Rebound (13 page)

A couple of riders pass us, their horses frothing with excitement. I watch with envy as they gallop away, free and exhilarated. We walk on a bit further, then turn off and take the path through
the pine woods back to the car park. Back at the cottage, Kate makes me sit down in the garden with a book while she prepares dinner. As usual, it’s a work of art, entirely vegetarian and
consisting of produce only from her allotment. I savour her nettle soup with sour cream and a few wild garlic leaves, followed by freshly dug potatoes and houmous made from different varieties of
beans, accompanied by salad adorned with pansies. After dinner, pleasantly relaxed by Kate’s elderflower and wild rocket wine, we sit in the garden watching the creek-side harbour, bustling
with bird life in the dusk.

Next morning I’m up before Kate, buzzing with anticipation of my favourite morning run. Wispa is waiting for me by the door, and we sneak out quietly, cross the harbour
car park and climb the coastal defence bank alongside Overy Creek. There is no one here yet, except for the cows that watch us lazily as we trot along the high bank. It looks like the tide is at
its highest, the currents flowing fast between the mudbanks. I remember Kate telling me that apparently this is where Nelson learnt how to sail as a boy. I fill my lungs with sea air and feel the
pure joy of being surrounded by natural beauty. We run all the way to the boardwalk at the foot of a high dune, then turn and start running back. A swift breeze that was pushing us forward when we
ran towards the sea hits me in the face and makes my body work harder. The windmill at the centre of the village is beckoning us now and I’m thinking of Kate’s breakfast. It’s
only by the harbour car park that we encounter the first humans of the morning, an elderly couple walking their Jack Russell, Pocket, who makes instant friends with Wispa.

I enter Kate’s kitchen and the glorious smell of fried bacon and freshly brewed coffee welcomes me. A quick shower and I’m sitting at the kitchen table, tucking into Kate’s
scrambled eggs with mushrooms and bacon. The coffee, smooth and almost sweet, with a delicate cocoa aftertaste, is from the Monmouth Coffee Shop in Covent Garden, which Kate visits whenever she is
in London. Once the breakfast is over, we move to the sun-drenched bench outside the kitchen door.

‘I think I could get used to this gentle decadence,’ I say and Kate laughs.

‘Don’t tell me you’re ready to retire.’

‘Well, television is an ageist business.’

It’s true, the creative hubris, so characteristic of young, talented and hungry ‘media people’ is very quickly replaced by the need to settle down and make some serious money.
By the age of forty most producers are either burnt-out, frustrated failures who hang on to their jobs for as long as they can, or they’ve moved on, swapped their low-crotch jeans and woolly
hats for suits and white shirts. And for all those who hang on comes a moment when their phone stops ringing, their work email account is empty and their accountant tells them they should drop the
idea of having their own production company. From the point of view of big corporations it’s simple economics: it’s much more cost-effective to employ inexperienced but cheap kids than
to have to fork out for mature producers who know what they are doing, but are expensive. The quality of their work is a secondary issue.

‘Maybe I should find myself a self-sustainable hobby and just quit the whole TV thing . . .’

‘You’re far too young and ambitious for that,’ says Kate, although I’m not sure she is right. ‘Talking of hobbies, I want to show you something.’

We go to her study, a quaint room on the first floor with a huge double-glazed window facing the harbour. There is a massive oak desk by the window, with a twenty-seven-inch ultra-thin iMac in
the middle of it. She touches the mouse to wake it up and the screen comes alive with the most beautiful close-up of a beanstalk.

‘This is my new project: photographing my garden as it goes through all the seasonal transformations.’

We look through the stunning collection of macro-shots, revealing unexpected details of fruit and flowers. The quality of the photographs is impressive.

‘You should publish a book.’

‘I’m thinking of it.’ Kate closes the macro folder and clicks on a jpeg icon on the screen. It opens up to reveal a huge photograph of the harbour and the marsh bank along
Overy Creek.

‘And this is you this morning.’

I can see myself now, the grey silhouette of a runner with the brown speck of Wispa’s fur beside me, right in the middle of the frame.

‘What’s this?’ I lean towards the screen.

At the very bottom of the picture, almost by the harbour, there is the shape of a man, wearing a black hooded fleece and jogging pants. He is just standing there, looking at the stretch of bank
I’m on, his back to the camera.

‘Another runner?’

‘I didn’t see anyone there, except for this old couple with a dog.’

‘Maybe he went another way.’

‘There isn’t any other way,’ I say quietly, paranoia seeping in. There is something familiar about the man’s silhouette.

‘Well, he must’ve changed his mind.’ Kate gets up and stretches herself. ‘Do you want more coffee? Then I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll decide what we want
to do today.’

‘Great,’ I say, hiding my anxiety. We go back to the kitchen and Kate brews a fresh pot.

When she’s gone to the bathroom I sneak back to her study and move the mouse of her iMac to wake it up. It’s locked and the box in the middle of the screen asks for a password. Damn,
I really wanted to see that picture again.

We decide to drive up to Blakeney, have a walk on the coastal path and then pick up some fish for lunch at the Cley Smokehouse. I try to hide the anxiety caused by Kate’s photograph, but I
know she knows something isn’t right.

Back at her cottage Kate prepares a beautiful food spread on the table in her garden. As we dig into the smoked crevettes, dressed crab and kiln-roasted salmon from Cley, she pours some of her
wine for us and looks at me.

‘Tell me what’s really bothering you.’

‘If only I knew myself . . .’ I wipe my fingers on a linen napkin.

‘Just give it a try.’

She’s not going to be fobbed off.

‘Seeing that man in the photograph this morning really unsettled me.’

She nods and waits for me to go on.

‘I don’t know, I get this weird sensation of someone’s presence hovering around me. And it’s not friendly, benevolent, like knowing that a friend thinks of you.
It’s dark and menacing. Sometimes I feel I’m being observed, that my every step is being noted and judged. That’s why I freaked out a bit when I saw your photograph.’

‘But you do realize it’s very unlikely it was someone you know?’

‘Yes, I do . . .’

We sit in silence for a while, watching the butterflies chasing each other in Kate’s garden.

‘Since those rapes on the Heath, weird things have started to happen to me, or maybe I just started noticing them.’ I pause, thinking of the best way of telling Kate as much as I can
without mentioning the Dior Man. I realize I’m ashamed to tell her about him, not because I worry she might judge me, but because it would reveal something about me I don’t even want to
know myself.

‘For instance?’

‘For instance, someone had left a bouquet of red roses on my doorstep the other day. No card, no sender, just flowers. Then the vase with the roses magically flies off the kitchen table
and smashes on the floor, spooking my cleaner.’

‘Could be Wispa?’ At the sound of her name Wispa pricks up her ears and looks at Kate.

‘No, I doubt it. She’s never damaged anything in the house.’

‘It may seem unsettling, but there might be a perfectly innocent explanation for it. You’re obviously worried and stressed and that makes everything get slightly out of
proportion.’

She takes a sip of her wine and continues.

‘It’s good you’ve come here. When you go back, try to look at the whole situation with fresh eyes, without the emotional baggage. If it still feels wrong, call the
police.’

‘You’re right,’ I say and just talking to her makes me feel better. But the dark cloud that has been obscuring my judgement remains: I haven’t told her I’m
convinced all the weird things that keep happening to me are somehow connected to the rapes on the Heath.

I drive back to London after a leisurely Sunday breakfast at Kate’s and another walk on Holkham Beach. Kate has been right, after all: the short holiday has helped me to
shake off the oppressive atmosphere of the last few days. I feel refreshed and refocused. The good mood lasts until I stop to enter Tottenham Hale’s monstrous gyratory, hear a crash and my
car jerks forward. Great. Someone’s just rear-ended my pristine BMW. I reluctantly get out of the car, keys in hand. Sitting on my rear bumper is another BMW X5, an exact replica of my car,
down to the colour and the design of the alloy wheels. Its driver’s door opens and a tall black guy in a dark suit gets out. Wispa starts barking and I shout at her to stop, getting ready for
a verbal fight. But the guy approaches me with his hands raised in an apologetic gesture and a smile.

‘I’m so sorry, it’s my fault entirely. Hope you’re OK?’ he says and I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing.

‘Yes, I think I’m fine.’ All the fight has gone out of me in a flash.

‘I can’t apologize enough,’ he says, getting a card out of his wallet. ‘Here are my details.’

The cars behind us begin to honk; we’re blocking the entry to a major junction.

I take his card and he continues, ‘Would you care to give me your phone number, so we can sort it out as soon as possible? My name is Ray, by the way, Ray Chandler.’

No way, I think to myself, shaking his hand, this guy is too good to be true.

‘I’d like to take a few pictures of this.’ I take out my phone. I can see there isn’t much damage, just a dent on the bumper.

‘Sure, by all means,’ he says while I snap a few shots. ‘I’d like to take care of it without involving my insurance company, if you don’t mind. A mate of mine runs
a great car body workshop in Tottenham – he’ll fix it straight away and I’ll cover the cost.’

Everything he says sounds dodgy, but I like his smile and his charming manner and, against my better judgement, I trust him. So I give him my phone number, he promises to ring tomorrow morning,
we get back into our cars and drive off.

What’s going on with you, Anna, I think, where’s your streetwise attitude, your fighting spirit? The truth is, I don’t feel like fighting and I enjoyed the whole encounter in
some perverse way. It helped that the guy was charming and handsome, his laughing eyes and sensuous mouth not lost on me, even in the middle of Tottenham Hale gyratory.

I get to my house and unlock the front door with slight trepidation. But it seems fine, no sign of an intruder, everything is exactly as I’ve left it. I catch up on work emails and start
getting ready for a busy Monday, then I remember that Nicole’s gone and there’s no one to take Wispa for her walk tomorrow. I go on Gumtree and do a quick search for Hampstead dog
walkers. All the usual culprits come up, students who want to house-sit and look after your animals for a small sum, professional dog-walking companies who stress their ‘individual
touch’ and a few disturbing ads, ‘practically raised by dogs’ and ‘your dog’s mistress’. There’s one ad that looks promising – ‘I am a student
and an experienced dog walker looking for work in the Hampstead area’ – but the guy’s name is Tom and I quickly move on. Looking for a reliable dog walker in London is a tough
business. And having one is expensive. On the off-chance I text Nicole, but she’s still at her parents and doesn’t know when she’ll be back. Eventually I fall back on my
‘emergency babysitter’ as he calls himself, Michael. He’ll be happy to take Wispa out for a spin, but I’ll have to drop off the keys to my house for him on my way to work.
Problem solved, at least for a day. I take Wispa for her evening walk and we stop in front of the High Street newsagent, looking through the ads. Just as I thought, it’s still the best local
noticeboard and there are a couple of names and numbers I take a photo of with my iPhone. I’ll check them out tomorrow, if I have time.

Having dropped my keys off at Michael’s I arrive at work early, but not early enough to beat Claire to it. She gives me five minutes to settle in my office and then
pounces on me with all the outstanding issues of the last week. It’s going to be a busy day.

At lunchtime Claire offers to get a sandwich for me from the canteen and I’m just unwrapping it at my desk when my mobile rings.

‘Hi, it’s Raymond Chandler,’ says a deep male voice and for a moment I think it’s a prank call. Next I’ll be getting a call from Humphrey Bogart. ‘We had a
collision in Tottenham Hale yesterday.’

Ah, Mr Charming, I think as it all comes back to me.

‘Yes, Ray, of course.’

‘I just wanted to find out when would be a convenient moment for you to drop off your car at the garage. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave it with them for a couple of days.
I’m so sorry to cause you all this inconvenience.’

‘It’s all right, Ray, these things happen.’ I look at my diary. On Wednesday and Thursday I have meetings in Soho, so I won’t need my car. ‘I could drop it off
tomorrow evening?’

‘That’s great.’

He gives me the name and address of the place and we arrange I’ll be there before 6 p.m. tomorrow when the garage closes. While I’m eating my sandwich I Google the name of the garage
he’s given me. It turns out they have their own website and it does look legitimate. Then I look up the two dog walkers’ phone numbers from the newsagent in Highgate and give them a
call. The first one doesn’t answer but the second one sounds promising: an Italian woman with a lovely lilting accent who lives locally, works from home and takes a few dogs for a walk every
day to subsidize her income. We arrange that she’ll pop in tonight ‘to see if Wispa likes her’ as she puts it. Relieved that things are beginning to come together, I get on with
work uninterrupted for most of the afternoon. At 5 p.m. I get a text from Michael: