Three Steps Behind You (18 page)

‘Arrêt! Arrêt! Stop!’

A man is shouting at me.

I look up. I have an audience. I don’t know why. All I was doing was feeling a blade. Then I see my feet are in the en garde stance and my sabre is extended. Oh. I see. It was Luke.

‘Sir,’ says the man, his hand on my sabre. ‘I appreciate you wish to get a feel for the blade, but please – we must consider the safety of our customers. I must ask you do put down the sabre.’

I could take this little grey man if I want to. But in the background, in the armoury, I see men with spanners and machines that could crush me. Besides, we are on the same side here. My fight is not with him. It is not really with anyone. I just wish to have a defence against further horseplay, should I need it. And to take an attack position against, or rather an assertive position, for Luke, for closeness, for progress.

‘Sir?’ asks the man.

I disengage.

‘Thank you,’ he says. The small crowd dissipates, until it’s just me and him. ‘I’m assuming you would like to buy? Shall we discuss your requirements?’

I think it is best not to reveal my requirements, so I just tell him I want a sabre and a mask.

‘You already have the jacket and gloves and everything, then?’ he asks me.

I don’t, but he wouldn’t understand my explanation. So I just say yes.

He offers me various bespoking and personalising measures. But my project is already sufficiently bespoke. Anything else would be overkill.

I pay and then I own my sabre and my mask. I am equipped. On the walk to the bank to pay in the settlement cheque, I am tempted to pull out the sabre and examine its shiny heaviness. I could put on the mask, too. Then there’d be no risk of Luke or Dan ever being detected. But I remember that banks are not keen on masked men, so I just carry the tools along with me. My secret. Like the keys, in my pocket.

The keys.

Not in my pocket.

I reach around, every millimetre of my pocket. I pat my leg, my groin, my ankles, both sides. No keys. There is nobody around, and I am wearing boxers. So I take off the trousers and give them a shake. No keys.

That is because, I realise, they were on the box. The box that was in the car rental shop. And is now gone. Perhaps to DC Huhne.

Chapter 19

I must parry, I must parry. I must go back to the car rental shop. The boxes of stuff and docs are one thing, two things, but the keys are quite another. They are potential proof, of where I’ve been, what I’ve done – me, Luke, whoever – and they will speed our descent. Maybe now, even now, DC Huhne is with a sly and slow grin putting the keys in Ally’s lock and turning, turning. She will still be able to smile, because she won’t have received my picture. No daughter to distract her, just a forensics team dusting for prints on the keys, which I so carelessly left, thinking it was my trophy, my keepsake for all time. And DS Pearce patting her on the back. Why didn’t I put them in the box, with the rest of the treasure, with book three? Or just post them through the letterbox of the apartment block? Or throw them in the Thames?

I run with all the running that I have learnt back to the car rental shop. The boxes of armour swing by my sides. Maybe, when Prakesh interrupted me, I didn’t leave the keys on the box. Maybe, just maybe, they are on the counter. Maybe when I get to the shop, I will see them, glinting on the counter, ready for me to reclaim.

I push open the door of the shop. The bell tinkles merrily – or perhaps funereally, because I see no keys on the counter.

Steve stares at me. Maybe I am red and hot. Maybe I look guilty. I try to be normal.

‘Steve, mate. I think I left my keys here. You seen them?’

Steve shakes his head. ‘Nah, mate. Sorry. Prakesh!’ he shouts into the back room. ‘Dan’s here. Says he left some keys. Seen them?’

Prakesh sticks his head out of the backroom.

‘No, sorry, I haven’t,’ he says.

Maybe the keys fell off the box lid on the way to the car. I consider getting on my hands and knees to search the carpet. But that might arouse suspicion, of the importance of the keys. Because usually, if it’s your own house, you call the locksmith, right? You don’t crawl around on the floor. I don’t want Prakesh and Steve to remember me doing this.

And besides, I’m wasting time. If it’s inevitable I’m caught, I must get on, I must progress. I leave the shop, staring intently at the carpet as I go, scanning my eyes back and forth like a metal detector. I do the same on the pavement outside, but nothing. There’s a chance nothing will happen. There’s a chance DC Huhne, or whichever of her minions collected the boxes, will just think, Oh, here are some keys on this box, I’ll return them to the shop. Or they might have fallen inside the box, and therefore just be part of whatever Pot Noodle clutter there is inside it. But if DC Huhne wants to make DI, they will be checked.

Forget walking. I run to the bank. There is a poster of Luke pinned to one of the walls. DC Huhne is doing her job well. I do not acknowledge Luke. Instead, I head straight for an available window. The teller tells me I can pay the money into the account rather than getting cash. But I want cash. Who knows what they do with your bank accounts, when they catch you. This is my money, my project money. I will use what I need today. The rest can nestle safely with book three, in my treasure box. They won’t let me take that with me, to jail – they don’t let you take anything, none of your possessions, it’s insane. I will only have what is in me, my brain, and what I can create while I’m there.

And I must act. I must continue the plan. First, I must perfect my fencing. Then I must get the violin, and I must visit Nicole.

Chapter 20

Directory Enquiries, or 118, or whoever they are, do not have listings for emergency fencers. Or rather they do, but not the right ones. I realise this when they ask me if it has blown over. I think they know something I don’t – it would never blow over, I would need to defend myself. Then I understand. I tell them I don’t even have a garden and hang up.

Instead, I 118 the Hendon armourer and ask them about which local club had a meeting today. None today, but one tomorrow. Not on the North Circular. No fencing there, apparently. But Highgate. £6. Kit provided. An investment I can afford. I take their number so I can phone them and book.

I wonder if I should tell them it is research. They might let me go to the session for free. Or they might delight in the idea of being famous. But no. I don’t want distractions. I don’t want to have to tell them about the other books, and nor do I want to tell them I am a novice – I am an established author, even though none of my works, life-changing though they are, have been published. And besides, if I disclose my authorial identity they may put on an act, may not teach me fencing as it is meant to be taught. Nor can I tell them I am fighting for survival. That will tip them off, make them call the police, call me a madman. I know how they will think of me.

Instead, I call as a member of the public, under cover.

‘Hello, Charles speaking,’ a man says, when I phone. It could well be the future king. He has the right accent.

‘Is this the right number for fencing?’ I ask.

‘Yes, it certainly is! How can I help?’

This would be the moment to tell him everything, to say: you can make me invincible; you can make Luke impenetrable; you can teach me to defend my otherwise soft, indefensible, frame.

Instead, I say, ‘I’d like to register for your class tomorrow night.’

‘Oh, no need to register,’ says Charles. ‘Just turn up – we’re hardly over-subscribed.’

‘But I’ll have an opponent?’ I ask, because it’s important to practise as if it is reality.

‘You and I can spar together if we have to!’ Charles offers. ‘See you at six tomorrow. You know where we are?’

‘Yes,’ I say, because I am a consummate researcher. I have an address, so I can find my way. I hang up.

Until tomorrow then. But tomorrow is so far away! If I hadn’t dallied, delayed, I would have gone before now, wouldn’t be losing this time, this twenty-four hours. So precious, now that Huhne may have the key, may be able to unlock the Ally secret. I should have been researching everything, all the time.

Now, even now, as I stand in Hendon, I should not move without researching. Think: How does Luke walk? Foot forward.
He leads with his right. His heel comes down to the ground, then toe
. Good. Is it the same with his left?
Heel then toe
. Right. But how about the length of his stride? I stay where I am and look back down between my legs. Impossible to measure.
His stride is the length of a confident man’s
. No, no – I need facts! I hear someone behind me, walking quickly. No nails dragging concrete so not Huhne. Is there red, maybe Nicole? I turn my head. No. A man, unknown.

‘Measure me!’ I shout as he approaches.

‘What?’ he says, slowing slightly.

‘Measure me!’ I repeat.

He calls me a name and continues his walk, speeding his pace.

I am stuck then, because I must know how long Luke’s stride should be. But what if his stride is not always the same? Do I need an average, to count every stride he takes, so I know, definitely about his character? How about if every stride I take, I can move my back foot up to the front foot to see how many shoe-lengths each stride is. And write it down in my notebook. Yes!

6

5

4

5

3

5

5

5

5

But now I am controlling him, influencing his needs. I will have to abandon those results, start again. And how do I even know how he would hold a pen, write, think, speak, anything? But hang on; no, I know how he writes, because of the napkin. He writes in lipstick with capitals. I don’t have any lipstick. But I have a biro. And numbers are always capitals.

He holds the point firmly in his right hand. He can make the incision, of ink, into paper, just like he can make the incision of knife, into flesh
.

Or maybe it is:

HE HOLDS THE POINT FIRMLY IN HIS RIGHT HAND. HE CAN MAKE THE INCISION, OF INK, INTO PAPER, JUST LIKE HE CAN MAKE THE INCISION OF KNIFE, INTO FLESH
.

No, concentrate – it is only what he writes, not what you write, that is in capitals. And you should not be writing anyway. You should be researching. Come on, walk, count!

The data is the same. Or my idea of the data. What am I even going to do with it? Remember what we said, focused research, focused.

He strides round the kitchen, round the dining table, over where she lies gagged and bound. He is all powerful, she is weak. Now is the moment when she will be his
.

Yes, you see, striding, power, that’s what it’s for. Recount, recount!

5   6   4   5   4   5

4   6   5   5   5   4

5   4   3   3   5   3

3   6   2   2   2   0.

Come on. Keep going. This is important.

7   6   5   5   5   5

4   4   5   3   4   5

3   5   5   5   5   4

5   5   5   5   5   4

5   6   5   4   5   5.

It takes me two hours to get to the station. Many people pass me by.

‘Try to avoid the cracks!’ says one. Which is a good point. Does Luke try to avoid the cracks? Dan does not. Maybe Luke does. No, no he doesn’t, I’m sure – confident Luke, strident Luke. Luke would not take two hours to get to the station – he would march on, regardless of cracks, of counting.

Oh dear. I have failed. I cannot go forward. But I cannot go back either, because I will need to recount.

0. For ten minutes.

No, no. I will not be defeated. Not by keys, not by pavements, not by cracks. I will not panic. I will finish my research, my work. I will go to fencing. I will learn that. Then I will be in Nicole, qua Luke, and then there will be that other closeness that I so desire.

So I have time, now. Thirty hours until I fence. Time to research as Dan, find out what Dan wants to know.

What?

There is one thing. The Maserati.

Dan wants to go and visit Jimmy.

Chapter 21

Jimmy lives in Ealing. I know, because work paid for us to share a cab once, on the way home from a Christmas do up in Hertfordshire, before he had this car of his. Although we’d been drinking so he couldn’t have driven anyway. We spoke, then, in the cab, about Jeremy Bond. Perhaps we shouldn’t. Perhaps we should have been more discrete. But we were pleased, you see, that we had got away with it, time after time. I filled out the form. Jimmy booked out the car. ‘Jeremy Bond’ drove it away, his visits to certain places requiring less flash cars than his own. But he always returned it. Except for one night, when he didn’t.

I get the bus to my house, drop off my fencing kit, then get on another bus along Hanger Lane to Jimmy’s. I try to ignore Nicole as she is the red bus and think about how the Maserati will look outside the house. It is difficult though, because once I’m in the bus I am in Nicole which is where I want to be.

As he enters her, she enters him; she penetrates his soul
.

‘It was you!’ she gasps as he thrusts
.

‘What was me?’ he asks
.

‘All of it was you – you are guilty, guilty, guilty. On three counts. And I will tell. I will tell all. I will tell all.’

No! That is not how book four goes. Nicole tells no one. But the bus, it doesn’t believe me. I will tell all, I will tell all, I will tell all, the rhythm of its motor says as it charges along Hanger Lane. I must get off, away from Nicole! When I see her again, it will be on my terms, not hers.

I jump off the bus and it thunders away from me. Hah! I have tricked it and Nicole. They can’t follow me now, not any more, today. I think about what the Maserati will look like. It is probably up on bricks with scratches all over it. If I were Jimmy, I would have sold the Maserati, rented somewhere else, decent. Away from these red-bricked house – red, of course, always red, she is not so easily put off the scent – and into somewhere sandstone or white. Although maybe where he is living has become more decent now, with a Maserati parked outside it. Pushed the rental value up.