Raven Summer Read Free Page B

you?”
    “What?” snaps Dad. “What
exactly
are you suggesting?”
    “Oh, nothing, sir,” says PC Ball. “But in our position, you always have to allow yourself to wonder.”
    And he looks at me for a moment, then they’re gone.
    We sit at the kitchen table. Dad says he should get on, but he doesn’t move. Scribbles a bit in his notebook. Stares and ponders. He’s doing what he does to just about everything, turning it into a story.
    “How old do you think she was?” he says.
    “A few months,” says Max. “Mebbe four.”
    I imagine Mum holding me up high when I was a few months old and saying, Boys are
gorgeous!
We were in Newcastle way back then, stony broke. We were right on the brink, Mum used to say.
    Dad keeps on scribbling.
    The fields are shimmering outside the kitchen window. There’s cattle, sheep, hedges, copses, the blue blue sky. And more jets, black and silent over the hazy wind turbines at Hallington Ridge.
    Then there’s footsteps outside, and here’s Gordon Nattrass at the door. I go to him.
    “You said you’d come to the field,” he says. “And you didn’t.”
    “We got sidetracked,” I tell him.
    “You weren’t avoiding us, then?”
    “Course we weren’t.”
    We watch each other.
    He’s still carrying the saw. There’s a sack slung over his shoulder. “You’re missing out, brother,” he says. “We had a great time.” Then he goes. A few drops of blood drip from the sack as he walks away.

5
    It’s late when Mum comes home.
Max has gone. Dad’s upstairs. There’s a smell of cigarette smoke on her, and that look in her eyes she has these days when she comes back from town.
    “What a day,” she says. “Lunch with Sue, then of course the gallery launch, then of course we go on for drinks.”
    “But you drove,” I say.
    “I just had a teeny weeny bit.” She pours a big glass of red wine. She points to the ceiling. “His nibs is at work?”
    I nod.
    She puts her hands to her face and beams.
    “They’re going to show
my
work, Liam. In a brand-new gallery right slap bang in the middle of Newcastle. This is
big
, son.”
    She swigs her wine, closes her eyes, sighs.
    “Was Jack Scott there?” I say.
    She looks me straight in the eye.
    “He was,” she says. “And what about you? Had a good day? Been with lovely Max?”
    “Aye,” I say.
    “Lovely.”
    She stares out the kitchen window, into the darkness. She hums some old tune. One of her paintings is just beside us on the wall: slashes of green for fields and brown for walls and bark and blue for sky. A great jagged slab of red hangs right across the center. Her name’s in black in the left-hand corner:
Kate Lynch.
People say they like her paintings for the wildness that’s in them, for the edge of violence they see in them.
    It’s about time to start the baby story when the phone rings. She doesn’t want to answer it. I pick it up.
    A man’s voice.
    “Is that Liam Lynch?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hello there, Liam. Could I ask you about your little adventure today?”
    I gulp.
    “Depends,” I say. “Who’s this?”
    Who is it?
says Mum’s face.
    “Oh, sorry, Liam. This is Michael Martin from the
Chronicle.
We had a little nod from the police. We’d love to know about your baby.”
    “It’s not my baby,” I say, then I let the phone drop.
    Martin’s voice goes on. I click it off.
    Mum tilts her head.
    “Well?” she says.
    “You’ll not believe it,” I say. “But here goes.”
    The phone rings a couple of times as I’m talking. We don’t answer it.
    Dad yells down:
    “Will you answer the bloody phone, Liam!”
    Then he comes down himself.
    “Oh,” he says. “You’re back. Hi.”
    “Hi,” says Mum. “And I thought I was the one making news today.”

6
    ITV send a car next day.
Max and his mother are in the front with the presenter Joe Tynan. Max is full of it. He’s wearing a freshly ironed blue shirt and clean jeans. His hair’s plastered down with gel.
    “Isn’t it
exciting?
” says