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‘Of course, proverbial,’ he says, with a smirk, and turns, gazing across the water, quietly, as if taking it all in one last time. The boat bobs. A plane bumbles over-heard, unseen behind the clouds. Jack’s phone bleeps, once. An email.
‘Jack?’
‘Mhm?’
‘In the interest of .?.?.proverbial breeze blocks,’ I say, tentatively. I want to ask, because Jack, chief of staff – he’ll probably know the answer. But I also don’t want to. I don’t want to bring everything out there, in here, with us. And yet .?.?. ‘What your nerd said. Your coder nerd.’
And Jack sags. Just a tiny, tiny little bit, almost undetectable, but I see it and the shame makes my ears go hot, despite this sharp, cool, salty air, the raincoat zipped up to my neck.
‘Right,’ is all he says.
‘It’s just .?.?. the night it happened, Owen said he wasinManchester. But I don’t think he was. I don’t even know but .?.?.’
‘Manchester for what?’ asks Jack.
‘Cricket?’
Jack rubs his stubbly chin with his hand, thinking. A seagull swoops, and lands, flawlessly in the water. From elegant bird in flight, to rubber duck.
‘Cricket,’ he repeats. ‘Yeah. Yeah, he would’ve been.’
‘But could he have come back from Manchester?’ I ask. ‘In time tosendthe emails? They were sent on a Thursday.’
Jack presses his mouth into a downward arc, his stubbly chin dimpling. ‘I mean – yeah. It was a packing-up day so the day was shorter. But hewasin Manchester. Exact timings, though; I wouldn’t know.’
I stare at Jack across the boat, watch him watching the horizon, November sunlight glinting in his eyes. But I suddenly feel like there’s this .?.?. edge between us, here, miles from land. A deflatedness. And looking over at Leigh, small and rustic and higgledy in the distance, knowing my flat is right there, work is right there, Owen is right there, my whole world, right there, and here I am, with someone who is about to be nowhere near here .?.?. I feel like my chest is going to cave in.
‘I know I sound like some sort of cut-price detective,’ I say shamefully. ‘But I want to ask him. If he lied. If he was here when it happened.’
Jack looks down at his feet for a second, gives a lazy shrug. ‘I don’t think Kalimeris will ever give you the answers you want, Millie.’
I say nothing; nod. The boat bobs and bobs, and it’s as if there’s an invisible cloud between us both; swelling and swelling with things we want to say, things we don’t know how to, bearing down on us, in this little boat.Don’t leave me.Please don’t leave me.
‘We could just keep going,’ Jack says, softly.
‘Go on then. After you. You know all the levers and buttons and stuff.’
Jack gives a deep chuckle. ‘Yeah, not sure how farSir Instinctwould get us.’
‘Or you could just stay here?’ I say. ‘That’s always an option. Stay here, continue to work at the proverbial bin .?.?.’
‘Ah.’ Jack laughs. Then he stares thoughtfully out to sea. ‘Or you could just leave.’
‘Leave?’ I feel frozen now – like a fish in a net.
‘Yeah, we can just .?.?. do this,’ he says. ‘But. Everywhere else.’
‘Me, you and Enam and the alpacas?’ I say, my whole face, my whole body, going hot.
‘Why not?’
‘Ha. So what, eh?’
‘Yeah, so what? Come.’
And he reaches a hand up to my face, traces a warm finger down my cheek. I look down at my feet and now I want to cry.
‘I can’t just be like you,’ I say.
