“I might have. What about the license?”
“You mean the paperwork you were threatening me with at the door?”
“Yes,” Craig said.
“Okay. Show me it.”
He did. Paul unfurled the screwed-up license in Craig's hand and read the typeface and the writing on it.
He sighed. “Once again it's not enough. It shows your father stole something from your former lover seven years ago. It shows he's angry enough now to send it to you. It shows he doesn't like you, or perhaps your lifestyle, very much. And, yes, I admit it's strange that he kept something like this for so long, but that doesn't necessarily make him a murderer.”
He might have been going to say more, but Craig was on his feet and all but spitting his next words at him.
“You don't understand,” he said. “
You just don't understand what my father is like. And you don't know anything about my family life.
”
Paul's eyes, staring up at Craig's, were green pools of calm. “No, you're right. Apart from the fact that you had a very religious upbringing, I don't understand and I don't know. I think you should tell me. As much as you can. And now.”
Craig took a step back. It felt as if Paul had punched him and he was trying to find his footing again.
“I don't see how that helps anyone,” he said, his voice sounding unfamiliar even to him. “It won't help catch my father. It won't help stop whatever's happening now.”
“Won't it?” his boyfriend countered. “How do you know that? A thorough look at how your childhood was might help us a great deal. It seems to really bug you. Do you know, in some ways you look so straightforward, but actually you're a mystery man. Never mind what happened with Michael. The key to this seems to be your father, and your relationship with
him
. That seems to have affected whatever happened to your lover then,
and
what's going on now. My question is: why?”
“You don't have any right to ask me about any of that when everyone knows you and your father haven't spoken for years. Who made
you
into the judge and jury of
me
?”
Paul's face turned white and there was a terrible silence. Craig didn't know if he was going to shout at him or cry. Or ask him to leave. He couldn't tell which. With all his heart, Craig wished he'd said nothing at all.
“Paul, I—”
“No, please.” Paul swept his hand in front of him in a dismissive gesture, as if sweeping away the words. He wouldn't look at Craig. “Give me a moment. Please.”
Right then, Craig would have given him anything. Paul turned to stare out of the window at the darkness and Craig could see he was shaking. Should he try to touch him? Craig didn't know. Sometimes, he wished so much that he was older, and knew more. He couldn't think what to do. So he did nothing.
After a while, Paul spoke again. Craig had to strain to hear him.
“It's not quite true that I haven't spoken to my father in years,” he said. “When I was in hospital last year, we had a brief conversation. In person. It was inconclusive and I don't imagine that I'll see him again. For a very long time, perhaps not ever. So you see that even now there are some things the press doesn't know about.”
“I'm sorry,” Craig whispered into the pause that followed. “What I said was way out of line.”
It was as if Paul hadn't heard him at all.
“But this isn't about me,” he said, turning around to face Craig at last. “This is about you. You've told me about your affair. And about your father's religion. Now tell me about the rest of your childhood.”
Craig broke his gaze. Sat down. Tried to think, tried to seize the jumble of memories and broken images in his head to gather them into some kind of order.
“It's difficult,” he said finally. “I can tell you all the practical stuff. You know, school, the friends I had, working on the farm, the books I read, the games I played. But when it comes to working out what my family were actually like, honestly the only thing that made a difference was my father and his religion. It overpowered everything I ever did and set us apart. And it was always only him. I don't think my mother was religious in quite the same way. Even though they met in church. Though as she left us when I was six, I'm not really sure. I don't really have any proper memories of her. Not ones I've been able to key into anyway. But my father—everything about him and about our lives together was based on the rules of pleasing God. As I've told you. What I haven't told you is that I had to memorize large chunks of the bible, pray every day. Even when I was very young. If I didn't, he'd hit me. Sometimes so hard that I blacked out. I was terrified of him. I grew up being terrified of him, never knew it could be any different ‘til later on. After the Fellowship threw me out, I gave up the bible, didn't bother with prayer or anything, though I don't think I'd ever believed it really. Not in the way he wanted me to. That didn't stop him trying over and over to convert me
back to the path of righteousness
, as he used to say. It was exhausting, you can't imagine how much. You know, I think the truth of it was that being with my father, growing up with him, never felt like being in a family at all.”
“In what way?” Paul asked, but Craig shook his head.
“I don't know. No, that's not really true, but it's like the negative of a picture. You know, when everything's the opposite from what you think it should be. When I used to go round to see mates from school, whatever, their families were so different from mine. God it sounds crazy, but I think I might have been jealous. Whatever it was they had, we didn't. I used to wonder why it was that my father and I were never a family—but other people I knew, other boys from school who only had one parent,
they
were families. In the end, I realized that it was his religion that had stopped us from being close. Funny really, that something that's supposed to bring people together, offer comfort, should be so cold and so harsh. And without any sense of love.”
Craig stopped, hoping that would be the end of it, but he should have known better. Paul's eyes appeared darker, more intent.
“What about your mother?” he asked. “You never talk about her. Can you really remember nothing about her at all?”
“I was very young when she left. Sometimes, I ... I think—dream—about her, though I can't really be sure it
is
her.” He laughed but it didn't sound right and Paul didn't join in. “I just can't remember, you see. Anyway, it's not important. What's important about all this is my father and Michael.”
Paul cocked his head at him. “Is it? Really?”
“Yes, sure it is. Michael's the one that's dead or missing and my father is the reason for that. No matter what you say, I know that's true. God, I just know it.”
He thought Paul might say more—he feared he would—but in the end he kept his silence. So much so that it became up to Craig to break it.
“How did your meeting with Adrian go?” he asked.
“I discovered nothing useful,” Paul replied, his voice sounding more clipped than it had before. When Craig glanced at him, he could see he'd snapped into professional mode. “Which was much as I'd expected. Adrian Kenny had an affair with Michael for four months before they split up. Which was shortly after Michael left Peter. Bearing in mind Adrian is married now with one child and another on the way, this isn't something he particularly wants to be in the public domain.”
“He's in the closet?” Craig interjected, glad to have the focus of conversation away from him and his family. At least for a while.
“No.” Paul shook his head. “I reckon not. My feeling is he's bi. Just wants it to be private. And there's nothing wrong with that.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“The split was pretty bad. He won't say it now, but I got the impression that he was ready to make a go of it, but Michael wouldn't bite. The last time Adrian saw him, they had a row. Michael left and he hasn't seen him since that time. It's basically exactly as Eva Langley told it. He freely admitted talking to her when she was looking for her brother, but he couldn't help. Didn't want to at the time either. I think his pride took a bit of a bruising. You know what these city types are like.”
“
Some
of them, yes.”
“Yes. Some of them.”
“Do you think he could have hurt Michael somehow?”
“No, I don't think so. Believe me, Craig, Adrian Kenny was telling me the truth. Not because he wanted to help—he didn't—but because he was afraid of who I might talk to if he lied to me. And I've been in this business long enough to tell when someone is lying to me. At least most of the time.”
Something in his voice—a subtle change of tone—caught Craig's interest. “Most of the time?”
“Yes.” Paul broke his gaze and ran one finger over his trousers, smoothing out an invisible crease. Craig wondered if he was making his mind up to tell him something and, if so, what it might be. “Yes. There was one man who had me fooled. Until almost the very end anyway.”
When Paul raised his eyes once again, Craig thought he'd never seen Paul look so open. Craig licked his lips, took a breath. “Was that the one you'd just split up with when we met?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Tell me about him,” he said. “It's your turn to talk.”
Paul started slowly but, once he started, the words came easily. Craig wondered if he'd been waiting to say them for a long time. And if he was the first person Paul had told.
“I met ... Nick when I was twenty-six,” he said. “Friday 12 May 2000. At a party given by a client. I did well that year. Nick was there too. He followed me outside the hotel when I went for a smoke. Offered me a light, struck up a conversation. We ended up kissing. I was intrigued, I think. He was married. Had a family. Still, he gave me his business card, asked me to call. No,
told
me to. God, I couldn't stop thinking about him. We met the following Monday. Had sex. That was when the affair really took off. I fell totally and absolutely in love with him; couldn't get enough. Wanted him to leave his wife, his children, wanted him to move in with me. He wouldn't, of course. He always had more sense. And the upper hand. That too. Oh yes, he always had that. We were together for just under a year. When he finally dumped me, it was one of the worst experiences I'd ever had. I went into freefall, had a nervous breakdown. Took a long time to recover. Then last year, he contacted me again. I should have told him where to go.
God how I wish I had
. But I didn't. He asked me to take on a case for him. I did. It went terribly wrong. He lied to me all the way through and I never saw it—didn't
want
to see it. Because of that, my best friend died and everything changed. The last time I saw Nick, he asked me to be with him, but I couldn't. Not after what had happened, not after the damage he'd done which could never be undone. I sent him away. It nearly tore me apart but I had no other choice. He might have been a liar but I didn't want to be. Not to myself. So. There you have it, Craig. Maybe we're both as bad as each other, eh? Maybe we're both screwed.”
He took a deep and shuddering breath and fell silent. Once again Craig didn't know what to say. He felt so much younger than Paul, so much less experienced. Understanding also that maybe what he'd just heard was a declaration of love for another man, but not wanting to acknowledge this. After all, wasn't life—both their lives—hard enough already? For lack of anything else to do and because he had nothing at all to say, Craig took hold of Paul's hand and he turned toward him at once, as if he'd been waiting all this time for Craig to touch him.
A few moments later they were kissing. He tasted of whisky, though Craig imagined he did too. Not only that, but he could taste Paul's need. His fingers were scrabbling at Craig's shirt, struggling with the science of buttons. He hadn't come here for sex. He'd come here for answers. And to ask a question of his own. But as always, his body had its own agenda and already his cock was hardening under his jeans. Craig wondered if Paul wanted him because of him or simply to put something between his confession and being here now in the aftermath of it. What the bloody hell was he thinking anyway? Gay Rule Number Fourteen:
If you're about to get it on, don't make it difficult for yourself
.
There was one problem though. He eased Paul's fingers away from his neck.
“Hey,” he murmured. “No protection with me. Have you...?”
“
Yes
. Bathroom. Left-hand side of cabinet. Everything we'll need. But be quick,
please
.”
He hoped Paul meant getting the condoms, but in the end it turned out he meant quick in all respects. By the time Craig got back, he'd removed his shirt and was working on his trousers.
“Bedroom?” Craig asked, but he shook his head.
“No.
Here
.”
“Okay. In that case, let
me
take your clothes off. I like doing that.”
The moment he pulled Paul's trousers and boxers down, his cock sprang up, hard and strong. Craig knew what he wanted. What they both wanted now. The way Paul responded to him when they made love, no matter what he did, made him hotter than anyone he'd ever known. Even Michael.
Craig pulled down his own jeans and Calvins, not bothering to remove his shirt, cursing when he caught the zip against his prick. Again. Paul laughed and Craig laughed with him, the two of them still kissing, touching, scrabbling for release. And finally he was free. He grabbed the condom, rolling it over himself and, at the same time, reaching for the lube.
“Oh God, please,
yes
,” Paul panted, but he didn't have to.
Moments later and deep inside his boyfriend, Craig came almost at once, but he wasn't alone. Paul's spunk pulsated up, over his face and hair so he could taste the salt of him on his tongue.
“God, God,
God
,” Paul said. And then, “Sorry, I'm sorry.”
Craig started to laugh again, though the laughter had never really gone away. “Don't be. You taste fucking delicious. You always bloody have.”
Then they collapsed on each other, tangled up together in sex and sweat and laughter.