Chapter 24
The house is silent by the time I take my laptop into the lounge.
Jess has gone upstairs, most of the lights are off, the animals are fed, front and back doors locked, children in bed.
Callum’s outfit for Futuristic Day at school tomorrow—a silver-foil-wrapped jacket and bike helmet, plus an old pair of trainers spray-painted metallic gray—is laid out in the dining room after two hours of my wife’s painstaking labor.
I pull up Google and type the name “Shaun Hopkins” into the search bar for the second time today, going through the results more carefully this time.
But there is nothing that looks like it might relate to the man who’d turned up at my door this afternoon.
Just a lengthy collection of LinkedIn pages, Facebook accounts, businesses, and a Wikipedia entry for a nineteenth-century American railroad executive.
What was the connection between this stranger and a twenty-three-year-old missing persons case?
Shaun Hopkins—or whatever his real name might be—was only mid-twenties himself, maybe a few years older.
So he couldn’t have been involved in the disappearance of Adrian Parish.
A search using the four words “Shaun Hopkins Adrian Parish” yields nothing that might point to a connection.
Nothing that ties them together. The next hour is lost going down various internet rabbit holes, trying without success to link Sumner Street in Kimberley to an antique watch engraved with initials, to our address, or to any of the other finds in the little hidden room.
It was even possible, I supposed, that Adrian had sent the text message: that he was the one who wanted his things returned to him.
I lean back into the sofa, staring at a patch of yellowing Artex that is peeling off the ceiling above the TV. It’s already half past eleven but I no longer feel tired.
Kevin Hopkins still hasn’t called me back even though Jeremy assures me he’s passed on my number.
According to Mrs. Evans, Kevin had left the UK to work abroad, first to Dubai and then various other places around the world until he had ended up in Spain.
She wasn’t sure where he was now or exactly what he did—something to do with computers, she thought.
“His overseas jobs were only supposed to be for a few months,” Eileen Evans had told me in hushed tones.
“But the stays kept getting longer and longer until he hardly ever used to come back to visit. So poor Eric was all on his own in this big house for years.” The Google findings on Kevin Hopkins yield similarly slim pickings.
My thoughts return to Shaun. It seemed clear that I didn’t have his real name but I did have his picture: the quick snap I’d taken earlier.
I pull it up on my phone and study the hard planes of his face, dark hair shaved short at the sides, the cobra tattoo emerging from his sleeve.
The only problem was, I had no idea what to do with the picture.
I send it to Maxine in case she recognizes him—even though it seems like the longest of long shots—and asking if she still wants to meet tomorrow.
Then to Jeremy in case he’s ever seen the guy hanging around the house while he was doing a viewing, or perhaps he’d even shown him around when it was still on the market, months ago before our offer had even been—
There is a creak from the stairs.
I freeze, thumbs hovering over the phone, staring at the door.
Silence.
I listen, barely breathing.
Quietly, carefully, I move the laptop onto the sofa beside me and stand up, moving to the door as noiselessly as I can.
I stand for a moment longer, ears straining in the silence, heart thudding in my chest. There are only a handful of lights still on and the big high-ceilinged room is deep in shadow.
The creak comes again.
Just the sound of an old wooden staircase, that’s all. The sigh of an old house as it cools down for the night.
The hall is empty and there is no one in the dining room. I double-check that the French doors are locked anyway. Coco is in the kitchen, curled in her basket by the radiator, snoring quietly in her sleep.
When I flick the landing light on, a figure is illuminated on the stairs.
My son, in his pajamas, throws a hand up to his face to shield against the sudden brightness.
“Cal?” I say. “Mate, what are you doing up so late?”
His thick brown hair is sticking up in all directions.
“Can’t find him.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Stay Puft.”
“He’s got out again?”
He nods, still blinking against the light.
“The noises woke me up. Got up to check on him and couldn’t see him.”
I move up the stairs and take his small hand in mine. “Come on, let’s find him together.”
From my experience dealing with my kids’ “lost” clothes and “lost” toys, I look in the most obvious place first. I flick the light on in Callum’s room and sure enough, the hamster is still right there in his cage, safe and sound, nestled at the bottom of a large pile of shredded newspaper.
Callum’s voice is thick with confusion.
“But I couldn’t see him. Thought he’d run off again.”
“He’s fine,” I say. “He’s just sleeping. Like you should be.”
I tuck him back into bed, pull his door closed, and stand on the landing, listening to the house again.
Everything’s OK.
I go back to the lounge to collect my laptop. But instead of shutting it down, I perch on the sofa again and check my phone. I’ve called the mystery number three more times since Shaun’s visit but it went to voicemail every time.
It’s well past midnight when Steve appears in the doorway with a small meow, amber eyes blinking sleepily.
He stretches his front legs, flexing his claws into the rug, then pads over to me and jumps up, flopping half on me and half onto the keyboard.
Any time could be food time on Steve’s schedule, if someone was still awake—and now was as good a time as any.
I yawn and rub his tummy idly as he purrs his deep bass purr before I’m interrupted by the electronic ping of a message arriving on my phone.
Maxine wants to meet again.
And this time she wants to see everything I found in the hidden room.