‘I’ll cancel.’
‘You can’t cancel! I’ll be fine. I’ll ring you at Whitechapel before I take the Underground, and again as soon as I’m out. Please, don’t cancel.’
He doesn’t look convinced, and although I hate myself for doing it, I twist the knife a little. ‘You need this job. We need the money.’
The following morning we walk to the station together. I throw a coin in Megan’s guitar case then slip my hand into Simon’s. He insists on putting me on the Overground before taking his train to Clapham, and I watch him looking around us on the platform.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Them,’ he says grimly. ‘Men.’ There are men in dark suits all around us, like badly lined-up dominoes. None of them are looking at me, and I wonder if it’s because Simon’s here. Sure enough, once Simon has left me and I’m sitting on the Tube alone, I notice one of the suits sitting opposite me. He’s watching me. I catch his eye and he looks away, but seconds later he’s looking at me again.
‘Can I help you?’ I say loudly. The woman next to me shifts in her seat, gathering her skirt so it isn’t touching me any more. The man flushes red and looks down at his feet. Two girls at the end of the carriage giggle to each other. I’ve become one of those mad women on the Tube; the sort you go out of your way to avoid. The man gets off at the next stop and doesn’t look at me again.
At work it’s increasingly hard to concentrate. I start updating the Hallow & Reed website, but find myself listing the same property three times. At five Graham comes out of his office. He sits in the chair on the opposite side of my desk, where clients sit if they’re waiting for property details. Silently he hands me a printout of some particulars I typed out this morning.
These superior serviced offices offer meeting rooms, super-fast internet and a professionally staffed reception.
I stare at it, but don’t see the problem.
‘At £900 per calendar month?’
‘Bugger, I missed off a zero. Sorry.’ I start to log on, to correct my mistake, but Graham stops me.
‘It’s not the only mistake you’ve made today, Zoe. And yesterday was just as bad.’
‘It’s been a difficult month, I—’
‘As for the other evening, in the car – I’m sure I don’t have to tell that I found your reaction extremely irrational, not to mention insulting.’
I blush. ‘I misunderstood, that’s all. I woke up and it was dark and—’
‘Let’s not go there again.’ Graham looks almost as embarrassed as I feel. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t have you here when your mind’s not on the job.’
I look at him in dismay. He can’t fire me. Not now. Not with Simon out of work.
Graham doesn’t look me in the eye. ‘I think you should take some time off.’
‘I’m fine, honestly, I just—’
‘I’ll put it down as stress,’ he says. I wonder if I’ve misheard.
‘You’re not firing me?’
Graham stands up. ‘Should I?’
‘No, it’s just – thank you. I really appreciate it.’ He colours slightly but gives no other acknowledgement of my gratitude. It’s a side of Graham Hallow I’ve never seen before, and I suspect it’s as strange for him as it is for me. Sure enough, moments later business trumps sympathy and he retrieves a pile of receipts and invoices from his office, stuffing them into a carrier bag.
‘You can do this from home. The VAT needs listing separately; give me a call if it doesn’t make sense.’
I thank him again and get my things, putting on my coat and slinging my handbag over my chest before walking to the station. I feel lighter, knowing I have one thing, at least, less to worry about.
I’m turning left from Walbrook Street on to Cannon Street when I get the feeling.
A tingle down my spine; the feeling of being watched.
I turn around but the pavement is busy; there are people all around me. No one stands out. I wait at the crossing and resist the temptation to look behind me, even though the back of my neck burns under the gaze of imaginary eyes. We cross the road like sheep, tightly packed together, and as we reach the other side I can’t help but scan the group for a wolf.
No one is paying me any attention.
I’m imagining the feeling, just like this morning, with the man on the Overground. Just like I assumed the boy in the trainers was running after me, when the truth was, he probably didn’t even notice me. The website is pushing me over the edge.
I need to get a grip.
I walk briskly up the first flight of steps, my hand touching lightly on the metal handrail, keeping pace with the suits. Around me, people are finishing calls.
I’m just going into the station.
I might lose you in a minute.
I’ll call you when I’m ten minutes away.
I take out my mobile and text Simon. I’m on my way home. I’m fine. Up the second flight of steps and into the bowels of the station. Here, the sound of feet changes, bouncing between concrete surfaces. My senses feel acutely tuned; I can hear individual shoes as they walk behind me. A pair of heels, clicking ever louder as they overtake me. The soft pad of ballet pumps. The old-fashioned ring of steel on concrete; a set of Blakey’s segs fitted to a man’s shoes. He’ll be older than me, I think, distracting myself by imagining what he looks like. A hand-tailored suit; shoes made from a bespoke last. Grey hair. Expensive cufflinks. Not following me, just heading home, to his wife and their dog and their Cotswolds cottage.
The prickle on my neck is insistent. I take out my Oyster, but at the barriers I step to one side, standing against the wall by the Underground map. The barriers funnel the crowds of commuters to a walk, their feet marching virtually on the spot, as if they can’t bear to be standing still. Every now and then the flow is broken by someone who doesn’t know the rules; who doesn’t have their ticket in hand, and is rifling through their pockets or fishing in a bag. There are audible tuts from the waiting commuters, until the ticket is produced and the line can continue moving. No one pays me any attention. It’s in your head, I tell myself, repeating it in the hope that my body will believe what my head is telling it.
‘Sorry, could I just …?’
I move to let a woman with a small child look at the Underground map behind me. I have to get home. I tap my Oyster and push through the barrier, walking on autopilot towards the District line platform. I start walking towards the end of the platform, to where the doors to carriage one will open, then I think of PC Swift’s advice: Change where you sit. Don’t do what you always do. I turn sharply on my heels and walk back the way I came. As I do so, something moves rapidly on the edges of my vision. Not something: someone. Someone hiding? Someone who doesn’t want to be seen? I scour the faces of the people around me. I don’t recognise anyone, but something I’ve seen feels familiar. Could it be Luke Friedland? Luke Harris, I remember. Let out on bail but ignoring the order to stay away from me.
My breath is quickening and I exhale through rounded lips to slow it down. Even if it is Luke Harris, what can he do on a crowded platform? But nevertheless I take a step away from the edge of the platform as the train approaches.
There’s a free seat on carriage five but I decline an invitation to take it. I manoeuvre myself to the rear, where I can see down the full length of the carriage. There are several seats dotted about, but a dozen or so people standing, like me. There’s a man facing the opposite way. He’s wearing an overcoat and a hat, but my view is blocked and I can’t see him properly. The same sensation creeps over me; a sense of the familiar, yet with a prickle of unease. I take my house keys out of my bag. The fob is a wooden ‘Z’ that Justin made at school. I grasp it firmly in my fist and work the Yale key until it pokes between my fingers, before putting my hand – with its makeshift knuckle-duster – in my pocket.
At Whitechapel I don’t hang around. I wait by the door as the train slows to a halt, impatiently jabbing the release button long before it has l
it up. I run as though I might miss my connection, weaving between people who couldn’t care less as long as I don’t make them late too. I listen for the sound of running feet, but there are only mine, hitting the ground in time with each jagged breath.
I make the platform just as my Overground train pulls in, and I jump on with seconds to spare. My breathing slows. Only a handful of people are on this carriage, and nothing about them makes me feel uncomfortable. Two girls with armfuls of shopping; a man lugging a television in an old Ikea bag; a woman in her twenties, plugged in to her iPhone. By the time we reach Crystal Palace I release my grip on the key in my pocket, and the tense feeling in my chest begins to dissipate.
It reappears as my foot hits the platform, and this time there’s no mistaking it. Someone is watching me. Following me. As I walk towards the exit I know – I just know – that someone has stepped off the carriage next to mine, and is walking behind me. I don’t turn round. I can’t. I find the key in my pocket and twist it between my fingers. I walk faster, and then I abandon all pretence at nonchalance and I run as though my life depended on it. Because right now, I think that it might. My breath is shallow, each inhalation prompting a sharp pain in my chest. I hear footsteps behind me; they’re running too. Leather on concrete. Hard and fast.
I push between a couple about to say goodbye, leaving outraged cries in my wake. I can see the way out now; a darkening sky framed by the square of the Tube exit. I run faster and I wonder why no one is shouting – no one is doing anything – and I realise they don’t even know anything is wrong.
In front of me, I see Megan. She looks at me and her smile freezes on her face. I keep running, my head down and my arms pumping by my side. She stops playing. Says something to me, but I don’t hear it. I don’t stop. I just keep running, and as I do I tear open the flap of my handbag, shoving in my hand and stirring the contents in search of my police alarm. I curse myself for not keeping it in my pocket, or clipped to my clothing, as Kelly Swift suggested. I find it and press the two indentations on either side. If it’s worked, the alarm has already communicated with my phone, which is even now dialling 999.
There’s shouting behind me. A bang and a cry, and a commotion that makes me turn round, still poised to run if I have to. More confident, now that I know – I hope – police operators are listening; that the GPS on the device means a patrol car is already on its way.
What I see stops me dead in my tracks.
Megan is standing above a man in an overcoat and a hat. Her guitar case, normally beside her by the railings, is beneath him, its coins spewed out on to the tarmac.
‘You tripped me up deliberately!’ the man is saying, and I start to walk back towards the station.
‘Are you okay?’ Megan calls to me, but I can’t take my eyes off the man on the ground, who is now sitting up and dusting off his knees.
‘You,’ I say. ‘What on earth are you doing down there?’
There’s a certain demand for the older woman, it seems. They have just as many page views as the younger ones; their profiles are downloaded just as often. Like any business, it’s important to respond to trends; to ensure I’m offering the right products for my customers.
I quickly became obsessed with analytics; staring at figures on a screen to understand how many people have looked at the website, how many have clicked on a link, how many have gone on to download a profile. I consider the popularity of each woman on the site, and am ruthless about deleting any who attract no interest. Each one carries a cost, after all; it takes time to keep their profiles updated, to make sure their descriptions are accurate, that their route hasn’t changed. Time is money, they say, and my girls need to earn their place online.
Most do. There’s no accounting for tastes, and it is – after all – a seller’s market. They won’t find this particular brand of entertainment anywhere else, which means they can’t afford to be picky.
Good news for you, don’t you think? No need to feel left out. Young or old; fat or thin; blonde or brunette… there’ll be someone who wants you.
Who knows? There could be someone downloading your profile right now.
27
‘Right, chaps, listen in. This is a briefing for Operation FURNISS, on Tuesday 1 December.’
It was like Groundhog Day, Kelly thought. Every morning and every evening, the same group of people gathered in the same room. A lot of the team were looking tired, but Nick’s energy never wavered. It had been precisely two weeks since Tania Beckett’s body was found, and in that time he had been the first one in the office each morning; the last one to leave at night. Two weeks in which Operation FURNISS had gathered three murders, six sexual assaults, and more than a dozen reports of stalkings, attempted assaults and suspicious incidents, all relating to findtheone.com.
‘Those of you who worked on the Maidstone rape – well done. Tillman’s a nasty piece of work and your efforts have taken him off the streets.’ Nick looked for Kelly. ‘What’s the latest on his computer activity?’
‘Cyber Crime say he made no attempt to cover his tracks,’ Kelly said, looking at the notes she’d made from her earlier conversation with Andrew Robinson. ‘He downloaded the victim’s details and emailed them to himself; presumably so he could have them on his phone, which is where we found them.’
‘Has he bought any others?’
‘No. But he’s browsed a fair number. Cached files suggest he’s looked at the profiles of around fifteen women, but never purchased one before Kathryn Whitworth’s.’
‘Too expensive?’
‘I don’t think that’s an issue for him. He joined in September as a Silver member, paying with – get this – a company credit card.’
‘Nice.’
‘We found a welcome letter in his deleted files – exactly like the one we received when we set up a pseudonymous account, but with a different password. It seems the security settings for the website are changed periodically; like Harris told us, the phone number on the adverts is the code for the latest password.’
‘Which you were clever enough to figure out,’ Nick said.
‘Tillman’s lazy,’ Kelly said, thinking out loud. ‘He drives to work – he’d have to go out of his way to find most of the women listed on the site. I think he’s been lurking on the site; maybe even getting some sort of sexual kick out of it. When he saw Kathryn Whitworth’s profile was Maidstone-based, and he knew he was heading that way for a conference, he went for it.’
‘Put his index number through automatic number plate recognition. See if his car has been anywhere near Maidstone in the days leading up to the rape.’
Kelly wrote ANPR on her pad and underlined it, while Nick continued to brief the room.
‘During the analysis of Tillman’s computer, Cyber Crime found an encrypted section of his hard drive which contains one hundred and sixty-seven indecent images, the vast majority of which fall under Section 63 of the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Images Act. He’s not going anywhere in a hurry.’
Kelly had wanted to call Kathryn Whitworth herself to tell her they had charged Tillman with rape, and that he would be charged with the possession of indecent images. It was Lucinda who had stopped her.
‘Leave it to Kent’s Sexual Offences Investigation Team; they’re the ones who have a relationship with her.’
‘They don’t know anything about the case,’ Kelly had argued. ‘This way I can answer her questions. Reassure her.’
Lucinda had remained firm. ‘Kelly, stop trying to do everyone’s job. Kent SOIT will update the victim; you’ve got work to do here.’
Although the MIT detectives frequently made jokes at the expense of civvy staff, Lucinda’s skill and experience meant she was universally respected by the detectives who worked with her. Kelly was no exception. She had to trust that whoever updated Kathryn did so with compassion and understanding; there was a lengthy court process ahead of her and it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.
Nick was still briefing t
he others. ‘You may already be aware that yesterday Kelly and I brought in Luke Harris, another user of the website. Harris initially claimed Zoe Walker’s was the only profile he had downloaded, but he changed his tune in custody.’
Appalled to find himself arrested for attempted murder, Luke Harris had rolled over completely; handing over passwords for all his accounts, and admitting to having downloaded four other women listed on findtheone.com. In each case he’d employed the ‘white knight’ routine as an icebreaker, jostling each woman from the safety of a crowd, then stepping forward to make sure she was all right. The technique had brought him limited success; a grateful coffee and subsequent dinner date from one woman had swiftly petered out.
‘Harris maintained he had done nothing wrong,’ Nick told the team. ‘He claimed he never intended any harm to any of the women he followed, and that his aim throughout was simply to instigate a relationship.’
‘What’s wrong with using uniform dot com, like the rest of us?’ someone yelled. Nick waited for the laughter to die down.
‘Apparently dating sites “reek of desperation”,’ Nick said, repeating the words Harris had used. ‘Luke Harris prefers what he calls “the thrill of the chase”. I suspect he’ll find this option rather less thrilling from now on.’
Kelly’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, expecting to see Lexi’s name flash up, but it was Cathy Tanning. ‘A witness,’ she said to Nick, holding her phone up in explanation. ‘Excuse me.’ She accepted the call, walking out of the incident room towards her own desk.
‘Hi, Cathy, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, thank you. I was calling to let you know I’m not in Epping any more.’
‘You’ve moved? That was sudden.’
‘Not really. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting out of London for ages. Then this place came up, and it’s Romford, so not a million miles away. I couldn’t relax in the flat, even after I changed the locks.’
‘When do you move?’
I See You Page 25