Three Steps Behind You. Amy Bird

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СКАЧАТЬ I enter, pushing myself between the doors. Question is, shall I get off at Adam Central, aka West Hampstead, where he will not be now, or Adam City, aka Farringdon, and find him at work? Perhaps it’s too needy to follow him to work – although I could do with his advice on the lawyer. Besides, Nicole is as much use to me as he is, right now, given her significance, for my research. And with him out, she will be alone.

       Chapter 14

      Have you ever experienced that sensation, when you arrive in the area where your best-loved lives, of being watched? Not in a sinister way, a Nicole way, but in an expectant way. As I step out on West Hampstead station, I feel the Adam bubble surround me. He may not be here right now, he may be at work, but I am here to serve his purpose – for my purpose is his purpose, really – and I can feel his spirit know that. ‘Behold,’ it says, ‘here is your servant come to wait upon your wife.’ It would be more accurate if it said, ‘Behold, here is your servant come to wait upon your wife, then seduce her for his research; think how close master and servant again will be.’ But it cannot know everything, and the fact of a beneficent eye watching me is enough.

      Unfortunately, though, not all eyes are beneficent.

      Some eyes drive brown cars.

      In particular, some police eyes drive brown cars. A particular brown car. One I came to know quite well after the accident, because it kept appearing outside my home, and Adam’s home.

      So when I see it parked at the top of Narcissus Road, I know police eyes are nearby.

      And not just any police eyes. The piercing eyes of DC Pearce. The man to whom I owe my honed knowledge of lawyers, handcuffs and coffee machines. To add to all the ones I had, that first time, years ago, when it wasn’t him.

      DC Pearce and his detective act. He was a very good actor. Method, probably. I can imagine him spending his childhood acting like a detective, wearing a mac, inspecting things with a magnifying glass, throwing flour over doorknobs, pretending he was dusting for finger prints. My parents bought me a kit like that, once. Adam and I tried to snort the flour, like normal kids. I hadn’t wanted to, but Adam had made me. It felt wrong – a present they’d given me, when they were alive. Snorting it, when they were dead. Adam said it was like what people used to do with snuff. That it would be fun. Adam said a lot of things.

      And here is DC Pearce’s car, at the top of Narcissus Road.

      The car is empty, so Pearce must be on the roam. Detecting. Further down the road. With Nicole, maybe? His fellow watcher.

      I could just run.

      I could run back to the train, catch it all the way to Adam City.

      But actually, there’s no time for that. Because DC Pearce is walking right towards me.

       Chapter 15

      Still the mac. Still the cigar. Still, too, presumably, his Columbo box set back at home, viewing guide covered with top tips for that one last question.

      New, this time, though, is the woman by his side. A redhead. Not beret red, like Nicole. A real redhead. Pearce has lent her a mac, although he’s spared her the cigar. Fine. So they’re both the same school. More playing at being detectives. Which means I’ll need to play at being the innocent. Whatever it is I’m supposed to have done now. Adam wouldn’t have called them, would he? About my Jesus antics last night? Would Nicole?

      DC Pearce smirks when he sees me. He mutters something to his colleague and points his cigar in my direction. She stares at me and nods to herself. She drops one step behind DC Pearce.

      ‘Danny boy!’ says DC Pearce. ‘Speak of the devil and he shall appear!’

      I’ve missed his sense of humour.

      So has he.

      I extend my hand to shake his.

      ‘DC Pearce,’ I say.

      ‘DS,’ he corrects me.

      Oh. A promotion. Surely not for anything involving me, or Helen. He hasn’t solved anything, yet, so far as I know.

      ‘Visiting our mutual friend, are you?’ DS Pearce booms. ‘Or that lovely wife of his, hey?’ I expect he would slap me on the back, if I would let him close enough. Burn a hole in my back with his cigar.

      ‘Sarge, should we really be mentioning …?’ says the redhead, in what she probably hopes is a whisper.

      I look at DS Pearce and I think I detect a hint of an eye-roll.

      ‘Allow me to introduce my colleague,’ says Pearce. ‘Danny boy, this is DC Huhne, newly promoted.’ He winks at me. ‘We were all delighted when we heard she was going to shed her uniform.’

      I see the woman’s jaw clench, but then a professional smile replaces it. Cold, courteous, functional. She extends her hand.

      ‘Mr Millard,’ she says.

      Interesting. She already knows my surname. DS Pearce notices me notice. He has not been promoted for nothing. He leans forward.

      ‘We’ve been talking about you,’ he whispers conspiratorially.

      ‘Why?’ I ask, as if I want to know. Much better just to say ‘Good for you’, and walk off down the road.

      Instead of answering, DS Pearce holds his palm out flat and looks at the sky.

      ‘Raining, Danny boy,’ he says.

      ‘No it isn’t,’ I say. I know his routine, what’s coming.

      ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it, Debbie?’ he says to the woman. She doesn’t answer, but pulls her mac tighter round herself. Good dog, well-trained. She’ll be rewarded with a biscuit later. Maybe a congratulatory cigar fed into that other sphincter.

      ‘Danny boy, why don’t you shelter in our car, until the worst of it’s eased off, hey?’ Pearce asks rhetorically, unlocking the car, and holding open the passenger door.

      ‘Are you going to handcuff me?’ I ask.

      ‘Are you going to resist our questions?’ Huhne counters.

      I think about the cold hard steel on my wrists. I think about it on Nicole’s wrists. It would be better suited there. Different setting, same idea.

      ‘No,’ I say.

      ‘Right. Come on then,’ says Pearce. ‘Maybe Debbie will show you her cuffs, later, if you’re nice to her. Hey, Debbie?’

      Debbie inclines her head, in what may be amusement, or agreement, or ‘I’ll sue you for harassment, you lecherous bastard’. As she walks to the rear doors of the car to get in, I notice that the heel of her shoe clacks and grinds along the pavement, a nail exposed. Too much street-walking. A sign of diligence, in a detective. Perhaps that’s what got her promoted, not her attractiveness as a side-kick.

      DS Pearce’s shoes squeak. Still. Even so, they are effective СКАЧАТЬ