скачать книгу бесплатно
Mrs McMahon looked her up and down, eyeing George’s ripped jeans and wild curls with obvious disapprobation. Clearly the type of old-timer who didn’t think the University academic staff should dress like the students. But then, unexpectedly, her pruned mouth stretched into a kindly smile. ‘Ah, well Spring has sprung! It’s only going to get lighter of an evening.’
George nodded. ‘Roll on summer, eh?’ Shovelled her books into her bag. Pulled on her duffel coat and slung her bag over her shoulder, glad of the librarian’s company on the long walk back down to the main entrance.
By the time she had left the imposing phallic bulk of the University Library, the glow of the sunset had been replaced by a melancholy full moon that cast an eerie glow on the car park. That feeling of being watched still hadn’t abated, George acknowledged reluctantly.
Unshackling her old mountain bike, she started the cycle ride back to St John’s College down Burrell’s Walk, feeling vulnerable as her malfunctioning bike lights flickered weakly in the darkness. No helmet, either. She was annoyed at her own negligence.
Anyone could pull me off my bike down here and not a fucking soul would be any the wiser, George thought as she pedalled hard enough to make her heart thump violently and the sweat start to roll down her back.
Scanning every dense evergreen bush for signs of the long-haired old rocker with those idiot mirror shades that covered his stalking, watchful eyes, George repeated the mantra in her head: If I see him again, I’ll kill him. Four sightings is more than just a bloody coincidence or paranoia. Nobody stalks George McKenzie and lives to tell the tale.
Suddenly, she was blinded by a dazzling headlamp probing its way down the secluded path. A throbbing engine made the ground beneath her tremble. She felt like she was being sought out by an enemy searchlight. This was it. Whoever was after her was on a motorbike. Heading straight for her. He was going to take her out. Fight or flight?
Wobbling and uncertain now, she steered her mountain bike into a bush, falling over painfully into the barbs of holly leaves. The motorbike was upon her. But its rider was not the long-haired rocker George was anticipating. In the saddle was a fairly elderly woman, wearing a crash helmet covered in graffiti, whom George recognised as an eccentric engineering professor from Robinson College … or was it Girton? Not her stalker.
‘Get off the path, you disease!’ George shouted after the Professor.
With a defiant middle finger raised in the air, just visible in the red glow of the motorbike’s tail-light, the Engineering Professor accelerated away.
George was safe, for now.
As her breathing and pulse slowed to an acceptable rate, she continued her journey with nothing more than a dented ego. She checked her watch, realising she was running late. No time to stop off at college to grab a coffee with Sally Wright in the Fellows’ Drawing Room to discuss the imminent publication of their criminology tome. She’d have to make straight for the station if she were to catch the train to London. Aunty Sharon was expecting her before she went out to work. The bed in Tinesha’s old room had been made up as usual, making George’s regular scheduled early-morning journeys to HMP Belmarsh to conduct her research among its violent inmates that bit easier.
The cycle ride along Trumpington Street was uneventful, with the Fitzwilliam Museum, spotlit in the darkness, the only thing of note, apart from the couple making for Browns restaurant. George ploughed on to the left turn at Lensfield Road, pedalling past the three-storey Victorian houses that comprised student accommodation, mainly owned by Downing College. It was only once she had reached the junction with Hills Road, where she paused to get special fried rice from the Chinese takeaway opposite the big Catholic church, that George felt certain a car had been following her. A VW Golf that she had noticed pull in as she had pulled in.
Was that the long-haired rocker behind the wheel?
She blinked. Blinked again and peered with narrowed eyes into the darkness. Considered approaching, throwing her scalding rice into the driver’s face.
But what if she was wrong, as she had been with the motorbike on Burrell’s Walk? What if she was going mad and merely imagining that Bloom, the now-incarcerated transnational trafficking crime boss, known by his contemporaries as ‘The Duke’, had sent someone after her? As if he hadn’t already tortured her enough.
‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ she muttered under her breath.
With her foil container of food swinging in its plastic bag from her handlebar, she pedalled with as much haste as her out-of-shape legs could muster to Cambridge train station, praying the busy, brightly lit main road would afford her some safety.
Finally, leaving her bike locked in the overcrowded bike racks, she boarded the train to King’s Cross. Two minutes to spare. And she even found a seat with a table.
When persistent beeping heralded departure and the doors slid shut, George’s body was flooded with almost jubilant relief.
‘Jesus, man. This is bullshit,’ she told her laptop as she booted up. ‘I’ve got to calm down.’ She breathed in deeply; breathed out slowly. Conjured an image of her missing mother, Letitia, imagining her happily ensconced in a high-rise somewhere, maybe in Den Haag or Bruges or Southend-on-Sea, using some gigolo as a sticking plaster to nurse the wounds left by having been given a bad prognosis by that Dutch consultant. For all George knew, Letitia was bending this younger lover’s ear about her ‘pulmonaries’ and ‘sickle cell anaemics’ while she pounded his body with her middle-aged bulk. George reassured herself that the enucleated eye in the gift box in Amsterdam’s Vinkeles restaurant had just been a prank, care of Gordon Bloom, designed to freak her out and make her think that her mother was dead. Somehow, he’d got hold of Letitia’s phone. People got mugged all the time, didn’t they? She reminded herself that the emails from her father were crap, sent as a wind-up by one of Bloom’s lackeys, no doubt. She hadn’t genuinely heard from her father in over twenty years. Mommie Dearest, Letitia, had seen to that. Why would he start contacting her now?! This was the stance George preferred to take when she could feel herself being pulled into a downward spiral of nihilism and anxiety: Brush it under the carpet. Hope for the best.
Good. Let’s crack on, you paranoid arsehole.
Clicking her emails open, chiding herself for being so foolish and uptight, George scanned the new arrivals in her inbox. But in among the late essays from second-year undergrads and correspondence from her editor about the forthcoming book and some bullshit about having to reapply to the Peterhulme Trust for research funding, there was one unread email that made her curse out loud; an email that caused the coursing, hot blood in her veins to slow to an icy trickle – another missive, ostensibly from her estranged father.
From: Michael Carlos Izquierdo Moreno (Michael.Moreno@BritishEngineering.com)
Sent: 30 March
To: George_McKenzie@hotmail.com
Subject: I’ve still got my eye on you.
CHAPTER 1 (#ucbc4c378-7083-5af7-a8a9-0d3be94c7ada)
Amsterdam, an apartment in Bilderdijkkade, 25 April (#ucbc4c378-7083-5af7-a8a9-0d3be94c7ada)
The naked, dark-haired man dropped the tiniest amount of liquid into the drink using a syringe. He flung the syringe down onto the granite kitchen worktop. Treated him to a smile that was loaded with promise. Lips, a little on the thin side, perhaps. But his kindly eyes were long-lashed, at odds with his almost gaunt face and bull neck. Floris tracked the thick cords of sinew that flanked the man’s Adam’s apple down to his collarbone, beneath which the curve of his pectoral musculature began. He had the ripped torso of a body builder. This dark-haired stranger was everything he desired at that moment, all right. Floris anticipated how he would feel inside him. Tried to remember where he had put his lube and condoms.
He took a deep breath. Was he ready for this?
He peered down at his almost painfully erect penis. Half an hour since he had taken the Viagra and he was good to go. Yes, he was ready.
The man winked. Pushed the drink into his hand.
‘Go on, then. Get a little Gina down you,’ he said, caressing Floris’ navel hair. Starting to kiss his neck.
Floris stared into the bubbles of the now-narcotic lemonade, fizzing upwards to greet him. Rising and popping. Rising and popping. Like the men at this party. G wasn’t normally his drug. Sex parties weren’t normally his thing. It had been Robert’s idea. Robert, who had earlier been full of assurances that he’d have his back. Now, Robert was elbow-deep inside some big blond bear, off his face on mephedrone.
‘I’m not sure,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve already taken a couple of things.’ He closed his eyes to savour this stranger’s touch. Nagging doubt started to creep in. Should he have stayed at the club? Familiar turf. Familiar faces. Familiar routine. He could stick to his boundaries there. Now, he was in uncharted territory, wondering if he should drink from this possibly poisoned chalice.
‘Go on. Everyone else has had some. It makes you horny as hell. And more relaxed.’ The stranger pointed to his own sizeable engorged cock. ‘You’ll need it.’
Floris batted away encroaching thoughts of the end-of-term marking that was sitting on his kitchen table in his apartment. Pushed aside the stress that came with disgruntled parents who couldn’t quite believe their perfect progenies could perform so badly in their tests. Nearly the holidays. Fuck them.
‘Drink!’ the other man said. Insistent. Excited. ‘I want you.’
What the hell was his name? Hell, it didn’t matter anyway. Abs. That’s what he would call him, on account of the six-pack. Abs.
Floris drained the glass. Started to reciprocate the man’s sexual advances, feeling suddenly bolder and wanton, though he knew it would take longer than that for the G to kick in. On the worktop were four lines of mephedrone. His new mate broke off to snort two. Gasped and grinned. Indicated that he should follow suit.
‘Why not?’
Not the first time for Floris. Not with miaow miaow. That, at least, was his regular weekend treat. Now he was in the mood to party. He glanced over to the living area – a sickly feast for the senses. At least twenty men, maybe more, caught up in a writhing tangle of tanned, toned bodies in that slick, studio apartment in Amsterdam’s Oud West district. Their lascivious grunting and shouted instructions still audible above the thump, thump, thump of the sound system. The smell of aftershave, sex, poppers and lube on the air. Punctuated by laughter of those who were taking a break and having a smoke on the balcony.
‘Come on,’ Abs said, taking him by the hand and leading him towards the naked throng of tumescent revellers.
Abs was less skilled with his hands and mouth than anticipated, but Floris didn’t care. He had promised himself he would be more daring. Had promised Robert he would try harder to be more sexually adventurous to keep their relationship fresh. And this was as good as it got, wasn’t it? Being screwed roughly by a hot guy whose name he couldn’t remember. Cheek by jowl with other rutting casual lovers. All of them utterly uninhibited, like something out of a gay porno flick.
Except Floris was starting to feel sleepy. And sick.
He tried to make eye contact with Robert, who was blowing his blond bear with clear enthusiasm.
‘Rob,’ he began. ‘I don’t feel good.’
Except the words hadn’t come out properly. And he was struggling to catch his breath.
What was Abs doing?
Floris tried to look behind him at Abs. Make eye contact. Tell him that he was feeling weird. Tell him that he was no longer enjoying this. Was Abs even wearing a condom? Floris couldn’t remember. He hadn’t even asked if the man was taking PrEP or what his HIV status was. Shit. That was no good. The last thing he wanted was an unsafe encounter. He needed to extricate himself from the situation, fast. Get out of that apartment. Get some air.
But his clarity of thought was slipping away. Breath coming short, he found himself gasping for air, as if oxygen was suddenly in scant supply. His heart pounded uncomfortably in his chest; so hard that it blended with the rhythm of the thudding dance music that played on the stereo and the unforgiving rhythm of Abs as he took him roughly and remorselessly. Only dimly aware of what was happening to him, in a still-lucid corner of his mind he at least realised he had been given a dodgy dose of drugs. Was he going to be sick? The wave of nausea was suddenly intense and unbearable. Was he vomiting or just dreaming it? Fear somehow managed to reach in amongst the dull-witted drowsiness and pulled out the single, unwelcome, sharp-edged incontrovertible truth that he, Floris Engels, might die that very night.
Then, everything went blank.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_beb7bf5e-888a-57d2-bd50-712d5bc98d0c)
Bilderdijkgracht, 27 April (#ulink_beb7bf5e-888a-57d2-bd50-712d5bc98d0c)
‘Pull him from the water,’ Van den Bergen said, standing beneath the golfing umbrella in a vain attempt to shield himself from the torrential spring rain. Shifting from one foot to another at the canal’s edge, he registered that his toes were sodden where the rainwater had started to breach the stitching in his shoes. Damn. His athlete’s foot would almost certainly flare up. George would be on his case. That much was certain.
‘He looks rough, boss,’ Elvis said at his side. Standing steadfastly just beyond the shelter of the umbrella. Water dripping off the end of his nose and coursing in rivulets from the hem of his leather jacket, the stubborn idiot.
Van den Bergen glanced down at the bloated body in the canal. Now that the frogmen had flipped him over, he could see that the white-grey skin of the man’s face was stretched tight; that his eyes had taken on a ghoulish milky appearance. There were no ligature marks around his neck, just visible as its distorted, waterlogged flesh strained against the ribbed collar of his T-shirt. No facial wounds. There had been no obvious blows to the back of the head, either. The only visible damage was to the man’s arm, which had been partially severed and now floated at an unlikely angle to his body. The torn flesh wafted in red fronds like some strange soft coral in the brown soup of the canal water.
‘It was a bargeman that found him, wasn’t it?’ Van den Bergen asked, picking his glasses up at the end of the chain that hung around his neck. Perching them on his triangular nose so that he could read the neat notes in his pad. ‘He was moving moorings round the corner from Bilderdijkgracht to Kostverlorenvaart, and the body emerged when he started his engine. Right?’
Elvis nodded. Rain, drip-dripping from the sorry, sodden curl of his quiff. ‘Yep. That’s what he said. He had pancakes at the Breakfast Café, nipped into Albert Heijn for milk and a loaf of bread—’
‘I don’t want to know the bargeman’s bloody shopping list, Elvis,’ Van den Bergen said, belching a little stomach acid silently into his mouth. ‘I’m trying to work out if our dead guy’s arm was severed in the water by accident by the blades on the barge’s engine or as part of some fucked-up, frenzied attack by a murderous lunatic with a blunt cheese slice and an attitude problem. I’ve had enough nutters to last me a lifetime.’
‘I know, boss.’ Elvis sneezed. Blew his nose loudly. Stepped back as the frogmen heaved the waterlogged corpse onto the cobbled edge of Bijlderkade. ‘This looks like it could just be some guy got drunk or stoned or both and stumbled in. Maybe he was taking a piss and got dizzy. Unlucky.’ He shrugged.
Still holding the golf umbrella over him, Van den Bergen hitched up his raincoat and crouched by the body. Watched the canal water pour from the dead man’s clothes back to its inky home. ‘No. I don’t buy it. We’re not that lucky. It’s the fourth floater in a month. All roughly in the same locale. We normally get ten in a year, maybe.’ He thumbed the iron filings stubble on his chin. Was poised to run his hand through the thick thatch of his hair, but realised Marianne de Koninck would not thank him if he contaminated her corpse with white hairs. ‘What do you make of this, Elvis?’ he asked, staring at the dead man’s distorted features. He stood, wincing as his hip cracked audibly.
But Elvis was speaking into his mobile phone. Almost shouting to make himself heard above the rain that bounced off the ground and pitted the canal water like darning needles being flung from heaven. Nodding. He peered over at the Chief Inspector. Covered the mouthpiece. ‘Forensics are three minutes away,’ he said. ‘Marianne’s with them.’
Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Good. I don’t believe in coincidence. Something’s going on in my city. I don’t like it one little bit and I’ve got a nasty feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg.’
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_638fda7a-45aa-5306-b1b4-e50061a9f746)
HMP Belmarsh, Thamesmead, Southeast London, 27 April (#ulink_638fda7a-45aa-5306-b1b4-e50061a9f746)
‘I’ve already told you at least five times, I don’t know where she is.’ Gordon Bloom’s perfectly enunciated speech sounded thick and sluggish with boredom. He rolled his functioning eye whilst the prosthetic remained unmoving in its socket. Straightening the sleeves on his crisp shirt, as though he were holding court from behind his desk in the City instead of from the other side of a scuffed table inside one of Belmarsh Prison’s interview rooms. ‘I’ve never met the woman in my life. I know nothing about your mother or an eyeball or your father or any of the slanderous nonsense I was convicted for.’
Studiously ignoring the photograph of Letitia that George had pushed in front of him – all sequins and cleavage, with a black marabou feather boa wrapped around her fat neck at Aunty Sharon’s fortieth – he examined his diamond-studded cufflinks instead. These were the adornments of criminal royalty, appropriately worn by a minor royal. The fact that they hadn’t been stolen by one of the other inmates told George exactly how ‘The Duke’ was regarded on the inside.
‘Anyway, I thought you were interviewing me as an academic study subject,’ he said. ‘Not grilling me yet again about your fucking mother, you tedious bitch.’ He prodded at the image disdainfully. ‘Why on earth would I have the first idea of the whereabouts of some low-life old has-been from the ghetto? I’m an innocent man!’
Sitting back in his chair, he flashed George with a disingenuous smile. She could see where the dental cement that plugged the hole in his incisor, once occupied by a diamond stud, had yellowed with neglect and too many cups of low-grade black tea.
‘They don’t let the hygienist in, I see,’ she said, leaning forward in her chair; pointing to his tooth; wanting him to see that she remained unruffled by his insult.
Bloom closed his mouth abruptly. Folded his arms. ‘I’m not saying another word to you. Uppity cunts like you, little Miss McKenzie, think a scroll of paper containing a qualification from a good university puts you on a par with the likes of me.’ He leaned forwards, scowling. The cosmetic enhancements and adjustments to his face, which had allowed him to remain unrecognisable for so long, covering up some of the damage George had inflicted on him with her well-placed punch from a makeshift knuckle-duster, were now beginning to show signs of deterioration. His prosthetic eye was sinister and staring. ‘Well, it doesn’t. And you aren’t.’ He turned his attention defiantly to her ample bosom, though her simple black polo neck was anything but revealing. ‘Your kind are only fit for one thing.’
Suppressing the urge to reach over and hit the arrogant, entitled prick yet again, George wrote the notes, ‘Poor self-esteem. Possible sexual dysfunction.’ on her pad, legible enough for her interviewee to read. She savoured the rancorous grimace on his face as he read it upside down.
Gordon Bloom turned around to the prison officer who stood sentry in the corner of the interview room. A mountain of a man, wearing a utility belt full of riot control knick-knacks that could stop even The Duke in his tracks.
‘Get her out of here!’ he yelled.
The prison officer looked quizzically at George, as though she had spoken and not his charge. ‘You finished already, Dr McKenzie?’ His voice was friendly. Polite.
‘No, Stan. I’ve still got a few questions, if you don’t mind,’ George said. She sat tall in her seat. Took out her new tortoiseshell glasses. Watched Bloom’s irritation out of the corner of her eye as she carefully, methodically, slowly polished the lenses with their special cloth and some lens cleaner. Perched them on the end of her nose. Folded the cloth neatly into perfect squares and placed it inside her case, which she snapped shut, making Bloom flinch. ‘Relax, bae. I is being well gentle with you, innit?’ Watched as her Southeast London street-speak visibly rankled with the toff. She shook out her curls dramatically with work-worn hands that were devoid of any adornment.
‘This is ridiculous.’ Bloom slapped the table top like a defiant toddler. ‘I don’t want to be here. My solicitor says I shouldn’t speak to you. We’re going to appeal, you know? And I’m going to get this absurd verdict overturned and reclaim my impeccable reputation as a pillar of the City of London’s business community.’
George could see from the glint in his good eye that he believed his own hype. She fanned her hand dismissively in front of her face. ‘Spare me the bravado, Lord Bloom. You wanted to be in my next book. You fancied the infamy. I could smell it on you – that desperation to fill the public with horrified awe. It’s everything you ever wanted, isn’t it? It’s all men like you ever want.’ She peered at him over the top of her glasses like an indulgent, knowing schoolmarm. Winked.
Bloom stood abruptly. Thumped his fists onto the table, making his cufflinks clink. ‘If that’s true, how come I kept my identity secret for decades, you presumptuous, ignorant whore? I’m not the attention-seeker you think I am, Miss McKenzie.’
‘Sit down, Lord Bloom,’ Stan the prison officer said, assuming the wide-legged stance of a man who was alert and ready for confrontation.
Feeling this was a wasted visit, revealing absolutely nothing new of any note, George capped her pen. The only thing she had managed to achieve during the last two sessions had been to antagonise the man who was almost certainly behind the disappearance of her mother and those infernal fucking emails. Beneath the table, she balled her fists. George, the woman, wanted to deck the mealy-mouthed upper-crust bastard. George, the professional, had learned to bite her tongue. How she needed a smoke.
‘Come on. Play the game. It’s Doctor McKenzie,’ she said. ‘And I think being in prison after being Mr Billionaire Hotshot at the top of the transnational trafficking heap has changed you. You’ve got to get the kicks where you can find them, now. What the hell do you have left apart from kudos among the inmates, who just want you to suck their cocks? The odd bit of media interest. Or me.’ She closed her eyes emphatically. Arranged her full lips into a perfect pout.
When she looked up, her study subject’s back was turned. Heading towards the door now with the prison officer at his side. She could see his upper body shaking in temper. Still the gentleman on the surface in his Jermyn Street City-wear, but the bloodthirsty criminal lurked just beneath the surface, she knew. Glancing over his shoulder, he shook his head damningly.
‘I hope your old sow of a mother is dead,’ he said. ‘I hope she’s mouldering at the bottom of a canal in Amsterdam, like I’m slowly decomposing in this dump when I should be a free man or, at least, enjoying an easy ride in an open prison in the Netherlands. All thanks to that bastard, Van den Bergen. Tell him to eat shit and die when you next see him, won’t you, dear?’
‘See you next week, Gordy, baby!’ George retorted merrily in reply. ‘Fuck you, wanker,’ she said under her breath, once she was alone.
On the outside, she pulled her e-cigarette out of her bag with a shaking hand. Dragged heavily on it. Sighed heavily and thumbed a text to Aunty Sharon.
Still no breakthrough re. Letitia. Do you want me to pick anything up on the way home?
The walk to the bus stop was bleak, as usual. Wind gusted across the giant Belmarsh complex, with its uniform beige brick buildings. George mused that they resembled oversized cheap motels or a 1980s commercial trading estate or perhaps a crap school – the kind where they’d invested money in a new building and nothing else, meaning it was permanently on special measures. The double-height fencing reminded her what sort of study subjects she worked with. Terrorists, murderers, violent people traffickers. Gordon Bloom. He was pretty much as bad as any other psychotic inmate the notorious Belmarsh had entertained. The only difference was, he was white, well educated and well heeled.
To her left, the modern buildings of the Woolwich Crown Court loomed, conjuring memories of a teenaged Ella, testifying against her former consorts in a closed court. George shuddered at the unwelcome flashbacks from her other life, now long gone: having to wear the ill-fitting track suits of the Victorian women’s prison up north, where Letitia had left her to rot on remand; huddled in her pissy cell, fearing what the future might hold for a grass; a teenaged girl, bravely taking the punches from the other banged-up women, as they vented their frustrations on one another at a justice system that so often failed them.
As she crossed the road and ventured along a cycle path into a copse of budding trees, bus-stop-bound, she wondered why on earth she was bothering to hunt down her mother at all. Maybe the old cow had just gone AWOL of her own accord. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time.
‘A year,’ George whispered to the wilds of Woolwich that shot by, as the bus bounced her towards the DLR station. ‘In fact, one year, one month and three days since you vanished. Where the hell are you, Letitia?’ Absently taking in the rise of flashy new developments close to the riverside on her right, heralding the march of the middle class on what was traditionally an area of Southeast London on the bones of its semi-maritime arse. The low-rent, low-rise shops to her left, offering fried chicken and cheap mobile phones to the poultry- and telecoms-addicted locals. She considered the eyeball – an eyeball she had presumed to be Letitia’s – which had been carefully gift-wrapped inside a fancy box, sitting on the table in Amsterdam’s Vinkeles restaurant. ‘The Israelites’ emanating from Letitia’s vibrating phone also contained within that box of delights. Now, whenever George heard Desmond Dekker, anguish tied her innards into knots.
Taking out her own phone, George thumbed out a text to Marie in Dutch. Imagined Van den Bergen’s IT expert, sitting in her own cabbagey fug in the spacious IT suite that Van den Bergen had persuaded his new boss to give over to her internet research activities. Everybody had had quite enough of sharing Marie’s eau-de-armpits.
Any news on eyeball-gate? Did some more googling today but still nothing on my dad.
Trudging up the road to her aunty’s place, George agonised yet again over the origins of this waking nightmare: the original out-of-the-blue email from her father, inviting her to lunch at Vinkeles, apparently as a reconciliatory gesture. His name had been used as a lure to get her to that restaurant, she felt certain.
Michael Carlos Izquierdo Moreno.
Four words that conjured in her mind’s eye vivid memories of a childhood fraught with parental drama. A handsome, clever Spanish man she could now barely remember. Daddy’s hairy, olive-skinned arms, swinging her high onto his shoulders. The smell of toasted tobacco and aftershave coming from his black hair and tanned neck. She had clung onto his head for dear life, thinking him so impossibly tall, though next to Van den Bergen he would in all likelihood have seemed diminutive. Speaking the Catalan Spanish to her of his native Tarragona.
Swallowing down a lump in her throat, she felt suddenly alone and vulnerable on that shabby street in Catford. Hastening past the grey-and-cream Victorian terraces towards the warmth and welcoming smells of Aunty Sharon’s, paranoia started to set in. The place started to feel like an artfully constructed movie set, concealing something far more sinister behind the brick façades than the mundane workings of people’s family lives. Uniform rows of houses closing in on her; stretching her route to safety indefinitely. Paranoia had been a familiar visitor in the course of the last year. She was sick of feeling that she was being watched by somebody, perhaps hiding behind some wheelie bins or overgrown hedging.
Glancing around, George sought out that long-haired old biker once again. A craggy face, partially hidden behind mirror shades, that had cropped up in her peripheral vision once too often when she had been food-shopping in Amsterdam or walking from Van den Bergen’s apartment to the tram stop. Hadn’t she seen him over here in the UK, too? Skulking on a platform in Lewisham when she had been waiting to catch the DLR. The sense that she was being followed now was overwhelming.
