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‘He’s coming over!’ she said in a strangulated voice.

‘I’ll deal with him,’ said Chris, squaring his shoulders.

But it was at that moment that something clicked inside Amy, and she too put her head up and her shoulders back. She did not need to be afraid of Nathan any more – and better still, she didn’t love him any more, not an iota.

He approached their table and she gazed coolly at him, taking in the fact that he had filled out quite a lot, and his cheekbones had vanished. He smiled at her, that old, warm, sexy Nathan smile, but Amy was completely unmoved – if somewhat surprised. She had assumed that the police caution had infuriated him so much that he would never speak to her again, and yet here he was, behaving like they were old friends. He walked right up to her and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she ducked her head away. Not in panic, just as though she was completely mystified.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked politely. Firmly.

‘Amy! It’s so great to see you, darling! How have you been?’

Chris was looking worriedly at her, so she flashed him a small reassuring smile, then frowned at Nathan. ‘I’m really sorry – um – have we met?’

He threw back his head and laughed, but it was tinged with uncertainty. ‘Amy! It’s me, Nathan! You look great. I like the new piercings – that one really suits you.’ He pointed at her nose stud. ‘And your hair’s really grown. Nice.’

Furrowing her brow, she scrutinized him, allowing her gaze to linger for a particularly long time at the stomach straining the buttons of his designer checked shirt, and the layer of podge under his chin. Then she shook her head.

‘I’m so sorry. My memory’s terrible. Nathan who?’

He rolled his eyes, still pretending to find it amusing. ‘Come on, babe, it’s
me
!’

The
nerve
of him, Amy thought, acting as though nothing had happened. She knew she was being childish, but she felt alive, exhilarated. Safe. Across the table, Chris was discreetly flexing his pecs and biceps – he was the biggest gym-bunny Amy knew, but even if she’d been there on her own, she knew she would have played the same game. Nothing to lose any more.

He put his hands on his hips, mock-offended. ‘All right, Amy, I get it. You don’t want to talk to me.’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said mildly.

‘Of course you bloody well know me,’ he retorted, his gossamer patience already threadbare, as Amy knew from bitter experience. He couldn’t help his voice beginning to rise, and having control over him sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through her body. ‘We lived together for four sodding years!’

She smiled. ‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. Sorry – don’t mean to be rude, but my friend and I were in the middle of a conversation …’

Nathan’s face darkened, but Amy felt no fear.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ she said, making a small shooing gesture with her hand. Across the table, Chris was smothering giggles. Nathan’s eyes narrowed. If there was one thing he absolutely couldn’t stand, it was being made fun of.

‘I am NOT leaving until you acknowledge me,’ he insisted.

At that moment, the head waiter passed, and Amy summoned him over. ‘Excuse me – this man is bothering us. Please could you ask him to go away? He seems to think he knows me, but he doesn’t.’

All the other diners turned to see the commotion as Nathan shook the waiter’s hand off his arm, purple with fury, and strode off in the direction of the Gents’.

‘Go,
Amy
!’ Chris said. ‘That was utterly awesome. I’m so proud of you!’

Amy smiled at him, noticing that her hands weren’t even shaking. ‘Thanks. I’m pretty proud of myself, too.’

Amy stared at the door that the man she had known previously as TooledUp had slammed in her face. Shit. She hadn’t thought for a moment that he was likely to be the cooperative type, but he was an even bigger prick than she’d feared. Amy picked her helmet off the floor and turned to go, thinking at least she was unharmed, and
could
go. She headed for the stairs, then stopped.

It wasn’t good enough. How could she get back on her bike and ride home, when there was any chance at all that this arsehole knew something that could lead her to Becky?

I’ve got this far, she thought. She took a deep breath, and walked back up to the grimy front door, hammering on it with her fist.

‘I need to talk to you!’ she yelled through the thin wooden panels, welcoming the anger, because anger would keep her strong.

She paused to press her ear against the door, and heard the sound of a toilet flushing. She banged again, welcoming the pressure from her own bladder because the discomfort was making her even crosser.

‘Fuck OFF,’ roared the man from inside.

‘Open the door!’ she shouted back, matching his volume. ‘I’m not going away until you do!’

She paused in her banging, noticing a piece of junk mail lying in a corner of the hall, an offer from Virgin Media addressed to Mr Paul Halsall.

‘Paul! I’m serious – I’m not going anywhere except straight to the police unless you talk to me!’ She pounded her helmet against the door until she was worried she heard a splintering sound – no need to go as far as criminal damage. Perhaps he’d heard it too, because the door suddenly flew open again and he towered over her, looking angrier than anybody she’d seen since she lived with Nathan.

He’s not Nathan, she reminded herself, squaring up to him. He might be twice Nathan’s size, but he’d never be able to do half the damage Nathan had to her.

‘How the hell do you know my name?’ he demanded.

‘I know your name, your address, your Casexual profile details, and I have copies of all the emails you and my sister exchanged.’ No need for him to know she didn’t, in fact, have any such thing. All she had were the messages he had exchanged with Kath. ‘Oh, and I have the ones that you and my sister’s friend Katherine sent each other too. And guess what – Katherine’s just been found dead, under suspicious circumstances. What do you think the police would make of the fact that you were with her recently? I just need a few words with you, then I’ll get out of your hair.’ She intentionally stared at his thinning hair as she said that. His forehead creased with confusion and – as she had intended – worry.

‘Dead – that posh Katherine bird? The art teacher?’ He shook his head, and Amy relaxed a tiny bit, partly because it had clearly come as a shock to him, and partly because it was his first foray into conversation with her.

‘You don’t want the police to think you’re a suspect,’ she said, softening her own voice.

His lips tightened into a thin white line. ‘Yeah, and I don’t need you telling me what I want to think.’

One step forward, two steps back.

‘Please. It won’t take long. It’s just a couple of questions. Katherine’s dead and Becky’s missing. I think someone’s got her.’

‘What, and you reckon it’s me?’

‘No, of course not,’ lied Amy. She actually didn’t think that he would be holding Becky somewhere, nor that he had the intelligence to be tweeting from her account and posting photos on her Facebook page – but she thought it was entirely plausible that some harm could have befallen her if Becky had been mad enough to meet him for a repeat performance. Squashed under the weight of his muscles, perhaps. She shook away the mental picture of him hauling off her dead sister, hidden in a roll of lino – in her imagination it was the same as the grey, squashed-fly lino in his flat – to some deserted woodland burial place … but she just couldn’t picture this guy sending that email, pretending to be Becky.

‘I don’t give a shit about the police, because I didn’t have nothing to do with either of them, apart from that one night. And what we did ain’t illegal between consenting adults. If you’ve read our emails, you’ll know that they most definitely consented.’

‘What happened that night?’

He bared his teeth in a fake smile. ‘Gave ’em both exactly what they wanted, didn’t I?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Amy, keeping her voice level. ‘Did you? Why don’t you let me in so we can talk about it?’

He folded his arms, his forearm flexors popping menacingly towards her. ‘Why should I do anything for you? You’re harassing me.’

Amy sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to harass you. My sister is missing, and I need to find her. Can’t you just agree to help me, because you’re a decent human being?’

He laughed meanly. ‘That ain’t how my ex-wife would describe me. So what do you want to know?’

Amy took a deep breath. ‘I need to know if Becky was doing drugs. I’m guessing Katherine was, because she OD’d. I need to know if either of them talked to you about other men they’d met, or were going to meet. Do you know a man called Fraser? Did they mention him?’

‘That’s a shitload of questions,’ he said, contemplatively stroking one side of his jaw. ‘You willing to pay me?’

‘Depends – do you have any information worth paying for?’

They were locked in each other’s gaze like two cowboys in a showdown on the High Chaparral.

‘As it goes, reckon I do,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you have it, for five K.’

Amy laughed out loud. ‘Five grand? You’re out of your mind!’

Paul Halsall shrugged and started to close the door. Amy stuck her foot in the gap. ‘Wait!’

‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. So, what are you prepared to pay? I want cash – there’s a cashpoint over the road.’

‘I can’t get more than two fifty out of the cashpoint in one day.’ Amy couldn’t believe she was bartering for information like this.

It was his turn to laugh. ‘No way. I ain’t telling you nothing for less than a grand.’

Amy felt like banging her head against the wall. ‘I don’t have a grand – and anyway, now that I think about it, I don’t even
have
my cashpoint card with me.’

A crafty expression crossed his face as he gazed at her bike helmet. There was something very transparent about him – Amy bet that he counted on his fingers, and silently mouthed the words whenever he read anything. ‘What bike you got?’

Oh, no.
Not her bike.
‘Forget it.’

‘You forget it, then.’ He closed the door again.

She thought about it for several minutes, then knocked again. When he opened the door, she was dangling the bike key from her forefinger, tears in her eyes.

‘If I do this, you’re not going to screw me over? You definitely have something important to tell me?’

He smiled, a greedy smile but a genuine one, and, for the first time, Amy saw what Becky and Katherine must have liked about him.

‘Come in,’ he said. He was a big, muscly hard man, but she bet that if he wanted something, he could do a fairly convincing seduction routine. She also bet that he hadn’t staged that routine in this poxy little flat, though, with its curling lino in the kitchen and damp circles mushrooming across the Artexed living-room ceiling. Amy knew her sister well enough to know that she’d never willingly have got her kit off in this bleak, tawdry accommodation, and she doubted that Katherine would have done either. Not unless slumming it had been part of the turn-on.

‘It’s a 1969 Triumph Daytona. Burgundy, 500 cc,’ she said miserably, holding out the keys. ‘Worth at least five grand.’
And my pride and joy
, she thought, feeling the wind whipping the bits of hair sticking out of her helmet as she rode across Roman roads and down motorways, recalling that sensation of total freedom and happiness. At the back of her mind was the germ of a plan about telling the insurance company it had been stolen, although deep down she knew she was too honest – or too scared – to make a false claim on it. Besides, it wasn’t the money. It was her bike, her baby …

But Becky was far, far more important.

‘Are you serious?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘Only if you have something to tell me,’ she repeated.

He walked across to the table, took a pad of lined paper and tore off a sheet. Then – his tongue indeed sticking out of one corner of his mouth – he wrote in slanting capitals: ‘TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP.’

‘What’s your name again?’

‘Amy Coltman.’

‘I, AMY COLTMAN, CONFIRM THAT I HAVE GIVEN MY TRIUMPH DAYTONA TO PAUL HALSALL NO RETURNS OR COMEBACKS THIS IS A LEGALLY BINDING DOCUMENT.’

Amy, looking over his shoulder, somehow doubted that.

‘Sign and date, please,’ he said briskly, and Amy took the biro.

‘This is crazy,’ she said.

‘Do you want to find your sister or what?’

It’s only a bike. A heap of metal and rubber and chrome and leather. A motorbike. Becky, however, is your sister and you love her.

Amy signed and dated it, then pushed the paper back towards Paul. ‘So – what do you know?’

He examined her signature as if it was a forgery. ‘She didn’t do drugs. At least, she didn’t that night, even though her mate was. She said she never touched them.’

It was a huge relief to hear it, but not enough. ‘And?’

‘That’s it.’

She put her hands on her hips. All her fear of him had gone – he was a pathetic, acquisitive creep and she felt prepared to torture the information out of him if it wasn’t forthcoming. Why couldn’t she have felt like this when she was with Nathan?

‘That’s
it
? I’ve given you my bike, for that? It’s not good enough. What else?’

He grinned again, like a kid who’d unwrapped a giant Christmas present. At one point he even rushed over to the window to admire his new toy.

‘I told you. Your sister was drinking loads but didn’t do any drugs when I was there, and I don’t think did at all, because she was a bit, you know, arsey about her mate whenever she snorted another line of charlie. We all, er, got it on – I’m assuming you don’t need a blow-by-blow description of that?’ His face changed. ‘Though you can have one, if you like,’ he said slyly, and Amy glared at him.

‘No, thanks. Then what?’

He pretended to think. ‘Hmmm. We was at her place, I think it must’ve been, ’cos she wasn’t happy with the coke being there. That’s right … after we’d finished, her mate – Katherine? – started banging on about this party they were going to the next day. I goes, “Can I come?” just joking, you know? I remember getting pissed off ’cos Katherine laughs. She goes, “They wouldn’t let you in, it’s an
Orchid Blue
party. We paid a fortune for it.” Snotty cow. Like I knew what a fuckin’ Orchid Blue party is. I remember the name though, because I looked it up afterwards.’