Page 474 of The Sinner: James

I take a drag on my cigarette.

“Self-employed. Freelancing. Writing. Translating services. She’s bilingual. English and Portuguese.”

“Picture of hers?”

He slides his phone to me.

A young woman smiles at the camera, a bouquet of tulips in her arms. Her hair is brown and long, her eyes the color of the river stones.

She’s pretty.

“Status?”

“Single. No family. At least not here. Her neighbors spoke highly of her. Quiet, polite, and friendly. No parties, no guests. Other than the man in question.”

“And the police didn’t get more from her?”

“My source told me they’d talked to her, but the trail had gone cold, and they couldn’t establish a connection worth pursuing. According to her, he is nothing more than a former student who pays her a visit once in a while. For the most part, her neighbors concur with her statement except for a young woman who claims something entirely different.”

I lean back in my seat, my cigarette between my lips.

“Go on,” I say, talking around it.

“Isabella May lives in a building across from the woman’s flat. She’s a former classmate and has a crush on the man. She moved to London from Portugal to live with her grandparents when Tiago moved. To be close to him, I guess. The neighborhood is the go-to place for many Portuguese expatriates, yet he’s never paid attention to her, despite her crush on him. She says her teacher’s connection to her former pupil is not entirely innocent. She also says their mutual attraction turned into something different after his graduation, and that’s the reason Abby gave up on her teaching career. According to Isabella May, Tiago’s visits have been quite frequent these past few months, yet he’s rarely shown up during the day, and the two have never been seen in public together. As it turns out, Isabella likes to read and goes to bed late at night, which makes it easier to spy on her neighbor. That’s how she’s spotted Tiago sneaking into the woman’s place several times a week, usually around three in the morning. She hasn’t seen him in over a month, but she did see a group of men paying a visit to the former teacher a couple of weeks ago.”

I toss him a questioning look.

“There was something strange about them, she admits. They came in the middle of the night. Two cars, four men. They looked menacing and didn’t make any noise. The woman opened the door for them, but the lights never went up in the house except for a small lamp in the hallway that she always has on. They left fifteen minutes later, and Isabella has never seen her since.”

“Has this Isabella girl ever talked to Tiago?”

“A few times in high school. And then at the market recently. She noticed a scar on his chest and asked him what that was all about, and he simply concealed it and didn’t answer. She says he wasn’t very friendly with her, but she wasn’t surprised. He has a reputation of being a cold asshole and a smoking hot lad–– her words, not mine.”

“Did she know about him fighting for money?”

“Yes, she’s heard the rumors. Women who like him, like her, keep up with his doings and talk about him.”

“Male friends?”

“Not that she knows of.”

“Other women?”

“A few girls tried to hook up with him in school but didn’t make any headway. Rumor has it he hooked up outside the school and preferred older women. Stuff like that.”

“All right. When did he start fighting?”

“Right after moving here. Someone hooked him up with an underground circuit, and he made a killing.”

I lift an eyebrow.

He continues.

“He could earn up to fifty grand for a bout, and many times he did. His uppercut put many fighters on the sidelines.”

“Are these fights illegal?”

“Unregulated. The organizers have claimed the bare-knuckle fighting is legal, but no licensing body regulates it.”

---