Page 86 of 56 Days
“Yeah,right,” Karl mutters.
“—and by law I couldn’t have revealed his name or where he was, but maybe the fact that hethoughthe was about to be exposed... Maybe that’s why he did what he did.”
“You seem very cut up about it,” Karl deadpans.
Laura glares at him. “I didn’t do anything wrong. He did. It’s notmyfault he couldn’t live with himself.”
“We found an envelope,” Lee says, “in the letterbox for apartment one addressed to Oliver St Ledger. That from you?”
Laura nods.
“What are we going to find when we open it?”
“Just a letter explaining that I’m not trying to expose him, I’m only trying to talk to him.” Her eyes widen. “Are you saying he never got that?”
“When you first spoke to me, before my colleague here came and joined us, you indicated that you’d never been inside apartment number one.”
“Why would I have been?”
“So you haven’t?”
“No.”
Lee has been taking notes while Laura speaks; now, she makes a show of setting down her pen. She pinches the front of her mask and pulls it away from her face for a couple of seconds, letting some air in,breathingit in, and moistening her lips because every time she talks for too long with this thing on, she ends up feeling like she’s been lying facedown in desert sand. Then she lets it go, fixes it back into position, and picks up her pen again.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, Laura. That was all very interesting. Fascinating, even, at times. But I’m going to ask you to tell us it all again, right from the beginning, only with one little difference.”
Laura looks confused.
“Thistime,” Lee says, “you’re going to tell us the truth.”
26 Days Ago
His heart is beating so fast and hard he’s worried that Ciara will see it pulsing through the skin on his neck. She must seesomethingbecause once they get inside the apartment and she turns to look at him, she frowns and asks him if he’s okay.
Her voice sounds oddly distant, muffled, as if they’re underwater.
Or just that he is.
She tells him he’s sweating. He mumbles something about the heat and the sun and walking so far after drinking at lunchtime, and Ciara disappears to find a moisturizer she says he should put on his face and two paracetamol for the headache he’s lying about having.
In thehalf-minuteshe’s gone, he does his best to collect himself, splashing his face with palmfuls of cold water over the sink and wondering what the hell he should do.
He needs to see what’sinsidethat envelope, he decides.
That’s the priority.
When Ciara comes back in, he blurts out, “Let’s order something for dinner,” followed by a smile to smooth over the abruptness. “I don’t feel like cooking.”
She could offer to cook—or try to. She could say it’s too hot for hot food, like his mother used to when he and his brother were small. But she does somethingelsethat doesn’t work for his plan: she suggests they download afood-deliveryapp.
“Yeah,” he says noncommittally. Ciara hands him a tub of something and he slowly unscrews the lid and sniffs at the white cream inside while working furiously to come up with a reason why that’s a bad idea. “Problem with them, though,” he has to pause to lick his lips, his mouth is so dry, “is that my Eircode never comes up on their system, so the drivers always get lost. The couple of times I’ve tried it, I just ended up having to direct them here on my phone before eating cold, soggy food. What about Georgie’s?” Adine-inrestaurant nearby that they went to once, by chance, the night before all restaurants were ordered to close to indoor diners. “They’re doing collection now. I can just go and get it.”
Ciara looks doubtful. “I thought you weren’t feeling—”
“I’ll be fine,” he says, cutting her off and then regretting it. He picks up the paracetamol tablets she’s set on the counter for him. “After these, I’ll be grand.”
They look the menu up online and then Oliver calls them to place the order. When they ask for a telephone number he gives them his own but with the last two digits transposed, as per his habit; he doesn’t provide any personal information unless it’s strictly necessary.
