Page 18 of The Man Made of Smoke

Maybe.

He supposes it’s natural in old age to look back on your life and take stock. When you’re young, there’s so much time left ahead of you. You can still achieve something. But then suddenly you realize that time is mostly behind you now, and there’s only the fact that you didn’t.

Daniel doesn’t call.

It’s tempting to phone his son himself, but his self-respect won’t let him. It’s not that he wants to talk to Daniel so much as for his son to want to talk to him, and making the call himself won’t make that happen.

In terms oflooking back and taking stock, he knows that Daniel has turned out well, but it never feels like he can take any pride in that. He remembers how badly he floundered as a single father, winging the whole thing and crashing constantly. All the missed conversations and closed doors. Whatever his son has achieved in his life is as much despite of John as because of him. And even though things are better between them these days, it’s no real surprise that his son doesn’t call.

In his bleakest moments, he thinks:

Who is even here for him to talk to?

Times passes.

Yes, that is indeed what it does if you’re lucky. John fills it as best he can. He reads voraciously; he watches television; and there are his files to attend to—all the unsolved cases that have caught his attention over the years, and which the internet allows him to pursue from a distance. He prepares his evening meals carefully, and then sits alone at the kitchen table with a glass of wine from his growing cellar. He works the heavy bag, but not as hard as he used to, no longer quite sure what he’s imagining himself hitting, or why.

He takes his morning walks.

For a week, he chooses a different route. But then he returns to his normal routine. The place where he found the woman’s body is already indistinguishable from the rest of the undergrowth, but it still seems quieter when he reaches that part of the trail. There’s a residual sadness to the air, and he carries it away with him afterward, as though he’s walked through a cobweb.

At first, the murder is covered heavily in the local news, so much so that he comes to resent the sight of Fleming in front of the cameras. Then he begins to resent the obvious lack of progress. He can’t help thinking that he would solve the case if he was in charge, even though he knows deep down that he wouldn’t. It’s just a feeling of emptiness and worthlessness, along with that sense of duty, weighing him down. Whoever the murdered woman is, the crime doesn’t make the national news, and a fortnight later, there is as little trace of her on the airwaves as there is in the undergrowth.

Times passes.

One evening, he is sitting on a bench at the seafront. The sky is a canopy of smeared yellows and purples, streaked in places with threads of vivid-blue cloud, as though the world has been dappled by a child’s finger paints and then smeared and swirled. The island is a small and shabby place in many ways, but there is still beauty to be found here. It’s just beauty that makes him feel even more small and irrelevant.

After a while, he becomes aware that one of the runners on the promenade has changed paths and is approaching him. Sarah Ross. The front of her pink top is damp with sweat, and a few strands of hair are sticking out from under a blue baseball cap.

She’s breathless. “Hey there, Mr. Garvie.”

“It’sJohn, Sarah.” He smiles. “Surely you know that by now?”

“Old habits die hard.”

“Yes,” he says. “Tell me about it.”

She sits with him for a time, chugging water out of a bottle as they talk.

How’s Daniel doing? she asks. He’s doing fine, John tells her. Not heard from him for a while, but he’s okay. He’s busy.

How are you keeping?

I’m keeping busy too, he says.

He doesn’t ask about her home life. It still baffles him that she’s ended up with a man like Liam Fleming—but he has a nose for these things, and she doesn’t strike him as being settled here on the island. There’s a part of her that still wantssomething more, and he hopes to God she ends up following that instinct. He still remembers the girl who would show up for Daniel on the doorstep, wide-eyed and excited.Do you want to go on an adventure?There aren’t many of those to be found on the island. His life is one long testament to that.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” she says after a while.

He raises an eyebrow as a question.

“The woman’s body,” she says. “It must have been horrible.”

“Oh.” He shifts slightly. “Yes, it was. But I’m glad it was me who found her. Better me than a tourist. At least I’ve seen things like that before.”

He hesitates.

“What’s happening there?” he asks. “Do you know?”

---