What We Saw

Chapter Twenty-Four

We drove for quite a while without speaking. He sat there smiling. I clamped my nose with a tissue. The blood was easing off now, but I could still catch a taste of its metallic flavour every now and then. A song by Coldplay was on the radio, and I pretended I was listening. Dad sat with a smile peering from under his white stubble. I noticed the hair on the side of his head was greying now, too. Or had it always been this way? It had been so long since I’d seen him that perhaps I’d got my facts mixed up.

It was strange, being sat next to this man and his worn out black jacket with specks of fluff peppered across it like snow. I knew it was Dad. It had to be Dad, of course. But something felt different. I don’t know whether it was the beard or the hair or a mixture of all of these factors, but this wasn’t the same man that had hugged me and waved goodbye to me before I left for the site over three weeks ago. The car slowed down as we approached a lay-by in the side of the road. Victorian houses stared down at us from the top of a nearby hill.

Dad turned to me, expecting me to do the same. I could only flick my eyes towards him. Holding a stare was going to be a struggle.

‘Someone’s a chatterbox,’ he said, his smile more clear from face on. His left pupil spilled into the brown layer beneath, a mark that he’d always said I’d ‘develop with age.’ It set him aside from everyone else’s dad. I think he was quite conscious of it, but I found it quite cool. He’d be a terrible robber, mind. Adam and I would catch him in no time with a feature like that.

‘Yeah,’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything better. I tucked my head into my chest and rubbed my hands against my rigid legs. How foolish and rude I must have sounded, all tongue-tied like this. I tried to think of things I could talk to him about. I could tell him about how Gran and Granddad often took us swimming. How Adam and I did normal things, like solve mysteries, and things like that. Maybe I should even tell him about Donald. No, no, stupid idea. I couldn’t drag anyone else into things. Not after the rock had been thrown at the caravan. Not after being threatened by Emily’s dad. And after the body. God, the body. It seemed so long ago. So normal now. This was our mystery, and we had to solve it. We were so close.

‘Come on, I think someone wants an ice-cream,’ he said, before opening the car door.

I was glad to get out of the car. It felt so warm in there, so personal, as if we were shut off from the world and forced to speak to each other. And I didn’t like Coldplay either. Coldplay was boring. At least out here, the air was fresh. A lone ice-cream stall stood at the side of the road. Its white exterior was stained the colour of untreated teeth, grimy and flaking. The puddle of water in front of it indicated that not many people came here anymore, to this hidden corner of the world. My dad tried to reach for my hand as we approached the stall. I felt the warmth of it dangle close to mine, but I scratched my face and rubbed my lips so I didn’t have to touch him. I was a grown up now. I couldn’t be seen holding hands with an older man; it would look weird. I’d look weak. What would Donald say if he saw me? He wouldn’t be scared. He needed to fear me, and I needed to be a man.

‘Two 99s with flakes please, matey,’ Dad said to the man behind the stall. The man was tall and wore a white jacket, also faded in colour. His face was thin and his nose long. He looked right at me and smiled what would have been a toothy smile if he’d had any teeth left to smile with. His spider fingers handed an ice-cream to me, and I jerked it from him, eager to get the meeting done with. I didn’t like the way he looked at me.

‘Bit of a weirdo,’ Dad said when we’d turned round.

‘Mhm. Good ice-cream though.’

‘Might not have seen you for a bit, but I’d be damned if you’d gone off your ice-cream.’

This had to be the most delicious ice-cream I’d eaten in weeks. Gran bought some but it was all lumpy and ‘fat-free.’ What was ice-cream if it wasn’t without a bit of fat?

‘Gran gets it, but it isn’t the same,’ I said, licking my lips.

Dad grinned as we sat on the bonnet of the car. ‘Let me guess. Fat-free? Hard as a rock?’

I smiled back, and we caught each other’s eyes. ‘Something like that, yeah.’

‘How is the old battle-axe, anyway?’ my dad said, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

I didn’t really know what a battle-axe was, but I assumed he was talking about my gran. Dad often threw a lot of weird words into his conversation like this. Maybe this was why Mum didn’t want him anymore.

‘Um, yeah, she’s okay.’

‘And your granddad? He coping okay?’

It felt as if nothing could ever be how it was again, back when everything was okay between Mum and Dad.

‘He’s alright,’ I said.

My dad sighed and faced the trees filled with birds. I wondered if birds worried about death like we did. Flying took some guts. They beat the odds by surviving in the first place, using every ounce of their little fragile strength to break out of a shell. Gran said she found cracking eggs for lunch hard enough. For a tiny bird to fight its own way out was amazing.

‘I suppose I’m supposed to take you back at some stage today,’ Dad said, licking up the last of his ice-cream. ‘Unless we do a runner to France and start eating frog’s legs for the rest of our lives or something.’

I smiled at the fantasy. ‘I can handle the frog’s legs,’ I said, with defiance in my voice.

‘Oh you can, can you? Well, how about a nice dessert of snail soup, shells included?’

‘That’s gross!’

Dad slanted his mouth in mock disappointment. ‘Well, it looks like we won’t be able to do that runner after all. They’re crazy about their snails in France. Shame really, I was going to take you out for a snail buffet to try and get you a taste for the stuff…’

I grinned. The fantasy of running away with Dad was increasingly appealing. I didn’t know whether to ask him about Mum because I didn’t know whether they spoke anymore.

As I entered the car, I twiddled my thumbs. Everything was building up inside me. I wanted to get back and help Adam. Then again, I wanted to tell my dad everything. Maybe he’d be able to help me and help us all. He was usually good at dealing with things like that. I wanted to get back, but he could come with me, couldn’t he?

The rain started to dampen the dry summer air. The caravan site and the people there were a part of me now. And I couldn’t let those mysteries go unsolved before our holiday ended. Any time not spent focusing on Donald—on what he could be about to do to Emily and on the girl in the woods—was time wasted. I felt slightly guilty, looking over at my dad, driving with a grin underneath his grey bread. He was clearly enjoying this more than I was, so I sat and smiled some more, keeping the illusion of perfection alive.

‘I suppose I should get you back. Don’t want the police on our case now, do we?’

I thought best not to answer or to give away any sign of what I actually wanted. Instead, I smiled, keeping my feelings locked in my chest as I’d done for years, at home and at school. The caravan was the only place that gave me strength. I felt important there. I had a purpose.

But maybe he could help us.

‘I’ve enjoyed this though, son,’ Dad said, slowing down and taking his eyes off the road to stare into mine. They looked like they were going red and were dark underneath. A lump grew in my throat and my eyes began to water. I just wanted to get my mystery solved before I left. Get my mystery solved, so I could make him proud. But I didn’t know if I was strong enough. I needed his help. I needed to tell him about what we’d seen. I clenched my eyes together and swallowed hard.

‘Dad… if you’d seen something that you should tell people about, would you?’ Dad frowned and turned back towards me.

‘You should always tell people stuff, Liam. It’s not good to keep things bottled up ins—’

I heard a large thump and felt glass rain into my face like sharp ice. Everything went black, and I tried to clutch to the sound of Coldplay before it faded away. I felt myself rocking in my mother’s arms, listening to a lullaby about birds and trees and…