The five of us sat round the table in the backroom of the pub. Gladys said she would make us something to eat, but so far that had just been several pitchers of Margheritas.
'So tell us what you know about him,' Gladys asked. I thought about it. I didn't really know all that much about him. I shrugged. 'I can tell you what I thought I knew about him,' I said.
'Hmmm,' Gladys said. 'So what you're saying is that we have very little concrete evidence to go on?'
'I guess.'
'Okay,' said Ben, taking control of the situation, 'we'll put together a list of suspects, then we'll take another look at his social media to see what we can find out about the places he goes and the people he knows.'
'Okay.' I nodded.
'So first of all we need to consider the guy in the cafe today. I don't exactly know what it was, but there was something a miss within.'
'Agreed,' I said. 'but I don't know that guy from Adam. What would he get from it, and how would he come across my profile on the first place?'
I'm not sure,' he said, 'but I'm not necessarily saying that he's personally catfishing you. But he did look like he knew something, maybe it's not him messaging you, but he could be covering for whoever is.'
'And that Spanish boy DOES work there,' Gladys chipped in. 'I'm a hundred percent sure of that. He could know who is using his pictures. Or, and you're not going to like this idea Ash, but Alex could be a real person, using his own pictures and just not want to see you. He could have told his boss to say he didn't work there if you came looking for him.'
'Some good theories there Gladys,' said Ben, scribbling down everything she said on the pad in front of him. 'So next possible culprit, my beloved cousin.'
'You really think it could be James?' I asked.
'Wow!' said Gladys, 'you're actually throwing a member of your own family under the bus?'
'I'm not throwing anyone under the bus,' said Ben. 'I really don't think he's got it in him. But if we're taking this seriously, we'd be foolish to not even consider him.'
Could it really very James? I'd known him most of my life and I trusted him implicitly. Doing something like that would be totally out of character. I tried to think if I had ever been with James when I was messaging Alex. I couldn't think if I had or not. I thought I had, but was I remembering the way things really happened?
'I think you're way off the mark there,' Gladys said. 'Why on earth would his best friend in the world do something so deliberately hurtful?'
I assumed it was a hypothetical question, but all three of them were looking at me, like they wanted an answer.
I didn't for a second think it could be him, but I tried to play devil's advocate. 'Well he knows how hard it's been for me since losing my dad. Maybe he created Alex because he wanted to cheer me up, but then things just got out of control and he didn't know how to stop it once he knew how involved I was.'
'Good thinking,' said Ben. 'There's a chance some of your other friends could be involved in it too. He could have gone to them for advice, then ended up helping him with the lie.'
That would be the worst possible scenario. The thought that my friends could be involved in hood winking me in such a way made me feel sick. But that couldn't be it. It just couldn't.
'I'm not sure about this,' said Gladys. 'maybe the fact that you're laying the suspicion on your own cousin is because you're hiding something yourself.'
'Me?' said Ben, shocked at the accusation. 'I only met Ash a few days ago. How could I possibly be involved in this?'
'There's definitely a link there,' Gladys said. 'Here's my version of events. You see pictures of Ash on Facebook. It seems unlikely that he hasn't had a picture tagged on James' page. You see him, you think he's cute, but you don't know what to do about it. So you set up a fake profile to talk to him.'
Ben let out a laugh. 'Why on earth would I need to set up a fake profile to talk to him?' he said. 'If I did like him in that way, then I would have just messaged him as myself. We're both around the same age. I don't mean to sound like an ass, but I feel like I'm okay looking. There would be no reason for me to pretend to be someone else.'
'Maybe you wanted to know more about him because you planned on messaging yourself. That way you'd know all about him, so that when you did, you'd have all these things in common and he'd be more interested in you.'
'But he knows my cousin. If I wanted to know more about Ash, then I would have just asked James directly.'
'Maybe you weren't sure what the situation was. Ash and James spend all their time together. You didn't know what they were to each other. You wanted to know if the path was clear first to see if it was worth pursuing before you did something that would potentially upset your cousin. I understand that your reasons could have been for the best.'
Ben turned to look at me. 'I promise Ash, none of that is true.'
'I believe you,' I said. And I did. He had been nothing but a friend to me since I arrived. The thought that he could be helping me for any other reasons seemed impossible.
'Maybe we should pop your name down on the list, just in case,' Gladys said.
Ben exhaled deeply. 'Fine.' He put his own name down on the paper in front of him. 'So next...we have to consider the guy who was looking through your window the other night.'
'What?!' Gladys said. 'What happened?'
'Well I was in my room last night,' I started telling her, 'and there was this guy stood out in the street staring up into my window.'
'Why didn't you tell me?' Gladys asked.
'I never thought.'
'Do you know who he was?'
'Not a clue.'
'Well if you see him again, come and tell me.'
'I will.'
Ben scribbled something down and we moved on. None of us knew anything about the mysterious man, so we couldn't consider who he was, or what he wanted. 'Okay,' Ben said, 'open up his profile.'
I got my phone out. Every time I looked at it I expected to see a message from Alex, apologising for blanking me and telling me he wanted to meet. But as usual, there was nothing. I typed in his name and brought the profile up. I handed my phone over to Ben and he started to scroll.
'Interesting,' he said.
'What?'
'He posts a lot of gym selfies.'
'Yeah, I know.'
'Not that I blame him. I would too if I had a body like that. But what is interesting is that he posted a new picture a couple of days ago, in the bathroom mirror of the gym. He's logged into the account since he ignored your message.'
He turned the phone around so that I could see the picture. I hadn't seen it before.
'He posts a new gym selfie every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I imagine he probably posts them straight away, or not long after taking them.'
'Okay?'
'So you know what that means?'
'That he goes to the gym a lot?'
'Yeah, and one of the days he goes is Tuesday. That's tomorrow. Look at this last picture he posted.'
He handed the phone back to me. 'What am I looking at?' I said.
'Look above the picture. He's tagged the name and the location of the gym he goes to.'
'Are you suggesting...?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'A stake out.'
*****************
I got back up to my room around midnight. I'd downed several more cocktails and was feeling fairly tipsy. I hadn't checked my phone in a while, not since we finished our sleuthing work. The next time I looked at it I saw that I'd had four misses calls. I must have put it on silent by mistake at some point in the evening. All the calls were from Mum. It was late, but I figured as she'd called a few times, she'd probably want to hear back from me.
She answered after the second ring.
'Hi baby,' she said. She only called me that when she upset, so I knew something was wrong already.
'Everything okay Mum?' I asked straight away.
'I'm fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.'
'Okay. How was the date?' I figured if she was upset, it must have been something to do with that.
'You don't want to hear about that,' she said. 'Tell me about your day instead.'
'Mum, what happened?'
'Oh nothing. I'm sure it was just a mix up.'
'Mum, tell me.'
'It was probably fault. I must have got the day mixed up.'
'Did you go and meet him,'
'I did, yes.'
'And he didn't show up?'
There was a silence on the line, before Mum said, 'I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.'
'Switch to video chat Mum.'
'No, it's okay, I don't want to bother you.'
'I'm video calling you.'
She reluctantly accepted. She had taken her makeup off and looked like she was ready to go to bed. She had obviously been crying.
'I don't want James seeing me looking like this,' she said. Her comment confused me for a moment. Why would James see her like that? Oh yeah, because he was meant to be here with me.
'He's...in the shower,' I lied.
'At this time?'
'Yeah, we've been out. Listen Mum, do you want me to come home?'
Half of me wanted to say yes. I was so tired of searching for a man who was clearly avoiding me. But the other half of me told me I couldn't leave until I'd got the answers I'd come for.
'Don't be silly,' she said. 'I'll be fine.'
'Well call me any time if you want to talk.'
'I will. I'll let you get to bed.'
'Night Mum, I love you.'
'I love you too.'
She ended the call and I was left alone in my room. The curtains were still open. After what had happened the previous night, I didn't want anyone looking in, so went to close them.
And there he was, standing in the same place he had been the previous night; the same man. I didn't wait around or really think about what I did next. I ran out of my room and to the door on to the streets. The cold air hit me as I got outside. In the rush, I hadn't put a jacket on. I looked around. He'd moved from the place he'd been standing when I last saw him. As I looked down the road, I saw him disappearing around the corner.
'Hey,' I shouted as I ran after him. I got to the corner and couldn't see him. 'What do you want from me?' I shouted into the darkness.