The Weekend Away

by Sarah Alderson

‘Did you drug me?’ I ask, my voice shaking.

  Joaquim is wiping at the blood on his chin but double-takes at me. ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Did you put something in my drink to make me pass out?’

  ‘No,’ he says, angrily spitting the words. ‘You were drunk,’ he tells me, scornfully.

  ‘I was more than drunk,’ I shoot back.

  ‘Well, if you were drugged it wasn’t by me,’ he answers. ‘I don’t drug women.’

  ‘Did we have sex?’ I ask, trying to block Konstandin out. I can feel his eyes snapping to me and the humiliation is almost too much to bear but I need to know the answer.

  Joaquim looks at me like I’ve punched him in the face. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I don’t have sex with drunk women.’

  ‘So why was there a condom wrapper in my bed if we didn’t have sex?’

  Joaquim’s mouth purses tightly. Konstandin’s fist suddenly connects with Joaquim’s temple, knocking him sideways. He lets out a cry of surprise and pain.

  ‘Answer her,’ Konstandin demands, bringing up his fist again and threatening him with it.

  ‘She put it there,’ Joaquim says, wincing and shooting an angry look at Konstandin.

  ‘Who put it there?’ I interrupt, not understanding what he means.

  ‘Your friend,’ he hisses, turning on me.

  ‘Why?’ I ask, so confused I wonder if he’s understood the question correctly. ‘Why would Kate do that?’

  Joaquim shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she wanted you to think you’d had sex with me.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, confusion battling with the almighty relief I feel that nothing actually did happen. I wasn’t sexually assaulted without my knowledge.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Joaquim growls. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘I can’t!’ I shout at him. ‘She’s missing. I’ve told you!’

  ‘And I’ve told you I don’t know where she is.’

  I study him. Is he telling the truth? My gut says he is. His confusion and anger seem too intense to be fake.

  ‘But she hired you?’ Konstandin asks. ‘You admit that?’

  Joaquim scowls at Konstandin, then he nods. ‘Yeah, she hired us.’

  ‘To sleep with her?’ I ask, still trying to wrap my head around the condom wrapper in my bed and why Kate would have put it there. The only reason would be if she wanted me to think I’d had sex, just as Joaquim suggested. But why on earth would she do that?

  ‘She paid us to spend the night. Emanuel to have sex with her, and me with you, but like I said, you were too drunk.’

  I grit my teeth in anger. ‘Did she give you a reason why she hired you? Did she say anything at all?’

  Joaquim shakes his head. ‘No. She just said we were to come back to the apartment with her and a friend – that would be you – and have sex. Emanuel had sex with your friend.’

  ‘How many times?’ I ask, wanting to verify his account against what I know.

  ‘Twice,’ he says.

  I nod, thinking of the two used condoms I found.

  ‘Then we left.’

  ‘What time did you leave?’ I ask.

  He shrugs, eyes downcast. ‘About three I think. I don’t remember.’

  Konstandin slugs him in the jaw. I let out a startled cry.

  ‘Not my face!’ Joaquim shouts. ‘Fuck!’ He cradles his jaw, shoulders hunched.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I shout at Konstandin.

  ‘He’s lying,’ Konstandin responds coolly. He turns back to Joaquim. ‘I’m going to break your nose and ruin your pretty face unless you tell the truth.’ He raises his fist again and Joaquim flinches. I almost yell at him to stop but then Joaquim holds up his hand to shield himself from the blow and sobs. ‘Stop! OK. I’ll tell you …’

  Konstandin half-lowers his fist. I stare at him with my mouth open. How on earth did he know Joaquim was lying? I was about to let him go.

  ‘What are you lying about?’ Konstandin presses him.

  Joaquim glances nervously at me then at Konstandin before deciding not to risk another hit to the face. ‘Emanuel took your friend’s bag,’ he says to me.

  I blink. ‘Her handbag? You took Kate’s bag?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nods. ‘No. I mean, Emanuel did.’

  I ignore the fact he’s trying to protect himself by throwing his friend under the bus. They were obviously in on it together. I think back to what Sebastian the landlord said, about hearing people running down the stairs. That must have been them, running off with Kate’s handbag!

  ‘We need to call the police,’ I say, turning to Konstandin. There’s no argument to be had anymore. They stole Kate’s handbag. Joaquim just admitted it. That’s a crime. He needs to be arrested.

  ‘No! No police!’ Joaquim shouts, raising his arms as though in surrender. ‘Please.’

  Konstandin gives that one-shouldered, on-the-fence shrug of his, by which I can tell he agrees with Joaquim about involving the police. But it’s not their choice. Kate’s my friend. It’s my decision. I pull out my phone. Konstandin lets Joaquim go and steps away, distancing himself from his handiwork, the result of which is blooming across Joaquim’s face. His jaw is already turning a deep red colour from the bruise. I realise if I call the police Konstandin will leave to avoid any questions, and a part of me does regret it, but this is now a police matter. I have to involve them.

  ‘Please don’t call the police,’ Joaquim pleads again.

  ‘Give me the bag back and I won’t,’ I say. I’m lying. I’m calling the bloody police.

  Joaquim glances nervously up at Konstandin, who is standing over him like a grizzly bear, claws extended.

  ‘Do you still have it?’ I ask Joaquim.

  He nods. ‘It’s for sale. On eBay. But we still have it.’

  ‘What about all the things that were inside it?’ Konstandin asks. ‘Her wallet?’

  Joaquim shakes his head, eyes lowered. He must have spent all her cash.

  ‘What about her ID and all her cards?’

  ‘We threw them away,’ Joaquim mumbles.

  ‘And the phone?’ I ask, thinking of the hundreds of calls I’ve made to it in the last two days. ‘What about her phone?’

  Joaquim touches his fingertips to the swelling on his jaw, presses gingerly. ‘We sold that,’ he finally admits.

  I stagger backwards a few steps, sucking in air, my hands on my hips, bent over like an old lady climbing stairs. It’s suddenly occurred to me that if Kate hasn’t had her phone on her, or her wallet or any ID, she can’t have gone anywhere. The police thought she’d maybe got on a plane or a train or hired a car, that she’d decided to leave – never mind the fact she left behind all her clothes. I hadn’t really thought they were right but I guess I was clinging on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, they were and she was off doing her own thing. But without her wallet, without cash or credit cards, passport, or her phone, where would she go? What could she possibly be doing?

  There’s only one answer. And I have been trying my hardest to stay positive and not think it, except for last night when my imagination ran wild, but now I need to accept it. Something very bad has happened to Kate.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Twenty minutes later I’m in possession of Kate’s Birkin bag. Joaquim called Emanuel and told him to bring it to the park. We waited and did an exchange – Joaquim for the bag. I rummage through it now as we walk back towards Konstandin’s car, scratching at the lining, trying to find something I might have missed – a clue, a piece of paper with the entire mystery laid out on it, a phone number perhaps? But this isn’t an Agatha Christie novel. The bag is empty.

  ‘Do you believe him?’ I ask Konstandin when we’re back in the car. ‘That he doesn’t know where Kate is?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, turning the keys in the ignition. I notice the scrape on his knuckles and wonder what else those hands have done. He doesn’t seem to be a stranger to violence and I ask myself again what I am doing driving around with someone who I know almost noth
ing about except that he’s very good at extracting information from people and also at casual violence.

  ‘How did you know he was lying?’ I ask, wiping the sweat off my brow. I’m still hot from the running and from the confrontation with Joaquim.

  Konstandin turns up the air conditioning and pulls out into traffic. ‘I can tell,’ he says. ‘When you are around liars and have to make decisions about who to trust – decisions that might lead to your death – you learn how to read people very fast.’

  He must be talking about his family and the war.

  ‘What happened to you?’ I ask, bluntly and without thinking. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he reassures me, reaching for his pack of cigarettes. He offers me one and I take it. I’m too old to be smoking and I have a baby to think about but I can already feel the nicotine cravings kicking in from the one I smoked earlier. I’ll live to regret it I’m sure but right now I think I deserve a free pass. Something terrible has happened to Kate. The thought keeps spinning around my head, like a horse broken out of a stable. I can’t seem to catch it or rein it in.

  ‘She’s dead,’ I say, blurting it out before I have time to catch myself. I cover my mouth with my hand.

  Konstandin doesn’t say anything or try to argue with me, which only makes my words sink further into me, dragging with them a sense of doom.

  He winds the window down and blows smoke out the car before inhaling again, short and sharp like his lungs are demanding he fill them with tobacco smoke, not oxygen. ‘We don’t know that,’ he says, exhaling for a second time.

  I bite my lips together. I know Konstandin is only telling me that to reassure me. He thinks she’s dead too. I light the cigarette I’m holding and take a deep drag. My hand is trembling slightly. I wind the window down and exhale. ‘I need to go to the police. Tell them what we just found out.’

  Konstandin nods. ‘Yes. After we get the phone I can drop you back at the police station,’ Konstandin says.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmur. That woman detective might be there by then. I can speak to her. I’ll have to tell them about Joaquim and what we found out about the stolen bag, and I’ll need to admit to them too what I’ve discovered about Kate hiring Joaquim and Emanuel for sex. I wonder if I can avoid telling them about Konstandin? I don’t want to get him into trouble. But everything needs to come out now. If they interview Joaquim they’ll find out about him anyway.

  ‘I won’t tell them your name,’ I say. ‘I’ll just say you’re an Uber driver.’

  He grunts under his breath and I’m not sure if he’s agreeing or disagreeing with me.

  ‘I really appreciate everything,’ I say to Konstandin. ‘Not just the driving me around.’

  He grunts again. He knows I’m talking about his interrogation technique. Yesterday I’d been horrified by the idea of him threatening people but now I’m glad of it. I wouldn’t have found out this much without him. And I doubt the police would have either, or not this fast. And I’d also be lying if I said that watching Konstandin punch Joaquim in the face wasn’t intensely satisfying.

  We drive in silence for a few minutes. I’m not sure how getting Kate’s phone from the pawn shop where Joaquim sold it is going to help us locate her, and I wonder if we should go straight to the police or whether I should be working through the list of things to do, like also calling the British Embassy and the English newspaper, but we’re almost at the pawn shop so I decide to wait.

  Having Kate’s phone will be useful when I go back to the police. It’ll prove something has happened to her. They won’t be able to fob me off so easily if I can show them she doesn’t have her phone or her bag or her wallet with her. They’ll have to start taking the case more seriously.

  As we drive I check my phone. Rob has sent a few messages asking how I am and for news so I text back, telling him I’m OK and will call him later. I miss him and Marlow so much that my throat constricts painfully, trying to suppress the sob when I think of them. My whole body aches to hold my child and feel her soft, pliable limbs against my chest, her sticky hot mouth on my cheek. I want to hold her and I want Rob to hold me and I don’t want to be away from them a second longer.

  I’ll wait until I’m out of the car to call Rob back, because when I talk to him I’m going to have to come clean about the whole thing and I don’t want to do that with Konstandin sitting beside me, listening in. It’s then that I suddenly realise I should call Kate’s mum too. I should have called her already in fact. It’s terrible that I haven’t. I know she and Kate aren’t close but she is her daughter and she needs to know what’s happening. I don’t have her number, and have only met her a few times, the last time being Kate’s wedding, so I’ll have to ring Toby to get it.

  I scroll through my missed calls for his number then hit dial. He doesn’t pick up so I leave a message. ‘Toby, it’s me, Orla. I really need to talk to you. It’s about Kate. She’s still missing. And … I … well call me back. It’s important,’ I add. ‘I need her mum’s number.’

  After hanging up I check my social media but hesitate about uploading any messages to Facebook or Twitter about Kate still being missing. I should tell her friends and family first what’s going on.

  I sit with the phone clutched in my hand, my foot tapping, drawing on the last of the cigarette like a prisoner in the final minutes before execution. I feel like I should be doing more, like I should be out on the street, pounding the pavement trying to look for her, calling her name, posting all over social media, getting local news involved. I should be printing up posters and knocking on doors. There’s so much I need to do but my brain is fried.

  The level of anxiety hasn’t eased off now I know for sure that Joaquim didn’t touch me, it’s only increased. Because another thought has now arisen to take its place. If he didn’t drug me, then who did? If that powder in the glass was a drug of some sort, then the only person who could have put it there was Kate.

  But what if I’m wrong and I wasn’t drugged? What if I was just drunk? I’m back to turning in circles, getting dizzier with each spin. There are so many what ifs and unknowns.

  ‘I was studying to be a doctor when war broke out,’ Konstandin says, making me look up in surprise, and also confusion because it’s come out of nowhere.

  ‘A doctor?’ I ask, stubbing out my cigarette.

  ‘Yes, does that surprise you?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I answer. ‘I mean, a little.’

  I think about his fist connecting with Joaquim’s face. It doesn’t seem very doctorly behaviour. Also, he’s built like a prize fighter, solid and muscly, with a five-o’clock shadow that’s more salt than pepper.

  ‘I never got to take my final exam. But it’s what I wanted to be. Came very close. And when the war started and the hospitals were overflowing I worked anyway, to do what I could to help out. There weren’t enough actual doctors left you see.’

  I nod, not sure what to say. I barely remember the facts about the Kosovo war. I know it was Serbs versus Albanian Kosovars and that horrific war crimes were carried out, mainly against the Kosovars, but that’s all.

  ‘Most men from my village had either run away or been killed.’

  A wave of sickness washes over me. ‘You stayed,’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Yes. My family was there. My parents were too old to leave. My father was bed bound. My mother refused to leave him or her home. And we thought we were safe. It was a small village, a place called Obrinje, and the fighting was miles away.’

  ‘What happened?’ I ask quietly.

  ‘I got married.’

  I look at him, surprised. He’s never mentioned his wife and he doesn’t wear a ring.

  ‘She was a doctor,’ he says. I note the past tense. ‘Her name was Milla.’

  I wait for him to continue, not wanting to interrupt his flow. This is the most I’ve heard him talk about himself since we met and listening to him, however hard it is, is helping me f
orget for a brief moment about my own problems.

  ‘On our wedding day,’ he says, ‘we had a feast. The whole village, whoever was left, which wasn’t many, came. The Kosovan army had been fighting the Serbian army about ten miles north of us but we wanted to get married, needed to. Milla was pregnant.’

  I stop breathing, hanging on to his every word now.

  ‘We thought it was safe. There was a lull in the fighting. But we didn’t know that the Kosovan army had killed ten Serbian officers the day before. The Kosovan soldiers fled and came towards Obrinje and the Serbian forces followed them. They wanted revenge. My brother and I rushed everyone into the ravine beneath our house, thinking that they would be safe – that if fighting broke out the women and children at least would not be harmed. My brother and I joined the Kosovan soldiers, trying to defend the house. But the Serbians, they found us, they overran the house, they killed the Kosovan soldiers. They killed my brother. They shot me twice and left me for dead. But I didn’t die. I survived and after they were gone I managed to crawl to the ravine.’

  He stops. I hold my breath waiting for him to continue.

  ‘I had heard the screams. The gunfire. I already knew what I would find.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I whisper under my breath.

  ‘We thought the women and the children would be safer without the men there to endanger them but they killed everyone. Milla, my parents, my sister, everyone from the village who had come to the wedding. I had five nieces and nephews. All killed too. Thirty-six people in total, and my child too.’

  I don’t know what to say. How can anyone possibly live through that? It’s a wonder he’s still here, still breathing, still putting one foot in front of the other, because I don’t know how I would if anything ever happened to Rob or to Marlow. I’d want to die. I definitely wouldn’t have the courage to continue living. I sit there, feeling shell-shocked, trying to picture it and then trying to push the images out of my head because they’re too awful.

  I wonder what drove him to tell me – was it because he wanted to let me know that he understands loss? Was he trying to give me a sense of the kind of evil that there is in the world, to ready myself for what might come? Or perhaps was he trying to explain why he’s been helping me all this time? Some sense of wanting to help save a person?