There were three little parks where I could take the dog. The one closest to my flat – St John’s Gardens – had originally been a cemetery but the dead bodies had all been removed (to Woking, which must have surprised them) and what remained was an irregular space penned in by iron railings with a patch of scrubby grass, flower beds, paths and benches. The local council had taken to locking it at night to keep the drug dealers out, but occasionally they forgot – and fortunately that was the case tonight. I slipped inside and let the dog off the lead, then stood there watching him sniff around. The ground was wet underfoot, but I could feel a hint of spring warmth in the air, carrying with it the distinct scent of marijuana. There were empty offices on three sides of me, the back of a terrace of houses on the fourth. The dog ignored me. I felt very alone.
I don’t know what spooked me first. It was the sound of footsteps, I think, coming up the narrow alley that led from Turnmill Street. There was nothing unusual about that. Other dog walkers used the park at night: I didn’t know their names, although I knew their dogs’. However, these footsteps sounded too heavy, too slow and deliberate. Work on Crossrail was continuing day and night at Farringdon Station, which was out of sight around the corner, and they must have left a single floodlight on. A shadow stretched up the road towards me. It led to a single figure that suddenly stopped, silhouetted against the light, very much like Max von Sydow in the poster of the 1973 film The Exorcist. It was a man, standing there, silent and unmoving. And there could be no mistaking it. He was looking at me in a way that made me feel vulnerable, exposed.
‘Lucky!’ I called out. This wasn’t an observation. It was the name of my dog.
The dog refused to come.
Despite everything that had happened, it had never once occurred to me that I might be in danger, that the smiling face of somebody I might have met even today could have been concealing the mind of a psychopathic killer and that they might have further designs on me. After all, one of them had walked round to a house in Little Venice and stabbed Harriet Throsby to death in her own hallway. That same person had tried to frame me. Suppose they now felt threatened? Suppose Hawthorne had said something during one of the interviews that had told them the game was up? They might not have any reason to kill me – but mad people don’t need a reason. If they’d killed Harriet because of something she wrote, might they not do the same to me? In my case it would be Mindgame. She hated it. I created it. Maybe we both needed to be punished.
All these thoughts swirled in a sort of vortex through my mind. I tried to persuade myself that I was being ridiculous, that I was just a few minutes from my home and perfectly safe. But suddenly I had no desire to be out here on my own. I called the dog again and this time he must have recognised the anxiety in my voice because he padded over and allowed me to attach the lead. The man still wasn’t moving. He looked enormous, slanting out of the pavement like some sort of golem.
‘Good dog!’ I muttered, cheerfully. I wanted the man to hear my voice; to let him know I wasn’t frightened.
We began to walk out of the northern end of the park, up towards the Goldsmiths’ Centre, one of the newer constructions in the area. At once, the man fell into step behind me. I heard his feet hitting the pavement and tried to quicken my own pace. Unfortunately, the dog wouldn’t have it. He’d been distracted by an overflowing bin and although I tugged at the leash, he refused to move.
The top floor of my flat was in sight, poking over the other buildings. If I shouted loud enough, Jill might even hear. But shouting for help is one of the things people in horror films don’t often do and it was the same for me now. I wasn’t certain that there was anything to worry about. My imagination could be playing tricks on me. There was no one around to hear me anyway, and if I shouted, it might actually encourage whoever this man was to launch his attack. I glanced round and saw that he was holding something low down, at waist height. It glinted in his hand. A knife?
I made a decision, leaned down and released the dog. Wasn’t he supposed to protect me? If he sensed the master was in danger, maybe he would turn round, bark and gnash his teeth.
The dog ran back to the bin.
Worse still, I’d got the timing wrong. By the time I stood up with the leash in my hand, I realised that the man had reached me. There he was, looming over me, his face a silhouette. I stared. Then he spoke my name and I recognised his voice.
‘Jordan!’ I muttered. ‘What a lovely surprise!’
I wasn’t sure what to say. Why was Jordan Williams here? Had he deliberately set out to frighten me? Why wasn’t he onstage? No. The play would have finished forty-five minutes ago – ample time to get changed and take the tube across to Farringdon. He wasn’t carrying a knife. Now that he was standing in front of me, I saw that it was a mobile phone in his hand.
‘Hello, Anthony.’
‘What are you doing here? I thought you lived in …’ I realised I had no idea where he lived.
‘I live in Hoxton. But sometimes I come home this way. When I need to clear my head.’
‘How did the play go tonight?’
‘It was good.’
‘Decent audience?’
‘We weren’t full. But they enjoyed it.’
We stood there, face to face, slightly ridiculous in the open air with the dog scavenging for pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
‘I was hoping to see you,’ he admitted. ‘I was going to stop at your flat if the lights were on, but as I came out of the station, I saw you crossing the road with your dog so I followed you here.’
‘Why?’ I realised I was sounding defensive, but even though I now knew who I was dealing with, Jordan still seemed quite menacing. This was, after all, the man who had threatened Harriet Throsby, who had hurt Sky Palmer and was, I’d been told, on the verge of leaving his wife. If it had been Tirian or Ewan surprising me in an ex-cemetery in the middle of the night, I would have been much more relaxed. They were more my size. ‘It’s quite late, Jordan. Maybe we could talk tomorrow.’
‘I happened to speak to Maureen Bates today,’ he said, ignoring this.
‘Oh really?’ I replied, cheerfully. ‘I was at her office this evening. She didn’t mention she’d seen you.’
‘We spoke on the phone. She told me that you might be writing a book.’
‘A book?’
‘About us. About Harriet Throsby.’
I wondered how Maureen had known this. I hadn’t told her. With everything that was going on, I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.
‘Apparently, you’ve already written a book about that detective you were with. She said that was why the two of you were together.’
‘Well, I haven’t made a decision yet. If you really want to know, Hawthorne and I are out of contract.’ It was stupid of me, but I couldn’t resist adding: ‘But I suppose it’s always possible.’
That started him off again. ‘You should have told me that before you came into my dressing room.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want to be in your book. Do you understand me? If you’d told me that was what you were thinking, I wouldn’t have spoken to you.’
‘Why not?’ I was genuinely puzzled. My only thought was that he had murdered Harriet and he didn’t want it made public. After all, it wouldn’t exactly help his career. ‘Are you afraid of something?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything!’ He hadn’t raised his voice but he was fighting for control. ‘You have not asked for my permission to use any aspects of my life and I’m not giving it to you. I don’t want my name in your book. I don’t want to be any part of it. And that’s the end of the matter.’