‘Perhaps we should start walking.’
‘There are buses. We’d better find out if any of them go up to the Square,’ said Doreen.
Unexpectedly, a driver flashed his headlights.
‘Look, someone’s seen us,’ Rose said elatedly. She lifted a bag in salute and started towards the car. He had braked and was holding up the traffic.
Behind her, blocked by other people, Doreen shouted her name. Urgently. It came out almost as a scream. At the same time, Rose got a clear sight of the driver, and she knew him.
He was the man who had tried to grab her outside Harmer House. She recognised his wide, fixed, unfriendly grin, and it petrified her. He was flapping his hand, beckoning to her.
She felt her coat grabbed from behind and for a moment she thought she was about to be forced into that car again, but it was Doreen tugging her away, shouting, ‘What’s wrong with you? Come on!’
The man swung open his door and stepped out.
Rose dropped her shopping, shattering something in the bag and spreading a stream of liquid across the pavement. She turned and let Doreen force her through the door of the nearest shop, which was Jolly’s. They dashed through the cosmetics section, rattling the merchandise. Rose glanced fearfully behind her and a display of perfumes on a glass-topped table narrowly escaped destruction. She veered left, past bemused shoppers, and was confronted by the theatrical-looking double staircase that dominates the centre of the store.
Behind her, Doreen said, ‘Not the stairs.’
They cut to the right, around the staircase and into the menswear department, all jackets on hangers, up a few steps and into an area enclosed on three sides which turned out to be the suit-room. Down more steps to the level they’d just left, past a jigging blur of socks and shorts, and back to where they had just come from. A silver- haired shop assistant snatched up a phone and spoke into it, his alarmed eyes on them.
Rose was losing all confidence. The place was a maze. She fully expected to come out at Milsom Street again. The only untried way ahead was to the left and up a different staircase, with the risk of getting trapped on a floor that led nowhere.
Doreen spoke the obvious. ‘We’ve got no choice.’
The stairs had two right-angled turns and brought them up to the household section, which looked depressingly like another dead end until they turned left and saw a way through.
‘The restaurant’s up here somewhere,’ Doreen confidently claimed. ‘There are some back stairs if we can only find them.’
Finding the restaurant was not so simple, and that was not the only problem. They started along one aisle, only to be confronted by a uniformed security man hunched like a wrestler. But their immediate about-turn brought them face to face with the exit sign and the stairs Doreen had spotted earlier.
Through the door they dashed, and down what felt like far too many stairs, but with promising glimpses through the windows of a narrow road that was definitely not Milsom Street. Expecting to find a way out at the bottom, they found themselves instead among displays of women’s raincoats and hats.
But Doreen pointed to a door at the end.
They emerged in the street at the back of the store. It was narrow and quiet, with antique shops of the sort you never see anybody go into.
‘This way. Don’t slow up now.’
‘It was him,’ Rose said. ‘That thug who tried to grab me the other day. I nearly got in his car before I saw who it was.’
‘You prat. After all the warnings I gave you.’
‘I thought it was some bloke being helpful.’
‘Didn’t I warn you to be on your guard? Didn’t I?’
‘I’m bloody scared, Doreen.’
’
They had stopped running. They were both short of breath, but nobody was in sight behind them.
‘Did he follow us into the store?’ Rose asked.
‘If he did, we shook him off.’
The road came out at the corner of a vast square with a grotesque obelisk at the centre partially hidden by some mighty plane trees. The two women looked nervously at the traffic moving clockwise around the margin.
‘Over there,’ said Doreen.
Rose’s heart thumped again. ‘What?’
‘Taxis. Outside the hotel.’
One taxi moved away from the entrance to the Francis just as another with a passenger drew up. Doreen made a reckless beeline across the road, shouting, ‘Taxi!’
Rose was on the point of following. She looked at the flow of cars, trying to spot a gap. One flashed its lights and she nearly had heart failure, but the driver was a woman, and she was signaling that it would be safe to cross.
She made it to the other side. Doreen had already secured the cab. They collapsed into the rear seat. The taxi moved off.
She grasped Doreen’s arm. ‘Thank God for that.’
Doreen did not respond. She had turned and was staring out of the rear window.
‘What is it?’ Rose asked, alarmed again.
‘Nothing.’ Doreen turned to face the front, flicking the loose hair from her face. ‘Just my nerves.’
Not entirely believing her, Rose took a look herself. There was only a blue mini behind them, followed by a white van. It was a red car she dreaded seeing. A big red Toyota.
‘The way he looked at me,’ she said aloud, with a shudder.
When they drew up outside the house in St James’s Square, there was no other car behind them.
‘You’ll come in, won’t you?’ Rose insisted.
Doreen nodded whilst finding her money for the fare.
Rose waited, looking sharply left and right. Just then a red Toyota saloon nosed into the Square from the St James’s Street side.
‘Doreen!’
Doreen heard the shout and guessed what it meant. She didn’t wait for change from the note she’d given the driver. Without even a glance along the street, she stepped to the front door, unlocked and ushered Rose inside and slammed the door.
‘I think it was him.’
‘Darling, red cars are two a penny.’
They went down the stairs to the basement. ‘How are you doing? I’m shattered,’ said Rose.
‘Me, too. I’ll make tea. Calm our nerves.’
‘Don’t you dare put anything in it. He’s out there somewhere and I want to be alert.’
‘Now cut the crap, Rose. You’re safe with me.’ For the normally demure Doreen, this was strong talk.
Over tea, they assessed the position. Rose insisted she had seen the red car entering the Square as they were getting out of the taxi. Doreen pointed out that even if it were the same car – which was unlikely – and even if the driver had spotted them going into the building – which she doubted – he had no way of entering without a key and he didn’t know which flat they were using. There was someone else’s name against the doorbell, two names, in fact, left by the previous tenants.
‘Could I move in to your boarding house?’
‘Not possible,’ said Doreen. ‘All the other rooms are booked.’
‘Is it nearby?’
‘Of course. Just round the corner, in Marlborough Street. I was going to show you, wasn’t I, but we missed the chance.’
‘It isn’t safe here any more. I’m going back to Hounslow.’
‘We’ve been through that, Rose. You’re not going anywhere without us, and Jerry’s in no state to travel. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. In the morning, I’ll ask at the tourist office. They may have another flat on their list. But you’ll be lucky to get a place as nice as this.’
