It rang for several seconds before a voice answered. ‘Who the hell
…?’
‘Doug, it’s me. Chet.’
A heavy sigh. ‘Jesus, Chet. What time is it?’
‘I don’t know — about 01.00? Listen, mate, I need a favour.’
‘Chet, this a wind-up? You been on the beers?’
‘No. Yes, but… look, can you meet me?’
A pause.
‘Now?’
‘Now. It’s important.’
‘Mate, I can’t. I’m out of town. Trains are done for the day. You never called — I went to the girlfriend’s place.’
Chet vaguely remembered Doug saying that his latest squeeze lived somewhere south of town. Mitcham Junction, was it?
‘Plus,’ Doug continued, ‘it’s one o’clock in the fucking morning.’
Chet cursed silently, his brain still racing.
‘Can you RV first thing?’
‘I guess…’
‘Clapham Junction. Platform 15 — one five — 06.30.’
‘Fine. Look, Chet, what the hell’s this all about?’
I wish I knew, Chet thought to himself.
‘06.30,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t be late.’
He hung up before Doug could reply.
Chet threw the phone down again and caught himself checking the rear-view mirror. Checking for what? He didn’t know, but he knew his heart was racing and his mouth was dry.
Fear? Damn right. But that didn’t mean he was going to succumb to it. He kept his gaze on the mirror, and prepared to sit it out till morning.
Suze McArthur stared at her phone like it was a snake. She was shaking. How had that guy tracked her down? Who was he working for?
A chill sickness welled up in her stomach. She found herself shivering, and felt as though all the strength had left her limbs. She pulled her blanket more tightly around her, but that did no good.
A noise in the corridor outside.
Suze heard herself gasp.
It was nothing, she told herself. She remembered being a child, terrified by strange sounds after her lights had been turned out. Her doctor father, when he was not away, would come in and smooth down her hair. ‘There’s no one here, princess,’ he’d whisper. ‘Just Mummy and Daddy, and we won’t let anything scare you. All you can hear is our old house creaking. That’s what happens at night.’
But there was nobody here to smooth her hair down now. Her father was dead, killed by a landmine in Angola when he was out there tending to sick children. Her mother couldn’t look after herself, let alone Suze.
Another noise. ‘It’s just the old house creaking,’ she whispered to herself.
The front door was locked. The windows too.
So why didn’t she feel safe?
It crossed her mind that she could go downstairs. Sometimes she picked up groceries for Vern and Dorothy, the sweet old couple who lived underneath her. She’d become friends with them. They were always on her case, telling her she should be settling down with a nice young man. A week ago they’d gone off on a cruise of the Norwegian fjords, and had left their key with Suze, just in case. But something prevented her even from moving, let alone venturing down the staircase in the middle of the night.
I should get out of here, she thought. Go somewhere else for a few days. Get my head straight.
That’s what she’d do. First thing in the morning. Pack a bag. Get out of London.
But morning seemed a long way off. She glanced over her shoulder at the front door. She had locked it, hadn’t she?
Another chill ran through her. She felt too scared to get up and check.
03.26 hrs.
Chet awoke suddenly.
It took him a few seconds to remember why he was sitting behind the wheel of his car in this dark side street, and he cursed himself for having dropped off. He was frozen. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a police siren. But this street was quiet.
Almost.
He squinted in the gloom. Through the windscreen he could see a figure up ahead. Twenty metres away, max, and walking towards him.
Instinctively, Chet felt his fingers creeping towards the ignition key. The figure was moving quickly. At fifteen metres, he could make out that it was a woman. Slim. He couldn’t see her face, not in the darkness.
The angry features of the intruder in his flat flashed through his mind.
Ten metres. Chet started the engine and put the lights on full beam. The figure stopped, throwing her hands up to her face, alarmed by the sudden glare. When her hands moved away, Chet saw that her skin was elderly and wrinkled, her hair grey and her clothes old. She cast a fearful look in Chet’s direction, then turned heel and hurried off.
Just an old woman wandering the streets at night. Chet turned off the engine and the lights, aware of a damp patch of sweat against his back despite the coldness of the air. He cursed his paranoia. Of course nobody knew where he was.
He checked his watch. 03.28. Three hours till he RV’d with Doug. It couldn’t come soon enough.
06.23 hrs.
Early, but the main roads of London were already crammed with traffic. The bus drivers were beeping their horns in frustration at each other as their headlamps glowed in the semi-darkness.
Commuters were already hurrying into Clapham Junction in their suits and overcoats, beating the crowds as they gripped their briefcases and free sheets and paper cups from Starbucks with plastic lids. Their breath steamed in the cold morning air, and nobody seemed in any way interested in anyone else around them.
Certainly nobody gave Chet a second glance as he queued up to buy a ticket from the machine. He decided to use cash rather than his card — too easy to trace.
Ticket in hand, he walked along the covered walkway from which a number of flights of wide stairs led down to the platforms. The sound of trains arriving and departing was everywhere. Station announcements echoed over the Tannoy. Chet checked his watch. 06.29. Platform 15 was at the other end of the walkway. He limped towards it as commuters hurried past.
He was at the top of the steps leading down to Platform 15 when he heard the sound of a train coming into the station, its wheels making the familiar, rhythmic sound over the tracks, blotting out the sound of a station announcement; and he was just hauling himself down the steps when he heard a man scream.
Chet stopped. He could hear the train braking quickly, then there was shouting. He limped quickly to the top of the stairs, where he saw an already crowded platform. There was a commotion at the end of the platform from which the train had arrived and it sent a sick feeling through Chet’s body. ‘Get out of my way,’ he roared as he barged past a couple of commuters. ‘Move!’
The train had stopped now. Chet turned left, towards the front end. The other travellers were giving each other anxious looks, as if they didn’t know quite what to do; a few made angry remarks as Chet stormed through them.
He was alongside the front carriage when he heard a second scream. A woman. Hysterical. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! ’
Chet continued to push his way through.
