MORNING SERIAL
GWYN nods, a bit nervously. What’s the boy up to?
“It wasn’t me.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean, I didn’t do it.” “The fire?” Gwyn knows that’s not true. “I saw you,” he says, shaking his head.
“Oh no. Not that,” says Pigeon, waving his hand dismissively “I mean the murder.”
Gwyn looks at him. The lad’s still got a screw loose.
“Anyway,” says Gwyn quickly, “Must be going.” What had he been hoping to achieve anyway?
“She did it,” said Pigeon suddenly.
Gwyn didn’t even have to ask who. He knew. That pale child with the eyes. The one he’d removed from his statement. That small lie by omission. Gwyn walked away, down the road as quick as his short legs could carry him.
Maybe it was seeing him with Gwyn. Or maybe it’s the book: Hans Christian Anderson.
Pigeon? That big gap between them. Like two sides of a whole world. I don’t know.
Or maybe it’s the jump he made into that pool. The cold feeling I had, of not wanting him to. And the terrible fear as I heard him slice the water.
Or maybe it is what Dafydd said? Dafydd’s thin voice, telling Efa about Pigeon. About Pigeon watching me.
It could be any of these things. But I think all of them boil down to one: Pigeon is what everything’s about. He’s in the middle of everything.
And even though him being back ties a knot in my stomach so tight I can barely breathe, I missed him when he wasn’t here.
When he wasn’t here, running along the wet streets, or collecting things in endless piles of memories, or telling stories which hiss and bubble, or causing trouble.
I missed him. Like an arm or a leg. Or a mouth, if it was suddenly gone.
So when Cher calls round to go shopping together, I tell I’ll see her later up at the quarry, and I go to call on Pigeon.
> Pigeon is the winner of the Wales Book of the Year and the Rhys Davies Fiction Prize. Published by Parthian
CONTINUES TOMORROW