Things that unsettle Stuart: Alternative suggestions to the above.

I make a chamomile tea.

My thoughts switch from Stuart to Nina and her lies.

“I was surprised to see you on the sofa,” Nina had said to me the morning after the fateful night before. “I thought that you and he had made up.”

“Hardly,” I said. “He made it quite clear that it was Camilla he was interested in.”

Nina had glanced over to the bar where Camilla had gone to get a bloody Mary: hair of the dog.

“In fairness, he almost didn’t have a say in the matter once Camilla decided that...”

“Why didn’t you stick up for me, why didn’t you say something to her?”

“It’s hard for me always being in the middle...”

Recalling that particular conversation is sickening because by then she knew that Charlie, the man I loved, was dead. Because of her. And Camilla.

They told me that they’d read loads of Ibiza stories online about people going missing, only to show up a day or so later. I had to pack up his belongings and leave them with the hotel’s front desk, telling the concierge that I couldn’t find Charlie and was extremely worried.

“Very common,” was the response. “People get drunk, make new friends, wake up somewhere on the other side of the island, hungover, sometimes minus their wallet or handbag. You’ll see him later and he’ll be sorry about everything.”

We caught a taxi to the airport. Camilla paid. (I should’ve suspected something then, really.) Charlie was booked on a flight several hours later than us because he’d arranged his trip with a different airline. I thought we were over and he hadn’t had the guts to tell me. I sent him several texts, but (of course) he didn’t reply. I assumed, or even hoped, it was because of the cost; he had said that he wasn’t going to use his phone abroad. I was so angry and hurt when I returned, I could barely think straight.

When we heard that someone’s body had been found drowned, I prayed. I thought Nina did, too, but clearly she was praying for something different. There was no mention of a Saint Christopher; it had been given to him by his birth grandmother before she died and he wore it on a chain around his neck all the time. It had given me brief hope that it wasn’t him. Nina knew that.

She came to the funeral. Nina comforted me. She listened to me. Or did she? Perhaps I only thought she did. Maybe that’s why she distanced herself from me as she threw herself into her new life.

I’m not sure I can carry a secret around with me as heavy as this. I need to talk to Camilla, talk to her properly, prize every wretched detail from her and how she copes with the knowledge.

I can’t wait, even though it’s 2:00 a.m. Enough is enough. An element of surprise may shock her into divulging more than she intended.