Читать книгу A Darker Domain - Val McDermid - Страница 7

Wednesday 27th June 2007; Glenrothes

Karen scratched her head with her pen. Why do I get all the good ones? ‘Why did you leave it so long to try to trace your father?’

She caught a fleeting expression of irritation round Misha’s mouth and eyes. ‘Because I’d been brought up thinking my father was a selfish blackleg bastard. What he did cast my mother adrift from her own community. It got me bullied in the play park and at school. I didn’t think a man who dumped his family in the shit like that would be bothered about his grandson.’

‘He sent money,’ Karen said.

‘A few quid here, a few quid there. Blood money,’ Misha said. ‘Like I said, my mum wouldn’t touch it. She gave it away. I never saw the benefit of it.’

‘Maybe he tried to make it up to your mum. Parents don’t always tell us the uncomfortable truths.’

Misha shook her head. ‘You don’t know my mum. Even with Luke’s life at stake, she wasn’t comfortable with me trying to track down my dad.’

To Karen, it seemed a thin reason for avoiding a man who might provide the key to a boy’s future. But she knew how deep feelings ran in the old mining communities, so she let it lie. ‘You say he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. What happened when you went looking for him?’