Saturday morning, no work today, outside it’s frosty and inside under the duvet it’s warm. Our bodies touch as we eat, and I can feel Alex’s heat, the smell of last night’s aftershave, musky, with a syrupy balm, and that echo of secret smoke, that I’m sure only I can detect. ‘Pancakes and coffee – best ever hangover food!’ I say, pushing the sweet, spongy dough into my mouth.
‘A hangover? Is that what you have?’
‘Yeah, but this is helping.’
‘Hannah…’
‘Yeah,’ I say, a mouthful of strawberries now accompanying the pancake. He’s not eating, he’s just watching me and drinking coffee.
‘You didn’t drink that much last night, did you?’
‘No. But it wiped me out totally. I don’t remember much. I think I was sick, then nothing.’
‘Yes you were very sick.’
‘God. I haven’t been sick with alcohol since I was at uni – I can usually take my drink.’
‘Yeah, I know. We’ve shared a couple of bottles of red at home, and you’ve been fine, and everyone else at your table seemed relatively sober from where I was sitting.’
‘Oh no, did they?’ I feel even more embarrassed now.
‘I don’t know – it doesn’t make sense,’ he’s saying, ‘and it wasn’t just the sickness, you couldn’t stand up.’
‘Did you bring me home?’ I ask.
‘Of course. Good job I was there, the others were oblivious, just carried on drinking, didn’t seem to register how bad you were. You blacked out in the car. I was in two minds whether to take you to the hospital but brought you here and kept an eye on you all night.’
‘Aah thanks, what would I do without you?’
‘I thought the same.’ He pauses. ‘It made me wonder if…’
‘What?’ I stop chewing.
‘If someone spiked your drinks?’
This hadn’t even occurred to me, but I definitely felt much worse than I normally would after a few drinks. ‘You mean someone in the wine bar, the restaurant? But who? I mean, why would anyone do that?’
‘Who knows? There are some weirdos about. I worked on a case once where a waiter put drugs in women’s drinks, and when they were really out of it, he’d drive them home – and rape them.’
‘Jesus.’ I shake my head in disgust.
Alex shrugs. ‘I know. And I honestly don’t think it was just drink that made you like that last night Hannah. You should be careful, especially if you go out with a group of people again.’
‘What are you saying?’
He leans on one arm and looks at me. ‘What do you think?’
I immediately assume he’s talking about Helen. ‘Oh my God. You saw her on the app, she was nearby, she might have come into the bar and… But could she…? Could Helen be capable of…?’
‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘But then again, I can’t say she was actually in the bar, and she moved away from the area pretty early on, long before your second bottle.’
‘So you were there, in the bar – Alex you must have been there all night.’
‘I don’t know how long… I just drove over as soon as I saw Helen was in the vicinity.’
I take a breath. ‘That’s good… I think, but…’ I’m about to say that he can’t spend his life looking at the app and checking where she is. But I guess while there’s still a chance she’s upset about us, it’s just as well.
‘She could easily have seen me go in…’ I start, but he interrupts me.
‘I don’t think that’s Helen’s style,’ he says. ‘No. I was thinking – now don’t get angry with me – can you think of someone you work with who might want you to be so out of it you go back to theirs?’
And it hits me. ‘You mean Jas, don’t you?’
‘You tell me? I don’t know her – but if someone were to tell me that one of them had tried to get you really out of it for a laugh, I might think Jas – or Harry, or the other one, Sameera is it?’
‘All my friends basically,’ I say, annoyed now. ‘What about Margaret? She’s sixty-five with a heart condition, but I’m sure she’s got the odd date-rape drug knocking about in her handbag. So why don’t we throw her into the mix too?’
Alex sighs. ‘I knew you’d get angry.’
‘Of course I am. Why on earth would any of my friends do that? It’s not like it’s even funny.’
‘Jas might think it’s funny. Harry might see it as a way of getting you vulnerable and—’
‘Stop this now, Alex, it’s ridiculous and hurtful. These