I push a newspaper cutting beneath the glass barrier. There’s a piece of hardened chewing gum squashed into the corner, where the counter meets the wall, and someone has coloured it in with blue biro. ‘This is a report in today’s London Gazette about a murder in Muswell Hill.’
He scans the opening paragraph, his lips moving slightly around the unspoken words. A radio crackles on the desk beside him. The details in the Gazette are scant. Tania Beckett was a teaching assistant at a primary school on Holloway Road. She took the Northern line from Archway to Highgate at around 3.30 p.m., then the 43 bus to Cranley Gardens. I was going to meet her off the bus, her boyfriend is quoted as saying, but it was raining and she said to stay inside. I’d do anything to turn back the clock. There’s a photo of him with his arm around Tania, and I can’t help but wonder if we’re looking into the eyes of a killer. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Most murder victims know their attacker.
I slide the second cutting under the barrier. ‘And this is an advert from yesterday’s Gazette.’ White spots dance in front of my eyes, and I blink rapidly to clear them. I bring my fingers to my forehead and feel them still burning as I take them away.
The desk officer looks from one piece of paper to the other. He has the poker face of someone who’s seen it all before, and I wonder if he’s going to tell me I’m imagining the resemblance; that the dark-haired girl with the crucifix around her neck isn’t twenty-five-year-old Tania Beckett.
But he doesn’t tell me that. Instead he picks up the phone and presses zero; pauses and holds my gaze while he waits for the operator to pick up. Then, without taking his eyes off me, he says, ‘Could you put me though to DI Rampello please?’
I text Graham to say I’ve come down with something and won’t be coming back to work. I sip tepid water and wait for someone to come and speak to me, resting my head against the cool wall.
‘I’m sorry,’ the desk officer says after an hour. He introduces himself as Derek, but it feels too familiar to use. ‘I don’t know what’s keeping him.’
‘Him’ is Detective Inspector Nick Rampello, coming to Cannon Street from what Derek referred to as ‘MIT’, before apologising for his use of jargon. ‘The Murder Investigation Team. That’s the unit tasked with looking into this young lady’s death.’
I can’t stop shaking. I keep staring at the two pictures of Tania and wondering what happened between her appearing in the Gazette, and lying strangled in the park in Muswell Hill.
Wondering if it’s my turn next.
It was my photo in the Gazette last Friday. I knew it the second I saw it; I should never have let myself be convinced otherwise. If I’d have gone to the police straight away, maybe it would have made a difference.
There has to be a connection. Tania Beckett was killed twenty-four hours after her advert appeared; Cathy Tanning had her keys stolen forty-eight hours after hers. It’s been five days since I saw my own photo; how long before something happens to me?
A man comes in to present his driving documents.
‘Such a waste of time,’ he says loudly, as the desk officer methodically fills out a form. ‘Yours and mine.’ He glances at me, as if in hope of finding a sympathiser, but I don’t respond and neither does Derek. He looks at the man’s driving licence and notes down details with a slowness I suspect might be deliberate. I decide I rather like Derek. When he has finished, the man slots the licence into his wallet.
‘Thank you so much,’ he says, in a voice thick with sarcasm. ‘This is exactly how I like to spend my lunch break.’
He’s replaced by a woman with a screaming toddler looking for directions, then an elderly man who has lost his wallet. ‘I had it at Bank,’ he says, ‘when I came out of the Tube. But somewhere between there and the river it …’ he looks around as though it might materialise in the police station, ‘… vanished.’ I shut my eyes and wish I was here on such a mundane mission; that I could walk out with nothing more than mild irritation on my mind.
Derek takes the man’s details, along with a description of the wallet, and I force myself to take deep breaths. I wish DI Rampello would hurry up.
The wallet man leaves, and another hour goes by, and finally Derek picks up the phone. ‘Are you on your way? Only she’s been waiting since lunchtime.’ He glances at me, his face inscrutable. ‘Right. Sure. I’ll tell her.’
‘He’s not coming, is he?’ I feel too ill to be cross at the wasted time. What would I have done instead? I wouldn’t have got any work done.
‘It seems he’s been waylaid by some urgent enquiries. As you can imagine, the incident room is very busy. He asked me to pass on his apologies and said he’ll be in touch. I’ll give him your number.’ He narrows his eyes at me. ‘You don’t look well, love.’
‘I’ll be okay,’ I say, but it’s far from the truth. I tell myself I’m not scared, just ill, but my hands are trembling as I find my phone and scroll through the contacts.