that night after he saw us bring home Joaquim and Emanuel? Or he could have emailed her and arranged to meet her. Maybe when she had that phone call with him outside the restaurant he was telling her to meet him later, arranging a rendezvous time and place. But why then would she have slept with Emanuel? That’s not the behaviour of a woman dying to leap into the arms of her lover. It’s the action of a woman scorned who’s on the rebound.
I try to picture Rob and Kate fighting. Rob’s never been physical with me so it’s hard to picture. I can see Kate maybe slapping him, screaming at him, begging him to leave me. But maybe with her he’s a different person. I would never have expected he would cheat on me, so how well do I really know him? And, if he thought she might destroy his life by telling me, would he have had enough incentive to hurt her or even silence her? I’m succumbing to the idea that it must have been Rob. It’s all adding up.
Of course it could have been an accident. Maybe she went for him and he restrained her and accidentally pushed her. She could have fallen and hit her head. Did he see she was unconscious or think she was dead and roll her into the water to hide his crime?
The problem is I don’t want to believe it was Rob. And at the end of the day, this is all wild conjecture – my imagination trying to fill gaps. I need to know!
Think, Orla, think, I tell myself. If he did fly over here to Lisbon on Friday night how can I confirm it? It comes to me in a flash. He wouldn’t be able to resist the points. Rob is religious about collecting air miles. It’s part of his economising, tightwad, accountant nature. He would have bought a flight on his credit card and added the miles to his Avios account and I have access to the Avios account as it’s a joint one. He wanted to make sure we both capitalised on the points. Last year it paid for a return flight to the Canaries where we went for a winter break.
I log into my Avios account, struggling to remember the password. It loads slowly and the tension makes me want to scream. The whisky from earlier has worn off and now I feel exhausted, my nerves spent. I’m clinging on by my fingernails to the very edge of sanity. When the page loads it takes me a few seconds to navigate to the statement and there I see the evidence I don’t want to see.
Three return flights to Lisbon in total. My own flight on Friday afternoon, plus another flight to Lisbon at six thirty-five p.m. the same day with a return at six the next morning. A third flight on Sunday is the one Rob took back here when I begged him to come over. Goddamn it. My legs give way and I sink to the floor, not even making it to the bed. He was here. He was in Lisbon the night Kate died … was murdered. What do I do with this information?
I try his number again. It goes straight to voicemail. He’s probably on the phone to Tom who’s warning him I’m on the warpath. I send a text, debating what to write. In the end I type: I KNOW. Then press send.
He doesn’t respond. And when I call again five minutes later it rings and rings and he doesn’t pick up. What’s going on? He must be avoiding me, the coward. He’s probably freaking out that I know the truth, trying to figure out how much I know and how, and what lies he might be able to get away with now Kate’s not around to contradict them. I like to imagine his panic. I hope he’s experiencing one hundredth of the anguish that I’m going through, but still, I need him to pick up.
I spend five minutes trying to figure out my next move and finally I type out a text. I KNOW WHERE YOU WERE FRIDAY NIGHT. CALL ME BACK OR I WILL TELL THE POLICE.
Chapter Thirty
After I hit send, I wait, sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding the phone, barely breathing. Seconds later the phone jerks alive in my hand. It’s Rob.