Page 71 of Not in a Million Years

‘Although to be fair,’ Daniel went on, ‘this is Peckham. It’s not just obscure spices you can get within ten minutes’ walk of here. He could just as easily have done it the old-fashioned way, from a guy on a street corner.’

‘But you don’t know that’s what he’s doing,’ I said, trying to convince myself as much as my friends. ‘He could have bumped into an acquaintance. He could have met someone and hooked up. He could have gone for a walk and got lost.’

‘If he’d got lost, he’d have used the map on his phone,’ Patch said. ‘Same if he’d run into someone and was having a drink or whatever. He’d have messaged Daniel.’

‘Not if his battery was dead,’ Abbie pointed out.

‘And hook-ups don’t take three hours,’ I said. ‘Not last time I had one, anyway.’

Daniel glanced sideways at me again and I felt my face flame.

‘Sounds like you’ve been hooking up with the wrong people,’ he said.

‘I thought we all knew that,’ I retorted, and it was his turn to look embarrassed.

I noticed Abbie looking curiously from me to Daniel and back. The last thing I needed right now was her putting two and two together and getting – well, four. I knew that if my friends found out what had happened, they’d all fly straight into matchmaking mode, trying to convince me that what had happened hadn’t been so bad – that it actually had the potential to be really good, and why didn’t I have a proper talk with Daniel and see if we could make a go of things? After all, they’d say, the two of you have always been so—

‘We should go out and look for him,’ I said. ‘There’s absolutely no point us all sitting around here speculating about what might have happened.’

‘Yeah,’ Daniel said. ‘Because when we go and look for Andy, it always ends well.’

‘Well, it did, didn’t it?’ I snapped back. ‘I mean, we found him. And he was in one piece. And we brought him back.’

And everything changed between you and me, and there’s no way I can see of changing it back, even if I wanted to, which I’m not sure I do.

‘Abbie and I will go,’ Patch said. ‘You two stay here, and you can let us know if he comes back.’

‘Why do we need to stay?’ I argued. ‘He’s got keys, hasn’t he, Daniel?’

‘He does, but I’ve got to say I’m not one hundred per cent confident he won’t have lost them. Especially if he…’

Again, the words he meant went unsaid. We all knew what Andy had been like when his drug use had been at its peak. He’d almost burned Abbie and Matt’s flat down once by making a cheese toastie with the iron and then leaving it switched on. He’d lost more mobile phones than I could count, or possibly pawned them and claimed to have lost them. One time he’d turned up at my place with a cat he said was lost, even though it was in perfect health, had a collar on and was complaining vocally about being kidnapped, and I’d had to get him to retrace his steps so we could return it home.

The man was a total liability. The thought of him slipping back into his old ways was too awful to contemplate, and I could understand why Daniel couldn’t bear to voice the prospect of Andy returning to that life, dragging us all into the chaos with him even though he hadn’t meant to.

‘That settles it, then,’ Abbie said. ‘We’ll go; you stay here. We’ll keep in contact.’

She took her phone out of her bag and tapped through to the map, Patch leaning over her shoulder and peering at the screen.

‘Which is the dodgiest of your local pubs?’ he asked. ‘The Duke’s Head?’

‘Nah, that’s gone all upmarket,’ Daniel said. ‘Seitan burgers and craft ale. Try the Coach and Horses first.’

‘Gotcha.’

‘Actually, I quite fancy a seitan burger and a craft ale right now,’ I heard Patch say to Abbie.

She laughed and said something in response, but I couldn’t make it out because the door was closing behind them.

The flat was suddenly very quiet. I could hear the hum of Daniel’s fridge, the distant rattle of a passing train, a breeze rustling the leaves of a plane tree outside the window. It felt like a silence that could last a long time.

Then Daniel said, ‘So where were you tonight?’

‘Does it matter? I came as soon as I saw your message.’

‘Maybe I was just making conversation.’

‘Fair enough. I was out with someone.’

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