He was back. "Bridget? Have you paid up? What are you doing? Come on."
"Where?"
"The police station."
In the car started to gabble, thanking him for everything he'd done and saying how much the Poem had helped me in jail.
"Poem? What poem?" he said, swinging into Kensington Park Road.
"The 'If ' poem - you know - force your heart and nerv
e and ... oh God I'm really sorry you had to go all the way to Dubai, I'm so grateful, I. . ."
He stopped at the lights and turned to me.
"That's absolutely fine," he said gently. "Now stop autowittering gibberish. You've had a big shock. You need to calm down."
Humph. Whole idea was he was supposed to notice how calm and centred I am, not be telling me to calm down. Tried to calm down, but was very difficult when all could think was: someone wants to kill me.
When we got to the police station it was slightly less like a TV drama because everything was tatty and dirty and nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in us. The police officer on the desk tried to make us wait in the waiting room but Mark insisted we were taken upstairs. We ended up sitting in a great big dingy office with nobody in it.
Mark made me tell him everything that had happened in Thailand, asking me if Jed had mentioned anyone he knew in the UK, if the packet had come with the normal post, if I'd noticed anyone strange hanging around since I got back.
Felt a bit stupid telling him about how trusting we'd been with Jed, thinking he was going to tell me off, but he was really sweet.
"The worst you and Shaz could be accused of was breathtaking stupidity," he said. "You did very well in jail, I heard."
Although he was being sweet, he wasn't being ... well it all seemed on a very businesslike footing, not like he wanted to get back together or talk about anything emotional.
"Do you think you'd better call work?" he said, looking at his watch.
My hand shot to my mouth. Tried to tell self it would not matter whether I still had a job or not if I was dead but it was twenty past ten!
"Don't look like you've just accidentally eaten a child," said Mark laughing. "For once you've got a decent excuse for your pathological lateness."
I picked up the phone and dialled Richard Finch's direct line. He answered straight away.
"Oooh, it's Bridget, is it? Little Miss Celibacy? Two days back and she's playing truant. Where are you, then? Shopping, are we?"
If you can trust Yourself when all men doubt you, I thought. If you can ...
"Playing with a candle, are we? Candles out, girls!" He made a loud popping noise.
Stared at phone in horror. Could not work out whether Richard Finch has always been like this and I was different, or whether he was getting into some terrible drug-induced downward spiral.
"Give it to me," said Mark.
"No!" I said, grabbing the phone back and hissing, "I'm a person in my own right."
"Of course you are, darling, just not in your own right mind," murmured Mark.
Darling! He called me darling!
"Bridget? Fallen asleep again, have we? Where are you?" chortled Richard Finch.
"I'm in the police station."
"Ooh, back on the rokeekoke cokee? Jolly good. Got some for me?" he chuckled.