"Don't!" cried Alex. "It wasn't Dad's fault. It's not him, it's me!"
"Stay out of this, young lady. You mean bastard of a man! How could you? How… dare you!" she slapped her hand hard against my chest, doing no harm but venting her rage, She did it again, harder. I stood there, taking it.
"How could you keep it from me? How? What gives you the right? Who appointed you lord high saviour of… anything? Do you have no feeling, no comprehension of what it's been like?"
"I've been meaning to tell you," I said softly.
"Meaning to? When's that? When it comes up on your agenda? When you get around to it? When you get off your selfish arse and do something?" She was shouting.
"It's complicated," I tried.
"How complicated is it? She was dead, Niall. D-E-A-D, Dead!" She spat the words through her gritted teeth. "We went to her funeral, God help me. You gave a speech! You cried, dammit!"
"I didn't know then."
"When? When did you know? I want you to tell me right now," she insisted, she dashed tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Afterwards."
"How long afterwards?" she insisted, drilling her finger into my chest.
"Mum, there's stuff you don't know," interrupted Alex. "Things are different. I'm different."
"You are still my girl," she turned on Alex, "but this is between me and your father." She turned back to me, "You have a lot to answer for Niall Petersen."
"More than you know," I confirmed, trying not to react to her anger.
"When did you know that Alex was alive? You won't answer that question, will you?"
"I wasn't sure at first. I thought… I thought I was going mad."
"You still won't tell me."
"After the funeral, the memorial service, whatever it was. I heard Alex's voice. I thought I was imagining it."
"Where? Where did you hear her voice?" she insisted.
"In the bathroom."
She stopped, taken back by the simple honesty of my response. Then she recovered. "You can't disguise your deception like that, I'm not listening to any more of your lies. I want the truth."
"That is the truth."
All the history was coming back to me now. Her doubts and her suspicions, going through my clothes, though my things, always looking for anything on which she could hang her accusations. I remembered why I used to love this woman, but I also remembered why I came to hate her.
"You always twist things," she said. "You don't even know what the truth is!"
"I've had enough!" I shouted back at her. "You have no freakin' idea what you are talking about."
I batted her hand aside where she was about to poke me again.
I was breathing hard. "You ask me whether I have rights, well I do! I am her father. It was me who went through hell to find her, tore buildings down to reach her, saw things that no man should have to see — just to save her!"
I was spitting the words out. Katherine's face flushed like she'd been slapped.
"You talk about pain, you have no clue. You carp on about how you feel and what you went through, but it's all about you! You don't know what pain is. You're living in a dream! You sit on your fat arse in your cosy house with your cosy man and his bloody Toyota…"
"Leave Barry out of this."
"…dreaming of holidays in the Algarve and a new greenhouse. What did you risk? What did you do? A big fat nothing, that's what!"
"You're only angry because you're in the wrong," she accused.
"In the wrong? How can I be in the wrong? I brought your daughter back from the dead, didn't I? Isn't that enough?"
I pushed her backwards, which I swear is the first time I had ever laid hands on her. "You don't know anything. You think you're safe. Your house was watched, did you know that? There were two guys in a car, outside, watching your house."
"My house? What for?"
"They were looking for me and they couldn't find me, but they knew where you were." The moment I said it I knew I'd said the wrong thing.
Her eyes narrowed. "People were spying on me because of you? What kind of people? Police? Is that what you're saying, because you're involved in something dodgy and it sounds like you're up to your eyeballs in it."
"Not police, something else."
"Gangsters, is it? Are involved with organised crime? I wouldn't put it past you."
"Is that what you think of me? Is that what you think I've been doing?"
"All I know is that you're bloody evasive about it. Whatever it is you and Blackbird do, you are both in on it. She's even more vague than you are." She pointed back to the car park. "Who is the heavy in the car? What does he call himself… Dave? I bet that's not his real name. For that matter, where did you get a car like that? You don't even have a job for God's sake! Is it drugs? Is that what's funding this lifestyle? Is that what you've got my daughter involved with?"
"Your daughter? Yours? Don't you mean ours?"
"Alex, get in the car now! We're going home." She looked around. "Alex?"
I looked around and there was no sign of her.
"Shit!" I said.
"Well, she can't have gone far. She's probably sulking somewhere."
"You have no idea, do you?"
"Don't start that again. Find your daughter. You keep telling me what a wonderful father you are. Do something." She twisted around, searching for a sign of Alex.
"I knew this was a bad idea," I said.
"Don't just stand there. Search for her. She's probably in that coppice on the rise."
I went back to the bench, and sat down heavily, holding my head in my hands.
"Niall! Where's Alex?"
"Good question! Where is she? It took me months to find her but I dare say you can do it in a few minutes, so go and look for her!"
"All right, I will." She bustled off towards the wood, shouting for Alex.
The coppice was where the node point was for the Ways, so if Alex had gone there she could be miles away by now. She had probably gone back to the courts, fed up of seeing her parents in one more slanging match. I turned and looked back to the car park, where Dave waited with the car. His head was back and he looked like he was asleep. Maybe he didn't want to get involved in the conflict either.
I watched Katherine march back over to me. "She's not there."
"No."
"She won't answer me."
"She's probably gone back. She'll be all right."
"Gone back where? How? For that matter, where's your car?"
"I didn't bring one."
"Do you live nearby?" She looked around. I had deliberately picked somewhere isolated, so there wasn't much to see beyond the lake that was once a gravel pit, the occasional distant dog-walker, and the rolling countryside.
"No. It's many miles from here."
"That's what I mean about you being evasive." The note of criticism crept back into her tone.
I stood up. "Katherine, I'm tired of arguing with you. I'm tired of protecting you, and I'm tired of your constant carping. You may or may not like what I am and what I do, but I'm tired of trying to explain things to you. Actually, I'm just tired."
"Well, if you behaved like any decent man…"
"Come on." I walked towards the cluster of trees.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to look for Alex."
"I've just been up there. She isn't there."
"She could be ten feet away and you wouldn't know it. She'll turn up when she's ready."
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
She trotted after me. "There's no need to be like that. We'll give you a lift. We can drop you off. I'm sure your man knows where to take you. He can drop you off first if you like?"