‘I know, but I’m not exactly good at keeping on top of things at the moment. I thought if you could help me plan something, at least you’d be able to remind me what it is.’
She laughs. ‘All right. What sort of thing were you thinking of? A weekend away, a flight in a hot-air balloon, a sky-diving experience, a cookery course?’
‘Any of those sound great, except perhaps the cookery course,’ I say, and for the next half-hour she comes up with idea after idea, all of which I say yes to because my mind is elsewhere.
‘You’re not going to be able to give him all of them,’
she says, exasperated, ‘although, as money is no option, I suppose you could.’
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‘Well, you’ve certainly given me plenty to think
about,’ I tell her gratefully. ‘What about you? Any news since Sunday?’
‘No, same old,’ she says, pulling a face.
‘You never got round to telling me about the chap
from Siena, you know, the brother.’
‘Alfie.’ She stands up. ‘Sorry, I need the loo, I won’t be long.’
While she’s away, I decide that I’m going to have
to somehow introduce John into the conversation and take it from there. But when she comes back, instead of sitting down she stays standing.
‘You don’t mind if I abandon you, do you?’ she says.
‘It’s just that I’ve got a busy day tomorrow and I need to get home.’
‘No, go ahead,’ I say, surprised that she’s going so soon. ‘I would leave with you but I need a coffee before driving home.’
She stoops and hugs me goodbye. ‘I’ll catch up with you later in the week,’ she promises.
I watch her curiously as she goes, pushing her way
through the throng of French students, because I’ve never known her to leave in such a hurry before. Has she gone to meet John? Maybe he’s waiting for her somewhere, in a different pub. As she reaches the door, a shout goes up from a one of the French students and I realise that she’s trying to call Rachel back.
‘Madame, Madame!’ she cries. But Rachel has gone.
The student begins to grapple with one of the boys next The Breakdown
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to her and, losing interest, I turn to a passing waitress and ask her to bring me a coffee.
‘Excuse me.’ I look up to see the French girl standing in front of me, a small black phone in her hand. ‘I am sorry but my friend took this from your friend’s bag.’
‘No, that’s not hers,’ I say, looking at the phone. ‘She has an iPhone.’
‘ Si,’ she insists. ‘My friend there—’ she turns and points to the boy she’d been grappling with ‘—he took it from her bag.’
‘Why would he do that?’ I frown.
‘It was a défi, a dare. It was a very bad thing to do, I try to give it back to her but he would not give it to me. But now I have it so I give it to you.’
I look over to the boy she pointed out. He grins back at me and, pressing the palms of his hands together, gives me a little bow.
‘He is very bad, no?’
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘But I don’t think it belongs to my friend. Maybe he took it from someone else.’
She calls over to him and after a quick conversation in French, where everybody around them seems to be nodding in agreement, she turns back to me.
‘ Si,’ she says again. ‘Yes. She push past him and he took it from her bag.’ She looks anxiously at me. ‘If you want, I give it to the man at the bar.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, taking it. ‘Thanks. I’ll make sure she gets it. I hope your friend hasn’t taken anything of mine,’ I say, frowning at her.
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‘No, no,’ she says hurriedly.
‘Well, thank you.’
She goes back to her friends and I turn the phone over in my hand, still not convinced it belongs to Rachel. It has to be one of the most basic pay-as-you-go models on the market. Did John give it to her? It feels as if everything’s crumbling around me and I don’t know who to trust, not even myself. I flip the phone open and go into the list of contacts. There’s only one number registered. I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I’m really going to dial it. I feel like a stalker but I’m not even sure it’s Rachel’s phone and, anyway, I don’t need to say anything, all I need is to listen to the voice at the other end.
Feeling sick with apprehension, I call the number. It’s answered immediately.
‘What the hell are you phoning me for? I thought we agreed only for texting.’
Even if I had wanted to speak I wouldn’t have been
able to. Because suddenly, I find it impossible to breathe.
It’s the noise of the French students getting up to leave that brings me back to reality. I look down at the phone in my hand and realise that, in my shock, I’ve forgotten to hang up. The call has been timed out anyway and, my mind racing, I try to work out if, during those couple of minutes when the line was still open, anything incriminating could have been heard.
But the person on the other end would only have been able to hear the sounds of the voices around me, not The Breakdown
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the frantic beating of my heart. Anyway, maybe he had