Page 27 of The Man Made of Smoke

He clutches Barnaby to his chest.

You’re strong, James!the lion says.You’re brave!

But maybe you should go back now.

And he wants to do that, but it doesn’t feel like he can. He won’t be able to wake his mother up, and what would he say if he managed to? He wants her to be proud of him, not think he’s a silly, scared little boy. Except that a scared little boy is exactly what he is right now. And there’s a hypnotic quality to the whistling that is holding him in place.

He looks back up at the ridge again.

The top is no longer empty now. A man is standing there, silhouetted against the sky behind. He’s so black that it is impossible to make out anything about him at all.

Run!Barnaby says.

But James remains frozen.

The man begins walking steadily down the embankment toward him.

Run!

But he can’t. And then it’s like time begins to blur. As the man approaches him, and the whistling grows louder, James sees his mother waking up an hour from now. She is groggy at first, because it always takes her a little time to come around, but her first proper thought will be of him. Because he knows that she loves him. She’ll sit up carefully and call his name. When he doesn’t shout back, she’ll feel a small curl of panic against her heart, but she won’t be properly worried, not at first. He’ll be at the tent, she’ll think. Everything will be fine, because of course it will be, and—

The whistling stops.

“Nobody sees,” the man says.

He ruffles James’s hair with a rough, dirty hand.

“And nobody cares.”

PART TWO

ANGER

Eight

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

Two hours later, I was standing in the car park at the Reach with Craig Aspinall, the man who had spoken with my father here, and who had then noticed his car was still here the next day. Aspinall was in his seventies, his complexion weathered by a lifetime spent out in the elements. There was a watery gleam to his eyes as he spoke. He was trying to keep himself together on the surface, but the emotion he was feeling was clearly visible underneath.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry too.”

“I just keep thinking…”

But then he trailed off and shook his head. He took a sip of coffee from the lid of the thermos flask he was carrying.

There was no need for him to finish. It was easy for me to imagine what must be going through his head. Some variation ofwhat if?What if he had done things differently that day? What if he had paid a little more attention and noticed that something was wrong? It was an almost ubiquitous reaction to trauma, and right now he was wearing the guilt as plainly as the wax jacket he was pulling around himself against the cold.

“I understand,” I said. “But it’s important to remember that my father chose to do what he did. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It feels like I should have realized.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But however you or I might feel about it, it washisdecision. And there’s another way of looking at it too. You knew him, right?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Pretty well.”

“So you know the kind of man he was.”

“Stubborn as hell.”

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