She strains forward a little further and it feels as if I have no choice. I take the money and push it into my own pocket.
‘Can we call the rest a gift?’ I say. ‘Not charity. I had a bit of luck and I wanted to share that luck with you.’
Vicky presses her lips together and takes a small step backwards. ‘Okay,’ she says. Somehow, in that one word, there’s a crack in her voice.
‘I have to go,’ I say.
She nods and whispers ‘thank you’, before stepping to the side.
Some of my momentum has been lost, but the fresh air of being outside reinvigorates my thoughts. I hurry along the back of Hamilton House and then loop around until I’m halfway along the road.
The man with the jacket that’s covered in sew-on badges is standing next to a postbox, partly in the shadows. His face is lit by the light from his phone, which at least means he’s not quite paying attention.
I move as quietly as I can along the street until I’m within a few metres of him. He hasn’t looked up from his phone and is busy typing out a message, when I grab his upper arm. He spins and reels back at the sight of me.
‘Don’t run,’ I say. ‘I’ll scream if you do, say that you attacked me.’
The street isn’t busy, but there are a handful of people going about their day. His gaze fizzes sideways as he weighs his options.
‘What do you want?’ I say. I’m trying to sound assured and in control, even though I feel anything but. I’m hoping the panic isn’t burned onto my face.
The man seems cornered. He glances across the street and there’s a moment I think he’s going to run. Instead, he pockets his phone and takes a breath.
‘I’ve got vital information,’ he says.
I can’t pick his accent, but it isn’t local.
‘Information about what?’ I reply.
‘About your husband?’
I stare at him and can see the realisation that he knows he’s made a mistake. ‘Not your husband,’ he says. ‘Ben Peterson.’
There’s something about hearing the name that always takes me by surprise. Like hearing the name of someone who was once at school a long time ago. Someone forgotten that never quite goes away.
‘You have vital information about Ben?’ I say, although the words don’t make sense.
The man nods. ‘His brother, too.’ There’s a falter and then: ‘Alex Peterson.’
‘What about them?’ I ask.
‘I think the government killed them.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
I’m not sure if there’s a correct response to this sort of statement. The best I manage is ‘Er… what?’
‘The government,’ he repeats, as if this explains everything.
There’s a low wall near the postbox and I suddenly need to sit. It’s been a long few days and this goes far beyond anything in my comfort zone. I rub the bridge of my nose.
‘I think you should probably go home,’ I say.
The man is pacing on the pavement in front of me but then stops to sit on the wall at my side. ‘Don’t you want to hear what I have to say?’
‘You’ve been hanging around outside my flat for two days now. You were at the memorial service and then the pub afterwards. That’s stalking. You should tell the police what you have to say.’
‘I have!’
I turn to look at him, focusing in on the ‘believe in reality’ badge that’s sewn onto his jacket. It’s hard to guess his age. There are acne pockmarks around his cheeks but much is covered by his gingery beard. It’s the lack of wrinkles around his eyes that give away his youth.
‘You spoke to the police?’ I say, disbelievingly.
‘More than once. They don’t want to know.’
There’s a huge part of me that also doesn’t want to know, but it feels like I’m too far into the hole to turn back.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘Steven.’
‘What do you want to say?’
‘The train crash was faked,’ he replies.
I struggle not to sigh at this. From the moment he mentioned the government, I feared this was what was coming.
‘How do you fake a train crash?’ I reply. ‘I saw the wreckage. Everyone did – it was all over the news. There was a helicopter beaming live footage. There were photographers on the ground.’
‘The crash was real,’ Steven replies, ‘it was the reasons that were faked.’
‘What reasons?’
‘They said it was an issue with the signalling; then the lights and the brakes – but our research shows there was a Russian spy on board. It was an undercover job to kill the spy and make everything else look like an accident. Everyone who died was collateral damage.’
I turn to stare at him, but he gazes back at me with such earnest certainty that I have to look away again.
‘It was an undercover job to make it look like an accident,’ he adds.
‘You believe the moon landings were faked, don’t you?’ I reply.
‘They were!’
‘And that 9/11 was staged. That the London bombings in 2005 were an MI6 plot.’
‘MI5,’ he corrects.
It’s hard not to sigh again. I rub my forehead, but Steven seems oblivious to my scepticism.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ I ask. ‘Twenty-five people died in the crash and I only knew two of them.’
Steven shrugs. ‘Alphabetical order. A for Alex, B for Ben. The police weren’t listening and nobody was visiting my website. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Leave it?’ I reply.
‘That’s what they want people to do.’
‘Of course they do.’
Steven doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm or exasperation.
‘How did you know where I live?’ I ask.
‘Google and the electoral roll. I’m going to talk to everyone eventually.’
He holds up his phone to illustrate the point and I resolve that, as soon as I’m done here, I’ll put my first post on the secret Facebook page to warn people. I didn’t realise people’s addresses could be found so easily simply because they’d registered to vote. That’s assuming he’s telling the truth.
I figure I might as well get the full story from him in order to pass it on.
‘You’re saying “they” deliberately staged a train crash in order to assassinate a Russian agent?’ I ask.
‘Exactly! They say the driver died in the crash, but our sources have him living in Venezuela. He was in on the whole thing.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ I ask.
‘The government, the MSM, the NWO. All of them.’
‘And why is the driver in Venezuela?’
‘We’ve not been able to get proof of that yet.’
I don’t ask about the ‘we’ to whom he’s referring, nor what MSM or NWO stand for. I could probably check the internet – but I’m guessing that’s where many of Steven’s theories have come from. I should probably leave. The number of cars and people passing has slowed to a minimum and we’re in the shadows. It’s not that I feel unsafe, more uneasy. I wish Billy was here, if only as comfort.
All of a sudden, Steven’s shoulders slump. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he says wearily.
‘No, I don’t.’
He wags his phone towards me, but it’s more comical than threatening. ‘Tell me this,’ he says. ‘Say the crash was perfectly normal. It was an “accident”’ – he makes bunny ears with his fingers – ‘where did you bury Ben Peterson’s body?’
‘You already know the answer, so why ask?’
He claps his hands together as if he’s caught me out. ‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘You didn’t bury him. And, why?’
I wait, not particularly wanting to engage but somehow needing to hear it.