‘Call the Bolton PD again,’ Reacher said. ‘This is serious.’

Knox dialled and Reacher headed back towards the passengers. He hauled coats off the overhead racks and told the old folks to put them on. Plus hats and gloves and scarves and mufflers and anything else they had.

He had nothing. Just what he stood up in, and what he stood up in was soaked and freezing. His body heat was leaching away. He was shivering, just a little, but continuously. Small crawling thrills, all over his skin. Be careful what you wish for. A life without baggage had many advantages. But crucial disadvantages, too.

He headed back to Knox’s seat. The door was leaking air. The bus was colder at the front than the back. He said, ‘Well?’

Knox said, ‘They’re sending a car as soon as possible.’

‘A car won’t do it.’

‘I told them that. I described the problem. They said they’ll work something out.’

‘You seen storms like this before?’

‘This is not a storm. The storm is sixty miles away. This is the edge.’

Reacher shivered. ‘Is it coming our way?’

‘No question.’

‘How fast?’

‘Don’t ask.’

Reacher left him there and walked down the aisle, all the way past the last of the seats. He sat on the floor outside the toilet, with his back pressed hard against the rear bulkhead, hoping to feel some residual heat coming in from the cooling engine.

He waited.

Five minutes to five in the afternoon.

Fifty-nine hours to go.

THREE

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER THE LAWYER GOT HOME. A LONG, SLOW trip. His driveway was unploughed and he worried for a moment that his garage door would be frozen shut. But he hit the remote and the half-horsepower motor on the ceiling inside did its job and the door rose up in its track and he drove in. Then the door wouldn’t shut after him, because the clumps of snow his tyres had pushed in triggered the door’s child safety feature.