Verbatim

by Andrew Hill

  This has happened to Grant before; quite a few times during his childhood. Even in prison he’d been psychiatrically treated for it. When it happens you have no way of knowing that it isn’t for the first time. He searched his pockets for ID but nothing came to hand until he felt and found his driving licence. Grant looked eagerly at it and he discovered it to be the licence of one ‘Gerald Wilkinson’.

  “So that’s who I am.” Grant looked at the address, 74 Jubilee Crescent, London, W4… “and where the hell is that?”

  You will have noticed that his name is not Gerald Wilkinson which is an assumed name. Less obvious is that the address is also false. This is a fake driving licence, one of several that Grant owns. In his line of work false identities become useful. But this false ID is only going to mislead the criminal who is now his own victim.

  Hours had passed by and Grant finally reached Jubilee Crescent. He walked its full length only to discover that it finished at number 70.

  “So why does it say 74? It makes no sense.”

  Grant continued to wonder the streets in a manner that he had not done since his homeless days. At gone two in the morning Grant sat in a doorway observed without his knowing by a police constable in a squad car. The policeman looked on as time past and Grant remained seated looking rather suspicious:

  “Perhaps,” thought the policeman, “it’s time to have a word with him.”

  The policeman was about to open the door of his car and take a walk over the road when Grant suddenly stood and walked off positively. He hailed a taxi leaving the policeman stranded. He looked on as Grant was driven away with his memory now fully intact once more.

  * * *

  Fully recovered from her cold, Carol was now back at work and Grant was stationed in his usual place. At just before five in the afternoon the object of Grant’s attention left the courthouse with her husband and both walked towards the tube station. Grant followed wondering who the man was when the couple descended into the tube station together.

  If Carol had been returning home she would have walked past the station. Grant had to quicken his pace. By the time he reached the entrance the couple had already descended the escalator. Grant followed suit, from the top of the moving staircase he could see them stepping off at the bottom. But which way will they turn? He couldn’t say. There were too many people on the escalator to allow him, or anyone else, to walk down the left side. It seemed like an age but he finally reached the foot. He turned to the eastbound platform, why not it’s a fifty-fifty chance. But the platform was crowded and you know what that’s like on a busy weekday teatime on the London underground. He looked up and down but couldn’t see them. He turned and attempted to push through the crowd to the other platform; pushing and shoving against other commuters many of them displaying their disdain.

  “ ‘ere, who do you think you’re pushin’.”

  “Ignorant foreigner.”

  Grant ignored them and kept on shoving making it through as the train was pulling in. He looked along the platform in both directions and there they were, boarding. Grant also boarded, only just, as the train doors closed behind him. After edging his way up the car he saw Carol and Rob talking in the next carriage. What they could be talking about, wondered Grant.

  How useful a skill lip-reading would now have proved, maybe they’re talking about the novel, maybe they’re talking about what they’ll have for dinner, maybe… Grant noticed for the first time that Carol was wearing a wedding ring and an engagement ring.

  Was he her husband? What are they talking about?

  Rob: That’s the main problem with this line.

  Carol: Overcrowding you mean.

  There was a short pause while neither spoke but stared into each other’s eyes. From the other carriage Grant observes: “The way she’s looking at him he must be her husband else she married the wrong man. I wish I knew what they were talking about.”

  Rob: What’s for dinner?

  Carol: Let’s call in the chip shop.

  Robert: Okay.

  They continue to chat about mundane everyday matters with Grant in the next carriage imagining what it might be.

  Rob: To think next week your novel is being published.

  Carol: It’ll be a life changer.

  Rob: What poor sod did you steal it from?

  Carol: Some idiot who works behind the bar at my old local.

  Rob: What happens when he finds out?

  Carol: He won’t.

  An uncomfortable twenty-five minute tube journey for Rob and Carol finally saw them home. Grant, in the next car, hardly noticed the length or the discomfort so intense was his attention to Carol. The couple made their way off the train with Grant following at a quicker pace to maintain close quarters, a little too close maybe but he could not afford to lose them in the crowd. Lifts not escalators confront the traveller at this old deep-level station which always annoyed Carol a little; it felt to her as though she was changing trains from a horizontal one to a vertical one, added to which the lifts were always crowded which made her feel a little claustrophobic. The lift doors closed behind them and to Grant’s annoyance just in front of him.

  “Damn,” was Grant’s reaction. He looked around for the emergency stairs and belted off towards them, with nearly four hundred steps not many people try their luck but Grant ran up three at a time and wished he’d kept up the physical exercise he’d been more keen on in his youth.

  At the top the lift doors opened and the crowds poured out through the entrance hall into the street, among them Rob and Carol. Quick though Grant was when he arrived at the top his dual target was already in the street. Grant pushed his way through into the open, first looking left – nothing, then right and sure enough there they both were.

  He followed at a discreet distance but quickened his pace and was soon almost close enough to hear what they were saying.

  They stopped. “What are they doing?” ran through Grant’s mind. By now the crowd had thinned and Grant thought it best to walk straight on past them. But before he could reach them Rob and Carol had gone into the chip shop for cod and chips twice.

  Grant carried on past the shop for about a hundred yards or so, turned and saw Rob and Carol leaving with their dinner wrapped. Grant crossed the road and started ambling slowly to let them overtake looking back every now and then to check they were still there. They were walking briskly presumably so their food wouldn’t get cold.

  It only took a few minutes for the couple to go past Grant and soon reached a small tower block, a dull affair from the architectural dark ages known as the seventies. Rob pushed the button to enter through the communal front door while Grant crossed the road, carefully observing them, and could clearly see which button Rob had pressed. Grant pushed the same button, the door unlocked and Grant pushed it open. The unsuspecting couple didn’t use the lift, this much our follower knew because he saw them start up the stairs while he was crossing the road. Grant took to the stairs behind them. There was no talking to be heard but their footsteps guided Grant upwards to the third floor where Rob and Carol’s flat stood. Grant heard the door being opened just as the footsteps ceased, he quickened his pace to make sure of reaching the third floor as the flat door was closing. There could be no doubt it was Rob he saw the back of and made a mental note of the flat number then left leaving the couple to their evening.

  5

  Grant had long abandoned any thoughts of becoming a writer, instead becoming obsessed with Carol who seemed to be happily married while he was now a professional burglar and ex-con. In Grant’s mind it was she who was the culprit. Grant had utterly convinced himself of this even though his evidence was very thin and purely circumstantial.

  Morning, noon and night Grant would follow his victim, positioning himself outside her flat at around seven in the morning and would often be standing close to her and Rob who usually went to wo
rk together. Even if they noticed him they’d think he was just one more commuter. Rob and Carol’s journey ended at Farringdon tube and this morning as they often did they went into a nice little café along a winding back street. It was not one of those franchise places but seemed to be run privately. On this occasion Grant did not follow them in though he often had in the past for a coffee but he didn’t always, it might look suspicious. Now he knew their routine he could change his so it didn’t look as though he was following them. This covered Mondays to Fridays but Saturdays and Sundays were difficult. They might stay in the flat for hours.

  “Left flat at 7.15am.”

  “Man was with her.”

  “Arrived at tube station 7.35.”

  “Boarded trained at 7.39.”

  These were the entries Grant was now writing into a diary. Why did he keep such a record of her movements? For no reason a normal person would think of but Grant, by now, was no normal person, being completely obsessed with Carol. He could no longer help himself.

  You’re entitled to ask how long this can go on before Carol would notice; it surely couldn’t go on for very long. Usually, in stalking cases, the stalker is known to the woman being stalked, often they had been an ‘item’ in the past. Although Grant and Carol had met just the once, she didn’t recognise him from that brief encounter; he had changed much with quite long shoulder-length hair before but now it was very much shorter. Then there are his eyes, blue in nature but his contact lenses are tinted; it was brown eyes that gazed upon Carol. No spoken words passed between them so she wouldn’t link him by voice to the young would-be writer she once met in a café in Shaftsbury Avenue. All in all our stalker had a lot going for him but to what purpose? Stalkers usually do it as revenge upon a former partner or girlfriend. This was not so with Grant, he hardly knew her. If he didn’t make his stalking obvious then there was no point.

  Grant would arrive at the tower block every night and position himself to see the light in their lounge from the street below. He was just waiting his chance. The light went out and a few minutes later Rob and Carol appeared at the front door, leaving the block and walking off towards the tube station. Grant followed them all the way to the platform to be sure they weren’t coming back and then returned to the tower block.

  When last he tried to get through the front door it wasn’t locked; “let’s hope no thoughtful and sensible person has locked it,” he thought. Sure enough, Grant pushed on the door and it opened. “When will they learn?” Grant wondered. That part of the break-in was simple enough but what of the second part? Grant stood in front of Rob and Carol’s third-floor door. He knocked, this was just a precaution, you never knew if there was a third person in there all the time but if there was no response to the knock you’d be OK.

  While this was going on Rob and Carol were just leaving the tube station close to where they work in Islington.

  There’s a window above the door in Rob’s flat but it couldn’t be opened. Grant needed something to stand on and proceeded downstairs to look around outside and there found a crate waiting for him as if by design.

  Rob and Carol were just arriving at Sheila’s where she was holding her thirtieth birthday party for the fifth time!

  Grant placed the crate in front of the door and, using a brick, smashed the window culminating with a loud shatter. He leapt off the crate and nipped very energetically down one flight of stairs. There were three other front doors on the landing and, surprisingly, none of them opened to reveal a curious neighbour whose peaceful evening in front of the television had been spoiled. Grant returned to the landing and started to push the loose glass down into the flat.

  Rob and Carol were enjoying themselves with a group of friends who work at the magistrates’ court.

  Grant had found his way into Rob and Carol’s flat, he opened the front door from the inside and dragged the crate through into the hall so as not to draw attention to it. After switching on the lights he proceeded to look around searching for money lying around in pockets or drawers. Breaking into a flat in this manner seems a danger as anyone could have come out of one of the other flats and challenged him but Grant was a fit and quite powerful man. He wasn’t armed but if challenged he could easily knock someone to partial consciousness and run off, if that’s what it came to it wouldn’t be the first time. But nothing happened and the only clue something was amiss was the broken window above the door. Grant made a thorough search and found only a few pounds, that was no concern to him; he wasn’t burgling the flat for money or valuables but to spite Carol who, while all this was going on, was enjoying herself.

  Rob, Carol and the others had made the move to the Anchor and Crown where Grant used to work. Halfway through the evening Carol realised this was that bar where the pleasant young man had worked but she gave it no significance, “It’ll be his night off or he’s left,” thought the young novelist, the truth, of course, never occurred to her.

  The truth was that Grant had become obsessed with punishing Carol for something which, for all he really knew, she hadn’t done, that it never occurred to him to look into the old suitcase, with destination stickers on it he forced open, more carefully, instead of just having a quick ferret for any small item that could be of value, for in that suitcase was the envelope containing the very manuscript which would have proven his case. But who needs proof when you’re utterly convinced?

  Grant took one more look around and made his way to the front door. He left the flat as casually as he would leave his own. It would be another couple of hours before Rob and Carol leave the party and start on the reverse tube journey.

  Carol, in tears, was comforted by Rob.

  “It appears,” said a police officer, “that someone used this crate to reach up and smash the window to effect entry.”

  “Why would anyone want to break into a flat of this sort. We obviously aren’t wealthy. Surely there must be richer pickings?”

  The policeman was not forthcoming with an answer but told them they’ll check for fingerprints but almost certainly he wore gloves. ‘He’, the policeman was assuming the burglar was a man.

  The police were soon gone and the young couple were left alone to assess the damage and rebuild their home. A few pounds and a few objects of little value had been taken including a Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee mug which upset Carol more than anything else. The flat was soon back in order again.

  A day or so later and Carol was boarding the tube train at Angel this time with no Rob who had been working all day at a different courtroom. Do I need to tell you that she was not alone, quite apart from the fact that it was peak hour so naturally the tube was full. No seat was available either for her or the one following her. On this occasion the constant follower was close to her and almost touching her, so crowded was the train. He knew where she would get off. By the time the train reached her destination the crowd had thinned out a little. Carol was now sitting but Grant was still on his feet.

  This came about when a seat became vacant a few stations earlier; Grant was standing a little closer when Carol who was about to sit on the newly available seat but noticed Grant and unexpectedly spoke. “Do you want to sit there?”

  “No thank you,” replied Grant and he indicated for her to sit. She thanked him and duly sat down. There was no hint of recognition from her to Grant’s relief, he wasn’t yet ready to reveal himself.

  * * *

  Around a month passed with Grant taking no further action against Carol. The window above the door had been replaced with the addition of a couple of iron bars rendering it almost impossible to break in again by that means. The flat was three floors up so climbing the outside would be rather too much like mountaineering. Another way would have to be found.

  The burglary never really left Carol’s mind, I don’t mean it was always consciously there but every now and then she would become a little upset and hoped that over the years these
episodes would get fewer and fewer and have less and less of an impact.

  Something was about to happen though of a different nature. Fielding Novels were finally happy with her revisions and were going ahead with publication. However, there was one difficulty, Carol was a civil servant and the civil service isn’t keen on its staff engaging in other paid occupations. Especially given that Carol was now married to Rob because he was, to some degree, a special case after being vetted so as to allow him to handle top-secret evidence and be a court clerk in closed sessions when top-secret verbal testimony was being given. When Rob married Carol she had to be investigated although there was no problem then; she wasn’t a published novelist. Carol would be content to leave the civil service to pursue her writing but could see no reason why it should affect Rob. In the end her concerns were unfounded and the government said that the writing should not affect him and if she wants to carry on in the civil service she can, but any new novels would need to be considered and she’d have to notify them of any TV or radio interviews. Carol had the distinct impression they were not happy.

  Carol was still working for the Ministry of Justice or should I say the Lord Chancellor’s Department as it was then and still at her desk when her telephone rang. She answered it in her usual professional manner but there was no response from the other end. Carol replaced the receiver and thought no more of it. A few minutes later it rang again and the same thing happened but there was a difference. On the first occasion there was pure silence at the other end whereas this time there was clear traffic noise but no one replied. Down went the receiver once more. Carol made no association between the two calls and simply carried on with her work: a somewhat less interesting task of reading letters and faxes from litigants and the their legal representatives, attaching them to their files and seeking professional legal opinion if it was necessary. A third time the phone rang, once more it was professionally answered and once more there were traffic noises but on this occasion traffic noise wasn’t all she heard; there was the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing. Carol spoke into the phone: