The Man Made of Smoke

Dan and Sarah drive to Michael Johnson’s apartment block, with Dan noting that it’s close to the canal where Rose had moored her boat. All the eyewitnesses from the Rampton service station, including Dan and Sarah, have ended up in its vicinity, as if the Pied Piper case is still holding them in a grip. Johnson appears uninterested in entertaining Dan and Sarah, so Dan gets straight to the point, telling Johnson that they’re there to discuss what he was forced to watch. Johnson panics and tries to shut the door, but Dan asks him to hear him out since he’s Daniel Garvie, the boy who barely escaped the Pied Piper. Recognizing Dan, Johnson finally lets him and Sarah in.

Johnson’s account resembles what Rose told Gill: Johnson was also drugged and abducted and brought to a clearing in the woods, where he was made to watch a murder. Johnson recalls that the trees around the clearing were festooned in fairy lights. He identifies the murdered man as Field, with whom he used to hang out at the service station all those years ago. According to Johnson, the masked man who kidnapped him is none other than the boy with the Pied Piper.