The Family Remains(72)
‘Yes,’ Lucy replies with an edge of sadness in her voice. ‘I do remember that. And we had to use the showers in the beach club and you and I slept under the underpass in the rain. Remember that storm?’
‘Yes. It was insane.’
‘Where was I?’ asks Stella.
‘You were at Mémé’s.’
‘Why was I at Mémé’s and not you?’
‘Because she didn’t have room for us. And because Fitz was too smelly.’
‘I didn’t like it when you left me at Mémé’s. I used to cry.’
‘I know you did. I know you did, baby. And I hated leaving you there. But we didn’t have many options back then. We were in as bad a place as it’s possible to be.’
‘Worse than now?’ asks Marco.
He watches his mother’s reaction carefully, needing to understand exactly how bad things are.
‘In some ways, yes,’ she replies. ‘When you are a parent, not being able to feed your child is just about the worst, most soul-destroying thing imaginable. And now I can feed you. I can clothe you. I can give you warm beds to sleep in—’
‘But they’re not our beds.’
Marco sees his mother breathe in sharply. ‘No. Not your beds. Your beds are waiting for you in England.’
‘But even those aren’t our real beds.’
‘No. Your real beds are in a furniture shop waiting for us to buy them and put them in the house I’m going to buy when we get back.’
‘But we haven’t got a house to put them in.’
‘Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. There might be a house to put them in when we get home. I put an offer in on a house last week. It was accepted. I’m waiting to hear back from the estate agent about getting surveys done. That kind of thing. But if everything goes according to plan, we might be moving in by the end of the summer. Maybe even earlier.’
‘What sort of house is it?’ asks Stella.
‘It’s an old house.’
‘Urgh,’ says Marco. ‘I hate old houses.’
‘I know you do. But I promise you a very large budget for your bedroom to make it as white and modern and featureless as you like.’
‘Will I have my own bathroom?’
‘Yes, you’ll have your own bathroom.’
Marco remembers the tiny, mouldy shower room at the bottom of their corridor in Giuseppe’s building in Nice that they had had to share with two other families. He remembers the feeling of his stomach rumbling at night with no food in it. He remembers his sister’s feet in his face every morning in the bed all three of them had once shared. He remembers the cold of the pavement through the yoga mat in the city squares where they’d once spent every night while his mum busked for the tourists. And then he thinks of the last year of his life, which has been so perfect, from the moment he first laid eyes on his sister, Libby, and his Uncle Henry, from the moment they first walked into Henry’s beautiful apartment with its silken sheets and marshmallow mattress toppers, security panels and plasma-screen TVs, its computerised fridge full of fresh food, double-glazed windows that stoppered the room from the noises outside, cats that lived on cushions and beds, not on street corners, steamy showers that tumbled water like tropical downpours heated to forty degrees. For a whole year Marco has had a place to be, a family, friends he can bring home, freedom to explore, regular meals, new clothes, warmth and shelter and security. And now, here, on this Chicago street, Marco discovers that his life is about to change yet again and it feels once more like a thing that teeters helplessly on a tightrope over a crevasse.
51
Samuel
It is 6 a.m. and the train is full of the dead-eyed people who head home from work at this ungodly hour and the people who head out to work at this ungodly hour and I am among their number today. But my eyes are not dead. My veins flow with adrenaline, with purpose. I am feeling propulsive.
At my desk I switch on my computer and I sip the bad black coffee for which I have a strange fondness. There is no more news about the whereabouts of Marie Caron and Phineas Thomson in Chicago. I have a contact on the force in Chicago, from a case on which we partnered with them a few years back. As a favour to me he has said that he can bring Phineas and Marie in for remote questioning, once Interpol have their precise location. I write to him and update him on the situation. Then I spend some time immersed in my ongoing search for Justin Redding, the tambourine-playing man who is too soft to kill someone. I have asked for database searches of every music college in the country, and nothing has come back. I have asked for searches of hospital and GP records and again, nothing has been returned to me. It seems that Justin Redding (a) is dead, (b) is a recluse or (c) has, like everyone else in this case, changed his name. Maybe Redding was his stage name. And if that is so, then I cannot see how we are ever going to be able to track him down. I had hoped that the news reports about Birdie’s death might have rattled some cages, dislodged some memories, opened up some doors into dusty corners. But nothing. Nobody. Silence. Who was this man who lived for a while in Cheyne Walk over twenty-five years ago with a young woman who is now dead?
Next, I turn my mind to Libby’s mother’s dog. How can I learn the truth about this? I search for Libby’s mother on Facebook. Her name is Alyssa Rutherford Jones. She is easy to find and also, happily, has an open page. I scroll through her many, many photographs. Her life is very bright. She wears bright clothes and drinks bright drinks and eats in bright restaurants and sits among bright cushions under bright blue skies. She has a partner who looks very young and wears a white shirt most of the time and has had too much tooth whitening. Libby’s mother lives a nice life in Spain. But one thing Libby’s mother does not do is enjoy the company of a dog. In particular, she does not enjoy the company of the small brown and white dog that Libby looks after. I feel that this is as much as I need to do here, that my suspicions have been borne out. I now have a greater confidence in the path that I am pursuing.