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She smiles and it makes her look even more beautiful. I like her quick wit and easy charm and the way I feel nervous around her. I like how she becomes the centre of any room she steps into and how her hands move as she talks and she tilts her head when she looks at me, as though puzzled, but also interested in what I have to say.
I hear the side gate open. Moments later, Poppy appears, drinking noisily from a bowl of water near the back steps. Evie isn’t far behind her. She kicks off her shoes and hangs Poppy’s lead in the laundry.
Florence goes upstairs to get changed.
Evie opens the fridge and takes out the orange juice, chugging straight from the bottle.
‘Get a glass,’ I say.
She ignores me and drinks again, spilling juice down her front. ‘Is she still here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I heard you last night. Making the beast with two backs.’ She’s quoting Shakespeare, Othello, which she studied for her English A level, and which made her an armchair expert on Elizabethan misogyny.
‘I’m sorry if we kept you awake. It wasn’t . . .’ I pause.
‘Wasn’t what?’ she asks.
‘Planned.’
Evie makes a scoffing sound. ‘You make it sound like a pregnancy.’
‘You told me I should find a girlfriend.’
‘Is that what she is – your girlfriend? I thought she was a hook-up. A one-night stand. A pity-fuck.’
‘That’s not fair.’
Evie goes quiet.
‘You and I are always going to be friends,’ I say.
‘How do you know? Maybe I’ll do something unforgivable.’
‘You won’t.’
‘Don’t tell me what I will or won’t do.’
With that, she leaves. Poppy has sensed the tension and puts her head into my lap, blinking at me with her sad brown eyes.
Evie’s voice, calling her name. The Labrador’s ears prick up.
‘Go, look after her,’ I say.
32
Cyrus
Evie is drinking an iced coffee beneath a café awning, not making eye contact with people, but watching from behind her sunglasses. Across the road, the Great Grimsby Combined Court Centre is set back from the street, sentried by large plane trees.
Defendants and lawyers are milling outside, staying cool in the shade. Most are here for summary offences – drink driving cases, disputed speeding fines and charges for criminal damage, malicious wounding and drug possession. A few have family members supporting them, who are dressed like they’re attending a church service or a funeral.
Evie insisted on coming. She wants to see the men who have been charged with the small boat murders, particularly the one she recognised, hoping it might trigger a memory or tether him to a particular time or place or event in her life.
There has been no word on Arben, but a dark-coloured Land Cruiser was found burned out in a lay-by fifteen miles from where he was abducted. The car had been stolen two days earlier from a house in Manchester by someone who had cloned the fob using a scanning device.
We navigate the security screening and take two seats in the tiered public gallery, which overlooks the body of the court, directly behind the bar table and to the right of the press benches. Some of the reporters I recognise from TV or from earlier media briefings. I make Evie sit next to the aisle so we can slip away quickly if she feels anxious, or her mind begins slipping.
