Page 78 of All the Things We Never Knew

You might be pleasantly surprised, I told Lulu. Your brother’s been working hard.

So Lulu took her headphones out. She and I and the cats sat together on the sofa and Barney began to play – hesitantly at first, because he’s not used to having an audience, but then with growing confidence, even showing off a bit as he got to what I guessed was a particularly complex point in the piece, speeding up and then bursting into giggles as he hit a succession of wrong notes.

Hey, Lulu said. You’re actually not shit.

I am quite shit, her brother countered modestly. But I’m getting better.

Lulu looked at him almost as if she was seeing him for the first time. Since when’s this been a thing?

Barney explained that he has been coming round here a few times a week for the past few months to practise, since before his father’s death, and looked at me slightly doubtfully as he told his sister that I hadn’t minded – I’d encouraged it. I reassured him that I didn’t mind at all.

Lulu said, Wow. You know, if you’d started when you were younger, you could’ve been, like, a prodigy or something. Like Mozart. Only not deaf.

That was Beethoven, Barney said. Don’t you know anything?

Then I offered them some of the strawberry ice cream I have in the freezer, and they followed me eagerly to the kitchen. While we ate, a sudden connection leaped into my mind. Joel Chamberlain. The musician Anna had gone to see play; the man whose photograph I cut from Beatrice’s magazine and sent to Laurel. The man who must have been the recipient of Gray’s kidney donation all those years ago.

It was the taste of the ice cream that reminded me of it. When I’m ill, it’s one of the few foods I can face. My grandmother always used to tempt me with it when I was a child, and I suppose the comfort it gives me is associated with that, rather than with any physical benefit.

When I’d been laid in bed with a cold, all those years ago, and the strange man came to knock at the door of number eight, only to be told by Gray never to come again, I’d eventually made my way downstairs and ice cream was the first thing I ate. That man – that stranger – was Joel Chamberlain.

I am as certain of it as I can be. What was he doing here, and why did Gray not want to reconnect with an old friend?

FORTY-SIX

LAUREL

I stepped through the glass doors into the hotel lobby, the red carpet soft beneath my feet. Two liveried doormen stood on either side of the entrance, politely welcoming expressions on their faces; I returned their smiles but didn’t speak to them. I was feeling as out of place as I had arriving at the luxury country hotel where I’d spent Valentine’s night with Gray – more so, because this time I wasn’t sure of the welcome I’d receive from the person I’d come to meet.

I’d made my approach to Joel Chamberlain cautiously and formally, using the email address I had found online for his agent and explaining that I’d known Nigel Graham, a former school friend of Joel’s, and would appreciate it if he could meet me to talk about him. I hadn’t known what I’d do if my email was ignored or my request refused – but to my surprise I had woken to an email in response to mine, sent late the previous night.

Laurel,

My agent forwarded your message to me. I’d be glad to speak to you, but I am only in London until late morning tomorrow. Perhaps you could come to the hotel where I’m staying?

And he’d provided the address of this plushy, yet somehow generic, five-star hotel on Kensington High Street. It was the sort of place where well-heeled tourists might base themselves for a long weekend, or visitors from the Middle East planning a shopping spree at Harrods and Harvey Nichols.

It wasn’t the sort of place that had a computerised check-in system, like the Premier Inn where Gray and I had spent that handful of nights. But that was just as well, because I wasn’t checking in.

I approached the reception desk where more smiling, uniformed staff were greeting guests, and porters with trolleys were whisking vast suitcases off in the direction of the lifts.

‘How may I help you, Madam?’ asked a heavily made-up blonde woman.

I swallowed. ‘I’m here to see someone who’s staying here. Joel Chamberlain. My name’s Laurel Norton.’

‘One moment please.’

She lifted a telephone from its cradle, spoke briefly into it, then said, ‘Please take a seat.’

I took one – a red velvet armchair next to a varnished wood table holding an arrangement of lilies and copies of that day’s newspapers. The papers were too unspoiled and crisp for me to dare to pick one up, so I sat empty handed, my bag on my lap, watching the lift doors.

After a few minutes, Joel Chamberlain emerged. He was recognisable from the photo I’d seen in the magazine and recognisable as the musician who’d captivated me on stage at the Royal Albert Hall a few days before – but also not. The charisma that had illuminated him then was dimmed now – he was just a rangy, graceful man in jeans and a faded sweatshirt.

He approached the reception desk and said something to the blonde woman, who gestured. Then he turned and approached me, and I stood up, extending my hand to him.

‘Thank you for meeting me,’ I said. ‘I know this is kind of weird. I’m not a stalker, I promise. Although I saw you play the other night. It was wonderful.’

He looked down at me, his expression somewhere between curious and puzzled. ‘Thank you. I’m delighted you enjoyed it.’