CASSIAN
I didn't make the calls from the house. I couldn't risk the noise of a ringtone or the low rumble of my own voice carrying through the thin plaster walls to where Julian was sleeping.
Every three or four days, I'd get in the car and drive five miles down the coast road, past the olive groves, until I found a petrol station or a corner kiosk that sold cheap, plastic throwaway phones.
I bought them with cash, used them once, and dropped them into the deep rubbish bins behind the shops before I ever put the car back in gear.
It was an old habit, the kind of muscle memory that stays in your hands when you've spent your life hiding from people who have the money to listen to the air.
On those mornings, I sat in the driver's seat with the engine idling, the plastic phone pressed hard against my ear, looking out through the dusty windscreen at the blue water.
The sea looked different every time, but the voice on the other end of the line was always exactly the same.
