It’s ironic that Eddy should be so cynical, as he is the one that never left. He is still a senior member of his college and we would turn up for Formal Halls together in their vast vaulted dining hall about three times a year. He was desperately angling to be elected a Fellow, though the disaster with Ara wasn’t likely to help his chances.
I spent an hour browsing through the bookshop, poring over covers full of blurb, hearing the books creak as I opened them, smelling fresh ink and cut paper. I forgot about my embarrassment with the store detective. It had been something and nothing, one of the momentary weirdnesses that life is full of.
When the staff at Heffers eventually threw me out at closing time, I had a bulky novel nestled in my bag and a small smile on my face. On the other side of the tiny cobbled street was Trinity College, dark but for the homely glow of the entrance. Porters moved within, sporting their trademark bowler hats, nodding acknowledgement at a lone student hurrying through the gateway into the inner quad. I looked up into the night sky. A few stars poked spikily out of the clear, sharp air. What a bizarre night. I felt disorientated, but it was not unpleasant. In fact, I actually felt carefree… as though a great weight had lifted from my shoulders. When I got back to the underground car park beneath the Grand Arcade I practically bounded down the steps.
My car was on the second sub level of the multi-storeyed edifice, and as I approached it I became dishearteningly aware that it had been a stupid place to park. The light was dim, the place was utterly deserted – the other shoppers had all gone home – and I was a long way from help or hope of it.
I gripped my car keys firmly and marched up to the Audi, attempting to look less intimidated than I felt. What a stupid, stupid, prizewinningly stupid place to park…
Then I was angry. Why couldn’t I park where I liked? I’d paid, hadn’t I? Was I expected to be under some kind of curfew after dusk, just because I was female?
I was at the car, and quickly opened it, after having a peep into the back seat. There was no one lurking in there. Once in the car, with the reassuring smell of upholstery and air freshener, I felt secure. I’d just have to remember to be more careful next time. I gunned the engine, its roaring alarmingly loud in the echoing concrete surroundings. Time to go home.
I glanced in the rear-view mirror.
The man from the department store was crossing the deserted concrete towards me. I craned around to stare at him.
He saw me looking and smiled at me, a big toothy grin, then waved a friendly hand, as though asking me to wait. His other hand was in his pocket, and his shadow, grotesquely elongated, was approaching the back of my car.
He wanted to tell me something.
I knew, with utter, iron certainty that I was in deadly danger.
I let out the handbrake and raked the gears into reverse. The tiny reflection of the man in my rear-view mirror started to run towards me, the smile dropping a few degrees. I squealed into reverse and he stepped back, mouthing something I didn’t hear but presumed was an obscenity.
Then I revved forward, shooting towards the exit ramp. In my mirror, I could see the man scurrying away, becoming smaller and smaller before vanishing down a stairwell, his coat trailing after him.
The whole incident had lasted perhaps three seconds.
I drew up to the road, my fingers trembling around the wheel. I checked my mirror again. The mirror reflected the car park, empty and harshly lit, framed in concrete. He was gone.
I swerved violently into the road and drove to the police station.
‘So what did they say?’ asked Lily.
The kids were in bed, and her mournful mother had retired upstairs with a low-voiced goodnight.
My hands shook around the mug of tea she’d made me.
‘They just asked me if I knew either of these men. I said no, and they said that unless they’d actually spoken to me, that was it. They said he sounded like a mugger.’
‘So it was definitely two different guys?’
‘Yep. I’d swear to it. This one was… more personable, if that makes any sense in the context of a weirdo that follows you into an underground car park. And I… I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think he was younger, too.’
Lily folded her arms and sighed furiously, making the little tendril of hair hanging down from the crown of her head blow upwards. I smiled weakly at her from the sofa and shrugged.
‘So you have to be raped or murdered before they can shift themselves to do anything?’
‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘in a nutshell.’ I leaned back into the soft cushions and closed my eyes.
She drummed her fingers on the armrest, regarding me thoughtfully, and as she did the rapid little tattoo she was beating out slowed, moved into something more speculative. ‘Fancy something stronger than tea?’
‘I’ve brought the car with me,’ I muttered dolefully.
‘That’s what taxis are for,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Red or white?’
She moved off into her kitchen and I rubbed my face with my hand. It was still trembling.
‘But here’s the thing, Margot,’ she called back from the kitchen. ‘Why would anyone follow you?’
I started, a little surprised. She knew all about the business with Bethan Avery, of course. ‘It must be something to do with the letters,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine why else I’d be so interesting.’
‘And you told the police this?’
‘Well, yes.’
She reappeared at the kitchen door with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which she was uncorking while she talked.
‘Margot, can I ask a question? Without you getting mad?’
Half of her mouth was screwed up in a tight little grimace.
I shrugged, or I might have shivered. ‘Sure.’
‘When was the last time you went to the doctor’s?’
I blinked. ‘About a fortnight ago. I don’t know. What’s that got to do with anything?’ But I saw, with horrible sureness, what she was getting at.
‘Don’t you think you should make another appointment?’
I licked my lips. No, I thought, I don’t.
‘I don’t see how it’s relevant,’ I said, trying to sound calm, measured and reasonable.
She nodded, as though a personal theory of hers was being proved.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘it’s not just me. There’s all sorts of… take Martin Forrester for instance, he doesn’t-’
‘I’m not being funny, Margot – really I’m not. It’s just that sometimes…’ She sighed, as though considering an unpleasant task. ‘Something can feel very right when you’re in it, and then…’ she trailed off, as though searching, ‘But it can turn out that the things driving your interest are not what you thought they were.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, a little coldly, even though I think I did. ‘There are other people who…’ I was about to add, ‘believe me’, but hearing the pining, apologetic slant in the words, I stopped myself.
She sighed.
‘But this Martin Forrester doesn’t know all about you, does he?’
You bitch, I thought, with something like wonder. This, I had not foreseen.
‘He doesn’t have to know about me,’ I said angrily. ‘This isn’t about me.’
‘I don’t know if you realize you’re doing it,’ said Lily, raising a silencing hand, ‘but the fact is that you keep doing the same thing. You start feeling better, feel better enough to stop the pills, and then once you do, things start to fall apart for you.’
‘They’re only sleeping pills…’
‘They’re not only sleeping pills. They’re anti-depressants. You were given them to help you sleep, true, and they’re a lower dose, but you’ve talked yourself into believing that they’re simply sleeping pills.’ She bit her lip. ‘You do this a lot, Margot. You minimize. You ignore the obvious and hope that sending your problems to Coventry will somehow make them evaporate.’