‘Now it’s down to old-fashioned policing methods, I’m afraid.’ Andrew looked pleased with himself, and rightly so. Kelly and the DI were on firmer ground now. A coffee shop in a busy place like Leicester Square would have CCTV, maybe even conscientious members of staff who would remember a particular customer on a particular day. If they could pull some decent stills from the footage they could get national coverage for a case as serious as this one.
‘Sir!’ The call came from the other side of the room. ‘Response are on their way to Crystal Palace. We’ve had an activation on Zoe Walker’s alarm.’
Nick was already grabbing his jacket. He looked at Kelly. ‘Let’s go.’
28
‘You tripped me up!’ Isaac says, looking up at Megan. He puts a hand on the road to push himself up. The small crowd of people that had gathered to watch the excitement begins to separate.
‘Yes,’ she says. She stoops and begins picking up the scattered coins littering the road. I help her, if only to stop myself from staring at Isaac, who appears both mildly affronted and amused by what’s happened. ‘You were chasing her,’ Megan adds, with a shrug that suggests it was really the only course of action available to her.
‘I was catching up with her,’ Isaac says. ‘There’s a difference.’ He stands up.
‘Megan, this is my daughter’s …’ I trail off, not knowing what to call him. ‘We know each other,’ I finish.
‘Right.’
Megan doesn’t seem embarrassed. Perhaps, in her world, the fact that Isaac and I know each other means nothing. He could still have been chasing me.
He could still have been chasing me.
I brush the thought off as ridiculous before it can take hold. Of course he wasn’t chasing me.
I turn to him. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Last time I checked,’ he says, ‘it was a free country.’ He’s smiling as he says it, but nevertheless irritation seeps through me. I assume it registers on my face, because he decides to be serious. ‘I’m on my way to see Katie.’
‘Why were you running?’ I’m emboldened by the presence of Megan, who has stepped away but is watching my interrogation with interest, her guitar held loosely at her side.
‘Because you were running,’ he says. It’s so logical that I’m no longer sure how I feel. I hear the sound of police sirens in the distance. ‘I knew you were on edge about the adverts in the Gazette, and then Katie told me about the website. When I saw you running I thought someone had frightened you.’
‘Yes, you!’ My heart is still racing, and I feel the heady buzz of an adrenaline spike. The sirens grow louder. Isaac holds his hands skywards in an I can’t win gesture, annoying me further. Who is this man? The sirens are deafening; I look up Anerley Road and see a police car coming towards us, its lights flashing. The car pulls up ten metres in front of us; the siren is extinguished, mid-wail.
Will Isaac run? I wonder, and I realise I’m hoping he does. I want this to be it; the end of the adverts, the website, the fear. But he puts his hands in his pockets and looks at me, shaking his head as though I’ve done something utterly incomprehensible. He walks towards the officers.
‘This lady’s had a bit of a scare,’ he explains, and I’m so filled with rage I can’t speak. How dare he act as though he’s in charge? Dismiss what just happened as a bit of a scare?
‘Your name, sir?’ The policeman gets out a notebook, while his colleague – a woman – walks towards me.
‘He was chasing me,’ I tell her, and just saying it makes me think that it’s true. I start telling her about the adverts, but she already knows. ‘He began following me at Cannon Street, and when we got to Crystal Palace he started running after me.’ Had he run first, or had I? Does it matter? The policewoman takes notes, but seems uninterested in the detail.
A car pulls up behind the police car, and I recognise DI Rampello behind the wheel. PC Swift is with him, and I feel a surge of relief, knowing I won’t have to convince her about what just happened. DI Rampello speaks to the policewoman, who puts away her notebook and joins her colleague.
‘Are you okay?’ Kelly asks.
‘I’m fine. Except for Isaac scaring me witless.’
‘You know him?’
‘His name’s Isaac Gunn – he’s my daughter’s boyfriend. She’s in a play at the moment and he’s the director. He must have downloaded my commute from the website.’ I catch an exchange of glances between them, and know exactly what they’re going to say.
‘The website provides users with a means of following strangers,’ PC Swift says. ‘Why would someone you know need to use it?’
DI Rampello looks at his watch. ‘It’s not even midday. Your commute says you leave work at five thirty.’
‘My boss sent me home. That’s not a crime, is it?’
He is more patient than my tone deserves. ‘Of course not. But if Isaac Gunn had downloaded your commute and was using it to follow you, he wouldn’t have been successful today, would he? You’ve not stuck to the script.’
I’m silent. I think about the footsteps I heard at Cannon Street; the glimpse of an overcoat on the District line. Was it Isaac I saw then? Or someone else? Could I have imagined the feeling of being followed?