She spotted a car parked a little way down the road and screwed up her eyes in an effort to see inside it.
It seemed to be empty.
She swallowed hard.
Could she be sure?
For interminable seconds she stood squinting at the stationary vehicle - then the moment passed and she remembered the urgency of her situation.
She hurried back into the kitchen and pulled open a drawer, scanning its contents.
She pulled out a long-bladed carving knife, hefting it before her, satisfied with its weight.
As she turned to go back into the sitting room she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the wall above the Formica-topped table.
She looked older than her twenty-three years. More sleepless nights than she cared to remember had left her looking pale and puffy-eyed. Dark circles nested beneath her eyes and her skin was the colour of uncooked pastry. Her shoulder-length brown hair needed combing, and she ineffectually ran a thin hand through it before returning to her task.
Shanine slid the knife into the side pocket of the bag.
It would be easy to reach should she need it.
She glanced at her watch.
Come on, hurry up. You’ve taken too long already.
She heard a shout from downstairs and crossed back to the window.
The two kids with the football were kicking it against the low fence surrounding the play area, banging it as hard as they could, shouting encouragement to each other.
The car was still parked.
Waiting?
Shanine finally zipped up the holdall and pulled it onto her shoulder.
She was about to open the door of the flat when she heard footsteps climbing the stairs outside, echoing on the concrete surface.
She sucked in an anxious breath, one hand sliding towards the knife.
The footsteps drew nearer.
They were almost on her landing now. She looked at the door expectantly, her hand now touching the hilt of the weapon.
Silence.
The footsteps stopped.
Shanine took a step nearer to the door, her heart thudding against her ribs.
She closed her eyes for a second, trying to still the mad beating, afraid that whoever was on the other side would be able to hear it.
The moment passed and she heard the footsteps heading up the narrow corridor, away from her door towards one of the other flats.
She waited a moment longer, then opened the door and peered out.
Two or three doors down there was an old woman carrying two bags of shopping, her face flushed with the effort. She looked disinterestedly at Shanine then pushed her key into the lock and stepped into her own flat.
Shanine stepped out onto the landing, locked her door and hurried down the concrete steps, avoiding a mound of dog excrement a few steps down. Graffiti had been sprayed on the walls in bright blue letters. She glanced at the words united are cunts as she scurried down to the next landing.
As she reached ground level she slowed her pace.
Don’t make it look as if you’re running.
The car was still parked further down the street.
Still motionless.
Still waiting?
Her attention was torn from it by a loud shout from one of the kids across the street. She looked at him blankly for a moment, aware that he was staring back at her, his gaze never wavering.
Shanine finally began walking, aware of the watchful eye of the boy, her back to the parked car.
If it was them they would know by now. They would have seen the holdall and they would know.
She quickened her pace.
There was a bus stop at the end of the road. She could catch a bus into the city centre from there. One should be due any minute.
She prayed it wouldn’t be late.
The last thing she wanted was to be standing around, in plain sight, for all to see.
For them to see.
She glanced behind again and saw that the car was still there. Ahead of her she heard the rumble of an engine and saw the bus pulling in.
She ran towards it, waiting as passengers clambered off, then she hauled herself up inside, fumbling in her jacket pocket for some change. She didn’t have much. About a pound in coins, less than ten pounds in the pocket of her worn jeans.
She got her ticket and retreated to the back of the bus, glancing anxiously around her as it pulled away, past the kids kicking the football, past the parked car.
The journey to the city centre should take about fifteen minutes.
She looked at her watch nervously.
As she sat on the back seat she hugged the holdall comfortingly, allowing one hand to rest on the part of the bag where the knife was.
As the bus rounded a corner, Shanine took one last look out of the back window.
The car was gone.
She felt her heart begin to thud more heavily in her chest.
Had it been them?
She looked at her watch again, as if repeatedly doing so was going to hasten the journey.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Time, it appeared, was running out faster than she had realised.
Clouds gathered more thickly in the sky.
Night was coming.
She wondered what was coming with it.
Three
A sickly sweet smell filled the air, which James Talbot recognised as burned flesh.
It was a smell not easily forgotten.
Six years earlier, when he’d been a Detective Sergeant, he’d attended a fire at a house in Bermondsey. Some old guy had fallen asleep and allowed his chip-pan to catch fire. The whole house had gone up in less than twenty minutes, and the old boy had been incinerated along with the contents.
Talbot remembered that smell.
Acrid, cloying. It caught in your nostrils and refused to leave.
The chip-pan fire had been an elaborate ruse to cover up a burglary. Two kids, no more than seventeen, had stolen what little there was of value in the house, then battered the old man unconscious and ignited the chip-pan to make it look like an accident.
Simple?
Except that they’d left fingerprints on the hammer they’d used to smash his skull.
Silly boys.
Both were doing a nine stretch in Wormwood Scrubs now.
It was that case which had secured Talbot’s promotion to the rank he now held.
The Detective Inspector walked slowly up the platform at Euston, which was clear but for a number of uniformed men: London Transport employees, police and ambulance men.
One of the Underground workers was standing on the track with two ambulance men and two constables, staring down at a blackened shape which looked more like a spent match than a man.
The train was gone. The line was closed. The power off.
Talbot could imagine the annoyance of other travellers delayed because of the incident.
Inconsiderate bastard. Throwing himself on the track. Didn’t he know people had homes to go to?
Talbot saw blood on the edge of the platform close to the tunnel exit. Large crimson splashes of it, congealing beneath the cold white lights of the station. There was more on the track itself. A large red slick had even spattered one of the advertising posters on the far side of the track.
The faces of a male and female model smiling out from a poster of Corsica looked as if they’d been smeared with red paint.
‘Discover the beauty’ screamed the shoutline.
A little further along, also lying on the track, was a briefcase, its contents scattered for several yards. Papers, typewritten sheets, pens. A Knickerbox bag.