rearview mirror and see him, head turned to one side, squinting through the window the way he often did, as though confused to see a world out there but only mildly interested in it.
“Daddy, why don’t you like Pete?”
“You mean DI Willis.” I took the turn onto our street. “And it’s not a case of not liking him. I don’t know him. He’s a policeman, not a friend.”
“He is friendly, though. I like him.”
“You don’t know him either.”
“But if you don’t know him and don’t like him, then I can not know him and like him instead.”
I was too tired for such contortions.
“It’s not that I don’t like him.”
Jake didn’t reply, and I had no desire to argue the point any further. Children pick up on atmosphere very well, and my son was even more sensitive than most. It was probably obvious to him that I was lying.
And yet, was it really a lie? Our conversation last night had stayed with me, and perhaps because of that, it was easier to identify with him now—to see him as a man, like me, who had found fatherhood difficult. Regardless, he was no more the man I remembered than I was still that child. How long does it take, and how much does a person have to change, before the person you hated is gone, replaced by someone new? Pete was someone else now. I didn’t not like him. The truth was that I didn’t know him at all.
We reached our house. There was no sign of police activity anymore—even the tape had been removed—and there wasn’t the media presence I’d been concerned might greet us: just a small group of people talking among themselves. They didn’t seem that interested as I parked in the driveway. Jake was, though.
“Are we going to be on television?” he said excitedly.
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh.”
Pete had been following our car the whole journey, and he parked sideways behind us now, then got out quickly. The reporters approached him, and I peered around to watch as he spoke to them.
“What’s going on, Daddy?”
“Hang on.”
Jake was straining to see as well.
“Is that—?” he said.
“Oh, fuck.”
There was a moment of silence in the car after that. I stared at the small group that had gathered around my father, dimly aware that he was smiling politely at them, explaining things with a conciliatory shrug, and that a few of the reporters were nodding. But my attention was focused on one of them in particular.
“You said the f-word, Daddy.”
Jake sounded awed.
“Yes, I did.” I turned away from the sight of Karen, standing among the reporters, a notepad in her hand. “And yes. That’s Adam’s mother back there.”
* * *
“Are we going to be on television, Pete?” Jake said.
I closed the front door behind us and put the chain on.
“I’ve already told you that, Jake. No, we are not.”
“I’m just asking Pete as well.”
“No,” Pete said. “You aren’t. Just like your daddy told you. That’s what I was talking to the people outside about. They’re reporters, and so they’re interested in what happened here, but I was reminding them that it has nothing to do with you two.”
“It sort of does,” Jake said.
“Well, sort of. But not really. If you’d known more, or were more involved, then it would be different.”
I shot Jake a look at that, hoping he’d understand from my expression that this was not the time to say anything else about the boy in the floor. He glanced at me and nodded, but wasn’t about to let the matter drop quite so easily.
“Daddy did find him.”
“Yes,” Pete said. “But that’s not information that’s been released to the people out there. As far as they’re concerned, the two of you are not really part of the story. That’s the best way to keep it for now, I think.”
“Okay.” Jake sounded disappointed. “Can I look around and see what they’ve done?”
“Of course.”
He disappeared upstairs. Pete and I waited by the front door.
“I meant what I said,” he told me after a moment. “You don’t need to worry. The media won’t want to prejudice any trial. I can’t stop you from talking to them, obviously, but all they know is the remains were found here, so I don’t think they’ll be that interested in you. And they’ll be very careful around Jake.”
I nodded, feeling sick. That might be all the media officially knew, but I’d told Karen so much yesterday that it was hard to keep track of it all. She knew about the