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‘Seriously? He wants you to give them some old van?’ Jack asked as they fell in step and headed back towards the farmhouse. Callum glanced over his shoulder at Beth. Worry lines were creasing her brow. She wasn’t listening to their conversation, he could tell. She was thinking about something else – but what?
‘Who are they?’ Jack asked.
Callum turned to Jack. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Is Fergus asleep?’ Beth asked, catching up with them, and cutting in.
‘I think so.’
‘You think so? You can’t leave him alone in the farmhouse! He could get up to anything.’
‘I only walked down here!’ Jack pointed out. ‘You were out here a long time.’
Beth glared at him. ‘I’m going to check on him right now.’
‘What’s got into her?’ Jack commented staring after her.
Callum shrugged.
Jack apologised, ‘Sorry, not sure what her problem is. I thought he was asleep, and I only stepped out of the house for a minute.’
Callum didn’t know what her problem was either, although he had an idea as he glanced at the farmhouse.The problem is me, being here, stirring up a mistake she made five years ago.He sighed, realising the time had come to leave.
‘Do you know how you’ll find them, the girls in the photo, and what they have to do with your dad?’
‘I don’t know.’ Callum didn’t really want to get into it. He wished he hadn’t mentioned it.
Jack said, ‘Do you mind if I make an observation?’
Callum raised an eyebrow, wondering what was on his mind. ‘Er, no … not at all.’
‘Look, mate, your dad is … unwell. Whoever he thinks these girls are, and why he thinks he needs them to have the campervan …’He trailed off. ‘What I’m trying to say, and not making a good job of it, I might add, is I reckon it’s the dementia messing with his mind, with his memories.’
Callum stared at him a long moment. ‘You’re saying that however this photo came into my dad’s possession, this business about giving them the campervan is nonsense?’
Jack nodded. ‘I can’t imagine what you’re going through. If he can’t distinguish what is real and what isn’t, how canyouin terms of what he’s saying to you?’
Callum nearly blurted,I know the bookshop is real because I spoke to a solicitor.He pushed that thought to one side, and focused on the photo. Was it possible that it was just a coincidence that two girls, perhaps local or on holiday, had their photo taken outside the bookshop? But how had the photo ended up in a wallet in the back of his dad’s desk drawer? Perhaps he’d found the wallet, meaning to return it to the real owner.
Callum looked at Jack, mulling over what he’d just said. Callum was wondering if he’d got things all wrong. When his dad had told him about the wallet in the desk drawer, and asked him to take the campervan to give it to the girls in the photo, he had assumed his dad was in his right mind. When he’d returned with the wallet to see his dad, and he’d said it wasn’t his, Callum had thought that his dad was confused and that it was the dementia talking.
Callum was thinking about a plausible explanation for all this. What if, when his dad had bought the campervan years ago, he’d found the wallet in the van? Then he’d put the wallet in his desk drawer for safekeeping, intending to return it, and had forgotten all about it. That might explain why he thought the campervan should be returned to the previous owner’s kids. The fact that the two girls had happened to have their photo taken outside the bookshop might simply be a coincidence.
Callum stared at his best friend. If Jack’s theory was true, then all these thoughts going around his head about the possibility his dad might have led a double life with a second family would turn out quite false.
Jack stared at Callum, and burst out laughing. ‘Sorry, mate, but what on earth has got into you? I know Henry. There is no way on this earth that your dad led a double life – if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘But how can you be so sure?’
‘Because he is Henry. I mean, I don’t think he’d have it in him to do that – do you?’
Callum stared at Jack. ‘It does sound ridiculous – doesn’t it?’
‘Completely. You know what I think? Your show has just been cancelled, you’re all over the place, and your dad is messing with your head – through no fault of his own, obviously. I am really sorry to say this, but I think he’s led you on a merry goose chase. It’s all a load of claptrap, the wallet, the girls, and the campervan. If I were you, I’d forget about it.’
But I can’t. What about the bookshop?Callum wanted to ask. That was the huge spanner in the works of Jack’s thinking.
‘You look tired, mate. I’m really sorry you can’t stay. Actually, why don’t you stay? Sod the guests, they can think what they like when they turn up to a campervan on the drive. In actual fact, I think I’m going to cancel one of the bookings. The rooms are all taken in the farmhouse too. We’re running a bed and breakfast. But I can cancel somebody and you could stay—’
