I asked you not tocontact me means ‘I’m here, come now’.

How are you bearing up? means ‘We have a problem’. (I hate you means ‘I love you’.)

‘So what’s up?’ she says, bringing her face into view. Her eyes shine, her skin glows. She has not been crying today. ‘What is it, Jamie?’

‘It’s Clare,’ I tell her, and the choke in my voice is like stage fright. ‘She’s on to us.’

36

30 December 2019

Neither of us speaks again until I’ve followed her up the stairs and the door is closed behind us. Without warning, she barges me to the wall, her face upturned, and begins kissing me very fiercely. I’m shocked by how powerful my response is: a leap in body temperature, a flaring of every nerve on the surface of me.

‘Your heart’s going nuts,’ she says, more in wonder than alarm. ‘Tell me what’s happened – she knows we’re together?’

For a moment I’ve forgotten Melia isn’t aware of the scene on Friday before we came tearing round here, or about Clare’s weekend flight to her family. ‘She does, yes, but that’s not the issue. What I mean is she knows about this.’

Melia takes a step back and we face each other across the narrow hallway. Her deep intake of breath is audible. ‘What?’

‘She’s dug up a whole load of stuff about your and Kit’s finances and she’s basically guessed. She wants to tell the police you’re trying to frame me for murder to get the early insurance payment. She’s worked it all out, Me, it’s incredible.’

Melia’s eyes are clocks, their hands spinning madly, too fast to track. ‘When did this happen?’

‘About an hour ago. She had this guy around to brief us. He’s a financial investigator she hired, and he used some dodgy hacker to get confidential data.’

‘What data? For fuck’s sake, why would she do that?’

To help me, I think. Because no matter what she claims, Clare doesn’t hate me. She loves me. ‘Because she’s a problem solver,’ I say. Also true. ‘She’s a lot more impressive than the detectives, I have to say.’

There is a pause. ‘But she hasn’t told them her theory?’

‘No, she’s literally just told me. I’ve said it’s better that it comes from me and I’ll email the file to DC Merchison. I won’t, obviously, but I’ll have to come up with something credible to fob her off. She’s invested money now, so she’ll want results. I’ll have to fake some sort of email from the police.’

As she listens, Melia’s shoulders relax a notch. ‘You don’t need to do that. The main thing is to delay it till after tomorrow. Tell her Merchison’s taken a couple of days off for the New Year and you’ll contact him as soon as he’s back. By the time that comes around, it won’t matter and she can tell him her theory herself if she still thinks anyone’s interested.’ She smooths her hair behind her ears. ‘To be honest, they’ve probably already considered it if they’ve done their own financial digging. How can they not? I told them we’re in terrible debt and De Warr will tell them what a great life insurance policy he’s got. If Clare can figure it out, they can.’

It’s remarkable how quickly she’s regained her composure. ‘There’s a recent loan for ten thousand that she and this guy thought looked suspicious,’ I tell her. ‘What was that for?’

‘For everything.’ Melia motions with both hands, fingers tightly arched, as if all the strain she carries is in them. ‘To keep everything going until pay day.’

It’s warmer in the flat, I notice. The heating’s on. Now is not the time to discuss her rent arrears. ‘The point is it doesn’t matter what theories anyone comes up with about Kit, so long as they don’t act on them till the New Year. After that, they’ll be starting from scratch, won’t they?’

We look hard at each other. If everything goes to plan. I feel my pulse steadying. ‘You’re right. Yes. Okay. I just wish they’d issued some sort of appeal or involved their missing persons unit. Make it officially known that he disappeared last Monday.’

She nods. ‘That’s what I thought, as well, and I’ve asked them so many times to do a press release. I even threatened to do it myself. But they got their boss to call me, some kind of inspector. She said it was crucial we let them handle it their way, doesn’t want it encroaching on some other investigation they’ve got going on. She said my personal safety could be at risk.’

‘Seriously?’ This is far more than has been shared with me.

‘I actually think it’s a good thing, Jamie. It sounds like they’re considering something a bit more underworld. I told them I was worried about his coke habit and you mentioned the drugs, as well, right?’

‘Of course, exactly as we rehearsed.’ That was my MO for when the cops came calling: no matter where their questions led me, I was to find a way to get the drugs angle on the table, ideally with a mention of the stretch of the river where druggies and the homeless fraternized. Even if they didn’t leap on it – which they didn’t – it would be seeded.

‘Good. So the only thing that matters is they know he was last seen on the twenty-third. It’s all on record and his disappearance is being investigated in a low-profile way. They’ve checked CCTV material, interviewed witnesses – that’s more than enough. A media appeal might have made things worse. We don’t want journalists and the public poking around, noticing things tomorrow night.’

‘You’re right.’ That reminds me of the other fly in our ointment. ‘There’s something else. Not big enough for me to have busted out the code red, but I have to admit it’s been on my mind.’

‘What?’ She’s by my side, her hand on the back of my neck, thumb tracing the bumps of my spine. ‘Tell me.’

‘There’s some other passenger from the boat home that night who’s giving the police information. I haven’t got a clue what they’ve said, but the police implied it’s something incriminating, something beyond what they saw themselves on the security video.’

‘What other passenger?’ she says, sharply.

‘I don’t know, but I’m worried someone might have been following me that night.’

‘Following you? Who?’

‘I think it’s a woman. Maybe someone I’ve pissed off in the past.’

‘If you don’t know who they are then you can’t have pissed them off that badly.’ Her gaze shrinks to a narrow strip of amber. ‘It sounds like paranoia. And even if you were followed, how can what they say possibly be incriminating? The police must know you went straight home from the street cameras.’

‘They haven’t actually confirmed that with me,’ I point out.

‘They will. Jamie. You didn’t do anything, they can hardly fake evidence. Come on, babe, we knew there might be a few difficult questions, we can’t control what the police ask, what everyone thinks they’ve seen. All things considered, it’s going really well.’ She pauses. ‘When did you last hear from the police?’