‘What was that?’
Hello? Earth to Faith? I quickly pulled myself back up again. ‘I’m twenty-six.’
‘Really?’
‘Why?’ I turned to look at him. ‘How old did you think I was?’
‘Err.’ He shifted in his seat, and scratched his stubble. ‘Well. Um. You don’t look older than twenty-six. You just act like, well… you’ve got a lot of life experience.’
My eyes narrowed.
‘I mean, you’re confident.’ He searched the roof of the truck, as if looking for inspiration. ‘Capable. Serious.’
Eyes: tiny slits.
‘Reliable?’
‘Wow. You really know how to make a girl feel special.’
‘No, I really don’t. Hence being single for the past hundred years.’ He ran his hands through his hair, making it even more dishevelled. ‘Look, what I mean is, you know who you are, and you don’t try to be anyone else. That’s unusual in someone your age. So yes, it is pretty special.’
Hah! I started to laugh. ‘You are so wrong, Pastor Perceptive. Most of the time, I don’t even know what to call myself.’ My laugh turned bitter. I squeezed my eyes together and swallowed, hard. For goodness’ sake. Enough crying!
When I opened them again, he was watching me, his face blank.
I wondered if this was going to be the moment Dylan realised I was about as far from confident and capable as it is possible to get.
‘Right. Out.’
Excuse me?
‘Come on. Out you get.’ He climbed out his side and came around, opening the driver’s side door while I still sat there, hands on the wheel. Was Dylan throwing me out of his truck? Had he decided to leave me here in the middle of nowhere?
He held out one hand to help me down. Remembering how it felt the last time our hands touched, I ignored it and clambered out myself.
He jumped into the vacated driver’s seat, and turned the engine back on. Too stunned to move, I watched as he began to drive forwards. What? Was he really leaving me here?
No Faith, you bag of nervous nerves. He’s parking the truck on the verge.
Oh. That’s okay then.
‘Right. This way I think.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the road ahead, and began walking.
‘Am I allowed to know what’s going on? Is the driving lesson finished?’
He turned round, and started walking backwards. ‘No. But it’s obvious even for Pastor Perceptive that you aren’t going to be able to concentrate on anything while you’re like this. You walk to calm down, and de-stress. So, let’s walk. And if you can bear to talk, even better. Then we might actually get something done today.’
We walked. Along prickled hedges that bore a sprinkling of fresh, tightly curled, green leaves. Beneath a canopy of silvery branches, showering us with pale-pink blossom in the breeze. After a while, we followed a signpost down a dirt track, the edges bushy with cow parsley.
I breathed in the pungent smells of spring – damp earth, new grass, the faint hint of pollen from the first flowers. I listened to the stillness – the faint hum of a tractor on the ridge above us, the whistle of brisk wind in the branches, the birds welcoming the change of season with their jubilant chorus. My heart began to slow as my mind eased. For the first quarter of a mile, we just walked. Not that it was ever ‘just’ walking in a place like this. But we didn’t talk until, finally reaching a lopsided gate at the end of the lane, Dylan stopped, leaning back against it and I figured I had better say something.
‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘The beginning’ll do.’
‘Right.’ I leaned on the gate beside him. ‘So the man who killed my mum, the one Sam thought he saw in February? Last week, I think I saw him at HCC.’
I felt the gate creak as his body went rigid.
