Page 11 of Not in a Million Years

But what was wrong with meeting in Central London? Why did I have to mission all the way to bloody Peckham just for his convenience?

As the bus grew hotter and hotter and the woman next to me chewed louder and louder, I felt my simmering annoyance nearing boiling point.

Calm down, Kate, I told myself. You’re just irritable because you didn’t sleep last night. No point getting this meeting off on the wrong foot. This isn’t about you, anyway – it’s about Andy. Focus on what matters.

But what mattered to me most at that point was a group of teenagers making their way to the back of the bus, ska music playing loudly and tinnily through the speaker on one of their mobile phones.

Enough. I edged past the chicken-wing woman and made my way downstairs, then got off at the next stop. It was only a kilometre or so to my destination, according to Google Maps – I’d walk, and if I was a few minutes late, Daniel would just have to deal with it.

In the event, I was more than twenty minutes late. It took me ages to find the coffee shop, which turned out to be hidden away in an arcade shared with a fishmonger, a dodgy-looking phone-repair place and two rival vape shops. The café was tiny – two small tables at the front and a long, shared table down the centre, lined with uncomfortable-looking tall wooden stools.

Daniel was seated at the far one, an empty espresso cup in front of him. He was wearing camo shorts and a white T-shirt worn almost transparent with age and washing, and I felt foolish in my own carefully chosen outfit, my linen trousers already creased to buggery from the long bus ride. He looked like he’d been spending time outdoors recently – his arms were tanned and his jaw-length hair bleached almost golden. His smile when he saw me was guarded, but still a deep dimple showed in his right cheek beneath what looked like a couple of days’ worth of stubble.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I muttered.

‘Have to admit I’d just about given up on you. Are you okay, Kate? You don’t look well.’

Cheers for that – way to make a girl feel special. And so much for the light-diffusing, radiance-boosting claims of my forty-quid face powder. ‘I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night.’

‘Then you need a coffee. Sorry to make you schlep all the way across South London – this place just recently opened. It’s a community initiative helping kids leaving care into careers in hospitality, so I try to support them whenever I can. What can I get you?’

‘Double espresso please.’

I eased onto the stool next to Daniel’s and watched as he approached the counter, saying a few words to the timid-looking young girl in charge of the espresso machine, making her smile shyly and then laugh. He’d always been like that, I recalled – gifted with the sort of easy charm that made people like him instantly. Shame it had never worked on me.

Moments later, he returned with our coffees and two pastries. ‘Chocolate or almond?’

I realised I was hungry – the chips I’d eaten in the pub last night were a distant memory, and this morning I’d prioritised extra sleep (okay, and an enzymatic peeling face mask) over breakfast.

‘Don’t mind,’ I said. ‘You pick.’

Daniel carefully cut both pastries in half and bit into the chocolate one. I hesitated a second, then took my half of the almond.

‘So, how’s work going?’ he asked.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘this is all very nice and everything, but you didn’t get me here to eat croissants and make polite chit-chat. Work’s fine. I presume the furniture restoration gig is going strong too. My mum and dad are well. Lovely weather we’re having; it’s unusually warm for May. Now, what are we going to do about Andy?’

The corner of Daniel’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Let’s cut to the chase. No one’s heard from Andy or knows where he is. Only intel I have is that Ash had accepted a job abroad and Andy was thinking of going for a bit to see if he liked it. If he did, maybe he would spend a few months out there every year.’

‘Wow. Okay. I never knew about all that. Abroad where exactly?’

‘He didn’t say. He left me a voice note on WhatsApp a week or so back. That was the last I heard from him. You know Andy’s voice notes – always a bit stream of consciousness.’

I nodded, remembering fondly the last one I’d received.

Hi, Katie babe (no one, but no one else in the world got to call me Katie, never mind babe). You’re not going to believe this, right, but I’m just leaving a place in Salford that does posh jelly shots. Like, chocolate bourbon ones. They looked fucking epic. Obviously yours truly didn’t indulge – my body being a temple these days – but I was thinking, next time you come up here to visit – if you ever do; I know you get the shits if you leave the inside of the M25 – we should go there. I can have a healthy, vitamin C-packed virgin margarita and you, my darling, can have a boozy chocolate shot and describe it to me in the most minute detail, and it’ll be almost like having it myself. I might even ask you to breathe on me afterwards. Do we have a deal? Yes we do. Love you, bye.

I’d listened to it, smiling, and then forgotten all about it. If anything had happened to Andy, I’d feel terrible for not having responded, for not having been up to Manchester to visit him, for being a crap friend.

I’d treasure that message, and the others he’d sent over the years, and listen to them over and over just to hear his voice. The prospect was horrifying. I felt a lump come into my throat and my eyes sting with the threat of tears, but swallowed determinedly and turned to face Daniel.

‘Okay. But did he give you a clue? Like, snow-capped mountain ranges, herds of wildebeest, parrots shrieking in the rainforest canopy? Anything like that?’

‘He said something about sea and sand and fabulous food. Could be anywhere, really.’

‘Except Skegness.’

Again, Daniel did that not-laughing thing with his mouth. ‘That’s not abroad.’

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