The Summer That Never Was by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online

the inordinate amount of interest the gutter press took in the whole affair at the time. It’s Neil Byrd. I thought most people knew about Neil and me.”
    “Oh, I know who he was and what happened. I just don’t remember the details. He was a pop singer, wasn’t he?”
    “A pop singer? He’d have been disgusted to hear himself called that. He thought of himself more as a sort of modern troubadour, more of a poet than anything else.”
    From singer-songwriter to footballer, Annie thought, the way Marilyn Monroe went from baseball player to playwright. There was clearly more to Robin Armitage than met the eye. “Please excuse my ignorance and refresh my memory,” she said.
    Robin glanced out of the window, where a large thrush had found a worm on the lawn, then sat down beside her husband. He took her hand as she spoke. “You’re probably thinking it seems like an odd combination,” she said. “But Neil was the first man not to treat me like a complete moron because of my looks. It’s difficult being…well, you know, looking like I did. Most men are either too scared to approach you or they think you must be an easy lay. With Neil, it was neither.”
    “How long were you together?”
    “About five years. Luke was only two when Neil walked out on us. Just like that. No warning. He said he needed his solitude and couldn’t afford to be burdened with a family any longer. That’s exactly the way he put it: Burdened .”
    “I’m sorry,” said Annie. “What happened? What about your career?”
    “I was twenty-five when we met, and I’d been modelling since I was fourteen. It was hard to get my figure backafter Luke, of course, and I was never quite the same as before, but I still got work, mostly TV commercials, a small and very forgettable part in a slasher film, part fifteen of some series or other. But why do you need to know all this? It can’t have anything to do with Luke’s disappearance. Neil’s been dead for twelve years.”
    “I agree with my wife,” said Martin. “As I said earlier, I can’t see what relevance all this has.”
    “I’m just trying to get as much background as I can,” Annie explained. “You never know what might be important with missing persons, what might trigger them. Does Luke know who his father was?”
    “Oh, yes. He doesn’t remember Neil, of course, but I told him. I thought it important not to keep secrets from him.”
    “How long has he known?”
    “I told him when he was twelve.”
    “And before that?”
    “Martin is the only father he has known.”
    So for seven years, Annie calculated, Luke had accepted Martin Armitage as his true father, then his mother had dropped the bombshell about Neil Byrd. “How did he react to the news?” she asked.
    “He was confused, naturally,” said Robin. “And he asked a lot of questions. But other than that…I don’t know. He didn’t talk about it much afterwards.”
    Annie made a couple of notes as she digested this. She thought there must be more to it than Robin let on, but perhaps not. Kids can be surprisingly resilient. And unexpectedly sensitive.
    “Do you still have any contact with any of Neil Byrd’s friends or relatives?” Annie asked.
    “Good Lord, no. Neil’s parents both died young–that was one of the things that haunted him–and I don’t move in those sorts of circles any more.”
    “May I see Luke’s room?”
    “Of course.” Robin led Annie out into the hall, up a flight of worn stone stairs to the upper floor, where sheturned to the left and opened the heavy oak door of the second room along.
    Annie turned on the bedside light. It took her a few moments to register that the room was black except for the carpeted floor. It faced north, so it didn’t get a lot of sun, and even with the bedside light on–there was no ceiling light–it looked gloomy. It was tidier than she had expected, though, and almost Spartan in its contents.
    Luke, or someone, had painted a solar system and stars on