‘Nisha knew?’
‘Eventually, yes.’
‘She was trying to get you to stop?’
‘Yes.’ I felt a wave of guilt surge through me. So big that warm liquid came up to my throat, and I remembered again Nisha’s flesh and blood in the toilet.
‘And Seraphim?’
‘He’s above me. The middle man.’
‘How do they stop you from getting out?’
‘Usually arson. They come at night. That’s the first warning.’
‘And the second?’
I didn’t reply.
She nodded now and looked around the room, thinking.
‘So, Nisha went to talk to Seraphim. She wanted to help to free you. Could he have hurt her?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’
I stood up and opened all the windows; my neck and face were on fire.
‘She went to speak to him, then she vanished. She went to speak to him, then she vanished. Do you understand that?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘We can’t go to the police.’
‘No.’
‘You need to find out what happened, Yiannis.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I will.’
*
I called Seraphim and arranged to meet him that night. He told me he would be at Maria’s from 10 p.m.
‘Join me anytime you want,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there. I’m always there.’
In the meantime, I couldn’t sit down, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think about anything else. I was supposed to be putting the birds in their containers and sorting them for delivery, but I spent the whole day sitting on the bed where Nisha and I used to talk and make love, staring out of the window at the street below and trying to piece the story together: I asked her to marry me. She left holding the ring. She went to speak to Seraphim. She wanted to free me. She was not seen again.
That night, I walked passed the flyers of Nisha posted around the neighbourhood. Nobody had called Petra. I watched people walk by and Nisha’s smiling face looking out at them. They did not see her.
I found Seraphim sitting at a small round table near the bar. There was a young woman sitting with him, petite with large, brown eyes – like that of a child – hair as black as coal, leaning into him, smelling his neck.
‘Off you go,’ he said to her, when I arrived. She obeyed. I watched her as she walked over to another table where two old men sat smoking. One of them removed some food from his tooth with his finger. The other stubbed out his cigarette. Whose fag-yellow breath would she be inhaling tonight? I hated these men. I was not one of them, I was sure of that. Had Nisha become involved in sex work? Had she got herself trapped? Maybe she was desperate to make extra money, desperate to get out of here, to get back to Kumari. There was desperation everywhere in this place: it dripped from the windows in condensation, it made the tables wet.
Seraphim clicked his fingers. A sound so sharp that I turned to face him. A waitress glided towards us with an empty silver tray.
‘Two whiskies, my dolly,’ he said.
‘No, I don’t want to drink.’
He ignored me.
‘I was with her last night,’ he said, flicking his eyes towards the woman sitting with the old men. ‘She’s lovely.’
I looked away. His face was making me feel sick.
‘You’ve been jittery lately,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re well.’
He didn’t hope I was well. He hoped I wasn’t bailing out. I’d heard him say the exact same thing to Louis before they’d burnt down his car – with his son in it.
The waitress returned with two glasses of whisky. She placed them on the table, one for me, one for Seraphim.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you look like you need it.’
I downed the whole glass without flinching, just to get the damn thing out of the way. ‘Seraphim,’ I said, ‘I miss Nisha, and I need to know what happened to her. Two people have confirmed that she was coming to meet you here the night she went missing. Please. Tell me what happened that night.’
I didn’t know how else to put it. I could hear the desperation in my voice, see my pathetic self in his eyes.
He glared at me. He smiled. Deep lines around his mouth.
‘This is the problem with being in love,’ he said. ‘It always creates a mess, and I like to keep things tidy, if you know what I mean?’
‘So she came to see you?’ I persisted.
He glanced around, over his shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I don’t like talking about these things in public. How about we go to mine, have a drink there?’