A blast of wind and noise. The train appears. Doors open. I let the crowd carry me forward into the carriage. Bobby is in my peripheral vision. The doors close automatically and the train jerks forward and gathers speed. Everything smells of damp wool and stale sweat.
Bobby gets off the train at Warwick Avenue. It has grown dark. Black cabs swish past, the sound of their tires louder than their engines. The station is only a hundred yards from the Grand Union Canal and perhaps two miles from where Catherine’s body was found.
With fewer people around I have to drop farther back. Now he’s only a silhouette in front of me. I walk with my head down and collar turned up. As I pass a cement mixer on the footpath, I stumble sideways and put my shoe into a puddle. My balance is deserting me.
We follow Blomfield Road alongside the canal until Bobby crosses a footbridge at the end of Formosa Street. Spotlights pick out an Anglican church. The fine mist looks like falling glitter around the beams of light. Bobby sits on a park bench and looks at the church for a long time. I lean against the trunk of a tree, my feet growing numb with the cold.
What is he doing here? Maybe he lives nearby. Whoever killed Catherine knew the canal welclass="underline" not just from a street map or a casual visit. He was comfortable here. It was his territory. He knew where to leave her body so that she wouldn’t be found too quickly. He fitted in. Nobody recognized him as a stranger.
Bobby can’t have met Catherine in the hotel. If Ruiz has done his job he will have shown photographs to the staff and patrons. Bobby isn’t the sort of person you forget easily.
Catherine left the pub alone. Whoever she was supposed to meet had failed to show. She was staying with friends in Shepherd’s Bush. It was too far to walk. What did she do? Look for a taxi. Or perhaps she started walking to Westbourne Park Station. From there it is only three stops to Shepherd’s Bush. The walk would have taken her over the canal.
A London Transport depot is across the road. Buses are coming in and out all the time. Whoever she met must have been waiting for her on the bridge. I should have asked Ruiz which part of the canal they dredged to find Catherine’s diary and mobile phone.
Catherine was five foot six and 134 pounds. Chloroform takes a few minutes to act, but someone of Bobby’s size and strength would have had few problems subduing her. She would have fought back or cried out. She wasn’t the sort to meekly surrender.
But if I’m right and he knew her, he might not have needed the chloroform— not until Catherine realized the danger and tried to escape.
What happened next? It isn’t easy carrying a body. Perhaps he dragged her onto the towpath. No, he needed somewhere private. Somewhere he’d prepared in advance. A flat or a house? Neighbors can be nosy. There are dozens of derelict factories along the canal.
Did he risk using the towpath? The homeless sometimes sleep under the bridges or couples use them for romantic rendezvous.
The shadow of a narrow boat moves past me. The rumble of the motor is so low that the sound barely reaches me. The only light on the vessel is near the wheel. It casts a red glow on the face of the helmsman. I wonder. Traces of machine oil and diesel were found on Catherine’s buttocks and hair.
I peer around the tree. The park bench is empty. Damn! Where has he gone? There is a figure on the far side of the church, moving along the railings. I can’t be sure it’s him.
My mind sets off at a run, but my legs are left behind. I finish up doing a perfect limp fall. Nothing is broken. Only my pride hurts.
I stumble onward and reach the corner of the church where the iron railings take a ninety-degree turn. The figure is staying on the path but moving much more quickly. I doubt if I can keep up with him.
What is he doing? Has he seen me? Jogging slowly, I carry on, losing sight of him occasionally. Doubt gnaws at my resolve. What if he’s stopped up ahead? Perhaps he’s waiting for me. The six lanes of the Westway curve above me, supported by enormous concrete pillars. The glow of headlights is too high to help me.
Ahead I hear a splash and a muffled cry. Someone is in the canal. Arms are thrashing at the water. I start running. There is the faint outline of a figure beneath the bridge. The sides of the canal are higher there. The stone walls are black and slick.
I try to shrug off my overcoat. My right arm gets caught in the sleeve and I swing it around until it comes loose. “This way! Over here!” I call.
He doesn’t hear me. He can’t swim.
I kick off my shoes and leap. The cold slaps me so hard I swallow a mouthful of water. I cough it out through my mouth and nose. Three strokes. I’m with him. I slide my arm around him from behind and pull him backward, keeping his head above the surface. I talk to him gently, telling him to relax. We’ll find a place to get out. Wet clothes weigh him down.
I swim us away from the bridge. “You can touch the bottom here. Just hold on to the side.” I scramble up the stone wall and pull him up after me.
It isn’t Bobby. Some poor tramp, smelling of beer and vomit, lies at my feet, coughing and spluttering. I check his head, neck and limbs for any sign of trauma. His face is smeared with snot and tears.
“What happened?”
“Some sick fuck threw me in the canal! One minute I’m sleepin’ and the next I’m flying.” He’s resting on his knees, doubled over and swaying back and forth like an underwater plant. “I tell yer it ain’t safe no more. It’s like a fuckin’ jungle… Did he take me blanket? If he took me blanket you can throw me back in.”
His blanket is still under the bridge, piled on a makeshift bed of flattened cardboard boxes.
“What about me teeth?”
“I don’t know.”
He curses and scoops up his things, jealously clutching them to his chest. I suggest calling an ambulance and then the police, but he wants none of it. My whole body has started to tremble and I feel like I’m inhaling slivers of ice.
Retrieving my overcoat and shoes, I give him a soggy twenty-pound note and tell him to find somewhere to dry out. He’ll probably buy a bottle and be warm on the inside. My feet squelch in my shoes as I climb the stairs onto the bridge. The Grand Union Hotel is on the corner.
Almost as an afterthought, I lean over the side of the bridge and call out, “How often do you sleep here?”
His voice echoes from beneath the stone arch. “Only when the Ritz is full.”
“Have you ever seen a narrow boat moored under the bridge?”
“Nah. They moor farther along.”
“What about a few weeks ago?”
“I try not to remember things. I mind me own business.”
He has nothing to add. I have no authority to press him. Elisa lives close by. I contemplate knocking on her door but I’ve brought enough trouble to her doorstep already.
After twenty minutes I manage to hail a cab. The driver doesn’t want to take me because I’ll ruin the seats. I offer him an extra twenty quid. It’s only water. I’m sure he’s had worse.
Jock isn’t home. I am so tired I can barely get my shoes off before collapsing into the spare bed. In the early hours I hear his key in the lock. A woman laughs drunkenly and kicks off her shoes. She comments on all the gadgets.
“Just wait till you see what I keep in the bedroom,” says Jock, triggering more giggles.
I wonder if he has any earplugs.
It is still dark as I pack a sports bag and leave a note taped to the microwave. Outside, a street-sweeping machine is polishing the streets. There isn’t a hamburger wrapper in sight.
On the ride toward the city I keep looking through the rear window. I change cabs twice and visit two cash machines before catching a bus along Euston Road.