this, as though I’ve gone ahead and trodden on their toes, but what toes? I want to ask them – they weren’t doing anything to track Kate down, so she can hardly blame me.
Nunes interrupts me. ‘Are these the men you told Detective Reza about earlier today?’ he asks, his accent so thick I struggle a little to understand.
I nod. ‘Yes, that’s right. We, I mean, I managed to find them.’ Damn, I wanted to keep Konstandin out of it. I shouldn’t have slipped up like that.
‘How?’ Reza asks. She glances at Nunes.
‘I found their social media accounts and arranged a meeting,’ I say, skipping over the Konstandin part of it all. ‘Joaquim admitted they stole Kate’s bag.’
At that Detective Nunes cocks his head. ‘He admitted this?’ he asks, eyebrows raised.
I nod. ‘Yes. He said they stole her bag, her phone and wallet and everything that was inside the bag.’ I pick Kate’s Birkin bag up off the floor and put it on Reza’s desk. ‘Here it is.’
She takes it in, then looks up at me, frowning. ‘And how do you happen to have it?’
‘They gave it to me.’
She frowns. ‘Let me get this clear. They stole the bag and then they gave it back?’
I nod. ‘Uh-huh.’ In my head I picture Konstandin punching Joaquim in the face but I keep quiet. ‘They took the money from her wallet and her credit cards but I got the bag. And her phone. They’d sold it to a pawnshop.’
Nunes looks to Reza, frowning. He doesn’t recognise the word and she translates it for him.
He looks at me. ‘You went to a case de penhores?’ he asks, surprised.
Reza’s fingertips stroke the leather strap of the bag. ‘This is a genuine Hermès?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘They’re expensive aren’t they?’
I nod again. ‘I think about fifteen thousand pounds. I’m not sure.’
‘But these men who you say stole it—’
‘They did steal it,’ I splutter.
Her eyebrow rises almost imperceptibly. Does she not believe me?
‘You say these men were escorts – prostitutes – and your friend hired them?’
I nod, starting to get frustrated at having to repeat myself. It’s not that hard to understand. ‘Yes.’
‘How did you find out that they were escorts?’ she asks.
I swallow. ‘I um, went back to the bar where we met them and the barman there told me.’
‘The name of the bar?’ Nunes asks.
I turn to him. ‘The Blue Speakeasy. It’s in Baixa,’ I add, naming the nightlife area of the city.
He nods. Between Reza’s scepticism and Nunes’s scorn I can feel my frustration starting to grow again. ‘I’ve given you their names,’ I say, my voice rising. ‘You can find them and interview them if you don’t believe me. They say they don’t know what happened to Kate but maybe they’re lying.’
She nods. ‘If they exist, we’ll find them and bring them in for questioning,’ she says.
‘What do you mean if they exist? Of course they exist! I’m not lying!’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she says calmly, but what else could she have meant?
‘You shouldn’t have done all this alone,’ Nunes adds. ‘It’s not good. You should have left it to us.’
I blink at him, astonished. They weren’t doing anything!
‘I had to do something,’ I protest. ‘No one was taking it seriously.’ I glare at them both, trying to make my point.
‘My colleague tried to find these men, based on the information you gave me this morning,’ Reza says, nodding at Nunes. ‘But he didn’t have any luck.’
I bet he tried really hard, I think to myself, scouring him with a look.
I turn back to Reza who I think is more amenable to my story, rather than Nunes who seems disbelieving, as well as too lazy to actually do his job. ‘Now I’ve proved something must have happened to her!’ I say, almost shouting. ‘She can’t have got very far without her wallet or her passport or her phone! I said something was wrong but no one believed me.’ I shoot another look at Nunes and then hold up the bag. ‘This is proof.’ Isn’t it?
Even as I say it though doubt niggles at me, an itch I try to ignore. What if Toby was right and Kate is fucking with us. Is it some type of game? Should I tell the police my concerns – but then, if I do, they might not bother to investigate at all and we’ll be back to square one.
I’m keeping so much from them and I sense that they know it. It’s making me look suspicious. I’m not