“My boyfriend. He’s vanished.” It was a classic summer romance, she explained. Her first true love. She’d just started an internship with a London finance software firm—obtained entirely on her own merit, Ainsley chipped in proudly. Horatio was a waiter in one of the HazBeanz franchises in the City, frequented by her office. He was nineteen, and Bristol University had offered him a place studying social sciences, which was why he was signed up as a trainee barista for the summer, to earn some money toward the fees. He wanted a career working with underprivileged children in the ribbon towns, helping them get their lives in order.
Yuri did his best not to groan and roll his eyes. Classic wasn’t the word, he thought; it was Lady Chatterley rewritten for the twenty-second century. She was comfortably off, leading a sheltered socialite life amid her own class, while he was poor and modest, dedicating his life to a worthy cause. The attraction was enacted at an atomic level. When Gwendoline’s altme sent Boris a file loaded with images, Yuri found it hard to decide which of the two kids was the prettiest. Even given the summer’s anomalous heat, there were an excessive number of pictures of Horatio with his shirt off—playing football with pals, at the beach, lazing in the park. As well as being adorably noble, given the whole social worker gig, he was quite a sports hunk, with Caribbean heritage giving his nicely muscled body a dark-honey sheen and dusting his brown eyes with a vivacious sparkle. His heavily curled hair was long and unkempt, adding to his desirability.
“Okay,” Yuri said slowly when the story of the world’s newest, greatest-ever love affair had been recited. “So when you say ‘vanished,’ what exactly makes you think that?” He could well imagine how besotted and loyally devoted the lovely Gwendoline was to her new beau, but boys Horatio’s age…The lad would be a magnet for babes and cougars alike; he could quite easily be staying in some lingerie model’s luxurious bedroom, fucking himself senseless night and day.
“I spent Tuesday night in his flat with him,” Gwendoline said. “I left early Wednesday morning to come back here and get changed for work. We had tickets to see SungSolar play at the J-Mac club that night. He never showed up.”
“So that’s a day and a half?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said with sulky resentment, “but we liveline each other all day long. I visit his HazBeanz once or twice a day. After I left here on Wednesday morning, his altme was offline. He didn’t respond to any type of call, not even a straight phone ping. He wasn’t in HazBeanz when I went to check at lunch, and the manageress said he never came in that morning. My altme ran a check through London’s ER registries, and he wasn’t admitted to hospital. When he didn’t show for the concert, I even called his parents. They didn’t know where he was, and now they’re worried. I went back to his flat but he never came home last night.”
“You stayed there all night?” Yuri queried. “By yourself?”
“Yes. I accessed the London police network this morning, but their Turing said I can’t file a missing person report until Horatio’s been gone for forty-eight hours.” She hung her head, long hair falling like a ragged curtain across her face. “I know you must think I’m really stupid for calling you, grandfather, but I didn’t know what else to do. Horatio wouldn’t just vanish without telling me, I know he wouldn’t. We know everything about each other. We never kept secrets.”
“Does he know who you are?” Yuri asked.
“He knows mummy and grandma are well off, but that’s all.”
“So he doesn’t know you’re actually a Zangari, that you are Ainsley’s granddaughter?”
“No,” she said in a tiny voice. “Please, I just want to know he’s okay.”
Ainsley patted her shoulder. “It’s all right, sweetheart, you did the right thing letting me know. We’ll find him for you. Can you give us a moment, please?”
Gwendoline nodded meekly and left the lounge.
“I ran a check through the London police network,” Poi Li said. “Horatio wasn’t involved in any incident yesterday morning, and there’s no arrest record. The police don’t have him in custody.”
Yuri pulled a face. “He’s young. That opens up a few options, especially if he’s not the entirely faithful type.”
“Ha!” Ainsley grunted. “If you were a horny nineteen-year-old and you had Gwendoline in your bed every night, would you go wolfing around the block?”
“It’s been known,” Yuri replied, as tactfully as he could.
“This whole thing: it’s unusual,” Ainsley said. “I don’t fucking like unusual, not when there’s family involved. Especially exposed family.”
“We need to bring the women in,” Poi Li said. “Give them proper security.”
“Yeah,” Ainsley agreed. “Shit, Nataskia will bust my balls. This is everything she didn’t want. And fuck knows how Neva will react.”
“Who’s Neva?” Yuri asked.