the memorial is being held, with Marlow asleep in the pushchair beside me. Toby chose an old Huguenot church in Spitalfields that’s been converted into an event space, but I’m not going in.
There are hundreds of people inside; Kate knew lots of them no doubt, but I’m guessing most are here for the gossip; acquaintances or strangers, who just want to get close to the drama, have some of her fame rub off on them. This is Kate’s send-off and I don’t want to detract from it. I know that if I step foot inside I’ll become the main attraction.
The story hasn’t fully died away yet. It was headline news and I’m still getting interview requests from daytime TV chat shows and the lower-level tabloids. I’ve decided not to respond to any in the hope the interest will die away. It’s too raw. And one day Marlow will be old enough to read.
As I gently rock the pushchair with one hand, I pull out my phone and see that Konstandin has sent me a new text. He is getting a lot of information from his insider connections on the Lisbon police force. He keeps me up to date on everything.
Reza, despite the fact she was working side by side with a murderer, and that she never did her job properly, has been awarded some kind of honour, a medal, for saving my life.
Sebastian has been charged with kidnapping and assault. I thought kidnapping was a little over the top at first but Reza explained that’s the charge that fits. He did try, after all, to lock me inside his apartment and stop me leaving. Having watched the movie Room, we all know how that could have ended.
He’s also been charged with withholding evidence, for not telling the police what he knew about Kate’s movements on the night she went missing. It could have saved us all so much time. Though ultimately the outcome wouldn’t have changed. She would still be dead.
He has, of course, been booted off Airbnb because they have rules about things like hidden cameras and pervert landlords. I’m not too sure he’s worried about that though, given the amount of jail time he’s facing. I’m finding it hard to locate any sympathy for either him or for Nunes. At least Sebastian is pleading guilty, hoping to throw himself on the mercy of the judge, which means I don’t have to go to court and testify about what happened, at least in that case.
However, Nunes is another story. He’s pleading innocent to both my attempted murder and to murdering Kate, even though they offered to reduce the charge to manslaughter with regards to her, and so it’s going to trial.
I suppose he is staring down the barrel of life in prison and I know that cops don’t get cut much slack on the inside. But still, it’s a little hard to understand how he hopes to plead innocent over my attempted murder, given he was a hair’s breadth away from killing me when they pulled him off me in the interview room. He claims that he panicked and that he was just trying to stop me shouting. He didn’t mean to hurt me, he says. I wonder if he said the same thing after he killed Kate. I’ve had time to think about it and I can’t get the look in his eyes when he attacked me out of my mind. Having seen him lose his temper with me, having almost been killed by him myself, I don’t believe his claim of innocence over Kate’s death. I know he killed her.
When it comes to the court case, I’ll be called as a witness and I will do my best to make sure he pays for what he’s done. When I take the stand I can testify to how indifferent Nunes was when I reported Kate missing, how he tried to push me off the scent and when that didn’t work how he tried to turn me into the suspect. His past history and the marks on his police record mean he’ll have a hard time convincing a jury that he’s innocent. At least, that’s what Konstandin says.
I open the text from Konstandin. He’s sent a link to a video. It’s from his associates’ friends in the Lisbon police force. They have finally managed to track down some security footage from the dock.