‘Did you notice what sort of train it was?’
She shakes her head. The branch of the Northern Line the train would take through the centre of town was irrelevant while they were staying south; neither of them looked when they ran on to the platform and threw themselves in through the doors. ‘How did we not notice him?’ she asks, but she knows why. Hossein has never seen Malik in his life, and she, stupid woman, has been gazing at Hossein.
‘It doesn’t matter. We know now.’
The train pulls in and he pokes his head out through the open door. ‘Western branch,’ he says. ‘We’ll stay on and get off at Waterloo.’
They ride in silence, hold tight to the hanging straps. Collette stares down the carriage, her back rigid as she imagines Malik’s eye boring into her shoulders. She hates the readers. Hates them for their absorption, their open body postures, their bags sitting casually on the seat beside them to reserve the space until the carriage fills up. Hates them for the fact that when they get off the train the worst that can happen is a quick and easy mugging.
Hossein’s eyes have narrowed, the pupils so wide they look flat and lustreless. He doesn’t look afraid, she thinks impatiently. He looks as calm as if this were some awkward social encounter. They pull in to Clapham South, stand aside to let the trickle of passengers on. A couple of backpacks, a tricycle buggy, an art portfolio. She takes the opportunity to turn casually and glance at the door between the carriages. No sign of Malik. Of course not. He’s waiting on the platform edge, in case they make a run for it.
The doors close and they move off. The rhythms of the London underground: shrill beeps, a brief flicker of the lights as they pass out of the station, something incomprehensible on the tannoy. The new passengers fan out and settle themselves into the corner seats. Everyone likes a corner seat, where only one person can crowd in next to them.
Clapham Common. A narrow platform between two tracks, nerve-wracking when two trains come in at once. A rush of Hipsters: woollen beanie hats in the height of summer, scraggy stubble, iPads, iPods, iPhones, old document bags that used to hang off newspaper sellers, now sold for fifty pounds in retro clothing stores. Checked shirts, biker boots, cotton dresses over leggings. Strap-hangers, hoping to burn off calories by tensing their abs.
Clapham North. The racial mix begins to change. London likes to think of itself as integrated in a way that American cities are not, but you can still tell the district you’re passing beneath by the skin tones that get on the trains. Now the carriage is half-and-half black and white, everyone tensing themselves for when the atmosphere gets harder at Stockwell. Stockwell, Oval, Kennington, Elephant: they’ve never recovered from their reputation for steaming gangs in the eighties. Houses there long since passed into the millions, but still the people passing beneath edge their bags closer in to their bodies as they leave Clapham, and check that their wallets are in their inside pockets.
I could do with a steaming gang right now, she thinks. A big row of scary teenagers piling through the carriage, causing chaos, making a pitch for Malik’s Rolex and distracting him as he takes them down.
They don’t come. The train pauses at Kennington and the carriage fills with commuters who tipped off the last train as it headed up towards Bank. She looks at Hossein and sees that he has moved towards the door, ready for the off. She stays where she is. Doesn’t want to alert their pursuer that they’re ready to move.
‘Brown line,’ says Hossein, and she nods. North, into the centre of town, where the crowds are. Easier to lose someone in a crowd, to dodge behind a placard, slip into a doorway.
The train pulls in, and they force their way off through a great whaling press of people, out-of-towners in from the country with no comprehension of the etiquette of mass transport, trying to push their way on before those on board have got off, a problem at all the mainline stations. Her bag catches on someone’s walking stick and they curse her as she wrenches herself free, catches a momentary glimpse of Malik, a head’s height above the crowd, but agile and charismatic enough that they part before him. I used to enjoy that, she thinks. I used to like the way I could use him as a battering ram in the club. How stupid am I? Then she’s away from the snag and hurrying in Hossein’s wake.
The crowd goes all the way back into the tunnel. They jostle their way forward, Collette fighting to breathe against the rising panic. If I shouted fire, she thinks, half these people would die in the stampede. They reach the escalator hall, hurry across grey, pitted tiles to the Bakerloo. A train is coming in and they step up their pace, run down the platform to a vacant space and throw themselves through the doors just as they close.
Did he catch us? Did he see where we went? The carriage is rammed; the good people of Surrey heading up to Oxford Street for a bit of lunch and shopping. A French family sits in a neat row, legs crossed at the ankles, and stares at the rumpled scruffiness of their English cousins. Some Japanese throw broad, nodding smiles at everyone who brushes against them. Collette and Hossein are forced down the carriage as the doors open at Embankment and the Charing Cross brigade force themselves on board. They’re miles from the doors. They’ll be the last off at Oxford Circus.
She catches Hossein’s eye and he jerks his chin to his left. He’s with us, the look says. He’s still here. She tips forward beneath the arm of an American frat boy in an ironic Cambridge University T-shirt and verifies the truth. There he is, two doors up, one hand holding the metal bar above his head, a circle of space a foot wide all around him. She swears, inside. Go away, Malik. It’s been so long, now. Aren’t you tired of it? Don’t you wonder if it’s time that Tony let it go?
Oxford Circus, and the crowd bursts from the carriage like champagne from a shaken bottle. It swirls around them, a rushing flood of humanity, and carries them towards the exit tunnel whether they wanted to go or not. She feels Hossein’s hand slip into hers, gives it a squeeze before a man in a suit barges between them, bellows an excuse-me as though it’s a reproach. It’s slow. So bloody slow. He could be coming up behind me but I must not look she tells herself. The only advantage we’ve got is that he might not know that we know he’s there. She’s certain she can hear his heel segs scraping over the floor, knows it’s her imagination, but hears it anyway, drowning out a hundred other footfalls.
Tunnel, steps, tunnel, escalator. The stairs on the tube are just steep enough to snatch your breath, not steep enough to take you upwards fast enough. A scrum at the bottom of the escalator, people sighing, checking their watches, edging past each other in the hope of gaining a second’s advantage. Practising the London Air Stare that lets them push past strangers by pretending they don’t see them. She’s got in front of Hossein, steps on to the stairwell, knows from his familiar feel that he’s right behind. They tuck in to the right, let the hurriers march past. No point attracting attention by joining them, puffing themselves out now when they might need to run later. She can’t stop herself; looks below her.
He’s not there. Good God in heaven, he’s not there! She feels the tension leave her neck, a rush of painful heat as her muscles relax. Then another as they tighten up again when she spots him ten steps down on the parallel stairs.
Up to the top, Oyster cards out as they approach, a rush through the barriers. For a moment, she’s lost, confused, doesn’t know which of the hundred exits to head for, then Hossein touches her arm and they hurry, dodging their way round knots of tourists who’ve stopped to check their guide books, for the nearest. Run up the stairs and turn left towards the Circus.