a natural liar. I honestly don’t know how criminals do it.
‘OK,’ Reza sighs, making to stand up. ‘We will interview the men.’
I nod. Finally. Some progress. I wonder about the promise I made to Joaquim not to involve the cops but dismiss the worry instantly. He deserves to be arrested for what he did. My only concern is that Joaquim will tell them about Konstandin beating him up to get the truth and though they won’t be able to identify him they will want to know why I withheld that information. If they do find out about it I’ll just tell them he was an Uber driver and that I don’t know his name. I won’t betray him after all he’s done for me.
‘What about CCTV?’ I ask Reza, thinking about the street outside our apartment. ‘Security cameras. Can you check those?’
‘Lisbon isn’t London,’ Nunes answers patronisingly. ‘We don’t have CCTV cameras everywhere.’
Reza interrupts, shooting him a look that tells him to dial it back. ‘We’ll ask around the neighbourhood to see if anyone remembers seeing her,’ she assures me.
I nod, biting my lip with frustration.
‘Please don’t leave the country,’ Reza says as she opens the door for me to leave. ‘Or go anywhere without alerting us first.’
‘I don’t have any intention of leaving,’ I say. ‘Not without Kate.’
Chapter Eighteen
Trudging up the stairs to the apartment, I have to suppress the flicker of hope that Kate might be waiting for me; sitting on the sofa legs tucked under her, glass of wine in hand and a crazy tale of adventure to regale me with. Every time my hopes get dashed it’s like a drop of water hitting an already sputtering flame so I try not to let them rise, otherwise the hope will soon be completely extinguished.
The thought that something terrible has happened to Kate won’t leave my head, and with the rise in my anxiety, the level of doubt that was seeded by Toby falls. Kate would never do this. I simply can’t believe it. But I do have so many questions that remain unanswered. Why did she hire escorts and why did she want me to think I’d slept with one of them? And why did Toby make it sound like he was the one who broke up with Kate, not the other way around? He said something about her doing this so he’d take her back, but she never in a million years said anything of the sort to me. She was glad to be rid of him, or so she made it seem.
I try to remember Kate’s mood – she seemed happy on Friday night. She told me she loved me. But there was also that unhappy look on her face when we were lying on the bed, earlier in the evening, before we went out. It was brief and I thought I was mistaken but maybe I wasn’t. What was going on with her? I have so many questions and so few answers. It’s like drowning in quicksand.
It’s only one-thirty in the afternoon but it feels much later, probably because I’ve done so much already today. I’m exhausted and want nothing more than to crawl into bed, burrow under the covers and cry myself to sleep. Actually, I do want something more than that – I want to be heading to the airport with Kate to catch our flight home. I want to be walking up my garden path and opening my front door and seeing Rob and Marlow and falling gratefully into their arms and then onto the sofa in front of the telly with a ready meal from M&S and a bottle of wine, while Marlow sleeps upstairs.
What will I tell Rob? What’s he going to do tomorrow with Marlow? He’ll have to take her to Denise, the child minder, but she might not be available on such short notice. How will he manage on his own? God, I hadn’t thought at all about that. How can I stay here when I have a child at home who needs me? Anger bursts inside me like a geyser – erupting with force before vanishing almost immediately, sucked back down inside the void. I’m too tired to be angry, and far too worried. Nothing matters. Only finding Kate.
When I reach the door to the apartment I pause, my hand freezing halfway to the lock. Someone’s inside. I can hear a woman’s voice. I shove the key in the lock and throw open the door, hysteria