Page 98 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

He’s peering at me, his green eyes full of concern. ‘Do you think I could come in?’ he says. ‘I feel like I’ve been travelling for about half of my natural life.’

I look up at him again and notice the smudge of shadows under his eyes.

‘Yes, of course, come through.’ He follows me into the living room and immediately flops on the couch. ‘Can I get you anything? Water? Food? I’d offer tea but there’s only like rose and hibiscus. They can’t really get tea right over here.’

Charlie gives me a half smile and reaches into the holdall he dragged in with him and pulls out a turquoise box. Tea bags. ‘Fortnum and Mason,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d be missing them.’

I could cry.

I love this man so much.

I take the tea bags and go through to the kitchen, where I boil water on the stove and make us mugs of tea with oat milk.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask again when I take the drinks back through. He’s texting someone and I feel a stab of anxiety. What if it’s another woman? What if he’s telling someone else that he’s arrived safely?

I don’t think I could cope.

‘Tor persuaded me,’ he says with that smile again as he slides the phone back into his pocket. ‘She seems to think there’s something you need to talk to me about?’ He gives me an expectant look.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Did she?’ I have no idea what this means. I haven’t told Tor about Antoinette going missing. I haven’t told anyone back in the UK.

‘Yes,’ he says, cocking his head at me in that way I love. ‘She made it sound pretty important?’

What is Tor playing at? ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ I say.

Charlie looks confused. ‘Oh. Right,’ he says and it feels awkward between us now. ‘Maybe I should have called you first. But I wasn’t sure if you’d speak to me.’

‘I’m sorry if you’ve had a wasted trip,’ I say, ‘but I really don’t know what Tor is talking about.’

‘That’s so weird,’ he says. ‘She seemed pretty sure when I saw her.’

‘You saw her?’ I ask. Why hasn’t Tor mentioned any of this to me? What’s she playing at?

‘Yes,’ he nods, ‘she messaged me and asked me to go to her house.’ He sees my expression. ‘I was surprised too, but she seemed to really want to talk to me. I was worried something had happened to you.’ His voice is softer as he says the last part.

‘How was she?’

Charlie looks at his hands. ‘Not good,’ he says. ‘She told me everything that happened. You know with that therapist guy.’

‘Aidan Ward,’ I say through gritted teeth.

‘She seems to think you followed him out here?’

I think about the man in the cellar, the man I was so close to killing just moments ago. I’m not sure how much I can tell Charlie. He knows all about me. But he hates it. Hates it so much that, the last time I saw him, he couldn’t even bear to be in the same room as me.

‘Charlie,’ I say, ‘it’s great to see you, so great, but now isn’t a really good time.’

He frowns. ‘What do you mean?’

I sigh. ‘Antoinette is missing,’ I say.

‘What do you mean missing?’

Why does everyone keep asking that?

Is there another definition of ‘missing’ that’s totally bypassed me?

‘Gone, disappeared. I think something bad has happened to her.’