Chapter 17
Luke
I closed the door behind Dani’s mother and leaned against the dining table to steady myself. Fuck. Now I was going to be well and truly in the spotlight. It was only a matter of time before she went to the police and they came knocking on my door. I picked my phone up and called Mick.
“I’ve just had Dani’s mother here at my apartment, bro. Sniffing around, concerned that her daughter has not returned from her trip to South America. I need a favour, I need you to keep my phone at your house. It has all of my contacts on so I don’t want to ditch it, but I know that the police will ask for it and they can trace deleted calls and data. I will have to say that I lost it recently. Makes me look suspicious as fuck though. I have a bad feeling about this, Mick.”
“No worries, but just make sure I stay out of it if you can. I’m in now if you want to call around, and once the police are on your tail, I think it’s best that we limit our time together in the local. It’s known for being dodgy and the police aren’t stupid. If they see us together then they will think we’re up to something. I don’t want to pique their interest.”
“Ok, I’m on my way. Thanks, Mick.”
I was nervous. My story wasn’t clear and I was worried that I was going to trip myself up. If there were any holes, the police would be all over it, and I couldn’t involve Pez because then I was uncovering a whole other world and bringing lots of people into it. Shit. If I wasn’t able to give reasonable explanations, then they would assume that I was guilty. I could end up doing time for a crime I never committed.
One week later, my worst nightmare came true when I opened the door to two police officers who asked me to accompany them to the police station. I tried to act as if it wasn’t a big deal and looked relaxed but that was down to the diazepam I had in my system. Since the assault, I’d been unable to sleep, and when I did, all I dreamt about was Dani and the grim nasty images that filled me with terror and anxiety. I’d wake in a sweat and be unable to get back to sleep.
I was led into a room and sat at a small table opposite Constable Smith and Officer Clark. Apparently, they had interviewed Eva when she reported Dani missing, and they wanted all of the details about our relationship.
“Start at the beginning, Mr Carter, and tell us where you met Dani and how long you were together.”
“I met Dani in Maddox nightclub and we got together that night. We were together for a year but we never lived together officially, she had her own apartment but spent a lot of time at mine. Everything was great until I went on holiday with some mates and I took a picture of myself messing around with another girl. Here it is,” I show them the Instagram picture. “I came back to a messed up flat. Dani had seen the picture and she dumped me and left me needing new carpets and curtains. She was on her way to Germany when I returned home, I wasn’t aware of that though; I thought she’d just disappeared. I found out she was in Germany after she called me and I went there to try and convince her to come back with me, but she wouldn’t, so I left.”
“What do you do for a living, Mr Carter?”
Think, Luke, think, I urged myself.
“Freelance promotion work, you know, advertising for clubs, getting the young ones in, two drinks for the price of one, that kind of thing.”
“It must pay well if it takes you to Ibiza and buys you an apartment in an affluent area.”
“I work hard at what I do,” I said uneasily, and I see the female officer flick her eye to the left toward the male officer, a sign that she doubted me.
“What happened to your finger, Luke? Looks nasty, a recent injury?” The female cop asks accusingly.
“I was using an industrial guillotine when I was printing and cutting up flyers for a promotion night and took my finger off. I won’t be using one again!” I say confidently.
“When was the last time you saw Dani, Luke?”
I could feel sweat forming on my top lip, so I coughed and covered my mouth, wiping it.
No comments:
Post a Comment