Eleanor said it all so matter-of-factly, as if she were simply reciting last week’s weather, but I desperately wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Maybe I should have ordered the pint after all.
“I’m sorry?” Lena repeated, blinking in confusion. That was the only appropriate response to the amount of information my mother had just dumped on her.
“Don’t listen to her,” I said, glaring at Eleanor. “My father leaving us had nothing to do with a grand conspiracy of any kind. He disappeared in the middle of the night because he was a terrible person. End of story.”
“You just told me about a father who left his family to protect them from the unsavoury elements in his life,” Eleanor pointed out, completely unaffected by my withering stare. She blinked at me over her wine glass as if daring me to disagree.
“And it didn’t work,” I snapped back. “The two are not the same, Mum. I get Sam needing a story to believe in, but you should know better.”
Eleanor’s facade cracked, and for a moment, I saw behind the polished exterior she showed the world to the hurt and the grief she’d held onto all these years, and I instantly felt terrible. We were all dealing with the loss in different ways, and I had no right to tell her or my sister how to do it.
“Mum, I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
She reached across the table and gave my hand a squeeze, a small smile on her face as she put a few pieces of her mask back in place.
“I gave the photo to the lab,” I offered. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll find something.”
Eleanor had spent years using her position as Chief Inspector to try to track down my father, but she had come up empty at every turn. I supposed that was why she still held onto her conspiracy theory. Surely, a man simply running out on his family wouldn’t be able to disappear so completely.
“Perhaps,” Eleanor agreed.
Our food arrived, and we began to eat quietly. The Blackwing Cafe made some of the best chips in Inverness, crisp and chunky and coated in salt. I sprinkled vinegar over mine, and my stomach grumbled happily as I finally began to fill it.
Eleanor began to ask Lena about her work, segueing gracefully away from our last conversation, and Lena answered eagerly, her voice lightening as she explained how her band started. I listened quietly, glad to learn more about her finally, and as I did, my eyes roamed about the cafe. I’d spent so much time looking over my shoulder these past few days, that it became somewhat natural, and I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I spotted a man in a long coat and tweed hat sitting at a table on the patio. The day had grown surprisingly sunny, so he now wore mirrored sunglasses, preventing me from being able to tell if he was looking at his menu or at us.
“Three o’clock,” I murmured, and my mother instantly snapped to attention, dropping out of the conversation like a rock off a roof. It took Lena a little longer, and she looked at me in confusion until I tipped my head towards the windows at the front of the cafe.
Lena paled when she spotted her ex seated there so casually, and she pushed away her half-eaten sandwich. “I’m so sorry I brought you into this.”
“Nonsense,” Eleanor said as she set down her fork, perfectly in line with her untouched knife. “Allow me.”
She stood up from the table, and Lena and I watched as she strode purposefully across the cafe, throwing open the door to the patio. She marched right up to Lena’s ex and slammed her hand down on the table. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but even from the other side of the room, I could see his face growing paler and paler behind his glasses, and he leaned as far away from her as his chair would allow. When she finished, she patted his face once, and he practically bolted from the table, pausing just long enough to leave twenty quid behind. Eleanor brushed her hands off, took one of his uneaten chips, and then calmly walked back inside.
Lena and I stared at her stunned as she returned to the table, sat down, and picked up her fork as if nothing had happened. “What did you say?” Lena asked. She glanced back and forth between my mother and the now empty table, totally awed.
“Oh, nothing too serious. Just told him what happens to men who don’t leave women alone. He shouldn’t bother you again, but if he does, you just let me know.” Eleanor smiled and crunched through a cucumber, but didn’t elaborate further.
“Thank you, really.”
“My pleasure.”
My mother insisted on paying for lunch despite Lena’s several attempts to pull out her wallet, and the three of us left the cafe together. “Mum, would you mind giving Lena a ride back to her car? I need to meet up with Fletcher and see if she’s found anything.”
“Of course. It was good to see you, dear.” She gave me a hug on and a pat on the cheek and then looked at Lena. “Ready to go?”
“Will you give us a minute?” Lena asked, glancing at me.
“My car’s right over there.” Eleanor pointed at a red hatchback parked at the edge of the lot, and then she walked away, leaving the two of us on the pavement just outside the cafe patio.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Lena said, turning towards me. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen.” I wondered if Finn would have it any easier, having never really known his father in the first place.
“And you really have no idea why he left?”
“No. One morning he was just… gone.” My gut twisted just as it did
