‘WELL, THE PROBLEM IS that knowing his name doesn’t really change anything,’ Louise said. ‘Just because she kept those photos to herself doesn’t have to mean what you think it means. It may just be that it reminded her of something she wanted to keep private.’
‘Yeah,’ Daniel replied sarcastically. ‘Guess what?’
‘Women do things that you wouldn’t. We keep letters, bits of things which look like rubbish to anyone else but they remind us of something precious that doesn’t matter to anyone else.’
‘My mum’s not that sort of woman,’ Daniel said.
The ironic smile that crossed Louise’s face was one of the few things he didn’t like about her. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know my own mother.’
‘So you know she loves you. She’s crazy about you. Why don’t you trust her?’
Daniel thought about it. ‘I do trust her. It’s just that I always felt there was something wrong.’ He couldn’t find the words to explain to Louise. When he was little he used to have the secret idea that there had been a mistake; that his dad was still alive somewhere, and one day they would meet. Now it all seemed to be coming true.
‘A few days ago I didn’t know this person existed, ‘ he told Louise. ‘Now I have his name and I know what he looks like. Finding him won’t be too hard.’
‘Suppose he’s gone back to Nigeria.’
‘Then it won’t be easy.’ He paused, thinking about it. ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’
They spent the rest of the night working out how to locate Chris. There were a dozen Adebowales in the London phone book, but none of them had the initial C.
‘He needn’t be here,’ Louise said. ‘He could be anywhere in the country.’
By the time they went to bed Daniel had run out of ideas.
In the morning Louise packed her suitcase early, and Daniel put it in the boot of the car. He had arranged his classes so he could go in halfway through the morning. This gave them time to talk before Louise left to drive down to Devon.
‘Should I stay?’ she asked at the last moment. ‘I can put it off.’
Daniel shook his head firmly. He didn’t want to say it, but he wanted to be alone. Louise’s absence would give him the chance to think through what to do.
By lunchtime he had only decided one thing. He couldn’t face his mother that evening. He was too upset and angry not to talk about the photos. On the other hand, if she had a simple answer he would look stupid. He would have to admit that he had searched through her things behind her back and just thinking about that made Daniel feel hot with shame.
Before he could change his mind he phoned her house and left a message saying he was busy. That gave him time, he thought, to sort the mess out once and for all. Later on that night he phoned Jane Davis again. He had a name to give her now. She might have come across Chris at one of her reunions. Perhaps there were lists of old students which might help him. In any case, he couldn’t think of what else to do.
‘How is it going?’ she asked. ‘I was wondering if you’d managed to locate the people you wanted. Be good if you could tell them about the website. Did you ring Kate?’
Daniel forced himself to reply. He had to make an effort to sound casual, and he hardly knew what he was saying. ‘There is one name you could help me with,’ he said, ‘Chris Adebowale.’
‘Chris what?’
He repeated the name slowly.
‘That’s funny,’ she said. ‘I was looking through some of the names that came up. I can’t find that name, but I was once in touch with an African guy from that year.’
The line went silent, and for a moment Daniel thought they’d been cut off. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘I’m still here.’ Jane replied. ‘I was trying to think. This guy lectures at one of the London colleges. I ran into him at a meeting, and it turned out we had studied at the same place. He was asking about his year too. I’ve got his card somewhere.’
‘I don’t have the first idea. I’ll have to dig it out. Give me a while. I’ll ring you back.’
Daniel waited by the phone for another ten minutes. Then he sat down and tried to read. Giving that up, he tried watching the news on TV, but the words he was hearing seemed to make no sense. In the end he simply sat back on the sofa and gazed at the wall. The phone didn’t ring until almost two hours later.
‘Sorry,’ Jane Davis said. ‘I meant to ring you before, but I had a couple of calls.’
‘That’s all right,’ Daniel said.
If only she knew, he thought, how hard the waiting had been.
‘I found the card,’ Jane said brightly. ‘His name is Femi Oladapo.’
Daniel had been holding his breath, hoping that it would be Chris. Now his sense of being let down was so strong he could hardly speak.
Jane didn’t stop there. She gave him the name and phone number of the college where Femi worked. ‘No point ringing now,’ she said. She giggled. ‘I expect he’ll have gone home.’
‘Is there any point ringing at all?’ Daniel asked. ‘It didn’t sound as if he knew much more than you.’
Jane’s voice took on a note of surprise. Hearing it, Daniel cursed himself for being so careless. She had no idea about his real motives. ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘you wanted to get in touch with people from that year.’
‘I do,’ Daniel replied. ‘Thank you. I’ll call him.’
‘Of course I thought, being African, he might be in touch with the other chap.’
‘Yes,’ Daniel said, but all of a sudden his patience was running out. He didn’t want to put her back up, but the thought that she believed all black people would know each other annoyed him. ‘You think they’ll know each other because they’re both African?’
‘Maybe,’ Jane replied. She sounded cooler and a little more distant. ‘There were a few black girls in my year and I didn’t think they would, but they all kept in touch. You’d be surprised.’
Thinking about it later on, Daniel guessed that what Jane had said made sense. Somehow he felt that he was about to set foot on the right track. The truth couldn’t be far away.