Page 79 of The Man Made of Smoke

After a time, his eyes begin to adjust to the darkness of the room, and the pale shape of the punch bag becomes a still figure that seems to be hanging in the air watching him.

He imagines it’s Daniel.

Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?

I almost did, he thinks.

There had been a moment earlier, walking home after his conversation with Fleming, when John had thought about calling his son: telling him everything; asking him for advice; seeking his counsel. He had gotclose enough to take out his mobile and navigate to Daniel’s number, his finger hovering over the green call icon for an age before he put the phone back in his pocket.

Whatever is happening here, it’shisresponsibility. He needs to deal with it himself. But maybe it’s not just the guilt that’s stopped him. He is proud of Daniel; his son has overcome the trauma of his childhood and grown into an impressive man. And maybe John wants something he can add to the ledger of his own life. All too often, he’s felt little more than a footnote or crossing-out in someone else’s.

He thinks:

Because I want you to be proud of me too, my son.

So what would I do?

John considers that. If this really is a game, like in one of those books downstairs, then he has to work out the rules. That’s what Daniel would do. John needs to know what winning and losing look like and understand the best way to play, and to do that, he has to learn the layout of the board and get an idea of where the pieces are right now.

He has to find the games master.

John reaches out and flicks the light back on. Then he gets out of bed and walks slowly over to his desk.

To the box files waiting for him there on the bottom shelf.

How did you find a child who never existed?

That was the question that had confounded John when he resumed his research into the Pied Piper case. No child had been reported missing. And the police investigation had been rigorous and comprehensive.

But while most of the world accepted that the boy at the rest area had been Robbie Garforth—because who else could it have been?—there were still pockets of speculation online. John read all the theories. The boy’s parents hadn’t cared enough to report him missing. He’d been sold to the killer like contraband. He was the man’s child, and his birth had gone unrecorded.

None of those ideas sat right with John.

He sat there, illuminated by the computer screen, rubbing his jawin thought. The police investigation had been thorough, but there were always budgets and constraints to consider—always limits in terms of what efforts were deemed reasonable. But there was nobody looking over his shoulder right then demanding results. The only budget that mattered could be paid for with his time. And it occurred to him that a man who did not give up—a man who kept going—might be able to go beyond what wasreasonable.

Look at it from a different angle, he told himself.

Work from first principles.

He knew the boy had never been reported missing, and so the first assumption he made was that a child must have disappeared without it being recognized as an abduction at the time. Somehow, a boy had vanished from the face of the earth without there being any suspicion of foul play.

The second assumption he made was based more in hope than logic, and it was this:

Someonemust have loved this child.

John didn’t want to believe in a world in which that wasn’t true. But whoever had loved him had not come forward, and there had to be a reason for that. And so, in opposition to the theories that the boy had come from a broken home in which nobody cared about him, John found himself wondering if the real explanation might perhaps be the exact opposite.

If it was possible that someone had caredtoo much.

The data he required was fragmented across different systems, to which he had varying levels of access, and it took several weeks to amass. The number of files he gathered was eye-watering. It turned out that five years’ worth of deaths by suicide amounted to many thousands of records.

He opened the first file and read the details of the inquest. It was immediately apparent that there was no possible connection to the Pied Piper. He was looking for someone who had taken their own life after losing a child. But he kept reading the file anyway. It seemed wrong,having opened it, not to read the person’s story. It felt important for someone to see, to care, to remember.

One person a night, he told himself.That’s all.

No pressure. No expectations.

And years passed.

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