it. If they find out about the affair they’ll think it was a motive.’ I wipe at the tears rolling down my face and dripping off my chin.
‘It is.’
I look up in alarm at Konstandin. What’s he saying? ‘You can’t think I did it!’ I shout, lurching to my feet. ‘I didn’t! You saw me the day after she disappeared. You know I didn’t do it … I couldn’t …’
Konstandin is on his feet too. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he reassures me. ‘I meant that perhaps there were other people who were hurt by the affair, who might also have been angry, who also had it as a motive.’
Relief washes over me. He’s confirmed my own suspicions. ‘Yes! Toby, Kate’s ex-husband! He admitted to me that he knew about the affair. And he was furious about the divorce and Kate trying to take his money.’ I start to pace up and down the small living room. Could it really be Toby? Is he capable of this? Did he follow us to Lisbon or have someone follow us? He’s the kind of person who’d hire someone to do his dirty work.
‘I was actually thinking of your husband,’ Konstandin says, interrupting my chain of thought.
‘What?’ I turn and stare at Konstandin in shock.
‘What was he doing in Lisbon?’ He shrugs.
‘I asked him to come here,’ I exclaim. ‘It wasn’t Rob. He was home on Friday night. He was taking care of Marlow.’
‘Are you sure?’
I shake my head at him, bewildered. ‘Yes … yes! She’s a baby. She can’t exactly take care of herself.’ I called him on the Saturday once I woke up and found Kate was missing. He was home then. He was about to take Marlow to the park.
‘How did your husband feel about his mistress going on holiday with his wife?’ Konstandin asks.
I reach for my whisky glass and take another swig. It helps burn off the last of my tears. ‘He was worried. I listened to the messages he left on Kate’s phone. He thought she was going to tell me about the affair. He begged her not to.’
Konstandin says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He’s right. That’s a motive right there. ‘Shit,’ I say, clamping my hands around my head. ‘I deleted the messages. I erased everything on her phone. I didn’t want the police to find out.’ I pull my own phone out of my back pocket. ‘But I took screenshots of the texts they sent and emailed them to myself. There were hundreds of them.’
I open up my email and click on the first of them. The earlier ones are all full of aubergine emojis and times and meeting places. As I keep scrolling I notice the increase in heart emojis and more mundane things about work and life. Kate tells him often that she misses him. Every message that I read twists the knife another savage turn. I shove the phone at Konstandin. ‘I can’t do this.’
He takes the phone and starts reading as I pace behind him, eyes scrunched shut.
‘Tell me the gist,’ I say.
‘It looks like he broke up with her.’
‘Why? Was it because I was pregnant?’
‘Yes,’ Konstandin says. ‘He says he’s sorry but he can’t walk away now, not with a baby on the way.’
I finish the rest of my whisky and reach for the bottle.
‘She’s not happy,’ Konstandin continues. ‘She tries to convince him to stay with her, tells him they can make it work. That she loves him.’
‘Does he ever say it back?’ I ask, through gritted teeth, watching Konstandin’s face as he reads through the texts.
He glances up at me and nods. ‘But he says he loves you too.’
‘Well, that’s OK then, isn’t it?’ I remark, pouring myself another hefty measure of whisky. ‘Shame we aren’t Mormons. We could have been sister wives.’
‘You might want to slow down,’ Konstandin remarks as I bring the glass to my lips.
I glare at him.
‘You need to keep a straight head,’ he tells me evenly.
He’s right; I know. Grudgingly, I set the glass down.
‘It makes sense,’ Konstandin says, pulling a cigarette packet out of his back pocket. He offers one to me and I take it and let him light it for me. I inhale deeply, letting the head-spinning effect calm me.
‘What makes sense?’ I ask.
‘The reason Kate hired the escorts.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She hired them to sleep with you so she had something to show your husband. If she could prove to him that you had been unfaithful then maybe