‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Message me where’s best.’
I walk back to my bus, deep in thought and, possibly, second thoughts.
Why is Finlay Hart, born without a heart, the man who didn’t care about his mother dying and couldn’t bring himself to exchange more than a few terse words with his father and sister at her funeral, exerting himself to find Mr Hart? He lives in New York, he could respectably wash his hands of this, leave instructions for his father’s return. As he says, his dad doesn’t know who he is.
In the minutes it takes for the bus to pull round the corner, I think – if it’s not love, could it be money?
Is it to get the will changed, if he’s been disinherited? Fast-tracking Dad to a home, house straight on the market, and no Susie to object or interfere? Or indeed, claim half. It seems possible.
If that’s the case, am I being an accomplice, by retrieving his dad? Putting a smiling friendly face to the plot? I rationalise: if it is that, I’m still better placed by his side if I want to prove it and prevent it. If Mr Hart’s happy and safe at home for now, who is Fin to hustle him into care?
Ghost Susie’s voice swims into my head, immediate and unbidden.
You know what they say, Eve. To catch a thief, you have to climb into his rented Mercedes Benz S-Class.
25
The immutable law of my workplace is that you are always in the wrong, somehow. When I ask to be granted the holiday allowance that we were being strong-armed to take, it turns out I’m still a troublemaker.
‘Yeah, it’s wunderbar you’re miraculously complying, Eve, but does it have to be, like, today?’ Kirsty drawled, when I requested it, having emailed the evening before. ‘Has Brad Pitt swung by in his Gulfstream and said get in loser we’re going shopping?’
Kirsty is a pretend-posh person. She could come from Cairo or Kettering.
‘Yes, ideally today, please?’ I say, ignoring the sarcasm. Kirsty does a windy sigh and leaves me listening to the tap-tap of her mocha shimmer Shellacs on her keyboard, as if she’s calling up a vital spreadsheet when she’s almost certainly continuing an email to a friend. ‘Hmmm …’ she draws it out. ‘Hmmmm … if you can work a half day and take the afternoon off, I can just about swing it. Call me your Fairy Godmother,’ she said.
I got off the phone to her and explained my exceptionally fortunate dispensation to the rest of the office.
‘Fucking hell, the fuss they make over leave. You’re not Obama, are you,’ Phil says. ‘It’s not like the irreverently captioned clickbait farms will be in chaos, and the financial markets wracked with uncertainty until you return. Death to our neoliberal overlords.’
‘They have to create a narrative, Phil,’ I say, playing to his gallery. ‘Where we take liberties and they’re endlessly patient and understanding. That way their punitive measures are always in the context of being harassed, exhausted parents who finally snapped.’
‘I think they’re just twats,’ Seth says.
Ed messages to tentatively ask if we’re ready to reinstate the pub quiz yet, and I say no. When he tries to message again asking how I’m feeling, I reply that I’m up north for it.
My phone rings.
‘Edinburgh, why?’
I explain.
‘The fuck?! You’re going to Scotland with him?’
‘Yes?’ I’m troubled by the strength of Ed’s reaction.
He couldn’t fake this, simply to act the good guy protector for much-needed brownie points – he seems genuinely astounded.
‘You don’t know this guy from Adam and what we do know is unpleasant. How is this remotely safe, for one thing?’
I hadn’t fully thought it through and I don’t want to admit this.
‘He’s back to New York soon, I don’t think he’s likely to …’ I trail off.
‘Commit any offences when it’ll mean extraditing him to charge him? Solid reasoning, five out of five.’
‘What are you suggesting? I know he’s never going to win Personality of the Year but I didn’t take him for any sort of sex predator.’
‘No, if I recall rightly, you more liked him for serial killing. Plus hoodwinking his decrepit father out of a fortune.’
‘If he is doing that, this way, I have a ringside seat for the plot …’
‘What?! Are you Jessica Fletcher now?’
Ed leaves an aghast pause.
‘… You’re not yourself and you’re not thinking straight.’
‘I appreciate the chivalry but I know what I’m doing. Life isn’t risk free and I caused their dad to do this runner. I have to help or I won’t sleep at night.’
Ed says, ‘Hmmm. He was certainly happy to blame you, wasn’t he? What does that tell you?’
I mutter non-committal things. He twisted my arm, but I have to admit that had he not done so, I would’ve said no.
‘If you’re doing this, can I ask you to do something? For me?’ Ed says.
‘Which is …?’
‘Message me every day, at nine p.m., in such a way that I know it’s definitely you, and let me know you’re alright? Don’t say it’s an arranged check-in, in so many words. Then if anyone else has your phone, they won’t know to do it on your behalf. If I don’t get the message, I’ll be calling the police, and on the first train up there. Send me a photo of the licence plate of the car, too. Don’t let him see you taking it.’
I laugh. ‘Seriously? You don’t have to turn white kni—’
‘Yes I’m serious!’ Ed says, with vehemence. ‘You’re about to skip to another country with a dubious man you don’t know, on a wild goose chase where he’s running the show and picking up the tab. This has Very Creepy Interlude all over it.’
I agree I will send proofs of life and Ed calms down a notch. Yet when I end the call, my insouciance evaporates.
It’s two o’clock in the afternoon by the time I’m waiting with my packed bag outside my house, ready to climb into Finlay Hart’s waiting car. It’s a dark Audi, you called it wrong there, Susie.
He gets out and opens the boot, takes my bag from me. He’s wearing a fine-knit sweater under a navy trench coat, which he shucks off his shoulders and throws across the back seat. I notice his clothes have that quietly expensive quality where they’re unshowy, yet hang perfectly. If I bought a black jumper and a blue coat, they wouldn’t look like that.
There’s no opportunity to slyly paparazzi number plates. First fail.
‘We should be there by dinner time,’ he says, after hello. ‘Five hours, I reckon. Give or take.’
‘Dinner is the best time to arrive anywhere,’ I say, in a hopefully amicable tone, as I get into the passenger seat. ‘… How come you don’t sound more American? There’s only the smallest hint.’
I’m trying for friendly irreverence. It has belatedly dawned on me that never mind danger, I furthermore have hour after tedious hour in the company of someone with the conversational charm of a wooden actor playing a Nazi guard.
‘I thought I did,’ Finlay says, neither sounding offended or especially animated. ‘I moved to the States when I was twenty so your accent and vocabulary is pretty fixed by that point. Plus a lot of friends are expats.’