Chapter Thirteen: Finding the sausage

‘If there’s a woman and champagne, there’s no way Dylan will have left this room – not this quickly.’

‘Speaking from experience?’ Troy asks me with a cheeky wink as he places an ear on the door of room 398 to see if he can hear anything. ‘I think I can hear crying.’

‘What?’

I put my ear to the door a little too enthusiastically and knock my head on it.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ I say, just as the door opens causing me and Troy to fall into room 398.

Still on the floor, I gaze up expecting to see Lola, only to see a very tall man wearing very high heels, a hairnet and women’s underwear. I can tell that he has been crying because his make-up is smudged all over his face, and his blonde wig is spread out on the floor like roadkill.

‘Lola?’ I ask, my brain putting two and two together.

He starts crying again. I look over at Troy who is just staring blankly, like his brain is processing the evidence in front of us a little slower than mine did. I may not be shockable when it comes to what Dylan gets up to, but this scenario is new to me.

‘I’m looking for Dylan,’ I say softly. ‘Was he here?’

‘He was,’ Lola yells, spitting on the floor in temper – what a lady. ‘The drunk pig, he’s gone now.’

I climb up off the floor and sit down on the bed next to Lola, which I’m guessing isn’t his real name but it’s the only one I have for him.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘We really hit it off, we came back here, I ordered some champagne… One thing led to another.’

I glance over at Troy who is still on the floor, only now he’s looking shocked to his core.

‘So what went wrong?’ I ask – as if I didn’t know.

‘Well, we were kissing–’

‘You were kissing?’ Troy interrupts. ‘You and Dylan? Kissing?’

‘Yes,’ Lola replies, clearly offended. ‘Would you like some too?’

Troy shuts up and goes back to just staring in amazement.

‘We were kissing,’ Lola continues, ‘but when we started undressing each other he must have realised that I am not a natural woman and he went crazy. First he tried to jump out of the window, then he realise we were on the third floor and bolted for the door.’

I bet he did. Dylan is the kind of man who won’t even wear pink, so getting off with a man is way out of his comfort zone.

‘When was this?’ I ask.

‘A few minutes before you arrived,’ Lola tells us.

I give him/her a hug and then grab Troy by the hand, pulling him up and dragging him towards the lift.

‘That was a man,’ Troy says when the doors are finally closed.

‘Yep,’ I reply.

‘That was so blatantly a man though.’

‘Yep. I could see his Adam’s apple.’

‘Nicole, I could see his penis. He was a man. How did Dylan not know that was a man?’

‘Lord knows,’ I say, laughing to myself. ‘I can’t believe he tried to jump out of the window. And there wasn’t any champagne in that room, which means he took it. Which means he is still off his face and things are only going to get worse.’

The lift pings and the doors open. The lobby is busy with all of the ‘festival people’ checking out, but we can’t see Dylan anywhere.

‘Roger,’ Troy calls out, spotting him making his way towards the exit. His shift must be over, but he might have seen Dylan pass through here. ‘Has Dylan been down here?’

‘The last time I saw him he was with…’ Roger’s voice trails off.

‘Yeah, thanks for the warning,’ Troy says, pushing money into his pocket. ‘Next time I’d open with the important details if I were you.’

I plonk myself down on the sofa behind us. The trail has gone cold and time is almost up.

‘Get back up,’ Troy insists. ‘We’re not done yet.’

‘Unless you know something that I don’t, we’re so done.’

‘Look, Roger didn’t see him leave. That means he’s still in here somewhere. I doubt he had time to find another girl – or boy – so he must be in one of the public areas. One last sweep of the place, what do you say?’

You’ve got to admire his enthusiasm, although this is his first Dylan hunt. This kind of nightmare is a regular occurrence for me, although he’s never proved this hard to find before.

‘OK.’ I pull myself to my feet with what little energy I have left. ‘One last sweep.’