I told him all about Alex, and what he’d done to me: breaking into my house, using my credit card, following me home. And about how the Piglet badmouthed me to her friends for no reason. I think I told him about Phil two-timing me too, and about not having a job. I think – oh blimey – I might even have cried at one point. But Evan was lovely. He held me close and stroked my face and handed me joints to puff on and said, ‘I’d sort Alex out for you, if I could get my hands on him.’

Evan had very large hands.

I remember sort of sitting up and saying, ‘He’s in Amsterdam at the moment, as it happens.’ Then I remember taking the scrap of paper with the name of Alex’s hotel on it out of my bag and showing it to him. Him nodding and stretching out one of those big hands for the scrap. Asking me to write down Alex’s surname too. I wrote it down.

Evan looked at the piece of paper and slipped it into his top pocket. The moon shimmered on the black surface of the canal and, all of a sudden, I felt cold and exhausted. I asked Evan to walk me to the door of my hotel. Then he turned away and walked back across the bridge, and I remember marvelling at how someone who’d smoked so much dope could have so much purpose in their stride.

Chapter 30

Alex

Amsterdam

Emily threw the rucksack on one bed and herself on the other, sprawling on her back, breasts bouncing beneath her shirt, arms and legs spread, star-shaped.

She let out a long, relieved sigh. ‘This is exactly what we need – a few days of peace. Away from horrible magazines and horrible dead rats – and I was going to say away from Pernilla, but I suppose I’ve got to be nice about her now.’

I smiled at her, then looked around the room. Not bad for the price. The view was of a brick wall, but it wasn’t an English brick wall, and that’s what mattered. No mini-bar, but there was a TV and – praise be – a trouser press. Just what every weary traveller needs.

‘Shame about the twin beds. This is supposed to be the sex capital of Europe, isn’t it? And they give you twin beds.’ Emily had wanted to go to this hotel that she’d heard about at work – some place where authors always stay. But I decided it wouldn’t feel right, not yet – not until I’ve actually got that book with my name on the cover in my hands. And I haven’t got any of the money yet, so, having a rare attack of level-headedness, I booked us into this cheapish hotel. Now, looking at the separate beds, I wished I’d splashed out a bit – not that five thousand pounds is going to last very long.

Emily rolled over on her side and hitched an eyebrow. ‘We’ll just have to snuggle up in one bed, won’t we?’

I came over to give her a kiss; Emily tried to catch my arm, to pull me onto the bed, but I resisted. Despite my complaint about the twin beds, I wasn’t really in the mood. My thoughts kept strobing, flicking from one thing to another:

Kathy falling from the fire escape… literary glory…Siobhan telling me I was a stalker… the dead rat in the jiffy bag… Elaine’s telephone call… Emily and Siobhan in the café…. the things I can spend my advance on… my mother telling me I’d never amount to anything… that time I hid in Siobhan’s wardrobe….

Round and round and round they go. And although my main worry involves Kathy and her fucking friend, and my main source of happiness is my literary success (oh, and Emily, of course – how could I forget?), it’s odd how many of the scenarios that whizz through my head involve Siobhan. It’s as if she’s still at the centre of my life, my nemesis. When I think about her sending the rat to Emily, and the magazines, and seeing them together, I feel so confused: angry and stupefied. I don’t know what to do about her. Should I confront her? Warn her to stop? I really don’t know. And I promised myself that while I was in Amsterdam I wouldn’t think about it. I wouldn’t think about her.

I looked at my girlfriend. ‘Let’s go and explore,’ I said.

We spent the afternoon doing touristy stuff: the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house, which made Emily cry. We dodged bicycles and took a ride on a canal boat which was full of Japanese women clutching Louis Vuitton handbags. We walked through the red light district, and I remarked on how healthy the prostitutes in the windows looked, so unlike the stereotypical smack-addled whores who frequent films and TV shows. Emily asked me if I’d ever been with a prostitute and I lied. I didn’t tell her about the girl in Bangkok, five or six years ago, about the five minutes I spent in her company and the feeling of self-loathing that lasted a hell of a lot longer. Amsterdam was dirty and beautiful, and I fantasised about living in a canal-side apartment, writing novels about the strange and fascinating characters who paused on the bridges beneath.

I asked Emily if she fancied going to a coffee shop and having a smoke but she shook her head.

‘Dope makes me really sick,’ she said. ‘You can get some if you want but you’ll have to smoke it alone.’

I tutted, but tried not to let my irritation show. ‘Oh. It doesn’t matter. I’m not really into it. Let’s just go for a drink, yeah?’

We were near an Irish pub so we went inside and ordered Guinness and a couple of portions of chips, which we ate with mayonnaise. Fantastic. The Kings of Leon were playing in the background. Even better.

I drank my pint fast and it made my head spin a bit. From where we sat I had a pretty good view of the street. It was growing dark outside, the character of the city changing as the streetlights came on: the locals headed to their houses while the sex and drug tourists hurried out into the town, looking for the thrills they had to work harder to find at home. Emily was talking about how she’d felt in the Anne Frank museum, about how sickening it was that someone betrayed her and her family – when I suddenly felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach.

Because Siobhan walked past the window.

I stopped listening to what Emily was saying. I looked at my pint of Guinness like a drunk in a movie who’s just seen an alien or a talking pig. I must have hallucinated her. I must have. What the fuck would she be doing in Amsterdam? There was no way she could have followed us… was there? No, it must have just been someone who looked like her. I wanted to get up, go out into the street and check, just to be safe, but how could I? Emily was still talking about Anne Frank and I was still nodding along, even though, in my head I was hundreds of miles away.

But I had to know.

‘…and there was only a week to go before the end of the…’

‘I have to go to the loo,’ I said abruptly, standing up.

She blinked up at me, the sentence frozen in her mouth. ‘What?’

‘The loo. Sorry. Urgent.’

Luckily, the toilets were around the corner from where we were sitting, quite near the exit. I rushed off and, looking over my shoulder to make sure Emily couldn’t see me, I left the pub. Standing on the pavement outside I looked in the direction I’d seen ‘Siobhan’ go – up towards the Van Gogh museum. But the light was dim and I couldn’t see anyone who looked like her. I jogged forward a few paces, straining to see, but it was hopeless. I turned and went back into the pub, genuinely needing to pee now. Standing at the urinal, I muttered reassuring words to myself. The guy beside me zipped up quickly and scarpered. Then a memory came back to me – something that had been niggling me since we’d decided to come here. I remembered the email I’d deleted off Siobhan’s computer, in which her editor had mentioned an invite to Amsterdam. Maybe Siobhan came here sometimes, if her books were popular here. But it would still be a huge coincidence.

When I got back to our table, Emily said, ‘You were ages.’

‘Sorry. The guy standing next to me kept talking to himself and my bladder got shy.’