and out of it, my make-up smeared all over my face. I wince as I fall to the ground with a thunk and hurl into the toilet as Joaquim hovers behind me, looking disgusted and a little awkward. He does kneel behind me, however, and pull my hair out of the way as I flop against the toilet seat.
Sebastian glances in my direction but I ignore him, my attention on the monitor.
Kate appears then, holding the glass of water. She hands it to Joaquim who helps me sit up and props me against the loo. I sip from the glass at his urging. I don’t remember this part. I was already out of it, and yet Kate was still plying me with more drugs. She could have killed me with an overdose. Did she not stop to think about that?
‘You OK?’ Kate asks, bending down and patting me on the back. ‘Why don’t you get to bed?’
Hearing her voice is like feeling a whip lash against broken skin. I flinch and want to cover my ears. She sounds like she’s in the room, right behind me.
‘Joaquim, put her to bed,’ she orders, her expression taking on a hardness as she turns to him.
Joaquim has to pull me to my feet as I’m slumped on the ground, almost unconscious. As Kate waltzes out of the bathroom Joaquim picks me up and carries me out, back into the bedroom. Sebastian switches feeds and we watch as Joaquim lowers me into the bed.
He takes off my shoes, slides the covers over me, then pauses, hovering over me for a few seconds. ‘Do you want me to take off your clothes?’ he asks.
I hold my breath, watching my eyes close and my body sink into the mattress.
Joaquim leaves the room, turning off the light and I let out the breath I was holding.
Sebastian switches back to the living room camera, eager now to show me the rest of the night. Kate’s put on some music and it’s blaring loudly. I can’t hear what she’s saying over the top of it but I watch her dancing with Emanuel, flinging her arms around his neck, gyrating against him. His hands rove over her body. Joaquim pours himself a drink and sits down on the sofa. He pulls out his phone, ignoring them.
‘Fast-forward,’ I tell Sebastian. ‘Did you record them having sex?’
He flushes guiltily. ‘Skip over it,’ I say. I don’t want to watch it. ‘Go to the part where they leave.’
He does, fingers flying over the buttons. We must miss the hot tub and the sex. We jump all the way to 3.05 a.m. I watch Joaquim and Emanuel leave the apartment. They seem rushed as they head out the door, but they aren’t running, only hurrying as if the taxi is outside waiting, carrying their jackets and, of course, Kate’s bag.
‘When does Kate leave?’ I ask.
‘Wait,’ Sebastian says to me tersely.
The seconds tick by on the counter and nothing happens. Forty-three seconds go by and then, just as I’m about to tell Sebastian to fast-forward … boom, Kate comes rushing past, heading towards the front door. She’s wearing a loose T-shirt dress and sandals. We hear the door slam.
‘Where’s she going?’ I murmur to myself.
Sebastian leans over the keyboard and types something in. The image shifts to the camera in Kate’s room. He rewinds the footage about ten minutes. Emanuel’s pulling on his clothes. Kate’s lying face down, naked, sprawled on the bed. I pull a face, grateful not to have watched the five minutes previous. They’ve just had sex; that much is obvious. Kate rolls over and gets up and I try to ignore the fact I’m watching my naked best friend. She picks up the used condom from the bedside table and drops it in the trash. Then I see her pause. She leans over the bin and picks up the torn foil condom wrapper. I can practically see the idea forming in her brain as she does it.
I watch her pull on the dress and then walk out the room, still holding the condom wrapper.
‘She puts it in your bed,’ Sebastian says, switching to the camera in my room. Kate and Emanuel enter. I’m fast asleep, head turned to the side, limbs splayed like a starfish. Kate stands over me for a second and I hear my pulse thrumming loudly in my ears as I watch her watching me.
She slides the wrapper into the bed beneath the covers.