‘That’s right,’ Regan confirms, keen to contribute. ‘Jamie didn’t come into work on the twenty-seventh. I can show you his text?’

The officers glance politely at her before returning their attention to me. ‘Our understanding is that Mr Roper was reported missing yesterday morning,’ the male officer says.

I shake my head in disbelief. This lot are hopeless. ‘I thought . . . Clare and I understood he hasn’t been seen since before Christmas? Since that night of the drinks? That’s what your colleagues told us. We saw Melia last Friday night and she was distraught about it. She’d raised the alarm over Christmas, when we were up in Edinburgh.’

The female officer interjects now; she has the air of being better briefed than her co-worker. ‘There was some confusion as to his whereabouts over Christmas, that’s right. He was out of town and neglected to keep in touch, I believe.’

I stare at her. Out of town? We’ve ventured deep into cross purposes now and it’s crucial I don’t panic and display how urgently I’d like this discrepancy to be resolved. ‘I think you might be mixing this up with something else. Phone DC Merchison, he’ll help you join up the dots.’

The two of them confer and finally she gets on the phone to connect with Woolwich CID. I remind myself I’m still devastated by the news of Kit’s death and adjust my expression from impatience to appalled sorrow. ‘Poor Kit,’ I say to Regan, in an undertone. ‘This is so awful.’

‘It’s terrible,’ she echoes, and links her arm through mine. ‘There’s no way I’m telling my mum about this.’

A pair of neglected customers give up and leave, but by the time the officer disconnects the call, all remaining clientele have turned to watch us.

‘There’s no DC Merchison at the Woolwich station,’ she says.

I blink. ‘I must have got that wrong, then. Blackheath or Greenwich, maybe?’

‘My colleague has just searched the database and the name isn’t coming up anywhere in the Met.’

‘Then maybe he’s listed under a different name? Or new and not in the system yet?’ He didn’t seem new, though. He seemed the more experienced of the two, but then he might have recently transferred from a different force. I struggle to stop my face from twisting in irritation. ‘There were two of them. The other one was called Parry. Ian Parry. Try him.’

As she dials a second time, an argument kicks off outside. It’s an exchange of hostilities we hear every day, usually between motorists and cyclists and born of the fear of the near-miss, but this time it feels linked to me, a projection of my terror. When I remove my focus from it, my eye falls on a pile of flyers Regan placed earlier on the shelf under the noticeboard: London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre, introducing soprano Sarah Miller!

The officer is off the phone again, her face that of someone whose tolerance for time-wasting has been used up. By the time she confirms it in words, I’m already experiencing the collapsing sensation that comes with a realization so diabolical the brain has no immediate means to process it:

There’s no DC Parry, either.

41

2 January 2020

My diaphragm contracts and an ungodly groaning noise escapes me. Vomit rises and I’m holding it in my mouth, my swallow reflex in paralysis. Sweat pours through my skin ducts, drenching me in seconds. I close my eyes.

Let me understand this: Andy Merchison and Ian Parry interviewed me about Kit for almost two hours – that much I know to be true – but whoever they are, they are not detectives employed by the Metropolitan Police.

And only one person has had the means to convince me that they are.

Oh, Melia.

You are not who you said you were.

I thought you were deceiving him. He thought you were deceiving me.

You were deceiving both of us.

As if from deep underground, I hear one of the officers say: ‘Can we ask you to come with us to the station, Mr Buckby.’ Beside me, Regan gasps in shock.

I open my eyes, finally succeeding in swallowing the vomit. ‘If you think I can help sort out this misunderstanding, then sure, but I have to say I’m very confused. Several people can vouch for my earlier interview, I can give you their names.’

This is pure bravado. Clare, Steve, Gretchen, Regan: all the people I told about it. And Melia herself, of course. I’m a long way from fathoming how she did this, but my instinct is that its execution will have been flawless. My fingers itch for my phone, but it’s in my coat pocket in the staff room. ‘Would it be okay if I get my things from the staff area?’

The officers agree to this. There is a sense that we are all reasonable people with no appetite for dramatics. As I leave the counter and advance between tables to the back of the shop, Regan engages them with supplementary questions of her own; I can’t hear her words, but can tell by her tone that she’s defending me, indignant that my account should be doubted. Next, she’s giving her name, address and phone number.

As I gather my possessions and force my arms into my coat sleeves, I feel spasms travelling up and down my body, like mice running under my clothes. Free of the officers’ scrutiny, I’ve lost control of my nervous system, wouldn’t be surprised to find I’ve pissed myself or begun bleeding from my ears. In the doorway, I pause. To my right, between the customer loos opposite and where I’m standing, is the fire exit, which leads to the alley behind our block where other staff sometimes go for a smoke among the bins, slotting discarded butts into the cracks in the mortar.

It is then that the impulse makes itself known. Even as I register it, I’m warning myself against acting on it, because it never works on TV, not even for the innocent.

It only ever makes things worse.

But I do it anyway. I turn off my phone and then I slip through the fire door and run.

*

Somehow, I’ve forgotten it’s raining, raining hard. The drops on my face are cold and sharp like a punishment, but I register a flare of satisfaction that I’m wearing trainers with a good grip; my foothold is solid as I thunder over wet cobble and paving stones.

Muscle memory leads me to the river: along the alley and into the open – close enough to read the registration of the squad car the officers arrived in – then between the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall and down to the London Eye, where I can lose myself in the canopy of umbrellas. The tightness in my lungs is agonizing and I pull air, hands on hips as if to remind myself how to stand as I check the river bus departures screen: the next boat, an express to Greenwich, is docking.

I slap my wallet against the electronic reader, sprint down the jetty and board just in time, ducking low in my seat in the middle bank as far from the windows as I can get. Still breathing heavily, I try to evaluate the logistics of my flight. The police can’t possibly be tracking me: yes, I used the card reader and of course there must be forests of cameras at the Eye, one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions, but neither could conceivably have been accessed so quickly. Plus there’s my cleverness in turning off my phone while still at work.

But, as we pass London Bridge, these points of advantage are exposed for what they are: temporary, fraudulent, and, in the end, easily construed as evidence of guilt. The grotesque truth is that my carefully plotted timeline, my meticulously secured alibis, Melia’s and my rehearsed scripts: they’re all meaningless because Kit was never reported missing when I thought he’d been.