They walked the connecting corridors and escalators in a grim silence. On the platform once again – ‘next train one minute’ – Famie thought she’d had enough. ‘You guys don’t need to do this. Go home.’
Sam and Tommi didn’t move.
‘Are you mad?’ said Sam. ‘We’re sticking to the plan. We deliver you to your door.’
‘Like you’re a pizza,’ added Tommi.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll be sure to tip you a few quid.’
The Piccadilly Line train was surprisingly quiet and they sat in adjacent seats. Sam looked around. The nearest passenger was at the other end of the carriage and, slumped over the arm rest, appeared to be asleep.
‘So,’ said Sam, his voice as quiet as he could make it, ‘what were they working on? The investigators. Do we know?’
Tommi shook his head slowly. ‘No idea. They never really spoke to me, to be honest.’
Both men looked at Famie. She chewed her lip.
‘I’ve been trying to remember. Mary did talk vaguely about a big story she had. Said they’d dropped everything to see what they could do with it.’ She looked at her friends. ‘And that’s it.’ She shrugged. ‘The whole point of being an investigator is that you don’t talk about the investigation. So it’s not surprising if no one knows about it.’
The sleeping man woke up and lurched upright. They all watched him until he slumped again.
‘Wow we’re suspicious,’ said Tommi, ‘even of him.’
‘Especially of him,’ said Sam. ‘We have to be, don’t we? Until we know who the killers are, don’t we have to be suspicious of everyone?’
Famie put her head in her hands. ‘What a life we have to look forward to,’ she said.
Her headache was back and suddenly she couldn’t wait to get home. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I just need to do this.’ She fished out her headphones, hit play on her phone. She knew Sam and Tommi would be raising eyebrows but she didn’t care. Eyes closed, her Magic Flute had work to do. A few brief moments of peace, then she felt her sleeve being tugged. The train was slowing.
‘Our stop, I think,’ said Sam, loudly.
Famie nodded. ‘I can hear you,’ she said, ‘but I can also hear Mozart. And he’s winning.’
The doors opened and they walked to the steps.
‘Fucking Mozart’s not taking you home though, is he,’ said Sam.
Famie, aware she was being annoying, removed the headphones. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘A bad habit.’
‘Feel better?’ asked Sam.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did we miss something?’ said Tommi, taking a left out of the station.
‘You did,’ said Famie. ‘You missed everything. You should try it some time.’
‘Will it make me as miserable as you?’ asked Tommi.
‘Quite likely.’
They walked to the park that led to Famie’s flat. A pink and white ice cream van was by its entrance, the vendor ensconced behind a newspaper. Famie hurried them into the grounds.
‘My God, I’m even worried about the ice cream seller,’ she said. ‘This is so bad …’
The green spaces of Arnos Park opened up in front of them, one tree-lined path snaking through the centre, a narrower, circuitous route forking left and right. With the exception of a few dog-walkers and a sleeping tramp on a bench, they had it to themselves.
‘Surprisingly empty,’ said Tommi, the note of suspicion unmissable.
‘I’m not normally here in the early afternoon,’ said Famie, ‘but you’re right. Pretty deserted.’
‘In a bad way?’ said Sam, unsure of what Famie was thinking. ‘You want to re-route?’
The wide-open space should have been reassuring but Famie hesitated. Even with her friends, she felt vulnerable, exposed. She resisted the urge to put her headphones back on. Six dogs, four dog-walkers and a hobo was hardly Mean Streets.
‘No, let’s go,’ she said. ‘Gin and tonics in ten minutes.’
She set off down the central path at a brisk pace, eyes everywhere. The smell of newly cut grass, mixed with a ripe stench from the overly full rubbish bins. Banana skins, nappies, half-full coffee cups. The park sloped gently downhill, levelled out for the benches and picnic tables, then rose steeply to the ornate Victorian wrought-iron exit gates. Dog-walker one, retriever, was stooped, poop bag in hand. Dog-walker two, cockapoo, had stopped to talk to number three, wolfhound, the tramp was peeling an apple, and dog-walker four was striding around the far end of the outer perimeter, her three charges straining at their leads.
Something wrong. Famie pulled up short, heart exploding in her chest. Very wrong. She snapped back to the bench.
Sam had it too. ‘What kind of tramp peels an apple?’ he said, his words an urgent whisper.
‘A tramp with a knife,’ said Famie.
8
SHE GRIPPED SAM and Tommi’s sleeves. ‘Turn round?’
The man on the bench was now upright, carrier bag between his legs.
‘What do you see?’ said Sam.
Tommi held up his phone, started filming. ‘I see a bearded white guy, forties, round-shouldered. Peeling an apple into a bag. Penknife maybe. Two-inch blade.’
They stood three abreast across the path.
‘We can detour around him,’ said Tommi. He sounded calm. ‘I’ll keep filming. There’s three of us. And he might not be a tramp. He looks like he’s just a guy having his lunch, that’s all.’
Famie relaxed her grip slightly, reconsidered. Dog-walker one was throwing away the poop bag behind them, two and three were still chatting a few metres from the apple-peeling non-tramp, four was on her phone with the three dogs all sitting.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s do that detour.’
They resumed their walk, veering right, stepping on to the grass and arcing around the bench-man. Twenty metres away now, he looked up. Tommi kept on filming.
‘OK, he looks super annoyed,’ he said.
Famie could see that for herself. The carrier bag and the apple had been stowed, the knife held loosely between his fingers.
‘You stop filming me!’ he shouted.
European, thought Famie, Central Europe at a guess. Poland maybe.
‘You put the knife away!’ replied Tommi, the three of them still walking.
The man seemed to
