The Bones of Summer (15 page)
Julie sat down. Suddenly. She pursed her lips and gazed at Craig, raising one eyebrow, almost as if she were assessing him. Then she glanced at Maddy.
“Tell me everything again,” she said. “But in a minute. I need a nettle tea after that. Though on second thoughts, how about Chinese? Then we can talk.”
That sounded like the best idea yet today, and Maddy already had the menu out of the drawer before Craig could finish his offer of picking up the tab for them all. Half an hour or so later, when they'd phoned through their order and after Craig had filled Julie in properly with an overview of just what the hell was going on, he slipped on his jacket and headed out into downtown Crouch End.
“Are you going to be all right?” Julie called after him. “Do you want company? Or one of us can go?”
“No, it's fine. Honestly I think I need to clear my head.”
She nodded. “That's understandable. I know this is going to sound crass, but try not to worry about it too much. Between the four of us, we'll find out what went on and we'll deal with whatever it was. All right?”
“All right.” He smiled his thanks as he clicked shut the door. “I won't be long.”
Outside, turning his collar up to keep warm, Craig stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked past the gaggle of shops and top flats and people. The smell of curry wafted out of the Indian restaurant on the corner, mixing with the petrol fumes. Groups of teenagers lurked under the streetlights, giggling and texting each other. The beginning of the night.
In the Chinese restaurant, he sat waiting for a few moments for their order to be found. The tiny woman behind the counter looked harassed and her hair was coming down. Leaving her be while she sorted herself out, Craig gazed around the waiting area. Not that there was much to look at: red and gold walls, a paper lantern, three copies of the local rag. Nothing he hadn't already seen.
So he stared out of the window instead, trying to take some of the takeaway restaurant's warmth inside his bones to last him the journey home.
After a few seconds of seeing yet more of the Crouch End
it's the start of the night so let's go out and be in it
zone activity, he felt his jaw clench and his skin turn cold. For a second or two outside time, he wasn't in the Chinese place, in Crouch End or in London at all. But at another place, hundreds of miles away.
“Meester Robertson?”
The voice of the counter girl pierced his senses and Craig stepped back from the window. He didn't drop his gaze though, didn't turn around to her.
“Meester Robertson, your
order
.”
“Wait, wait,” he panted. “Give me a moment.”
And then he was out of the door. The chill and sounds of the night cut into his head and London wrapped itself around him once again. The man he was watching—the man he'd spotted from the window of the restaurant—wasn't looking at Craig. He was trying to light a cigarette and fending off a passing tramp, the same tramp who had pulled the man's hood off as Craig stood looking out at him. The man's hair was gray and he was balding, his forehead clearly visible under the streetlights. Square chin and a long thin nose. If Craig was able to get close enough, he would see brown eyes—the same color as his own—and an old faded scar on his cheek from a long-distant farming accident.
Because he knew without a doubt this time. He knew it was his father.
Chapter Fourteen
Crouching back against the corner of the wall, Craig peered out at him. His father was definitely alive, then, and he could stop wondering about how far the Jerusalem Pentecostal Fellowship was prepared to go in their mission to save the world. In truth, he thought, he shouldn't have to be doing this. He was a bloody model, a bit-part actor, not a detective. This was Paul's job. Where was the friendly neighbourhood PI when he really,
really
needed him?
Still he watched to see what his father would do. Craig knew he would follow him. Whatever he ended up doing. Screw the Chinese. It could wait.
After a few moments, his father got rid of the tramp. Craig felt sorry for the homeless old man for a heartbeat or two and then he pressed himself against the wall so his father wouldn't see him. There were no streetlights here so he was likely to be safe. What would his father do when he realized his son wasn't in the restaurant anymore?
After ten minutes, he found out.
His father looked at his watch, glanced around, then down at his watch again. A second later, he strode across the road, heedless of the cars that slammed to a halt and roared their disapproval at him, and disappeared into the bright lights and spices of the Red Sun.
Craig held his breath. This was stupid, he told himself again. They weren't in some weird 1950s film; he should simply go and confront him, ask his father what the hell he was playing at. That would be the sensible thing to do. It was what other sons would do, without even questioning it. But he just couldn't do it; something shifting at the edges of his thought wouldn't let him. This was his father. The religious obsessive, the man who'd lived by prayer and God's word for his whole life and had forced his son to do the same for as long as possible. Craig would have to be careful. He couldn't trust him.
He couldn't trust him. There it was: a given in his life and the key to so many doors Craig found impossible to open. Because if he did, then he ...
no, couldn't think that way. No time for that now.
His father came out of the Chinese restaurant. As the door opened, Craig gained the impression of anger, something in the tension of the older man's body and the dismissive gesture he made with his hand. Bloody hell, how Craig recognized those.
He headed off in the direction of Craig's flat, his head moving from side to side. Searching for someone, searching for his son. Craig set off after him, keeping far enough behind so if his father turned around, he wouldn't see him, amongst the crowds drifting through Crouch End tonight. At least that was what he hoped he was doing, but it was bloody hard to say. How did people do this stuff? He needed help.
Feet focused on keeping up with his quarry and eyes fixed on the distant back of his father's head, Craig flipped his mobile open and keyed in Paul's number. He answered at once.
“Craig? Hello. I was just—”
He cut him off. “Paul, hello back. No time to chat. I'm following someone. What should I be doing?”
“What? Who are you following?”
“My father,” he hissed into the phone as he kept on walking, though he didn't know why he thought anyone near him might care enough to hear. “He's alive. I'm in Crouch End, at the Chinese. Well,
not
at it now, really. I saw him. I slipped out of the restaurant while he wasn't looking and now I'm following to see where he ends up. If it isn't at mine. The thing is: I'm not good at this stuff. Have you got any tips?”
From the other end of the line came a muffled snort. “What do you want? Ten easy ways to keep your victim in sight? How to avoid looking suspicious while tracking your man?”
“No.” Craig sighed and would have raised his eyes skyward if he'd dared look anywhere but at the man he was determined not to lose. Not this time and not if he could help it. “
No
, but one or two pointers might be nice.”
“Okay.” A pause. Then, “Do you want me to come and help?”
“No. Thanks but I need to do this on my own, Paul.”
From nowhere, the conversation had suddenly taken an extra step to a place Craig hadn't anticipated. So it echoed the rest of his evening then. But still he was glad Paul hadn't asked why he was doing this.
“As you wish,” Paul said, his voice more formal now. “In that case, keep an eye on him, anticipate where he might go—though be prepared in case he doesn't do what you think—and don't be tempted to get too close. Even if there are lots of people around. Apart from that, it's not really that difficult, especially if he doesn't expect to be followed.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Oh, and Craig?”
“Yes?”
“Ring me wherever he ends up, or if you lose him. Okay?”
“Okay.”
By the time he'd broken the connection, his father and he were passing the flat. Or rather he was pausing opposite it and Craig was trying to look inconspicuous near some trashcans. Honestly, but this trailing people job was weird. He wondered how Paul felt when he did it. They stayed there for ten minutes or so. He must have thought Craig had left the Chinese restaurant while he was dealing with the tramp and was now indoors enjoying the fruit of his hard-earned cash with Maddy and Julie. Actually, he wished he was. The cold was beginning to get to him, in spite of the jacket, and his stomach was rumbling. He was surprised the old bastard couldn't hear it, even from this distance.
He also wondered what his friends were thinking about where he'd got to, and at that very moment the phone began to vibrate in his jeans pocket. Thank goodness he usually kept it on silent mode. He never liked to hear it ring. He eased it out and glanced at the screen. Yes, it was Maddy. Craig was debating whether or not to answer it, bearing in mind that there were fewer people around here so he was more exposed when his father pushed himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against and headed off toward the main road.
Switching the phone off completely and hoping Maddy would forgive him, one day, Craig slipped it back into his pocket and followed him. At the same time it started to drizzle and he pulled his collar up to protect his neck.
Reaching the main road, the two of them turned right toward Hornsey Rise and continued walking, with Craig dodging people and dog shit as best he could. He found himself having to close the gap between them, in spite of the risk. He didn't want to lose his father. He might be heading to wherever he was staying and Craig needed to know where that was. That would, he knew, give him the advantage in whatever weird game they were playing. Bloody hell. Families. Was anyone's normal?
No time for philosophy here though. Just as he'd gotten used to the challenge of following his father along the Rise, he turned sharp right into one of the side streets and disappeared. Heart beating fast, Craig pushed through a group of women, an act of bravery that gained him a stream of abuse and one or two piercing catcalls, and reached the corner where he'd vanished. Here, the streetlights were minimal and the shadows deeper.
For a few moments, Craig hesitated between the need not to lose his father and the need not to be seen. If he plunged into the unknown, his father had a better chance of spotting him. He glanced from side to side. Nobody back on the main street was looking at him. Any decision he made was utterly irrelevant to their lives.
Just do it, Craig.
Why the hell was he so afraid of his father anyway? He was an adult now. There should be nothing to fear.
But even as he tried to reassure himself that those words were true, he knew he didn't believe it.
Vital not to lose him then.
The advantage he had was so very slight.
He stepped into the comparative darkness. Behind him the noise of the street, the cars, the people, even the smell and sweat of the city seemed to drift away. In front, he could see only a few scatterings of groups here and there, none of them obviously containing his father. He could have gone inside any of the flats here; he could be hiding, having spotted Craig after all. He could....
And then Craig saw him. The right height, dark jacket, hood pulled up, shoulders hunched against the rain that was now coming down in earnest. More than all that, the steady walk of a farmer. Something Craig never saw in London. Or rarely. At the end of the street they were in, his father headed left.
Craig half-ran after him, nearly slipping on something on the pavement he didn't like to name. No time to worry about the noise his shoes might make. With any luck, the rain would deaden the sound.
As he turned the corner in his father's wake, Craig could see he was bearing right where the road divided.
Archway,
he thought,
he's going to Archway
. Was he living there? That was too damn close. Or maybe he was going to pick up the Tube and go hell knows where? Craig hoped not. It would be much more difficult to track him on the Tube. Surely his father would see him there. Then what would happen? He didn't like to think.
So he followed him down St. John's Way toward the dirt and despair of Archway. His quarry didn't head for the Underground though, and Craig felt the tightness in his shoulder muscles ease a little. But not enough. Instead, his father strode across the main road, once again not minding the cars and buses, and Craig had to run after him. A cyclist nearly hit him and waved his fist in Craig's direction. In spite of the noise, Craig didn't dare shout an apology. He simply kept his eyes fixed as much as possible on his father.
A few twistings and turnings later down yet more side streets and their strange journey came to an end. His father hesitated outside a run-down newsagent's that seemed, even in the darkness, as if it hadn't been open for years, and glanced about him. At once Craig turned away and tried to look as if he were searching for a key, praying that his father wouldn't see him and confront him.
When he looked back, his father had gone. He took a deep breath and blinked away rain, which was easing off at last. Where the hell had he disappeared to? The newsagent's was most definitely shut and he hadn't had time to go anywhere else. Craig hurried across the road and stared in at the windows. Nothing to see, of course, and no hint of movement. Trying the door didn't help either. It was padlocked and though the lock was rusty it held when he tugged it.
What now then? He should have asked Paul what he did when he lost a trail, rather than worry too much about how to do the damn job. Still cursing under his breath, he turned around to scan the street behind again just in case, and that was when he saw it.
A side passage, almost hidden by shrubs, separated the shop in front from the next building along. He slipped along it, trying to tread as carefully as possible, though at first glance it looked to be empty. On the left, a line of light framed a doorway, and he heard a woman's high-pitched laughter, followed by a burst of conversation he couldn't catch.