Susan.
“They’re mostly the same,” I said. “I think this was just one enemy.”
“It certainly wasn’t Harry,” she said. “He’d never spell ‘agonny’ with two n’s.”
“Unless he was covering his tracks,” I suggested feebly. I hadn’t noticed the two n’s but I didn’t want her to know that.
“Harry’s a shit, yeah,” said Susan, “but he’d never have hurt her.”
“OK,” I said. “Then it was someone else. I can’t believe she ran away.”
“But if she was getting threats,” said Susan, “wouldn’t that have been one more reason to run?”
I suddenly felt deflated, confused and despairing. I’d imagined myself riding to Nicky’s rescue, wherever she was, and winning her breathless admiration. I could seenow I’d been fooling myself. Everything I’d done in the last few months had been part of a colossal con and I might as well have gone out and blown my inheritance on lottery scratch-cards and cider. Nicky had led me around on a string like a lovesick puppy, and thanks to her I’d made promises I couldn’t keep to people who would take it out on me and my friends in blood and brain damage.
“Have you shown these messages to the police?” Susan said.
“Not yet.” I held my hand out. She passed the phone back to me, and stood up to leave. “It doesn’t make any difference,” I said. “I have to know. I have to find her, or find out what happened to her. And I’m not leaving it to the cops, because they’re useless.”
“Finn …” She swept her blonde fringe out of her eyes in a gesture so familiar my heart twisted in my chest. “Has it occurred to you … Nicky might not want to be found? If you liked her, maybe you should let it go. Contact the Law Society, put in a claim, find another lawyer. There’s plenty more where Nicky came from.”
“What’s the Law Society?”
“They run an insurance fund. All practising solicitors have to pay into it. If one of them runs off with a client’s money, the fund repays it. That’s probably what Nicky expected you to do. They have an office in the City somewhere—Google them.”
After Nicky’s sister left I paced the tiny flat trying to figure out what to do next, but my mind kept sliding back to something she’d said, words that had snagged under my skin like a splinter. About how Nicky had been deeply unhappy for months. She’d felt that way all the time I knew her? Had I been just a distraction, some comic relief? I could see what Susan had meant about Nicky’s type: there was a distinct resemblance between me and her husband Harry, if you disregarded the dimple in his chin and the expensive haircut and the posh accent and the private education and the BMW coupé in his drive. But maybe that’s why Nicky had liked me—I was a younger, dumber, more pliable version of her husband without all the trappings of success that she resented so much. The bed squealed and groaned as I plantedmy big ass onto it, and the noise sounded a lot like the dispirited voice in my head. I was swinging between feeling sorry for Nicky and feeling sorry for myself, and neither was getting me anywhere. I would do what I always did when the thoughts running round and round in my head started to wear a rut in my brain: I pulled off my clothes, pulled on my sweats, and hit the street.
A brief summer shower had left the pavements gleaming, and my trainers splished through shallow puddles as I weaved through the drunks staggering out of the pubs after last orders. In twenty minutes I reached the park by the canal, where the trees were rustling ghosts of green and the paths were pale grey shadows; in the bushes around me rats fought over stale crusts and foxes screwed, screeching. Disregarding the darkness I ran faster and faster until I was running full tilt, my pulse thumping in my head and sweat gushing from my pores, deeper into the night.
When my bedside alarm spewed out its horrible cheesy fanfare it felt like I’d only
“They’re mostly the same,” I said. “I think this was just one enemy.”
“It certainly wasn’t Harry,” she said. “He’d never spell ‘agonny’ with two n’s.”
“Unless he was covering his tracks,” I suggested feebly. I hadn’t noticed the two n’s but I didn’t want her to know that.
“Harry’s a shit, yeah,” said Susan, “but he’d never have hurt her.”
“OK,” I said. “Then it was someone else. I can’t believe she ran away.”
“But if she was getting threats,” said Susan, “wouldn’t that have been one more reason to run?”
I suddenly felt deflated, confused and despairing. I’d imagined myself riding to Nicky’s rescue, wherever she was, and winning her breathless admiration. I could seenow I’d been fooling myself. Everything I’d done in the last few months had been part of a colossal con and I might as well have gone out and blown my inheritance on lottery scratch-cards and cider. Nicky had led me around on a string like a lovesick puppy, and thanks to her I’d made promises I couldn’t keep to people who would take it out on me and my friends in blood and brain damage.
“Have you shown these messages to the police?” Susan said.
“Not yet.” I held my hand out. She passed the phone back to me, and stood up to leave. “It doesn’t make any difference,” I said. “I have to know. I have to find her, or find out what happened to her. And I’m not leaving it to the cops, because they’re useless.”
“Finn …” She swept her blonde fringe out of her eyes in a gesture so familiar my heart twisted in my chest. “Has it occurred to you … Nicky might not want to be found? If you liked her, maybe you should let it go. Contact the Law Society, put in a claim, find another lawyer. There’s plenty more where Nicky came from.”
“What’s the Law Society?”
“They run an insurance fund. All practising solicitors have to pay into it. If one of them runs off with a client’s money, the fund repays it. That’s probably what Nicky expected you to do. They have an office in the City somewhere—Google them.”
After Nicky’s sister left I paced the tiny flat trying to figure out what to do next, but my mind kept sliding back to something she’d said, words that had snagged under my skin like a splinter. About how Nicky had been deeply unhappy for months. She’d felt that way all the time I knew her? Had I been just a distraction, some comic relief? I could see what Susan had meant about Nicky’s type: there was a distinct resemblance between me and her husband Harry, if you disregarded the dimple in his chin and the expensive haircut and the posh accent and the private education and the BMW coupé in his drive. But maybe that’s why Nicky had liked me—I was a younger, dumber, more pliable version of her husband without all the trappings of success that she resented so much. The bed squealed and groaned as I plantedmy big ass onto it, and the noise sounded a lot like the dispirited voice in my head. I was swinging between feeling sorry for Nicky and feeling sorry for myself, and neither was getting me anywhere. I would do what I always did when the thoughts running round and round in my head started to wear a rut in my brain: I pulled off my clothes, pulled on my sweats, and hit the street.
A brief summer shower had left the pavements gleaming, and my trainers splished through shallow puddles as I weaved through the drunks staggering out of the pubs after last orders. In twenty minutes I reached the park by the canal, where the trees were rustling ghosts of green and the paths were pale grey shadows; in the bushes around me rats fought over stale crusts and foxes screwed, screeching. Disregarding the darkness I ran faster and faster until I was running full tilt, my pulse thumping in my head and sweat gushing from my pores, deeper into the night.
When my bedside alarm spewed out its horrible cheesy fanfare it felt like I’d only
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