‘Do you think we’ve got to the bottom of your problems?’
That bright smile is back. ‘I honestly do. I’ve had no more episodes since we started hypnotherapy. I’m sleeping well, I’m doing well at work, looking forward to the new job.’
He says nothing, waiting for her to fill the gap.
‘I’m cured,’ she says cheerily. ‘Well done.’
50
Felicity
Felicity breathes a sigh of relief when she leaves Joe’s office. It’s done, she’s made it through therapy. A few more days and she will be gone. Safe.
Her car is in the Grand Arcade car park but an order she placed last week at Heffers is waiting for collection and the detour won’t take long.
The bookshop is busy and she has to stand in a queue at the enquiry desk waiting her turn. She is almost at the front, one more person to go, when she gets a sense of someone standing too close behind her. She looks back, but the Japanese tourists to her rear are keeping a polite distance. As she returns their smiles, she hears a buzzing sound, low and insistent, below the hum of conversation in the shop. She is suddenly breathing heavily.
The noise she can hear is internalised, a humming in her ears, her own body telling her that something is wrong. The damn woman at the front of the queue cannot remember the title of the book she is looking for, nor its author. Her attempts to describe the plot, and the blue and yellow cover, are met with patience by the server but Felicity has to fight back the urge to yell at them both.
Heffers is a huge bookshop, over several floors, but the walls seem to be closing in. She is getting hotter, in spite of the air conditioning, and the rattle of voices around her is becoming ever more shrill. She is scanning faces, but no one will keep still, and there is a heat boring down onto the top of her head. She can feel herself fading, slipping back into herself, as though she might faint. She looks up and sees him.
Freddie is on the gallery that runs around the first floor. He leans on the rail and watches her. When their eyes meet, he does not move. He does not try to hide, but neither does he acknowledge her presence in any way. He is waiting to see what she will do.
There is only one thing she can do. Run.
51
Joe
When most of the pubs are calling last orders, Joe leaves his flat. He checks his mobile phone has a full battery and in his pockets he carries a high-pitched rape alarm and a can of mace. Ashamed of his cowardice, he knows that without a few safeguards he won’t get through the night. His rucksack is filled with sandwiches, cakes and tubs of fruit, all donated by the city’s sandwich bars, all slightly past their sell-by dates.
He tells himself that the sadness he has been feeling all evening is nothing more than an attack of the glums, a period when he feels down for no apparent reason. He tells himself that it is nothing to do with Felicity’s imminent departure and that it will pass.
He starts in the parks. There is a small collection of tents and awnings by the bowling green on Christ’s Pieces and he calls out a greeting as he approaches. They all know who he is. He stays a while with the dark-eyed mother and baby and the sixteen-year-old Scottish boy whom she seems to have adopted.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joe says, when the boy comments upon his absence over the last few weeks. ‘I had some personal problems I needed to sort out.’
‘It’s not about the stuff,’ the boy says, looking down at the sandwich wrappers. ‘It’s – you know – someone to talk to. Knowing someone gives a shit.’
In his absence, the street people have become angry. The failure of the police to find Bella’s killer has convinced them that no one cares what happens to the poor and the miserable.
‘You remember that hostel I mentioned in Peterborough?’ Joe says. ‘They’ve got a space for you. They can help you find work. Even go back to school if you want.’
The boy looks back at the woman and the sleeping child. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I’m needed here.’
Talking to the homeless usually makes Joe feel better about his own life. Tonight, every encounter seems to depress him more. Once he leaves the parks and hits the streets, he finds it harder to track down the people he’s looking for. Their number seems to have diminished. This should feel like progress but doesn’t. There is a nervousness in the city tonight, and even those people who know Joe shrink away at his coming, as though he too has become someone to fear.
In his pocket he has a pack of giant chocolate buttons for Dora, her favourite treat. She isn’t by the market. He knows that she sometimes sleeps on deck of an empty boat at Jesus Green Lock but there is no sign of her there tonight.
The vague sense of unease that has dogged his footsteps since he left home assumes a more solid form as he approaches the skatepark on Jesus Green. Taking seriously the possible sighting of Ezzy at Bella’s funeral, the police have been on the lookout ever since but there has been nothing further.
‘Have you seen Dora?’ he asks Kirk, the old soldier.
‘Who?’
‘Dora. In her sixties. Wears a green coat and a blue hat most days.’
‘Daft old bird, pulls a trolley around? I think she’s down by the pond.’
‘OK, I’ll try there. Thanks, Kirk, look after yourself.’
He is glad to leave the skatepark behind. Even in the darkness, the sound of skating seems to haunt the place and he can’t quite push away the thought of Ezzy, small and slight but phenomenally strong, hurtling towards him with a blade in her hand.
It’s a fair walk from Jesus Green to Silver Street pond, and he thinks he might call it a night soon, whether he finds Dora or not. He leaves Sidney Street to walk past Boots on Petty Cury, because she sometimes sleeps in the doorway, but she isn’t there tonight. From there, he passes through one of the quieter, older parts of the city centre. As he walks down Free School Lane, the buildings keep out what little light the moon and stars throw down, and there are no streetlights. He quickens his pace, knowing how quickly a skater would speed along the smooth road surface. Telling himself that it is Shane, not Ezzy, who broke into his flat doesn’t help. The dread of her follows him like an ink-black shadow.
And whilst Ezzy might be long gone, Shane haunts the city still. He has seen it in the faces of the homeless tonight. They are living in perpetual fear.
He is halfway along the narrow street now, the furthest point from potential escape and his heartbeat has been picking up for several minutes. The university buildings on his left are empty at night and the street is overlooked by dozens of small black windows, without blinds, curtains or shutters. He has no reason to believe himself in danger on this particular street, but the anxiety he has sensed tonight among the homeless is infecting him too.
Something falls at his feet. Small stones, or maybe a broken tile from a roof. He steps away from the building and looks up in time to see a shadow dart behind a chimney stack. He sets off again, faster this time. There cannot be anyone on the roof. People do not climb the roofs of Cambridge at night. The legendary night climbers are exactly that, legends. The university clamped down hard on the suicidal practice of scaling roofs and peaks at night and even the most idiotic of students doesn’t risk it any more. That thing behind the chimney stack, that is watching him even now – he can see the gleam of eyes when he glances back – is a cat, not a stalker.