Page 64 of The Man Made of Smoke

But what he didn’t.

That brings another sharp stab of guilt, and he blinks quickly and turns away to face the punch bag. Worthless. Stupid. Whenever his emotions have erupted, he has taken them out on that, but the ones inside him right now are too huge, too damning. He might have caused Darren Field’s death, and that’s a weight and pain he can’t bear.

The sight of the bag reminds him that he was hitting it when he realized what his connection to Field might be. At the time, he’d been wondering what the best thing to do was.

The emotions inside him now provide an answer to that question.

He sits down at the desk, picturing the Reach, the place that hascalled to him so often over the years. In the past, he’s always resisted. But a voice in his head now demands:how much better would the world be if you hadn’t?

He takes out a fresh sheet of paper.

Notify my son, he writes.

Eighteen

The traffic and the ferry times meant that it was close to three hours after the phone call when I finally parked by the side of a road on the northeast of the island.

The whole journey, there had been a white-hot sense of urgency inside me, and one that burned more brightly with every passing mile. For some reason, it felt vitally important that I was there when they brought my father’s body up from the rocks where it had washed ashore. On one level, I knew that made no sense at all. But even though I understood he was already gone, it still felt possible that I might miss him, and relief flooded through me when I arrived and found that I had not.

The road here curled along the cliff edge, the land open to the right before the world dropped away. A section of the terrain there had been cordoned off by the police and rescue services, but there was less of an official presence than I had anticipated. A single police car and ambulance were parked, along with a couple of unmarked vehicles. A handful of officers were standing around. A helicopter murmured in the sky overhead.

I stared out through the windscreen. A man was standing at the back of one of the cars with coils of yellow rope laid out on the grass nearby. Closer to the cliff edge, metal rings had been hammered into the ground, and more cords of rope were looped through them, pulled taut againstthe lip of stone by the weight below. My father’s body had been spotted by boat, but the rocks meant the vessel itself couldn’t get close enough to retrieve it. On this stretch of the coastline, it was almost always easier and safer to send a rescue team down from above.

I got out of the car.

Fleming was standing close to the edge, staring off into the distance with his arms folded impatiently; his body language suggested this was just another instance of my father making life difficult for him. A small crowd had assembled outside of the cordon, the people waiting quietly and respectfully. News traveled fast on the island. It didn’t surprise me that a handful of its older residents had gathered here to witness my father’s return.

I spotted Craig Aspinall among them. He caught my eye, and for a moment seemed about to nod or raise a hand in acknowledgment. But then he stopped himself. Faltered. Looked away again.

I understood. What was there to say?

There was woodland behind me, but the cliff edge itself was exposed, and the cold wind numbed my face as I leaned against the car. There was the hum of the helicopter high above, the soft sound of lowered voices, the background rush of the sea below. The conversations mingled to form their own quiet, strange language, and the effect was soporific. Within a minute, I felt vaguely hypnotized.

I stared at the loops of metal.

The tightness of the ropes.

I tried not to imagine what state my father’s body would be in by now, but it was impossible. The sea was cold here, and that would have preserved him a little, but not entirely. And of course there was the damage he had taken from the initial fall. The Reach was a much higher point on the island than this, and the rocks at its base were slicker and sharper than the ones here. The water might have kept hold of my father all this time, but it hadn’t been the sea itself that killed him.

Despite myself, I pictured him falling through the air, the churning world below arriving like a punch you only have a fraction of a secondto see coming. The distance must have seemed vast from the top of the cliff, looking down. And yet the speed of the fall must have shocked him.

Detached.

Calm.

My gaze moved to Fleming.

It didn’t seem right to me that—however briefly—he would be in charge of my father’s body. But there was no escaping it. I forced myself instead to think about the volunteers who were bringing him up. They were good men and women by definition. Whatever the state of his body, they would be carrying him up the cliff face with the care and respect he deserved, wrapped and bundled on a stretcher.

The image brought back a memory.

It was from my first year at university, one of the last few occasions when I’d returned to the island for the holidays. Back then, my father and I were still retreating to our separate rooms and keeping the doors between us closed. One evening, late on, I was lying in bed, listening to the thud of my father’s punches echoing up from the floor below.

But then there had been a much louder thud that made the whole house shake.

And then nothing.

I remained lying on the bed for a moment, my heart beating hard, and then made my way downstairs. The door to my father’s room was closed. I tapped on it hesitantly.

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