This was a stupid idea, was all I could think. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
Not just because all he wanted to talk about was me—though that was bad enough—but everything else about him set my teeth on edge too. He talked with his whole body, and raced through his words so fast he almost tripped over them. Every part of him exuded enthusiasm and excitement and unbridled curiosity. He was awful.
He gushed on. ‘I know you must have been asked this, like, a zillion times, but how do you go on? I mean, how do you just keep living life like everything’s normal, after something crazy like that happens to you?’
I actually wanted to hit him. Maybe pin him to the ground. Anything to make him stop. But there was something weirdly hypnotic about the constant stream of excitement. It was only when I realised that he’d paused—waiting for me to answer—that I found my voice. And my answer was my parents’ answer.
‘We don’t talk about it.’
‘Oh, right. I can totally respect that. I mean—’
‘Okay, shut up.’ I honestly couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘I need you to shut up. Are you physically capable of doing that?’
He looked startled, then he clamped his mouth shut and mimed zipping it shut. ‘Totally.’
I glanced at Jazmin. She was just watching, with a look on her face that said maybe she’d made a mistake getting me involved.
But Elias was still quiet. I breathed a little easier. ‘Okay. Here is the deal.’ I spoke slowly and clearly, like when I’m talking to Josey. ‘I will listen to you. If it sounds like something I can help with, I will help you. But if you mention anything at all about my family, even the littlest, tiniest thing, we’re done. Do you understand?’
He met my gaze. ‘Totally.’ His face was serious, but then he cracked a smile. ‘You’re so awesome for doing this for us. And we’re totally paying you, of course. It’s a proper business deal. But I want us to get to know each other, too.’ His enthusiasm was back, as if the whole hostile part of the conversation hadn’t happened. ‘We should get a coffee. Do you like Gloria Jean’s? Or we can go somewhere else, if you prefer? I think it’s supposed to rain, so maybe inside. But it’s totally up to you. What do you feel like?’
I blinked. He was like some sort of crazy machine, zero to a hundred in 0.5 seconds. ‘I only have ten minutes.’ That was a lie, but it seemed like a useful one.
‘That’s cool. Totally cool. We can just talk about it here.’
Extroverts apparently get their energy from being around others, and I was thinking at that point that any passing extroverts would be charged up like they’d stuck their finger into a power socket.
I’m not an extrovert. I’m an introvert and I freaking hate all people, especially ones who never switch off. I could feel a headache forming.
‘Actually, more like five. So talk.’
He fished out a plastic binder from the Oroton man bag slung over his shoulder. He held it with both hands for a moment, drew a deep breath, then offered it to me ceremoniously. ‘I was adopted as a baby. I just found out my birth mother’s name and I want you to help me track her down.’
I flipped open the binder. Colour photocopy of a birth certificate. Nothing else.
‘There’s only one thing in here,’ I pointed out. ‘You realise you could have just handed me the piece of paper?’
He clapped his hands together and smiled at me. ‘I’m hoping you’ll find some things to add. Even if you don’t find her…Anything that you can find out, that will get me closer…’
I looked properly at the birth certificate. Elias Greenfield. The spaces for information about his father were blank. His mother was listed as Sephora Greenfield. There was an address listed and everything.
‘Her name and address are right here,’ I noted. ‘Did you want to try, you know, knocking on her door?’
He laughed. He didn’t seem bothered by my sarcasm. ‘Of course. That was the first thing we did. I mean, after a few days of psyching myself up for it. But she wasn’t there. Nobody remembered her at all. It’s a whole block of flats and we’re talking nearly twenty years ago. So we went back to Google—we’d already done a quick check and not really found anything, you know—and we tried every different search term we could think of. No Insta. No Pinterest. I mean, oh my God, who doesn’t have a Pinterest?’
I didn’t hit him over the head with the folder, but it was close. I opened my mouth to say something—stop him talking—but he just kept going.
‘So we thought, what’s the deal with this? I mean, is she dead? But we figured there’d be obituaries online or something, maybe? And there was nothing. So we were like totally stumped. And that’s when Jaz told me about you.’
‘Yeah. Awesome.’
He clasped his hands together. ‘So. What do you think? Will you help?’
Everything inside me wanted to say no. Every little bit of me. Except the part of me that wanted money. God, how I wanted that money. I hate being broke. I hate op-shop clothes and warm peanut butter sandwiches every freaking day. I hate that I don’t even bother asking Mum or Dad for stuff anymore because I know the answer is going to be no.
‘Yeah. Okay.’ I shoved the folder in my bag. ‘I’ll take a look.’
‘Awesome!’ He whipped out a new iPhone in a red fauxcrocodile leather case and handed it to me to punch in my details. I left my hand-me-down Nokia in my bag and tore a page out of my English book instead, and wondered about getting some business cards. If I was going to do this sort of thing for money I should have business cards, shouldn’t I? I needed some sort of job description. Maybe a logo. Or a slogan. Or both. After the effort it took to get Vogue Fontainbleau home I was entitled to cash in on my success, right?
He wrote down his details in large, looping letters. I shoved the paper into the folder he’d given me, and Elias grinned at me. ‘I can’t believe we’re really doing this.’
So far all I’d agreed to do was take a look. I wasn’t sure what he thought I’d be doing. I hoped he wasn’t picturing me knocking down doors or exploring sewers. I had no intention of doing anything that involved wading in shit, or getting involved in any sort of physical altercations.
‘So you just need to tell me your rate.’
I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t know how much money people earn. I don’t know how much my dad makes or even how much minimum wage is. I know kids at school talk about their after-school jobs but I don’t really pay much attention. I had no idea whether I should charge myself out at ten dollars an hour, a hundred, or somewhere in between. Should’ve got business cards, I thought again. I could’ve charged more if I had business cards.
I looked at Elias. I looked at Jazmin. Both of them looked at me expectantly. All I knew was that they expected me to know, and I didn’t have a clue.
But I had nothing to lose, right? ‘Fifty an hour.’
Elias wrinkled his nose. ‘Are you sure?’
Here’s one thing I’ve learnt: soon as you start second-guessing yourself, other people will too. Ninety per cent of success is looking like you know what you’re talking about. ‘I can make it sixty?’
Elias laughed. ‘No, no, fifty is awesome. Well, I mean, I’d understand if you charged more. This is a serious job. All the private investigators I googled charge, like, two hundred dollars an hour.’
Private investigators presumably had offices and assistants and licences to pay for. And tax to pay. ‘Cash,’ I added.
Elias nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’
He offered me his hand, and we shook. Jazmin grinned like a wedding celebrant presiding over the climactic kiss.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could just stand there with them both smiling at me, so I said something about my bus and headed off across the street. I kept walking until I was out of sight around the corner and then I stopped, wondering what I’d just promised to deliver.
I poked my head back around the corner and looked down the street. Jazmin and Elias were standing where I�
��d left them, outside the school gates. They were talking and she was smiling up at him. I couldn’t see his face and I wondered what he was saying to her.
They headed off away from me, up the hill, side by side but not hand in hand. They disappeared around the corner and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding.
7
I started where I assume all good private investigators do: Google.
Nothing.
There wasn’t a single person that I could find with the name Sephora Greenfield. To even find out that much I had to spend a good few minutes wading through links all about some makeup store. The surname seemed common enough, but there was nobody with that full name on any of the social media or networking sites I searched.
So then I googled finding relatives and that took me to the historical electoral rolls and finally I had some luck. A Sephora Greenfield had lived in the Toongabbie district twenty years ago. There was only one record of her, which suggested maybe it was from sometime soon after she turned eighteen. The problem was that nothing after that was available online. To access recent records I would have to go in person to the Kent Street offices of the Electoral Commission, and…Yeah, nah. Not going to happen.
I sat back in my chair, thinking. There had to be something else I could try. I’d only spent forty minutes searching so far and I wasn’t sure whether I was allowed to round up. I figured I’d spend at least twenty more minutes trying and then I could give up. That seemed fair, right?
I went back to the historical records. There were other Greenfields listed in the same district in the same year. If Sephora had only just turned eighteen, there was a good chance she still lived at home. I grabbed a piece of blank paper from the printer and started writing down the rest of the names.
Matthias Reginald Greenfield.
Kylie Clare Greenfield.
Aurora Clementine Greenfield.
David Wallace Greenfield.
Catherine Rose Greenfield.
Benjamin Wallace Greenfield.
Six. I went over the list again to double-check, but that was it. It seemed like a manageable number.
Parents, I thought. Maybe brothers or sisters who still lived at home or somewhere close by. Or completely unrelated people. How was I supposed to know?
The two Wallaces had jumped out at me, of course. Father and son? I underlined both names. The name Aurora jumped out at me, too—the same kind of hippy name as Sephora—but I had no real definitive evidence of a link. Don’t be lazy and go with the obvious solution, I told myself firmly. Especially not when you’re getting paid by the hour.
I started to google each of the names, scanning through endless LinkedIn and Facebook accounts and other random sites.
Benjamin and Aurora Greenfield turned out to have an online gallery featuring photos from a recent trip to Europe. A couple in their sixties, maybe; she could have passed for younger. He looked a little bit like Santa Claus with a huge fluffy white beard and a rounded belly, though he was squinting and frowning in most of the photos and didn’t look like the sort of guy you’d really want coming down your chimney.
She was rounded too, in a plump, middle-age-spread sort of way. Clearly the optimist in the relationship, beaming at the camera in every shot. Her hair was black and she had a darker complexion, maybe Middle Eastern or Mediterranean. I thought I could see a resemblance to Elias. They had the same eyes. Maybe.
To be sure, I finished checking the various name combinations, but nobody else on the list seemed to be the right age. Working theory: Benjamin and Aurora were Elias’ grandparents. Ten matches for B. Greenfield in the White Pages; one was B & A, in Pendle Hill. Too easy. Before I let myself start getting cocky I checked the suburb listed against the suburbs in the Toongabbie electoral district. Pendle Hill was just inside the border.
I sat back in my seat, feeling pretty good about it. Okay, so it was hardly the work of a genius, but I’d got further than Elias and Jazmin, and it should be pretty straightforward from here. We’d contact his grandparents and they’d tell us that Sephora had got married and changed her name or moved to Yemen or whatever and then he’d know.
I still didn’t have any credit for my phone so I sent an email to Elias instead.
Found your grandparents. They should be able to point you in your mum’s direction.
Benjamin and Aurora Greenfield
214 Bungaree Rd, Pendle Hill
You owe me for two hours’ work.
I’d rounded up, but I didn’t think he’d care. A hundred bucks for a whole set of grandparents seemed like a pretty good deal.
By now it was nearly midnight. I’d snuck down after Mum and Dad went to bed—not exactly trying to hide it from them, but I knew they wouldn’t be happy. Besides, try getting any computer time earlier in the evening. The thing was booked solid with the kids doing schoolwork and playing Minecraft and who knows what else. It had started raining just before dinner which meant Mum couldn’t send them outside.
I shut the computer down and eased myself out of the impossibly small study, pushing the door closed gently after me. After staring at the screen it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dark. I paused, listening to the house. It was never entirely quiet. There was always someone rolling over in their bed, the toilet flushing, the fridge humming. Outside, the rain got heavier and was beating steadily on the roof and windows.
I made my way upstairs slowly and climbed into my bunk, Grace snoring above me. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep. I wriggled around a bit. Flipped my pillow over. Flipped it back.
Something wasn’t right. I’d pretty much solved Elias’ mystery, but it felt unsatisfying. A bit like when I’d found Vogue. Sure, I’d dragged her home, but I still had no idea why she’d run away in the first place. Irrational as it was—after all, she had nothing to do with me—I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why Elias’ mother had given him up and then disappeared, too.
If she had disappeared. Maybe she had simply gone on with her life, married or just changed her name like people did. Maybe there was plenty about her all over the internet and we just didn’t know. Maybe she even had a Pinterest.
I kept wriggling and tossing and turning for a long time. I’m not sure when I did eventually fall asleep but it was late enough that I didn’t hear my alarm go off. Instead, I was woken by my curtains being yanked open and then a silhouette blocking the light. Grace.
‘Mum says you need to hurry up or you’ll miss the bus.’
I growled at her, because I couldn’t think straight enough to say actual words. She disappeared again, letting the curtains drop shut. Back in the darkness, I shook my head to stop myself sinking back into sleep. I like sleep. I don’t cope well without it. But if I didn’t get up the next person poking their head through the curtains would be Mum.
I don’t even really remember getting ready, but somehow I managed it and got to the bus stop just before the bus took off. I slept through most of English first period and then half of Maths, and by recess I was feeling mostly back to normal, just that light-headed, spacey feeling I get after I sleep during the day.
Jazmin found me in my usual spot in the quad. ‘Hey. Did you get Elias’ email?’
She was bright and cheerful, and just her smile made my head start to hurt. I blinked a few times. ‘No.’
‘Oh. He got your email last night about his grandparents and he’s so pumped. Like, totally psyched. We can’t believe how quickly you found them. I mean, we spent ages on the internet, literally.’
Oh God. No, you didn’t literally spend ages browsing the internet. An age can be anywhere between a few hundred years to tens of millions. Did you actually spend that much time? I don’t think so.
I shook my head, trying not to say those thoughts out loud.
‘Anyway,’ Jazmin went on. ‘Are you free after school today?’
‘For what?’
‘To go see his grandparents. He can’t wait. He’s coming by after school.’
/> ‘What’s that got to do with me?’
‘Are you kidding? You’re the one who found them. You have to be there.’
‘I really don’t.’
She gave me a look, the way people do when somebody else doesn’t want to join in on their definition of fun. ‘It’ll be awesome.’
‘You don’t need me anymore,’ I pointed out, trying to sound rational. ‘He’s got the address.’ Which was hopefully the right one. There was still a chance I was sending them on a wild goose chase, but I’d decided not to think about that.
‘Yeah, but we still have to track down his mum. So we’ll need to ask the right sort of questions. Get the information out of them.’
I raised an eyebrow, wondering if Jazmin imagined I was an expert in waterboarding. ‘All he has to do is tell them who he is. Show them the birth certificate and ask them how to get in touch with her.’
‘See? That’s why he needs you there. You know the right thing to say.’
I wasn’t getting through to her. I gritted my teeth. This is why I’m a loner—people are idiots. ‘You know the right thing to say now. I just told you. So go to their place this afternoon and say it.’
‘Oh, I can’t. I have to work. But Elias will pick you up at the gate. He finishes uni at two so the timing’s perfect. Okay?’ She was gone before I could say no. Annoying. Partly because I don’t like dumb-blonde routines and partly because somehow she’d managed to sucker me in with it.
I spent the rest of the school day alternating between steely resolution that the job was done and dusted and a niggling sense of curiosity. There were a few brief moments where I imagined Elias rocking up and enthusiastically embracing a pair of complete—unrelated—strangers.
I still hadn’t decided what to do when the last bell of the day rang. I meandered down the hill to the bus bay, making deals with myself. If I didn’t see him by the time my bus arrived, I’d get on it. If I spoke to him and he agreed to double my rate, I’d go with him.
The Finder Page 4