‘Did you have a good time?’ I ask.

‘Not really. I shouldn’t have gone. I couldn’t stop thinking about Kit.’

‘I know.’ I breathe deeply, feel the painful expansion of my chest. ‘It’s been awful not knowing what’s going on.’

‘So there’s really no word from him? Complete silence since our night out?’

‘As far as I know, yes.’

‘It feels like ages ago! It must be ten days now.’ She fixes me with the intense gaze of a mesmerist. ‘You know, don’t you?’

‘Know what?’ Feeling a tremor in my left cheek, I massage the spot with my knuckles. They’re a little grazed, I notice, from recent exertions.

‘That we were kind of seeing each other. Behind his girlfriend’s back.’

‘Ah.’ It’s hard by now to know if complications help or hinder. If subplots mask the main narrative or serve to shine a light on it. ‘I didn’t know, no. I mean, I wondered, but I didn’t think it was any of my business.’

‘That’s decent of you,’ Gretchen says, and it’s the second time today I’ve been told what a good guy I am. As she regards her untouched Diet Coke, her mouth stretches into a glum line. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I knew it meant nothing to him. We stopped when he got married, obviously. Not that that did him any good. He was so adrift, wasn’t he? He wanted us to think he was so strong, but we kept forgetting he was an actor.’

Her past tense is emphatic. I’ve read that its use is a red flag to the police; the innocent are less likely to do it. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean, Gretch.’

‘Really? You don’t think . . . ?’ She continues to gaze at me, tears pooling. ‘You don’t think he’s taken his own life?’

I don’t tell her that Clare made the same suggestion before launching her insurance fraud investigation. She reminded me of Kit’s rant about suicides at the train station the first time he and Melia came to dinner: I’d fuck off and do it privately, he’d said. Was this what he had done? Clare asked me.

I was quite forceful in my disagreement then and I repeat it now. ‘No, Kit would never kill himself.’

If he did, his insurance policy would be void.

Gretchen flushes. ‘But when he saw the cleaner on the building that time, he assumed it was a suicide, didn’t he? Steve told me that’s what he said, you know, the morning he was in that weird mood? Maybe that was a cry for help that we totally ignored?’

‘No,’ I say again. I keep my voice low and steady, banish my knowledge that she needs only hold on a few hours and she’ll know he’s dead, thought to have been knifed by some druggie. ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure he wouldn’t do that. I’ve told the police the same. He wasn’t suicidal. He was a total hedonist. Still is, hopefully!’

Tears of relief drop onto the table and I put my arm around her shoulder as our young neighbours regard us blank-eyed. I hope this brings an end to our discussion, but evidently Gretchen has more to say, more to confess.

‘The thing is, Jamie, there’re texts I sent him that make me look like some kind of stalker. I’m terrified the police will see them and think they pushed him over the edge, you know? Have they got his mobile phone? Can they see texts even if they don’t have the phone?’

‘If they get the records from the phone company, they might. I showed them mine from that Monday night voluntarily.’ I sip my water. ‘But if yours are from before he got married, they won’t be of any interest to the police. That was back in August, months before he went missing. They won’t look back that far.’

She shakes her head, flattens her hair with her palms. ‘Some are more recent than that.’

‘How recent?’

She groans. ‘That night. After I got off the boat. He’d upset me about the Christmas present, about all kinds of things. Like, he was all over me in the bar, and then on the boat he was horrible, kept saying he’d made his choice and I should get off his back. Then when I heard he’d gone missing . . . The whole time I was on holiday I was convinced the police would fly out and arrest me.’ She’s weeping freely now. ‘Even at Gatwick this morning, I thought I was going to come through Arrivals and be arrested.’

Well, that answers one question: the police haven’t yet accessed Kit’s communications; or if they have, they have not yet seen fit to contact Gretchen about it. It all points to their having moved away from theories involving his drinking buddies and towards those involving his drugs ones.

I take her hands in mine. ‘There’d be nothing to arrest you for. What exactly did you say in these texts?’

She flushes. ‘I said I hoped something terrible would happen to him. It could definitely be seen as some kind of a threat.’

My eyes widen.

‘What do you think? Should I go to the police? Show them the messages, like you did?’

‘No. I wouldn’t do that.’ I squeeze her fingers, feel the fine bones of her knuckles. ‘Don’t torture yourself when he might still be alive.’ I’m so deep in character now, I’m convincing myself. ‘You know, Clare thinks he’s in hiding, trying to pull off some sort of life insurance scam – I’m about to phone the police and raise it with them.’

Gretchen’s mouth falls open. ‘No? That’s completely insane!’

‘Maybe, but it shows there are lots of theories in the mix.’ I watch as she uses a paper napkin to mop her face. I only have a few minutes before I need to be back at work. ‘Gretchen, you remember on the Monday night, did you notice anyone else on the boat home?’

‘There were quite a few people, weren’t there? That group of students . . .’

I vaguely remember a gaggle of young people sitting at the front, filling a whole row. Had I caught the eye of one of them? Tossed out some drunken remark? ‘Yeah, they got off when Steve did, I think, at North Greenwich. I mean anyone who seemed particularly interested in us. Someone you’ve seen before, a woman maybe?’

‘Sorry, I don’t remember. I was pretty drunk – and I was concentrating on Kit. Why?’

‘The police mentioned someone, some other witness who’s come forward.’

‘Maybe someone he knew? Someone else he’d slept with? A member of the crew, even? He was always bantering with them.’

This is not something I’ve considered, and the idea of an unknown person from Kit’s side, with an agenda entirely separate from his or mine, is too horrifying to contemplate.

Gretchen begins to rock a little, eyes half closed as she speaks: ‘Please be okay, Kit. Please. If anything’s happened, I’ll never forgive myself.’

Her anguish is so genuine I’m moved. I urge her to go home and get some sleep, to stay as positive as she can.

‘See you on the boat tomorrow morning?’ she says, as we hug goodbye.

I swallow. Over her shoulder, behind the strolling tourists and the buskers, the river stops moving: a trick of the light, corrected with a blink. ‘Absolutely. See you then.’

40

2 January 2020

Almost as soon as I return to work, things start to happen. Clare calls first: ‘One of my team just did a viewing in St Mary’s Wharf and says there’re police down near the Hope and Anchor. Apparently, they’ve found a dead body. They’ve got one of those blue tents up, forensics people in big suits. I’m looking online and they haven’t named anyone, but you don’t think . . . ?’