Page 13 of Not in a Million Years

‘Anyway,’ Daniel said. ‘Like I said, I get new followers all the time. I don’t follow them back, mostly, only other woodworkers. It’s too much of a time suck. But let’s see if Andy’s one of them.’

Daniel scrolled rapidly through a list of accounts that seemed to go on forever.

‘Can’t you search for him?’ I asked.

‘It depends on whether he uses his own name. He might not. If he’s even on here, which I doubt.’

‘This isn’t going to work, is it? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystack made of fourteen-year-olds doing dance videos.’

‘Hold on. There’s a thing where you can search for people you’re connected to on other apps. I’ve never bothered because none of my real-life friends are on here, but let’s see. Andy didn’t delete his Facebook account, as far as I know – he just doesn’t really use it.’

Frowning with concentration, he tapped the screen a couple more times. I watched, curious but not confident.

‘Any luck?’ I asked after a few seconds.

‘Give me a second.’ Daniel tapped again. There was a scar on the pad of his finger, I noticed – presumably he’d slashed himself with a chisel or something. ‘Bingo.’

‘You’ve found him?’

‘Sure have.’

Daniel handed me his phone. On the screen, I could see Andy, shirtless, wearing board shorts and sunglasses, beaming at the camera. Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’ played through the speaker before I hastily muted it – Andy had always loved an ’80s classic. I watched as he turned slowly, the camera panning over the beach where he stood, the sea behind him dotted with small boats and one vast yacht. On the other side of the beach, green-clad mountains rose up to meet a cloudless blue sky.

Relief flooded me. ‘Well, that’s that then. He’s on holiday with Ash. He’s fine.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ Daniel took the phone from me and tapped the screen again, his brow furrowed with concentration. ‘Andy started his account three weeks ago. He posted videos every day, until that one. It was six days ago, and he hasn’t posted since.’

‘He probably got bored of it. It looks like a bit of a mission, making those videos and editing them and putting soundtracks to them. Maybe he wasn’t getting as many likes and follows as he hoped, so he gave up.’

‘I’d buy that if he hadn’t dropped off the radar completely in other ways,’ Daniel said. ‘Look, call it superstition or paranoia or gut instinct or whatever you like, but I’m worried.’

‘Yeah, I kind of do call it paranoia.’ Although, even as I spoke, I could feel Daniel’s worry infecting me, a knot of anxiety tightening in my stomach. ‘He’s most likely just busy. He’ll be having a great time. I bet he’s cracked an invite to a party on that yacht.’

‘The yacht!’ Daniel turned his attention back to his phone, tapping the screen rapidly. After a few seconds he said, ‘Alsaya. That’s where he is. At least, that’s where that boat, the Rhapsody, is moored. Some Kazakh oligarch owns it.’

‘Al-what? How do you know that?’

‘There’s a website that tracks the location of all the super-yachts in the world,’ Daniel explained smugly. ‘I worked on one a while back, fitting panelling in the staterooms – that’s how I knew. And Alsaya is in Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast.’

‘So it looks like Andy’s having a great time on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, then.’

‘Maybe he is. But if I don’t hear from him in the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to go out there and look for him.’

‘What? He’s a grown man, not a toddler who’s run off in Tesco.’

Daniel shrugged, palms raised so he looked just like that annoying emoji. ‘He’s my friend and I’m concerned about him. So if there’s still radio silence this time tomorrow, I’m booking a flight. You can come with me if you want.’

‘But that’s bonkers.’

‘Maybe it is. But it’s what I’m going to do.’

I gawped at him. Not only was he suggesting going abroad to try and track down our friend, but – assuming I’d heard him right and wasn’t having some sort of aural hallucination – he’d suggested that I join in on this mad mission to rescue someone who, as far as I could tell, didn’t need rescuing. At least I really, really hoped he didn’t.

‘Knock yourself out,’ I said. ‘Sounds like you need a holiday. I’ll download TikTok and follow you both and look out for videos of you on yachts. Now I’d better be off – thanks so much for the coffee.’

But despite my bravado, my feet and my heart felt heavy as I stalked out of the coffee shop. Reluctant as I was to reveal it to Daniel, I wasn’t that reassured by the evidence that, just a few days ago, Andy had been safe and well. That didn’t mean he still was – it didn’t really mean anything. Anything could have happened in the intervening days and nights.

I didn’t want to admit it – not even to myself – but I had a growing sense that Daniel might be right.

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