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didn’t really seem to know. “Like a degree.”
    “Oh. Well, in that case, I make life montages.”
    I blinked. “What’s a life montage?”
    “I take bits from a person’s life and use them to make a montage of that life. In Shapiro’s case I was making it a portrait as well.”
    “What did you use?” I asked, fascinated.
    “Bits of fabric from old suits, T-shirts from when he was a teenager, copies of baby photos, spaghetti, ‘cos that’s his favourite meal, clippings of hair from his barber, lines of poetry he liked…stuff like that.”
    This could be very useful. “What kind of poetry?”
    Xander took a gulp of water. “Shakespeare’s sonnets, W.H. Auden, John Betjeman… Some others I can’t really remember. Boring stuff.”
    GCSE stuff. Not very revealing. Probably the only poems he’d ever read.
    “I had a couple of pictures of his kid in there too,” Xander volunteered.
    “Marc-Paul?”
    Xander looked at me sharply. “You know him?”
    “I know of him,” I said vaguely.
    “I saw him two days ago. He was staying with his pa.”
    Not any more , I thought. Where were they?
    I got out my phone and sent a text to Macbeth. What about Shapiro’s son? He’s supposed to be staying in the suite. Have you seen him? Have they checked out?
    “Watcha doin’?” Xander asked, peering over my shoulder. I hastily sent and deleted the message.
    “Texting my boyfriend.”
    “You miss him?”
    I shrugged. “Kinda.” Kind of a lot. I didn’t think I would, but I did.
    “What’s his name again?”
    “Luke.”
    “As in Skywalker. Right.”
    “He is nothing like Luke Skywalker.”
    “What, you mean he’s actually straight?”
    I grinned, and Xander smiled too. He really was just like Harvey—same breathtaking smile. Very cute indeed.
    “So do you do a lot of portraits—I mean, life montages?”
    “Are you taking the piss?”
    “No, would I?”
    He narrowed his eyes, but said, “I do a few. Sometimes I sculpt. This is just my new thing. I’m trying to get enough together for a show—I know someone with a gallery in the meatpacking district, reckons if I get enough together by the end of the month I can exhibit there…”
    “That’s great,” I said, meaning it. My brother was a musician and what he did was great, but I knew how hard it was for his band to get any recognition. I had a feeling the art world was just as bad.
    “Will you come?” Xander asked suddenly.
    “What?”
    “To my exhibition. If I get one.”
    “You will,” I said firmly, on the basis of a day’s acquaintance.
    “So you’ll come?”
    He looked so hopeful. And I guess it would be nice…like Charlotte’s gallery exhibitions in Sex And The City . Lots of fit men. Mmm. Oh, and Luke too, of course.
    “Well, I do live five and a half thousand miles away,” I said doubtfully.
    “Won’t your ‘business’ be bringing you back here?”
    Did he have to put those quotation marks in there?
    “I don’t know…”
    “What kind of business is it you do again?” Xander asked me sharply.
    “Why won’t you go home again?” I shot back.
    “Okay, fine. Don’t tell me.” He turned away, looking moody, and I ignored him. Why wasn’t he going home? What was there that he was afraid of?
    Or didn’t he have a home?
    Fear gripped me. What if he was trying to grift off me? What if he was trying to move into my hotel room?
    Well, tough luck. I wouldn’t be here for long.
    Hopefully.
    We got back on the subway and went down to the meatpacking district, which was basically a few blocks in the Village. I liked it. The streets were more higgledy—not like normal streets, but still less blocky than the rest of Manhattan—and the houses had character. Xander showed me his friend’s gallery, which was shut down for the night, and we walked (well, he walked and I limped) to a street lined with trees where he pointed out a house with a tall set of steps outside which he said was filmed as Carrie’s stoop in Sex And The City