his nose in that nervous habit he has. ‘There’s someone here to see you,’ he says to me.
‘Who?’ I ask, alarmed.
‘The police.’
I look at Rob. What are the police doing here this late at night? It can’t be good, that’s for sure.
‘Orla?’ Rob says, jolting me out of my stasis.
He’s already on his feet, looking down at me.
I stand up on shaking legs and take a step towards the door, reaching for Rob’s hand as I pass, not sure I can do this alone. It’s like walking to the gallows. Maybe it isn’t bad news, I tell myself; maybe they’ve found her and have come to tell me she’s in hospital.
Detective Reza stands in the doorway with Detective Nunes. Both of their expressions are blank and impossible to read though Nunes’s gaze is fixed on me, his eyes burrowing into me as though he wants to dig into my mind.
My insides pull tight, cinching into a knot. The whole world seems to shrink in on me so it’s just this narrow hallway and Reza and Nunes standing at the end of it.
‘What is it?’ I hear myself ask, my voice barely a whisper.
‘Can we come in?’ Reza asks.
‘Please, just tell me,’ I say.
Reza pauses. ‘We’ve found a body.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Somehow I find myself sitting on the sofa in Sebastian’s surgically neat living room, Rob beside me with his arm around my shoulders, and Sebastian leaning over me with a glass of water, which I can’t take because my hand is trembling too hard. He sets it on a coaster on the table in front of me instead.
Reza sits opposite me. Her expression has softened slightly but Nunes stands behind her like a sentry, his gaze lasering me.
‘Is it definitely Kate?’ Rob asks, his voice breaking.
‘We need a formal identification before we can confirm it,’ Reza says. ‘But, the body matches the description.’
I look up. ‘So, you aren’t sure then?’ I ask. ‘It might not be her?’ I can hear the desperate hope in my voice, the anxious pleading tone. Please don’t let it be her. Please let it be a mistake. Kate can’t possibly be dead.
Reza bites her lip and hesitates before carrying on. ‘We’re fairly certain that it is your friend,’ she says to me.
‘How did she die?’ Rob asks, his face mirroring my own shock.
Reza turns to look at him. ‘There needs to be an autopsy so we can establish that for certain, but it looks like she drowned.’
I draw in a sharp, stabbing breath as though I’m breathing through cracked ribs. ‘Where?’ I ask. ‘How?’
‘In the river.’
‘But what was she doing there?’
Reza shakes her head and shrugs. ‘The body was pulled from the water near the docks but we don’t know where she fell in exactly. We’re looking at tide times and trying to establish that.’
I clutch at Rob’s hand. I think I’m going to be sick. This can’t be happening. ‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ I hear myself say. ‘What was she doing by the river? It can’t be her. You must be wrong.’
‘That’s why we’re here actually,’ Nunes says. ‘We need you to come and identify the body.’
‘Oh my God,’ I whisper, clutching Rob’s hand.
Reza makes to stand up.
‘You mean, right now?’ I ask, dumbfounded.
She nods. ‘Yes.’
It takes me a moment to collect myself. ‘OK,’ I say and stand up. It’s like I’m floating all of a sudden above myself, looking down on the room, seeing Rob standing beside me, holding my arm like I’m an invalid, and Sebastian, lurking in the corner like a gargoyle, watching.
Reza steps aside to let Rob and I pass. I hear Rob telling her we’ll just be a minute to get our things. He guides me back to the bedroom. There, away from the others, he turns to me and says something, but I’m still floating overhead, and I can’t make out what he’s saying. With effort, I drop back into my body and tune in.
‘Where did you put your bag?’ he’s asking me. He looks around the room and moves towards Kate’s Birkin.
‘That’s not mine,’ I say. ‘That’s Kate’s.’ I point at my own bag, lying on the floor by the bed. He picks that up and my coat too.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
I shake my head. No. I can’t do this. There’s no way I can identify a body.
Rob walks over to me and takes me by the top of the arms. He looks into my eyes. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’ll be there with you. We’ll do it together.’
He