Page 80 of A Murder is Going Down

Marianne laughs. Clearly, this has not occurred to her, which is sort of an insult. (Can she not see my biceps in this dress?)

I push the intercom button. ‘Yusef,’ I say. ‘Can you keep us where we are while I bring Marianne up to speed. We’re nearly done.’

When I’m done, Marianne is looking at her phone. ‘I suppose this is your doing too? You’ve blocked the signal?’ she says.

‘It’s doing my head in too, if that helps,’ I say, and it’s almost a confession. ‘Let me finish my story and I’ll explain.’

Marianne looks up at the black hole in the ceiling of the lift. I can’t see her going out into that darkness, but it’s the one thing that would really mess up the plan right now.

‘It’s not safe to go out there,’ I say. ‘You’re safe in here. Out there you could fall, or the lift could move. None of us want that to happen. We don’t want you to be hurt.’

‘Who’swe?’

‘Let me explain.’

‘Okay,’ Marianne says. ‘But speed it up.’

Then

The thing about stalking someone is that it’s really easy.

Now

‘Have you been stalking me?’ Marianne asks, furious or panicked or probably both.

‘No,’ I lie. ‘Well, kind of. But this isn’t aboutyou.’

Then

Stalking someone is not like the old days when you needed patience and a newspaper to hold in front of your face for hours at a time. It costs me fifty dollars to buy an Apple AirTag and two minutes to slip it into the pocket of Patrick’s messenger bag. It’s not a foolproof plan – he doesn’t take the bag everywhere – but it’s the only plan I’ve got. Research (okay, Google) tells me that AirTags are supposed to alert people to their presence, to prevent exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m counting on the fact that Patrick’s dodgy Android Marketplace phone might be running on an old operating system that won’t pick it up. (This is the advice I received on Reddit from a bunch of guys who, if I’m honest, all seemed to be determinedly stalking their girlfriends for reasons I’d really rather not think about.)

So, yes, I’m stalking people now. Which is not great. But Patrick is lying to me and I have to know why. So here we are.

Or, rather, hereIam, leaning my bike against the wall outside the café where Patrick – or, at least, Patrick’s messenger bag – is hanging out. I’m hovering by the takeaway when I hear the worst possible thing: my name.

‘Heidi?’

It’s not Patrick, having discovered that I’m stalking him. That’s the good news. The bad news?

‘Lilia?’

It’s not a complete shock to see her here. We used to come here all the time, it being so close to Aunty Sam’s, and I’m pretty sure Lilia is hooked on their Portuguese tarts.

‘You missed those tarts too, huh?’ she says right away.

‘Actually, I’m kind of in the middle of something,’ I say, not sure how much to tell her. Surely the first rule of being a stalker is not telling anyone you’re a stalker. (Random dudes on Reddit notwithstanding.)

‘Something that’s not coffee?’ she asks.

‘Hi ladies! Who’s gonna order?’ the barista at the takeaway window asks.

‘Me,’ I say, edging closer to the counter so I can see past the blackboard, with its chalked-up list of coffee varietals, through to the café inside. Patrick is sitting at a table, not facing me.

‘So what do you want?’ the barista asks when I fail to give him my order.

I don’t answer, because someone sits down at Patrick’s table. Elena. There’s nothing weird about a brother and a sister going out for a coffee, but they left the house separately.

‘Hello?’