Written large was the name he went by in the outside world: Abu Ja’far. There seemed no question that he was responsible for the killing. He was the one who’d arranged the boy and called them out. The only mystery was why. The photographs showed him in profile, in portrait, in the middle distance: a man with a black-grey beard who was often smiling, who was skinny but looked in his prime, cheery, somebody it would be easy to trust. The first men from Langley arrived at Creech within hours of the blast and more came in the middle of the night. They carried files in lock-up cases. When they weren’t whispering to one another they were talking on the phone. By the fence line, Daniel saw what he thought was Raul calling Dupont’s family. He wondered whether Dupont had realised what was about to happen in the instant before. Did the boy curse him as he got into the car? Did he recite a prayer? Did he just stare dead ahead while fingering the switch? The car at the top of the road. The flash followed by the burn.
