Eye Contact (30 page)

The clock was ticking – twenty-three minutes left. Leaning against the glossy white wall, Naysmith unfolded his newspaper and gazed idly at the back page, noting a couple of London Transport staff in their orange vests standing at the far end of the platform. He had already decided that he was waiting for a colleague, if anyone should ask. It was important to get your story straight in advance – any hesitation could give you away if you were challenged. But having that story in mind – almost believing it – infused your actions with a certain credibility, masking your body language and making you less likely to attract attention. In the wake of the bombings, London stations were watchful places, and he knew he was very exposed here.

There was a change in the air, and a faint vibration before he heard the next train. It emerged from the dark opening at the far end of the platform and swept into the station, its motor dropping in pitch as it slowed and stopped. The doors slid open and Naysmith looked up from his newspaper

He caught a few tantalising glimpses of people with the right hair colour, tracking each one as they approached him.

Too heavy . . . female . . . hair too long . . . one with a beard . . . damn, he wasn’t on this train . . .

As the last of the passengers made their way towards the exit, Naysmith slipped in among them for a short distance, then casually steered himself back to a slightly different point on the platform. As long as he was moving with the crowd, he was virtually invisible – the less time he stood still the better. And changing position would avoid the obvious give-away of a loitering figure occupying the same spot on a CCTV screen . . .

He turned to study the London Transport map on the wall beside him, willing the next train to arrive. This one should be the one he’d seen his target on at the start of the week, but was he such a creature of habit that he caught the same time train every day? When they’d made eye contact, the man could have been running late, or going to work earlier than usual. Perhaps his trip wasn’t a regular journey at all – just a one-off visit to a client in another part of the city . . .

He felt the muscles in his jaw tighten, grinding his teeth together.

Would this target elude him as well? Would it be two failures in a row?

No!

Angry at himself, he shoved those thoughts out of his mind. This was no time for pessimism.

The thirty minutes were almost up when he spotted him. A fleeting glimpse, between the other figures milling around the carriage doors, but Naysmith was immediately alert. A heartbeat later, he recognised the pale skin and dark eyes as the sandy-haired man walked towards the exit, wearing that same blue anorak.

He felt a surge of excitement, that dreadful thrill coursing through his veins like a stimulant, quickening his pulse and urging his chest to breathe faster. The sudden, howling lust for that ultimate power of life and death was almost insatiable, but he fought it down, got himself under control. He had to stay focused.

As the target passed, Naysmith calmly folded his newspaper and melted into the crowd behind him. They shuffled through the exit and turned right into a long, brightly lit corridor signposted to the Central Line. Was he changing trains?

An escalator rose at the far end of the corridor, creating a bottleneck for the crowd of commuters as they funnelled onto it. Naysmith pushed through the throng, judging his pace carefully and stepping onto the escalator just three people behind the sandy-haired man.

As they ascended, he gazed around at the faces on the escalators. Solemn pinstriped bankers, eager interns, power-dressed women . . . so many irrelevant people, little more than a fog that obscured him as he tracked his prey. He glanced ahead, noting how the back of that sandy-haired head was moving towards the ticket barriers. Good. The man worked somewhere close by.

Climbing the last few steps into the blinding daylight and traffic noise, Naysmith paused and looked left and right along the pavement. The target was a short distance ahead of him, walking east alongside the old stone buildings of Threadneedle Street. It was almost nine o’clock – wherever he was heading, it wouldn’t be far now.

A double-decker bus crawled along, keeping pace with Naysmith and bathing him in warm fumes. He glanced up at a girl staring vacantly out from her seat inside. He smiled as their eyes met and she grinned back before nudging a friend sitting next to her.
If only she knew.

Ahead of him, the blue anorak disappeared from view as the target turned down a side street. Naysmith quickened his stride and hurried to the corner, not wanting to lose track of the man. They made their way down a quiet road, then turned right into a narrow cutting, gleaming new tower blocks on one side dropping vast shadows across the grand old office buildings on the other.

The man was only twenty yards in front of him when he veered over towards a modest, stone-arched doorway. Padding lightly up the steps he pushed through the tall glass doors and disappeared inside.

Naysmith glanced up at the building, noting the name of it as he walked past, then strolled on towards the end of the street with a satisfied smile on his face. It had been a most productive morning.

Harland trudged across the grass, his hands in his pockets. He moved slowly, like a reluctant child called home at bedtime, head hanging and eyes downcast. The sun was bright just now, bleaching the colour from the morning, but it was still cold. Or was that just him? He wondered about that as he walked up the slope, following the worn path, taking the same route he always did. Perhaps it was all in his head, a natural reaction to a place with such strong emotional associations.

Blooms of dark lichen gnawed at the older headstones and heartbroken angels gazed down on him as he came to the paved track. Even the wind seemed hushed here, sighing softly through the trees. Pressing on into the newer sections of the cemetery, he left the tarmac and walked up the slope, picking his way between the plots, careful not to step on any of the graves. Flowers were more frequent here, and the odd mourner could be seen, kneeling in quiet grief.

Should have brought flowers.

He passed a tragic little plot, lovingly adorned with children’s toys and hand-drawn cards sealed in cling film, but even that couldn’t move him. Not here, not now, so completely insulated by his own loss.

He hesitated near the top of the slope, then took the last few steps towards a small, simple headstone, the polished marble pale against the grass. He stood for an awkward moment using his sleeve to gently clean the top of the stone before sitting down beside it.

How long was it since he’d come here last? Weeks? Months? His visits had become shorter and less frequent as he’d found less comfort in them. The turf had knitted together now, a soft green covering that marked the passage of time as the world moved on without him. His hand reached out, caressing the grass, just as he used to caress the duvet when she lay beside him, asleep.

The tears came suddenly, and he slumped down, overcome with anguish, weeping uncontrollably. Deeper and deeper he sank until he had nothing left to give, and the darkness passed, leaving him weary, disoriented.

He opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings, feeling the cool blades of grass pressed into his hand, the cold marble against his face.

‘I miss you,’ he whispered.

He knew she was there, knew she could hear him. The presence was so strong that he was almost overcome. Suddenly aware of his own appearance, he wiped his eyes, struggling to adopt the brave grin that he used to wear when he was trying to reassure her.

But he knew that she could see through him, just as she always had.

He pictured her, standing there beside him, a small hand on his shoulder, her beautiful eyes full of compassionate sadness. Sitting, propped up on the grass, he put his free hand on his shoulder, gently touching where hers would have been.

‘I’m sorry, baby . . .’ He choked on the words he wanted to say, sitting in trembling silence as he struggled to compose himself.

‘I don’t mean to be like this, but it hurts. It hurts so much.’

A wry little smile, flashed through the tears, the best he could manage.

‘You made quite an impression on me, you know?’

He sat for a while in silence, just as they used to, not needing words, satisfied and complete in each other’s company.

Sniffing, he closed his eyes, shutting out the emptiness around him, imagining her kneeling down on the grass beside him.

‘I suppose you know I’m not doing that well without you.’

Instinctively, he knew how she would have reacted to that, her perfect little brows furrowing into a frown.

‘Okay.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I know you’ll always be with me. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult.’

He slowly opened his eyes and squinted out across the rows of gravestones and the gently rustling trees beyond. Hurting him was the last thing she would have wanted.

‘It’s impossible, isn’t it?’ he grinned. ‘Can’t live with you, can’t live without you . . .’

She would have laughed at that, a brave little smile on her worried face as she gazed up at him.

‘The worst part is, I actually feel guilty for not thinking about you. I
know
you wouldn’t want that, but I’m just being honest. If I’m feeling good about something, laughing, whatever, and then I suddenly remember what happened?’ He shook his head. ‘Enormous feelings of guilt. Stupid, isn’t it?’

He ran his fingers through the grass again.

‘But I could never leave you,’ he said. ‘How can I just abandon you here, in this . . .’

He gestured with his hand, taking in the lines of grey stones that lay all around.

‘Maybe that’s why I don’t visit you here that often, because I keep you with me at home . . .’ He bowed his head, hoping it wouldn’t sound like an excuse. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

And she would have understood him, only too well. She was always more practical than him, always had more common sense. He pictured her, regret on her serious little face, moving apart from him and sitting down silently by her own headstone.

She would want him to live. She’d insist on it, but it was asking an awful lot.

‘Oh my beautiful girl,’ he sighed. ‘Why did it have to be you? I wish it had been me . . .’

But he knew how stubborn she could be. Sitting on the grass, feeling the warmth of the sun as it climbed in the sky, he stayed with her until a strange peace came over him. Eventually, he got to his feet and took a few steps forward, looking out across the cemetery. In the distance, the rattle of a passing train rose above the background rumble of the city. He turned his head, speaking over his shoulder.

‘I love you, Alice,’ he said softly.

I love you.

That familiar smile, those wonderful bright eyes that always seemed to sparkle when she heard those words. She would be here, waiting, whenever he needed her.

Sighing to himself, he trudged down the hill without looking back.

Naysmith had left the conference early. The late afternoon seminars were frequently space-fillers and networking opportunities would be limited – he really wasn’t missing much. In any case, he’d already had several very productive meetings, so he’d earned a few hours off.

It hadn’t taken him long to travel back to Bank and retrace his steps to that narrow cutting between the office buildings. Now he sat in a claustrophobic little pub, looking out through the grubby window onto Throgmorton Street. From here he couldn’t quite see the glass doors of the office where the target worked, but it was the best vantage point available – anyone heading towards the station from here would have to pass him.

He checked the time again – it was just after 5 p.m. Hopefully, the sandy-haired man wouldn’t be working too late. Fortunately today was Thursday – if it had been Friday there would be more chance of the man going out for a drink, but with luck he’d be heading straight home tonight.

Gently turning a beer mat with his finger, Naysmith wondered where he lived, what his home would be like. He clearly came from somewhere to the east of the city, but what sort of place? Would it be a good neighbourhood or bad? Did he live alone, or was there someone waiting for him? He found himself hoping that there wouldn’t be children, but quickly pushed that train of thought away, unwilling to go where it led.

Frowning, he closed his fist around the beer mat, crumpling it into a jagged ball, and went back to his patient study of the street.

The target didn’t appear until 6:15 p.m., a slightly weary figure in that same blue anorak, trudging past the window in the direction of the station. Naysmith swallowed the last mouthful of drink that he’d been nursing and slipped out after him. The street was busier now as the offices released their staff into the evening rush hour. It was easy to hide in the swirling flow of commuters, hurrying along the pavements then disappearing down the steps to the underground station, like water down a storm drain.

Naysmith shadowed his target through the crush of the ticket barriers, along the passageways and down to the busy DLR platforms. He stood a few yards away from him, not near enough to be noticed, but close enough to keep him in sight.

When the train arrived, he felt the crowd surge towards the doors. The sandy-haired man was caught up in a tight knot of passengers and swept forward to the edge of the platform. Naysmith kept him in view until he was on board, then shouldered his way through the slow commuters to secure his own place in an adjacent carriage. There was no need to get too close just yet – he knew the target was travelling at least as far as Poplar.

As the doors hissed shut, and the passengers jostled around him to maintain their personal space, he closed his eyes in disgust. Brash fragrances, body odour and bad breath, all sealed in the heat of a busy train. How did these people do it every day? Why would anyone settle for this sort of existence? He sighed. Life was too short for this kind of misery – he knew more than most how quickly it could be snuffed out.