Paul pulled his hood back. Sid did the same, and his stomach curled when he realized that Paul had been crying. Paul stared grimly at the ocean as he talked.
“I’m so fucking scared. All the time, I’m scared. I wake up with my heart pounding. My dreams are nightmares. I feel like I should know what to do, but I don’t. It never stops, and I’m so fucking sick of it.”
Sid put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. The man was shaking. “Whyare you so scared?”
“Because people disappear from the Institute. Min wasn’t the first.”
“Who else?” Sid’s fear level went up a notch.
“She was called Zofia. She disappeared four months before Min. They hired her from Poland. She was an expert in Renaissance textiles. Giulia and I got friendly with her.” He wiped his eyes roughly with the back of his hand, but the tears kept coming and the shaking didn’t stop.
“What happened to Zofia?”
“She went hiking one day last November and didn’t come back. They found her car parked at the train station local to the hike. It was locked, with no personal effects left inside it. There was noCCTV, it was too remote. The Institute said Zofia went back to Poland. Basically, the same story they told about Min. But the thing is, Iknowshe didn’t go back to Poland.”
“How?”
“I’m not proud of this, but we’d been getting closer emotionally during her first year at the Institute. And I know, I’m a heel. But Giulia spends all hours at the Institute, and it’s all small talk when she gets home. It had been dead between us for a while. I was fucking lonely.”
“I’m sorry,” Sid said.
“I was with Zofia the day she disappeared. Nobody knows that except you, but we went hiking together. We had a beautiful day. We walked and talked and decided we wanted to be together. I was going to tell Giulia about me and Zofia that night, but Zofia never came back. She’d suggested we drive to the hiking spot separately, and I wish we hadn’t, God, how I wish I could go back to that day and be braver. I was just so scared of Giulia finding out before I had the chance to tell her. IknowZofia didn’t have her passport with her because I went to the cottage to look for her when she didn’t come home that night, and it was there. All her things were. The police took everything away a few days later but I saw it with my own eyes that first night. Something happened to her, I know it did. Ifeltit. She was my soulmate.”
“God, mate, I’m sorry. This is awful. Did you talk to the police?”
“I was thinking about it, but I’ve got to be honest, I bottled out of it. I didn’t want anyone to know about our relationship.” Paul paused, then said, “Maybe that was bad. But I’m scared. I can’t stop being scared. Giulia is one of them.”
Sid felt so far in over his head it was terrifying. “Does Zofia have family?” he asked, thinking of what his neighbor had said about Min’s parents, how desperate they were to find their daughter.
“She was estranged from them. I thought about trying to find them, but I didn’t know how to start.”
“So what do you think happened to her?”
“Something bad.” Paul seemed to notice just then that his hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets. He wasn’t on the edge, Sid thought, but already over it.
Paul said, “Don’t mention this to Anya, will you? You can’t tell anyone. We must be careful, so, so careful.”
“I won’t,” Sid lied.
“The thing is, I don’t know what to do about any of it.” Paul looked ashen, broken.
Sid felt jolted. How was he supposed to know? He said, “I’m not sure, either. But we’re going to keep talking to each other, okay?”
“It’s been heavy, carrying this. It’s been this massive weight on my shoulders.”
Had Giulia noticed a change in him? Sid wondered. He needed a timeline. One woman disappearing was extremely worrying; for two to disappear from the same workplace was surely something no one could ignore, even the most incompetent police force. How high up did this go? He was beginning to wonder, though he didn’t want to fall down a conspiracy rabbit hole. He wondered if his neighbor knew about Zofia and assumed she didn’t. He needed to tell her.
Far out to sea, more sheets of rain had materialized and were sweeping across the ocean toward them. They needed to get out of there soon or the path would be impossible to climb, but this moment felt fragile. If he didn’t handle it right, Sid wasn’t sure if Paul would confide in him again.
“Are you and Giulia okay now?” he asked. He thought about when he’d first met them. He’d only spent a couple of hours with them, and they’d seemed happy, but of course he hadn’t really paid much attention. He’d been dazzled by what was on offer for him and Anya.
“After Zofia happened, I still wanted to leave Giulia. I kept thinking maybe Zofia would get in touch and I could go join her, but I never heard from her again. I had a breakdown, lost my jobas a climbing instructor. Giulia looked after me, and the Institute offered me work and I took it. I doubted myself, mate. I hit rock bottom. And then it started to seem like it hadn’t happened the way I thought it had, and I started to believe maybe I got it wrong, that Zofia never loved me, and I convinced myself to believe that until Min went just four months later.”
“I’m sorry,” Sid said. Could there be an innocent explanation for any of this? He was worried there couldn’t.
Paul wiped his eyes with his sleeve, roughly, and seemed to regain awareness of their surroundings. “There’s more rain coming. And the tide’s rising. We should head up.”
The sky was a mess of fluid cloud, the sheets of rain closer than ever, the ocean restless and oily. Sid slipped and cursed as they climbed.
