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‘It was good you rang actually. Gave me an excuse to clear out.’ She sips her drink, licks her lip. ‘They can have a man-to-man convo,’ she adds. ‘Whatever that is.’
‘I have no idea.’
Incredibly, we smile at one another.
From behind me comes the clank of the barista cleaning up.
‘So,’ Bella says. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
I study my hands. They are chapped from washing them too often, as they were when Abi was a baby. Bella will have noticed, will have wondered why I don’t moisturise them. Christ, these thoughts are like bugs.
I look up, try to hold her gaze, if only for a couple of seconds.
‘Remember you said Neil had been out all night,’ I begin. ‘The night Abi… disappeared?’
‘Yeah.’ She shifts: straightens her spine, lengthens her neck. ‘Why?’
‘Did you meanall nightall night or just, you know, late?’
‘I thought you sorted this out with Neil.’ Her voice carries an edge, and when I look at her, I see that her jaw has pushed forward slightly, her mouth flat. She has told me about fall-outs with other friends that left me assuming that her friendship with those women was over, only to hear that she went out with them the following week, all sorted. I wonder what’s coming, whether I can avoid the scene my insides tell me is imminent.
‘I did.’ I keep my tone level and quiet.
‘So what’s this then? Checking to see if our stories match?’
The confrontational tone almost winds me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But since finding out Matt didn’t close the front door, everything I’ve thought about that day has been turned on its head. It’s not that it changes what happened so much, it’s more the sense that someone I know so well could have lied to me for so long, and what that means about everything else I thought was true – do you know what I mean? I’ve been turned on my head, if I’m honest. That’s how it feels. I’ve gone through it all so many times, hoping for a different outcome, but now…’ I look up, but there is such hardness in her eyes, I return to the safety of the coffee I never wanted.
‘Now what?’
I force myself to meet her gaze, no matter how intimidating. ‘Neil said he continued looking. Can you remember what time he got back?’
Her bronzed skin yellows. Her beautiful turquoise eyes narrow. Her jaw clenches. Each alteration is tiny. Infinitesimal. But, like the inconsequential events at the party, they add up.
‘Bella?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I can’t really remember. I think I just meant he was out late. I was just trying to tell you how much he cared, that’s all. I mean, I was drunk, Ave. Those cocktails!’ She pulls a face. Maybe she too can feel the simmering and is afraid of it.
‘In vino veritas,’ I say.
‘What?’ She looks at me blankly.
‘Nothing. It’s just that I got the impression you were trying to tell me something but you were… I don’t know… afraid? I’m probably overthinking, but hey, who can blame me? You were so insistent, that’s all. You were telling me how much Neil loved Abi. I know he loved Abi. But you said “no matter what” and, I don’t know, it was as if… as if he’d done something terrible and you were trying to tell me he hadn’t done it on purpose…’
I am watching her. I am watching her every move, her every tic, her every passing shade of skin. Beneath her tan, a rose blooms on each cheek.
‘Bella?’
Her eyes fill. ‘Neil would never do anything to hurt Abi. He loved her. He loved her so much.’
‘I’m not saying he didn’t. I’m just wondering if something happened. Maybe… maybe he was running late, maybe he was driving too fast…’
She stands up. Her chair scrapes across the floor.
‘He didn’t run her over, if that’s what you mean. He didn’t do anything.’
‘I’m not saying he did.’ I raise my palms to her. ‘I’m not saying anything. I just want you to be honest with me, that’s all. If there’s anything that struck you as odd that day, anything at all. It’s just that Jasmine knew the name of Abi’s toy, and that’s impossible. It’s impossible, Bella, totally impossible, unless she saw Neil or you with it. And I know that may not sound like much, but I can’t explain it, and today when I thought back to our conversation last night, I realised neither did he. So if there’s something you might have noticed, something that didn’t quite chime, it might not seem important to you, but it’s important to me, do you see? I’m not trying to incriminate anyone, I just want to know what happened, because my little girl could still be out there, and if she is, I want her back. Surely you can understand that?’ A tear snakes down each cheek almost without me noticing. And in all of this, in all of it, I’m still worried about upsetting her.
