White Trail by Fflur Dafydd Page A

won’t he?’ said the boy knowingly. ‘Arthur’s always up. Come on.’
    The boy tugged him lightly on his sleeve and it seemed that this was all it took – a gentle gesture from the son he’d been looking for most of his life and he was out in the thick of night, driving into the unknown in silence.
    Culhwch seemed to know exactly where the flat was, walking a few paces ahead of him down the street. Little flaws jumped out at Cilydd. A tiny little scar on his son’s forehead. A chicken-pox pot hole on his cheek. A scratch dulling on his left eyelid. Imprints from the life he had lived up till now; falls, grazes, illnesses his father hadn’t been there to witness. A whole history of happenings, furrowed in flesh.
    Arthur took his time. Cilydd heard him stumble down the stairway, working his way through the forest of Post-it leaves to get to the front door. How much would Culhwch tell Arthur? He wondered whether the whole nasty business with Doged would have to come up.
    His cousin opened the door wearing only his boxer shorts and aT-shirt, clutching a glass of whisky in one hand and a pen in the other. Insomnia lurked in his irises.
    â€˜Cilydd,’ he said, wearing a faint look of amusement. ‘Who’s your little friend?’
    â€˜Who do you think? It’s him. He’s come back,’ he replied, letting the information hang in the air between them. He thought of the fifteen long years that had passed since he and Arthur sat hunched over his desk, going over and over the details of Goleuddydd’s disappearance.
    â€˜Who’s come back? ’Arthur asked.
    â€˜My son,’ he said, although even in saying it he felt ridiculous, a sham of a father who hadn’t even been there to nurse his son through chicken pox.
    Arthur stared at the boy, before walking right up to him and tracing his nose with his fingers, as if trying to work out whether what he saw before him was real.
    â€˜My God... I’ve never, never been so right about anything before,’ he said, breathlessly.
    â€˜You’re quite the artist,’ his son said.
    â€˜What do you mean? What are you both talking about?’ Cilydd was starting to get angry now. Already his son – his rare find on this fateful night – seemed to be falling out of his grasp.
    Culhwch walked past them both and climbed the stairs. Watching him disappearing onto the landing Cilydd instinctively followed – he knew how easy it was to lose someone; that they were always a split second away from disappearing. He was afraid Arthur’s house and all its paraphernalia would swallow this boy up and they would have to start all over again. Arthur pulled him back.
    â€˜Don’t be angry with me, Cilydd. All I did was refuse to give up, that’s all. You know most private eyes give up on a case after two to five years. They terminate their contracts. But not me. Not this time. In the absence of a body, there is always hope. And this just proves that I was right. He was out there, wasn’t he?’
    â€˜What exactly did you do?’
    â€˜I think it’s easier if I show you.’
    Culhwch, it seemed, was one step ahead of them. He stood in the doorway of Arthur’s study, his arms folded, contemplating what he saw inside.
    â€˜Go ahead,' Arthur urged. ‘Take a look.’
    What Cilydd saw next left him reeling. The walls were covered in various sketches – all, it seemed, of his son at different phases in his life. There was one of him as a baby, one of him as a nine-year-old boy, one of him on the brink of adolescence. And one which exactly mirrored the way he looked now.
    â€˜You’re good,’ said Culhwch. ‘You’re really good. I mean, it’s pure guesswork as far as I can see. But somehow, you knew what combination I was going to be. Of my mother and father. Didn’t you?’
    â€˜I used to do hundreds of these things, sitting in