‘What kind of design?’ he asks. ‘Do you remember?’
I scour my memory, trying to retrieve another clue. ‘I’m not sure. I think he said they were in business together though.’
Konstandin nods and pulls out his phone. He types something and then a few seconds later turns the screen to me. ‘Is this them?’
‘Oh my God,’ I whisper as I stare astonished at the photo on his screen. ‘Yes, that’s them.’
I grab the phone and pull it closer to my face. It’s Joaquim and Emanuel, dressed more casually than they were last night – in jeans and open-necked shirts. Emanuel is leaning against a desk with a computer on it and it looks like they’re in an office. I zoom in on their faces. Yes, it’s definitely them. I’m so relieved I almost laugh. It’s ridiculous to admit it out loud but I was starting to believe that maybe I’d imagined them or dreamed it all. Seeing them makes me feel dizzily triumphant. We’ve found them.
‘I typed in their names and the Portuguese word for design,’ Konstandin tells me. ‘They do graphics, logo design, branding that sort of thing it looks like.’ Konstandin takes back the phone and taps on the page. ‘But it doesn’t seem like they have many clients. Here, see.’ He shows me the screen. ‘They mention a couple of small clients, a T-shirt company, a bar, nothing big. And I think maybe they just started the business this year. That’s probably why they’re also escorts. They need the money.’
He puts his phone to his ear.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Calling them.’
My eyes widen in alarm. Don’t we need a strategy first? He can’t just ask them where Kate is. What if they’re the people who’ve done something to her? But before I can speak up one of them answers and Konstandin rattles off something in Portuguese, then hangs up.
‘What just happened?’ I ask.
‘I left a voicemail for them. Told them I wanted a website designed. Asked them to call me back.’
‘Right,’ I say.
‘When they do we’ll arrange a time to meet them and we’ll ask them about your friend.’
‘What if they don’t know what happened to her?’ I whisper. We’ll be back to square one.
‘We have to start somewhere.’
‘Maybe I should go back to the police and give them their names,’ I say, looking at Konstandin for his thoughts.
Konstandin purses his lips. He doesn’t say anything but I can tell just from his expression that he’s not a fan of the police, which gives me pause. I ponder my options. The policeman, Nunes, certainly didn’t seem too interested before when I mentioned Joaquim and Emanuel to him. And the police won’t do anything tonight, no matter what new information I bring them. It makes sense to try and find out what I can before I go back there.
‘What are their full names?’ I ask, pointing at the website open on Konstandin’s phone. ‘Does it say?’
Konstandin shows me their names on the contact page. Emanuel Silvas and Joaquim Ruis.
‘They must have social media.’ I pull out my own phone and type the names into my phone.
I’m not wrong. I find Joaquim’s feed first, in a matter of seconds. It’s a shrine to narcissism. The entire feed is made up of professional headshots, selfies of him in Aviator sunglasses in various locations and pictures of him in his underwear, showing off his biceps and six-pack.
I glance at his most recent photograph. It’s an image of him grinning to camera, wearing sunglasses and holding a glass of champagne. I click on it to see when it was posted. ‘This was taken three hours ago,’ I say, showing Konstandin.
‘They were together.’ Konstandin shows me his own phone. He’s found Emanuel’s Instagram. We set them side by side and compare. Emanuel has posted a picture of him with Joaquim. It’s also from around three hours ago. They’re on a rooftop somewhere. It looks like a bar and behind them I can make out the castle and the jumbled red rooftops of Alfama with the river in the background. Konstandin scrolls along to the next photo in the series. It’s Joaquim with his arm around a woman. They’re both smiling at the camera.
‘Is that Kate?’ Konstandin asks.
I grab the phone, my heart leaping as quickly as it sinks down in my chest. ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. But who is she? She looks to be late twenties, dark-haired, tanned, attractive. From the intimacy of the photo I wonder if it’s Joaquim’s girlfriend? Or is it a client?
‘He’s tagged the name of the bar,’ Konstandin says, pointing out the name. La Giaconda.
‘Do you think they’re still there?’ I ask.
Konstandin checks the time. ‘Maybe. It’s a twenty-minute drive from here. Let’s go and find out.’
He’s already on his feet, pulling a battered wallet out of his back pocket and throwing money down on the table before I can reach inside my bag and get my purse.
‘Please,’ I argue, ‘let me pay.’
He shoots me a look that teeters on the verge of being a scowl. ‘No,’ he says simply.
I want to argue some more with him but the owner of the restaurant comes over and offers a deferential goodbye to us. Konstandin is patient at first but then, after the owner doesn’t appear to be letting go, extricates his hands from the man’s grasp and ushers me quickly to the door.
‘Thank you,’ I say to the owner over my shoulder.
‘See you again.’ The owner waves.
As we head out onto the street, I glance at Konstandin out of the corner of my eye. He’s lighting a cigarette while scanning the street.
‘You’re certainly popular,’ I say, nodding my head back towards the restaurant.
Konstandin, who is drawing a lungful of smoke, stops to look at me sideways. ‘We have a history,’ he says, nodding at the restaurant owner, still standing in the door waving at us. He stalks off towards his car and I hurry after him wondering what that means.
‘What kind of history?’ I ask, curious.
Konstandin opens the car door for me. ‘I helped him with something a few years ago. He tries to repay me every time I see him.’ Konstandin shuts the door before I can ask any more questions.
As he walks around to the driver’s side, I scan the inside of the car for clues as to Konstandin’s life, my gaze flying over the interior and the back seats. Am I still suspicious of him? He definitely has a dark past and possibly a shady present. Surely if he meant me harm, though, he wouldn’t have taken me out for falafel.
My instinct tells me not to be afraid of him. I’ve felt a sixth sense before – a worming gut feel, a voice in my head yelling at me to avoid someone or move to the front of the bus, and I don’t hear it now – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about Konstandin and his reasons for helping me. In my experience people aren’t that nice to strangers unless they want something from them.
I pull out my wallet and when he gets in the car I clear my throat. ‘I really have to give you some money. It doesn’t feel right you driving me around and paying for dinner.’
Konstandin starts the car. ‘Put that away,’ he says, without even looking at me.
‘But aren’t I stopping you from working? You could be driving right now, earning money, instead you’re ferrying me around all over the place.’
He cuts me off. ‘Please, let’s not talk any more about money.’
Maybe I’m insulting him, being culturally insensitive. But still, he can’t be well off. He drives an Uber for goodness’ sake. I decide not to press it for the moment. ‘Thank you,’ I murmur, shoving my wallet into my bag but only after I’ve taken fifty euro out of it. I’ll leave it in the side of the door when I get out.
When we get to the bar Konstandin comes inside with me. Joaquim and Emanuel aren’t there but one of the waitresses confirms that she served them earlier and that they were with the woman in the photograph. I show the waiters a photo of Kate but they shake their heads. She wasn’t with them.
Dejected, we leave and start to walk back to the car. I stop in the middle of the street. Konstandi
n looks back at me.
‘Do you think something bad has happened to her?’ I ask, hearing the tremble in my voice.
He pauses for a long while. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally says.
Chapter Thirteen
I walk through the empty apartment, unable to call Kate’s name because I don’t want to hear the silence that will follow it. Hysteria is trapped in my throat, wedged there, and I keep swallowing it down. I’m scared of letting it out because the voice in my head keeps telling me not to panic, ordering me to stay calm. Kate might need me. And if I let the hysteria take over I’ll be no good for anything, I’ll just curl into a ball and sob like a child. I need to stay focused and practical. What if Kate’s in trouble and needs me? Isn’t the most critical time after a person goes missing the first seventy-two hours?
Konstandin told me he’d call if he hears back from Joaquim or Emanuel. And he’s going to pick me up first thing in the morning to take me back to the police station so I can make a formal missing person’s report. Tomorrow morning feels like forever away.
I sit on the sofa in the living room and take out a pen and piece of paper from my bag. I need to make a list. It’s something I do when I feel life getting out of my control. I make lists: at work, at home. I make lists of things to do, shopping I need to buy, presents I need to get, wish lists of places I’d like to visit, cities I’d like to go on weekend breaks to, budgets and goals I want to reach.
The blank page taunts me. What should I write that will help me feel less helpless and more in control in this particular situation? I remember one time I saw a doctor, when I was struggling with getting pregnant and feeling depressed and she told me to go and write down the very worst that could happen. The very worst that could happen was that I couldn’t have a baby. Once I wrote that down and accepted it as a possibility it didn’t seem quite so bad.
My hand moves across the page.
I stare at the words I’ve written and take a deep, shuddering breath in.
Kate is dead. It’s impossible. She can’t be dead. I refuse to go there.
Kate is kidnapped. I almost laugh at the idea.
Kate has been sold into sex trafficking. I almost laugh at this one too. It sounds like the plot of a Liam Neeson movie. And anyway, aren’t sex trafficking victims always teenage girls? Or at least women who are vulnerable? Kate’s as vulnerable as a lioness.
Kate has had an accident, been hit on the head and is in a coma somewhere. I’ve called the hospital though. No one has reported her injured.
Kate went out to buy more drugs and either a) is passed out somewhere b) overdosed and needs help c) got into some trouble with a drug deal gone wrong. I don’t like to dig too deep into what c might look like as I only have movies to go on.
Kate decided she didn’t want to be friends with me and has gone home. Did I say something to her that I don’t remember? Did I upset her? Maybe in my drugged, drunken state the truth came out and I told her how I really felt about her becoming a mother. Shit. What if that’s it? What if she’s just gone to another hotel, or gone back to England? But why would she leave her bags and all her things?
Kate went for brunch or went shopping because I was asleep and then met some guy and went home with him. It’s a possibility and I choose to focus on that rather than the other possibilities on the list.
What to do next? I underline this and then wait, pen hovering over paper, for inspiration to strike. I already know that I’m going to the police station in the morning to speak to Detective Nunes. There’s not much I can do until then. I could contact people Kate knows, people back in England, to see if they’ve heard from her, I suppose. If I did piss her off without my knowledge, maybe she has left me to it and maybe one of them might have been in touch with her.
I log into Facebook and check my messages in case I’ve missed something from Kate but I haven’t, and I check her Facebook page too to see if she’s posted anything. She hasn’t posted anything since the picture we took of the two of us just before boarding the plane on Friday. We’re smiling, both so unsuspecting of what is just up ahead. I quickly turn back to my own page and spend twenty minutes trying to write a post that walks the line between sounding an alarm and not setting off a panic.
Hi everyone. I’m in Lisbon with Kate but haven’t seen or heard from her since last night. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her to find out where she is but I think she might be out of juice on her phone. If anyone’s had any contact with her today could you let me know. Thanks!
I post it on her page and my own. It’s probably pointless. How will anyone in London know where she is? But it’s something proactive at least. It’s only then it occurs to me that I should call Toby. They might be exes but they’re not yet divorced. I don’t have his number but I do have his email, so I fire off a quick message to him, asking him if he’s heard from Kate today and to please call me as soon as he can.
Then, in the spirit of keeping busy, I walk into Kate’s room, deciding to go through her things. I didn’t want to invade her privacy before but now that seems stupid. What if there’s a valuable clue I’ve missed? For a minute I stand in the doorway of her room and take in the scene, trying to imagine what went on in here, but I’m not a detective and I don’t know what on earth I’m looking for.
I start by picking up all her clothes and piling them on the chair, going through pockets and shaking them out. I’m not sure what I’m looking for but it seems like it’s something I should be doing. One time I took a team from work to an escape room and it reminds me of that. The clues were hidden in places, sometimes right in front of our faces, but we had to search the room thoroughly to find the clue that would take us to the next clue and then the next. I feel like I’m doing that now, finding one clue that will lead me to the next and to the next and finally, hopefully, to her. But I don’t find a thing.
On my knees I study the rust-coloured stain on the floor. Is it blood or wine? I sniff it but it’s hard to tell if it’s the tang of blood or the bitterness of tannins. There’s some comfort to be drawn from the fact that if it is blood there’s not a great deal of it. It’s not great arterial sprays, more like the amount you might get from slicing your finger with broken glass.
After I’ve piled her clothes on the chair I move to her suitcase. It’s only half full as most of her things are scattered around the room, but I find a net bag filled with underwear. I search through it, feeling uneasy. It’s all scanty lace bras and thongs. Personally, I stopped wearing dental floss underwear in my twenties, and every year since my knickers seem to get bigger and bigger so now I’m wearing boy shorts a lot and even caught myself perusing the granny pant section of M&S the other day before I hurried over to the three-for-two boy shorts.
Kate doesn’t have any garden-variety underwear. It’s all proper lingerie, including a couple of items from Agent Provocateur. I think I own one set of lingerie – the one Rob gave me for Valentine’s Day – and though I wear the bra I don’t ever wear the knickers, as they have a gaping hole in the crotch, which is thoroughly impractical. Rob pointed out the hole made them very practical for the use for which they were intended. I laughed at him in reply and never wore them beyond that one night. I mean, Jesus, what woman alive wants crotchless knickers? As useful as shoes with no soles.
I shove all the lingerie back in the bag and, flustered, search the bathroom, sorting through the bottles and serums and make-up, remembering how we got ready last night, how much we giggled and laughed. Before I can stop it, a tear slides down my cheek. I swipe at it, blinking hard to stop more from falling.
There’s a bottle of perfume on the shelf, and a washbag containing tampons and panty liners and a bottle of Ibuprofen. I empty out the tampons and find a small round tin, a bit like the pillbox from last night. This one originally held breath mints but when I open it I find it’s full of small white pills and a bag of white powder.
I dip my little finger in the powder and touch my tongue very slightly to it. I
think it’s coke but I’m not sure – it’s been years since I had any. And it’s strong too. Maybe it’s been cut with something else. My head spins even from that very slight amount. The pills could be anything but I’m fairly sure they’re ecstasy. I’m not about to try one to find out though. The sight of all these class As makes me realise that Kate can’t have gone out last night to find more drugs. She’s got enough to start her own pharmacy right here, and that’s not even counting the stuff she had in her other pillbox, the one she had on her.
It makes me feel somewhat better I suppose. At least I can discount the theory about her getting involved in a drug deal gone wrong.
Detective work is all about a process of elimination and so it feels like I’m making some progress. So far I’ve discovered Kate probably hired escorts, she didn’t leave the house to buy drugs, and that she has her handbag with her. It’s not a lot, but it’s something to go on, something to tell the police tomorrow.
My phone beeps from my bedroom and I run to get it. I’ve got a missed call and a voicemail from a number I don’t recognise. My hopes rise but are quickly dashed when I hear Toby’s terse, annoyed voice on my voicemail. ‘I haven’t heard from Kate but if you’re with her can you tell her to call me. I’ve got a credit card bill I want to discuss with her.’
So much for that, I think to myself.
I check Facebook. There are a few comments responding to my post about Kate being missing – all of the ‘Oh no, hope she shows up’, or the ‘Kate’s probably gone shopping!’ variety. Rob’s texted too, asking what’s going on and if I’m OK. I text back to tell him that I’m at the apartment and Kate still hasn’t shown up and that I’m going to the police in the morning.
‘Call me when you wake up,’ he says. ‘Love you.’
‘I wish you were here,’ I reply.
He sends me a heart emoji back. I crawl under the covers in my clothes, clutching my phone. My bare foot brushes something. I throw back the covers and reach to pick up a piece of shiny foil beside my leg. My hand shakes as I bring it close to study it. It’s an empty condom wrapper.
The Weekend Away Page 10