‘And you can’t find her?’
‘Wouldn’t be thinking about her if we had.’
‘You’re thinking about another woman?’
‘Not in that way,’ he said with a shake of the head. He stopped massaging her feet, and she wiggled her toes to remind him to continue.
‘I was joking,’ she said, then turned her attention back to the television for all of two seconds before returning it to him. ‘Do you think she might be dead?’
Tomek could sense where the conversation was going.
‘I dunno.’
‘Do you think something happened to her?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Do you think you’ll find her?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Did she get with anyone on her night out? Could it be them? What if it’s one of her friends? Or maybe she went for a walk and someone abducted her…’
Tomek knew she was fishing for information, shooting a load of spaghetti at his face to see what stuck. But he wasn’t going to rise to it, nor was he going to eat any of it.
‘Listen,’ he said, releasing his grip on her foot, ‘when the time’s right, we’ll share the information with you.’
‘Why haven’t you already? If this is a missing person case, we can help you. Give us all the information you’ve got, show us what she looks like, and we can put the word out. What leads have you got?’
‘None. Yet.’
‘Why are you lying to me?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. I can tell when you’re lying to me. I don’t like that you’re hiding something from me.’
All sensitivity and playfulness had gone from her tone. Now it had become irate, stern. Professional.
‘I’m telling you the truth,’ he insisted. ‘We don’t have any leads.’
‘Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you want to help me? I’ve just started this new job. I could do with something like this. This would be really good for me to get the exclusive on this.’
‘You’re overreacting.’
‘No, I’m not. You’re the one lying to me, keeping stuff hidden from me. Who else have you told about this? Who’s been flirting with you for the information?’
‘You mean like you used to?’
She lashed out at him. A little kick on the thigh, like a hammer swinging down. It was only small, and didn’t hurt him in the slightest, but there was intent behind it. And he was immediately reminded of why he didn’t get into long-term relationships. His previous two had been similar. His first girlfriend, Kasia’s mother, had verbally and emotionally abused him, constantly undermined him and made him feel small. His second official girlfriend, who had turned out to be a serial killer, had, aside from the killing aspect of her personality, been neurotic, jealous and a little psychotic. It was all he’d ever known. All he’d ever been used to. Perhaps he had a type – a type that made him feel tiny and useless.
‘You’re overreacting,’ he repeated.
Another kick. Harder, this time.
‘No, I’m not. We need this story, Tomek. Today, we ran a front page, a breaking news story about a group of kids from London who took a crab on the train all the way to Southend seafront so it could “live its best life”.’
‘And did it?’
Another kick. This time misfiring and narrowly missing his groin.
‘That’s the sort of shit we’ve been running recently. A fucking crab! Scraping the bottom of the fucking barrel.’
Tomek sniggered. ‘Where’d they get the crab from?’
‘Really? You think it’s funny?’
‘I can’t believe you don’t.’
‘This is my fucking job we’re talking about, and you’re just laughing about it. I can’t believe that’s the first thing you think of. This is my career. If you can’t take me seriously, then who the fuck will?’
Maybe the crab, Tomek thought, but kept it to himself. Instead, he went back to thinking about buildings and being underwater, and how, in that moment, he felt like he was struggling to come up for air.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Liam Dennis had never felt so alive, so full of adrenaline. He wanted to run through walls, jump off buildings, dive across the train track. His teenage body didn’t know how to handle it, how to process it. But James and Ethan did. They had experience with this sort of thing, knew what they were doing. Were able to control themselves. They had suggested it to him that afternoon at school: slipping out in the middle of the night while his mum and dad were asleep, breaking in, putting his art skills to good use, then making it back home again before anyone woke up. Like nothing had happened. The risk Liam had was running into his dad. He always woke up super early for work, and Liam was paranoid he would come home at the wrong time, fully clothed, out of breath, his hands covered in spray paint. But Ethan had told him not to worry, that it added to the experience, heightened it somehow.
Liam wasn’t entirely sure how, but he took Ethan’s words at face value. He was in no position to do otherwise.
