What I really wanted—what I should have stolen—was some kind of antiseptic. But I couldn’t face shoplifting a second time, and besides, the possibility of missing Hel was unthinkable. Instead, I unpeeled a dressing from its plastic backing, pressed it over the wound, and fished a clean top out of my rucksack. Then I waited.
The next few minutes ticked past very slowly indeed. Without even a borrowed phone, I had no way of knowing what time it was, but even so, from counting the seconds in my head and listening to people come and go, I was sure that I had been here for more than ten minutes. A lot more.
“Always out of bloody order!” I heard one girl say, apparently looking at my sign. “Fucking ridiculous.”
“It’s people putting baby wipes down the loo, innit,” her friend said. It sounded like they were applying makeup in the mirror; her voice had that slightly distorted sound of someone making a lipstick mouth. “Pipes aren’t meant for it.”
“Are you done? The film started at half past.”
“Oh, relax, there’s always loads of ads. It’s only—” There was a pause. “Only twenty to.”
“Yeah, but I like the trailers. And besides, I want to get a Coke.”
“Keep your knickers on,” the other girl grumbled, but I heard the click as she capped her lipstick. “There. Happy? Come on, then.”
I heard the sound of music as the cinema door swung open, muffled again as it closed behind them, and I suppressed a groan. Twenty to. What had happened? Had Hel realized she’d been followed? How long should I give it before I gave up and left? Another ten minutes? Another twenty?
The minutes continued to tick past, and I was just making up my mind to cut my losses and give up before the cleaners came and investigated the Out of Order sign when the shopping center door swung open, and I heard a familiar little piping voice.
“But Mummy, why can’t we have a Krispy Kreme?”
“Because I said so,” Hel snapped. She sounded worried, and close to the end of her tether. “And because they’re full of sugar, and you already had an after-school snack. Now, into the toilet, the pair of you.”
I cracked open the cubicle door and said, cautiously, “Hel?”
Hel swung round and her face flickered through a gamut of different emotions in the space of a few seconds—from fear, to shock, to utter relief.
“Jack! Oh for Christ’s sake.” She flung her arms around me, her voice muffled in my hair. “I thought I’d missed you. I’m sorry we took so long.”
“Oh God, Hel, no, don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be apologizing. Are you okay? Was everything all right, you know, getting here?”
Were you followed was what I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to say it in front of the kids. No point in making this situation sound scarier than it already was.
“So-so,” Hel said, making a rocking motion with her hand. “I’m pretty sure there was a plainclothes guy outside the house, but they peeled off when I went inside the school gates. We came via the playground, just to make sure. Quite hard for single blokes to hang around there unnoticed. But that’s what held us up; once we were there I couldn’t exactly get away without ten minutes on the swings. Thank God Kitty needed the loo.”
“Mummy,” I heard from inside the cubicle, “I’ve done a poo. Can you wipe my bum?”
Hel gave a sigh.
“Yes, okay, I’m coming. But you manage at school, Kitty, so I don’t know why you need my help at home. You’re a big girl now.”
“I can wipe my own bum,” Millie said virtuously from the stall next door. “I did it at break.”
“Jesus wept,” Hel muttered.
“Look, I should get out of here,” I said. “Did you bring everything?”
“Yes. It’s all in here.” Hel pulled a Tesco carrier bag out of her capacious Cath Kidston mum tote—the tote that usually held spare Tshirts for the girls, snacks, and school reading logs. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring more; I thought carrying a suitcase to school would raise alarm bells. But there’s clothes, a sleeping bag, hair bleach, a pay-as-you-go phone I got from Tesco, and two hundred and fifty pounds. I’m sorry I couldn’t get more money—I hit the daily withdrawal limit for my card.”
“Seriously, do not apologize.” I was rummaging through the bag, relief pulsing through me as I saw what Hel had managed to cram in. Underneath the sleeping bag was a navy sweatshirt and a gray beanie, and I pulled off my jacket and baseball cap and swapped them for the jumper and knitted hat. Carefully, I tucked the stray strands of red underneath the edges of the beanie, hoping I didn’t look too obviously like someone hiding their hair, and then stuffed everything else into the go bag.
With my face uncovered but my hair hidden, I looked sufficiently unlike the figure who had walked into the shopping center side of the loos that I thought I would pass muster on CCTV as a different person.
“Did you pay cash for the phone?” I asked as I slung my arms into the straps of the rucksack, wincing a little at the pain the action provoked.
“Yes, I paid cash. And for the SIM too; I got it from one of those dodgy shops on the high street and it’s prepaid up to a hundred pounds of credit. Listen, Jack—” She had taken hold of my hands, and now she looked down at the blood still grimed under my nails. “Wait, is that blood? Are you okay?”
“It’s nothing, honestly. Just a cut. You’re an absolute fucking legend, Hel.”
“Mummy, my bum is still pooey,” came from inside the cubicle, in the chidingly imperious tones that only a four-year-old could manage. “Are you ever going to stop talking?”
“I said I’m coming,” Hel growled.
“Go.” I put my arms around her again, hugging her more fiercely now, conscious of the fact that this might be the last time we saw each other for… well, I didn’t want to think about that, about what might happen if I didn’t manage to fix this. “Sort out Kitty. I love you, Hel.”
“I love you too.” Hel’s voice cracked.
“Mummy, I’m going to count to three,” I heard as I swung the door open, “and if you’re not wiping my bum by the time I finish, then I’m going to be very, very angry. One, two—”
I stepped out into the bustling shopping center.
I was surrounded by a hundred people—shoppers, staff security guards. And yet I had never felt more alone.
I left the shopping center through a different entrance from the one I had come in by, and then stood outside in the street, trying to work out what to do.
What could I do? The gravity of my situation, the enormity of what I’d done when I stood up and walked out of the police station, was only just starting to strike home, and if I thought about it too much, the weight of the realization threatened to crush me. I was a fugitive. I was on the run. It was almost impossible to believe.
I was, I suddenly realized, extremely tired. And I also had probably only limited time to get out of London. The police would likely still be searching my neighborhood, then fanning out towards Hel’s, hoping for me to pop up on their radar, making contact with a friend or going to familiar ground. But sooner or later they would figure out that I had made a break for it. And at that point the net would widen, and they might start contacting other forces.
I had to get out of London and go somewhere… unexpected. And then I could take some time to figure out my next move.
The problem was, where to go? Cities were expensive, and full of surveillance equipment and police. But remote communities were small and noticed strangers, particularly lone women popping up in the middle of winter.
Somewhere in between then.
But first, I had to change my hair.
Without it, I was just an ordinary woman, anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five, height and build on the slight side, dressed in nondescript clothing and with nothing unusual about her. With it, I was instantly recognizable. CCTV would pick me out in a moment, and there was a limit to where I could plausibly wear a hat or a hood.
I thought, briefly, of finding another public toilet—but the bleach would take a while to work. No, a cheap hotel would be better. Or, even better still, a backpackers’ hostel. There I would melt in among the other young people with their rucksacks and transient stays.
Pulling Hel’s burner phone out of my pocket, I opened it up and typed in backpacking hostel, London. There was one around the corner, and it took cash. Hoisting my bag over my shoulder, I began walking.
* * *
“HOUSE RULES ARE NO MUSIC in the dorms after ten p.m.,” said the bored girl on reception. She had a strong Australian accent. “Headphones are fine. No food or alcohol in the bedrooms—use the dining room for that. No smoking in the building—cigarettes or weed. It will set the fire alarms off and you will be chucked out, so just don’t do it, kay?”
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”
“Sure,” the girl said with a wave of her hand. “Of course you don’t. Top or bottom?”
“Sorry?”
“Top or bottom bunk?”
“Oh… I guess… top?”
The girl nodded and plonked a plastic card and a small locker key down on the counter.
“Key for the hostel,” she said, pointing to the card. “Also the key for your room. You’re in bed five.”
“And this?” I held up the locker key.
“Key to the luggage cage.” She glanced at my rucksack. “Maybe you won’t be needing that. One night, you said?”