‘I’m fine. Where are you?’

Or not so neatly.

‘Working.’

‘Where?’

Shit. She was like a dog with a bone.

‘Does it matter?’

There was a long silence during which – despite his general lack of insight into the female psyche – Tom could tell she was deciding whether or not to hang up on him.

She didn’t. He was almost disappointed.

‘They want you to play,’ she said tightly. ‘Can you get back by tonight?’

Tom stared about him at the bloated cows. Two hundred yards away, Goby was scooping up a former ribbon-winner in the bucket of his tractor, like so much garbage.

He did a quick calculation and found he could get back by tonight, but still felt aggrieved enough about it to demand, ‘Do I have to?’

Her silence told him he did.

*

Tom was in Departures when he saw Lucia. She walked past with an older woman and a young man and their eyes met. Then she looked quickly away, clearly hoping his gaze had been casual, unfocused and unrecognizing.

If he hadn’t screwed up helping her, he would have felt fine about pretending he hadn’t seen her. As it was, he felt he owed her an explanation. He was on his feet and going after her before he had any idea what he was going to say.

He saw the trio take seats at the gate for a flight to Savannah. He stopped twenty yards away and reconsidered. Telling Lucia what had really happened to prevent him calling her back suddenly sounded like ‘the dog ate my homework’ on steroids. Like he was not only unreliable, but a hopeless fantasist to boot.

But while he was hesitating, Lucia saw him again and this time she didn’t look away. This time her expression was hostile. It told him quite clearly to fuck off.

Walking away now would be a capitulation. So he went over to her and said, ‘Hi.’

The older woman, whom Tom presumed was her mother, looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, her blank expression speaking of sedation. Tom noticed she wore white summer gloves, like someone in an old movie. The young man between her and Lucia looked tired but suspicious.

‘Hello.’ Lucia’s tone was neutral but he could see the barely suppressed panic in her eyes.

Tom nodded politely at her mother and … What? Her brother? Boyfriend? He knew the next thing he should be saying was ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ but those words had never sounded right in his mouth and he felt victims’ relatives could tell that, so he’d long since given up on them.

‘Did they find the bodies?’

The expressions on three faces informed him that his preferred choice of words was hardly a humanitarian alternative.

‘They didn’t find anything. Not yet. They told us to go home and wait. So …’ Lucia glared at him like it was his fault. Everything in her voice and body told Tom to go but, for some reason, he stayed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead. He hoped she knew he meant about the phone call as well as about her dead sister.

‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’ The young man had read Lucia’s tone too, and his own was abrasive as he got to his feet.

‘It’s okay, Louis,’ said Lucia, but Louis continued to bristle quietly, so Tom stuck out his hand.

‘Tom Patrick. I’m a friend of Lucia’s from LA.’

‘College friend?’

‘Yeah,’ he lied. Keep it simple. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ The words fell unexpectedly from his lips, and sounded as insincere as they always did to his ears but for some reason they seemed to mollify Louis, who dropped his hard-eyed stare.

‘Yeah. Thanks, man.’ He sat down again. Tom waited in the ensuing silence.

‘This is my mother and my brother,’ Lucia said grudgingly. Tom had seen this before: the truly well-brought-up could no more dispense with the social graces than fly to the moon. Tom had once been punched in the eye by a bereaved husband who’d prefaced the blow with ‘Mr Patrick? I’m sorry to trouble you …’

Lucia’s mother nodded at him minutely and said, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but obviously didn’t give a shit about meeting him or anyone else any more. Louis had slumped again and was staring at his own hands.

Tom looked at Lucia. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

Her eyes widened and he realized his words echoed those he’d used in the club that first time. Before the Motel 6. Before he’d held her smooth-skinned body against his. Before she’d …

His face must have betrayed some kind of acknowledgement of his own stupidity because she said, ‘Sure.’

They went to the coffee bar closest to the gate. Now that she was no longer hostile, Lucia just looked dog-tired and very young.

‘I couldn’t call you back.’

She shrugged, like she hadn’t really expected him to anyway, and that bugged him enough that he told her the truth. Or the truth without touching on his relationship with Ness. Why he left that out, he wasn’t sure – as if a whore gave a shit who her clients went home to.

She stopped meeting his eyes around the point where he told her he’d been bundled into the trunk of a Thunderbird in the Sawmill parking lot, and he knew he’d lost her. From that point on, the story seemed unreal, even to him.

At the end, he said, ‘You think I’m lying.’

She was drawing idly in the foam on her cappuccino with a wooden stirrer.

‘Look,’ he said, and pulled up the leg of his jeans to show her the freshly stitched lacerations. ‘And my car’s still in the lot behind the Sawmill. At least, it should be. The black Buick, remember?’

She half smiled: ‘That beat-up old car.’

‘Believe me now?’

‘Look, I don’t even care.’

Of course she didn’t. Her sister was dead. Why should she give half a good goddamn whether he called her or not; whether he told the truth or not; whether he was alive or dead.

‘Can I get your number again?’ He pulled a pen and a five-dollar bill from his pocket.

She looked wary.

‘In case I can help.’