Three Steps Behind You (7 page)

‘No,’ I say. Which is true. I don’t want to talk about it. To her.

‘So what were you doing?’

Pearce answers for me. ‘He was looking after his aunt, i.e. doing fuck all while she slept.’

‘No, I wasn’t. I was working on a book.’ Because I was, in a way. Book three.

‘Oh, are you a published author?’ asks Huhne. I wonder if she will ask for my autograph if I say yes.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not yet. But I will be soon. I’m working on something new. My best work yet.’

‘I’ve always wanted to write a novel,’ says Pearce.

‘You need convincing characters,’ I tell him. I consider telling him about the method, then think better of it. I’m still not sure how that’s going to end.

‘Ah, sod it. And here I was, just thinking I could write about all the fiction you spin us,’ says Pearce.

I shift in my seat.

‘Don’t worry, Danny boy. I’m messing with you. We’ve no reason to believe you’re lying about this one, have we, Debbie?’

‘Not about this one,’ she says. I think she is still thinking about the February 19
^th
question. ‘But we’ll be keeping an eye on you.’

‘Am I free to go?’ I ask Pearce.

‘Yes,’ says Pearce.

‘For now,’ adds Huhne. I can’t tell whether it’s a line from police school or whether she means it.

I get out of the car. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you, too, Debbie,’ I say. It’s meant to be a pick-up, but she doesn’t respond. Pearce, does though, chuckling to himself.

‘A man after my own heart,’ he says.

I slam the door shut and follow the brown VW with my eyes as it drives away.

It leads me down the street, where I see a flash of red. This time, it
is
Nicole.

Chapter 16

We stand at opposite ends of the street, Nicole and I.

The grown-up thing to do would be for me to walk up to her and confront her, before she can go back inside. Ask her if she is telling stories to the police. Ask her what Adam would say. Ask her if she really intends to rob me of my liberty. That would not help me with my quest, though. Or rather, the second quest. The first quest was in book three – I realised that at the time, that it was one of those sorts of stories. This one, I suppose, is a quest too. One per book is a suitable ratio. This time, the elixir Luke must return with, as they used to say in those writing classes, is a woman. And Nicole is the woman. So I must journey to her centre, return with what I need, for Luke, to understand, the closeness. And for me to get my Adam fix.

The immature – and more useful – approach, which I intend to take, is just to turn away, back to the station. To pretend none of it has happened. I am just about to do this when the red blob starts walking towards me.

‘Dan,’ she calls. ‘Hi there!’

Is this normal? Being greeted by a person who has presumably just told the police she suspects you of being at best a careless driver and a liar, at worst a murderer?

There is still time to turn, to pretend I haven’t heard her, to rush back to the station in pursuit of a train. Playing hard to get, or something, it can be. But instead, I stay where I am, and let her come to me.

‘What brings you here?’ she asks.

So. She is playing the innocent.

‘The police,’ I say, wanting to see her reaction.

She handles it well.

‘The police?’ she asks, eyes wide. Not quite as wide as when she looked at me after the dodgems, but wide enough.

‘They threatened to handcuff me,’ I say.

‘But what for?’ she asks.

‘Do you like handcuffs, Nicole?’ I ask, since we are doing direct questioning.

‘What for?’ she repeats.

‘For the person not wearing the handcuffs to do all sort of exotic things to the person wearing them,’ I say, pretending I think we’re not talking about the police.

‘What were the police here for, Dan?’ she persists.

DS Pearce is much better at this kind of thing than I am. Maybe that’s because he is actually attracted to the person he is sleazing at. I need the practice.

‘About Helen,’ I say.

‘Helen?’ Nicole repeats at me. I think I see the flicker of satisfaction around the edge of her lips. Well, I’m not going to let her have that satisfaction.

‘Someone gave them a tip-off about me. But they don’t believe it. Just going through the motions. Their words, not mine.’

Nicole does a little frown, so quick you wouldn’t notice, unless you were looking for it. But she will not give up that easily in her little game.

‘You, involved in Helen’s death?’ she asks. ‘Why on earth would they think that?’

‘I told you,’ I say. ‘They don’t.’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I mean, that’s good. I can’t imagine, you doing that to Adam. To Helen.’

‘Can’t you?’ I ask, trying to get her to hold my gaze.

She manages it. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Still,’ she continues, ‘the police should take it seriously, any fresh information.’

I shrug. ‘Not if it’s without foundation.’

‘But how do they know, unless they investigate?’

I want to ask ‘So you think they’d find I killed Helen, then, if they investigate it, this little tip-off of yours?’ But if I do that, I might as well abandon book four. She’ll think I’m out for her blood. For that book, when it comes to it, I can gag and I can bind to my character’s content, stop her telling little tales. She will have handcuffs then, whether she likes it or not:

The ties are fast around her mouth. Next door, the water boils, for their feast. The lobster, restrained, will soon be ready. There’ll just be time to finish devouring, before her husband arrives
.

Nicole keeps speaking, making the most of her current freedom.

‘You won’t mind me not asking you in for tea, will you?’ she says. ‘It’s just that I’m on my way out and …’

She casts her eyes down to the pavement. If she really doesn’t want to look at me, I’d be happy to blindfold her. That’s part of the plot of book four too.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I understand. You can walk with me to the station.’

She flicks her eyes up, panicked. ‘Actually, I just need to pick up one or two things from inside. I don’t want to keep you.’

Very well, then. I’ll visit Adam in the City. Nicole will be a slow burn. The flames will keep flickering beneath her, I’ll be sure of that – she won’t keep me from visiting Adam, visiting her. It is through Adam I will win her. For Luke, always for Luke. And it is through her I will again be close to Adam.

This time, as I walk back to the station, there is no comforting feeling of a benevolent eye. Pearce is watching me. Huhne is watching me. Nicole follows me all the way from Narcissus Road. She disguises it well. Every time I turn around, and see that flash of red, there is just a pillar box, or a holly bush, or a robin redbreast. She hides that split-second before I turn round, you see. She has chosen her urban camouflage wisely. She’ll follow me until she finds what she’s looking for. Good, in a way, if she likes to get close. That’s what I’m after. But what worries me is that she will stop me seeing Adam. I mean, not really, because no one can stop me
seeing
Adam – he’ll always be there, in my mind’s eye. But she might stop me being in Adam’s presence. Permanently. If she manages to get me arrested. So she will definitely need to be gagged, long term.

As she sits behind me, watching me, on the train, she disguises herself when I turn around as the emergency stop handle. Infantile behaviour, but clever – she knows I will never close my hands around that, throttling it to stop the train moving along into Adam City. So she can just sit and wait and watch, gathering her ‘evidence’, wearing a mac, playing police, in league with Huhne, in league with them all. Possibly, even, in league with Adam.

Chapter 17

Reaching Adam does not take long. Rather, reaching his office. Reaching him is a different matter.

It’s just a matter of a simple train journey from West Hampstead to Farringdon. We always used to get the train together, Adam and I, so it’s odd to be taking it alone. When I say together, I allow for the fact we were in separate carriages. We had a little ritual, after we were released. Adam’s parents sent both of us to college to get our A-levels. Different colleges, but the same train-line went to both, if you made a few changes. I made a few changes. First of all, I had to get the train to Staines. It wasn’t that far from Uxbridge, where Adam’s parents had rented me a flat. I could have used my inheritance then, to rent it, but they said they felt in loco parentis, that they’d let me down. Being in loco parentis didn’t mean they treated Adam and I as brothers. We were to be separated. Luckily, I fought back for the both of us. Every morning, I made sure we boarded the same train. Every evening, after Adam came out of his college full of maths and economics, I would walk to the station with him (well, behind him). My bag had business administration in it but my brain didn’t. My brain was full of Adam. On the last day of college, after exams, Adam dropped back to talk to me. It was nice to hear him talk about how well he’d done. He sounded so clever, so self-assured. We sat next to each other on the train and he told me more about it. I asked if he wanted to come back to my flat. He couldn’t. He had a date. He got off the train two stops early. I stayed on.

From Farringdon, I take the Tube to Liverpool Street. People in dark suits zap around holding document cases. I do not exist to them; I have to stand aside in the street to let them past otherwise we would just collide, and I would have to apologise. I try to be how Luke must be – imagine the suited swagger, battering people out of the way with his broad chest. I make an attempt but I don’t have the armour, so I am knocked off the pavement into the gutter. Nicole is close behind me, I know without looking. The red ties and poppies that people are wearing remind me. Nicole and I are like the poppy really – I am that deep black circular centre, and she is the red, constantly surrounding me, but flimsy. I could tear her away in an instant. But Luke in all his greenery is our stem, uniting us. Pinned to Adam until he chooses to cast us off.

Adam’s building is like a granite spaceship. I step on an escalator at street level, and am carried up and up through dazzling black and glass, until I reach reception. They won’t let me past the security barriers without an appointment, so I phone Adam and try to make one. His mobile is off. I sit down on a cream leather sofa next to the barriers and consider my next move. As I do so, I see one of the side gates open, and a man comes out, depositing a pass on the counter. The gate is still open. The receptionists are busy with new visitors. I could slide through it, if I go now, now NOW!

And I’m in.

But I don’t know where Adam is to be found. I walk to what I think are lifts, but there are no buttons to press, just a small digital display on the granite pillars between each one. I stand staring at them. A suited man appears beside me.

‘Infra-red,’ he says, holding his pass to one of the displays. ‘Visitor?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I say.

There is the sound of an ocean. I can’t think why and then I see the man go into the lift. I was expecting a ‘ping’ but apparently here tsunamis announce ascension. I get into the lift with him.

‘Which floor?’ he asks.

‘Banking,’ I say.

He stares at me. I try to remember more detail about where Adam works, and my brain delivers a name. The suited man nods.

‘Me, too,’ he says, waving his pass at another digital – or is it infra-red? – display. The lift starts to carry us up. ‘Who are you here to see?’

‘Adam,’ I say. The man waits expectantly. Apparently there is more than one Adam. ‘Lomax,’ I add.

The man nods and the lift door opens. I wonder if that is his party trick.

I follow him through to another reception. Women with red neck scarves sit behind a shiny white curve, blocking my way.

‘Good meeting, Mr Shipley?’ asks one of the women.

‘Nothing to the pleasure of seeing you,’ Mr Shipley replies.

The woman smiles and blushes lobster-red to match her scarf. I wonder how many times a day she has to do that, whether it’s stipulated in the job description.

Mr Shipley does a sideways head movement in my direction.

‘He’s here to see Adam Lomax,’ says Mr Shipley.

The women notice me for the first time.

‘Take a seat, sir,’ one of them says, dismissing me. ‘He’ll be right with you.’

I sit down on another white leather sofa and wait. Beyond the receptionists is a city of glass. Glass rooms interconnect with other glass rooms through glass corridors. Everyone can see everyone – but they can’t touch them. Inside their little glass boxes, they strut around, men standing, women sitting. Imprisoned, in their own way. I spot Adam in one of the closer rooms. I see him talking but there is no one in the room with him. Then I see a blue glow emanating from his face. Bluetooth. Or digital. Or infra-red. Nothing physical. Adam looks up in my direction, and he nods to me. I nod back. He doesn’t come out, though. I can see him, can communicate with him, but I still cannot get close.

Finally, Adam walks out of the room, through the glass maze, and opens a glass door into the reception area. His poppy sits on his jacket lapel, pretending it is an innocent icon. He winks at the receptionists as they walk past. This time they’re not just blushing because it says they must in their job description. They must think he’s flirting, but he’s not. Or rather, he is, but it’s not sexual. He flirts with everyone, makes them feel loved, gives them a promise of sharing with him. It’s up to him whether he delivers. With me, he doesn’t need the routine – I know what we mean to each other.

‘What brings you here, mate?’ he asks, shaking my hand because we are in business world. The additional touch on the elbow is a concession to our friendship.

‘They mentioned Feltham,’ I say.

‘Shh!’ Adam looks over his shoulder at the receptionist. ‘Not here,’ he whispers, turning back to me.

‘I thought everyone here knew?’ I ask.

‘Not everyone,’ he says. ‘Come with me, we’ll go somewhere private.’

He leads me through the glass labyrinth and I wonder how we can possibly be private with everyone watching us. He takes me back into the room he was in earlier, when I arrived.