Page 123 of The Man Made of Smoke

The picture that James Palmer had drawn for his father was visible at the bottom. Three stick figures standing side by side. The smallest one was holding what looked like an orange smudge. And beside the three of them, a Christmas tree, with little colored fairy lights dotted everywhere in the branches.

Thirty-Eight

Despite my best intentions, I was late.

I parked outside the gates of the cemetery, and then walked quickly through its streets, following the directions my father had given to me. In an ideal world, I would have met him at the entrance, and we would have walked in together, but in some ways, it was comforting to arrive after the fact. Because as I reached the grave and saw my father standing there alone, it was possible to imagine that a throng of people had been here a few minutes ago, and had dispersed and drifted away after the short ceremony was over. In reality, it would just have been my father. But it was nice to be able to pretend that there had been a crowd.

As he heard my footsteps, he turned a little awkwardly, holding his arm against his body. He was still recovering from the wounds Aspinall inflicted on him that night—to the extent that he ever would. His arm had been out of the sling for a few months now, but he hadn’t regained anything close to full movement, and the doctors had warned him that he might not.

The past few months had aged him more than it felt like they should have. Part of that was down to an inability to exercise, which I knew had frustrated him beyond words. Certainly, he hadn’t been able to hit anything all this time. But it was also difficult to escape the feeling thathis whole life had been spent fighting, enduring,carrying on, and that now—finally—he was allowing himself to relax a little.

While he appeared older, he also looked happier.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

“That’s okay.” He smiled. “You got here in the end.”

I looked down at the grave in front of us.

Most of the plots in this part of the cemetery were old, the grass bedraggled and barely tended, the headstones simple and cheap. For many years, this grave had been identical to its neighbors. But today, it was a rectangle of freshly turned brown earth. The plain headstone that marked the plot previously had been replaced by a new one, commissioned and paid for by my father and me, made of white marble that glinted in the winter sun.

I read the inscription there now.

ABIGAIL PALMER

6 MARCH 1970–AUGUST 1998

JAMES PALMER 9 JUNE 1986–AUGUST 2001

WE SEE. WE CARE.

“Was the ceremony suitably delightful?” I said.

“No. The priest said far too many words.”

I detected a familiar grumble of disapproval in his voice. My father had never had much time for the trappings of organized religion.

But his tone mellowed slightly when he spoke again.

“But yes, it was nice,” he said. “Have you brought it?”

“Of course I have.”

I walked around the side of the grave and put the stuffed toy lion down in front of the headstone. It wasn’t the same one that was found at the beach after James Palmer went missing, but there was a photographof that in the coroner’s file, and I’d done my best to source the closest possible substitute I could find.

After a moment, my father looked at me.

“Are you still coming back to the island tonight?”

“Yes.” I frowned slightly. “I mean—as long as that’s okay?”

He turned away again.

“Of course it is. I was just checking.”

“Then yes,” I said. “Of course I am.”

We stood there in silence for a time, both of us absorbed by our own memories and feelings. But the breeze was cold, and after a while my father began shivering. I was about to suggest that we leave when I realized that he was waiting me out without wanting to say so. That he wanted a moment here by himself for reasons of his own.

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