The Family Remains(30)

We agree on a champagne upgrade, a meeting spot and a rough shape for the tour and then I end the call, my face wreathed in smiles.

I go to a bar that night with the express intention of finding someone to bring back to my gorgeous hotel room. It’s been months since I slept with anyone. Actually, longer. But here I am, in a vibrant city, far from home, far from work, far from Lucy. I feel I have covered a large amount of ground today, and I feel I deserve to let my hair down, have some cocktails, find someone nice to make me feel better about myself after the Joe interlude, which is still playing on my mind, twenty-four hours later.

I take a long shower and work my way through almost all the miniature hotel products in the process. I run a hand over my stubbled chin, but decide not to shave. Afterwards I open my laptop and browse the listings for ‘best bars near me’. Then I put on black Levi’s and a black Muji T-shirt, brown leather John Lobb loafers and a soft flannel shirt in an inky blue with a dark green overlaid check. I’m going to be Phin tonight, not the old Phin, but the new rugged one. I open the mini-bar and pull out a bottle of fancy microbrewery beer, bash off the lid, drink it from the bottleneck. I AM PHIN, I think to myself and the thought sends a charge through the core of me and I find myself, alone in a hotel room in Chicago, punching the air and saying, ‘Bring it on.’ Like an absolute weirdo.

I come back with a boy called Nicholas. Not Nick. Nicholas. He is twenty-eight but appears younger. He is not much to look at (my apologies to Nicholas’s mother), but after two hours of standing around trying to look manly and being roundly ignored by all the hot men, I took what I could get. He smells nice and, frankly, that’s often the main thing. I tell Nicholas about ‘my’ childhood, about my sociopathic father, the con artist David Thomsen, who took over people’s homes, who raped teenage girls and stole money from na?ve people and locked children in their bedrooms. His face is a picture. ‘Oh my goodness,’ he says, ‘oh my goodness,’ his hand clasping my kneecap in solidarity.

I find, when it comes down to it, I’m not actually that interested in the sex act itself. Use it or lose it, as they say. I have clearly left it too long. It is perfunctory and afterwards, it seems that I get more from the feeling of a person in the space next to me, the warm breath in the crook of my neck, the thin leg wrapped sweetly around my hips, the voice in my ear saying, ‘Phin, is it OK if I sleep over?’

I bring Nicholas’s hand over my shoulder, towards my mouth, and I kiss it, and then tuck it under my chin. ‘That would be nice. Yes. Please.’

And we fall asleep entwined, and I feel almost, but not quite, at peace.

The following morning Nicholas has gone. He has not left any traces of himself, no note, no business card. I spend some time on Grindr, seeing if I can maybe find him there, but no sign of him. I don’t know his surname, so I can’t google him. And that is that. We may have spent an entire night wrapped around each other’s naked bodies, but clearly Nicholas, dear, plain, doughy-faced boy that he was, was not keen to take things further. And as ever, I have no idea why.

But I have other things to think about today. I have my afternoon on the back of Kris Doll’s Honda Gold Wing with champagne cooling in panniers and another big step in my search for Phin. So I push Nicholas from my thoughts, and jump out of my empty bed and into the new day.





27




Samuel


Then comes the breakthrough.

Bridget Elspeth Veronica Dunlop-Evers.

Reported missing by her parents in 1996.

Her parents had not heard from her for years, had only filed the report when she failed to materialise at a sibling’s deathbed reunion. After a few months they had let it go. Theorised that Bridget – or Birdie as she was known to all and sundry – must have decided to cut her ties and make a life for herself far away from the family she had grown up in.

From the transcripts of the interviews with various members of Birdie’s family, it sounded as though Birdie had been something of a black sheep, as if she had probably been better off without them.

I adjust the collar of my shirt, straighten the paper on the desk in front of me, clear my throat, and press in the last known phone number of Birdie’s mother, Madelyn Dunlop-Evers.

‘Hello?’

The voice is frail, as you would imagine the voice of an eighty-year-old woman to be.

‘Hello. Is that Mrs Dunlop-Evers?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Good afternoon. My name is Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu.’

‘Samuel who?’

‘Owusu. Detective Inspector. I’m calling from the special crime unit at Charing Cross Police Station in London. I was hoping to talk to you about your daughter Bridget?’

‘Bridget. No. There’s no Bridget here. There’s a boy though. In the other room. I could have a look for you?’

I sigh, close my eyes slowly and open them again.

‘Is there someone there, Mrs Dunlop-Evers? Someone who could maybe answer some questions for me?’

‘About the boy?’

‘Yes. About the boy.’

I hear the phone being passed around, the muffle of hands over the speaker, different voices in the background, and then a man saying: ‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu. I’m calling from Charing Cross Police Station. From the special crime unit here. Who am I talking to?’