by Toby Faber
‘What did he say to that?’
‘Nothing. Literally nothing. He just hung up. Anyway, that’s when I started wondering how he knew you’d been calling me. Perhaps I should have worked it out earlier. That’s when I looked inside the phone. And that’s when I realised it really was time to bring it all to an end. I had to stop you calling me.’
That was a shock. Despite herself, Laurie couldn’t help asking, ‘What do you mean?’
Simon didn’t reply directly. ‘You didn’t make it easy, I have to say: getting home so late that evening, taxi to the door. It made me a bit desperate. Luckily you got a taxi back the next morning; that gave me a bit of warning. Could run into you, make sure you didn’t see my face under the hoodie, run off again with you none the wiser.’
Laurie was incredulous. Could she really not have recognised him? Was it even possible? She cast her mind back: maybe, just maybe, it had been him. All she really remembered was that hoodie. But he’d been taking an enormous risk. She said as much.
‘Well, not really. Suppose you had seen me. What then? I was pretty sure you wouldn’t go to the police. Even if you had, you couldn’t have identified me. All it really would have done was give you a reason to hate me. I didn’t want that, hoped it wouldn’t come to it. I thought this was the best way of breaking off communications, but without making you suspicious.’
He was right, Laurie reflected. She hadn’t been suspicious. That had been Dad, and even then it was only because there had been the burglary at the same time. The burglary! Those two men – Brian and the other guy – in her flat, searching for something, stealing her computer just in case it contained anything to link back to them. Had they been looking for the key too? What had she said in her phone message to Paul, the one that had got Brian to send him round? She’d found out something more about the man under the train? Would that be enough for Dominic Sanderson – if he really was behind all this – to send the boys round?
Should she ask Simon what he thought? There was no reason why he’d even know that they’d been round to the flat, was there? Somehow, she didn’t feel like telling him about all of that.
In fact, Laurie realised, she didn’t feel like telling this guy – Simon, Paul, whatever – anything. She’d had enough of this conversation. She could carry on questioning him, telling him more than she wanted to tell in the process, getting answers that might or might not be true, confirming that at best he was a weak-willed, self-centred bastard, or she could cut her losses, spend no more time with this ageing sex pest and move on to the rest of her life. It was time to leave.
Laurie made as if to ask another question, but as she did so let her eyes stray to the clock on the wall. ‘Christ, it’s past nine! I’ve got to go. Sorry. Look, I’m not sure if we’ll meet again, but I’m glad we’ve cleared a few things up. I guess I know where to find you.’
That was it. Laurie had never before had reason to say anything like, ‘Don’t call me; I’ll call you,’ but now that she had, she found it empowering. Simon hadn’t been expecting it, she was sure of that. She felt his eyes on her back as she left the table and went up the stairs. She did not turn around.
Tuesday, 11 August – 9 a.m.
Back in the street, Laurie looked across to Sanderson Recruitment’s offices. She imagined Dominic Sanderson nipping across to the gym in his lunch break, unloading his problems to his personal trainer, gradually evolving a plan that combined misplaced ingenuity with a psychopath’s disregard for life. Who brought what to it? Brian was a creep; he got off on the violence alone, but he hadn’t been the leader; she felt sure of that. That had been the other guy – the torturer who enjoyed his work. Who was he? Were the suicide websites his idea? How had he got involved? Through Brian? That didn’t seem right somehow.
No. Hang on. Wasn’t she overcomplicating things? Yesterday they had all been convinced that Paul was Dominic Sanderson. Had that blinded them to the obvious, that Dominic Sanderson had, in fact, been much closer to the centre of things? Might he have been the other Mitchell brother, as Jess had so memorably described them? That would keep the conspiracy simple – bloody Dad and his bloody Occam’s razor.
No time like the present. Was that also something Dad might say? Probably not, but right now Laurie didn’t care. She crossed the street, rang the bell, and pushed through the door as it buzzed in response.
The sign by the bell had said Reception – 3rd floor, but the lift opened out into a plain and grubby lobby, with locked doors to left and right. The narrow strip of glass that ran down each of them from top to bottom gave Laurie a view of a typical office environment: brown laminate desks, some occupied, a photocopier, a few people milling about in shirtsleeves and, through the left-hand door, a woman who caught Laurie’s eye, reached for a button, and let her in.
‘Can I help you?’
For the second time that morning, Laurie had the feeling she was being looked up and down. ‘Er, yes, I’m looking for a job in IT.’
‘What field exactly?’
Laurie was in too deep to back out now. She tried to sound confident. ‘Systems support.’
‘Well, that’s not really where we recruit. We’re looking for programmers.’ The woman looked at Laurie, gauging the effect her words were having, and then seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. ‘Still, no harm in taking your details I suppose. Sit down there and I’ll get you a form.’
‘There’ turned out to be a chair whose orangey-brown ply and woven red upholstery had definitely seen better days. Laurie sat in it while the woman rooted around piles of papers on her desk before giving up with a sigh. ‘Francis,’ she called to one of the shirtsleeved men, who was standing beside what Laurie could now see was a water cooler, ‘have we got any new client forms?’
‘I’ll print some off for you.’
*
Laurie’s fiction was complete. She had filled out the form in the name of Tracey Craddock: education at Bristol High School (two Bs and a D at A level), a degree in PC applications from de Montfort University (that sounded reasonably likely, Laurie thought), holiday jobs helping with bookkeeping at the university students’ union and two years’ experience as a ‘technical analyst’ with one of Fitzalan Capital’s competitors. It had all been so easy. Might this be the way to get another job? Or would it all come unstuck at the point an employer checked for references? She squiggled some sort of approximate signature and then obeyed the command to ‘Turn over for terms and conditions’.
Dense columns of print greeted her, detailing the contract she was now, apparently, entering into with Sanderson Recruitment. If Laurie had really been Tracey Craddock, perhaps she would have read them, but she doubted that many people did. Instead, their eyes, like hers, would have been drawn to the final statement, in larger font, at the bottom of the page:
Our promise to you
Sanderson Recruitment believes that its clients are its lifeblood. We promise to treat you like human beings, to listen to your concerns, and to only recommend you for positions that we believe are well suited to you. If you feel at any stage in your relationship with us that we have not kept this promise, then please feel free to contact me and explain your concerns.
Dominic Sanderson
Beside the statement, putting a face to the name, was a photograph that Laurie had no difficulty in recognising. She had first seen him at the top of the escalator at Euston, calling her ‘an unexpected bonus’. He was the second of Jess’s Mitchell brothers, the man who had taken such relish in torturing her, and whose blood she had cleaned from her laptop. She had been right. Dominic Sanderson did not, it seemed, delegate the job of murder.
The woman glanced up as Laurie handed her the completed form. ‘Thanks. We’ll be in touch if anything comes up.’ Then, as though she felt that more explanation was required, ‘I’m sorry you had to wait for the form. It’s just that we don’t get many walk-ins. Most people find us through Google.’
‘Right, of course. I’ve just been to the gy
m across the road, and the trainer there suggested I drop in here.’
‘Hmm. Never been into that sort of thing myself. Do you really find it worthwhile paying extra for the trainer?’
‘It was a trial offer. It was good to have someone giving me new things to do. He seemed to imply that lots of you went there.’
‘On our salaries? No. Just the boss.’
‘Yes, Brian said he was the most dedicated.’
The woman looked puzzled. ‘Brian? Who’s that?’
‘The trainer I saw. Seemed like he and Mr Sanderson were best buddies.’
‘Really?’ The woman smiled. ‘Well, I don’t know anyone called Brian, but I suppose he might have wanted to give that impression. No – my boss trains with the gym’s boss. I know, because I’m the one who makes the bookings. He’s called Simon, Simon Egerton.’
Tuesday, 11 August – 9.30 a.m.
Laurie took the stairs down. She thought about the picture she had started building up, of Brian and Dominic Sanderson plotting murder over the weight machine. Now she had to forget Brian – consign him back to the role of psychopathic sidekick – and reinstate Simon Egerton – Paul! – as something more than the innocent victim he had tried to pretend to be. It was obvious really, now she thought about it. Casting Dominic Sanderson as the second guy had never been the simplification that Dad would have appreciated. There had always been a third: someone who sent the messages to that mobile phone, the ones with the passwords and Dad’s address. That would be the person who thought of using the suicide websites, who’d put the time into establishing all those fake personas, the one who must have come up with the plan. In fact, there had only ever been one way of keeping it simple: Simon was the third man.
Laurie paused in the downstairs lobby, trying to digest the implications. She knew it; Dad would know it; Jess would know it. But would anyone believe them? What evidence could they provide? Messages on a mobile phone? Her own story about being approached by Simon? Occam’s razor? At least when they thought it was Dominic Sanderson there had been the gains he would make from killing off his pension liabilities. The link was complicated, but it was undeniable. With Simon Egerton they did not even have that. It was all a mess.
It was time to talk to Dad. No need to worry any more about radio silence; he and Jess were staking out a flat whose owner would never return.
Four rings ended in the familiar mobile message: the long pause, then ‘Hello? … Er, David Bateman here. I don’t use this thing very often, so probably best to try me at home. If you need to know the number, I probably don’t want to hear from you.’ It brought back the argument they’d had the first time Laurie had heard it. ‘You can’t say that’ … ‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ He’d been right, of course. No one who mattered had ever been offended.
When it came to someone likely to answer their mobile, Jess was clearly a much better prospect. No answer there either.
So what now? Go back to the Ibis and wait for them? Laurie started walking north while she considered her options.
The traffic on Euston Road had picked up in the couple of hours since Laurie had made the journey in the opposite direction. At the turnoff towards the Ibis, she paused. About fifty yards away, she could see the bus stop where the man had told her where the key came from. It seemed a lifetime ago. Had that all been a total red herring? Probably. Except that without it things would never have got to this. And what was ‘this’? The knowledge that the last man she’d slept with was the guiding light behind a particularly nasty set of murders. The knowledge that she’d nearly got herself, Dad and Jess killed because of it; that the prospect of bringing this man to any sort of justice was remote. The knowledge that Dad had feet of clay, that the man she had always admired, the man who had sacrificed his career for her, was capable of mistakes – more than mistakes; was capable of doing the wrong thing.
Why had she let Simon Egerton know she was still alive? And in his gym too. At some point he’d put it all together, realise she must have been there to follow up her hunch about Sanderson Recruitment. He might even talk to the woman there, find out what Laurie had learnt. Dominic Sanderson and Brian were dead, but could she feel any safer as a result? Would she ever feel safe? What if she did die? Did she even care?
Laurie was fifteen again: suffering the overwhelming despair she had felt after Mum’s death, skipping school, drinking cheap cider, experimenting with drugs and boys, letting the boys experiment with her, all the time wondering if she had the courage to kill herself. Dad had saved her then. So what if he had feet of clay? She had to talk to him. She knew the address. They shouldn’t be hard to find.
The Euston ticket hall was a seething mass of humanity: so much for London emptying during August. Vacantly, Laurie joined the queue of people moving steadily through the ticket gates. Then she was riding down the escalator she’d climbed in the dark with Paul. The memory – of excitement, certainly, perhaps even exhilaration – only emphasised the blankness she could feel enveloping her now.
On autopilot, Laurie turned right at the bottom, heading for the Bank branch of the Northern line: that way she wouldn’t have to change at Kennington. A curved mirror close to the ceiling gave her a view of the crowd: the way it carried on around into the passageway and the crush that pressed on behind her. And there it was, immediately recognisable even in this distorted reflection: the grey-splattered short black hair of Simon Egerton. He must have followed her from Great Portland Street. Of course! He’d never let her out of his sight now, not until she was dead. And now she was leading him to Dad. For an instant the weight of hopelessness was unbearable.
Hopelessness? Yes, but seeing Simon like this made Laurie angry too. She was angry at the way this man had treated her, angry at the way he had lied to her, angry at the way the thought of him had started to blight her life, angry that, even now, he was plotting her death – plotting something that, only minutes before, she had been considering for herself. Well, fuck him. If it all had to come to a head, let it be now, while she felt no fear.
Tuesday, 11 August – 9.50 a.m.
The platform was as crowded as Laurie had hoped it would be. A train was due in two minutes, but there was little prospect that Laurie or any of the people arriving now would get onto it. Ordinarily, she would have headed for the far end, but this time she let herself drift toward the middle, becoming one of the people who stood back to let passengers off the train that arrived, and then pushed forward to take the space they had vacated.
Laurie pushed with the best of them, but not with the aim of getting on the train. By the time it pulled out of the station she was in the position she wanted, just between the yellow line and the edge of the platform, but not too obviously endangering herself. The next train would be there in another minute. Ostensibly, she was well placed to get on it.
Laurie could feel, as much as hear, movement in the crowd behind her. It was all she could do not to turn around. Instead she pulled out her phone, as if to check for messages, actually using its screen as a sort of mirror, looking for some kind of warning of what was to come. Was that a familiar profile catching the light behind her? The space between Laurie’s shoulder blades prickled at the possibility. Everything now lay in the timing, and in all those statistics being correct.
Her gaze still fixed on the screen of her phone, Laurie heard the change in roar as the train came out of the tunnel. She stole a glance to judge its progress as it slowed, flicked her eyes back to the screen of her phone to see the movement she’d anticipated, and felt the beginnings of a shove in the small of her back.
If Laurie had resisted, if she had attempted to keep her balance, if she had behaved in the way expected of her, then she would surely have been lost. The shove was too forceful for that. It had power behind it, the power of a man who spent all day in the gym, the power of a man who had done this before.
Laurie did not resist. Instead, she let herself be pushed out in front of the slowing train, stepping to the side off t
he platform so that she saw the driver, eyes on the signal. unaware of the woman apparently attempting suicide in front of him. Then, as she continued to turn, she saw the hand that had pushed her, reaching out from the crowd, continuing its now unnecessary progress. And she grabbed it. Dropping her phone beneath her, she grabbed that hand with both her hands. As Laurie fell down into the suicide pit, inches in front of the braking train, she had the satisfaction of seeing the look on Simon Egerton’s face as he followed her, propelled by the force of his own push. Then the train came between them.
Tuesday, 11 August – 9.55 a.m.
Laurie lay sprawled beneath the tracks as the train screamed to a halt above her. What had she done? Was that the vibration of the rails, or was it her own body rebelling in a wave of uncontrollable trembling? Dozens of tiny creatures seemed to be crawling over her scalp; the itch was almost more than she could bear; her face had gone numb, as if with cold. Only the pain in Laurie’s shoulder – whether from the wrench it had received as Simon’s hand was pulled from her grasp or from the awkwardness of her fall into the suicide pit – gave her any connection with reality.
The train had stopped, but the screaming continued, reverberating through Laurie’s head as though she were its source. Was she? No: she put her hand to her mouth to confirm it was closed, bringing herself back inside her body with the feel of her palm against her lips. This was the scream of a man – of a man in pain. In an instant she was back at home listening to Dad being tortured on the table beside her. The bastards! If that was Simon fucking Egerton she could hear, then it was no more than he deserved.