Chapter 114: A List of What He Didn’t Find I

The Sterling on a Sunday morning is a different building.

No parcels. No gym kit, no wheeled cases, nobody waiting on a car. One cleaner running a machine over the terrazzo at the far end in no hurry at all, and the smell of floor polish over the lilies instead of under them.

Thomas was not on. There was a lad of about 30 on the door who said "morning, sir" and did not take the helmet, because nobody had told him that was a thing.

Naomi Adeyemi was not in her office.

She was coming out of the lift bank with a ring of keys in one hand and a clipboard under her arm, in a navy jumper with her hair down, and she did not break stride.

"Mr Flynn. Walk with me, I’ve got 8 doors to do."

"On a Sunday?"

"Fire doors on 12 through 19, which I do on a Sunday because it is the only day I can prop them and not have somebody complain." She was already going. "And because I did not want to sit in that office and wait for you."

They did the stairs.

She held each door on its closer and counted the seconds it took to come back, out loud, and wrote a number on the clipboard, and twice she got down on one knee and looked at the bottom hinge.

Danny held things and passed her a torch off the clipboard clip and did not say anything for 3 floors.

On 14 she stopped with her hand flat on a door.

"It came back at 4 on Friday afternoon."

"Right."

"Fourteen Ashwell Court verified. Tenancy September 2021 to October 2022. They wrote to the landlord reference Friday morning and got the answer back the same afternoon, which does not happen." She let the door go and counted it shut. "Six. That’s too quick, that one. So your box has a yes in it and it is supported and the insurer is satisfied."

"Then what did you not sleep about?"

Naomi wrote a 6 on the clipboard.

"They run 4 searches, Mr Flynn. Address is one. The other 3 are identity, financial and adverse." She went up the next flight ahead of him. "And the man in Croydon has sent me 9 lines, and 8 of them are the word nothing."

"Nothing how?"

"No credit file before the 11th of October. No account of any kind before the 11th of October." She was doing the door on 15 while she said it. "No employment record, no self-employment record, no National Insurance contributions against your number before that date. And it is your number and it is real and there is nothing behind it."

"Right."

"Not on the electoral roll at Ashwell Court. Not at Pembury House. Not anywhere in England and Wales at any time." Clunk, went the door. "Seven. And no county court judgments, which sounds like a good thing until you have read 200 of these, because nobody has none. Everybody was 4 days late on a phone at 22."

She stopped on the half landing between 15 and 16 and got the printout out from under the clipboard.

"One sentence at the bottom that is not a list. Subject presents as a first-time record."

Danny stood on a half landing in a fire escape with a torch in his hand.

Right. So it did the address and it did it properly, and it let her have that one so she’d stop asking about that one.

And it never went near the other 3, because it can’t. It files things. It doesn’t invent 11 years of a bloke paying tax and being 4 days late on a phone.

So she’s stood there with a piece of paper that says I was born 6 weeks ago.

And then the other thing arrived, and it arrived because he had been watching her for 3 floors and she had not once looked at him while she talked.

Hang on.

She filed that form Friday morning. Nine o’clock. I was stood in that office and she typed it in front of me and she said it’s gone.

And that came back at 4 in the afternoon.

She put verified on a form 7 hours before she had the identity search back.

"Miss Adeyemi."

"Mm."

"You filed Friday morning."

She stopped writing.

"You filed at 9 and this came in at 4." Danny had not moved off the half landing. "So you’d already written verified before anybody had looked at whether I’m a person."

Naomi Adeyemi stood on the stairs with a clipboard in her hand and did not say anything for about 3 seconds, and that was the first time in 6 weeks he had got there before she did.

"Yes," she said.

"So it’s not just me on that page."

"No."

"It’s you."

"It is me." She said it flatly and without any self-pity at all. "I signed a declaration on Friday morning that I had verified a resident’s address history to the standard in the policy, and I had, because your solicitor’s filing was on the system when I looked. And at 4 in the afternoon I got a report that says the man I verified did not exist 7 weeks ago."

"And if somebody pulls that."

"Then somebody asks me why the building manager signed off a resident 7 hours before the identity check landed." She started up the next flight. "And the honest answer is that I was in a hurry and I liked him, and neither of those is a thing you want in a paragraph with your name on it."

Danny went up after her.

There it is.

That’s why she’s in on a Sunday and it’s why she wouldn’t put it in a message, and it is not because she’s frightened for me.

She’s frightened with me. That’s different.

"You could have told me that first," he said.

"I could."

"Why didn’t you?"

"Because I wanted to see your face when I read you the 8 nothings," Naomi said, "and I could not do that and hand you a reason to be sorry for me in the same breath."

She did the door on 16 and counted it and wrote the number down, and then she stood with her back against the wall on the landing.

"Right. Now I will tell you what I think it is, and then I want you to go and do whatever you do on a Sunday."

"Go on."

"There are 3 reasons a file looks like that and 2 of them are not your fault." She held the clipboard against her chest. "One, somebody has moved you. That happens, it is done exactly like this, and the people who do it are very good at it."

"And two?"

"Two, somebody is looking for you and you have taken steps. Which I have had twice in this building and both times found out by accident 18 months later."

"And three?"

Naomi looked at him.

"Three is that it is not your name."

The stairwell did the thing stairwells do, which is hold a sentence about half a second longer than a room would.

"And I have decided," she said, "that I am going to ask you one question, and then I am not going to ask you anything ever again, and I mean that, and you can hold me to it."

"Go on."

"Are you safe?"

Danny stood on a fire escape landing on the 16th floor with a torch in his hand.

Say yes.

One word. She’d take it and she’d go home and she’d not raise it again, because she’s just told you she won’t, and she’s the one person in this building who does what she says.

And she’d carry it about for 18 months and be glad she asked.

And she’d be wrong. Nobody’s after me. Nobody moved me. I was christened Daniel Flynn in a church 2 miles from here with my mum’s sister holding me.

There’s a woman in front of you who has signed a declaration she’s now exposed on, and she’s come in on her day off, and she thinks you might be frightened.

And the answer is that I stood in a hospital room on Tuesday for half an hour and took 900 grand for it.

"Yeah," he said. "I’m safe."

Naomi watched his face the whole way through it.

"Right," she said. "Good."

And she went and did the door on 17, and the number she wrote down for it was 4, and she wrote 4 and underlined it and said "that one’s a job," and they did the last 2 doors without either of them saying anything about anything.

At the lift she pressed the button and stood back.

"There’s one more and it isn’t a question." She had the keys in her hand. "That thing I told you in October. Nothing happens to you and it takes 5 years to notice."

"I remember."