Page 52 of The Man Made of Smoke

And nobody’s seen him since.

That’s right.

I knew better than to ask whether my father had been involved in Darren Field’s disappearance. While it remained possible, I didn’t want to accept that. Equally, there was no point in asking what he and Darren Field had spoken about that day. The island and the woman’s body: I knew that much. I assumed my father would have wanted to know how Field’s wallet had found its way to the campsite, but whatever Field might have told him was beyond the scope of the method I was using right now. My subconscious hadn’t been there. Anything it told me now would only be guesswork.

I looked down at my glass.

And Darren Field was at the rest area that day?

I imagined my father nodding again.

I recognized his name pretty much straightaway. I’m guessing that you probably did too, right?

No, I thought. Actually, I didn’t.

Really?

My father sounded surprised.

I supposed that, given my obsession with the case as a teenager, he might have expected me to be an expert on every little detail. Once upona time, I had been. But the truth was that I hadn’t thought about the Pied Piper very much at all since I left the island. While I hadn’t been able to bring myself to burn Terrence O’Hare’s book on that last night at the beach, I hadn’t taken it with me to university either, and I hadn’t read it since.

I wasn’t sure if that had been a conscious decision. All I knew was that at some point in my first year at University, detachment and calm had found me, and it had felt safe to be with them. Afterward, my work had helped me as well. However horrendous my patients’ crimes might be, they were only men. There was no such thing as monsters, and no sense in revisiting a time when I had believed differently.

That’s probably a good thing, my father said softly.But I’m sure you would have made the connection eventually. You’ve always been very clever.

I started turning the glass of wine between my hands.

What am I supposed to do now, Dad? Go to the police?

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

But—

Hear me out, my son. Notyet,is what I mean.

A part of me wanted to argue, but I recognized that there was a degree of sense to the answer I had provided him with. What exactly could I tell Fleming right now? And after our little altercation tonight, I was even more reluctant to talk to him than I had been before. Given our personal animosity, I could easily imagine what his reaction would be if I tried to explain any of this. He’d called meclevertoo, but to Fleming that was probably an insult. I was some kind of mind doctor, not a cop, and I suspected he would take great pleasure in telling me to stop playing at being one.

I kept turning the glass.

What then? I thought. What’s the next step?

Another good question. Maybe it’s not a step you need, so much as a leap.

Meaning?

You’ve found one connection to the Pied Piper. Maybe there’s another.

No. I shook my head. What happened that day is ancient history.

I wish that was true.

He sounded sad.

You can’t just erase history like that, my son. You can look away. You can pretend it’s over and done with. But it’s always there.

I stopped turning the glass.

Then I looked up. The chair across from me was empty, of course, but I still imagined a presence lifting, as though my father were easing himself out of his seat. A moment later, the air in the kitchen seemed to lose weight. But it didn’t feel like he was gone. It was more like he had stood up and left the room, wanting to lead me somewhere.

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