the apartment and Kate still hasn’t shown up and that I’m going to the police in the morning.
‘Call me when you wake up,’ he says. ‘Love you.’
‘I wish you were here,’ I reply.
He sends me a heart emoji back. I crawl under the covers in my clothes, clutching my phone. My bare foot brushes something. I throw back the covers and reach to pick up a piece of shiny foil beside my leg. My hand shakes as I bring it close to study it. It’s an empty condom wrapper.
I leap out of bed. What in God’s name …?
Next thing I know I’m leaning over the toilet throwing up what I ate for dinner. When I’m done I lean back on my haunches. Jittery and sweating, I stare at the crumpled condom wrapper on the side by the sink and retch again.
Chapter Fourteen
Sunday
I don’t sleep. Or at least I sleep fitfully, barely grazing the surface of dreams. My imagination keeps fetching up hideous images of what’s happened to Kate. I see her lying dead in a coffin. I see her trapped in an underground cave. I see her tied up in an attic or a basement. I basically see her in a million different scenarios taken from every movie, book, true crime podcast or news report I’ve ever read that has made me shudder about the violence and horror and evil in the world. And when I’m not thinking about awful things like that I’m thinking of myself lying unconscious in this bed being raped. I’ve tried to tell myself that it didn’t happen, it can’t be true, because I would know, surely? But a seed of worry has been planted and it keeps on growing.
At three in the morning I give up on sleep and get up and make some coffee, stupidly forgetting and washing up the glass with the powdery substance in the bottom. There goes whatever evidence that might have been.
I check the details for the British embassy online and find the number of the British newspaper in Lisbon too. I make a plan to call both once they open. I need to do more than just go to the police, I decide. I worry the police aren’t going to do anything – not after the lackadaisical response yesterday – so I need a back-up plan. I also need help. Maybe Rob can ask his mum to look after Marlow and he can come over here to be with me. I need to tell him everything about that night but I can’t do it over the phone. I need to do it face to face. And I just need him here. He’d know what to do.
As soon as it’s six o’clock and the sun has risen I call him. He’s asleep but picks up straightaway.
‘Can you come?’ I ask, barely holding back tears.
‘To Lisbon?’ he answers, blearily, his dark hair sticking up all over the place. ‘I’ve got work tomorrow,’ he says. ‘And you’re meant to be coming home tonight.’
Damn. He’s right. It’s Sunday. ‘But I can’t come home. Not without Kate,’ I say. ‘I have to find her.’
‘Are you still going to the police?’ he asks, yawning.
‘Of course,’ I snap, tiredly. ‘She’s been missing for over a day. I’m really worried, Rob.’ The sob bursts out of me, everything too much. ‘Something’s wrong. I can just tell.’
He doesn’t answer. I watch him sit up and rub his eyes. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ he says. I wonder if I should tell him now about the escorts, about the drugs, about my fears about what happened to me, but before I can decide I hear Marlow in the background starting to cry. Rob sighs. ‘The boss is awake,’ he says. ‘I need to go.’
‘OK,’ I say. Shit. I can’t keep putting it off.
‘Call me when you’ve been to the police. Let me know what they say.’
I nod. When I hang up there’s a message from Konstandin asking me what time I want to go to the police station. I text him back to say as soon as it opens at eight.
There’s something comforting about not doing all this alone. It’s why I wanted Rob here. ‘Konstandin is my stand-in,’ I mumble, then half-laugh. It’s the kind of joke that Kate would make.
In the thirty minutes before Konstandin arrives I jump in the shower and drink more coffee – trying to wake up my sluggish mind. As I grab my phone from the side I remember to check Joaquim