Lissa looked around, still feeling excited and nervous and so pleased with the fact that she’d managed to do the right thing. It wouldn’t bring Kai back, but she’d been able to look Mrs. Mitchell in the eye as she’d left.

“Yes, please!” she said. Then she took a picture of the bar sign and texted it to Cormac.

She also sent Anita a Skype message to say she had done it and to say thank you: the woman had been right all along. Anita responded by sending her a picture of an ice-cream cone and Lissa smiled to herself.

SHE FINISHED HER drink and immediately declined another, the idea of being drunk when Cormac arrived too hideous to contemplate. She considered a coffee, then worried her breath would smell and settled for a fizzy water. The waiter looked a tiny bit concerned. A cloud passed across the sun.

She thought whenever Ezra hadn’t been in the mood to see her, he’d just not answer any of her messages or texts. It happened to Kim-Ange all the time, when she met guys and then they got cold feet. Ghosting was awful.

But that wasn’t going to happen here. Not with Cormac. He’d asked her to lunch, after all. They’d arranged to meet.

Although they hadn’t picked anywhere specific, had they? They hadn’t actually said, “This restaurant in this place.” Just Borough Market. It was fairly nonspecific after all when you thought about it.

She shook herself. Come on. She was catastrophizing, overthinking, everything a therapist would say was unhelpful. She’d gotten through one thing today. She was going to manage. She was.

She tried not to drink all her water too quickly. Her battery was running a little low. Still no message.

Chapter 71

“So you came to meet some bird,” said Tim scornfully. “That you’ve never even met.”

They had been in the cell together for some time and were trading stories.

“Yeah,” said Cormac.

“What if she’s, like, a fuckbeast,” said Nobbo.

“I’m sure she’s not a fuckbeast,” said Cormac carefully.

“Well, did she send you pictures? Of her tits and that?”

“No, of course not! Women don’t do that.”

“Fuckbeasts don’t.”

“Could you stop using that term? It’s really unpleasant.”

Tim sniffed a bunch of phlegm up his nose and, with one finger closing a nostril, hocked it into the seatless metal toilet at the side of the room. Cormac didn’t necessarily feel this was an improvement. He paced up and down, feeling worse and worse—she must be there; or had she left by now? Stormed off, furious with him? Maybe she’d never speak to him again. Maybe that was his chance and he’d muffed it. After all, there was only another couple of weeks to go . . .

And he’d be back home, which was . . . well, it was fine of course.