Next to him are two policemen.
Like a shot, Julian takes off across the green. Anxiety fuels his feet. The policemen, perhaps suspecting the fleeing figure is one of the skinheads, give chase. They split up, driving the suspected criminal towards a cul-de-sac.
Julian does not spot the trap. Hemmed in by houses and neat front gardens, he’s cornered. He becomes hysterical, gasping for breath, mucus bubbling from his mouth. When he won’t respond to the policemen’s request for identification, they search his pockets. They find a small piece of hashish wrapped in silver paper. Simon watches his friend being marched back across the green and bundled into the police car. His last glimpse of Julian is of his white terrified face.
The shopkeeper tugs at his arm. ‘We must call Seymour.’
‘I don’t have his number…’
‘Come with me,’ says Naresh.
On the train to London, her period starts. Amy feels both relief and disappointment when she sees the blood in her knickers. Last night, she’d been unable to reach Seymour on the phone. After trying his studio number and finding it engaged, her father arrived home from work. Half an hour later when John left to meet his fiancé for a drink, Amy tried again. Only an answer machine message.
Amy fetches a sanitary towel from her suitcase and sorts herself out, stuffs the bloodied pants in the bin. She’d slept poorly, alternatively fretting about pregnancy and fantasising about motherhood and life with Seymour. Leaning against the carriage window, she falls asleep clutching the scrap of paper on which is written the address of Seymour’s studio that the helpful woman from Directory Enquiries gave her.
It takes Malcolm back to see nurses rushing about the ward in their white caps and sensible shoes. He is shown into the day room of the ward; the nurse says he can see ‘his wife’ once she’s settled in bed.
‘She’s not my wife,’ he replies but the nurse has gone. It was an odd morning, finding Maggie lying unconscious in the field with a bloodied slash across her jaw and her eye all puffed up. He called the ambulance. By the time it arrived, the lower part of her face had swelled too; she didn’t look pretty any more.
He slipped into the back of the ambulance so got a free ride to the hospital. Though the girl seemed to regain consciousness, she was babbling nonsense. He didn’t bother to ask her if there was anyone he should phone, the nurses would find out soon enough. You have to take the rough with the smooth when you work with horses, he thought. Accidents happen. Perhaps the tea trolley will be around soon, he could do with a cup.
Julian tries to recall what the nurses taught him in hospital; to release his breath as slowly as possible as a way of controlling panic. He knows it helps as it has done before. As long as he can keep his eyes closed, he won’t see the holding cell into which the custody sergeant marched him.
It’s not the emptiness of the room, cold and smelling faintly of disinfectant or the bars on the high window which makes his stomach clench; it’s knowing that the door of the room is locked. A locked door reminds him of the secure wing of the psychiatric hospital where he spent one long traumatic and terrifying week. He buries his head in his arms.
Hanging on to every atom of the air for as long as he possibly can, he exhales. Simon will find a way to contact Seymour, to contact Seymour, to contact Seymour… he murmurs.
David is bundled up in a coat and wears fingerless gloves. The sun warms the farmhouse steps where he’s sitting, strumming his guitar. He’s feeling good. The bridge of a song he’s been tussling with for ages finally works. The lyrics will need changing but that’s fine. The phone rings. There is no way he’s going to answer it. He is focused, just as Seymour directed.
The stairwell smells of disinfectant. Amy climbs two floors. An engraved sign on a metal-studded bright-red door says Seymour Stratton, Photographer. Someone from an office or flat above rushes past; their footsteps crescendo, then fade. For a moment, Amy waits, not daring to knock. She is in half a mind to leave; will he mind her turning up unannounced?
But she cannot resist the chance to see him. To tell Seymour everything: about her father’s planned marriage, the whole terrible business. He will understand. She knocks on the door. Her knuckles make no impression on the shiny surface. She presses on the buzzer.
‘Who is it?’ says a voice she recognises but cannot place. Other voices, too.
‘Who is it?’ the woman says again and Amy realises it is Eleanor. The door flies opens. Amy steps aside as a tall girl with a high-cut fringe and an orange coat bowls by. ‘Go on in,’ she says, dipping her head, and runs lightly down the stairs.
Low-slung grey sofas and tubular chairs in bright colours cluster around a glass table. A lamp like a long-necked insect arches from one corner to hang over a tower of shiny magazines. Amy sees Eleanor slip through a gap between two partition walls. On it are displayed black and white fashion photographs. And a huge portrait of Seymour.
When Eleanor materializes in a different doorway; her expression is not friendly.
‘Amy! It’s you. What a surprise.’ She does not sound surprised, she sounds annoyed.
Amy nods.
‘Is Seymour expecting you? He’s in the middle of a shoot.’
A woman’s voice rises over the partition wall. ‘Phone call for Seymour, Eleanor.’
‘Who is it?’ Eleanor replies sharply. She examines Amy coldly, up and down, moving only her eyes.
‘The man wouldn’t give his name, says it’s private,’ calls the woman, ‘says he must talk directly to Mr Stratton.’
‘Let me take it.’
‘You can try,’ said the woman who sounds exasperated.
