Lost in Manchester - 18. Revelations. March 2010. Adam.

Adam’s ipod was blasting out Turn Back Time as he opened up the next box and pottered around the flat unpacking his worldly belongings for the second time in six months. James was away on a training course, so he had the whole day to himself to make home.

There was no internet connection yet in the flat, so he only had his mobile by way of distraction. After clearing another box he took a break and collapsed on the sofa with his phone.

On the front screen an alert was showing from his Facebook account and he clicked it to see the new message. The mobile internet wasn’t great, so it opened slowly, but eventually revealed an invitation from Paul’s friend, Simon, to join a new Facebook group. The group was titled Paul Griffiths is missing. A picture of Paul stared out from the page like a newspaper story about a tragic teenage death.

He clicked on the invitation and, very slowly, the phone loaded up the group page. The text at the top of the page read:

Paul Griffiths has disappeared. None of his friends have heard from him for over a week and we are worried. Last time we heard anything from him was just before he apparently moved to London. If you know anything about where he might be, please let us know.

Further down, the phone gradually revealed a chat wall featuring comment after comment from friends posting messages of concern. Adam recognised most of the names from the people Paul scattered into his conversations. Angel, Maria, Joey, China. A lot of them were clubbing friends. They only knew him from drug fuelled Saturday nights, but they still cared. Paul’s boyfriend Sam had posted several times, asking for any information that people might have.

He started to feel bad about cursing Paul for not showing up last weekend. Something serious must have happened.

He read the introductory message again.

Apparently moved to London.

Apparently.

Why did Simon think he hadn’t moved to London? Adam pictured that awkward moment in the hall of the old flat as Simon and Mark returned the almost empty bottle of after shave. Then he thought about the unpaid bills over the last year, and Paul’s phone getting disconnected. There must be something bigger going on here, and they must know something more about it.

He accepted the invitation to join the group, and started to compose a new message to Simon. He had to share what he knew. There was so much to say, and it was painstaking to try and write it all down on this post-it note screen.

It took several minutes, but he got down a message that explained about the unpaid rent and bills, and Paul’s note saying he was going down to London.

He pressed send and within a few minutes a response came back.

This is worse than we thought then. Guess we’re going to have to tell you the full story. You really have to keep it all to yourself though...

Adam was sitting up on the edge of the sofa. He didn’t have any way to contact Simon other than on here, so not wanting to risk Simon going offline, he replied as quickly and briefly as he could.

Sure. Tell me.

He sat and stared at the screen for several minutes, pressing refresh every ten seconds. There was no response. He started to pace around the room, continuing to refresh the page over and over. He went through to the bedroom and lay out on the bed, refreshing and refreshing. Had Simon gone offline?

After eight agonising minutes of waiting, a response flashed up. He rapidly opened it.

Basically, it turns out he was in serious debt. Two weeks ago we found this out. I had to lend him £3,000 to deal with the immediate issue. And at first that seemed to sort things out. But then after the cottage weekend he disappeared. He told some people, including us, that he had gone to New York with work. But we know that isn’t true. Then he said he was moving to London, but I doubt that’s true either. We have no idea where he is, and he owes me money. Sounds like he owes you too.

Adam read and re-read the message. This raised so many more questions than it answered. And it didn’t make sense. Even with the expensive clothes, the expensive food, the drug taking, there didn’t seem any way his lifestyle could burn through a six figure salary .

Adam clicked again on the button to respond.

How can he have been in debt when he earns so much?

He only had to wait three minutes of incessant page refreshing this time before the response appeared.

Simple reason...

Adam tried to scroll down to see the rest of the message, but it had frozen. He tried to refresh again and it took him back to the site login screen. A message flashed up to say there was no internet access.

Fucking fuckbag phone.

He tried every room in the flat to get connected again, before finding it worked back in the bedroom. He raced to type in his email and password, then navigated his way back to the message. He scrolled down.

Simple reason…

He doesn’t work for United Tobacco. He never has.

A cold chill ran down Adam’s spine. What the fuck was this? Simon had no obvious reason to lie, but how could that be true?

Adam walked through to the kitchen and put the kettle on, then stood and stared blankly into space, until the click of the boiled kettle brought him back into the room. He poured the tea and checked his phone again as it brewed. Another message from Simon.

Yeah, took us a while too.

We were quite shocked about the debt situation, but he was a friend so we offered to help. Then he disappeared saying he was going to NY. It seemed a bit weird, but then when we realised it wasn’t true, we started to doubt some of the other stuff he’d told us.

And that was when we checked United Tobacco’s website. We’ve known him three years, and in all that time, we’ve known him as the head of litigation at United Tobacco. But we never once looked at his profile on the website. So now we tried it. And we found the profile of the head of litigation. And he wasn’t a young homo in glasses. He was this old guy with grey hair and an incredible career history.

Paul doesn’t know we’ve found all this out yet, but I reckon he’s got a feeling that we’re onto him. And I think that’s why he disappeared.

This was crazy. Adam walked across to the sofa again and held the mug of tea in both hands, wrapping his fingers round to extract as much warmth as he could. He blew on the top and took a sip.

He messaged back and asked if Simon was free to meet the next day. He needed to hear the full story, and it was impossible on the mobile. Simon replied a few minutes later to say he was working, but Sam was there with him and would like to catch up. Simon could join them later.

Adam spent the rest of the evening in a daze, his mind whirring round two stories of the reality he had lived through these last six months – his own memories and this new reality that had been introduced to him. It was difficult to make sense of which parts of Paul were real. He thought of all the law books on their bookshelf, and the occasional emails he’d seen on Paul’s laptop, adorned with the United Tobacco logo. He thought of all the dull anecdotes about the cases Paul had been working on. How could it all be fiction?

His mind ticked over the different moments and conversations he had had with Paul; the throwaway anecdotes that might have revealed something. He realised that most of what they had talked about was superficial. He had only ever half listened to Paul anyway, because Paul wasn’t the sort of person he wanted to be close to. But then maybe that was all part of what made Paul’s façade work.

He taxed his brain with these questions until it was exhausted, then went and collapsed onto his bed, and dragged himself under the soft quilt. He wished he wasn’t alone in the silent flat tonight. He wished he had a guy to lie with him and keep him warm.

 

Adam arrived the next day at a Starbucks across from the hypnotic Manchester Wheel. He spotted Paul’s boyfriend Sam in a booth in the corner and gave a small wave, then ordered a latte and took it across to join him.

Sam looked tired. His brown hair hung limply across his forehead, and his eyes were so dark they looked bruised. He had a slender, studenty build, so it was hard to tell, but he looked maybe a little more gaunt, paler, like he hadn’t eaten properly in the last week.

“Hey” Adam said, smiling consolingly at their shared predicament.

“Hey Adam.”

“How are you doing? How are you feeling?”

Sam looked across with those big doeful eyes. “Honestly? I’m so fucked up by all of this. I can’t quite believe it. It’s like a weird dream”.

“I know.”

“I feel like someone has picked me up by my ankles and shaken me around for the last five days, and now I’ve got no idea what’s happening around me”.

Adam nodded. “When was the last you heard from Paul?”

“Last Wednesday night. He stayed over at mine. Said he was just back from New York. Then on Thursday he said he was away for a couple of days but would call me Friday. Then he never did, and when I tried to phone him on Friday, his number had been cut off. So yeah, Thursday morning was the last I saw him”.

Adam fished a folded piece of paper out of his bag, opened it up and passed Sam the note that Paul had left on the table.

Sam read it eagerly, desperately devouring the new information.

“So he’s gone to London with work?” Sam asked quickly.

Adam gave him a look.

“No” Sam said, shaking his head, “the work isn’t real. Sorry. My head’s all over the place”.

“Understandably.”

Sam turned the piece of paper over and saw the doodle on the back. It looked for a second like tears were coming.

“What is it?”

“I did that doodle for him on Wednesday night”.

Adam gave a sympathetic smile.

“Obviously just scrap paper to him.”

Adam’s heart broke a little.

“It’s only been a few days. Maybe he’ll call yet.”

Sam was still staring at the doodle. He glanced up, and took a few seconds to absorb what Adam had said.

“He used to text or call every day. He was always phoning at random times to see how I was and what I was up to. Or to tell me some random story that had happened to him at work”

“Maybe if his phone was disconnected though…”

“Nah” Sam said more decisively. “He knows my number by heart. He has an incredible memory. And besides he could contact me by email or Facebook or Gayzer. If he wanted to get in touch he could have”.

Adam nodded again. “I guess. So do you know the full story? I’ve only heard snippets”.

Sam sat up straight.

“Sure. I only found out about it this weekend, when I got in touch with Simon to see if he’d heard from Paul. Simon doesn’t want the story to get out too widely though, so he’s trying to keep the details to as small a number as possible. Given what’s happened with you and the flat though, you obviously need to know. But they don’t want it to go any further than you, me, Simon and Mark.”

“Ok.”

“So it started a few weeks ago. Paul had been treasurer of the youth Tory group for about the last 18 months or something. They had two signatories on the account: Paul and Simon, and there was a few thousand in their account when Paul took over. He obviously gave them all updates on how the finances were going, and naturally people trusted he was doing a good job.

“Then a few weeks ago, Paul told the group that they had been spending quite a bit recently and funds in the account were getting low, so they had to minimise any other spending. And although nobody else was keeping a close check on the accounts, they were pretty surprised that there was so little left. Simon told me that he assumed Paul had made a mistake.

“So then Simon went into the bank and asked for a statement. As a co-signatory he could have done that at any point. But anyway, that was when he saw it. Each month Paul had been transferring a sum of money, like £100 or something, from the group account to his own account.”

“Shit”

“Yeah” Sam said resignedly.

“So what did Simon do?”

“Well, he told Mark – you know, the little Tory guy with the annoying laugh.”

“I do.”

“And then they confronted Paul about it. Apparently he broke down in tears and told them he was in some short term debt but that he was planning to put all the money back.”

“Obviously” Adam said rolling his eyes.

Sam looked a little hurt, but tried to cover it. He obviously wasn’t ready to believe the worst of his boyfriend yet.

“Well, anyway, Simon agreed to put the money back in the account and let Paul pay him back instead of the group, then at least it solved their immediate problem”.

“And that’s when he disappeared?”

Sam nodded and took a gulp of his coffee. It looked like he might have been living on little more than caffeine over the last few days.

“So what about the rest of it?” Adam asked.

Sam nodded.

“Ok. So he disappeared and told everybody he was going to New York”.

“That was also the day after I told him we were being evicted from the flat and I was moving in with someone else.”

“You got evicted?” Sam asked, shocked.

“Yeah. He never sorted those rent payments.”

“Shit, he told me he had. So maybe that was another reason for him to disappear”. Sam paused a second to take this in.

“So anyway, after he’d gone, Paul posted up a photo of Central Park, which he said he’d taken from his hotel bedroom window”.

“Ok…” Adam said, puzzled.

“Only all the leaves on the trees were brown, even though it’s Spring. So Simon and Mark figured the photo wasn’t real”.

“Wow”

“I know, I totally didn’t notice. I’d already commented on Facebook that it looked awesome. But I guess that extra lie raised even more suspicion with the guys and so they started asking some more questions, and that’s when they checked out the United Tobacco website.”

“Shit” Adam said shaking his head. “My issue is only the cherry on the cake then.”

“How bad is it with the bills and everything?”

“Well, I haven’t paid anything yet, but he owes about £3,000 in rent and maybe £2,000 in bills, which I’m potentially liable for. The letting agent is chasing him for the rent, and I’ve told all of the utilities his forwarding address at United Tobacco. But I guess at some point they’re all going to realise he doesn’t work there and come after me instead”.

“Have you reported it to the police?” Sam asked cautiously.

“No”. Adam thought about it for a few seconds. “I think given everything, we probably should though.”

Sam nodded slowly. “If I was in your position I probably would”.

“Especially with the Tory money as well.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think you can mention that.”

“Why not?”

“Simon doesn’t want the news to get out. The money was taken from the Tory group accounts, and it’s only two months from the election”.

“So?”

“So they don’t want any kind of scandal.”

Adam laughed. “They don’t have any councillors here anyway.”

“I think its more about the national election.”

Adam gave him a quizzical look. “Really? Do they seriously think the national news would be interested in this kind of thing?”

“Isn’t any kind of political scandal news around an election?”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Maybe. I guess. Still though, it’s three grand of Simon’s money.”

“Yeah, he must really like the party.”

Adam shook his head and downed the last of the lukewarm latte.

“You want to head over to the police?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, might as well try.”

Sam stood up. “Come on then, I’ll come with you”.

 

They headed across town towards the central police station, tucked away on a side street across the square from the town hall.

“So have Simon and Mark done any other investigating?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know much more to be honest. Although Simon did say that when they phoned up United Tobacco about Paul, they also found out that there was no Manchester office.”

“I think it was closing wasn’t it?” Adam said. Paul had been talking about that for months.

“Yeah, that’s what I said, but apparently not. When Simon called up, they confirmed there had never been a Paul Griffiths working there, and they had never had an office in Manchester.”

“Jesus” Adam said, smiling and shaking his head. “That was a hell of a lie to tell then. You’d think one of us would have found that out.”

“Yeah” Sam said, thoughtfully. “But you just believe people, don’t you?”

It was hard to tell if that was rhetorical or if he was actually asking. Like he wasn’t sure if he needed to learn to be less naïve in order to be a proper grown up. Sam could only be about 20. This was a lot to take on.

“You do” Adam said, convincingly. “You have to. You can’t go home and google everything that anyone tells you about themselves”.

“I guess”. Sam looked thoughtful. He looked like he barely knew if anything was real any more.

“Anyway, I think they’ve been trying to speak to everyone they can think of that knows him, and find any clues as to where he might be. But the upshot so far is that nobody knows anything. At least nothing real. His whole life before he came to Manchester, two and a half years ago, just seems to be a big grey area”.

 

They reached the police station and Adam took a deep breath before heading in and across to the desk. A large angry looking lady with scraggly brown hair and a pimple sat at the front counter in full uniform.

Adam recounted the story to her as quickly as he could, almost watching as great iron gates closed in her eyes. The occasional raise of her eyebrows seemed to question not only whether this problem represented a crime, but also the worth of his very existence.

Quite quickly she concluded that this was a civil not a criminal case and that she had no intention of letting him report it as such.

 

They walked slowly back into the square in front of the town hall and Sam checked his phone as a text came through.

“It’s from Simon. Says he can meet us back at my flat in 15 minutes. That ok?”

Adam nodded. “Sure, why not”.

 

Sam’s flat was about as you’d expect a gay student flat to be. The space was small and basic and there was an after-smell of a pleasant eau de toilette lingering in the air. There were two of them sharing, but his flatmate was evidently out. Adam glanced into Sam’s bedroom as they passed and saw it was decorated with a shirtless poster of the Kings of Leon, and covered in various items of clothing laid out across the bed and chair.

They went through to the lounge and Adam sat back on the sofa while Sam went to the desk in the corner and opened up his laptop.

The buzzer sounded soon after they arrived and Sam waited in the hall as Simon made his way up. Adam heard them greet each other and Simon quickly appeared in the lounge brandishing a copy of the local Evening News.

“He’s in the fucking paper.”

Adam sat up on the edge of the sofa.

“What?”

Sam followed Simon in and took his seat back at the computer desk.

“About this airport development. He was friends with this developer guy and he’s quoted in the paper as a fucking advisor to the project”.

Simon opened it up.

“Advisor to the project, Paul Griffiths, described last week’s decision by the Council as a great step forward for the airport and for the city” he read from the paper. “He’s disappeared off the face of the earth, but he’s still being quoted in the fucking Evening News.”

“You have to say, it’s pretty impressive” Adam said, with half a smile.

“He’s a fucking crook” Simon replied, and took a seat on the sofa.

“How are you feeling about it all anyway?” Adam asked.

“I’m pissed off is what I’m feeling. That little twat has been forging my signature for the last year to steal money”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve got to make sure he doesn’t win. I’m going to get my money back”.

“So you’ve not found anything more out from anyone?” Sam asked, turning back to face them.

“Nope. And we’ve tracked down just about everyone that any of us can remember him ever talking about. Well, all except one – you remember the old boyfriend Steve, the IT geek?”

Adam nodded.

“Well he seems to have disappeared too. Checked his online profiles and it looks like he hasn’t been on any of them since November”.

Adam thought back. “Was that around when they split up?”

“That’s what we were thinking yeah. We found his IT company too, and tried calling that number about 20 times but haven’t got any answer”.

Simon started to detail the numerous times they had tried to call in at the address of Steve’s company.

Adam watched Simon as he spoke. He liked the way Simon curled his lips as he articulated his words. He had good lips. A nice frame to his body too. Looked like he might swim a lot.

“Guys” Sam said suddenly, not taking his eyes off the computer.

Adam snapped out of his thoughts. “What?”

“His Facebook profile is gone.”

“What?”

“Deleted” Sam confirmed.

Simon grabbed his phone and quickly checked something.

“Yeah, his Gayzer profile too. Gone.”

“So we have no address, no phone number, and now no internet profiles”. Adam said, looking across at Simon.

Simon shook his head slowly. “Step by step erasing himself from reach.”

“So what do we do?” Adam asked.

There wasn’t a single idea between them.