“For God's
sake
,” Pedro was saying, “if there's a problem with doing
sexy
, Mr. Robertson, why the hell are you trying to be a model in the first place? Why not just take up bar work or something. This is beyond hope. I wouldn't find you sexy if I was in the Heaven nightclub and you were the only bloke left at the bar.”
Pedro might have been going to add something else. In fact, he probably was. But Craig found himself stepping out of the frame, pushing past the photographer, who gaped at him, and standing right in front of the condescending little tosser. His skin prickled and he noticed everyone was now completely silent. Oh hell, he thought, he was just about to end his modeling days. Still, bloody hell, though, what a way to go. Maybe Paul would be proud.
As Pedro blinked at him, Craig leaned right in so the director could catch what he wanted to say. Beads of sweat lined Pedro's forehead and he smelled of stale aftershave. Finally, Craig opened his mouth.
“If you were the only bloke left in the Heaven, I'd probably consider going straight,” he hissed.
Then he turned on his heel, thankful for his minimal drama training that had at last come into its own, and left.
It was bloody freezing outside. He wished he'd remembered to pick up his jacket. But going back to get it would be humiliating. And he couldn't take any more of that. He supposed this would be taken as stealing the outfit he was still wearing, but right then he didn't care.
A shout from behind made him stop and glance around.
“Craig.
Wait.
”
The voice was familiar. It was Douglas. Craig waited for him to catch up. Already, the wave of emotion that had carried him out of the gallery—and no doubt out of his career—was fading.
“Look, I'm sorry,” Craig said. “I don't want to make things awkward for you all, but I just couldn't hack it anymore. I need the money, God knows I need the money, but there are some things I can't take.”
“Hey, don't apologize,” Douglas said. “Bloody Pedro is in the wrong, not you. He sent me out here to bring you back. Though I would have come anyway—that was impressive. We all wish we'd had the balls to do it.”
Despite the whole stupidity of the situation, Craig couldn't help but laugh. “Yeah, the balls to come out here and freeze to death, more like. Sometimes, you know, I'm my own worst enemy.”
“Well, Pedro comes pretty close.”
“Yeah, you're right.” He shrugged. “Anyway, why does he want me back if he doesn't like what I'm doing? It's a waste of my time and his.”
“You think?” Douglas said. “He's still taking the shots, isn't he? No, Pedro's all mouth. He might think you need a bit of guidance in working out what he wants, but you're getting it a damn sight quicker than the other million models he's bitched at and dumped. He's a bastard, but he knows what he's doing. That's why we put up with it. Most of the time. Not only that, but he'll make you look bloody good when the pictures come out. Which will make your next assignment one that's likely to be a little further up the ladder. See what I mean?”
Craig thought about it. This didn't take long. He nodded. “Okay. I get it. So what now?”
Douglas sighed. “Well, the old bugger isn't going to apologize, so there's no hope of that, I'm afraid. But I reckon if you come back in, he'll be as nice as the proverbial and you'll have a better time. What do you say?”
“If it gets me out of this bloody cold and back into employment, it sounds good to me.”
“Great.” He clapped Craig on the shoulder and the two of them began walking back to the gallery. “There is one thing though.”
“Which is?”
“You can probably only do that walking-out trick once. Cool though it was. It's not the eighties anymore, sad to say.”
“I hear you. And thanks.”
When he and Douglas opened the door, the place was filled with the sound of tense talking and speculation. The moment the door clicked shut, the silence was even louder. Before Craig could think how best to ease himself back into model normality—whatever the hell
that
was—Mr. Piss-Artist himself had leaped to his feet and was strutting toward him. Douglas slipped away and Craig couldn't say he blamed him.
Oh great,
he thought.
Showdown time.
Had Douglas been wrong after all?
Rather than running back out into the street, screaming—well, it was frigging cold—he stayed where he was. Pedro stopped dead in front of him, frowning. Craig noted his fists weren't clenched so at least the director wasn't going to punch him.
For another long moment, the silence continued. Then, unexpectedly, Pedro smiled.
“Good to see you can do drama when you want to, Mr. Robertson,” he said.
“Good to know you can be polite when you have to,” Craig replied, not daring to risk a name in case
Piss-Artist
came out instead of
Pedro
.
“Shall we get back to work then?”
“If you like.”
The rest of the morning was relatively calm. Pedro kept on barking instructions, which were very different from the ones he'd only just given a moment before, but he made no more personal comments and after a while Craig relaxed into what he was doing. He got more used to the instant changes Pedro wanted as well.
When it came down to it, modeling was nothing more than acting. Which was maybe why he loved it so much. Yes, you had to have the looks and the body, and yes you had to keep both those in shape and as good as you could get them. But when you were actually under the spotlight and the camera was snapping away, character was the focus that held it all together. Without the terror of the audition either. Maybe it wasn't as intellectual as the work Paul did, but still it gave Craig a buzz. He could pretend to be somebody else—someone more confident, sexier, more on top of it all—and that gave him a lift too. Pretending was something he'd always been good at. His childhood had taught him that.
At lunch—nothing more than a snack wolfed down while the setup of the gallery was changed for the afternoon shoot—Douglas and a couple of the female models, whose names he discovered were Janine and Carlotta, kept him company. In the ten minutes they ended up having, they talked the usual modeling talk—who was in, who was out, what they thought of the outfits, what they all thought they might be wearing later in the season, whether they knew the same people or not. Plus a smattering of techno talk so Douglas didn't entirely collapse of boredom. Though the way he was staring at Carlotta's chest, Craig didn't think that would be an option. Honestly, straight men. They were nearly as obsessed with sex as gays.
Just before Pedro summoned them all back to the floor, Carlotta nudged him.
“Love your style,” she whispered, brushing back her long dark hair. “At this rate, Pedro will be hiring you again before you can sit down tonight with your first designer beer. The old bugger loves a challenge.”
Oh well. There was always a downside to every small triumph.
That said though and, in spite of the difficult morning, Craig found that by the time they clocked off late afternoon, he'd actually had a good—if hard—day. Douglas was right. Pedro knew his stuff. If you could get over his method of delivery, you could learn more in five minutes with him shouting than you could in a year of other people being nice. Not that he'd seen a whole lot of niceness in this profession. Maybe
distant
was more the word. And maybe the thing about the Piss-Artist was that he cared a hell of a lot about what he produced and didn't like it when his preparations went down the pan. Even if that included Craig. Bloody hell, Craig could be noble. Or at least think noble thoughts. Sometimes.
With that idea in his mind, on the way out Craig hesitated before telling himself just
do it
and turning back.
Pedro was still at the back of the gallery, deep in conversation with the owner, a tall red-haired woman dressed entirely in green. Instinctively Craig liked her, but he never got to know her name. After a while, Pedro glanced around as if he knew someone was hovering, and caught his eye.
“Ah, Mr. Robertson,” he said, his expression a perfect blank. So much so that for a second or two he almost fitted in with the gallery's understated approach. “
Mr.
Robertson. You haven't gone yet then.”
“No,” Craig said stupidly, and then plowed on regardless. “No, I haven't. I just wanted to say that, even if we got off to a bad start, I learned a lot from this afternoon, so thank you for that. God knows I need all the advice I can get.'
Having said his piece, he turned to go, but the director's voice called him back.
“Yes, anyone can see
that
,” he said with a shrug. “But on the other hand it's always good to find a model willing to listen. A miracle really. You did okay, Mr. Robertson. In the end.”
Craig smiled his thanks, just as the gallery owner cut in.
“Mr. Robertson?” she said, frowning. “I think someone left a message for you earlier on. It's here somewhere.”
She rummaged around underneath the sales desk and produced a small brown envelope that had been stapled shut at the top. “Craig Robertson? Is that you?”
Nodding, he took the envelope and cursed when he recognized the handwriting. Knowing there was no way he could wait until he got outside before seeing what his father in his infinite bloody wisdom had sent him
this
time, he ripped it open.
Inside, there was no message. Simply a torn-off section of a driver's license. It contained Michael's name and date of birth. On this the word
SIN
had been scrawled in capitals.
Chapter Nineteen
Craig leaned his finger on the doorbell of Paul's flat and waited until he saw his boyfriend's figure through the mottled glass. He'd already told Paul he was coming. It was about 6 p.m. He'd made the call moments after reading his father's message. He had no idea what on earth Pedro had thought about his rapid exit, but in truth he didn't much care. He was way too angry for that.
And he needed someone to be angry with. Because several things were crystallizing and he didn't like any of them.
Paul opened the door on the chain, saw who it was, and let him in. Craig was talking even before he had one foot over his threshold. Even before the door had been closed.
“Look,” he said, waving the driver's license in his boyfriend's direction but not allowing him the luxury of focusing on it. “
Look
. The
bastard
has sent me something else. What the
bloody hell
does he think he's playing at? I mean, it's not enough to mess up my childhood, it's not enough to try to destroy my whole
frigging
life, it's not enough to throw a bloody brick at us, but now he has to start sending me things that I
know
belonged to Michael. And he
knows
that I know. What the fuck is he trying to tell me? Maybe it's not me that killed Michael after all—maybe it's him. Yes, that's it, maybe it's him. That would make sense, wouldn't it? I can't believe it. All these years I've been trying to avoid thinking it was me. I've been thinking that
I'm
the loony in the bloody family, and now all along it's been
him
. Isn't that what he's trying to tell me?
Isn't it?
”
When Craig stopped talking, he found he couldn't catch his breath. It felt as if he'd been running for a long, long time and only when he'd stopped had he realized how far he'd gone. Paul gazed at him for a moment before reaching out and gripping his shoulder. Right then Craig wasn't sure he wanted to be touched but in the end it was okay.
“You'd better sit down,” Paul said. “You look like you need a drink.”
In the living room, Craig sat on Paul's sofa. He thought he'd be too restless to stay there long but in fact he wasn't sure he'd be able to get up again. A wave of exhaustion flowed through him. It felt as if his blood was being drained from his flesh by some strange outside force he had no hope of fighting and all he could do was sit and take it. But he'd had
enough
of that, hadn't he? He'd been sitting and taking it for too many bloody years, and now every ruddy thing felt different. Without warning, the anger came again and Craig was up and pacing the room, even though he'd been so sure only a second ago that he didn't have it in him.
Paul returned, carrying a tray on which rested a bottle of whisky, two glasses, and two mugs. When he saw Craig, he blinked.
“I still think sitting down would be better,” he said.
“Why?”
“Two reasons. One: if you carry on flitting round the room like that, you won't be able to drink anything. And two: the last time that I had a boyfriend—or ex-boyfriend as he was by then—in here, he did exactly the same thing and it's making me nervous. So, please, sit down?”
The mention of Paul's private life before him jolted Craig into social normality, or its nearest equivalent, and he sat down. His mouth crowded with questions but he spoke none of them, instead taking the whisky and pouring a good slug of it into both glasses. Paul set the tray on the coffee table and sat next to him.
Craig downed the whisky in two gulps, feeling the fire of it on his tongue. Paul took his glass but didn't drink. Instead he held it up to the light and smiled.
“I love the Macallan,” he said. “It always does the trick.”
“Not much of it left. Maybe you should buy another?”
He smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe not. Tell me, Craig, now you've finally admitted that it might equally be your father, rather than you, who killed Michael, what makes you so sure this time? It's a serious accusation to make.”
“More serious than accusing myself of killing him?”
“Maybe,” he said again. “It depends how much you mean it.”
“If you think this is a joke....”
“I don't.” Paul was quick to reassure him, placing his hand on Craig's knee and leaving it there. “But I know what families are like. God knows my own can be like walking a tightrope sometimes, with nothing underneath but broken glass and dead promises. In that kind of hothouse atmosphere, things get muddled. Assumptions are made which might seem like the truth, but may not be. If you're going to turn the spotlight on your father, again you've got to have evidence. Do you have any?”