THE WEEKEND AWAY
Sarah Alderson

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Copyright © Sarah Alderson 2020

Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photographs © Ethan Robertson/Unsplash (background), Shutterstock.com (woman)

Sarah Alderson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008400019

Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008400026

Version: 2020-06-01

Dedication

For Nichola

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

There’s no disguising the absolute terror on Rob’s face.

‘Will you be OK?’ I ask anxiously.

‘Yeah, totally,’ Rob says. ‘We’ll be fine. Go and enjoy yourself.’

Marlow frets in his arms, reaching out her pudgy hands towards me and I have a sudden urge to change my plans. I’m not sure Rob’s got this, despite his protestations that I should go and enjoy myself. It’s the first time I’ve left him with the baby all by himself, and while a weekend in Lisbon with my best friend seemed like a good idea at the time, now I’m regretting it.

But it’s too late to back out now. Kate’s already texted me that she’s on the way to the airport.

Marlow lets out a hiccup and I reach for her, letting her sticky hands grab for my hair. ‘Make sure you remember to feed her,’ I say to Rob. ‘And put her down at the right time.’

‘I think I can manage,’ Rob says.

I kiss Marlow, squeezing her gorgeous bao bun cheeks, and then peck Rob on the lips.

‘Don’t worry,’ Rob says, seeing that I blatantly am.

I nod and pick up my suitcase. He’s right. It’s only a weekend away. A few days, that’s all. It’s not going to kill me.

I might even have some fun.

Chapter One

‘Bloody hell, Kate, this is gorgeous,’ I say, abandoning my suitcase by the front door and taking a few flabbergasted steps inside the apartment, drawn like a newly hatched moth to the flaming view ahead of me. The sun spills through huge French windows. I take in the jumble of pastel-coloured buildings and, through the gaps in the roofs, a sparkle of blue not too far in the distance. It must be the river, which I think is called the Tagus. Whatever it’s called, it’s way more inviting-looking than the mud-coloured Thames.

Kate joins me over by the windows, which are floor to ceiling and run the length of the living room. She squeezes my shoulder then turns to me, grinning. ‘Not bad.’ She laughs before turning around and making a beeline towards the suitcases. ‘Right, where’s that duty-free bag? Let’s get this party started.’

As Kate locates the bottle of Dom Pérignon she bought at the airport, I find the latch on the window and slide it open, stumbling outside onto the balcony. A thrill of excitement courses through me like an electric current. It takes me a moment to realise the buzz I’m feeling isn’t a result of the coffee I had on the plane, but the illicit thrill of freedom. I feel like a prisoner who’s tunnelled out of jail, poked her head above ground and realised she’s successfully pulled off her escape. I’m giddily triumphant.

As soon as I recognise the feeling for what it is though, I experience a twinge of anxiety that cancels it out completely. How is Marlow doing? Will Rob have remembered to put her down to sleep at the right time? Fifteen minutes late and she’s a monster the entire next day. Will he hear her in the night if she wakes? He sleeps like the dead normally. And what if he doesn’t change her nappy and she gets a rash? Oh God, what if he gives her grapes that haven’t been cut in half and she chokes to death?

My hand twitches, automatically reaching for my phone, before I remember it’s in my handbag, which I dumped somewhere by the front door. I resist the urge to find it and text him. I don’t want to be that kind of a mother or wife. Rob’s fine with Marlow. He’s a hands-on dad and has looked after her before on his own. But he did seem nervous about having to take care of her for the whole weekend by himself. No, I tell myself forcefully, I need to shake it off and enjoy myself. No point worrying.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of a new city, and enjoying the balmy warm air against my skin. The lovely electric buzz of excitement returns again. For three entire days I have no one to worry about but myself. I can eat what I want, drink what I want, lie in as long as I want and basically go back to living the way I lived before I had a baby, when I totally underestimated how glorious it is to be able to pee in peace or how lovely it is to wear clothes that aren’t stained with baby vomit.

‘Here!’

I turn around to find Kate thrusting a glass of champagne at me. I take it. ‘Cheers!’ she says.

‘Cheers!’ I answer, chinking my glass against hers.

‘This is amazing,’ I say, gesturing at the view and the apartment. ‘I can’t believe this place.’ I glance around the balcony with its elegant outdoor seating arrangement, sun-loungers and … I cock my head at the square object in the corner – ‘Wait, is that a hot tub?’

‘Yes,’ says Kate. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Or I’d have brought my swimsuit.’

‘We don’t need swimsuits.’ Kate laughs, heading back inside to grab the bottle of champagne. I trail after her, thinking that once upon a time I might not have batted an eye about being naked in front of her or anyone, but now even being naked in front of Rob is something I’d only do under imminent threat of death.

There’s just so much wobble that wasn’t there before. My boobs are like two helium balloons that once floated proudly but are now wrinkling at the seams and drooping back down to earth. My belly too is yet to return to its previous flat form, my abs covered with a soft roll of fat that no amount of exercise seems to erase, though to be fair, managing the odd five sit-ups once a week is probably not going to do much, and neither is the pain au chocolat that I buy most mornings when I take Marlow to the park or to a mum and baby group. I’ve tried giving up sugar but I find that cake is the only thing that makes those groups bearable, and sometimes the only thing fuelling me through twelve gruelling hours of solo babysitting.

No one tells you how hard parenting is, or how hard it is to get your figure back, certainly not those bloody celebrities posing in their leggings and crop tops a day after giving birth. I suppose that’s not completely true; plenty of people say parenting is hard, but the notion is totally abstract before you have a child. It’s like being told that serving a life sentence in solitary confinement has its challenges. You can sort of imagine it but it’s not until you’re actually sitting alone in your cell, staring at the walls, knowing this is it for the rest of your life, that you start to fully appreciate exactly how challenging.

As Kate tops up my champagne glass, I sneak a look at her and can’t help but feel a wave of self-consciousness. She’s so chic and put together, in skinny jeans tucked into Louis Vuitton boots, and a low-cut top that shows off her unfairly perky breasts and toned arms. Her make-up looks freshly applied too, even though we’ve been travelling for about six hours. I can’t remember the last time I wore lipstick, let alone shaved my legs, and my upper arms have lost all the tone I once had from weekly Pilates classes, and are in danger of becoming fully fledged bingo wings.

Kate and I used to be roughly the same size and shape, five feet four and slim – enough that we could share clothes – but now we’re very different. I’ve never before been jealous of Kate’s figure and I try not to fall into the trap of comparing myself to her. I’ve had a baby for Chrissake! It’ll take time to get back into my skinny jeans.

‘I made a reservation at a restaurant my friend told me about,’ Kate says, oblivious to my unhappy comparisons between our figures. ‘Table’s booked for ten.’

I glance at my watch. It’s almost seven. ‘Blimey,’ I say, stifling a yawn. ‘I’m normally asleep by ten.’

‘You can sleep when you’re dead, Orla,’ Kate says, setting her glass down and winking at me.

I groan. That used to be our thing when we were young twenty-somethings, living together in a tiny flat in Stoke Newington and clubbing every Friday and Saturday night. We’d stay out until dawn before heading home via the bagel shop on Brick Lane or the kebab shop on the corner of Old Street, and stuff ourselves stupid before falling into bed and sleeping well into the next afternoon.

Kate must see my expression as I contemplate my exhaustion and wonder where those youthful stores of energy disappeared to. ‘Fine,’ she says, ‘take a nap and I’ll wake you up at nine.’ She grins at me. ‘Come on, let’s check out the bedrooms.’

I hurry after her, both of us acting like excited toddlers as we throw open doors and explore the apartment. The kitchen is shiny and full of brand-new high-end appliances and there’s a dining table big enough to host a dinner party for twelve.

‘How on earth did you find this place?’ I marvel, opening the cupboard doors and admiring the fine china and delicate wine glasses on display.

‘Airbnb,’ Kate answers, pulling open the refrigerator to reveal bottles of sparkling water, milk, eggs and coffee. ‘I think the owner lives in the apartment downstairs. He owns this one too and rents it out.’

‘How much was it?’ I ask, slightly tentatively.

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Kate smirks. ‘Toby’s paying.’

I glance sideways at her.

She shrugs. ‘He forgot to take me off one of his credit cards. Don’t worry, he won’t notice.’

I shake my head but can’t help laughing.

‘Bastard owes me,’ she mutters and I silently agree. I never liked Kate’s ex, Toby, much to begin with but after he cheated on Kate I gave up pretending I ever had. He isn’t even good-looking, which isn’t to say that if he had been I could have forgiven him, but it is hard to see how a man of his very mediocre looks could cheat on a woman like Kate, who is ten million miles out of his league.

I never understood what Kate saw in Toby, with his dome-like bald head and contradictory masses of thick black body hair, though I suppose he has got charisma, and as Kate liked to joke, short, bald men work harder to please in the bedroom. Not that I want to imagine that.

There are two enormous bedrooms in the apartment: a master bedroom with a marble en-suite bathroom and another smaller bedroom that is still far nicer than any hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. Everything is white – the cloud-like duvet cover, the pillows, the walls, the Eames armchair in the corner, the linen curtains – but whoever decorated the place has also added bold splashes of colour to stop it from looking too clinical. Blue and yellow patterned pillows are perfectly aligned on the bed, as though arranged using a protractor, while one wall is tiled with beautiful blue-patterned ceramic tiles. It’s like something you’d see in Condé Nast magazine.

‘You take the big room,’ Kate says to me.

‘Oh no,’ I say, ‘I’m fine in this one. It’s great.’

‘I insist,’ Kate argues. ‘You deserve it.’ And before I can say another word she wheels her suitcase into the smaller room. Kate’s suitcase is huge enough that she needed to put it in the plane’s hold, while I only brought a carry-on. She said she had too many shoes and too many toiletries to fit in a carry-on-sized suitcase, which is typical Kate, who used the second bedroom in the flat she lived in with Toby just to house her clothes and the third bedroom to store her shoes and handbags.

I wheel my own scruffy bag with a broken wheel into the master room, which is done in much the same colour palette as the smaller bedroom, and I collapse down on the bed. Through the window I can see puffy white clouds wafting across the bruise-coloured sky. It feels glorious just to lie here, feeling the stress of the last couple of years already starting to melt away. It’s amazing how a comfortable bed and the prospect of a weekend of lie-ins and laughter can do that.

Kate wanders into my room a minute later and flops down beside me on the bed, her arm brushing mine. We lie there in silence, staring at the clouds, which are starting to turn the colour of candyfloss.

‘I’m so happy we did this,’ I say after a minute of contented silence.

‘Me too,’ Kate answers.

I turn my head in her direction and am taken aback by the sadness etched on her face as she stares out the window. For a moment I wonder if she’s been crying but then I figure it’s just the pink evening light filtering into the room. Kate doesn’t do sad. Whenever she’s upset about something she turns to dark humour to survive. She never mopes. Back before she met Toby, if a boy dumped her she’d never cry about it, she’d just laugh and whip out a Kate-ism: ‘Onwards and upwards, plenty more dick in the sea.’

If she ever lost a client she’d pick up her phone and go about finding an even bigger fish to net. Even when she found out that Toby had been sleeping with escorts on his frequent business trips to Seoul and Shanghai, she didn’t cry or stay in bed for days eating ice cream like I would have. No, she took his credit card and booked a first-class flight to Mauritius where she spent a week at The Four Seasons, lying on a beach drinking cocktails and having wild sex with the pool boy, telling me afterwards that she was following the sage advice that the best way of getting over someone was by getting under someone else. No one in the world does depression better than Kate. In fact, I should probably learn from her, but my credit card has a much lower limit.

As I stare at her now in the golden glow of the sunset though, I wonder whether Kate is hiding the truth from me, and if all this time when I’ve thought she’s been doing fine, she’s actually been struggling. It would hardly be surprising given all she’s been through and, now I think about it, I realise I’m stupid not to have considered it before. The thing with Kate is that she’s one of those people who always seems so put together that you sometimes don’t spot the cracks hiding beneath the wallpaper.

Now I look closer, she does seem on edge. Beneath the make-up I notice there are shadows under her eyes as though she hasn’t been sleeping, and she was unusually quiet on the flight here. She’s bitten the skin around her thumbnails too – something she only does when she’s anxious.

It hits me then that I’ve been a totally shit friend. Once upon a time, Kate and I would tell each other everything. We were closer than sisters, definitely closer than I am to my own sister who lives in Ireland and who I rarely see. When I moved to London from Cork as an eager twenty-two-year-old, desperate to get the hell out of my small hometown, I moved into a flat-share in West Hampstead. That’s where I met Kate. She rented the other bedroom.

From the minute we met it was as if we’d known each other forever. We were both Sagittarians, we both had a dad who’d died when we were eight, we both loved Richard and Judy books and reading gossip magazines, and we both loved going out clubbing. On Wednesdays we’d celebrate making it halfway through the week in our crappy temping jobs by buying a four-quid bottle of Black Tower wine, which we’d fully decant into two enormous glasses in order to avoid having to get up from the sofa to refill them, and then we’d settle in for Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathons. We’re the kind of friends who interrupt each other constantly, talk faster than a bullet train to Busan, and can also communicate an entire conversation if we need to, purely with facial expressions.

We lived together for eight years until I finally moved in with Rob. And even after that we’d still see each other at least once or twice a week and speak on the phone all the days in between. But now I realise we go whole weeks without talking, and when we do speak I’m always distracted or having to hang up mid-sentence in order to deal with one baby-related crisis or another.

If I’m honest with myself though, I wasn’t a good friend before I had Marlow either. Three years of failed IVF turned me into a grumpy-sore-arse, as my brother liked to tell me. I was depressed, and probably more than a little self-absorbed. Kate tried to be sympathetic but I could tell she didn’t really understand, not wanting kids herself and therefore unable to fully get why I was so down about not being able to have any.

After Kate broke up with Toby six months ago, I did call her more often to check in, but Marlow was only a few months old and I was in the throes of breast-feeding and dealing with so many sleepless nights I felt like I was living at the bottom of a well. And besides, Kate acted so upbeat about the break-up that I honestly thought she was OK. She was doing a Kate – moving on, not looking back. But perhaps I failed to miss the fact it was all bluster – and maybe she isn’t doing as well as I had thought.

‘I’ve missed our girlie weekends,’ I say, linking my arm through hers.

She turns to me and smiles, the sadness vanishing in an instant, making me wonder if I imagined it. Maybe I’m just projecting some of my own secret unhappiness onto her. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘How long’s it been?’

I have to cast my mind back. ‘At least two years,’ I say, doing the sum in my head, ‘because I was pregnant last year.’

‘It’s longer than that,’ Kate says. ‘You were doing all the IVF. I think the last time we got away was maybe four years ago.’

‘It can’t be that long,’ I say, frowning, though I think she might be right. ‘Where did we go?’

‘Valencia,’ she says, not missing a beat.

‘Oh, yes, that was so lovely,’ I say, remembering the boutique hotel we stayed in with the four-poster beds and fireplaces.

‘Remember Paris?’ Kate muses. ‘We stayed in that crummy little hotel in the Marais.’

I laugh. ‘God, I remember the chocolate mousse we ate in that little restaurant by the Place des Vosges – I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. It was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.’

‘Don’t tell Rob that,’ she giggles.

‘You told that American at the table next to us that you spoke French—’

‘So he went ahead and ordered what you told him was duck and really it was pig face.’

We burst into a fit of laughter at the memory.

‘You know that was a long time ago,’ I say, ‘because it was before smartphones and translation apps.’

We lie there counting off all the places we’ve been together, starting with the Paris trip. We took the Eurostar. It was my first time and I thought myself oh so sophisticated. I even bought a beret from Accessorize so I could fit in with all the Parisian women. Then I saw how French women actually dressed and hid it in my bag. I bought a scarf instead but could never figure out how to tie it as elegantly as French women did.

After that trip to Paris, Kate and I decided we’d go away for a weekend together every year for the rest of our lives, to a different city each time. We laughed that by the time we were in our nineties we’d have travelled the globe and would settle for two deck chairs on the Margate seafront. We made a promise and kept to it for years, each year seeing a slight bump up in the level of hotel we stayed at and the quality of the restaurants we ate at and the booze we bought at duty-free. But ultimately, it’s a promise I’ve failed to keep.

‘I’m sorry we haven’t managed to get away for a while,’ I say to Kate, a wave of guilt washing over me.

‘No matter,’ she says, squeezing my hand. ‘We’re here now. Let’s make the most of it.’ She rolls off the bed, grabbing her empty glass from the bedside table. ‘You take a nap and I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours so we can go out for dinner.’

Chapter Two

‘Wakey, wakey,’ Kate says, shaking me by the arm.

I blink blurrily and struggle to sit up, feeling groggy and disorientated. The room is dark and when Kate switches on the bedside lamp, it takes me a second or two to get my bearings.

‘It’s nine-fifteen,’ Kate says. ‘Time to get up.’

I yawn and swing my legs out of bed, ignoring my desire to roll over, pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. As my vision clears I see Kate’s ready to hit the town. She looks stunning, in a black mini-dress with ruffle sleeves and gold high heels that show off her tanned, toned legs. My stomach sinks a little as I contemplate the clothes in my own suitcase. I kept it sensible thinking we’d be walking a lot and sightseeing, knowing that Lisbon was a city built on hills. I didn’t bring any heels, only trainers and a pair of flat sandals, and I know I didn’t pack anything as fancy as the dress Kate’s wearing. I don’t own anything that nice for starters. Kate owns tons of gorgeous dresses, partly as she loves clothes and shopping and has the money to afford new things, but also because as a movie publicist she often has to go to premieres and after-parties and, like the Queen, she’d never be seen dead in the same thing twice.

As Kate pours the last of the champagne into my empty glass, I unzip my bag and root through the contents: jeans, a sundress, a pair of shorts, a shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a couple of T-shirts and last of all, my plaid, flannel pyjamas. There’s one semi-glitzy top with sequins from H&M, that I had thought I’d pair with my jeans if we went out to dinner, but I wasn’t expecting Michelin stars. I had figured we’d eat at small local places without a dress code.

‘I don’t know what to wear,’ I say to Kate, feeling frustrated and shoving my H&M top back in my bag. I wish she’d warned me she’d booked a posh restaurant.

‘Do you want to borrow something?’ she asks and before I can respond she’s out the door, shouting over her shoulder for me to follow her.

Her room is no longer an oasis of white but looks like it’s been ransacked by a particularly desperate thief. Clothes and shoes are strewn everywhere. It was the same when we lived together. It used to drive me crazy how she’d leave shoes, coats, bags, dirty plates and mugs lying about the place, as though she had grown up in a stately home and was used to servants clearing up after her, when in fact she had grown up on a North London housing estate.

When we clashed over it, Kate would explain that life was too short to spend time worrying about a bit of mess and would convince me it would be a better idea to go to the pub or out shopping. Eventually my own OCD would win out and I’d have to set about cleaning the place, and Kate, seeing me on my hands and knees scrubbing at the tiles in the bathroom, would grudgingly always join me, albeit grumbling. When she got a promotion and started to earn more, the first thing she did was pay for a cleaner once a week.

Now I watch Kate hastily shove a few things back in her suitcase and slam the lid down, before picking up a dress from the floor and offering it to me. It’s a jacquard blue silk mini-dress and though I love it, I have zero doubt if I tried to get it on over my hips it would get stuck and a comedy skit would unfold of me trying to wriggle out of it like a grub forcing its way out of a cocoon. Kate sees my expression and tosses the dress back on the ground before picking up a maxi-length embroidered dress with a low-cut neckline.

‘Here,’ she says, holding it against my body, ‘try this.’

I take it into the bathroom and shut the door, not wanting to strip in front of her. The dress, by a designer I actually recognise, slides on and much to my surprise looks quite good, though because of the spaghetti straps I have to take off my bra. I assume that will do me no favours, but luckily the empire line of the dress pushes my boobs upwards as effectively as an underwired bra. I have never worn a maxi dress but contemplating my reflection, I start to wonder if I need to rethink my style now I’ve hit forty.

The counter top is littered with serums, bottles, make-up and hair products, and I pick up a hair wand and think about the last time I bothered to do anything to my hair besides wash it and shove it in a ponytail or messy topknot.

Kate pokes her head around the door. ‘Ah!’ she exclaims, walking in. ‘That looks great on you! You have to keep it.’

I start to protest but she cuts me off. ‘No, I insist. It’s much better on you than me. Look at those boobs! They’re like watermelons! I’m so jealous. Maybe I should have a baby.’ She takes the wand from my hand. ‘Do you want me to do your hair?’

‘OK,’ I say. She moves my discarded things aside to plug the wand in. ‘Nice,’ she says, holding up my bra and tossing it to me.

‘Rob bought it for me for Valentine’s Day,’ I say, catching it. It’s a silk padded bra and though it’s a nude colour, which isn’t the sexiest, it is Agent Provocateur. Rob’s never been the best at buying gifts so I had to give him marks at least for that. Normally he gets me socks from M&S or an Amazon voucher or perfume that he’s obviously chosen because it comes in a fancy box, but which smells like something Joan Collins would wear.

As we wait for the wand to heat up, Kate grabs an eyeshadow palette and a brush and starts doing my make-up. This is how we used to get ready before one of our big nights out, with me gamely letting Kate treat me as a canvas as she acted out her Picasso dreams. As she strokes the soft brush over my eyelids I realise how much I’ve missed getting glammed up. When I had a life, before Marlow, I used to spend fifteen minutes each morning following a skin-care and make-up routine; now I’m lucky if I remember to put on deodorant.

After she’s done, Kate turns me towards the mirror and I startle, almost unable to recognise myself. She’s put a burnt orange colour along the edges of my eyes – not a colour I’d ever go for normally, but surprisingly it makes the blue in my eyes stand out. They look almost cobalt and whatever she’s dusted me with has given me a glow that has lifted my ghost-like pallor.

‘Yummy mummy,’ Kate declares with triumph.

I flush a little at the praise. I haven’t thought of myself as sexy or beautiful for a long time – it’s hard to when your breasts are leaking milk and you have stitches in your vagina, but now I’m wondering if all is not lost and I might actually still have it, or if not ‘it’ then something. Standing next to Kate, I might not feel like Cinderella but I no longer feel quite like the ugly sister either.

‘I’ll get us an Uber,’ Kate says, reaching for her phone.

A few minutes later, we leave the apartment and head down the three flights of stairs to the street, Kate clattering in her heels and me following behind in my sandals, checking the door is locked and that I have the address programmed into my phone in case we get drunk later and can’t remember where we’re going.

My sensible mum gene was activated long before I had Marlow. I’m always thinking ahead and worrying about things, whereas Kate refuses to worry about anything that might not happen. Perhaps it’s down in part to personality but it’s also to do with my job. I manage HR for a big housing development company with hundreds of employees, or at least I did before I went on maternity leave, so I have to constantly make sure we’re following rules, that all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. Risk assessment is part of my job description and being organised is essential. Whereas Kate spends her life wheeling and dealing, massaging actors’ egos and wooing big-name studio heads. She has to constantly deal with crises and think on her feet.

Thinking about work elicits a rush of excitement, though the excitement is immediately snuffed out by guilt. It feels wrong to admit, even to myself, that I can’t wait to get back to work. I thought I’d love maternity leave and though Rob and I planned for me to take a full year off after Marlow was born, I’m rather wondering if nine months would have been enough. It’s not something you can generally admit to though, that you’d rather be at work than taking your baby to monkey music or baby gym.

I find refuge online sometimes among chat rooms of mums venting about the monotony of being a stay-at-home parent, and it makes me feel less alone, but I’m still not confident enough to share my frustrations with anyone in the real world. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m selfish and horrible, especially after the battle I went through to have Marlow.

As Kate and I pass the door to the apartment below ours, it opens and a man steps out in front of us, blocking our way.

‘Hi,’ Kate and I say.

The man, around thirty-five with thinning hair and wearing round artist-like glasses, looks us both over, unblinking as an owl.

‘Hi,’ he says. He holds out a slender hand to Kate. ‘I’m Sebastian, nice to meet you. I own the apartment you’re staying in.’ He speaks good English with only the faintest trace of an accent.

‘Right,’ says Kate, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Kate, this is Orla,’ she says, indicating me.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, shaking his hand.

His gaze dips briefly to my exposed cleavage. It makes me flush a little, both self-consciously and also with a little pride. I can’t remember the last time a man looked at me in that way, not even Rob.

‘It’s just the two of you staying?’ Sebastian asks.

I nod. ‘Yes, just us.’

‘You’re going out?’ he asks, though that much is pretty obvious.

‘Yes, for dinner,’ I say.

‘We better get going,’ Kate adds, impatiently, ‘our Uber’s waiting.’

Sebastian doesn’t move. ‘Well, I just wanted to say hi. If you need anything, anything at all, let me know. I’ll be happy to help. I work from home and I am here all weekend so just come and find me if you need anything.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘Thanks. We’ll let you know if so.’ I try to get past him but he doesn’t move.

‘If you want me to show you how to use the hot tub …’ he says in his slightly high, reedish voice.

‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ Kate says with a tight smile, pushing past him.

I smile politely as I squeeze by. ‘Thank you.’

‘Have a nice dinner,’ he calls after us.

In the Uber Kate reapplies her lipstick using her phone camera as a mirror and I stare out the window, taking in the city by night, the illuminated castle on a hill and a dazzling bridge over the river, which looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s no mistaking Lisbon for San Francisco though. Lisbon is distinctly European. The buildings are a mix of baroque and roman and even gothic architecture. I know all this because I read it in the guidebook. The area we’re staying in, Alfama, is the old Moorish part of the city and it’s a maze of cobbled lanes that wind up and down several hills. It’s quite beautiful and I’m rapt by the magical feel of it, with its steep staircases, waterfalls of flowering pink bougainvillea and colourful brickwork. It’s like stepping back in time or into the pages of a fantasy novel.

When she’s done with her lipstick Kate puts her arm around me and pulls me in close for a selfie. She turns to me and kisses me on the cheek, leaving behind a red mark she then has to rub off. After, she takes my face in her hands. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ she says, her tone and expression turning uncharacteristically solemn.

‘Of course,’ I say, bemused.

‘Good,’ she answers.

I wonder at the sudden declaration of love and friendship. We do tell each other we love each other all the time, though I suppose not too often recently. She must be drunk. She holds her booze well but I do remember that once she’s two sheets to the wind she can get very emotional. It’s one of the giveaways.

‘You’re my best friend,’ she says. She says it forcefully, as though I might contest it.

‘You’re mine too,’ I say, laughing.

‘Never forget that,’ she says, looking into my eyes in such a strange way that my laughter dies.

Chapter Three

We arrive at the restaurant, a candlelit place with a glass roof and so much greenery it looks like a hothouse at Kew Gardens. Our waiter leads us to a white-linen-clad table in the back but Kate insists on a table in the centre of the room. She always likes to see and be seen, and I roll with it because I’ve decided that tonight I want to make the most of my freedom and have fun.

‘That’s better,’ says Kate, shaking out her napkin with a flourish and ordering a bottle of champagne.

I bite my lip as I scan the menu and notice the prices. The champagne alone is eye-wateringly expensive at almost two hundred euro a bottle. Does it come in a gold-plated bottle? I’d be happy with Prosecco, which is only a quarter of the price and tastes, at least to my unrefined palate, exactly the same.

‘Dinner’s on me,’ Kate says, as though she’s read my mind.

I start to argue with her. She’s already paid for the apartment and she upgraded our seats to business on the flight over. ‘Honestly,’ she says, reaching her hand over and squeezing mine. ‘We deserve it, and besides, Toby’s paying, remember.’ She winks at me and laughs.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Won’t he be mad?’

‘Yes, but he doesn’t have a right to be after what he’s done.’ She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin, scanning the room. ‘And anyway, the lawyer says we’re going to screw him in the divorce so whether he pays now or later doesn’t really matter.’

Toby owns his own events marketing company that stages big launches for brands as well as music events. I’m guessing he earns a very good salary, given the amazing penthouse flat that the two of them used to live in and the five-star luxury holidays he and Kate used to take every year to the Seychelles and the Caribbean.

‘He’s sold his company you know,’ Kate says, as the waiter comes over with the champagne in an ice bucket. ‘To an American agency. He’s going to make millions from it. My lawyer says he’ll have to give me at least half. Half of everything.’

My jaw drops open. ‘Oh my God,’ I whisper. What are you going to do with all that money?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know yet. Buy a house I think.’

‘Where?’ I ask.

‘Maybe Richmond,’ she says.

I look at her, astonished. She’s always looked down her nose at any place outside of Zone one and definitely at neighbourhoods she considers rich and rah. Kate’s a city person and likes to be in the bustling heart of things; she jokes that, like a black cabbie driver, she won’t go south of the river. For all her money and lifestyle, Kate grew up working class and scoffs at toffs and posh people, and Richmond’s bursting at the seams with them. I can hardly see her hanging out in her Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies walking her Labradoodle in the park.

‘Seriously?’ I ask her. ‘You’d give up living in Zone one and move to the sticks?’

She frowns at me. ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘I think it’s time for a change. You can’t live the same way all your life. It’ll be nice to have a house and a garden. I might start growing my own veg.’

‘Next you’ll be saying you want two point four children.’ I giggle into my champagne, noticing I’m getting a little light-headed from drinking on an empty stomach.

Kate summons the waiter with a nod of her chin then turns back to me. ‘I’m starting to think I might,’ she says.

I almost choke on my champagne and have to set the glass down. ‘What? Want kids? Really?’ I ask, shocked to my core. She honestly couldn’t have said anything more surprising to me, not even that she was quitting the rat race and the male race to enter a nunnery.

Kate looks wounded. ‘Why’s that so shocking?’ she asks.

I shake my head, not wanting to upset her. ‘It’s not. It’s just … I didn’t think you wanted kids.’

‘I didn’t,’ she says, carefully folding the napkin on her lap. ‘Not until now. And thank God I didn’t have any with Toby. Can you imagine? He’d have been an awful father. What are you going to order?’ she asks, changing the subject and opening up her menu. ‘The octopus sounds good, doesn’t it? But I’ve heard the pork belly’s great too.’

We order, with Kate choosing the most expensive thing on the menu, oysters, followed by octopus – and me the cheapest, sardines, which I have heard are a local delicacy.

When the waiter has gone Kate smiles at me and raises her champagne glass once again, to chink against mine. ‘Here’s to being a mum.’

‘To being a mum,’ I agree, trying to wrap my head around Kate wanting children. I had always assumed she didn’t want kids. She’s said so multiple times over the years, talking about how she loves her job too much, as well as her freedom, and making it clear how boring she finds those friends who drone on and on about their kids. After hearing her mocking them I made sure to keep my own gushing talk about Marlow to a minimum around her. And though I did make Kate godmother and she did lavish expensive designer clothes and expensive handmade wooden toys on Marlow, I’ve never asked her to babysit or to change a nappy. I know what Kate’s limitations are but I also know – and argued to Rob, who had his reservations about choosing her to be a godparent – that when Marlow grows up Kate will come into her own as a godmother, or oddmother, as she likes to call herself.

Admittedly I have felt a little pique of envy at the thought that Kate will be the glamorous aunt figure in Marlow’s life, with her glittering career and enviable wardrobe and global travel to film festivals and the like, but until now I have never thought that Kate might be the one envying me. Does she? It feels strange to even imagine it.

I wonder at her age, forty-one, if it would be likely she’d even get pregnant. I certainly struggled to, though not just because of my age; I also have a duff uterus. But some women conceive at the drop of a hat, and who’s to say Kate wouldn’t be one of them? It would be typical of her. Everything comes so easily her way: men, success, attention. Why not a baby too?

‘I froze my eggs,’ she says, out of nowhere.

‘What?’ I ask, almost spitting out my champagne.

‘A few years ago,’ she answers with a shrug. ‘I decided I might as well. I knew Toby didn’t want kids and I wasn’t sure I did either, but then seeing what you went through I thought I should, just in case I changed my mind later.’

I stare at her, completely flabbergasted. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She gives an apologetic smile. ‘It was when you were going through IVF and having a hard time and I didn’t want to mention it I guess. I didn’t want to upset you.’

‘Why would it have upset me?’ I ask, put out that she kept such a big secret from me. Was I that self-absorbed? Would it have upset me? Annoyingly I have to admit perhaps it would have. Any reminder of another woman’s fertility upset me back then, even the sight of prenatal vitamins with a picture of a pregnant woman on the label would send me scurrying in tears from the chemist.

Kate bites her lip. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was a big deal. It wasn’t like I was deciding to have a baby. I just put my eggs on ice. Everyone’s doing it these days. It’s the new Botox. People have egg-freezing parties.’

My eyebrows shoot up. Not in my world they don’t.

‘I’m not shitting you,’ she says. ‘It’s all the rage in Hollywood.’

Hollywood. Of course. Kate lives and operates in a different world to me altogether and sometimes I forget that. I take a sip of water, trying to regain some composure. ‘Do you think you’ll use them?’ I ask. ‘The eggs?’ I don’t know why but for some reason the thought of Kate becoming a mother bothers me.

‘Haven’t decided,’ she answers as the waiter lays down a plate of oysters.

‘You’d have to give up eating stuff like that,’ I joke. ‘And drinking too.’

She cocks her head to one side. ‘Are you saying I couldn’t give it up?’

I shake my head. ‘No of course not, I mean, if I managed …’ I trail off. I hadn’t intended to suggest she wouldn’t be capable of hacking a nine-month pregnancy but maybe subconsciously I actually had. Maybe that’s what’s annoying me about all this. Her decision seems so sudden and so unthought-through, so typically Kate. Does she have any idea how much work is involved in raising a child? How hard it is? It isn’t like deciding to buy a new pair of shoes. You can’t take them back if you decide you don’t like them and you can’t toss them to the back of your wardrobe and forget about them. It isn’t like when she decided to get married on a whim and ran off to Vegas with Toby.

You can’t just throw kids away when you get tired of them. And how would she do it on her own, without help? I know she has money but even with all the nannies money could buy it’s difficult being a single mother. I have two friends who are and they deserve medals. I couldn’t do it I don’t think, and I can’t see how Kate would ever have the patience for it.

‘Have an oyster,’ she says, pushing the plate towards me.

I shake my head. It would be just my luck to eat one that was off and get food poisoning.

‘Go on,’ she says. ‘They’re great.’

Oh, what the hell. It’s been years since I’ve eaten any shellfish. I was too worried when I was trying to get pregnant of eating anything that might make me sick. I take one, squeeze some lemon on it, and let it slide down my throat, leaving behind the taste of seawater. ‘That was good,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

I’m being judgemental. Kate’s my best friend and I should support her whatever her choice is. ‘You’ll be an amazing mum,’ I tell her.

She smiles. ‘Thanks.’

‘Do you think you’ll get a sperm donor?’ I ask.

She slides another oyster into her mouth. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘It’s an option. Though I don’t want to be a single parent. Maybe I’ll find a new man. A decent one this time. One who doesn’t sleep with prostitutes and treat me like shit.’

She puts her fork down and reaches for her champagne glass, which the waiter has been kept busy filling up.

‘Here’s to that,’ I say, picking my own glass up to cheers her.

She smiles as our glasses chink together. ‘Do you really think I’ll be a good mother?’ she asks and I hear the note of anxiety in her voice.

I force a nod. ‘Of course. Look how much Marlow loves you.’

She smiles wider at that. ‘Well, Marlow and I have a lot in common. We both love to guzzle from a bottle and we both like to have someone do everything for us!’

I laugh along with her, happy to think about Marlow for a moment. I wonder how she and Rob are getting on.

‘Anyway,’ Kate says, interrupting my thoughts and sitting back to let the waiter remove our plates. ‘How are things with you and Rob? Are they better?’

I pause as the waiter replaces the plates with our main course and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

‘OK,’ I say. I’ve told Kate something of the ups and downs our marriage has suffered over the last few years but must admit to having put a better spin on it than is perhaps the truth. ‘Improving slowly.’

I dig into my sardines, which are more delicious than they look, lying grilled on the plate staring up at me.

Kate saws through an octopus tentacle covered in tiny suckers. ‘Have you got back on the horse?’ she asks. ‘Are you having sex?’

Straight to the point as always. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, not like we used to …’

‘What do you mean? How often are you having it? Once a week? Once a month?’

‘Probably a couple of times a month.’

Her eyes go wide. ‘God,’ she says, ‘I’m amazed your hymen hasn’t regrown. How on earth do you manage without regular orgasms?’

I blush and check over my shoulder that no one around us can hear, but luckily no one seems to be listening.

‘I’m so tired,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘What with housework and Marlow the last thing I want to do in the evening is have sex. Besides, you should try it after you’ve had fifteen stitches in your vagina.’

She winces. ‘No thanks.’

‘Well, if you want a baby …’ I say, laughing at her. ‘You better be prepared. They don’t just pop out like the cork from a champagne bottle.’

‘Maybe I’ll opt for a C-section,’ she shoots back, laughing.

‘That’s not any better,’ I tell her.

‘You can have a tummy tuck at the same time.’ She grins. ‘All the celebs do it. That or they hire a surrogate and skip the whole getting fat part altogether.’

I glance down at my plate; the sardine, sitting beside its nest of potato, looks back accusingly.

‘Not that you got fat,’ Kate adds quickly. ‘Besides, I’m only joking,’ she says. ‘I’m not too posh to push.’

‘You might become too posh if you move to Richmond.’

She laughs even louder and pours us more wine, without waiting for the waiter to do it. I hold up a hand to stop her filling my glass because I can feel myself getting quite drunk already, but she bats my hand away. ‘Come on, we’re going to have fun tonight.’

Reluctantly I let her refill my glass. ‘I just don’t want to end up with my head in a toilet bowl later.’

Kate has always handled her drink much better than me and now, after giving up alcohol when I was pregnant and breast-feeding, I’m more than a lightweight. I take a small sip and then sigh. ‘Honestly, I just don’t feel like it.’

‘Like what?’ Kate asks. ‘Champagne? What’s wrong with you?’

‘No, I meant having sex with Rob.’

‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Did you stop fancying him?’

I shake my head. ‘No. It’s not that.’ Rob’s still good-looking, still in shape from his daily cycling, and we still get on as friends and as partners. We still love each other and I know he wants to have sex with me because he keeps trying to. ‘I just don’t feel in the mood ever,’ I explain. ‘I don’t feel attractive. I think that’s the problem. I don’t want him to see me naked. And he’s a visual guy. He likes the lights on.’

She smirks. ‘You’ve still got it, what are you talking about? You’re a hot MILF. There’s a guy over there by the bar who checked you out when we came in.’

I glance over towards the bar but it’s rammed with people and I can’t figure out who she means. ‘Thanks,’ I say turning back to look at her. ‘Most days I feel like a fat, frumpy, middle-aged hag.’

‘Well you’re not,’ she tells me. ‘You’re gorgeous. How’s Rob taking the lack of sex?’ she asks.

‘Fine,’ I say, though truthfully, I’m not sure. He acts fine and understanding but of course he would because he’s a nice guy.

‘Be careful,’ Kate warns. ‘Look at Toby. We had a great sex life and he still played away.’

My knife and fork hover in mid-air. ‘What do you mean? Rob would never have an affair.’

‘I know,’ she says, ‘that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just warning you that if a man doesn’t get sex he’ll start to look elsewhere. Even the nice ones.’ She must see the look on my face as she hurries on. ‘But not Rob. I can’t imagine Rob ever having an affair. He adores you. And Marlow. I’m sorry. I’m just projecting.’

I put my cutlery down. ‘No, you’re right. It did cross my mind,’ I say. ‘But only because he seemed distant for a time when Marlow was a couple of months old. But we talked it out. He said he was feeling left out, you know, because I was breast-feeding and I got to be at home with the baby while he had to go to work. I think it’s quite common for men to feel like a spare part in the early days – that’s what the books say anyway. But everything’s been good since we talked. I mean, he tells me he loves me all the time and buys me flowers and when we do have sex it’s good. Well, good considering I don’t have much of a pelvic floor anymore.’

‘Well then—’ she laughs ‘—ignore me. What do I know about marriage or relationships? I’m a disaster at them. So long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.’

I nod and look down at my plate, trying to blink away a sudden welling up of tears.

‘You are happy, aren’t you?’ Kate asks.

I look up, swallowing hard. She’s staring at me, her eyes narrowed. She knows me better than anyone and has seen through my stiff upper lip.

‘I don’t know,’ I blurt out. The wine has made my tongue loose and I think to myself I should probably not say anything but the words tumble out of me before I can stop them. ‘I know I should be happy. I’ve got an amazing husband and an amazing child and I’ve got so much to be grateful for but somehow I don’t feel happy. I feel quite down actually, quite a lot of the time.’

Much to my horror tears slip from my eyes. Why am I admitting all this? Kate stares at me, her blue eyes widening with surprise at this out-of-nowhere admission. Her cutlery clatters to her plate and she reaches across and grabs my hand. ‘Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?’

I bite my lip to stop from crying any more. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t told anyone. I just keep pretending everything’s OK, hoping that if I fake it I’ll make it. But I feel so tired and I know I should be happy, so then I feel even worse.’

Kate looks stunned. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’ve been feeling this way! I would have been there for you. Does Rob know?’

I shake my head. ‘No. He’s seen me cry a few times but he doesn’t understand it. He thinks it’s just hormones. Maybe it is.’

‘Do you think it’s postnatal depression?’ Kate asks.

My lip wobbles. It’s the first time someone has asked me directly whether or not I’m depressed other than the health visitor who I lied to because I was scared of being judged. ‘Maybe,’ I say, feeling like there’s a stone lodged in my throat.

‘Have you spoken to the doctor?’ she presses.

I shake my head. I keep thinking about going but then changing my mind. I’m not that sad, just a bit down. And I don’t want to take any drugs. I want to figure it out on my own. Like Rob says, I’m sure it will pass.

‘There’s no shame in it you know,’ Kate says, reading my mind. ‘Drugs can help.’

I nod. If anyone knows it’s Kate. She’s been on and off antidepressants for years.

‘Why don’t you make an appointment to see the doctor when you get back? Speak to someone. Get some help.’ She frowns at me in consternation. ‘I really wish you’d told me before now.’

I nod and with a shaky hand take a big gulp of wine. Having admitted it to Kate it already feels like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. She’s right. I should have admitted it to her before now. I guess I felt ashamed that I was sad after having spent so long striving for a baby and being upset about it not happening. It felt churlish and ungrateful to feel depressed after I got what I wanted and had a healthy, beautiful baby in my arms.

‘Talking of drugs,’ Kate says, fishing a little silver pillbox out of her bag with a flourish.

‘What is that?’ I ask, my eyes darting to the tables around us because I already know what the little pillbox contains. Or at least, I can make an educated guess.

‘Fancy a line?’ she asks.

‘Coke?’ I whisper in astonishment.

She nods. ‘It’ll lift your mood.’

‘How on earth did you get that on the plane?’

‘Oh, it’s easy if you know how,’ she replies with a wink and a secretive smile. ‘You just pack it in with your tampons. Do you want some?’

I glance around again, nervously. ‘What? Here?! Now?’

‘Yes,’ she says deadpan. ‘I’m going to snort a line of coke off the table in front of everyone.’ She shakes her head. ‘No. I’m going to the bathroom. Are you coming?’

‘I’m good,’ I say.

She narrows her eyes and looks at me with that same sly smile, the tempting devil on my shoulder. ‘Come on,’ she pouts.

Once upon a time I would have said yes to that and to whatever pills Kate offered up. We never used to go clubbing without first dropping ecstasy or doing coke, usually both. But those days are long gone. ‘I can’t,’ I tell her. ‘I’d be off my head.’

‘Exactly,’ she says, her eyes lighting up. ‘Let’s have some fun. Go clubbing. My friend told me about a place—’

‘Clubbing?’ I interrupt, trying not to splutter. ‘I thought we were just having dinner.’

She pulls a face at me. ‘Lisbon’s known for its nightlife. I thought we could head to this bar I heard about and then to a club …’

My expression must show my surprise because her smile fades.

‘Oh,’ she says, a little downcast. ‘I thought you’d be up for it.’

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to upset her but I’m definitely not up for clubbing. Honestly, I just want to go to bed. It’s my first night away from Marlow in nine months – my first night of freedom since she was born – and all I can think about is catching up on sleep.

‘I really wanted to let my hair down and have some fun,’ she says. ‘It’s been such a hard few months with the divorce.’

I nod, sympathetic. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

She gives me a little half-smile. ‘And it sounds like you could use a reminder of what it’s like to be footloose and fancy free.’

I sigh, letting her twist my arm. ‘Sure, we can go to a bar.’ I don’t say anything about the club though. I’m definitely not going out clubbing. Besides we’d surely be the oldest people in a club, like parents overseeing the school disco. Isn’t it a bit sad at forty to still be acting like one of the kids?

Grinning, Kate gets up from the table. ‘Great,’ she says. ‘I’m just going to the bathroom. Back in a sec.’

I watch her weave between the tables, wondering if Kate will still be a wild partier in ten years’ time or if she’ll be a frumpy mum like me who just wants to stay home, read a book and get an early night. It’s hard to picture the latter. I imagine if she does have a baby she’ll be the most glamorous mum at school pick-up. Everyone else will be there in sweats and PJ bottoms stuffed into Uggs and Kate would be there with a full blow-out and wearing her Manolos. The thought makes me smile.

As soon as Kate is out of sight I pull my phone out to check my messages. There’s a sweet one from Rob telling me to have lots of fun. He’s sent a photo of him and Marlow. She’s sitting in her high chair, covered head to toe in orange sauce and looks like an Oompa-Loompa. Even her hair is standing on end, just like Rob’s does in the morning. The sight of them gives me an instant pang of longing. ‘I miss you,’ I text back.

‘We miss you too,’ he replies, with a heart emoji.

‘Remember to cut grapes in half,’ I type before deleting it.

When Kate returns from the bathroom it’s with a noticeable pep in her step. Her face is more animated, her gestures more jerky, and her voice louder. ‘Shall we get dessert?’ she asks, sitting down and grabbing for the menu.

I’m torn. My thighs don’t need the calories but, as Kate reminds me, ‘Toby’s paying,’ and I could use the extra carbs in my belly to soak up all the alcohol, especially if we’re heading to a bar next.

We order chocolate mousse and a Portuguese custard tart, which are both deliciously decadent, though Kate barely touches either. She’s become all fidgety and keeps pulling out her phone to check it. It buzzes in her hand and she frowns at whatever message pops up, then mutters under her breath.

‘Everything OK?’ I ask.

‘Fine,’ she says, furiously tapping a reply. ‘Just an angry client. Wants the impossible.’ She signals the waiter for the bill and then stands abruptly as the phone starts to buzz once more in her hand.

‘I have to take this,’ she says, already striding for the door.

I watch her through the window as she starts pacing up and down the pavement outside the restaurant, angrily gesticulating as she talks on the phone, and I wonder what the call’s about. A part of me secretly hopes that whatever it is will curtail the bar and clubbing adventure she has planned.

As I watch Kate a waiter comes and places the bill in front of me and I glance down at it, shocked at the amount – almost five hundred euro, mostly for the wine and champagne, but still, that is the most expensive sardine in history – before sliding it over to Kate’s side of the table. I feel awkward but she did say she’d pay. Or rather, that Toby would.

Kate returns a minute later and sits down, shoving her phone into her bag. Her face is red and her mascara has run a little.

‘Who was it? What happened?’ I ask in alarm. It’s not like Kate to cry. In fact I think maybe in the whole time I’ve known her I’ve only seen it happen a couple of times and once was while watching The Little Mermaid when we were hungover in our twenties, and she only cried then because she was upset Ariel gave her voice away for a man.

‘It was Toby,’ she admits, dabbing at her eyes. ‘The credit card company called him. They’d flagged unusually high spending.’

‘Oh,’ I say, trying not to glance in the direction of the bill.

‘Damn,’ she mutters, chewing on the skin by her thumbnail. ‘Bastard’s gone and put a stop on the card.’

I glance at the bill in front of her. She notices it too then bursts out laughing. ‘Shit! If only he’d waited five minutes.’ She rustles around in her bag for her wallet and fishes out another card. ‘Let’s hope this one works,’ she says, laying it down.

‘Why don’t I help?’ I say. ‘We can go halves.’

‘No,’ she says firmly, shaking her head. ‘I’ve got it. I’m the one who wanted to come here. Besides, once the divorce is finalised I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.’

‘How long will that take?’ I ask as the waiter brings the card reader over.

‘Who knows? My lawyer says it could take up to a year, maybe longer if he contests, which he will because he’s a shithead and doesn’t think I’m owed a penny. After putting up with him, though, I should say I’m owed the lot. I had to get tested for herpes and gonorrhoea thanks to his dirty little escapades. My lawyer’s putting it all in the papers. The judge will totally rule in my favour.’

‘But until then?’ I ask.

‘I’m earning enough,’ she says, waving a hand. ‘Don’t worry.’ She taps her number into the machine the waiter is holding and luckily the card is accepted. I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not that Rob and I are broke – we both earn good salaries, though I’ve not been earning while I’ve been on maternity leave – but our mortgage is large and we’re saving up for an extension on the house. He’d go mad if he saw I’d spent five hundred quid on one dinner.

‘OK then,’ Kate says, with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes, ‘shall we go?’

Chapter Four

As we get in the Uber Kate’s phone buzzes again. She glances at it quickly. ‘It’s Toby,’ she says, huffing. She shoves the phone back in her bag. ‘He’s paranoid. Wants to know who I’m here with. As if it’s any of his business anymore who I’m with or what I do. For God’s sake,’ she says, as the phone keeps ringing. ‘I’m going to have to get a new number at this rate.’

The Uber driver looks over his shoulder at us. ‘Do you have the address?’ he asks gruffly. He’s in his forties, with salt and pepper hair and a darkly stubbled jaw that looks like it could sand rust off a ship’s hull.

‘It’s a bar called the Blue Speakeasy,’ Kate tells him. ‘Do you know it?’

He nods and starts driving.

‘Are you sure you don’t want some?’ Kate asks me and I look down to see she’s holding the little pillbox in the palm of her hand. I glance at the driver then back at Kate, shaking my head and widening my eyes in warning.

Completely unabashed, she sprinkles some of the white powder onto the back of her hand and then snorts it, throwing back her head to sniff loudly, before wiping a hand under her nose. I shoot a look again at the driver and find him watching in his rear-view mirror.

‘Are you from here?’ I blurt out, trying to distract him, though it’s rather too late for that. He’s obviously seen.

‘No. Kosovo,’ he answers before his gaze shifts back to the road. ‘But,’ he goes on, ‘I’ve been here a long time.’

‘Your English is good,’ I comment.

‘Thank you.’ He glances at me again in the mirror. ‘Are you from the UK?’

‘Ireland,’ I tell him. ‘But I live in London.’

‘The Irish are good people,’ he says. ‘They are good at talking.’

I laugh. ‘Yes, I can’t argue with that. We do like a good conversation. And a drink!’ I’m blathering, aware that Kate is still messing around with her pillbox. Is she doing another line of coke? Dear God, how does she stay standing?

‘How long have you been driving an Uber?’ I ask, over-eagerly.

‘A few years,’ he says. ‘It pays the bills.’ His gaze shifts to Kate, who has pulled out her phone again and is busy texting, stabbing at the buttons in a frenzy while muttering to herself.

The Uber driver drops us a few minutes later in what appears to be a red-light district. ‘The bar is just up that alleyway,’ he says pointing to a narrow, cobbled lane to our right that is inaccessible to cars. ‘Have a good night,’ he says as we get out.

‘You too,’ I start to say but Kate slams the door shut.

‘He’s not getting a tip,’ Kate remarks, linking her arm through mine as he drives away.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘I saw the way he was looking at me in the mirror.’

‘You were snorting coke in the back of his car, Kate.’

‘Oh please,’ Kate scoffs. ‘It’s not like I vomited all over the seats.’

At the mention of the word vomit I notice how queasy my stomach is. The alcohol is sloshing around with the Michelin-starred sardines, but gamely I swallow down the acid taste of bile in my mouth and follow Kate down the alley.

It’s past midnight and the main streets all around are packed with people, mostly buzzed tourists, wandering between bars and open-air cafés and clustering in the middle of the road, oblivious to the fact it’s not a pedestrianised zone and that cars are trying to squeeze past them.

The alley with the Blue Speakeasy is quiet though, skipped over by the tourists. We spot several people standing outside a door beneath an electric blue light, smoking and vaping. I notice even from a distance of a hundred yards that this crowd seems sophisticated and better dressed, as though they’re all models posing for a photoshoot, or artists hanging outside a hip new gallery opening.

One glance as we get closer tells me they’re locals, not tourists. It’s not just the olive skin and dark hair on display, or the fact they’re way better looking and a lot more glamorous than the people you see gathered outside pubs in London’s Soho or stumbling drunk and rowdy through Leicester Square. They seem to exude exoticism in a way that makes me, frankly, very jealous. I might have inherited the Irish gift of the gab but I’d definitely swap it for whatever magic gene these people are obviously gifted at birth.

As we approach – Kate leading the way with her head held high and her gold heels striking the cobbles like flint – I notice a red velvet rope in front of the door and a boy standing in front of it holding a clipboard as though it’s a ceremonial shield. My gut clenches tightly as we reach him. It reminds me of being twenty-five and trying to slip the line at Cargo by flirting with the bouncer, except that was then and this is now and I’m not sure I’ve got the balls or the blag or the confidence of youth to pull it off. But Kate says something to him, something I don’t hear, then hands him something I don’t see, and suddenly the red rope is lifted and we gain entry.

The bar is lit like the inside of a crypt, flickering candles on the tables look like votives and in dark alcoves ghost-like shadows stir. Kate pushes her way through the crowd, ushering me ahead of her as I imagine she does with her famous clients at premieres when she’s trying to get them past the paparazzi and to the best spot on the red carpet to have their photo taken. The place is busy and a heavy beat thrums in the spaces between all the packed bodies, making my head pound and sweat break out on my brow.

Kate elbows her way to the front, gets the attention of the barman and then shouts over her shoulder at me. ‘What do you fancy?’

I glance at the multitude of bottles behind the bar and my stomach responds with a gurgle. ‘Water,’ I shout back, trying to be heard over the percussive thump of the music and roar of conversation.

Kate rolls her eyes at me. ‘Water?’

‘Yes, tap’s fine,’ I say, glancing around. It doesn’t look like there’s a table free. Are we going to have to stand among the shouting, overheated bodies to drink our drinks? I hope not. It crosses my mind once again that I’m getting far too old for this. I’d rather be in bed, in my pyjamas, reading a book, or scratch that, sleeping. Kate hands me a glass of water and then, with her own cocktail in hand, pushes her way across the bar area, towing me behind her, like an old rowing boat attached to a fancy pants yacht.

She makes a beeline straight towards the booths in the shadowy recesses along one side of the room and stops beside one. Two men are sitting there.

‘Mind if we join you?’ Kate asks them.

I start to open my mouth to protest the intrusion and pull Kate away – the booth is small after all and we’d have to squeeze in next to them on the leather banquettes – but one of the men smiles and gestures to the seat beside him.

‘Of course, please be our guest.’

Kate sits down right beside him, forcing him to squeeze over to make room. Embarrassed at Kate’s forwardness, I perch on the very edge of the banquette opposite. ‘Hi. Sorry,’ I say, smiling apologetically at the man next to me.

He smiles back at me. ‘No problem.’

‘I hope we’re not … intruding.’ I say, stumbling over the last word as my brain processes just how ridiculously, insanely good-looking he is – almost unreally so. He’s about thirty, I’d guess, with thick dark hair, tanned skin and luminous green eyes framed with lashes so long and so thick they look false. I wonder if he’s a model or an actor. He is, without a doubt, the best-looking person I’ve ever seen in real life. His skin is smoother than cream, so flawless it’s like he’s wearing a magic foundation.

‘Not intruding at all,’ he says, smiling at me in a way that suggests our interruption is the best thing that’s happened to him all night.

I glance over at Kate who is chatting to the other man. He’s just as gorgeous; darker-skinned, with almond-shaped eyes and cheekbones you could slice Parmesan on. Are all Portuguese people this beautiful? Kate says something to make the man next to her laugh and his teeth flash white in the darkness.

‘I’m Joaquim,’ the man next to me says.

I turn back to face him and find him holding out his hand to me. I shake it. ‘Orla,’ I say, noting the fluster in my voice. ‘Nice to meet you.’

He nods at his companion. ‘This is Emanuel.’

I shake hands with Emanuel too, who grins back at me. They’re both dressed in expensive-looking clothes: dark trousers and crisp shirts, the top buttons undone. My gaze starts to track downwards before I stop myself.

Even more flustered I turn back to Joaquim. ‘Are you from here?’ I ask, aware as soon as I say it that it sounds like a pick-up line. I cringe inwardly.

‘Yes,’ he answers, his voice mellow and husky. ‘You?’

‘No, can you tell? I’m actually from a little town in Ireland. More a village really. You won’t have heard of it. People have only ever heard of Dublin. But I live in London now. I have done for almost twenty years. I suppose it’s home. Though I haven’t lost my accent.’ I’m prattling on, my face heating up like an electric hotplate. I can’t take my eyes off him but I’m also too overwhelmed by his beauty to hold his gaze for longer than a second. I feel almost star-struck and internally berate myself for acting like a teenage girl stuck in an elevator with her boy-band crush. I’m a grown woman.

‘I love London,’ Joaquim says.

‘Yes, it’s a great city,’ I say, nodding enthusiastically and glancing over at Kate. She’s locked in conversation with Emanuel, leaning her head close in to his as though she’s struggling to hear him, though in this corner the music isn’t as loud.

‘How long are you here in Lisbon?’ Joaquim asks.

I look back at him. He’s moved his arm so it’s now resting along the top of the banquette behind my head.

‘The weekend only,’ I say, reaching for my drink. ‘I’ve got to get back.’ I stop myself abruptly. I’d been about to say ‘to my baby’ but I wrenched on the brakes for some reason.

‘Do you have plans?’ Joaquim asks.

‘What?’

‘Do you have plans while you’re here?’

‘Er, yes,’ I say feeling massively self-conscious under his gaze. ‘We’re doing an e-bike tour tomorrow morning, taking in all the sights. I’ve heard that you need an e-bike. I don’t much fancy pedalling up all those hills! And then we’re doing a food tour in the afternoon.’

‘There’s great food in Lisbon. Maybe I can show you some places.’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘we just ate actually.’

‘I meant tomorrow.’

I’m too startled to respond at first. Is he asking me out? Surely not? But it did sound like he was. I’m so out of the flirting and dating game I have no idea whether I’m reading into things. Probably. Why on earth would he want to go out with me? Not withstanding the fact we met less than a minute ago, I’m old enough to be his mother – almost, and he’s so beautiful he could have anyone.

‘Tomorrow?’ I echo, trying to gauge his intent a little more.

He nods enthusiastically. ‘There’s a little place I know. Only locals go there. It would be my pleasure to take you.’

‘Um …’ I flounder. Now is probably the time to mention I have a husband. But what if I’m reading into things wrong and he’s just being friendly? He might think it odd if I lob the fact that I’m married into the conversation like a hand grenade.

I look to Kate, but she’s fully turned to Emanuel – I watch her hand brush his arm as she throws back her head and laughs uproariously. A penny drops. This is why we’re here, why she made a beeline for this table – Kate’s on a mission to pull! And it looks like she’s succeeding. Emanuel’s hand is on her thigh, inching north. Damn it that was fast, I think, then remember Kate’s pre-Toby days. Within minutes of entering a club Kate would have located the hottest man on the dance floor and would be gyrating up against him. She’s like a homing pigeon for hot men. And nine times out of ten they respond like … horny pigeons I suppose.

I turn back to Joaquim. He’s staring at me expectantly, a half-smile playing on his lips. Is he flirting with me or am I imagining it? With all these women in the room – most of them looking like they stepped straight off a catwalk – why would he flirt with me? Or is it because Kate is so clearly making moves on Emanuel he thinks that’s what I’m after too? Or maybe I’m reading it wrong and Portuguese people are always this friendly.

‘You want to come with me?’ Joaquim asks, smirking a little as he says it, and I wonder if the double entendre is innocent.

‘Maybe,’ I hedge, then immediately feel a flush of shame. What is wrong with me?! I shouldn’t even be hesitating to say no. I have a husband at home right now looking after our nine-month-old baby. ‘Actually, now I think about it, we’re busy all weekend,’ I tell him, smiling politely. ‘We’ve got all these plans to do stuff. Like cycling and things. But thanks.’

I gulp my drink nervously and almost spit it out, right into Joaquim’s lap. ‘Oh my God, what is this?!’ I splutter.

‘Gin and tonic,’ Kate says, shouting across the table.

‘I asked for water.’

‘I must have misheard.’ Kate laughs before turning back Emanuel.

Joaquim offers me a napkin. ‘Here.’

I take it and he indicates my dress where I’ve spilled or spat some drink. I dab at it.

‘Excuse me,’ Joaquim is standing up, trying to get past me. I move to let him out and he disappears hurriedly into the crowd. I wonder what I said to make him bolt. I check the time. It’s one-thirty in the morning. ‘Do you think we should go?’ I ask Kate but she doesn’t hear me – she’s flirting too hard with Emanuel, touching his thigh as she emphasises a point.

‘Kate?’ I say louder, trying to get her attention.

She turns to look at me. ‘Yes?’

‘Shall we go?’

‘What?’ she asks, frowning. ‘We just got here.’

‘I’m tired,’ I tell her, frustrated and suddenly angry at her for dragging us here, for foisting more alcohol on me and now for ignoring me as she works to get in some random stranger’s pants.

She frowns. Emanuel’s hand is brushing her arm, his fingers tracing a circle on her shoulder. Goodness, that moved fast, even for Kate.

‘Get a rum and Coke or something,’ Kate tells me. ‘Come on, let’s stay, I’m having fun.’

You might be, I want to grumble, but I’m not. I’m not single. I’m not trying to pick up a stranger for a one-night stand. I make to stand – deciding to head back alone – but before I can leave Joaquim returns, drink in hand.

‘Here,’ he says, offering it to me. ‘It’s water.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, grateful and not a little surprised.

‘You’re welcome,’ he says with a smile that immediately defuses some of my anger. I move aside to let him get by into the booth, his aftershave filling my nostrils and making me dizzy. My headache starts up again and I realise how drunk I feel, the world blurring at the edges. I down the water in one go.

‘Better?’ Joaquim asks.

I nod, noting he’s sat down closer than he was before, his thigh almost brushing mine and his arm resting again behind my head. Normally I’m the first to get annoyed by manspreading but there’s something about the languid ease of his body and his confidence that’s sexy.

‘Cheers,’ he says, tipping his glass to mine. ‘Here’s to new friends.’

I knock my empty glass to his. I’ll give it five more minutes, I decide. I don’t want to appear rude to Joaquim.

‘What do you do, Joaquim?’ I ask, setting the water glass down.

‘I run a business,’ he says. He points at his friend. ‘Emanuel and I are business partners.’

‘What kind of a business?’

‘Design,’ he answers. ‘What about you? What do you do?’

I’m about to answer that I’m on maternity leave but the split second before I blurt it out I change my mind. ‘I work for a housing association,’ I say.

He looks at me blankly.

‘A charity,’ I explain. ‘Sort of. It helps people on low incomes.’

He leans in closer, head cocked to one side, as though it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. ‘You help the poor. That’s nice.’

I study him. Is he being sarcastic? I don’t think so. He looks genuinely curious. I’m so used to English people and their sarcasm that when I meet someone genuinely earnest I’m always suspicious.

‘I mean, it’s not that exciting,’ I add, my cheeks warming again under his incessant gaze. Does he have any idea of his effect on women?

When Joaquim reaches for his own drink his hand brushes my knee, and my pulse leaps and skitters like I’ve been whipped by a stinging nettle. He must have noticed and I feel mortified. I don’t know how to flirt anymore, and definitely not with someone who isn’t my husband.

‘You’re married?’ Joaquim suddenly says, pointing at my wedding ring.

‘Oh,’ I say. Rumbled, I hold up my ring finger as though I’ve only just noticed it myself and am wondering how on earth it got there. ‘Yes.’

He cocks his head, a smile playing loosely on his lips. ‘But your husband is not here.’

I shake my head and my vision swims from the sudden movement. I was hoping the water would help me sober up but instead I feel even drunker. That sip of gin has pushed me over the precipice between mildly drunk and completely wasted. I need to drink more water. Joaquim inches closer to me so our thighs are pressed together and his hand rests against the nape of my neck. Oh God.

‘My husband’s at home,’ I blurt out. ‘We’ve got a baby.’

Kate suddenly interrupts. ‘What say we all go back to ours?’

I stare at her, my head thick. ‘What?’ I slur.

‘We can all jump in the hot tub,’ she says, clapping her hands with glee.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m tired and I’m not feeling great.’ I widen my eyes at her to indicate that I’m not into the idea but she ignores me completely and turns to Emanuel whose arm has snaked around her waist.

‘Sounds wonderful,’ he murmurs.

‘Kate,’ I say quietly through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. We have to be up early tomorrow for that e-bike tour.’ I’m already worried at how hungover I’m going to feel. Even with an e-bike I’m not sure I’ll manage to get up those hills.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Kate says, dismissing me. She stands up, dragging Emanuel with her by the hand. ‘Let’s go.’ And with that she moves for the exit.

I rush after her, wobbly on my feet and my head heavy as a bowling ball, my neck a toothpick holding it up. I don’t want these two men to come back to our apartment. It isn’t a good idea. We don’t even know them. But how can I stop Kate? She’s paying for the apartment after all. I can’t really ban them from entering, not without looking like a total bitch.

By the time I make it outside Kate’s already on her phone, ordering a taxi. Emanuel walks over to Joaquim to confer about something and I rush over to Kate, stumbling and grabbing her by the arm to steady myself. ‘Kate,’ I say in a whisper.

She shrugs me off, busy with her phone. I pull her arm, tug on it. ‘Did you have to invite them back?’

‘What’s the problem?’ Kate asks, looking at me bewildered.

‘The problem is I don’t want them to come back,’ I hiss. ‘I just want to go to bed. I’m wasted.’ My words are slurred, I notice, as though my tongue has doubled in size and I’m feeling very woozy all of a sudden.

‘Come on. It’ll be fun,’ Kate says with a mischievous look in her eye. It takes me back to so many times in our twenties. We’d be at the petrol station on the corner, buying beer for a party and Kate would get chatting to the person ahead of us in the line. They’d invite her to something else and suddenly we’d be changing our plans and going to a house party or an art opening or one time a wedding. If ever I raised objections to following a random stranger who might turn out to be a serial killer, Kate would always shrug it off and say, ‘Come on, it’ll be fun!’ And the thing is, she was usually right.

We ended up having the maddest adventures, all because Kate was a beacon for fun and would talk to anyone. We partied once in a white stuccoed mansion in Hyde Park, which was owned by a Russian oligarch, discovering by snooping around that there were three floors below ground, including one that housed a shooting range and a subterranean swimming pool that Kate insisted we skinny-dip in.

We also ended up one time at an event at the Colombian embassy where we got drunk on the free wine being served and ended up stealing a flag, which we only recalled when Kate woke up the next morning and found herself wrapped in it. Another time we ended up joining a protest outside the Shell building because Kate fancied the man on the bullhorn who was riling everyone up. We followed him and his eco-warrior mates back to their squat in Elephant and Castle for a house party that lasted all weekend. Looking back, I barely recognise the person I was back then, before I met Rob.

‘We don’t even know them,’ I argue, my voice coming out a lot louder than I intended.

‘I don’t need to know them.’ Kate smirks. ‘I’m not planning on having a deep and meaningful conversation with them. I just want to have no-strings sex.’ She nods in Joaquim’s direction. ‘Why don’t you sleep with Joaquim? God, look at him. He’s bloody gorgeous.’

‘I’m married!’ I hiss.

Kate shrugs at me. ‘Rob will never find out. And it’s just sex. It’s not a big deal.’

‘Yes, it is,’ I answer but my powers of reasoning seem dulled and confused, as though my brain is encased in lead.

‘What happens in Lisbon stays in Lisbon,’ Kate says, grinning wickedly. ‘One night of sin. I won’t breathe a word. God, it might even help you get your mojo back with Rob. Fire up the old furnace. Get you back on the horse.’ She glances at Joaquim. ‘Though he’s more a stallion.’

I look at Joaquim and my brain, despite the fog surrounding it, manages to conjure up images of us having sex. Maybe it isn’t a big deal, maybe I could sleep with him like Kate’s suggesting and it could all stay in Lisbon, but then cold reality kicks in. ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. I realise with a start I’m shouting and people are turning to stare. ‘It is a big deal. I can’t … I love Rob.’

‘All right, calm down!’ she says. ‘You don’t have to do anything but let me have some fun, won’t you? I deserve it.’

I can’t argue with that, and even if I could I don’t have a chance to as the taxi arrives. Kate piles in the back with Emanuel jumping quickly in behind her. Joaquim opens the passenger door for me and I get in, slumping unhappily against the door.

For the whole journey back as I listen to Kate laughing and kissing Emanuel I can feel my irritation building. She’s acting like a teenager. This isn’t the trip I signed up for. I want to go home. I want to see Rob and Marlow.

‘We’re here,’ I hear Kate say.

I stumble from the car, the ground shifting beneath my feet like a rocking deck, and fall against Joaquim who puts an arm around me to steady me.

‘Let’s get you to bed,’ he murmurs.

Chapter Five

Bleached white light scours my eyeballs. I wince. My head throbs as though an axe is embedded in my skull. I roll over, noting the fact I’m lying under the covers. How did I get here? Memories jostle through the blur, fragments from last night, no whole picture. We went out for dinner, then to a bar. There were two men. I vaguely remember the one I was talking to but I can’t recall his name. He had green eyes, dark hair. Kate brought them back with us. God, I was so drunk. How on earth did I get so drunk? Maybe it was the jet lag? But there isn’t a time difference so that doesn’t make sense.

I press a hand to my aching, fuzzy head. Oh my God, I feel sick; my stomach is bubbling. A jagged piece of memory rises suddenly to the surface. I threw up last night. I remember leaning over the toilet bowl, gagging, and I can still feel a chemical-like burn at the back of my throat. Was it the oysters? Is that what made me feel so wretchedly awful? Was it food poisoning as well as too much booze? Or maybe a combination? It felt like I’d been anaesthetised and I still feel sluggish, as though my head and my limbs are buried in thick tar.

The man was there though. I remember that. He held my hair as I heaved over the toilet. I remember feeling desperately humiliated that a stranger was watching. Where was Kate? I have a vague recollection of her shouting – or was she screaming? Or laughing? Why can’t I remember? I must have blacked out.

As I look around the bedroom I wonder again how I got there. Then it comes to me. Another fragment piercing through the fog. The man carried me to bed. I suddenly see his face, hovering over me as he laid me down. Asking me if I wanted him to take my clothes off.

Aghast, I throw back the covers. I’m wearing my dress. Feeling sick, I lurch upright and check I’m still wearing my underwear. I am. The movement makes me dizzy. Or perhaps it’s relief. I take stock. My throat is dry as sandpaper, my skull as fragile as a paper lantern. Any sudden move and I think it will tear. For a few moments I sit on the edge of the bed trying to dredge through my memories of the previous night, desperate to find some clues. Did I have sex with that man? The last thing I remember is him leaning over me. But then what happened? Why can’t I remember?

Are they still here? My bedroom door is closed. I crane my head to listen but it’s quiet. What time is it? I reach for my phone, sitting on the bedside table, and am shocked to see it’s almost ten-thirty in the morning. I’ve slept through an alarm and three messages as well as a call from Rob. How drunk was I?

No. It hits me then, stupidly late, that I wasn’t blackout drunk and I didn’t have food poisoning. I was drugged. It’s the only thing that makes sense because there’s no way that amount of alcohol would make me pass out like that. I can only recall one other time I blacked out, back when I was eighteen, at university when someone gave me a glass of straight gin and I thought it would be a laugh to drink it without adding tonic.

But when could I have been drugged last night? And by who? It must have been the men we were talking to. I remember the one I was talking to gave me a glass of water when we were at the bar. Did he slip something into it? How could I have been so stupid as to accept a drink from a stranger?

Feeling a surge of bile shoot up my throat I drag myself into the bathroom and lean over the sink, breathing deeply, fighting nausea. When I glance up at the mirror I see my face is wan and pale and my mascara has streaked, giving me raccoon eyes.

Did I have sex with him?

It wouldn’t have been sex. It would be rape, wouldn’t it? Shit. Suppressing a mounting panic, I pull off my knickers. They’re dry. I don’t feel any soreness either. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe he just let me sleep. I would know – surely I would know – if something had happened.

I splash cold water on my face and take a glass from the side and fill it from the tap, drinking it down like a camel. My body demands more and I fill the glass a second time and a third time until my stomach sloshes with water. I ease open the bedroom door and walk into the hallway, on shaky, fever-dream legs.

The kitchen and living area are empty. There are several water and wine glasses scattered about and an empty wine bottle on the table. I notice Kate’s jacket flung on the back of the sofa and her shoes, kicked off by the sliding door to the balcony. There’s a wet towel lying in the middle of the living room floor and I pick it up. They must have gone in the hot tub.

I wander outside onto the balcony, squinting against the bright morning sunshine. The hot tub is bubbling away like an unwatched saucepan, and I find Kate’s dress abandoned on one of the sun-loungers.

I head back inside. Is she in the bedroom? Nervously, I approach the door to her room. What if she’s in bed, passed out with the other guy? Or even with both of them? I wouldn’t put it past Kate. What if they’re having sex right now after an all-night bender? I press my ear to the door but can’t hear anything so I crack it open and peek in. The shutters are drawn but a sliver of morning light streams through a gap and illuminates the rumpled bed. The contents of her suitcase are still strewn about the room as though they’ve erupted out of her bag, but there’s no sign of the men or of Kate.

I push open the door more fully and turn on the light.

‘Kate?’ I call, crossing to the bathroom.

There’s no answer and she isn’t in the bathroom either, though I pull back the shower curtain to double-check in case she’s passed out in the bathtub as happened one time in Ibiza.

‘Kate?’ I shout, heading back into the living room, feeling a little worm of worry burrowing into my gut.

Silence greets me. Where on earth is she?

Chapter Six

‘She’s gone,’ I tell Rob over FaceTime. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘Have you tried calling her?’ he asks.

‘Yes, of course, but her phone’s switched off.’ I’ve tried calling at least a dozen times already and each time it goes straight to voicemail.

Rob frowns. He’s balancing Marlow on his arm. I’ve caught him heading out with her to the park. ‘Did she leave a note?’

‘No,’ I say, frustrated at the lack of concern he’s showing. He doesn’t seem to appreciate how worried I am, but perhaps that’s because I haven’t admitted to him that we brought two men back to the apartment last night. How would I explain that?

‘She’s probably gone out to get a coffee or to get some food,’ Rob says, batting Marlow’s hands away from his mouth. ‘You said you had a lie-in. She probably didn’t want to wake you.’

I press my lips together and nod. I told him I’d slept in late and that’s why I missed his calls. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I thought I might have been drugged and possibly sexually assaulted. I’ve ruled that last part out anyway – it seems impossible and I don’t want to think about it. And besides, I was worried Rob would be angry and blame me if I told him. And he’d have a right to be. I did flirt with the guy. I didn’t put my foot down strongly enough when Kate insisted they come back to our place. Though, actually, now I come to think about it, I do remember an argument. I recall Kate shouting angrily. But I can’t remember clearly what it was about.

It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. Maybe Rob’s right and she has nipped out to get coffee or milk or some groceries. But then I remember the stocked fridge. What if she went out with the men for breakfast or brunch? What if they decided after the hot tub to go out clubbing somewhere else? There are lots of reasons she might not be here.

But she knew about the e-bike tour this morning, which we’ve now missed. Would she abandon me like that? I don’t think she would. We had plans to get lunch too, at a famous seafood place by the dock after we finished the bike ride, and then we planned to do some shopping. She was excited about it. We spent the plane ride chatting about all the things we were going to do when we got here. But maybe she tried to wake me up and couldn’t so went off on her own?

‘Look,’ Rob says, ‘I need to get Marlow in the car.’

Marlow is getting fretful in his arms so I nod, forcing a smile. ‘Bye, darling.’ I wave at my daughter. She doesn’t seem to recognise me or to hear – she’s struggling wildly to get out of Rob’s arms. Since she started crawling a couple of months ago she’s not stopped wriggling and trying to pull a Houdini out of any place we put her.

‘I’ll call you later,’ Rob says. ‘Try not to worry. She’ll show up. Call or text me as soon as she does.’

I hang up, feeling a distinct lack of reassurance. I wish I could have told Rob more about the circumstances but, aside from the fact I feel ashamed as much as alarmed and he seemed distracted, I also know he’d be less than sympathetic if he heard about Kate’s drug taking and her sleeping with random strangers. Rob and Kate have known each other since university. I actually met Rob through Kate, at a party hosted by one of their mutual friends. Rob’s always found Kate a little much, a little too into herself, and way too loud for his liking. He’s also not a fan of her wild partying. Rob’s a round of golf, pint down the pub kind of guy, who cycles to work and works as the financial director of an environmental charity. Kate prefers swanky bars, private limos and wouldn’t date anyone who didn’t earn at least seven figures.

She’s never said it but I think Kate thinks Rob is boring with his accounting job and his love of DIY, though even she has to concede he’s one of the good ones. He’s hard-working, thoughtful, kind, funny and smart. He does the dishes and the laundry and even came with me on the Women’s March in London earlier this year, carrying Marlow in the sling and wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Raising a Feminist’. He might not be Kate’s cup of tea, but he’s definitely mine. I feel a sudden wave of hot shame wash over me as I remember briefly contemplating having sex with Joaquim. How could I have done that when I’m married to someone as lovely as Rob?

I try Kate’s phone again though it still goes straight through to voicemail. Something doesn’t feel right, a buzzing feeling in my gut. If those men drugged me last night then who’s to say they didn’t drug Kate as well? What if something has happened to her – something bad? It occurs to me then that maybe she’s had an accident. She could be in hospital. I remember the drugs she was taking last night – all that coke, probably pills too. What if she overdosed?

I rush into her bedroom, scouring it for clues. There’s an empty wine glass on the side and on the floor beside the bed I find a pair of black lace knickers and a foil condom packet. I check the bin and find a used condom. I back away from it, feeling a little grossed out, my queasy stomach flip-flopping. It confirms she had sex last night.

OK, I think to myself, scanning the bedroom for more clues. There are two wet towels on the floor. Kate and the men must have been in the hot tub and then come in here and had sex. Did she sleep with one of them or both? One by the looks of things, there being only one condom. But then what happened afterwards? I go into the bathroom and glance in the bin beside the toilet and find another used condom. I stare at it, wondering if it’s proof that Kate slept with both men. It seems a little extra, even for her.

When I walk out into the bedroom a glint of something shiny catches my eye. The thin filament of light coming through the shutters is refracting against something shiny. I walk around the bed and bend down to examine several fine splinters of glass on the carpet, half hidden beneath one of the decorative pillows that has been flung off the bed.

I pick up the pillow and stare down at the remains of a broken wine glass beneath, lying among several splashes of what looks like dried blood.

Chapter Seven

After spending thirty minutes trying to assess the stain I give up. I’m no CSI expert. Gnawing hunger pains alert me to the fact it’s past lunchtime and I haven’t eaten since last night. My head throbs dully and the thought of eating makes my queasiness return full force, but I make myself eat some of the bread and butter the landlord left in the fridge for us, and while I make coffee I consider my options.

I try to soothe the anxiety knotting my stomach by telling myself that Kate’s fine. She’s off shopping or getting groceries or she’s gone out to lunch with those two men, or she’s avoiding me for some reason I don’t fully understand. It isn’t blood spilled on the bedroom carpet; it’s red wine. I comfort myself with thoughts of the telling-off I’ll give her when she eventually turns up. I won’t hold back. She’s ruining our trip away. If she has abandoned me for a drug-fuelled weekend of partying and sex, I will be so mad I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive her.

My anger doesn’t last though. As I walk outside onto the balcony with my coffee and take in the still boiling hot tub and Kate’s discarded dress, an ominous wet cloud settles on me and douses my rage. I set the coffee down and locate the switches for the hot tub to turn it off. In the silence that fills the air after I’ve switched it off, I pick up Kate’s dress and shake off a sudden shiver that runs the length of my body. The worm in my gut has burrowed in deep. If she’s just out shopping why is her phone off and why hasn’t she called me?

In an effort to cast off my fear I head back inside and in a flurry of activity start to clear the empty wine glasses and bottle of wine, dumping the glasses in the sink. What happened last night? All these gaping black holes have me freaking out. Maybe I should go to the hospital and do a drug test, find out definitively if I was drugged. But what a waste of time. Even if it proved I had been drugged, I still wouldn’t be able to prove who by, so there’s no point and how would I even be able to explain myself when I don’t speak the language?

As I’m doing a rudimentary tidy-up I have an epiphany. Her handbag! It strikes me then that I haven’t seen it anywhere in the apartment. It’s a Hermès Birkin bag. I’d know it a mile off as I’d enviously admired it when Kate showed it off to me at the airport. I’d assumed it was a fake, given they cost the same as a down payment on a house, but she’d reassured me that it wasn’t, had bragged that it was a divorce gift to herself.

How could I have forgotten to look for it? I rush back into her room and search, then when I don’t find it, I do another more frantic search of the whole apartment, turning over cushions and opening up cupboards. It’s not here. She must have it with her. That’s a good thing I suppose. It means she has her wallet and her ID with her.

I jump in the shower – keeping the door to the bathroom and bedroom ajar, so I can hear if Kate returns. As I dry off and throw on some clothes, I decide on a plan of action. I grab my bag and slip on my sandals to run downstairs to the landlord’s apartment. I should have thought of it sooner. Maybe he’s seen her or heard something.

But there’s no answer when I knock and, thwarted, I head back upstairs. OK, I think to myself, trying to be methodical and practical rather than giving in to the mounting panic I’m feeling, I’ll call the hospital and see if anyone matching Kate’s description has been admitted.

It takes me a few minutes of searching online to find the number but when I ring I get put through to an automated system that’s in Portuguese. I wait until the very end and, as I’d hoped, the recorded voice tells me to press two for English. It takes me another five minutes to navigate the system and reach an actual human being.

‘Hello, do you speak English?’ I say, feeling embarrassed that every English speaker in the world expects the rest of the world to speak their language while making no effort to speak theirs.

‘Yes,’ the woman on the end of the phone says.

‘Great,’ I say, relieved. ‘I’m looking for my friend. I don’t know what’s happened to her.’

There’s a pause on the end of the line. ‘She has an accident?’

‘No,’ I explain, wishing I’d rehearsed this. ‘I don’t know. I wondered if I could check if anyone had been brought in last night or early this morning. Her name is Kate.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the woman says, clearly confused. ‘You think your friend is here in the hospital?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. Am I being ridiculous? Kate will probably burst in the door any second, her arms full of shopping bags, laughing at how much of Toby’s money she’s just spent.

‘What is her name?’ the operator asks.

‘Kate – I mean Katherine – Hayes.’

I spell it out and can hear some tapping going on in the background. ‘I cannot find in the system,’ the woman tells me.

‘OK, thank you. And no one came in without identification?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Is there anything else I can help with?’

‘No,’ I say, and the woman hangs up.

I check my phone again, wondering if maybe Kate’s sent an email – though God knows how she could if her phone is dead – but she hasn’t. I send her one, just in case somehow she has access to a computer. I tell her to call me or email and give her my phone number in case she doesn’t have it memorised. Finally, I scribble a note to her and leave it on the hallway table.

When I step out onto the street I have to pull on my sunglasses. The sunshine burns my eyes and exacerbates the dull throb at my temples. It’s a gorgeous day and the city looks ripe for exploring. With a pang I think about our now-shelved plans. I should be sitting at a little restaurant on a cobbled side street with Kate right now, eating tapas and drinking chilled white wine, gossiping and laughing, faces turned to the sun, hoping to catch a smattering of rays. Resentment knocks shoulders with anxiety. The ongoing refrain marching through my head gets louder; where the hell is she?

On a mission now, I start to walk in a grid pattern around the apartment, stopping in any shop, café or bar that looks like somewhere Kate might visit, but the streets are winding and labyrinthine and very soon I’m lost. Still, I keep pounding up narrow lanes and down stairs, the cobbles glossed with age and slick as ice beneath my feet, the sun blistering the sky above my head.

I know her well enough to know what Kate’s drawn to – anywhere selling handbags and shoes for one, any bar that looks sophisticated for two – definitely no tourist traps, and no restaurants with photographs of food on the menu, and doubtfully any museums or art galleries, though those would be on my list. There are lots of tacky souvenir shops and not much in the way of boutiques but I make sure to check every dark cave-like bar I pass, in case she’s decided on hair of the dog after waking up with a hangover like mine.

I wonder for a second if the e-bike tour she claimed to be enthusiastic about was actually not something she wanted to do and if she’s therefore run off for a few hours to ensure missing it. Maybe she didn’t hear the part about the bikes being electric and thought it involved actual pedalling. But that seems childish, and why would she lie to me? Kate’s blunt and to the point. She would tell me if she didn’t want to do something. She put the kibosh on us going to the monastery, laughing that it was valuable time when we could be eating or drinking or shopping; why waste it on monks?

On the corner of a small square beside a church I discover a little café selling coffee and pastries. Kate isn’t inside and I stop myself from going in and asking people if they’ve seen her and showing them a photo on my phone – taken at the airport yesterday of us grinning and drinking champagne. It feels over the top and hysterical to start asking strangers if they’ve seen my friend – the equivalent of putting up missing posters on lamp-posts. Because she isn’t missing. She’s just not in touch.

I’ve been trying her phone every five minutes or so and I try it again, though without much hope. It rings through to voicemail and I leave another message, perhaps my third or fourth, begging her to please call me back.

An hour into my search and I still haven’t found her, though what were the chances, really? We could have missed each other in passing easily enough. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and in a foreign city that I don’t know, it’s also like wearing a blindfold. I start to wish I had unspooled a red string as I walked, so it could help me find my way back to the Airbnb. Even using Google maps is difficult as the roads bend in the most frustrating ways.

Tired, I stop in a little bar with pavement tables, to have a coffee and a custard tart. The waiter takes forever to bring my order – something I realise might be the standard for Lisbon – and I eat the tart without even tasting it. I can’t focus on enjoying anything, even though I tell myself to. I may as well because otherwise when I get back to the apartment and find Kate sitting there among a pile of shopping bags, I’ll be annoyed that I spent the afternoon worrying and not making the most of it. But when I spill the coffee on the white linen tablecloth all I can think about is that red stain on the carpet in Kate’s room. Was it blood? Or was it wine? All sorts of images try to push through the meniscus of my mind, furnished by far too many true crime podcasts and documentaries, but I force them away, mentally refusing to go there.

My phone rings just then and, hope bursting, I dig it frantically out of my bag. Disappointment hits me when I see it’s Rob, video-calling. I answer.

‘Hi, wow, that looks nice,’ he comments, obviously meaning the blue sky and pavement café culture in view behind me, though possibly the remains of the custard tart I’m holding. ‘Did you find Kate?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I’ve been looking for her. I just stopped for a coffee.’ I pause. ‘I’m worried, Rob. She still hasn’t been in touch.’ I don’t tell him I already called the hospital – he’ll accuse me of over-reacting.

‘Did you get in a fight with her or something?’ Rob asks.

‘No, of course not,’ I tell him, though as soon as I say it, I pause. Could that be it? Is she annoyed with me for putting up a fight last night about those two guys coming back to the apartment for a hot tub soak? I rack my sinkhole of a mind, trying to dredge up some memories of last night. I do vaguely recall arguing with Kate outside that bar I can’t remember the name of – she ignored me, or at least ignored what I had to say, but we didn’t fight exactly. I was too drunk – or drugged – to offer much resistance. I just wanted to go home to bed.

Did I say something else to her that I don’t remember? Perhaps when we got back we argued and I don’t remember it. I was so out of it, all I remember is feeling like I was going to be sick, my stomach squirming and bubbling like a cauldron on the boil and my vision blurring. The man – goddamn, what was his name? – helped me to the bathroom. I can still feel his arm locked around my waist. He almost had to haul me upright. But there’s nothing after he put me to bed except blankness, with the occasional shards of memory embedded like slivers of broken mirror that I don’t want to look at too hard in case they reveal glimpses of something I don’t want to see.

There was shouting. I can hear Kate yelling or screaming. Or am I imagining it?

I realise that Rob’s been talking this whole time I’ve been searching my memory. ‘What was that?’ I say.

‘I was asking where you went last night. Maybe Kate went back there. What if she lost her phone, left it there?’

‘Maybe,’ I muse, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. ‘But I think she had her phone,’ I tell Rob, remembering she used her phone to call a cab when we were outside the bar.

He’s planted the seed now though, and I wonder if I should head back to the bar to find out if Kate did go back for some other reason, maybe she left something else – not her phone, perhaps her wallet – or maybe after her marathon sex session she wanted to go out for more drinks. Maybe she hit up a club like she wanted to.

‘When did you see her last?’ Rob asks. ‘What time?’

‘Last night. I went to bed around two I guess.’ Should I tell him the truth now about the men we met – how Kate invited them back? ‘I was pretty drunk. I don’t remember much.’ As soon as I say the words I know it’s now too late to admit the full story. He’ll wonder why I held back from telling him to begin with and he’ll be suspicious.

‘Blimey,’ Rob says, ‘how much did you have to drink?’

I swallow and force a smile. ‘Oh, you know Kate, quite a bit. We had dinner then went to a bar.’

Rob raises his eyebrows, smiling. He knows what Kate’s antics can look like. But all I can see is the man with green eyes. What was his name? I wish I could remember. A bolt of nausea shoots through me as I remember that I thought about sleeping with him. I imagined what it would be like. I can hear Kate telling me to do it, encouraging me. What happens in Lisbon stays in Lisbon.

In the cold light of day as I look at Rob’s open, honest face and worried smile, I feel a huge wave of self-loathing. How could I have even considered it? And now it’s too late to tell him. He’ll think the worst of me and I don’t need to get into a fight with him. I’ve got enough on my plate worrying about Kate without having to deal with that too.

‘Do you think I should go to the police?’ I ask.

Rob pulls a surprised face. ‘What? No. It’s only been a few hours. She’ll turn up. You know Kate. She’s not exactly reliable. She’s probably lost track of time. That girl can party like the end of the world is coming.’

He’s right about that – but it’s not entirely fair to call her unreliable. She’s always on time for things and she does stick to her word.

She’s my best friend and has been for almost two decades, the first person I turn to when I need a shoulder to cry on or to have a bitch and moan, whether about work or relationship stuff. She always picks up the phone whenever I call and she sends me cheer-up texts when I’m down, silly things designed to make me laugh – videos of fruit porn or cats falling down stairs or Game of Thrones memes that posit that the age of men is over and heralding the end of the patriarchy.

‘Try to enjoy yourself,’ Rob says, jarring me back into the moment. I nod and try to smile but I can’t. How can I smile or enjoy myself when I don’t know where Kate is or what’s happened to her?

‘Is Marlow OK?’ I ask, realising I’ve been so concerned with Kate I’ve not asked a single question about her.

‘She’s fine,’ Rob says. ‘I put her down for a nap.’

‘Don’t let her sleep too long,’ I tell him. ‘Or she’ll be up in the night.’

‘I know,’ he says, his tone edgy. He hates me telling him what to do when it comes to Marlow; he says it implies he doesn’t know how to parent. ‘I’ve got it. Everything’s fine. I better go. Call me when Kate shows up.’

‘OK,’ I say and hang up, sipping the rest of my now cold coffee.

Chapter Eight

Another thirty minutes walking the neighbourhood yields nothing except sore feet, though several times I could have sworn I’d spotted Kate in the distance, only to be disappointed when I’d drawn level and seen it wasn’t her at all but a stranger who looked like her. I’m tired and grumpy by the time I decide to call it quits. I haven’t been able to enjoy the sights or been able to browse the shops I’ve entered looking for her, and I’m annoyed about what a waste today has turned into. I think about hailing one of the many taxis that prowl the neighbourhood, obviously trying to pick up silly tourists like me who’ve walked too far and can’t handle another hill, but decide to stick it out in case I spot her en route.

When I finally make it back, the apartment feels quiet as a tomb. I call out Kate’s name anyway and even after getting no response I still check her room, hoping against hope I might find her napping on the bed. Damn you, Kate, I think to myself, when I find it empty.

Annoyed, I walk into the kitchen and drink three glasses of water, glugging them down. My body seems unable to sate my unquenchable thirst, as if whatever I drank or was drugged with last night has turned my body into a dried-out husk. Will drinking so much water affect any drug test, I wonder? But I know deep down I have already dismissed the idea of going to the hospital to get tested. It’s probably too late anyway and I can’t imagine having to explain last night to a nurse or a doctor. And the thought of a sexual assault exam is too much to bear.

I had to go with Kate one time after she was sexually assaulted by a guy on the street. He grabbed her from behind when she was walking home alone at night from the bus stop and forced her down an alley. It wasn’t full penetrative sex but he did assault her and beat her before she managed to get away and run into a petrol station for help. They never found the man and Kate, after a few shaky days and once her bruises had faded, put her own spin on it, casting herself as the plucky heroine who kicked butt and fought off her attacker, leaving out the cruder details for anyone curious. She said her attacker ‘copped a feel’ when it had been much more aggressive and terrifying than that. I knew as I’d been with her, holding her hand, when she gave her statement to the woman detective. I never saw her cry though. She was stoic throughout the interview and the exam, as well as afterwards.

I can’t claim anything as horrible as that happened to me last night. In fact, probably nothing happened at all. The man put me to bed. End of story. It seems silly to make a thing of it when lots of worse things happen to women every day.

After standing in the middle of the living room for several minutes, thoughts drifting, I decide that I need to distract myself. I do a quick bustle through the apartment and balcony picking up towels, finding a pair of boxer shorts underneath one of the sun-loungers and a pair of red lace knickers beneath the coffee table in the living room.

I start to rinse out the glasses I dumped in the sink earlier, hesitating as I dunk them in the soapy water. There’s a fine powder in the bottom of one of the glasses. I examine it closer. It might just be dishwasher powder. Or it might be something else. There’s a faint lipstick mark on the rim – a coral pink colour that I recognise as my coloured lip balm. Kate wears actual lipstick – she’s never seen without it – the brighter and more attention-grabbing red the better.

I set the glass down on the side, my hand trembling. Is this evidence I was drugged last night? But I remember being woozy before we returned home. If I was drugged it was by the man at the bar. They probably thought when we sat down with them at their table that we were easy prey. They might have gone to the bar hoping to pick up some women and we stumbled, almost literally, into their laps.

Was it their intention to rape both of us last night? Did Kate being up for sex stop that plan in its tracks? They didn’t need to force her. But did something go wrong perhaps? Did she find out they drugged me? Or did they try to drug her? All these questions flit through my mind like poison arrows. The not knowing is the difficult thing. Am I being hysterical and leaping to outlandish conclusions based on nothing? I wish I knew. I wish Kate were here so we could talk and piece it all together.

I stand up. I need to do something. I need to go to the police. I can’t just stay in the apartment waiting for her to turn up because what if she is missing? What if something truly awful has happened to her, what if she’s somewhere needing my help right at this moment? In fact, now I’ve decided I can’t believe I’ve waited so long. What kind of a friend am I?

After quickly gathering my things I head out once more, stopping at the landlord’s apartment below ours and rapping loudly on the door. There’s a beat and I think I hear footsteps approaching the door but then there’s silence and the door doesn’t open. I stare at the spy hole directly ahead of me and feel suddenly creeped out that he might be watching me through it.

The door opens immediately. ‘Hello,’ Sebastian says. He isn’t smiling and I notice his arms are crossed over his chest and he’s blocking his doorway as though afraid I’m about to barge right past him.

‘Hi,’ I say, words suddenly deserting me. ‘Um, this is going to sound strange but have you seen my friend?’

‘Your friend?’ He shakes his head. ‘No.’

‘I don’t know where she is,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen her since last night. And I can’t get hold of her. Her phone’s switched off.’

‘Well, I haven’t seen her,’ he says.

‘Right,’ I sigh. ‘It was a long shot. You didn’t hear anyone leaving this morning?’

He arches his eyebrows at me and purses his lips. ‘If you mean last night, yes. I heard plenty of leaving and coming.’

There’s an acid archness to his voice and a slight flare to his nostrils that puts me on the back foot, but I work in HR; I interview people all day and so I’m good at adjusting my technique depending on who I’m speaking to. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, understanding that he’s annoyed about the noise we made coming in last night and deciding to play the role of contrite and apologetic supplicant. ‘Did we wake you up last night? We tried to be quiet.’

He draws in a loud, self-righteous breath. ‘I think you woke the whole street.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat, giving him an obsequious smile, while wondering how loud we actually were.

‘You only made the booking for two people,’ he says sniffily. ‘You even told me last night that only two of you were staying. Any extra guests incur a charge. You should have informed me.’

‘There weren’t extra guests,’ I say.

‘Yes, there were,’ he argues back, irritated. ‘I heard you. It sounded like you were having a party. Parties are forbidden. It’s in the rules.’

‘We didn’t have a party,’ I protest. ‘We just had two friends back for a drink.’

He rolls his eyes at me. ‘I heard the music and all the shouting and doors slamming. It was a party. And extra guests, which you’ll need to pay for.’

I ignore his last comment and latch on to the other information. Shouting? Doors slamming? What’s he talking about?

‘What time did you hear people leave?’ I ask.

‘Around three a.m. That still counts as an overnight guest.’

I couldn’t care less about his petty rules or extra costs or whatever punishment he wants to lay at our door. ‘What did you hear exactly?’ I press, suddenly excited that he might know something that could lead me to Kate.

‘Music, shouting, people running down the stairs, doors slamming,’ he says with a loud sigh.

‘Did you see who?’

‘No,’ he says, but his eyes slide sideways and I wonder if he’s telling the truth. ‘I was in bed,’ he sniffs.

‘You don’t know if it was Kate then who left at three? Or someone else?’

‘It sounded like men.’ He gives me a very pointed look and I feel my cheeks flush. It’s as if he’s implying I’m some kind of prostitute for bringing men back to our apartment. I refuse to be shamed though.

‘They were definitely running?’ I ask. ‘Like they were in a hurry to get somewhere?’

Sebastian nods. ‘Yes. It woke me up. Like elephants on the stairs.’

‘Did you hear anyone come back after that?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘I put my ear plugs in.’

What could all this mean? I’m more confused now than ever.

‘I hope you don’t plan on having any more parties,’ Sebastian remarks.

I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say, stunned. It’s almost like he didn’t hear me when I told him Kate was missing.

‘Well then, I need to get on,’ Sebastian tells me, turning back into his apartment. ‘Goodbye.’ And he shuts the door firmly in my face.

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