‘We wouldn’t get caught.’

The transition from singular to plural was seamless and deadly.

I fixed her with my gravest frown. ‘Melia, come on.’

‘I knew that’s what you’d say,’ she said, with simple acceptance. She rolled from me, releasing me from her body heat. ‘It’s fine, it would be weird if you didn’t.’

‘Well, to be fair, the last time you had an idea, we went on a cable car ride.’

A giggle slipped from her then, as if she couldn’t resist my humour even when absorbed in the grimmest of thoughts. It was – excruciating to admit now – flattering.

‘Just let me tell you how it would work,’ she said. ‘Think of it as a fantasy, the plot of a movie.’

I know it sounds insane that I even listened. I know I should have walked away. I should have protected Kit.

I should have protected myself.

The fact was I loved her. I was demented with the pleasure of being reunited with her, of the prospect of being a part of her future. Like I say, I was bewitched. Spellbound. And, for what it’s worth, she wasn’t wrong in her evaluation of my lot. Clare and I weren’t married and common law rights were a myth. In the event of a split, even if some lawyer agreed to negotiate for me I couldn’t afford to pay them. My job paid a pittance and at any time I could have nowhere to live. I’d be bed hopping like Regan; scavenging like the foxes in the square.

It was not straightaway, no, but at some point after that liaison the erroneous but alluring theory began to form in my mind that owning nothing was the same as having nothing to lose.

And it wasn’t as if I would be the one to kill him. My alibi would be impregnable – as impregnable as a prison cell.

The real question was, would I be able to consider a future with a killer?

Evidently, I could.

*

And evidently Kit could consider a future with a new identity in a country far from his own, while an innocent man – me! – was jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. That no one committed.

According to Melia, he was disgracefully easy to get on board with her fraud scheme – sorry, her fake fraud (how ironic is that?). He was all too willing to abandon his job, his friends, his debts, for the unearned wealth and life of leisure he considered his right.

Even if Melia hadn’t warned me, I could have pinpointed the day he’d bought into her plan. He changed towards me, maybe because he knew she’d have to sleep with me for it to work, and yet he couldn’t fall out with me, at least not for long. He needed me in his life, his rival and enemy, to be available for an argument on the night he was to disappear. Without me, there’d be no murder theory, only a senseless disappearance, which meant no money for years.

I got used to the rhythm of it. He’d say something abrasive (‘You’re a fucking dinosaur, Jamie’) and then he’d regroup to suggest something sociable (‘No hard feelings, mate. Time for a quick one at Mariners?’). Of course, he didn’t know that I was wrangling an almost identical dilemma: I couldn’t stand the sight of him, but I needed him in range. It both fortified and desensitized me to understand that we thought each other equally worthless and therefore equally worth sacrificing.

‘I can’t believe he’s willing to live with a false identity for the rest of his life,’ I told Melia.

‘What’s the alternative? Live like paupers for ever? And I’d have to, as well, don’t forget. The idea is we’d have each other and that’s all that counts.’ She pulled a nauseatingly romantic expression, before letting it fade to dispassion. It was an interesting thing, her alteration, her hardening of resolve. A mutation, fast-moving and deadly, and yet quite undetectable on the surface.

‘You wouldn’t be able to stay in Europe, if you were really doing it. It would have to be South America or somewhere without an extradition agreement with the UK, virtually off grid.’

‘If,’ she echoed, adding, hard candy in her voice, ‘Maybe I’ll let him choose the destination. It’s the least I can do.’

*

Kit being Kit, he struggled at times to stick to his script. It was the failed actor in him as much as the unreliable libertine. With a fortune tantalizingly in reach and nervous tension escalating, he consumed more booze and drugs than ever, risking his job exactly when it was vital he keep it. Melia managed him, talked him up, talked him down. It was a tribute to her that he was able to complete the course, even if the finish line he staggered towards was marked with a blade, not a ribbon.

She’s a total slut . . . Just you wait, Jamie! I fucking mean it! It made my blood run cold that he would almost give himself away like that. Not only in his words, but also in his eyes, projecting like a silent movie just for me: months of hating me for having her. Months of longing to tell me it wasn’t real, that she was using me.

Well, he was right about that.

*

Yes, it was a long game, a bluff of moving parts. Every step was debated and dissected, our logistical queries checked on public computer terminals or colleagues’ borrowed laptops. ‘I’m thinking just before Christmas for getting him into hiding,’ Melia said. ‘There’s a lot of crime over that period, a lot of noise. When I report him missing, the police will be stretched to capacity.’

‘You mean, you don’t want them to investigate too well?’

‘Exactly. It needs to all be official, but the last thing we want is for them to actually find him.’ Holed up in his grotty B&B in Thamesmead, with long-stay rooms for cash and a helpful leniency regarding ID. It was a temporary option, as far as Kit understood it, but in reality his final home.

With my train to Edinburgh booked for Tuesday morning, drinks with the water rats would be scheduled for the Monday night. Kit was primed to initiate a row in the stretch between North Greenwich and St Mary’s, making sure the cameras caught it nice and clear. Once off the boat, he’d turn onto the river path towards the Hope & Anchor, careful to obscure his face when in range of the pub’s exterior camera, and then on to Pepys Road, where he’d be removed to his hideout by an unlicensed minicab arranged by Melia, complete with generous tip to buy the driver’s silence.

‘Don’t get too provoked, Jamie. Don’t actually lure him off and kill him.’

We shared a laugh at that.

‘When exactly will you phone the police?’

‘I’ll give it a day or two. That’s what I’d do if I really didn’t know where he was.’

‘Wouldn’t you ring me, though? When he hasn’t come home on the Tuesday morning? You’d know he’d been out with me the night before.’

‘I’ll ring you,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll try a few times, but let it go to voicemail. We don’t want the police thinking we’ve been speaking.’ Colluding. Conspiring.

‘You’d try Clare, as well, wouldn’t you? That would be the natural thing, if you couldn’t get hold of me.’ She’d be more likely to pick up, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she did. ‘She’s sure to say he’s off partying somewhere, he’s done it often enough before.’

‘By the time you come back, the police will have taken a statement from me and will want to speak to you,’ Melia said. ‘My guess is they’ll phone you at work on the Friday. And, Jamie?’