When he was caught, and odds on he would be, he would tell them that and nothing else.
It all came down to chance.
They'd begun to spend their afternoons together. They walked every inch of Highgate Woods, ate picnics by the tree where they'd first met, and one day they held hands across a weathered, wooden table outside the cafeteria.
'Why can't I see you in the evenings?' Alan said.
She winced. 'This is nice, isn't it? Don't rush things.'
'I changed my shifts around so we could see each other during the day. So that we could spend time together.'
'I never asked you to.'
'There's things I want, Rachel…'
She leered. 'I bet there are.'
'Yes, that. Obviously that, but other things. I want to take you places and meet your friends. I want to come to where you live. I want you to come where I live…'
'It's complicated. I told you.'
'You never tell me anything.'
'I'm married, Alan.'
He drew his hand away from hers. He tried, and failed, to make light of it. 'Well, that explains a lot.'
'I suppose it changes everything, doesn't it?'
He looked at her as if she were mad. 'Just a bit.'
'I don't see why.'
'For fuck's sake, Rachel…'
'Tell me.'
'I don't… I wouldn't like it if I was the one married to you, put it that way.'
She looked at the table.
'Don't cry.'
'I'm not crying.'
Alan put a laugh into his voice. 'Besides, he might decide to beat me up.'
Then there were tears, and she told him the rest. The babies she didn't want and the bruises you couldn't see, and when it was over Alan reached for her hand and squeezed, and looked at her hard.
'If he touches you again, I'll fucking kill him.'
She appreciated the gesture but knew it was really no more than that, and she was sad at the hurt she saw in Alan's eyes when she laughed.
Afterwards, Rachel leaned down to pull the sheet back over them. A little shyness had returned, but it was not uncomfortable, or awkward.
'I would tell you how great that was,' she said. 'But I don't want you to get complacent.' She turned on her side to face him, and grinned.
'I was lucky to meet you,' he said. 'That day, looking for the ball.'
'Or unlucky…'
He shook his head, ran the back of his hand along her ribcage.
'Did you know that a smile can change the world?' she said. 'Do you know about that idea?'
'Sounds like one of those awful self-help things.'
'No, it's just a philosophy really, based around the randomness of everything. How every action has consequences, you know? How it's connected.' She closed her eyes. 'You smile at someone at the bus stop and maybe that person's mood changes. They're reminded of a friend they haven't spoken to in a long time and they decide to ring them. This third person, on the other side of the world, answers his mobile phone doing ninety miles an hour on the motorway. He's so thrilled to hear from his old friend that he loses concentration and ploughs into the car in front, killing a man who was on his way to plant a bomb that would have killed a thousand people…'
Alan puffed out his cheeks, let the air out slowly. 'What would have happened if I'd scowled at the bloke at the bus stop?'
Rachel opened her eyes. 'Something else would have happened.'
'Right, like I'd've got punched.'
She laughed, but Alan looked away, his mind quickly elsewhere. 'I want to talk to you later,' he said. 'I want to talk to you tonight.'
She sighed. 'I've told you, it's not possible.'
'After what you told me earlier, I want to call you. I want to know you're OK. There must be a way. I'll call at seven o'clock. Rachel? At exactly seven.'
She closed her eyes again, then, fifteen seconds later she nodded slowly.
It was a minute before Alan spoke again. 'Only trouble is, you smile at anyone at a bus stop in London, they think you're a nutter.'
This time they both laughed, then rolled together. Then fucked again.
When they'd got their breaths back they talked about all manner of stuff. Films and football and music.
Nothing that mattered.
Alan lay in bed after Rachel had left and thought about all the things that had been said and done that day. He wanted so much to do something to help her, to make her feel better, but for all his bravado, for all his heroic notions, the best that he could come up with was a present.
He knew straight away what he could give her, and where to find it.
It was in a shoebox at the back of a cupboard stuffed with bundles of letters, a bag of old tools and other odds and sods that he'd collected from his father's place after the old man had died.
Alan hadn't looked at the bracelet in a couple of years, had forgotten the weight of it. It was gold, or so he presumed, and heavy with charms. He remembered the feel of Rachel's body against his fingers – her shoulder-blades and hips – as he ran them around the smooth body of the tiger, the edges of the key, the rims of the tiny train wheels that turned…
After his father's death, Alan had spoken to his mother about the bracelet. He asked her if she knew where it had come from. The skin around her jaw had tightened as she'd said she hardly remembered it, then in the next breath that she wanted nothing to do with the bloody thing. Not considering where it had damned well come from.
Alan put two and two together and realized how stupid he'd been. He knew about his father's affairs and guessed that, years before, the bracelet had been a failed peace offering of some sort. It might even have been something that he'd originally bought for one of his mistresses. His father had been a forensic pathologist and Alan was amazed at how a man who exercised such professional skill could be so clumsy when it came to the rest of his life.
It wasn't surprising that his mother had reacted as she had, that she'd wanted no part of the charm bracelet. It had become tainted.
Alan was not superstitious. He sensed that Rachel would like it. He wouldn't give it to her as it was though. He would make it truly hers before he gave it.
He knew exactly what charm he wanted to add.
From Muswell Hill it was a five minute bus ride to Highgate tube. Rachel leaned back against the side of the shelter. Her hair was still wet from the shower she'd taken at Alan's flat.
She'd thought so often about how she might feel afterwards. It had been a vital part of the fantasy, not just with Alan but with other men she'd seen, but never spoken to. The sex had been easy to imagine of course. It had been gentler than she was used to and had lasted longer, but the mechanics were more or less the same. Where she'd been wrong was in imagining the feelings that would come when she'd actually done it. She'd been certain that she'd feel frightened, but she didn't. Fear was familiar to her, and its absence was unmistakable. Heady.
She waited a couple of minutes before giving up on the bus and making for the station on foot. Had there been anybody else at the bus stop, she might well have smiled at them.
Lee didn't think that he asked too much. Not after a long day talking mortgages to morons and assuring mousy newlyweds that damp was easily sorted. At the end of it, all he wanted was his dinner and some comfort.
He couldn't stand her so fucking cheerful.
Taking off his jacket and tie, opening a beer and asking just what she was so bloody chirpy about.
Had she been up to those fucking woods again?
Yes.
Who with?
Don't be silly, Lee.
Sucking off tramps in the bushes, I'll bet.
Then she'd laughed at him. No outrage like there should have been. No anger at his filthy suggestions, at the stupid suspicions that he'd only half tarted up as a joke.