Someone Else's Shoes(22)

“Oh. I have a fun thing to tell you.”

Andrea lifts her head. “About time, Sam. Jesus. You’ve been about as much use as a wet weekend in Grimsby for half an hour and now you have something positive to tell me?”

She tells Andrea the story of the high-heeled Louboutin shoes, from Frampton to Miriam Price, and then the story of the handsome man with the Jiffy bag.

“Well, where is it? The thing the guy gave you.”

“Uh . . . I think it’s in my bag?” She rifles through it and brings out the Jiffy bag. In it is a small memory stick.

“What are you doing? It might be something exciting. Details of Swiss bank accounts. Pentagon codes that I can use to bomb my HR department. Riches from a long-lost Nigerian royal family. Let me have a look. Come on.” Andrea raises herself from the sofa and reaches behind her for the laptop on the desk.

“What if it’s got malware or something on it? I don’t want to put bugs on your computer.”

Andrea rolls her eyes. “Do I look like bugs on my computer even registers on my list of things to worry about right now?” She takes the memory stick from Sam and slots it into her laptop. They settle beside each other so that both can see the screen.

“If it’s Pentagon codes I’m targeting my ex-mother-in-law first,” says Andrea, gleefully. “Just a small guided missile. Maybe radioactive. Nothing too dramatic.”

The screen flickers into life, and they are suddenly silent. It is Andrea who speaks first, after a few seconds of watching the two grainy bodies writhe furiously.

“Uh . . . Sam? I’m not sure what this is, but I’m pretty sure that’s not . . . legal.”

“Or it shouldn’t be.”

They watch in silence for a few moments longer, transfixed and horrified, unable to look away. Their mouths drop open.

“He shouldn’t do . . . Oh, no. Oh, no no no.”

“Is that . . . is that the guy who gave it to you?”

“No! He was much younger. And not . . . Ew.”

“What is she doing to him? Turn it off. Turn it off! I feel ill.”

They slam the laptop shut and sit there in silence for a moment. Andrea looks at Sam and shakes her head.

“Is this a thing now? If you fancy someone, instead of sending a dick pic you hand them niche porn in a Jiffy bag?” Andrea shudders. “Jesus. I’m almost glad I’m too ill to date.”



* * *



? ? ?

Few people are wearing smart dark suits in this scruffy residential neighborhood, but this is a part of London described as “lively” or “up and coming” by estate agents, a place where it would not be unusual to see a man dressed as a goat, or a member of the Hare Krishna group dressed in flowing orange robes and waving a tambourine, so the few people who do pass Ari Peretz pay him little attention. He would not have noticed if they had: he is focusing intently on his phone, the screen of which is showing a pulsing blue dot that is growing ever closer to the traveling red one. He stops by a postbox, takes a step forward, then glances around his feet, as if he’s looking for something. He ducks, peers under a nearby hedge, then over a low brick wall, still scanning his phone. He gets down on his hands and knees, and squints under a parked car, using his phone as a torch. He edges closer, then reaches under the car and pulls out another phone, which he dusts off. He stands up, brushing down his trousers, and gazes around him. He lets out a heavy sigh, the kind one emits when one knows one is going to have to make a call that will likely not end well. Finally he dials.

“I found it. She’s nowhere. We may have a problem.”





eight


It had come to her in the small hours: the Chelsea house. Carl has bought and sold property compulsively during their marriage, and because this one had been under constant renovation, they hadn’t actually stayed there yet. In the chaos of the previous day, she had almost forgotten its existence. But she needs a base, while this is sorted out, and whatever state it’s in, it will be better than the Tower Primavera. The sudden recollection of it, at 2:14 a.m., had made her almost giddy with relief.

She has no key, but if the builders are still working there they will let her in. And if they aren’t, she will break in. No policeman in the world is going to object to a homeowner breaking into their own house. Nisha lies awake, planning her next move. Install herself in the house, get a lawyer, recover her bag, then kick Carl’s butt. It is this last thought that consoles her into a fitful sleep until seven, when she showers, climbs into yesterday’s clothes, and heads down to the dining area to eat the all-inclusive breakfast.



* * *



? ? ?

    “What do you mean, there’s no à la carte?”

Nisha stares at the server, who blinks at her and turns away. There are a million reasons why Nisha hasn’t eaten a buffet breakfast in two decades: the food is always the cheapest; greasy eggs sitting under hot lights, pallid sausages sliding in metal trays. Strangers lean over the stainless-steel containers, shedding hair or skin cells as they loom. It has always been her worst nightmare.

Until she was hungry.

This is not Nisha’s habitual hunger, low-grade, ever present, but a new variety that leaves her shaky and a little faint, unable to think about anything but food. She stands in the busy breakfast room, a gaudy yellow conference hall where the chairs are covered with plastic and the walls bear translations for “Good morning!” in a dozen different languages. Despite her revulsion, her stomach growls and claws, like an animal about to loose itself.