To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

switched it off. Nothing was disturbed that I could see. My bedroom door remained locked and had not been broken in.

The bathroom and lavatory were virtually as I’d left them, too. It seemed he must have used the lavatory and he had used the bath. One longish black curled hair lay on the edge. I stared at it, impelled. I picked it off. It had fallen from his head and he had not noticed it, or did not care. In some crude past of banes and witchcraft I might have thought I could employ it against him. Now I truly might, if I put it into the sandwich bag with the new note added to the old one from the dustbin, and the fork he had used during our dinner, both of which I’d carried up to London and now brought back. DNA.

I had to find some access to the police that would make them listen. If he had done this sort of thing before, and they would take me seriously, they might discover him among their records, his DNA already lying in wait to catch him out. Or was it only me, only me as his target?

And then I sat down on the stair, the top stair where I’d sometimes sat as a child.

I held the cellophane bag in one hand, and the piece of paper that said Compasses: 7.30 in the other.

Suppose he really was my son? Mine and Maureen’s?

Downstairs I’d been certain for all of sixty seconds.

But now?

He could play the piano even better than she had. Perhaps, like her, he had a singer’s voice. His speaking voice was attractive, musical. It had that element trainers of speech would once talk about, timbre, the distinctive character of a voice, what Maureen herself had referred to as its colour. What colour had hers been? Soft pink, deep grey, silver. And his? It was dark, with a tawny edge. This is fanciful. I don’t often think of things in that way.

He was mesmerizing me. Had done so. Push it off. Be sensible and wary. Even if he were – mine – he had followed and stalked and harried and played with me. Very likely he had an axe to grind, was enraged at me, his absent, ignorant bastard of a father. He might be capable of anything. And yet -

The phone in the hall was out of action. I used my mobile to call Duran, my ex-burglar electrician. But his wife informed me he was in Bristol, working on a big job with his cousin.

“When will he…?”

“Don’t know, sorry. All he says to me when he calls me is it’s going slow there. At least another month, I’d say.”

The Compasses was dark, although April was turning towards May, the sun lower but still a good half hour from setting. There was oldish stained-glass in some of the windows, probably fitted circa 1930, when the pub was built. Green tiling had been kept too. The urinals seemed of the same vintage, if less pleasant.

I arrived ten minutes or so later than stipulated. Joseph played; so I did, if only a little.

And I meant to be friendly if non-committal. I meant to try to get to the bottom of all this.

The mirage that he might be my son lay like a flickering light somewhere in the murk of my confusion.

Unsettled and unsure, whether I was glad or appalled I couldn’t discover.

In the doorway I looked round.

To the casual or ill-informed eye, there was nothing very odd about The Compasses. The dealers were fairly discreet. They expected you to know either whom they were, or if not to tip the barman the wink, and await an introduction.

Some couples, young or middle-aged, sat around, perhaps innocent, just passing through. Small groups of secretive looking men clustered over their pints. In the second room, a gathering watched as two men played snooker with steely concentration and the sharp clack of balls.

There was a tall black-haired man standing at one of the flashing machines, trying for a payment. But it wasn’t Joseph. None of them were Joseph. Was he going to be fashionably late, as I’d tried to be?

I went to the bar. They don’t stock Wincott’s there, despite what he had said. I had a half pint of Guinness, and sat down in the corner under a window with pale green and red diamonds.

After twenty more minutes I was two thirds down the glass. People had gone out, come in. The dealer in the corner had approached the oldest middle-aged couple and sat down with them. They talked in low earnest voices. I kept my eyes off them. Perversely I asked myself if it were weed or crack or straight heroin they wanted, he in his baggy trousers and shirt with tie, she fake ash-blonde and floral jacket.

Perhaps this was Joseph’s latest ploy. To call me to him, see if I’d turn up, and not turn up himself. He must be watching somewhere. Where?

“May I sit here?”

I jumped.

A man stood over me. I’d never seen him before. He wore an expensive male cologne. I’m never keen on this fashion among men, although I realise I’m outdated. To be clean and deodorised is one thing, but perfumed – quite another. Yet to be fair the scent was subtle, not overpowering.

He gestured towards the chair that faced mine. The rest of the pub had gradually filled up. I could hardly refuse him. Besides, there’d be no point in my staying much longer.

“Yes, of course.”

He sat.

“Warm, for April,” he remarked.

He wore a collarless white shirt, loose, not tucked in at the waist band of his gun-grey trousers. He was swarthy, olive-skinned with thick black hair and a solid looking blue-black moustache.

“Yes.”

He smiled and sipped his drink. It appeared to be a straight Coke, no ice or lemon. “And you,” he said.

My mind had wandered. A shadow had passed the open door. But it wasn’t Joseph.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Mr Phillips,” said the man, “shall we