15

Paul was pushed to the back of my mind as I worried about how Angela would act towards me the next time we met.

‘Sir, what do you mean, sir?’ A boy at the front of the class asked, throwing me from my thoughts, and I realised that once again I was allowing my personal life to impose itself on my professional one.

I coughed, and then gave the proper instructions, relieved that I had been doing this long enough that the answers were all there in my mind.

The day wore on. My classroom filled then emptied, filled then emptied. I had one part of my mind on the job and used the remainder to compose a series of apologies for Angela. But how could I explain to her what I couldn’t understand myself?

Paul wasn’t due to arrive at my house until eight p.m., so, ignoring the mountain of marking I should have been doing for my pupils, I calculated I had a couple of hours to get to the library. But first I should give Angela a call to see how she was. I dialled her number on the way out to my car. She picked up straight away.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said before she could speak.

‘I wasn’t sure you were going to call.’ She sounded wary.

‘I could have handled that situation a lot better, Angela. Forgive me?’

‘You weren’t yourself last night, John. What’s going on? Do you regret proposing?’

‘No. No,’ I said.

‘You sure? You don’t sound sure.’

‘I’m not sure of anything right now.’ Immediately realising how that sounded, I tried to backtrack a little. ‘What with pressure at work, my mother in the care home, and this thing with my brother, my head’s all over the place…’

What? Do you want to break up with me?’

‘No. Jesus, no,’ I said. ‘Where the hell’s that coming from?’

‘I’m confused, John. For a smart guy you don’t choose your words very well.’

I nodded. Closed my eyes, and wondered how I could retrieve this situation.

‘There’s a lot going on right now, babes. Can you bear with me? Please?’

Relieved that things were on a slightly more solid footing with Angela, I went to the library and tucked myself away in my usual corner to continue my research on the Green boy. I couldn’t concentrate. My mind was too full of Angela.

We’d arranged to meet a couple of nights later, after she finished work, when she expected she could ask another babysitting favour of her mum and dad, and my relief that she was now talking to me was tinged with fear at what would happen if we got into another romantic clinch. The possibility of a repeat failure crowded my mind. I wanted to see her but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through that experience again.

Eventually, I gave my research up – I was just too distracted – and made my way home to meet Paul.

The doorbell rang, bang on time. From my seat on the sofa I shouted out: ‘It’s open. Come on in.’

I heard the door open. Footsteps. And then Paul was standing in the doorway as if he didn’t quite know where to put himself.

‘Have a seat, man. You’re making the place untidy.’

He sat. ‘Awright,’ he said. There was clearly something on his mind, but I thought it was best I didn’t force it out of him. I knew how I responded to that kind of treatment.

‘Drink?’ I asked him as he stretched his legs out in front of him. He looked as if he’d barely slept the night before. He was, as usual, well dressed, in a pair of dark jeans, blue checked shirt and black leather jacket. ‘You’re allowed to take your jacket off,’ I said.

‘Yeah. Yeah.’ He said as if distracted. ‘Coffee’s fine, mate.’

‘On its way,’ I said, wondering what was wrong with him. I went through to the kitchen and came back with a mug of coffee for him and a large red wine for me.

He mumbled his thanks, then cradled the mug on his lap as if he hadn’t quite worked out the next step in the process.

It was looking like whatever was on his mind was going to take a while to come out so I thought I’d better get things started.

‘I found something in the library and I wanted to go over it with you.’ I paused. ‘Didn’t your mum ever tell you about your cousin?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ He exhaled sharply. ‘Like several decades too late.’ There was a heaviness about his words I couldn’t fathom. ‘Your brother. My big cousin. What a strange coincidence that is. And neither of us knew anything about either of them.’

‘There’s something else I found out,’ I said.

‘What?’ Paul leaned towards me as if he was relieved I was about to do more of the talking.

‘The Shows were in town when my brother vanished, and the same company was in your cousin’s area when he vanished too.’

‘Could be just another coincidence,’ he said.

‘Really? Two boys around the same age vanish a couple of weeks apart, and the same Shows visits both areas.’

‘That is spooky,’ admitted Paul. ‘Growing up I didn’t know I had a disappeared cousin,’ he said as if still trying to make sense of it. His eyes narrowed as a thought had occurred to him. ‘Two missing kids could be just a coincidence. They could just be two runaways. Kids run away all the time. If there were more that would suggest a pattern.’

‘But there are more.’

His eyebrows almost hit his hairline. ‘Really?’

‘This kid was found, though. Well, his body was.’ I told him more about my visit to the ex-cop.

‘He’s sure your brother died as well? Shit.’ He crossed his arms, sat back in his chair and studied his feet.

‘Three kids disappear all those years ago, and nobody spots a link,’ I said.

‘What do you think we should do with this?’ he asked as he returned from wherever he had gone in his mind.

‘I’m really not sure. Go back to the newspaper? Speak to the actual reporter – or even contact the police? Say there might have been some sicko following the Shows, or even working for them.’ I paused. ‘And these kind of people don’t just stop with two or three. There’s bound to be more.’

We sat with that for a moment. I shuddered at the thought of what I might have uncovered. Then I shook my head. I was jumping to conclusions. I could be way off.

Paul looked away from me, out of the window. ‘I never told you…’ he began. ‘I never really told anyone … until recently.’ His eyes were swimming with tears.

‘Paul, what’s wrong?’

‘That anger when you attacked me with the stick…’ He rubbed absently at his scar. ‘I recognised it, I think. That’s why I stayed friends with you. I was too young to articulate it at the time, but now I can see that I was hoping we could help each other.’

‘Paul, what on earth are you talking about?’