Page 15 of The Man Made of Smoke

“You told me he was good to you,” I said quickly.

Sarah turned back.

“My father, I mean.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Always.”

“Did you see much of him recently? I was just wondering…”

I trailed off, unable to say it out loud.

Sarah knew what I was asking.

“I didn’t see him all that much recently,” she said. “But I did from time to time. And he seemedfine, Dan. His usual self. So if you’re beating yourself up for not noticing that something was wrong, then trust me. I was here, and I saw him, and I didn’t realize either.”

“Okay,” I said, relieved despite myself. “Thank you.”

“And if what your father found bothered him… he didn’t show it.”

I started to saythank youagain, ending the conversation on autopilot, but then caught what she’d just said.

“What he found,” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I imagine it shook him up a little.” She hesitated. “And I think it was pretty bad, from what I understand. But your dad was police for a long time. Even here on the island, he’d seen worse—he told me that himself. He even said it was a good job that it was him who found her, rather than a tourist or someone.”

I shook my head. I had no idea what Sarah was talking about.

“Found who?” I said.

She looked down at me for a second, confused, as though my question made as little sense to her as what she was saying did to me.

“The dead woman in the woods,” she said.

Five

John looks up into the trees at the side of the trail.

“What do you want?”

The crow perched in the branches above him stares back, its head tilted to one side curiously. The bird is out of reach, but still close enough for him to see the petrol-purple sheen on its black wings and—just about—the glint of the early morning sun reflected in its eye.

What does it want? He knows the old stories about birds carrying the souls of the dead to the underworld. But while he’d like to believe in an afterlife, he doesn’t. It’s only wildlife doing what it does. Probably just waiting for its chance. As a younger man, he might have thrown something to startle it away, but he’s worked hard to be less angry over the years. And who knows: maybe those old stories are true. In which case, he doesn’t want to be making enemies he might be meeting again before too long.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he tells it.

Then he slides the phone into his pocket and takes a deep breath. Nothing to do now but wait. The scene is a mile from the nearest road, and it will probably be half an hour or more before backup arrives.

Not backup, he reminds himself.

It is still difficult to accept that he’s no longer police. When he called in the scene just now, he used a phone number he still knows by heart, and for a second had almost given his rank as well as his name. But he’s just plain John Garvie now. And while the sergeant he’d spoken to had been a colleague for years, he had spoken to John the way he would have any other civilian. That’s all he is now.

He looks up and down the trail.

Empty in both directions. But the sun has barely risen and the tourists will still be in their beds.

Nobody out here but you, old man.

Except that isn’t quite true.

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