It was too much, having Karl and Michaela in his pocket. And Sal, all of them. He couldn’t keep carrying them around if he was going to let go of them properly. He couldn’t have them in here. He went back out into the corridor.

The train was still static. James fished the phone out, thinking once more how light it was. He extended his arm out of the gap at the top of the door. The air was cold. With a light flick of the wrist he threw the phone out onto the embankment, and they were all gone, really gone this time. It was amazing how easy it was. That was how easy the jump would be.

24

LONDON, 05:35

Steffi’s laptop and phone sat next to each other on James’s kitchen table, buzzing and bleeping like two alien creatures flirting. She rubbed her eyes. There’d been a surge of notifications. People were talking about James in all sorts of places. Lots of people. And most of this was her doing. I’m going to try his old school friends, there’s a group for us, everyone would be devastated …

There were reasons for optimism: for a start, several people had pointed out that their messages were showing as ‘Delivered’ now, which might mean nothing, but at least indicated that the phone was switched on, wherever it was. But it was just talk. And so much talk. The conversation circled, doubled back on itself, was stalled by the arrival of newcomers, like at a party when an anecdote has to be started again and again. Steffi had been at a party back in Amsterdam where a girl spent almost the whole evening trying in vain to finish a story about meeting Michael Bublé, having to start it ten times, and she’d got so frustrated that she took a piss in a pot-plant. The host never spoke to her again. This reminded Steffi a bit of that.

Some people were so dense, and then some people thought they knew everything, and some were in both categories. Brightly suggesting that ‘someone should check on his home’, or that ‘workmates might know something’. Like she wouldn’t have covered these elementary steps; wasn’t sitting in his home right now; hadn’t been at this all night.

All night! It was light outside, at least she assumed so. Here in the kitchen of this basement flat, it could be any time. It was good to feel that the night was over. She didn’t have to worry about sleep. The irony was, she was now starting to be weary. Her eyelids were heavy as she looked at the latest pointless comment, suggesting ‘the police could get involved’, as if Steffi might not have heard about that useful service. The coffee hadn’t helped; almost the opposite. And Emil also hadn’t helped. He was in the shower now.