by Toby Faber
Paul nodded his agreement.
Up in the mainline station, Laurie looked around until she spotted the sign for left luggage. She beckoned for Paul to follow, but he was busy looking at his mobile phone. When he looked back up at her, she could see what he was about to say from the set of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry. There’s a bit of a crisis at work. The swimming pool isn’t heating. They want me in there.’
‘Come here then,’ Laurie replied. She threw her arms around him and gave him a proper goodbye kiss, willing him to follow her lead, to recapture the memory of how they had spent the morning. Paul, however, kept his mouth tightly closed. Although he continued to hold her, he drew back his head and said with a smile, ‘I’ve really got to go. Let me know how you get on, and we can speak again this evening.’
Laurie let her arms flop to her side. Paul stepped backwards, leant in for one more small kiss, and turned on his heel. She watched him until he turned round and waved on his way out of the station. Even his back view was sexy. Laurie had heard about men ‘mentally undressing’ women, but now she realised she was doing it herself. Of course it helped if you’d already seen the person concerned naked. She went to the left luggage area.
Even before Laurie got there it was pretty clear that this wasn’t the place. There was a counter, a man standing behind it and behind him rows of metal racks, laden with suitcases and backpacks: not a locker in sight. ‘None here,’ the attendant replied to Laurie’s question. ‘Nor in any London station,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
Well, at least that last bit of knowledge saved Laurie a fruitless journey down the road to King’s Cross. What next? She tried showing the man the key, to see if he had any ideas.
‘Found it, have you?’ He grunted. ‘You should hand that in. The police are just down there.’ He gestured to his left.
Laurie thanked the man and walked in the direction he pointed but continued straight past the police office and the unsatisfactory memories it contained. After all the effort she and Paul put in to retrieving the key on their own, surrendering it to the police was the last thing she wanted to do. Safely out of the luggage attendant’s field of vision, she carried on out of the station through a side exit into a little parking area. Two London Northwestern employees and a policeman were standing there smoking, enjoying the easy camaraderie of a common vice. She couldn’t ask them about the key, clearly.
Laurie walked back round to the front of the station and pondered her options. Where did people have lockers these days? Schools? Gyms? She thought of Paul. That must be worth checking, at least.
He answered his mobile almost immediately. ‘Hi. That was quick. Any luck?’
‘No, and apparently no London station has lockers. I was wondering about gyms.’
‘Good idea,’ Paul encouraged. ‘Not ours, because we’ve moved on to combinations, but I’m pretty sure PureGym and Virgin are all still key-based. You could try them. Got to go. Bye.’
Hmm. How many gyms were there in London? At least she could rule out Paul’s employer – except, of course, that Laurie didn’t know where Paul worked. She called him back to find out, but this time the phone went straight through to voicemail. She didn’t feel like leaving a message.
Perhaps she could limit her search by locality? Laurie opened the internet browser on her phone and started looking. It didn’t take long to establish that there were half a dozen gyms within five minutes’ walk of Euston. She called the first one on the list.
She’d found a locker key in the street, which she thought might be one of theirs. Did their lockers still have keys? They did? Perhaps she could describe the key she’d found?
It took only one conversation for Laurie to realise she wasn’t likely to have much luck. At PureGym they did use keys in their lockers, but they were attached to wristbands so they could be worn while training; they didn’t have brass tags. The same was true at Virgin Active, TriYoga and Gymbox. Presumably Paul was so used to dealing with combination locks that he hadn’t thought through the implications of the alternative. She could tease him with it the next time they met.
Laurie might not have identified where the key came from, but she felt as if she had made progress. It wasn’t just that she had eliminated both stations and gyms as possible candidates. In itself that didn’t mean much. It was more that, instinctively, she felt she must be right to be looking for somewhere close to Euston. The man had the key in his hand as he stood on the Victoria line platform. He must have put something in the locker that morning and then walked to the Tube. If she wanted to find someone to recognise the key for her, then she could hardly do better than ask here, outside Euston station.
The people scurrying across Euston Square were no good. They were in a hurry, and conditioned by years of dealing with London beggars to avoid the eyes of approaching strangers. Laurie could sympathise; only a few months ago, while still new to London, she’d been scammed by a smartly dressed woman who’d ‘been pickpocketed’ and needed ‘ten pounds for her fare’. She had to find people who could be a captive audience, where she could at least get to the stage of starting a conversation.
The bus station was the place, but even here Laurie found it surprisingly hard to get anyone’s attention. She eventually succeeded with someone whom she could only think of as a little old lady: in her eighties, grasping an old-fashioned shopping trolley, on her way home from goodness knows what, and presumably glad of the chance of company.
‘Hello dear. What’s that? Found it did you say? In the street? Looks rather important, doesn’t it? Someone will be missing that. They’ll be grateful you’re taking all this trouble, I’m sure. No, no idea, I’m afraid. I should take it to the police if I were you. I did once. Found a five-pound note on the pavement. That was forty years ago, mind, when five pounds was worth having. Took it to the police. They said if no one had claimed it after six weeks I could have it back. And you know what? No one did. I went back six weeks later and asked and there it still was. Bought my Cyril a nice fillet steak for his dinner. Told him I’d found it in the street. You should have seen his face! Oh, here’s my bus, dear. I’d take it to the police if I were you.’
It was the man behind the little old lady who gave Laurie her breakthrough. Like the rest of the queue, he could hardly avoid overhearing their conversation and having his attention drawn to the key. Before he also got on the bus, he smiled at Laurie in a way that acknowledged their mutual amusement at what they had just heard, and said, ‘It could be from the British Library. They’ve got lockers in their basement with key fobs that look like that, and they’re only just up the road.’
The British Library? Laurie thought back to the man who had dropped it, to his grey linen suit and air of understated elegance. Could she imagine him as an intellectual, rooting around bookshelves? Why not? Not every brainbox looked like Dad. Anyway, she had nothing better to go on, and she was sick of being told to take the key to the police. Perhaps she would do that after all if the British Library came up blank. She could always just say she’d found the key on the Tube and leave it at that, though she’d speak to Paul first, of course.
Laurie had been vaguely conscious of passing the British Library on the rare occasions she took the bus back to Tufnell Park, but she had never felt any reason to enter it before. Libraries belonged to the life she’d led before Mum died. She would be out place there, she knew.
Nevertheless, no one challenged her as she went through the gateway that opened off the Euston Road. That was hardly surprising, she soon realised, because it simply led onto a red-brick plaza. People milled about, some just enjoying the sunshine, some admiring the huge sculpture of a man squatting over a geometrical instrument, some walking purposefully to the buildings in the far corner. Laurie followed them, trying to look as if she knew where she was going.
The glass doors that led off the plaza bore signs saying that bag searches were in operation for security reasons, but even here Laurie was able to walk straight through, arrivin
g in an atrium that, outwardly at least, was aimed at visitors as much as scholars: exhibition halls off to the left, a fabulous sculpture of a open book, large enough to act as a bench, immediately to the right and, straight ahead, escalators leading up to an enormous stack of books encased in glass. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a bad place to spend her unexpected day off after all. Playing the tourist could wait, however; Laurie’s business was downstairs.
It was easy to spot the way down, just to the right of a large information desk. Laurie took it and followed the signs to the locker area, glancing at a nondescript painting of some bookshelves as she did so. Then she stopped, disoriented by what she had just seen. As she walked, the bookshelves in the painting appeared to bend round and follow her progress. Despite the urgency of her mission, she had to take a closer look. Only when she was right by the picture could she could work out what was going on. It was painted in relief, rising to peaks that corresponded to the ends of the bookshelves in a way that played around with perspective. Laurie stepped back and stood still; once again she was looking at an apparently ordinary painting. It was the best optical illusion she had ever seen. She walked on to her destination, gently exhilarated by the way she had just been surprised.
There were a few other people in the locker room when Laurie arrived. All were busy by open doors, stuffing laptops and writing materials into clear plastic bags. Once again, Laurie got the feeling that she didn’t belong here, but the few tags that she could see hanging from the keys in unoccupied lockers certainly looked like the one she held in her hand, and she could see from the signs at the end of each aisle that the numbering ran up beyond 900. Laurie tried to look casual as she headed for locker 869.
There it was. The keyhole beckoned invitingly. Laurie was about to try her key in it when she saw the door was already open, and the locker empty. Was that it then? The end of all this madness? Why didn’t she feel more disappointed? Somehow her developing relationship with Paul put everything into perspective. Why did she still care about whatever some nameless man had left behind at the British Library before falling under a train?
But she had seen him die; she had in some way been responsible for his death. She did care. She owed it to him. Had the locker been forced open? Was that what happened when you abandoned a locker for a week at the British Library? It was hard to imagine any of the academics around her as thieves, but then anyone could walk in off the street; she just had.
Laurie looked around. There in the ceiling right above her was a glass hemisphere; behind that, she was sure, was a camera. Anybody who did try to jemmy a locker would be taking an enormous risk. Besides, Laurie considered, the British Library probably wasn’t that keen on the idea of stuff being left in lockers overnight. In fact, now she looked, there was a typewritten sign on the wall saying exactly that. So, what would happen to the contents of lockers if they’d been emptied by staff rather than a thief?
The security guard on duty was pleasant enough. He listened with concern to Laurie’s story of sudden illness, of how she’d been unable to get back to her locker for a week, and of how she’d found it empty on her return this morning; had they been the ones to empty it?
‘We don’t record the locker numbers.’ The guard replied as he pulled out a file, ‘but anything found should be in here. What have you lost?’
Laurie thought her answer sounded eminently reasonable. ‘A cycle pannier and my bike helmet.’
The guard flicked through the pages and ran a pen down a column of writing. ‘I can’t see anything. What date did you say it was?’
‘Last Tuesday, the twenty-first.’
‘Hmm.’ The guard showed the page to Laurie. ‘Nothing handed in that day at all. Are you sure you left it in the locker? I’d better get you to fill out a form.’
Dutifully, Laurie filled out the form the guard printed off for her, comforting herself with the thought that the details of her fictitious loss would be filed and forgotten as soon as she walked out of the office. For real believability, she supposed, she would now be complaining, perhaps even shouting, about the slackness that allowed this to occur, but she did not have the heart for that sort of acting. Instead, she managed a rueful smile, and a muttered, ‘I’ll be more careful next time,’ which at least elicited a sympathetic raise of the eyebrows from the guard as she left.
Outside the office Laurie’s eye was caught once more by the trompe l’oeil that she had found so fascinating a few minutes earlier. Even though the rational part of her brain knew exactly how the painting worked, the bookshelves still seemed to twist round and follow her.
The real problem, of course, was what to tell Paul. On the one hand Laurie was pleased that she had identified the key’s home so quickly. On the other, she couldn’t quite shake off the feeling of disappointment that the knowledge had led nowhere. How would Paul react? Would he lift her out of herself? Laurie thought she knew him well enough to hope so. She got as far as calling to tell him the news, but decided not to leave a message on his voicemail. It could wait for the evening.
In the meantime, how should she use the remainder of the day? Those exhibition halls were surprisingly tempting, but an afternoon spent in them wouldn’t get her anywhere nearer finding out why that man had a key to the British Library. There must be some way she could find out more about him. Laurie remembered his stylishness, the suit that set him apart from the other commuters on that platform. She didn’t even know his name. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to find out.
First, however, she might as well get her bike back. Enjoying the sun, Laurie walked back up from the British Library to Mornington Crescent, cutting through an odd little warren of streets and shabby housing estates to get there.
Even at its southern end, away from the markets, Camden High Street was buzzing. It was all so different from how she had found it the night before, making the whole episode feel even more dreamlike. The security grille at the station itself was concertinaed back in its usual open position, with no sign of the bolt-cutters that Paul had hidden behind it at the start of their adventure. Presumably he’d picked them up on his way back out. She’d have to ask him what he’d done with them the next time they met.
The bike was where Laurie had locked it the night before, and she was home in ten minutes. The next hour, however, was not so satisfying. For all her skills as an internet surfer, Laurie could not discover anything about the man she had seen fall. There was no site that listed forthcoming inquests, and no news story about a man under a train. Every query she could think of would suggest hundreds of thousands of websites, but none appeared remotely relevant. By two o’clock she was ready to admit defeat.
Well, there was something else Laurie could usefully do with her time, she supposed. The task she was doing for Michael was so repetitive; surely there was some way of getting the computer to do it for her? She couldn’t actually work on the model at home, of course – that was strictly against Fitzalan policy – but she could at least do what she’d never dare waste time on in the office, and find out a little more about Excel’s capabilities. This was exactly the sort of thing the internet was good at.
Six o’clock. When would Paul phone? Perhaps he’d be able to come round for supper. In any case, Laurie had to start doing something with all those vegetables. Soup seemed like the best answer. How about beetroot, leek and tomato? And perhaps corn on the cob to go with it. Would Paul object to a meal with no meat in it? No, of course not. Their first date had been at a vegetarian restaurant. Come to think of it, she’d never actually seen him eat meat. There’d been that sushi last night, of course. Might he be a fish-eating vegetarian? She’d have to ask him what he liked.
Jess made her presence felt the moment she walked through the door. ‘Something smells good. Is it for me?’
Laurie sighed; seven o’clock already, and Paul still hadn’t phoned.
Tuesday, 28 July – 8.30 a.m.
It was only when she arrived at the office that Laurie allowed herself to
acknowledge her disappointment. There had been no sign of Paul on the cycle ride in. What were the odds of them meeting again like that? It presumably wouldn’t be too hard to engineer. That junction between Eversholt Street and the Euston Road – the one where they’d met for a second time the week before – would be the best place. Would it be reasonable for Laurie to wait there? Or was she turning into a crazy mad stalker-woman? What was stopping her from just calling him?
Michael was already at his desk, looking, if it were possible, even paler than he had before the weekend. He hardly glanced at Laurie, but had an air of panic about him, that of someone in no mood to have an assistant suggest a different way of doing things. It was probably best if she just showed him.
So Laurie forgot about Paul, about keys, about men under trains, and concentrated on work – on using her brain, as Dad would put it. When was the last time she’d done more than just the minimum required to get by? Before Mum died, of course. That was when she’d stopped bothering. Despite herself, and the undemanding life she had been leading, very deliberately, over the last few years, Laurie had to admit there was something quite satisfying about it.
‘You know that’s the second time in a week you’ve worked through your lunch break?’
Laurie raised her eyes, embarrassed, to see Linda standing beside her. It was true, Laurie realised. She’d never noticed any of the other assistants doing the same. Was she breaking some sort of unwritten rule? ‘It’s just …’ she began, then stopped, defeated. If she had transgressed, then anything she said would make it worse. Besides, if that was the time, she might have missed a call from Paul. She got out her mobile – nothing – then looked up to realise Linda was still there. Now she was being rude; Laurie could feel herself beginning to blush.
Linda, however, was smiling. ‘Don’t worry. I only came to give you this.’