Christopher moved his glass so it sat next to Amy’s, then opened the wine menu. When the waitress arrived, he ordered the most expensive bottle on the list.
‘Will you be eating tonight?’
He looked up and into the waitress’s eyes as she spoke, wondering what noises she’d make if his trusty garrotte penetrated her throat and severed her thyroid cartilage. It fascinated him how each one of his sitting ducks had, so far, offered a different squawk from the last.
Christopher looked at Amy and raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you have time for something to eat?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ she replied, trying – but failing – not to appear too eager.
As they both read their menus in silence, Christopher felt Amy’s eyes lift from the page to his face. He glanced at her and she offered an embarrassed smile. Her cheeks flushed and he looked to see if her irises widened. He’d read enough about human behaviour to know that that meant she was attracted to him.
‘I’m sorry, do you mind if I just quickly use the bathroom?’ she asked. ‘You can order for me if you like. See it as your first test of how much of a Match we really are.’
‘Of course,’ he replied, and rose to his feet as she left the table.
Impersonating a gentleman came easy to Christopher, but other behaviours, like reading facial expressions and being mindful of people’s emotions, he’d learned from books and online. He rehearsed several different smiles as he waited for Amy to return, and checked his mobile phone to see where Number Eight was. He hoped she would have returned home by the time he and Amy finished their desserts, as it was only a ten-minute car journey from the restaurant to her flat.
He spotted Amy slipping her phone back into her purse as she left the bathroom, and wondered if she’d called a friend to inform them her first date with her Match was going well. It was clear she was one of the 92 per cent who felt an instant attraction to their pairing.
Then, as she sat down, there was something about the way her tongue ran over her lips that sent a mild rush of blood to his head, like the first puff from a cigarette or when he stood up too quickly. He dismissed it as tiredness and shook the feeling off as quickly as it had arrived.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked. She was still visibly flushed.
‘Yes, I just had to make a call to work,’ she replied. ‘It’s been a chaotic few weeks.’
‘I don’t think I asked you what you did for a living?’
‘Oh, I thought I’d mentioned it?’ Amy took a sip of her drink. ‘I’m a police officer.’
Chapter 13
JADE
Jade slept for around three fitful hours of her thirty-hour journey. Before that day, the furthest she’d ever flown to was Magaluf with the uni girls and that ended with her drunkenly getting ‘No Entry’ tattooed on her left buttock.
Much of the journey from Heathrow to Bangkok, Thailand, and then to Melbourne, was spent with her fingernails embedded in the armrests of her seat, terrified that each jolt of turbulence was going to bring her plane down. That’s one of the things she hadn’t wanted to tell the girls when they were persuading her to come. She wasterrifiedof flying. She read one of the several thriller novels she’d downloaded to her Kindle, then watched six movies back to back to take her mind off it. She eventually drifted off to sleep shortly before landing.
Jade had just enough time to change her outfit and freshen up before she picked up a pre-booked sedan-style hire car. She was relieved to discover Australians drove on the same side of the road. She programmed the vehicle’s satnav with the address she’d be travelling to. It was some 250 kilometres to Echuca, Murray Basin, the place where she would begin the next phase – and the biggest adventure of – her life. As she drove along the GreatNorthern Highway, she sang along to Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé, and tried to keep her nerves at bay.
Jade thought about her conversation just ten days earlier with Lucy and Shawna. She’d stared at them across the canteen table, growing ever more conscious that she was morphing into them with their over-made-up faces, fake hair extensions and their obsession to stay skinny just to remain viable in an ever-shrinking dating pool. But she was grateful for their home truths. They were right. There was no excuse not to travel to Australia to meet Kevin. The only thing stopping her was the fear of the unknown. And, after she’d got the flight over and done with, Jade liked to think she wasn’t scared of anything.
By the end of that week, Jade had purchased an open-ended return flight on her credit card to Australia. As Shawna was settling into Jade’s sublet flat, Jade had made herself comfortable in an aisle seat on a Megabus to Heathrow, beside herself with what the next few weeks might hold.
She sent her parents a text message from the airport informing them of her plan. She assumed the speed at which they then phoned her meant they weren’t supportive, although she couldn’t be sure because she refused to answer. Jade knew just how quickly her fiery temper could flare, and she didn’t want their negativity tainting the nervous anticipation she was feeling.
She took another glance at the picture of Kevin she had as her phone’s screensaver and knew she wasn’t going to be disappointed.
The three-hour car journey to Kevin’s farm passed quickly and she was on edge with a nervous excitement as she pulled the car over to the side of the road, stepping outside and stretching her tired legs. She was immediatelystruck by the searing heat and was glad she had lathered herself in factor fifty before setting off. Her pale skin could never handle the heat. She had no idea how it was going to fare here.
She glanced over at a sign reading ‘Williamson’s Farm’, which was attached to waist-high wire fencing running the length of the dirt track road. Tall, scrawny trees framed the road with their trunks buried deep in arid soil, and in the distance, she could make out a large, white house and the roofs of outbuildings and barns which she recognised from Kevin’s photos.
Jade felt her stomach begin to churn just like it had every other time she had daydreamed about what it might feel like to meet Kevin in person. Now the moment was almost upon her and she was terrified, particularly as he had no idea she was about to appear at his home without warning.
Back at Heathrow Airport, she’d texted him a white lie, telling him she was changing mobile phone network suppliers so she’d be out of contact for a day or two. He’d sounded agitated by the news, but she reassured him it wasn’t her subtle way of trying to break up with him. Far from it, she thought to herself.
She picked up her phone and switched it to camera mode, then took a selfie of herself with Kevin’s parents’ farm in the background.
‘Hey babe, you OK?’ she typed, her fingers trembling so much so that she was grateful for predictive text.
