Blue Circle.
Marvel was too dazed to think about whether or not he believed in coincidences any more. He was too dazed to think about anything; he just stood there on the garage forecourt, while commuters split around him. People walked fast, with their heads down, their ears plugged with white cables; a woman in turquoise lycra jogged slowly past; a man walked two Dachshunds, and children on bicycles wove their way between the pedestrians, cheeks rosy and hair ruffled by the sharp wind.
Marvel didn’t know what to do or where to go. Something had ended, but it was as though he was the only one who had seen it pass.
‘You’re standing on the feet.’
‘Hmm?’
A small girl with brown pigtails glared up at him through thick glasses.
‘You’re standing on the feet.’ She pointed at the ground and he looked down to see he was standing on one of five small footprints made in the cement. He stepped off it and said ‘Sorry,’ and the child said ‘That’s OK,’ and walked away.
As she did, he noticed that the clips in her plaits were shaped like little stars.
50
WHEN ANNA BUCK opened the door of the flat, Marvel already had his shoes in his hand.
‘She isn’t there,’ he said, and burst into tears.
She led him upstairs and made him some tea.
Marvel couldn’t remember the last time he had cried. He hadn’t cried in front of anybody since he’d fallen off a swing when he was six. Now he wept like a child, while an even smaller boy with straggly blond hair and dirty fingernails worked his way through slices of toast, dripping with butter, at the opposite side of the kitchen table.
Anna sipped her own tea and kept touching the boy’s head, kept leaning in to smell him, kiss him, hug him.
‘This is Daniel,’ she said huskily, when Marvel finally stopped weeping.
Marvel had so many questions that he didn’t know what to say, so he just said ‘Hello,’ but the boy only fixed him with steady blue eyes.
The three of them sat there making small sounds. Daniel chewing. Anna sipping. Marvel sniffing now and then.
‘Have you called DCI Lloyd?’ he finally asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Anna.
‘You need to call him,’ he said.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
Marvel knew that, for Anna, there was.
Plenty of time.
A great calm seemed to have descended on her.
There was no rush. Not any more. No rush to call the police; no rush to find out what had happened; no rush to do anything but touch her son and feed him round after round of hot buttered toast.
That all started to seem very sensible to Marvel.
All very sane.
He clung to the sanity; it was a nice change.
He wondered whether the blue circles were still on the bedroom wall, and that made him think of the day when Anna Buck had told him that sometimes she heard Daniel crying.
That seemed logical now too. Everything could be explained away if you just thought logically.
‘You must have heard him crying through the floor,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ said Anna.
‘Subconsciously, maybe you knew he was there all along.’
‘Maybe.’
She was humouring him. She didn’t believe that for a second, and neither did he. Everything could be explained, but that didn’t mean it made sense.
Anna sipped her tea and stroked her son.
He hesitated, then told her, ‘The window was on the wall, just the way you saw it.’
She nodded, and Marvel looked at Daniel’s buttery hands. He could see that the dirt under every ragged nail was made of blue-black wax, like his own were now.
He stared into the bottom of his mug. ‘But the cement had covered everything else. If she was in there …’ He trailed off and shrugged.
‘Was there a girl the little room with you, Daniel?’ said Anna gently.
The boy shook his head and went on chewing.
‘Never?’ said Marvel.
Daniel shook his head again.
‘What I don’t understand …’ Marvel started, then stopped because there was so much he didn’t understand that he should really try to put it in some sort of order.
‘If she showed you all those things, Anna. If she left all those clues so you could find her …’
Anna nodded.
‘Then where is she?’ he said.
Anna stroked Daniel’s hair and shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed. ‘We found Daniel. That’s all I know for sure. Daniel is home.’
Then she hugged Daniel so hard that he squirmed.
Marvel phoned for a cab.
‘We must go too,’ said Anna. ‘Go and get you checked out and see Daddy in the hospital, mustn’t we?’
Daniel nodded soberly.
‘Is James OK?’ asked Marvel.
‘He has burns on his legs, but the driver got a lot of water on him really fast and apparently water’s important …’
She stopped, then shrugged.
‘Yes,’ said Marvel. ‘Yes.’
Even though it was out of his way, Marvel got his cab to drop them both off at the hospital.
Anna held Daniel’s hand tight as she got out, then turned and thanked him.
And although he was suspended, Marvel offered to tell DCI Lloyd that Daniel had been found.
‘I’ll do it,’ she assured him. ‘I promise I will, but …’ She looked at Daniel, then went on, ‘I just want a couple of days first. Being a family. Being normal. Being sane.’
Marvel hesitated, then nodded. ‘I suppose it’ll wait a couple of days,’ he said. ‘The important thing is that you have your son back.’
She smiled. ‘I know. Thank you.’
Then she leaned into the cab and kissed his cheek.
51
IT WAS THE first nice day of summer and Superintendent Clyde had foolishly opened his window. The fumes of fatted lamb gambolled up from the Happy Kebabby and made Marvel’s stomach roll.
‘So you’re off,’ said Clyde.
‘Yes,’ said Marvel. He had his box on his lap. There wasn’t much in it – his ashtray shaped like lungs, his Reservoir Dogs poster, and the photo of Edie Evans.