‘Bugger off, Sook.’

Petra finished receiving the invoice, double checked the totals, and submitted the form into the system. She stood up and stretched, her spine crackling. She’d twisted herself in knots trying to sleep the last three nights, and had even become afraid to catch up with a nap on Sunday afternoon. Her eyes were grainy now, stinging. She sighed, took a sip of her cold coffee, and checked the time on the computer screen.

‘Strange that Freddie hasn’t come in this morning. I wonder if he’s sick.’

Suki looked up from the table, where her fan of K-pop sticker books was taking nice shape.

‘Who?’ Suki said.

‘Freddie,’ she repeated. ‘Guy from Gravity’s End.’ And when Suki’s expression remained blank, she added, ‘The pub? He’s usually here like clockwork for his Monday perv session.’ She was used to being asked to repeat herself; though she didn’t think it was particularly broad, her accent still seemed to take people by surprise.

Suki was looking at her with a huh? expression.

Shit, was his name not Freddie? Had she got it wrong all this time? She scoured her memory banks for the last few occasions they’d talked. Had she said his name aloud? How embarrassing if she’d called him the wrong name. But she could have sworn it was Freddie. In her mind, she’d pegged the name to Freddie Krueger. Once lodged, she couldn’t really forget that image. Once, he’d even come in wearing a striped jumper.

She was about to say so when two customers came in. The first woman asked where the vinyl was and Suki led her to the stairs, flashing a grin over her shoulder at Petra as she went. ‘Just pulling your chain, Pet. Of course I know who our darling Freddie is. A little joke.’

It wasn’t funny, not today.

* * *

Petra waited until lunchtime to try Vincent again. Usually, she wouldn’t hesitate to find a quiet moment and give him a call from the back office – Suki wouldn’t mind – but being ghosted by him was an embarrassment she didn’t want to share.

Petra had lost Vincent pretty early into the show, and had waited for him for thirty minutes in the come-down bar afterwards. He hadn’t phoned or texted, and after scanning the gloomy roads outside the post office depot and the church, she gave up and went home, texting him along the way. Delivered and received. No reply.

She’d sent him a few more messages over the weekend. Delivered and received. No reply. Petra wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d been waiting for her all that time around another corner. Maybe they’d just missed each other. Maybe he’d lost his phone. But he could have called her from another phone, couldn’t he? Checked if she was okay.

He could have come to her flat. If she was out, he could have left a note. Sorry, I lost my phone. Are you alright?

Maybe he wasn’t alright. God, what if something had happened to him, and here she was, being a cow. She could go to his house and find out if he was okay – but she had no idea where he lived. She knew she was overreacting; she’d done it before, put guys off by coming across weird and overly needy. That time she’d freaked Steve out when he was away on a team-building thing he said he’d told her about but definitely hadn’t. She’d even tracked his mother down. Steve had shamed her then, but this was a different case. What if Vincent was in trouble, and she didn’t do anything about it, afraid of being made to feel foolish? Once the concern had lodged, there was no other way to dislodge it than calling.