The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry

Author:Karen Perry [Perry, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781405912921
Google: TfPIAQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1405914041
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2014-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

11. Harry

The days passed. No word from Spencer. No phone call. No address. Nothing. I sat at home. I brooded. But still I didn’t let Robin know. I hid my thoughts. I hid my feelings. I didn’t say anything about having seen Dillon. Even when she said his name, I remained silent, revealing nothing about him, nothing about the CCTV or the licence plate or an address I was waiting impatiently for. I drank coffee. I drank tea. I smoked cigarette after cigarette. I sat in my studio and did the crossword. But there was always the unsettling, restless urge to do something, to get going, to find out where Dillon actually was.

I drew and sketched. The child mummy mostly, images that had lingered in my mind since London. It was one way of dealing with the recurring visions. A catharsis, if you like. Drawing the images out of myself, literally. But even that was superseded by the run-up to Christmas. Then one day, not long before Christmas Day itself, like a heavy cloud, the load burst.

Robin’s peaceful demeanour of the previous week had vanished. Christmas was starting to stress her out. Her parents were coming for Christmas dinner, and she was taking it seriously. She had lists. And more lists. Shopping lists. To-do lists. Recipes. Presents to buy. Things not to forget. She was starting to look drawn and tired.

‘This house is a disaster,’ she said, glancing about in despair.

I was about to say something when my phone rang. It was Spencer.

His gravelly, surreptitious tones smoked their way through the receiver: ‘We’re in luck.’

‘What?’

‘I have an address.’

My heart gave a sudden kick. An address. It was all I had been thinking of. I had almost lost hope, and now I was grateful and dumbfounded.

‘You can thank me later. I’ll pick you up this afternoon.’

Robin looked up. ‘Who was that?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘No one,’ I said.

‘No one? It must have been someone. What’s with all the secrecy?’

‘It was just Spencer. Nothing important.’

She squinted at me, nodding slowly.

I was nervous as a cat, listening for the hum of Spencer’s Jag drawing into the driveway. I could sense that Robin was looking forward to a night in, but she was also agitated. She sat down in the living room. I lit a fire, then fixed myself a coffee with a dash of whiskey.

‘There’s so much to do, Harry,’ she said.

She sounded a little sad. I wanted to reassure her, but before I could, the doorbell rang. I shot up from my chair and out into the hallway.

When I opened the door, two carol singers stood before me. A pair of young girls with hungry faces singing ‘Jingle Bells’ at breakneck speed. They finished and one of them said, ‘Hey, mister, happy Christmas,’ and shook a plastic jar at me. It jingled with coins. At the end of the driveway, I could see a bullish man leaning on a stick, waiting for them. I fumbled in my pocket and gave them the few coins I had.

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