you very much for popping in,’ Samuel said, picking up seemingly random books and stacking them on his shelves, as though it was exactly what he’d been planning to do before a complete stranger let themselves into his office in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep on the floor. ‘And please don’t be offended if I don’t answer the door next time you knock.’
‘Well, you don’t always hear people, do you?’ I said, still struggling with the idea of a man with no online footprint. ‘When you’re concentrating or if you’ve got headphones in, you can be off in your own little world.’
‘No, I just don’t answer the door,’ he said, still busying himself with his shelves. ‘Wouldn’t waste your time.’
‘So you were here all afternoon when I was knocking?’ I asked, for some reason, surprised.
He turned and gave me a look as though I was the odd one.
‘What if the building really was burning down?’ I asked. ‘You still wouldn’t answer?’
‘Perhaps you could push a little note under the door,’ he suggested.
‘And what if you don’t see it?’ I asked. ‘And you die and the newspapers are all, Ooh, if only the fire marshal had tried harder to get him out?’
‘I shall make an addendum to my will,’ Samuel replied, turning his back to me. ‘Goodnight, Ms Higgins.’
‘Goodnight, Dr Page,’ I said, quietly picking up his book from the desk and letting myself out of the office. ‘So nice to meet you.’
He was possibly the rudest, most insufferable man I’d ever met.
And somehow, I had to find a way to make him famous.
Friday, 6 July: Twenty-Eight Days to Go
‘I still can’t believe you agreed to this.’ Brian leaned back in his chair, pointing an accusatory pencil at Miranda. ‘The two of you made a bet with the idiot twins and now we have to find a way to make this creature popular? We’ve already got more work than we know what to do with, are you planning on adding a couple of extra hours into the day or something?’
My gaze wandered over to the picture on the back of Dr Page’s book. A small black-and-white photo of the man himself squinted out at me from the back cover, a constipated expression on his face.
‘It’ll be a good exercise for us,’ Miranda said. She was the queen of putting a positive spin on things. ‘We’ve never had to work with someone so … social media averse.’
‘In that we’ve literally only ever worked with people who are prepared to cut off a leg to be successful,’ I agreed. ‘Where’s the fun in that? This is a challenge, it’ll be great.’
An instant message popped up in the corner of my laptop screen. It was a gif of a dancing Leprechaun holding a pot of luck from Charlie. A second message popped up underneath it: ‘Thought you might need this’. I closed the app and turned my attention back to the meeting.
‘Whoever he is, all his accounts must be set to private,’ Brian said, scratching his armpit. Boys were gross. ‘I couldn’t find him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Not even LinkedIn. I hope he’s hiding something good.’
‘He’s not hiding,’ I replied, turning Samuel’s book over in my hands. ‘He’s not on there. Or rather he’s not using his account. At all.’
‘This is ridonkulous,’ he protested. ‘Even my nana has Facebook and Twitter and she’s eighty-nine.’
‘I know, I follow her,’ I told him with a regretful grimace. ‘And I want to believe she doesn’t understand what she’s posting, Brian.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, sadly shaking his head. ‘She does.’
‘I suppose he’s not the only human being in the world who hates the idea of posting his entire life online.’ I pressed my palms against my face, careful to cup my hands away from my mascara. We’d only just started and I was already exhausted. ‘You don’t see David Attenborough on Snapchat very often, do you?’
‘I’ve heard he’s got a secret Instagram account dedicated to snacks that look like Jesus,’ Brian said confidentially. ‘But you’ll never prove it.’
‘I think the social aspect of this is going to be a bigger challenge than the media bit.’ I ran my hands over the dull beige dust-jacket of Sam’s book. ‘He’d rather be with his books than posting on Instagram. Or brushing his hair. Or talking to humans. Or possibly anything else in the entire universe.’
‘This is truly all we have to go on?’ Mir asked, taking the big, heavy book from me and flipping through the pages. ‘“The official residence of the Lord Lieutenant was the Viceregal apartments in Dublin Castle where the Viceregal—” Oh my god, I’m so bored I just went blind.’
‘Maybe it’s a horcrux?’ I suggested. ‘It definitely feels evil.’
‘That photo is evil,’ Brian agreed. ‘Who took it?’
‘Someone who really hates him.’ Mir squinted at the unfortunate portrait. ‘It’s the most unflattering picture I’ve ever seen. Brian’s racist nan could have done a better one with her phone. Photo copyright Elaine Gibson?’
I tapped Elaine Gibson, photographer, into Google and came up with nothing.
‘Let me try Facebook,’ Brian said, swiping up on his iPad.
Immediately, FB produced seven results for Elaine Gibsons in London. Four were considerably older than our new neighbour and none of the remaining profile pictures really screamed photographer. One was a cartoon of a flying pink elephant and one was an actual baby. Which just left the slightly artsy, half-face photo of what looked like a thirty-ish woman but could just as easily have been the Turin shroud for all the filters she’d applied.
‘Info is private but her photos aren’t,’ Brian said, clicking through. ‘Schoolboy error.’
Two seconds later we were seven years deep in carefully framed selfies and Snapchat filters. There was no way this woman was a professional photographer.
‘Open that one,’ I said, pointing at an album labelled ‘The Worst Christmas Ever’.
And there he was, tagged as Dr S. Page, frowning with a too small Santa hat perched on the top of his seemingly giant head. And there he was again, sat around the dinner table, still not able to crack a smile. And again, sulking under the mistletoe. This time wearing what was supposed to be an ugly Christmas jumper but in Samuel’s case it looked to be much more stylish than the rest of his clothes.
If only it were closer to Christmas. These were comedy gold and I’d have made him a meme in five seconds flat.
I tapped on the tag but it went to a private page with literally zero content. Eurgh.
‘His girlfriend took his headshot,’
