But the cottage could feel a little empty on those long, dark evenings that came in the wintertime.

“MacPherson?” came the guard at the door, unlocking it. “You can make your phone call now.”

“Are you charging me?”

“We’re going to have a word, so hold your horses.”

“He was just pulling off Big Al!” shouted Tim, and Nobbo agreed vociferously, while laughing like an eighteen-year-old at the same time.

Cormac sighed as he followed the officer down the hallway. Who on earth was he going to call?

Chapter 72

Kim-Ange shook her phone crossly. “Oh, for goodness’ sake.”

There was a blubbering noise.

“Stop crying,” she said, as Lissa tried and failed to stop crying down the telephone. “Come home immediately. You know I didn’t have him pegged as a loser. Mind you, he treated Yazzie pretty shabbily. And I never saw his ‘friend’ again.”

“I mean . . . I keep thinking maybe he’s here, but nearly everyone’s gone and all the stalls are closed up and the vans have driven off, and I’ve drunk a liter of mineral water . . .”

“Well, that’s good,” said Kim-Ange encouragingly.

“. . . so I keep thinking I’ll miss him every time I go to the toilet and . . .”

“Are you freaking out?”

“It’s been a very long day.”

“Take deep breaths.”

“I’ve been trying that. The waiter is looking at me funny. He was friendly three hours ago.”

“Don’t tell me you waited for him for three hours.”

There was a pause. “I can’t not tell you that.”

“Would Beyoncé wait for Jay-Z for three hours?”

“No,” said Lissa in a quiet voice. “Although Kim probably has to wait for Kanye for three hours all the time.”

“Three hours?!” said Kim-Ange again.

“I . . . I really thought I liked him,” said Lissa.

Kim-Ange bit her lip. “Come over,” she said. Then: “Hang on, let me just make sure he’s not here.”

“Oh God,” said Lissa. Then, more hopefully, as if the thought had just occurred to her: “Maybe he’s fallen asleep or something, just lost track of time!”

Kim-Ange couldn’t bear to hear the forced casualness in her voice. “Mm-hmm, give me a minute.”

She banged loudly on her side of the wall, their normal method of communication.

“Nope,” she said finally. “That always works. He’s not here. You’re safe, come over.”

Lissa felt her heart plunge. That was her last hope. Well, that or him being wounded with something painful, but not aesthetically disfiguring, in the hospital somewhere where she could tenderly nurse him back to health, but she didn’t really want to say that one out loud.

“But then he’ll find me sitting there when he gets back like some kind of mega stalker! He’s already in hiding from me!”

Kim-Ange sighed. “I am taking you to the gin bar. That is the only way out of this situation.”

“Can we talk about him?”

“No. Just gin.”