Finding Davey Read Online Free Page A

him.
    “Clint,” he intoned, smiley, “is a routine case.”

Chapter Six
    With flashlight and walking stick, Bray walked Buster to the fields. On summer evenings, Davey liked to people the trees with imaginary cloaked figures. Now alone in the autumn gloaming, Bray trudged the course, mentally speaking the names of Davey’s imaginary footpads. He caught himself saying them aloud and thought, watch it, people will think you’re barmy. He returned, washed up, and went to his shed.
    The evenings were drawing in, the day’s air moist after drizzle. People here in the coastal villages believed bad weather circled round Wormingwood, but Bray had his doubts about that, as had Emma.
    Emma had left when Geoff was eighteen, lecturing Bray on his shortcomings, his ineffable dullness, all one morning. He “bought her out”, the solicitor’s phrase. Thank God she quickly married again, some building contractor. She had attended Geoffrey’s wedding, making the gathering surreal in an orange dress that drained all colour from the church flowers. Emma wasn’t bad. Bray’s sad conviction was that many wives secretly despised husbands, thinking, What loon contracts to provide for awoman lifelong, for possibly nil return? That farewell morning made him believe that scorn was inevitably part of Emma’s marital contract.
    He sat in the shed, not switching the light on, not even lighting the candle Davey loved. Buster sprawled on the doormat, Geoffrey following to perch on the workbench.
    “Dad?”
    “’Lo, son.”
    Bray took Geoffrey in with a glance. Even that felt fraudulent. Every Friday, Bray had made a thing of having his weekly egg, with chips, doing a daft over-the-top performance for Davey’s entertainment, rolling his eyes at every mouthful.
    Tonight, Bray could tell that Geoffrey’s meeting at his Fair Isle Investment Banking Trust Accounts Division had been grim. One thing on top of another.
    “Still nothing, Dad.”
    His son was showing signs of utter defeat. Bray knew only that he himself had to be on constant guard. Unceasing vigilance. Signs of returning normality had to be watched. A single spark of normality might make the image of little Davey fade, very like sunlight faded inky scrawls on a windowsill. This was how time, that thief, stole grief. It was how time healed, as the proverb said. Well, Bray wouldn’t let time get away with it, the bastard.
    Tomorrow, he would go for it, risks and all.
    “I saw the policewoman, the coordinator in Sidhall.” Geoffrey gave Bray a second or two. “She’s talked with the people in Orlando. They’ve got three special units…”
    And so on.
    Bray’s stool stood among piles of shavings. He hadn’t swept them up, from when he’d worked of an evening before Geoffrey and Shirley took Davey on their firstAmerican holiday. Sweeping up, challenging Grampa to do better when Bray made jokey grumbles, was Davey’s job. Would the shavings ever be swept?
    At one point in his sombre monologue Geoffrey switched the shed light on in sudden exasperation. Bray knew he was being a pest, a problem his heartbroken son could do without, but pain was faith. A grampa had to keep it.
    He would never let it be diluted. Pain was a stimulus, as fleas on a hedgehog stirred it from its winter hibernation.
    Bray felt close to madness, sitting under the shed’s one bulb quite as if he were a suspect being interrogated while his sorrowing son pedantically went over the useless prattle of some baffled policewoman.
    “What, Dad?” Geoffrey asked.
    He must have spoken aloud. Bray saw his son’s expression change to alarm, thinking his father might be losing his mind.
    Bray tried to find something quickly, and failed.
    “Look. Shirley says you should come in tonight. There’s no heater here.”
    “Right, son.”
    “You spend too long in your shed.” Geoffrey hesitated, trying to gather frayed ends of normal life. “Want a cup of tea?”
    “No, ta, son. I’ll step in presently.”
    It