Page 65 of The Man Made of Smoke

“Dad?”

No response.

After waiting a few seconds longer, I turned the handle and pushed the door gently open. The main light was off, the room illuminated only by the glow of the computer screen on the desk. There were empty bottles next to it, and a half-finished pint glass of wine beside them.

My father was lying on his side beneath the punch bag, which was still swinging ever so softly in the otherwise still air of the room.

There should have been panic at the sight of him—and perhaps for a second there even was. But it went away quickly.You are detached, Itold myself.You are calm.It was a mantra I’d spent the last year training myself to repeat at times of stress. Things couldn’t hurt me if I didn’t let them. That aside, my subconscious had already recognized that my father was snoring, and any fear was replaced quickly by sadness and embarrassment for him.

He wouldn’t want me to see him like this.

I walked over slowly and crouched down. He still had the gloves on his fists, and the first thing I did was unlace them: one hand and then the other, pulling the leather away. There was blood beneath the skin between his knuckles. His fingers were bare, I noticed. After my mother left, he’d continued to wear his wedding ring. I didn’t know when he’d decided to take it off, or why, or where it might have been now.

“Let’s get you into bed, Dad,” I said quietly.

It wasn’t so bad. The same thing had actually happened a couple of times when I was younger, and on those occasions I’d struggled to lift him. But I was stronger now, and perhaps he was lighter. I managed to maneuver him in a half shuffle across to the bed, and then lay him down on his side.

Once I had, I looked back at the desk behind me. The computer was open on a website of some kind. The shelves above were empty aside from two box files at one end. They looked new, and I stared at them for a moment. But then I felt my father stirring beside me, and I looked down at him instead.

“Robbie?” he said. “Was that you?”

The name brought a shiver.

“No,” I said. “Robbie’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.”

“But I am,” he said. “Wish I was better.”

I waited with him until he fell asleep. He kept repeating that phrase—wish I was better—over and over, the words gradually becoming quieter and more incoherent. A mantra of his own. I knew my own feelings about that day only too well, even if I had begun to keep them hidden. But perhaps that was the first time I understood how much it hauntedmy father too. And as I sat with him, it felt like every awful thing that had happened to us stemmed from our encounter with the Pied Piper that day. As though the man was a rack that had pulled the bones of my family’s life apart until they snapped.

“Hey,” Sarah said.

I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed her in the small crowd that had already gathered, or been aware of her arriving afterward, but she was standing beside me now.

“Hey,” I said.

I pulled my jacket around me against the cold, and she rubbed my arm in support. I appreciated that, and also her being here, but I also found myself glancing across at Fleming. He had his back to us right now, standing close to the edge and leaning down on his knees to peer over. But then a whistle came from below, and Fleming called something down, and I put any concerns I had about what he might think to one side. Because the implication was clear enough.

My father’s body was coming up.

I turned to Sarah.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For being here.”

“Fuck’s sake, you idiot, you don’t need to thank me.” She gave my arm a squeeze, then let go and hugged herself against the wind. “I’m glad I can be here to support you. But I’d be here anyway. Like I said, your father was always good to me.”

A couple of the other officers had joined Fleming now. They were shackling themselves onto the metal loops, readying themselves to reach down and help lift the weight of the stretchered remains up onto the cliff edge.

Sarah glanced at me.

“You okay?”

“I’m detached,” I said. “I’m calm.”

“What?”

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