Page 96 of The First Mistake

With her eyes flicking from him to the screen between them, she enters his personal email address on the log-in screen before confidently typing his password.

INCORRECT PASSWORD ENTERED

Her brow furrows.I must have hit a wrong key, she tells herself, already knowing she hasn’t. She types it in again, more slowly, more precisely.

Incorrect again. Alice feels as if she’s trying to hack Google.

She tries their other favoured keywords; insecure variations on birthdays and the girls’ names they’d made up together for online shopping accounts, when neither of them could imagine the other needing to spy on them. Nothing will open sesame.

Nathan is up out of his chair and heading in her direction, but she’s too busy trying to crack the password to notice.

‘Hey,’ he says, as he swings open the glass door.

Her ears instantly go hot, and his words are momentarily muffled. She tries to change screens as quickly, yet as casually, as she can manage.

‘Hi,’ she says, finding her voice.

‘I’m just popping to the bank to make sure everything’s finalized, ready for Monday.’

She looks at him. ‘Oh, I thought you did that yesterday?’ It’s a question she expects him to answer.

‘Er, yeah, I did.’

‘So, what do you need to go again for?’

‘Erm ... they need your passport,’ he says, though Alice may be imagining the hesitation.

She unlocks her desk drawer and blindly sifts through the mess of paperwork, make-up and stationery that’s in there.

‘There it is,’ tuts Nathan, leaning in to retrieve it from underneath a chequebook and some fabric samples.

‘Wait!’ says Alice, grabbing hold of his wrist. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘There’s no need. I literally just need to drop it in so they can take a quick copy.’

‘All the same, I should come,’ she says. ‘Just in case they need anything else.’

‘It’s honestly a waste of your time. It’ll be a two-minute job.’

Alice starts picking up her phone and keys from the desk. ‘No problem – I could do with getting out of here for a bit.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ Nathan lets out a huff as she ushers him out of her office. ‘It doesn’t take two of us to go to the bank.’

‘Come on, we can chat on the way,’ says Alice.

He stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns around to face her. ‘Look, stop!’ he says, his brow vexed.

Alice stops in her tracks.

‘I didn’t go to the bank yesterday,’ he says abruptly, his eyes avoiding hers.

It takes a moment for Alice to process the admission. ‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said, but I didn’t go.’

So now it’s beginning to come out.He’s got himself into a hole and knows that I’m about to discover that he wasn’t where he said he was.

‘So, wherewereyou?’ she asks, her heart in her mouth. It seems to take forever for him to answer.

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