The Searcher(48)

“That’s what she said.”

“Sure, I haven’t a clue about electrics. Brendan does, all right. But he’s not here.”

Cal notes the does. “Well, shoot,” he says. “Looks like I got it wrong. Don’t I feel like the idiot.” He grins ruefully at Fergal, who grins back, obviously familiar with that feeling. “Sorry to have disturbed your work. Least I can do is finish these up with you, to make up for it.”

“Ah, no. You’re grand, sure. Sorry I’m no good to you.”

“Now I’m wondering if Miz Reddy was just trying to get rid of me,” Cal says, as they head back towards the trailer, “and you being Brendan’s best buddy, you were the first person who popped into her mind.” He hefts another sack onto his shoulder and makes way for Fergal to do the same. “See, I think I put my great big foot in my mouth there. I just waded right in, asking where I might find Brendan. I didn’t know the story, then.”

The speed with which Fergal’s head turns towards him is what gives Cal his first inkling that Brendan Reddy may not just have run off to the bright lights. It comes to him with the clarity of a sound, a neat small chink like metal hitting stone.

Fergal says, “What story?”

Cal looks mildly into his round, startled blue eyes.

“What’d his mam say?”

“Well, it’s not so much what she said,” Cal explains. “It’s more what I gathered.”

“What . . . ?”

Cal waits a little, but Fergal just stares. “Let’s put it like this,” Cal says in the end, picking the words carefully and letting the care show. “When people say Brendan’s not around, they don’t mean he packed his things and kissed his mama good-bye and found himself a nice little apartment in town, and he comes back every Sunday for a home-cooked dinner. Now do they?”

Fergal is looking wary. His features aren’t constructed for this, and it gives him a comical frozen look, like a kid with a bug sitting on him. “I dunno,” he says.

“Here’s the thing,” Cal says. “Brendan’s family’s pretty worried about him, son.”

Fergal blinks at him. “Worried like what?” He hears himself, figures that was a stupid question, and goes redder.

“They’re afraid he might’ve been taken.”

That leaves Fergal utterly astounded. “Taken? Ah, God, no. Taken? By who?”

“Well, you tell me, son,” Cal says, reasonably. “I’m a stranger around here.”

“Dunno,” Fergal says, eventually.

“You’re not worried about him?”

“Brendan’s not—sure, he . . . He’s grand.”

Cal looks surprised, which doesn’t take much doing. “You’re telling me you know this for a fact, son? You’ve seen him in the last six months? Talked to him?”

All this is considerably more than Fergal was prepared for, this morning. “Ah, no, I haven’t— I haven’t talked to him, or anything. I just think he’s grand. Bren always is, sure.”

“See,” Cal says, shaking his head, “this is how I know I’m getting old. Young folks always think old folks worry too much, and old folks always think young folks don’t worry enough. Your buddy’s been missing for months, and all you think is, ‘Gee, I guess he’s OK.’ To an old guy like me, that sounds downright crazy.”

“I’d say he just got spooked, is all. Not taken. Sure, what would anyone take him for?”

“Spooked by what? Or by who?”

Fergal shifts the weight of the sack on his shoulder, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “I dunno. No one.”

“You said he got spooked, son. Meaning someone musta spooked him. Who would that be?”

“I just meant . . . He’s like that, sure. My mam says all the Reddys suffer terrible from their nerves. He’ll be back once he’s settled.”

“Miz Reddy’s wearing herself to a thread,” Cal says, “worrying about him. How would your mama feel, if you were gone this long without a word?”

This gets to Fergal. He throws a hunted look towards the house. “Not great, I’d say.”

“She’d be down on her knees day and night, sobbing her heart out and praying for her boy to come home. Not to mention,” Cal says, pushing on the weak spot, “what would she say if she knew you were keeping another mama in that kind of pain, when you could ease her mind?”

Fergal glances wistfully at the shed. Clearly he’d like to go in there, either to sit down on a stack of feed sacks and think this over, or else to stay hidden until Cal gives up and goes away.

“If anyone can help her out, son, it’s you. You’re the one Brendan went to meet the evening he headed off. You give him a ride somewhere?”

“What? He did not!”

The astonishment on Fergal’s face seems as genuine as any Cal has ever seen, but Cal looks skeptical anyway.

“He wasn’t meeting me. The last time I saw him was two or three days before. He called in looking to borrow a few quid. I gave him a hundred. He said, ‘Sound, I’ll get it back to you,’ and he went off.”

“Huh,” Cal says. If Brendan was planning on taking off, then every little bit would help, but Cal does wonder why the sudden rush. “He say what he needed it for?”