Page 10

Nine

John’s on the motorway when Daniel finally phones him.

It’s not the most opportune time—it’s raining and the traffic is heavy—and for a second he thinks about not taking the call. He doesn’t use the hands-free in the car much and doesn’t want to fumble around with it in these conditions. And perhaps more importantly, he doesn’t want to have to lie to his son.

But the thought is only fleeting. They’ve not spoken for what feels like an age, and he wants the connection. He turns the radio off, and a moment later, Daniel’s voice sounds in the car.

“Dad?”

“That’s me,” John says, pleased with himself for getting the phone to work. “But I’m driving, my son. Can you hear me okay?”

“Yes, I can hear you fine. What are you up to?”

“Nothing much,” he says. “Just out and about.”

The lie comes surprisingly easily.

He navigates the traffic carefully, the windscreen dappled with rain that the wipers smear away. The two of them talk about nothing much. That should please him, because it means his son called for the sake of it rather than for a particular reason, but today puts him on edge. He has to be careful. A conversation without a focus has the potential to find one.

He asks what Daniel’s been up to, but it’s just work, and there’s no real news on that score: steady therapeutic work rather than consulting on some exciting case. There’s been no woman in his son’s life since that breakup last year—or none that Daniel’s mentioned, at least, as John isn’t naive enough to imagine he’s privy to everything. Their relationship is better now than he would have dreamed possible, but it’s still a house with its fair share of locked rooms. He knows how tightly his son keeps some of those doors closed, and that nothing good will come from pushing at them.

Of course, he has a secret of his own now.

He thinks of the photograph. The tent on the crag it led him to.

“What have you been up to?” Daniel asks.

John glances out of the passenger window.

“Nothing much,” he says.

“You’re okay, though?”

“Yes,” he lies. “I’m fine.”

Except is it really a lie? That question occurs to him after the call is over—when it’s just him and the rain and the radio again. There are butterflies in his stomach and his nerves are singing a little. While he’s full of doubt about what he’s doing, it’s also been years since he’s felt quite as alive as he does right now. He’s a man who had grown used to walking the same trail every morning, and who now has a different one to follow.

A short while later, he parks outside the address.

He sits in the car for a couple of minutes, with the radio off now and the rain tapping gently on the roof. He hasn’t exactly thought this through, and he’s not sure how to play things now that he’s here. The conversation he’s about to have with Darren Field might have been easier if he’d brought the man’s wallet with him.

Here , he could say.

I found this on an isolated outcrop where someone photographed me standing next to a murdered woman’s body .

Do you want to tell me what it was doing there?

Well, perhaps nothing quite as direct as that, but it would provide a way in. It’s a moot point though: he decided to leave the wallet in the tent on the cliff.

If that was a mistake then there are probably a bunch of other things he should have done differently too. When he arrived home after finding the tent, he was aware that the correct course of action was to go to Fleming and tell him everything. But he also knew that he wasn’t going to. He can rationalize that decision if he tries. Not enough to go on; maybe it didn’t mean anything; need a stronger case. And so on.

But deep down, John knows it wasn’t about logic or common sense or doing the right thing. It was about the way his life feels so small and pointless these days, like there’s nothing worth sticking around for. It’s about a path that doesn’t lead him to the edge of the Reach, kicking pebbles into the void. It’s about the butterflies he could already feel gathering inside him.

They’re stronger than ever now.

He gets out of the car and approaches the house. Should he be nervous? Maybe. But even though he’s no longer police, he knows he can still project some of the authority he gained in his years on the job. And while there has to be some kind of connection between Darren Field and the remains he found, he’s pretty sure he’s not walking toward the home of a killer right now. If he talked it over with Daniel, he imagines his son would tell him the same thing his own intuition is. Murderers don’t tend to lead you straight to their front door.

So whatever he’s going to find here will be something… else.

He knocks and waits.

A woman answers the door. She’s in her forties, and pretty, but she also looks tired and maybe even a little apprehensive. He glances down and notes the wedding ring. When he looks up again and smiles, she doesn’t smile back.

“Good afternoon,” he says. “I was hoping to speak to your husband.”

“You and me both.”

“Is Darren in? ”

“What do you want with him?”

The question suggests that Field is somewhere in the house. John has most likely just arrived in the middle of an argument, and the woman is more than happy to take her frustration out on a random stranger on the doorstep.

“It’s a private matter,” he says. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to discuss it with Darren in person.”

She stares at him for a few seconds, looks over his shoulder at the car parked at the bottom of the drive, then shrugs and calls loudly into the house.

“ Darren. Someone here for you.”

A muffled reply.

“No fucking idea,” she shouts back. “How would I know?”

There are a few seconds of silence, and then John hears a door opening somewhere behind her in the house. A moment later, a man arrives at the front door. Darren Field is tall and good-looking. John guesses that, with a suit and some hair gel, he’d be the type given to acting the alpha at work and in the wine bars afterward. But right now he’s wearing a dressing gown and his hair is messy. He has the air of a man who’s been drinking too much and sleeping too little, and who maybe hasn’t been into work for a while.

John smiles.

“Darren?”

“Yeah.” Field stares at him. “Do I know you?”

John starts to shake his head—but then, suddenly, he’s not sure that’s true. The sensation is eerie. He’s not convinced the two of them have ever met, but at the same time, there’s something familiar about the man, and he feels an itch at the back of his mind that he can’t put his finger on to scratch.

Field’s wife has retreated a little, but he can see her standing near a doorway inside, still close enough to hear.

“No,” John says. “You don’t know me. But I think there’s something the two of us need to talk about. And I was hoping we could have that conversation in private. It’s about the island. ”

Field shakes his head.

“I don’t know anything about an island.”

John hesitates. Maybe that’s true, but he can tell Field isn’t anywhere near as relaxed as he’s trying to come across as being. There’s something wrong here. Field doesn’t know who he is, but he also doesn’t seem remotely surprised to have a stranger knock on his door wanting a private chat.

John decides to take a chance and leans in as close as he can.

“It’s about the woman.”

The change in Field’s demeanor is immediate and obvious. There’s a sharp intake of breath and a stiffening of his body. He tries to hide it a second later, but he’s no actor. And as John leans away again, he thinks that maybe Field doesn’t want to hide it. He has the air of a man with a weight inside him he’s desperate to unload, and the heaviness of whatever he’s holding is right there on his face.

God , John thinks.

He looks like he’s struggling not to cry.

Field looks out past him, as though he’s checking the road at the bottom of the driveway.

Seconds pass.

Then he looks back and nods.

“We can go to my study,” he says quietly.

It’s a study in the sense that John’s a police officer. There’s still some of the right furniture, but its role is clearly very different these days. It’s just the smallest room in a three-bed house. There’s a desk along one wall, but the rest of the room is taken up by a packed clothing rail and cardboard boxes, and the air smells musty and old. There’s a computer and a mess of paperwork on the desk. Space enough for two chairs. Old habits die hard; John waits for Field to sit down in one seat before taking the other.

“Talk to me, Darren,” John says.

Field stares at the floor, rubbing his hands together.

“Are you police?”

“Why? ”

“Because it matters.”

“Have you been you expecting—?”

Field looks up suddenly, his expression deadly serious. The meaning there is clear. This conversation is going nowhere until he gets an answer to the question he just asked.

“No,” John says. “I’m not police.”

“Who are you then?”

“I’m the man who found her body.”

Field flinches at that.

John leans forward.

“You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

Field looks down again and then nods miserably. The tears the man was suppressing at the front door are coming now. His face is out of sight, but his shoulders are beginning to shake, and John glances at the closed door. The stairs had creaked as they made their way up, and he hasn’t heard anything since, so Field’s wife is probably out of earshot. But if Field starts sobbing loudly enough then she might come up.

“It’s okay, Darren. Just talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Start at the beginning.”

Field doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he seems to gather himself together and he takes a deep breath. For some reason, it reminds John of a man crossing himself.

“It was dark,” Field says. “And it was cold.”