The Bones of Summer (30 page)
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what? Bloody hell, Craig, all I bring you is bad news and I can't even.... “He stopped speaking, ran one hand through his hair, frowned. “Can't even
be here
for you.”
“But you
are
here.”
“Not properly,” he whispered fiercely. “Not in the way I should be. I don't know why you're thanking me. I say stuff I shouldn't have said, don't even know now why I said it, then I dump you and walk away. I'm a stupid bastard. God knows why you're even talking to me right now, but I'm sorry, Craig. I—”
Not wanting to get into any kind of discussion about relationships, of any kind, Craig interrupted.
“Look, I can't do this now, Paul. Please. I-I'm thanking you because you've told me Michael is dead and I always knew it. Now I know it wasn't me who did it after all and that—that makes everything different. It brings some things to a finish, doesn't it? In a way which couldn't have happened otherwise.”
Paul sat back, shut his eyes briefly as if drawing himself together inside, took a breath. “Closure, you mean?”
“Yeah. Something like that. And thank you for coming after me too. For trying to find me at all. For saving my life.”
Without warning, a further wave of exhaustion flowed through Craig and he wasn't sure if he could have said any more. Or what there might have been to say anyway. But he was spared the decision as Maddy and Julie clattered into the ward. Or rather Maddy clattered and Julie tripped elegantly after her. Behind them both the faint outline of a man lurked at the ward door. This must be Andy, Craig assumed. He didn't come any closer. But Craig nodded faintly in his direction and the figure nodded back.
“
Craig
,” Maddy said, her voice shaking.
The next moment, Craig was enveloped in a cloud of blonde hair and concern as Maddy hugged him. For a short while they didn't say anything and it felt good to be in his best friend's arms. When Maddy let go, Julie was arranging a selection of books, newspapers, grapes, and chocolate on the cabinet. Paul had disappeared. No time to work out how he felt about that though—or to take in again what he'd told Craig—as Maddy was talking. As if she couldn't stop.
“Craig,” she said again, gripping his arm as if unable to believe he was here. “It was so terrible when we didn't know where you were. We were both so worried about you. We didn't know what to do. You weren't answering your mobile or anything. In the end, we rang Paul. I hope that was all right. But he was brilliant, coming down here with us and Andy, calling the police, finding you. I'm so glad you're okay. But I'm really sorry to hear about everything. Oh God, hon, it's just so awful.”
And then, just as Craig had done with Paul, Maddy began to cry and then apologize for crying all at the same time.
“It's okay,” Craig tried to say, but was far too tired to make any kind of sense whatever. He wanted them both to know how glad he was to see them, but it didn't seem to come out like that.
It was up to Julie to cast her calming spell over them all.
“I'm glad you're all right,” she said, patting Craig on the cheek, a gesture that released a waft of vanilla perfume into the medicated air. “But you've got a lot to take in and you look exhausted. Come on, Maddy, let's give Craig a chance to get some sleep and we can come by later. Okay, everyone?”
He was barely aware of Julie drawing Maddy away from the bed toward Andy before he was lost to it all, asleep again.
He stayed in the hospital for several days. Twice the police came to interview him and twice he went over the whole story. From the beginning. They took copious notes. He tried to be as honest as possible, thinking the time for lies and deceit was probably over. He told them not only about the kidnapping, Andrea's murder, and what his father had done, but also about the stalking in London and his father's notes. And all that he'd half-hidden from himself until now. It took a long time to tell. Partway through, they asked if he wanted professional help. For a moment, he thought they might mean a lawyer and that he was somehow in trouble for not knowing about his past as he should have done, but it turned out that they were only being concerned for his mental health. They were talking about therapists. Maybe he would need one in the end. He didn't know, but for now it would be simply another thing to worry over and he didn't need that. He had Maddy and Julie—though not Paul, his treacherous mind told him—and somehow it was enough. Maddy even stayed with him while he told his story for the first time. She held his hand while he talked.
He wondered if Paul might come back. Couldn't decide if that would be a good thing or a bad one. But he supposed they were still over, whatever madness had happened after. Paul would have his life and business to see to, now that the danger was past. Craig owed him his life. He would have to learn to let that be enough. Maybe they could still be friends. He hoped so.
During his time in hospital, he had one unexpected visitor.
He was dozing, one afternoon, with the winter sun lighting up the ward when he became aware of a shadow over him. Before he was fully awake, the shadow was talking and, even when he blinked his eyes open, it took him a few moments to understand who it was.
“Pedro?”
The man standing next to the bed snorted and dropped his garish bunch of flowers. They looked expensive, not something he'd bought from the shop downstairs.
“Yes, it is Pedro, that is right. I'm on my way to a shoot in Cornwall and wanted to see whether the rumors of the mouthy model having his brains beaten out are true. However, it appears they are not. Good. Because modeling is carried out mostly in the head and I would hate to lose someone even with your small portion of talent. There are few enough decent-looking men around who know how to stand. We cannot afford to lose another of them.” He peered closer at Craig. “And I see those bruises will heal, so you're unlikely to lose your looks either. Your murderous father obviously aimed for the head, not the face. That is good.”
Craig laughed and was surprised to hear the sound. It felt bloody refreshing to hear someone acknowledge what had happened to him in full voice, rather than tiptoeing around it or whispering if it had to be mentioned.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. “I didn't expect you to.”
Pedro snorted as he dragged up a chair to the bed. “If I ever did what people expect, then I wouldn't be the success I am now, eh. So, Mr. Robertson, why don't you tell me what happened?”
Craig groaned inwardly at the thought of going through it all again but realized the director was unlikely to take no for an answer. He kept his story brief though but, to his surprise, it still felt like a release to tell it to a stranger. One who listened and made no comment. Until the end. Pedro's words, when they came, weren't what Craig had been expecting.
“A story almost to rival the twists and turns of my own family history,” he said with a dismissive laugh. “But no matter. That is not your business. The important thing is: what will you do now?”
Craig blinked. “I don't know. I'm not sure I'd thought about it.”
“Then you should. The past is no more. The future is what is important. Once you're discharged from this hellhole they call a hospital—if you survive
that
of course—there's a job I have in mind that will be perfect for your skills. I'll get my money's worth out of you if it kills me.”
As the strange director left, Craig laughed again. Something inside shifted as he did so: the possibility of a future. The very fact of it lightened his blood.
A couple of days later, Craig discharged himself. He had the pills, he knew what he had to do, and so there didn't seem much point in staying. Pedro was right. He had to move forward, not back.
Neither could he return to London. Not yet. Even though Maddy and Julie had had to. For work. He could understand that. It was the next step, beyond all this. They'd promised to come back at the weekend. He suspected he'd need them, but was glad to be on his own for a while. Time to think.
He stayed on the farm. He couldn't call it home. Not after what had happened. The press lay in wait at the yard entrance, but the police presence meant they didn't come in any farther. Running the gauntlet of questions and microphones left him breathless as he finally closed and bolted the door. The house smelled of dust and something else he couldn't place. Something the police had used when they were here? He couldn't tell. He wondered if Paul might know but then brushed that thought aside. There was no room for distractions.
Slowly, allowing himself time and space to remember recent and more historic events, he walked through each room. Reclaiming his life and, maybe, marking his future.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bad memories. That was what the place was full of. Or should have been. But to his surprise it didn't feel quite as raw as he'd expected. Was that what post-traumatic shock was about? The inability to feel at all? No, that didn't seem right either. The pain was there, but it felt as if something was different. As if the memories of his childhood and recent events were no longer viewed from the eyes of a child—as had always been the case when he'd thought of home, when he'd been here before even—but from the eyes of somebody older. Himself. Somebody who'd lived through the shit. Someone who'd survived.
He allowed himself enough time in each room to relive a bad memory followed by a good one. This wasn't something he'd planned. It just happened that way. The bad memories involved his father, though he didn't touch on the murders. Time for that later. For the good memories of the house, he thought of his mother. Her laughter, the red dress, the smell of lemons: these were the things he would carry with him now.
During his time at home, he attended three funerals. First was his father's. He kept it simple. Nobody from the Fellowship came and he didn't know if he blamed them for that. He didn't stay long at the crematorium, a place he was to become familiar with over the weeks to come. The people there asked if he wanted a plaque or some other kind of commemoration but he simply shook his head. He was in no danger of forgetting. Not this time.
The second funeral was Andrea's. The most normal of the three occasions, if that was the word he wanted. He wasn't sure how her family would view him, so he slipped into the church just before the service started and refused to catch anyone's eye.
He was about to slip away again when the mourners were filing out into the bright afternoon air, but someone grasped his arm and urged him to stay. The fact that he'd been spotted made his heart beat faster—the last thing he wanted was to cause any pain—but he smiled briefly and attended the crematorium service as well. Nobody seemed to take offense. The day after, he wrote a letter to the funeral directors, asking them to pass it on to the family. He hoped Andrea's family would understand how much he would miss her and how sorry he was for what had happened. It was the least he could do.
The last funeral was his mother's. This he spent a long time planning for. At first, he wondered whether anyone would come but, slowly, over a matter of days, people from the village and neighboring farms sent messages of support or dropped by to chat, and he realized he would not be alone in remembering her. Even after all this time.
So, for his mother he chose a service in the village church and two hymns:
I danced in the morning
and
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
. One simple reading as well, though it took him a while to open his bible and search for it. Craig wondered what the local vicar thought; this couldn't be the usual pastoral problem after all. What should the church's response be to planning the funeral for the murdered wife of a local resident? He couldn't imagine it was something that came up very often. Still, the priest was helpful, and he and Craig came to a decision that pleased them both. He chose 1 Corinthians 13. It seemed right for the occasion.
What surprised Craig most was how he wept during the service. He hadn't expected that; he'd thought he was empty of tears. The woman next to him—to his shame he couldn't remember what she was called—kept her arm around his shoulders until the fit was over. He nodded his gratitude to her, hoped that would be enough.
Afterward, he filled the house with people and food, spoke to people he knew from his past and also from now, gave and took support. It felt like normality. It helped to take away the shadow from the place he'd grown up in.
When the last group of people left, he tidied up, decided to tackle the washing up in the morning, and walked out again into the night.
He stood for a long time at the grave in the churchyard where his mother's bones were buried, for the second time, and thought. About her, about his life and about his father. Before he returned home, if he could call it home, he whispered a few words into the darkness, hoping that wherever she was she might hear.
“Thank you,” he said. “For trying to make things right.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
There was one funeral he didn't go to. When Eva Langley traveled down to collect her brother's bones, Craig asked to see her but understood the refusal when it came. Because of this, he knew his presence at the service in London for his one-time lover would be unwelcome, but the fact that she specifically asked him not to come still cut deep. Perhaps some things could never be resolved.
When the day and time of Michael's memorial service arrived, Craig stood for a while under the tree where he'd last seen the man and remembered. It was a day bright with sunshine, but the air was crisp. The hint of mist over the valley shifted as, from so many miles away, he accompanied Michael in his mind to his final resting place. He could smell the pungent odors of the countryside, hear the cattle and the low rumble of machinery. He marked the time, hoped that Michael would find peace, that his family would too. Last of all, he hoped the same might be true for himself.
At the end of it all, Craig did three things. It was March. Only a few months since all this had started. The year had turned and taken him somewhere he'd never expected to end up. Soon it would be summer. Time then to move on. First, he rang Pedro, left a message saying he was back in circulation now and to thank the director again for visiting. Following on from that, he rang his agent, told him what was happening, fended off the inevitable questions.