‘My mum’s best friend knew him, but she had no idea what happened to him after he left London.’
‘Or why your mom would have left him money?’
‘That isn’t the mystery that’s here for you to solve,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need to find him to pass on the details and the envelope.’
I tapped my pen on my pad softly. So, he was uncomfortable with talking about his mom’s relationship with the guy. Maybe she’d had an affair and he didn’t want me to know. ‘You’re breaking another rule.’
He frowned. ‘How so?’
‘You’re blocking me.’
‘It’s irrelevant information.’
‘Everything is relevant.’ I extended my coffee towards him. ‘Hold this.’ He took it and watched as I leaned over the back of the sofa to grab a folder from my book trolley. I pulled out one of my character worksheets. ‘Every detail builds up a picture of who that person is. And when you have enough details you can work out what they’re more likely to do or where they’re more likely to go.’ I swapped him the coffee for the worksheet and took a long drink as he skim-read it.
‘He’s not a fictional character,’ he said flatly.
‘The police do it too, because people are ridiculously predictable. It’s called profiling. Surely you’ve heard of that? You’re gonna have to give me every tiny detail if you want this to work.’
He sent me a sideways look and pinched his bottom lip for a moment, like he was contemplating changing his mind about having me help him. Despite the ridiculous hour he’d woken me up and his mercurial mood changes, I didn’t want him to backout. But equally, there was no point to this if he wasn’t going to work with me.
‘You can’t expect to get answers if you don’t ask questions,’ I added softly.
‘Granted.’ He set the character worksheet carefully on the sofa between us. I filed it back away and decided it might be best to take a different tack for the meantime. He’d agreed; he hadn’t left. I could give him a little space to get used to the idea that he was going to have to talk.
‘So, you found this address in New York and you didn’t want to write him a letter or just put the envelope in the post?’
‘No. And it’s a good job I didn’t. The building’s disappeared.’
‘Where was it?’
‘Little Italy.’
‘Oh great, we can grab some breakfast while we’re there.’
‘Why would we go there again? Didn’t you hear the story properly? The building is gone – it’s a car park now. Possibly it always was, and he gave her a fake address.’
‘Well, which is it?’
He shrugged.
‘Exactly. That, right there, is something you need to get to the bottom of. If the parking lot used to be apartments, then the address is useful to start tracking him down. If it was just made up, then we have to figure out another place to start. We need to eliminate the leads.’
‘Right. And going there will help us to do that?’ He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his hairline. His skin was beginning to glow with a sheen of sweat. Look at that, my flagging A/C had done something useful; proven he was human, not a Greek god carved from marble.
‘Well, before we fall into a black hole on the internet trying to find the information we want, we could – and I know this sounds radical in this day and age – actually go and talk to people.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged and stood up, throwing my empty coffee cup over his head towards my waste bin, watching him wince because it missed. Oh, winding Stephen up was going to be a whole lotta fun. ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’
Chapter Fifteen
Elle
Ileft him to keep delicately sweating in my living room while I grabbed a shower and got dressed. I could feel a bubble of excitement, that kernel of anticipation that meant something was going to happen and that it might be just the answer I needed to get my writer’s block dissolving. Stephen was full of potential – his story, his attitude – it was all fuel beneath the bubbling cauldron of my imagination. I grabbed my hat and bag – packed with my notebook, cell phone and keys – and joined him again.
He’d been scrolling on his phone, a look of intense concentration on his face, and was quite something to see sitting on my little couch, one ankle resting on the knee of his other leg, in his tan chinos and white polo shirt. Still somehow givingVoguespread despite the background props of sequinned cushions and empty boxes of saltines.
