The Family Remains(34)

Kris laughs. ‘No. Ha! Not quite. Though he was locked in a room by his psycho dad.’ He checks to see that I’m suitably shocked by the revelation, which I do a good job of pretending that I am, before continuing. ‘He lived in, like, this mansion. Overlooking the Thames. And his dad was some kind of con artist, bamboozled this wealthy family out of all their worldly goods and then went mad, started locking people up. He escaped from there when he was a teenager and has been on the run ever since.’

‘On the run from his father?’

‘No, not from his father. I think he died, somehow. But there were other people in the house while all this was going on, people he didn’t want to know any more. Like, some guy who handcuffed him to a radiator or something.’

I swallow again, hard. ‘Sounds gothic.’

‘Yeah. Super-dark. But somehow this guy – Finn, his name was Finn – he managed to kind of rise above it. Radiate goodness, you know. Other people might have let the damage taint them. But he didn’t. He just ploughed his own furrow. Did his own thing.’

‘He sounds inspiring.’

‘Yes. He is.’

My ears prick up at Kris’s sudden use of the present tense. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Got a job on a game reserve in Africa somewhere. That was always his passion. Animals. Conservation. All of that kind of thing.’ He turns his beer bottle slowly between the palms of his hands and says, ‘Apparently he’s back.’

‘He’s—’ I stop and pull myself back from appearing too excited.

‘Yeah. Just got in a few days ago.’

‘Here? Chicago?’

‘Yup. I bumped into a mutual friend yesterday, who said he’d seen him around. He was just about to check into an Airbnb apparently. I might see if I can hook up with him; he’s always a balm, y’know.’ He sighs and tips the dregs of his beer into the beach. ‘Anyway. I think it’s getting about time …’

‘Yes,’ I agree immediately. ‘Yes, it probably is.’

The sky is dark blue now, the black rectangles of the skyscrapers across the lake glow gold through their lit-up windows.

I quickly finish the rest of the cheap warm champagne and take the empty bottle to a bin. My brain spins in circles as I mount the Gold Wing and put the helmet back on. It’s a fifteen-minute drive back to my hotel. As we pull up outside the hotel I unbuckle my wristwatch and slip it into the pannier of his bike.

Then I pass Kris back the helmet and I wave him goodbye. He thinks he’ll never see me again. But he’s wrong.





30




Samuel


Philip Dunlop-Evers is a small man with thinning hair and a weak chin. He wears a white polo shirt with blue jeans and cheap leather shoes. I button my suit jacket and stand to greet him with an outstretched hand.

‘Thank you, Philip, for coming at such short notice,’ I say.

‘It’s no problem at all. I mean, it’s my sister, after all. I can’t think of a better reason to cancel a few plans and get on a train.’

‘Take a seat. Please.’

He sits and peers at me. He looks as if his head is spinning with thoughts. Hardly surprising.

‘Philip. We recently received a call from a mud-larker. Do you know what a mud-larker is?’

He nods.

‘He had found some bones washed up. A full set of human bones. We believe, Philip, that they may belong to your sister, Bridget.’

‘Birdie.’ He says this in a whisper.

‘Yes. Birdie. Of course. So if you don’t mind, if you’re OK, I wanted to run through some details with you. Just to confirm. Tell me, Philip, what happened the last time you saw Birdie? Can you recall?’

‘Yes. Very clearly. She was sort of famous at the time.’

‘I hear she was once in a pop band.’

‘That’s right. They had a big hit; it was number one for weeks. She was jetting off all over the place. It was … We’re a musical family, but it wasn’t quite the thing, you know, to be so … visible. We were all a bit taken aback by the whole thing. She and the band were doing a gig at the Corn Exchange so she spent the night with Mum and Dad rather than in a hotel with the band. I was, what, fourteen? Fifteen? I remember it clearly. There was a big row between Birdie and my mother. There was always a big row between Birdie and my mother. My mother doesn’t really like girls, you see. She had six boys and two girls and never got on with either of them. After that Birdie didn’t come home. Not once. I know my sister saw her from time to time – she would know more about that period of Birdie’s life – but she passed away a long time ago.’

‘Ah. Was this perhaps the sibling deathbed request that alerted your parents to Birdie’s disappearance?’

‘Yes. Jenny’s death. We tried everything to track Birdie down, but nobody seemed to know anything. None of the band members. She’d had a boyfriend, Justin. No sign of him, and obviously this was the mid-nineties. Nobody had social media. Nobody had mobile phones. No internet. We just hit a wall. We didn’t know what else to do. We all sat with Jenny until she passed and then, after the funeral, one of us – my brother Dicky, I think – reported Birdie missing to the police. And, well, you know the rest.’

‘And Justin. The boyfriend. What can you remember about him?’