on the bed and cryptic graffiti in blood on the shower wall, if you’d prefer?’ Fin says.
I step into the revolving doors, laughing.
Oh God – I can withstand flash, but flash and witty is too much.
In the gleaming curved marble lobby with white napery, we have to wait behind tourists in loud shirts with Nikons, in Velcro-fastening sandals. Fin checks his watch.
‘It’s pretty late to find a restaurant,’ he says. ‘Shall we each get room service tonight and then head out to the sights tomorrow? Meet you down here at nine?’
‘Sure.’
‘Each’ meaning ‘not together’. I suppose I could be offended at Fin’s lack of wanting to spend any more time with me, but a burger eaten on a bed, while I’m in what Americans call a ‘waffle robe’, is too appealing.
‘Put anything you want on the tab while you’re here,’ Fin says, then hesitates, his face colouring in a way I’ve not seen before. ‘I mean, I don’t want there to be any awkwardness or confusion over it. I asked you to come here. It’s my responsibility and therefore my bill. Obviously.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. Then, at a loss of what else to say, looking around, trying to ease the tension: ‘This place, though! I top out at the Radisson Blu for a spendy weekend.’
There’s possibly a creakingly obvious subtext of: I didn’t know you were loaded!
Fin puts me on edge anyway, so I’m possibly not judging the line between playfully irreverent and rather crass very well.
‘Did Susie not slag me off for having money?’ Finlay says, having read it as I predicted. I twinge a little.
In the quiet of the lobby, the murmur of voices echoing, his asking me this feels potentially significant. I’m the guardian of Susie’s estate now, intellectual if not literal.
‘No,’ I say, glad I can at least be honest. ‘She never mentioned that at all.’
‘Wouldn’t have predicted she’d miss that out, but perhaps, thinking about it, I should have.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’ll have slagged me off for absolutely everything else?’ Fin’s manner is light-hearted but there’s a weight behind this that makes it feel threatening to me. Not to mention a history.
‘No, I meant: why should you, having thought about it, predict it?’
His eyes narrow, quizzically.
‘I know the legend has it I’m horrible. “Has money” is only going to be used if there’s an angle in the case for prosecution. As far as I’m aware, there wasn’t one. I’m not an arms dealer, I don’t buy corporate boxes at Ed Sheeran gigs.’
I laugh. Fin humour is delivered with a curt precision, and so straight faced that I only realise it is humour a second or two after he finishes speaking.
I’m all of a sudden awash with curiosity about Fin’s side of their war, while simultaneously certain it’ll be a heavily biased fiction.
No one gets a reputation by accident, a favourite truism of Justin’s. (I seem to recall I once argued against this, from a general vague sense of injustice, and Justin retorting: ‘When you can show me the exception, I’ll start making exceptions.’ I have yet to show him an exception.)
Fin steps forward to the reception desk and I fidget while he checks in, feeling very scruffy in the surroundings.
‘Do you know if your dad’s staying here?’ I say, under my breath, as Finlay hands me my key card in its paper sleeve, room number Biro-ed on it.
‘No, but there’s no point asking. I’ll get Data Protection, blah blah.’
‘Hmm,’ I rub my chin. ‘They won’t tell you if he is here, but I bet with some light wheedling they’ll tell you if he isn’t.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Let me try,’ I say. I move forward to the available person behind reception, who, probably helpfully, is a man around Fin’s father’s age.
‘Hi, I wonder if you could help me. Myself and my brother,’ I nod back at Fin, in earshot, looking perplexed: ‘… are here to surprise my dad for his seventieth birthday. I don’t suppose you could call up to his room for us, and tell him there’s someone down here to see him? Please don’t say who we are though!’ I flap my hands nerdily at the two of us, make a mouth-zipping gesture.
‘What’s his name?’ says the man, smiling indulgently.
‘Iain Hart,’ I say. ‘That’s Iain spelled I, A, I, N.’
The man taps a keyboard and looks at his screen.
‘I’m afraid we don’t have a guest at the moment under that name.’
‘Oh! That’s fine, he’s maybe arriving later tonight then?’ I turn and address Finlay who mutters: