The funny thing was, I almost missed having epilepsy. Not the attacks themselves but the way in which they turned the clock back on things with my mum. With each attack came a softening in her, a new kind of warmth. The harsh words disappeared, she cooked my favourite meals, and she even gave me cuddles. Having lost Garry the way she had, seeing me in the middle of an epileptic seizure must have been hard for her, but all I received from her was love and care. Those were precious times. Finally, I had my mum back. Sadly, that didn’t last.
I tried to care for Gobi the way I remembered my mum caring for me. I tried to let go of the stress of the previous few weeks and just enjoy spending time with her. It helped that we were both exhausted, too, and spent a lot of that day dozing together.
The next morning I had a problem. Gobi had all the food she needed right there in the room, but I wanted something other than dog biscuits and tinned meat for breakfast. Because Gobi was sleeping, I decided to creep out and head down to the ground floor for a quick bite.
I pulled the door shut as silently as I could, hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the handle, and crept down the corridor to the lift. As I watched the doors shut in front of me, I wondered whether I would hear a dog bark.
I was back upstairs on my floor in less than fifteen minutes. Striding out of the lift, I passed a cleaning trolley, turned the corner, and saw immediately that the door to my room was open. I ran in. There was no sign of Gobi at all, not under the bed, in the closet, or behind the curtains.
“Gobi!” I was calling, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
My brain searched through possible scenarios. The hotel manager must have arranged for her to be taken. I ran to the main door and was about to head back to the lifts when I noticed that my bathroom door was shut. I opened it, and there she was, sitting in the tub, head cocked inquisitively to one side, watching the housekeeper wipe down the counter. Gobi looked at me briefly, a kind of “Hey, Dad, what’s up?” kind of look.
The housekeeper didn’t seem too worried and said a few words as she continued working. I did the only thing I could think of and pulled out my wallet and handed her a 100-yuan note—about ten pounds. I mimed not saying anything about Gobi. She nodded, pocketed the money, and went back to cleaning.
Maybe she wasn’t surprised to see the dog there, and maybe she thought the tip was to clean the bathroom extra well. I had no way of knowing. She stayed a long time, cleaning everything in sight. I didn’t want to be out in the room since the door to the hallway was standing open, so I stayed in the bathroom, trying to keep out of the cleaner’s way with Gobi on my lap. Every time she moved on to clean another part of the room, Gobi and I would have to find a new place to perch.
“Thank you,” I said each time we shifted, hoping that she would get the message. “Goodbye. You can go now.”
She never got the hint. Instead, she’d just nod, shooing me and Gobi to move from the edge of the tub to the toilet, or from the toilet to the corner behind the door, as she cleaned.
Gobi thought it was all great fun. She sat happily, her tail swatting the air, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the housekeeper.
This has to be the strangest scene ever, I thought.
18
I wedged the duvet and pillows from the bed against the door, hoping that if Gobi did make a noise it wouldn’t be audible out in the corridor. There was no way I was leaving the room again until I absolutely had to.
I spent the rest of the morning on my phone. I was sending messages to Richard, telling him about the incident with the housekeeper, and to Lu Xin, asking her to look into alternative accommodation options. I spoke to Paul de Souza, a literary agent and film producer in California. He had first heard about the story from his daughter, and he was helping me negotiate a possible book deal. I was amazed at how many publishers had contacted me, but Paul’s wisdom and knowledge about the industry were second to none. In between all of that, I was doing Skype interviews with American and British media outlets.
The interviews were fun. Right from the start of the crowdfunding appeal, I knew people wanted to hear about the story because it seemed as though it was heading for a happy ending. Whenever I was interviewed while Gobi was missing, I struggled to know how to adjust to the new questions: How did she go missing? Where did I think she was? Did I fear the worst? I couldn’t be upbeat because I didn’t have a feel-good story to share. And more importantly, I knew that Gobi’s disappearance was shrouded in suspicion. I’d been convinced that something odd had taken place, though I wasn’t sure exactly who had taken her. But I chose not to reveal any of this in the interviews. I didn’t have all the facts, and it was still too early to be blaming people.
So up in the hotel room, with Gobi asleep on my lap, as I talked to journalists from the Washington Post and CBS, things felt right again. I could relax and smile and tell them that I was finally going to be able to repay Gobi’s love and determination by giving her a forever home back in Scotland.
Midway through the morning, Gobi woke up, desperate to get outside to do her business. Even though I knew it would happen eventually, I still dreaded the moment when I would have to open the door and peer up and down the hallway to check that the coast was clear.
Thankfully, we had the lift to ourselves as we sank down to the basement level. Gobi trotted off to the same patch of bushes that stood at the car park exit, and I gave her some privacy and looked around.
There was nothing much to see, apart from two men in dark suits stepping out of the lift and walking over to a grey saloon parked nearby.
I was pleased to see that Gobi took a bit of care to kick the dirt back over after relieving herself, but by the time she was finished, the lift doors had opened and out stepped another man into the basement. This time it was a security guard.
It cost me another ten pounds to persuade him to let us through. I wondered whether it was going to be enough to keep either him or the housekeeper quiet.
Two hours later I found out the answer.
The moment she heard the knock at the door, Gobi started barking. Through the spy hole I could see two men. I recognized one of them instantly—Nurali’s husband.
I stalled. What to do? I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t there—Gobi had seen to that—but how did they find me? One of the hotel workers must have told them which room I was in, but how did they get up to my floor? The only way to operate the lift was by swiping a valid room key. But that seemed to me to be a lot effort on their part, and it did nothing to ease my paranoia.
I sent a message to Richard: Come to my room immediately.
“Hello,” I said, as I opened the door, trying to crack a smile and appear relaxed and unthreatened. Nurali’s husband stared impassively while his friend was trying to look past me into the room.
“Can we come in?” asked Nurali’s husband.
I was surprised but curious, so I mumbled “okay” and stepped back from the open door to let them in.