He took the lift to the ground floor, pausing by the glass doors to make sure he’d sent everything that Carol Leven had given him. Files sent, answers sent, he checked the last tube times then walked the short distance to the station. He hesitated at the top of the escalator and messaged Howells’ girlfriend, introducing himself, apologizing for the direct contact and asking for a conversation in the morning. Then he walked swiftly down the escalator.
A fifty-minute journey, he spent the time getting his notes in order and drinking the whisky. Its battery running low, he stowed his laptop in his rucksack at King’s Cross, alighting twelve stops later at Cockfosters. The guards nodded their goodnights as he exited the ticket barrier, and Tommi was out. His walk home was a brisk ten minutes, past the BP garage and Trent Park cemetery. Aware of his computer bag and solitude, Tommi’s pace was brisk. The street was wide, well lit and, for nearly midnight, busy. Instinctively he walked close to the road.
Two cars at the garage, one driver filling up, one driver paying. Tommi made the briefest eye contact with the one by the pump before the man returned to checking the dials. Tommi considered buying some late-night chocolate but instead opted for haste and health. He marched on. On the other side of the road, heading south, an old camper van trundled past, windows down, the driver and his passenger singing loudly. A black cab then an Uber driver with a single passenger followed close behind. It wasn’t until they had all passed, and their engines had faded to nothing, that Tommi heard the footsteps.
A smiling man with ginger hair under a black cap was hurrying to catch him up. Twenty metres away. White, five six, stocky, khaki cargo shorts, red T-shirt.
‘Hey, wait up!’ he said, lengthening his stride.
Tommi hesitated.
‘Saw you back at the petrol station,’ said the man. ‘You don’t have a light, do you?’ He waved a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his hand.
Ten metres.
Tommi shook his head, resumed his walk, brisker now. ‘Don’t smoke!’ he shouted, too loudly.
‘Please,’ said the man, ‘maybe some money for matches?’ Accented English. Eastern European.
Five metres.
‘Fuck off!’ yelled Tommi, reaching for his phone. He was approaching a junction, a postbox marking a sharp right turn.
‘Please!’ said the man. ‘Fifty pence would help.’
Two metres.
Tommi started dialling. He only looked up as he completed the 999, and the knife stuck him in the ribs, pinning him to the postbox. He dropped his phone, the man caught it one-handed, cancelled the call, posted it in the slot. The two men stared at each other, Tommi’s wide, panicking eyes and his assailant’s sparkling, smiling ones. He made a feeble attempt at a struggle, a kick, a punch, but his life was already draining out on to the grass. The man covered Tommi’s mouth with his free hand, then pushed the knife till it hit metal. Gave it a quarter-turn. Tommi howled into the man’s palm, blood and spittle forcing their way through his fingers. The man checked his watch, glanced up the road. He smiled, then leant in close, as though he might be overheard.
‘We are waiting for the bus, you and me,’ he whispered.
Tommi spluttered more blood against the man’s hand.
‘Shush now,’ said the man. ‘Not long.’
With what remained of his senses, Tommi heard the night bus approaching. He felt the man pull the knife out, then balance himself. He was grabbed, held tightly in two arms, positioned. Tommi closed his eyes.
The last words he heard were ‘embrace the butcher’.
The night bus hit him at thirty-five miles an hour.
45
Wednesday, 13 June, 12.21 a.m.
FAMIE HAD RUNG Charlie every five minutes. From the flat, from Sam’s car, then finally from the concourse at Paddington station. Her words, somehow measured and calming, had had to be wrestled from somewhere beyond the seething panic threatening to overwhelm her. Charlie had said she was with a family of Germans who had bought her wine but they had got off at Swindon. Soon after that, her phone had gone dead.
‘She said her battery was low,’ Sam reasoned. ‘If it was low and she came without her charger, then of course it’s dead now.’
‘I know all this,’ said Famie. ‘You told me before. And I know it’s a big, well-lit train with plenty of passengers and crew. But I’m her mother, so all of that counts for jack shit.’ She looked at her watch. ‘How can it still be two minutes away? I thought you said it was on time?’
‘It is on time, Fames. Twelve twenty-three it’s due, and that’s two minutes away.’
They were arm in arm by the entrance to platform two, fending off the drunks, the beggars and the miscellaneous lost. Each approach caused Famie to grip Sam’s arm tighter. She looked at each one not as an unfortunate in need of charity but as an assailant with a hidden knife.
‘I swear my heart rate is running at a thousand beats a minute,’ she said. ‘And if that cleaner comes any closer with his trolley it’ll probably explode.’
The station was still busy even if most of the vendors had closed up for the night. A chemist, a fried-chicken shop and a coffee cart were all that was left of the traders of Paddington. Everyone else was running for last trains, tubes and buses, or waiting, like them, for the arrival of the eight forty-five from Exeter.
Famie scrutinized everyone within twenty metres. ‘Talk me through our closest company,’ she said to Sam.
He swung through a hundred and eighty degrees. A dozen or so people stood watching the departure and arrival boards.
‘OK, we have two students,’ he said, now back to back with Famie. She felt his shoulder bag press against her. He spoke slowly, analysing those closest to them. ‘Both male, both drunk. A middle-aged woman with grey hair, a stoner with a skateboard. Some Dutch or Scandinavians on holiday looking confused and an oldish couple maybe waiting for a child. Or grandchild. Then a man in a suit and a bored, bearded hipster. That’s it.’
‘Keep watching,’ she said. ‘It’s hard not to feel exposed here. Christ, this is scary. Did Tommi get home OK?’
‘Didn’t say. He sent all his results through but he’s not answering now. I’ve tried a few times, just ringing till the answerphone kicks in.’
‘Hmm,’ said Famie. ‘Let’s hope he’s in a beery haze and in his own bed. Passed out. Any new board-watchers to report?’
‘None. Same crowd. Any trains to report?’
‘None. And it’s twelve twenty-three. Fuck.’
Platforms two and three were empty. Their shared polished brown tiles and white pillars ran under the arched glass and metal roof between them and the west London night. The tannoy system echoed news of an imminent departure, accompanied by the rat-a-tat of slamming doors. Some drunken rugby fans sang and staggered down the escalator. Then Famie saw the lights.
‘It’s here! She’s here!’
She was about to take off down the platform but Sam’s hand pulled her back.
‘Wait. What carriage did she say?’
‘Coach J. If she stayed put.’
‘Can be at the front. Worth waiting.’
Famie, agitated, pulled away from Sam. She ran forward a few metres, through an open barrier, till she was alongside the incoming engine. The driver and the train’s enormous logo slipped past. She stepped back to widen her field of vision and saw a J on the first carriage, then a face against the first door’s window. It was Charlie.