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55
June 2019
Libby had called in the middle of the night, the ring tone of Lucy’s phone bleeding into her dreams.
‘Libby,’ Lucy had replied in a loud whisper, seeing 2.15 a.m. flashing on the clock radio. ‘What is it?’
‘Mum! I’m so sorry I woke you up! I’m so sorry! But the police have been on the phone again. The detective guy. And he knew that Miller was here. They traced his phone. And now we both have to go to the station this afternoon, to answer questions.’
‘Wait. They aren’t arresting you, are they?’
‘No. But they know so much now. And they’re going to keep asking us questions until we run out of ways to avoid the truth and I can’t lie any more but I don’t know what to say. What shall we say, Mum?’
‘What time is it there?’ she’d asked.
‘It’s just after eight in the morning.’
‘What time are you supposed to be going to the station?’
‘Three p.m. Miller’s getting legal advice from a friend. But, Mum, you need to find Henry and you need to get your story straight. This is all about to explode. Seriously. We can’t keep this at bay for much longer.’
It’s gone 3 p.m. in the UK now, and Libby and Miller will already be at the police station.
Lucy feels impotent and sick.
She hates herself for putting Libby in this position, for coming into Libby’s blameless, uncomplicated life and tainting it with lies and subterfuge and darkness. She hates that there’s nothing she can do to help her oldest child, that she can’t be there by her side, holding her hand, protecting her from all of this. And she hates that even if she and Henry can somehow navigate their way through this sickening leg of their journey and find their way to the other side, even once this dense shadow has dissipated and cleared, she still has another dark shadow hanging over her, the shadow of what happened in Antibes last summer, and that she will never, ever feel free.
Tears are rising to the base of her throat when Marco suddenly appears.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ he says, bouncing on to the bed beside her. ‘Let’s get Kris to ring Henry. He’ll answer if it’s Kris. Let’s do it now.’
Lucy’s head is spinning too fast for her to properly process what Marco is suggesting. But she forces a smile and says, ‘OK.’
He types a message and a moment later his phone buzzes with a reply.
Lucy draws herself into a sitting position and rubs her face with her hands. ‘What did Kris say?’
‘He said he’ll do it. But he wants to know what he should say. I said he should just pretend that he wants to hook up with him.’
Lucy gives her head a small shake. ‘Sorry?’
‘Well, Kris said that apparently when Henry messaged him on Tuesday night when he was really drunk, he was trying to hook up with him.’
‘Wait, is Kris gay?’
Marco shrugs. ‘Doesn’t really matter, does it, if Henry fancies him? We’re going to do a sting on him. Pretend that Kris wants to hook up, arrange a meeting place. We’ll all turn up. Pow!’
Lucy nods, a smile breaking through her heavy mood. ‘A tiny bit genius. And when will thisstingtake place?’
‘As soon as Henry replies to him and – oh!’ Marco stops and looks at his phone as it pings with an incoming message. ‘Here he is now. Hold on …’ He reads the message and then turns it towards Lucy so that she can read it too.
We’ve arranged to meet for brunch, 11, at Blanche.
‘Blanche?’ says Lucy. ‘That’s the place opposite the apartment block where Phin might be?’
Marco nods. Then he beams and he says, ‘Oh my God. We’re going to see Henry!’
Lucy calls Libby six times between awakening and heading to Blanche. All six calls go to voicemail, and she feels her chest grow tighter with each attempt, as she tries to imagine what Libby andMiller are being forced to reveal on the other side of the world. But now her focus is fixed firmly on the next few moments. She has dressed carefully, neatly, and shampooed her hair and Stella’s. She notices, as they leave the hotel, that Marco has also made himself look smarter than he usually does. His hair is neatly combed, and he is wearing shoes, not trainers.
They sit silently in the foyer of their hotel and wait for Kris to message them from the restaurant. Marco’s phone buzzes at eight minutes past eleven and they all jump.
We are in the back left-hand corner, near the bar. He looks like shit.
They get to their feet, ready to leave the foyer, when two men in dark clothing bowl through the front door and head sternly towards the front desk. Instinctively Lucy moves herself and the children out of view and watches as one of the men pulls a badge from his pocket and asks the receptionist, in a low rumble of a voice, if they have a guest by the name of Marie Caron currently staying with them. Lucy herds the children quickly from the building, her eyes taking in the shape of an unmarked police car parked outside, before swiftly bundling them all around the corner and into a waiting Uber.
She’s about to shut the door when she feels a force being exerted from the other side, sees a man’s face at the window, a police badge held against the glass.
