change of watch, some hours earlier. The night guy going home, the day guy coming in. The day guy had gunned it a little after the turn. His tracks slalomed through a minor fishtail before