‘What? How could it be? You said you saw someone up by the railway hut. Can’t be in two places at the same time, can I?’
‘I wondered if you thought I was keeping things back from you. Checking up on people but not telling you about it.’
It was no good. He wasn’t listening. He had a stick in his hand and he was letting it run along the iron railings. ‘Natalie was a bitch,’ he said, ‘but that didn’t stop people falling in love with her. Hundreds I must have spent on her, some of it money I’d borrowed from my father. But it wasn’t enough. We used to go for walks – when the late shift ended. Along the river or out in the country. I trusted her, told her things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Yes, I thought you’d want to know. That last time she wanted me to give her the money for a leather jacket. Two hundred it cost. When I said I hadn’t got it she threatened to tell Ken about me.’
‘The manager of the Sports Centre? What was she going to tell him?’
‘D’you know what it’s like being unemployed for months on end? No, of course you don’t. The sort of people you know have well-paid jobs, security for life.’
‘That’s not true.’ In spite of her rising panic she heard herself arguing back. ‘Alex could lose his job any time – and my mother if the shop doesn’t do any better. My father’s set up his own business so it all depends on–’
‘Oh, great,’ he sneered, ‘but they haven’t got someone threatening to tell everyone they’ve been inside. She knew I’d never get a second chance. Knew if she told Ken Davies–’
‘Prison?’
‘All I did was borrow a credit card and take out sixty quid. Could have taken more but I didn’t. Just stood behind the stupid woman and looked over her shoulder. Then I nicked her bag the same way I did yours. Saw it lying on the floor and gave it a kick as I walked by.’
Terror had given way to icy calm. It was as if she was watching herself in a film. ‘You took my bag?’
‘Wanted to see what you were up to.’
‘So you kept the file. But where did you put it? When Laura and I met you in the street.’
He laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. ‘Oh, by then I’d shoved it in one of those bins near the arcade. Then I took the bag back to the burger bar and dropped it near the toilets. Later on I picked up the file, all safe and sound.’
Anger was giving her strength. ‘People don’t get sent to prison for a first offence,’ she said. ‘It can’t have been the first time you were in trouble with the police.’
It was a mistake. She should have kept quiet, agreed with everything he said, waited until she saw another human being, even someone far off in the distance, then screamed at the top of her voice.
But there was no-one about.
‘Some people have quicker tempers than others,’ he said, talking to her as though they might be discussing the weather. ‘They’re born like it. They’re the ones that get on in life. They’ve got a bit of go. But if something goes wrong, if people threaten them . . .’
‘Yes, I know what you mean.’ If she could convince him she understood how he felt. Really understood. Her eyes were darting in all directions but it was too dark to see more than a few yards ahead.
‘It wasn’t the leather jacket,’ he said. ‘Not even saying she’d tell Ken I’d been banged up. It was when I realised she’d been using me, didn’t feel anything, never had any intention of moving in. I didn’t mean to kill her. I suppose I just hit out. Picked up the first thing I saw and . . . I thought she was dead.’
‘Yes.’
He took hold of her shoulder and spun her round. ‘You think if you humour me, keep sounding all sympathetic . . .’
He had her by the wrist. It hurt but she didn’t cry out. Any minute now and she would feel a blow on the back of her head. Or perhaps she wouldn’t even feel it. It would all be too quick. Her unconscious body would be easy to tip into the water and there would be no evidence. Nothing at all. If Alex had answered Russell’s phone call . . . But he hadn’t. No name had been mentioned. No-one had known where she was going.
‘Don’t!’ She wrenched her wrist free. ‘They saw me at the Sports Centre. They’ll know I was with you.’
His arm locked round her body, squeezing. ‘Who will? The girl at the ticket desk fancies me like crazy. She’ll say I was there till late. She’ll say whatever I want her to.’
It was the rain that saved her. The path was already wet and now that the drizzle had turned into a steady downpour the track was turning into slippery mud.
Pulling her arm free she jerked her elbow back as hard as she could, heard the breath leave his body, and, for a split second, felt his hands lose their grip. Then she was running, back across the bridge with the sound of his training shoes on the metal struts growing closer and closer.
At the end the path divided. She swerved to the left, choosing the route that led back to town but quite certain by now that she would never get that far. Suddenly a dark figure appeared in the distance, running towards her,
