Chapters (156)
- A DATE WITH DEATH
- Also by Mark Roberts
- A Date With Death
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- The Past
- 1977
- Day OneWednesday, 1st December 2021CatoptrophobiaFear of mirrors
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- The Past
- 1979
- Day TwoThursday, 2nd December 2021OneirophobiaFear of dreams
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- The Past
- 1980
- Day ThreeFriday, 3rd December 2021MonophobiaFear of being alone
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- The Past
- 1982
- Day FourSaturday, 4th December 2021ThanatophobiaFear of Death
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
Then she came back to the lengthiest text that Annie had sent to her friend, distancing herself from the woman on the other side of the desk to Clay.
‘You’ve been best friends since you were four or five years old,’ said Clay. ‘You get married, Cathy, and she pies you off because you’re happy.’
Cathy nodded and her eyes glistened in the glare of the lights above her head.
‘Tell me,’ Clay passed the iPhone back to Cathy. ‘Tell me about the last time you spoke.’
‘Like I said, she called me to say she was out on a date, a guy she’d met on the internet and spoken to on the phone. She sounded happy and excited. She kept saying that we should meet up and bury the hatchet, and it was her fault the falling out, and that she was sorry.’
‘Can I have a look at your incoming calls, please?’
Cathy glanced up at Clay as she pressed the screen and returned the iPhone to her. She scrolled down and found the last incoming call from Annie.
Thursday 7:45. Length of call 3:36.
Clay scrolled and scrolled until she found the previous call from Annie and did the maths. Last call, on or around the wedding of Cathy and Gary.
Clay held the iPhone back across the table.
‘Did she tell you where she was meeting this Richard Ezra, Cathy?’
‘No, just that she was actually on the way to meet him.’
‘Think really hard about this, please. When you were talking to Annie on the phone that last time, was she indoors or outdoors?’
Cathy’s face darkened with concentration.
‘She was outdoors. I could hear other people’s voices as they moved past her.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No… no, not really…’
‘Where did Annie like to go?’
‘Restaurants. Some bars, nice ones.’
‘More precise than that, Cathy?’
‘Liverpool One. The Dock, the Albert Dock. She absolutely loved it there.’
‘You asked her, surely, where are you meeting this Richard Ezra? Where are you planning on going?’
‘I asked her but she didn’t tell me. She just kept saying, sorry, sorry. It was like she’d gone into a tailspin because she was going on a date. She said she had to go, that she was running late. And yeah, I could tell she was moving quickly because she was breathy when she was speaking to me and she spoke so quickly.’
‘And she was definitely outdoors?’
There was no reaction, no reply. Cathy closed her eyes, her lips moving softly as if she was talking to herself.
‘I…’ She stared into space and the light inside her played out in her eyes, and Clay watched as Cathy slowly remembered something she’d overlooked. ‘I heard the horn of a tug ship blowing. And water lapping against…’
‘Was she at the waterfront?’
‘Sounded like. That sound you hear when the river hits the concrete wall beneath your feet.’