Free Complicit by Nicci French Page B

car.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘Sonia?’
    ‘I’m thinking.’
    ‘We can’t go on sitting here.’
    ‘So we go separately and meet up again?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘All right.’
    ‘I’ll wait at the rank outside the airport.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Hang on – I haven’t got any money.’
    ‘We’ll have to get the driver to drop me off at the flat so that I can pick up my card and he can drive us to a cashpoint to get the money.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘If I’ve got enough in my account to cover it.’
    ‘What if you haven’t?’
    ‘I’m sure I have,’ I said, without conviction.
    As soon as we arrived at Zone G, Sonia climbed over to the passenger seat, opened the door and slid out. I saw her in my mirror walking rapidly away towards the shuttle stop. The car park was full and I had to drive up and down the rows before I found a gap. It felt very strange to be doing this alone. My body felt boneless and alien; my heart felt huge and pulpy. My breath was coming in short gasps. I reversed and then I started to tremble so much that I had to stop and make myself breathe slowly. What if I bumped into another car, set off an alarm?
    Very slowly, I reversed into the space, pulled on the handbrake, switched off the headlights, turned the key, got out. It was nearly dawn. There was a stripe of paler sky on the horizon and the shapes of trees were beginning to emerge. I shivered, suddenly cold. I pulled off the sunglasses and left them on the passenger seat; took the scarf off my head and wound it around my neck, over the bruise, instead. I sat in the car and waited for the first shuttle bus to arrive and leave, taking Sonia away. Not until another car had arrived did I get out and walk over to the stop.
    I got onto the bus at the far end, away from the driver, so that he wouldn’t get a good look at me. At first it was just me and a middle-aged man in a suit, puffy-faced with tiredness. Then, a few minutes later, the bus stopped and we were joined by a family of five, towing enormous suitcases on wheels and squabbling. I was very conscious that I didn’t look like someone about to go on holiday or to a business meeting. I had no luggage; I was wearing light clothes and didn’t even have a jacket. Surely I stood out, looked outrageously suspicious. I stuck my hands into my pockets, stared straight ahead, tried to appear nonchalant. I wished my hair wasn’t so short and spiky; I wished I’d taken the stud out of my nose and wasn’t wearing ripped jeans that were sodden around the hem and a damp T-shirt.
    When we arrived at the terminal, I let everyone out of the bus before me. I was overwhelmingly tired and, as I stepped into the jostling crowds, felt as though I was under water. Everything was happening to someone else, someone who wasn’t me, who hadn’t done the things I had just done.
    I waited for a couple of minutes, then went to join the queue for taxis. There weren’t many people in it yet – night flights were only just now arriving – and Sonia was the third in line. I went and stood beside her and she gave me a brief nod.
    ‘The centre of London,’ I said to the driver, when we climbed into the cab. I gave him Sonia’s address.
    ‘We can drop you off and then go to mine.’ I leaned forward and said, through the partition: ‘Is it all right if, when we get to my flat, you wait for me while I run and get my card, and then we go together while I get money out?’
    He gave a shrug. ‘As long as I get the money,’ he replied.
    ‘I know,’ I said. I was looking at the meter that clicked forward every few seconds. I already owed him £5.60 and we hadn’t left the airport.
    ‘How come you’ve gone on holiday without your card?’
    ‘We weren’t on holiday,’ I said. ‘We were meeting someone.’
    I wanted to be as vague as possible. And uninteresting. I didn’t want him to remember us. I sat back in my seat. Sonia had her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes were closed, but I could tell she wasn’t