‘Does Rob know Jake still calls you?’ Bex asks.
‘I told you, he hasn’t rung me in ages.’
The phone starts vibrating for a third time. She reaches across to pick it up, but Bex snatches it away and turns it off. Kate knows Bex is right. Jake is her past and she must keep moving forward.
‘Tell me about today,’ Bex says. ‘What happened.’
Kate takes her through her swim out to the platform, playing down the cramp attack, the possibility that she might have been poisoned, but her mind is still on Jake, trying to work out why he’s calling her so late and so persistently. Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t keep phoning. She knows him too well. Perhaps his elderly mother has died. They were close and Kate misses seeing her. Jake would want her to know.
‘You really frighten me sometimes,’ Bex says. ‘The things you choose to care about in life. You seem more troubled by Rob’s choice of coffee than the fact that you nearly drowned today.’
‘He told me tonight that he has a flat white when we’re apart because the taste reminds him of me.’ She thinks again of the relief she felt on the phone.
‘That’s alright then. I’ll try not to think that I wasted my bloody time at Paddington.’
‘You didn’t. And I’m very grateful.’
‘Maybe you should see someone, Kate. You know, your dishy Dr Varma.’
‘I saw him earlier today.’
‘You never said. I would have caught an earlier train.’
‘He’s married, Bex.’
Bex has met Ajay once and flirted so much with him it was embarrassing. Ajay was having none of it.
‘Did you tell him about Rob? About believing that he’s…’ Bex hesitates. ‘That he’s been replaced by a double? I was thinking about that on the train. That’s not a normal thought, Kate. Not normal at all.’
‘I will. I’m seeing him again at the end of next week.’
‘So you didn’t tell him.’
Jake is still trying to ring her. She can feel it.
‘Are you OK?’ Bex asks as Kate gets up from her seat.
She knows she should tell Bex about the court case, that Rob thinks her coffee might have been spiked, but she needs to speak to Jake first.
‘Just going to the loo. Back in a sec.’
She walks into the kitchen, sweeping up the cordless telephone from the sideboard with the deftness of a thief. Once inside the bathroom, she locks the door and dials Jake’s number, pressing the keys as quietly as she can. It’s engaged. She tries again. Still engaged.
‘You alright in there?’ Bex is outside the door.
‘Fine. Won’t be a sec.’
She loves Bex, her concern for her, but sometimes she wishes she’d cut her some slack.
‘Don’t want you cramping up again,’ she says.
‘I’m OK. Honestly.’
Kate waits a few seconds, confident that Bex is back out on the balcony, and redials Jake’s number. This time the phone rings.
‘Kate,’ Jake says.
She knows at once that something is badly wrong. ‘What is it?’ she whispers.
‘The boat. It’s burnt out.’
For a moment she thinks he’s drunk, complaining about the boat’s engine. He was always mending it, head down in the sumps, asking her to pass him a spanner. And she was always saying they needed to replace the boat with one that didn’t break down all the time, didn’t leak and didn’t constantly smell of diesel fumes. She knew he never would. He loved it too much, arguably more than he loved her.
‘What do you mean?’ she asks.
‘Someone set fire to it tonight. It’s gone, completely destroyed.’
‘Are you OK?’ she asks, trying to take in what he’s saying.
‘I was on board when they torched it, but I got off just in time. Everything’s gone. Some of your stuff too.’
She only left a few things with him, old clothes and books that she was going to collect one day, but she’s still sad. Not for their value but because a tiny part of her left them there deliberately.
‘I’m so sorry, Jake,’ she says, wiping a tear away. ‘You’re safe, though.’
‘I’m fine. Why are you whispering?’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Have you got anywhere to stay?’ she adds.
‘One of the other boats, they’re going to let me sleep the night with them. Remember Bruce and Sue?’
Of course she does. How could she forget? They lived on the water together for twelve years, got to make some great friends. People take care of each other on the canal.
‘Look after yourself,’ she whispers.
‘Is Rob there?’
She pauses before answering. ‘He’s had to go back to London.’
‘Business?’
‘Yeah.’ She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this. ‘He’s usually down for the whole weekend.’
‘It’s nice to hear your voice,’ he says.
She hangs up.
Back outside on the balcony, she sits down next to Bex, trying not to cry. They both look ahead, staring out into the inky darkness of the sea. There’s a warm wind and the lights of a few fishing boats dot the water beneath Nare Head.
‘You called him, didn’t you?’ Bex says. ‘On the landline.’
‘Yes,’ Kate says, sniffing.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to stop you. I’m not your bloody mother. I was just worried you—’
‘It’s OK,’ Kate says, swallowing hard. ‘It’s nothing like that.’
She can’t hold back the tears any longer.
‘What is it, Katie?’ Bex comes over to kneel down beside her, a hand on her shoulder.
Kate leans forward and lets her hug her, staying like that for a minute or two until the sobs subside.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ she says. ‘He hasn’t rung me for months, I promise. That’s why I wanted to pick up.’
‘What was it?’ Bex asks. ‘What’s happened?’
‘His boat, the one we lived on, it’s been gutted by a fire. Tonight. Totally destroyed. He thinks deliberately.’
‘Oh my God. Is he OK?’
‘He’s safe. Sounded pretty shaken up. Who would do that, Bex? Burn a beautiful old boat deliberately? And knowing someone was on board?’
‘I don’t know.’ Bex looks for her phone and turns it on. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says as her phone comes to life and starts to ping with messages. ‘Loads of people in the village have been texting me about it. I shouldn’t have switched my phone off.’
‘What are they saying?’ Kate asks, trying to picture the scene on the canal. It was a good community, tight-knit.
‘Same as you. Everyone thinks it was arson.’ Bex scrolls through a few more messages. ‘They found a metal jerrycan up at the lock,’ she says, reading. ‘The fire brigade took fifteen minutes to get down there, by which time the boat was too far gone. I’m so sorry.’
‘No one hurt, though?’ Kate asks.
‘No.’ Bex pauses. ‘Shit. And I was so off with him today.’