‘Fine,’ I hiss. ‘I swear. Now show me the footage.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘I’m not a pervert,’ Sebastian simpers. ‘And I didn’t kill your friend.’
I glance sideways at him. ‘We clearly have different definitions of the word,’ I tell him, my skin still crawling at the thought he’s seen me naked.
We’re in his soundproofed room, the door propped open with a textbook, as I couldn’t stand the idea of being in too close confines with him. There’s still a chance he did something to Kate. I’m not taking his word for anything. He’s a liar as well as a pervert.
Nervous, I glance at the door. He could lock me in here and no one would hear me scream, which is why I propped open the door and am standing closest to it.
I watch him bend over the keyboard and tap away, and finally up pops the footage from Friday night into Saturday morning. He fast-forwards through it and then stops. The time stamp in the corner of the screen reads 2.12 a.m.
It’s a feed from the living room in the apartment upstairs. There’s stillness for a few seconds, then movement blots the screen. It’s Kate. I inhale sharply, painfully, the sight of her unleashing a million arrows of anger, sorrow and grief, but also joy.
For the last few days all I’ve seen whenever I think of her is her grey, bloated face and blue lips. And yet, here she is, as I wanted to remember her, animated and alive, bursting with energy as she strides through the shot. Emanuel follows her, sauntering into the apartment, looking around as he goes. He takes off his jacket and flings it onto one of the sofas in the living room as Kate dances into the kitchen. She’s like a firework, I think to myself, shining so brightly and with such effervescence. How did I not appreciate it while she was alive? No wonder Rob was in her thrall. I watch as she fills a glass with water from the tap.
‘This, you should see,’ Sebastian tells me, freezing the shot and then zooming in.
‘What?’ I ask, unsure what he’s showing me. It’s all blurry.
He fast-forwards frame by frame and then hits play again. ‘Did you see that?’ he asks as Kate picks up the glass of water and turns away.
I shake my head. ‘No, play it again.’
Sebastian rewinds the footage and plays it one more time, on slow. I draw breath as I watch Kate pull the little pillbox from her pocket and dump the contents into the glass.
‘She put something in the water,’ Sebastian says, pointing at the screen.
I had already surmised it was Kate who drugged me, but seeing her actually do it, drop the powder in the glass and swirl it around with a light motion of the wrist, makes me realise how hard I’ve been praying that it wasn’t her. It’s so hard to watch, one more betrayal on top of the affair she was having with my husband.
I watch her carry the glass out into the living room. She must have drugged me in the bar too when she gave me the gin and tonic instead of water, perhaps trying to disguise the taste of whatever she was plying me with, which I’m guessing was ketamine. She must have been trying to make me pliant so I’d go along with her little plan to sleep with Joaquim. After I refused, she probably decided to take things further. If she drugged me with enough ketamine she knew I’d pass out and then she could move to plan B – framing me instead, so I’d wake up and not know the truth. The bitch. How could she think up a plan like that, let alone execute it? I’m her best friend. Was her best friend. Or was I? I don’t know and now I’ll never be able to ask her.
‘Show me the camera in the bedroom,’ I tell Sebastian, but he’s already switching camera feeds. Now we’re in my room. And there I am. It’s sudden and shocking and strange to watch myself on screen – almost like an out-of-body experience. It feels like I’m watching a stranger. Joaquim is helping me towards the bathroom, holding me up, his arm around my waist as I stumble blindly.
Sebastian switches cameras again, this time to the one in the bathroom. The camera must be hidden in the light fitting over the mirror. I cringe at how awful I look, how drunk