THE RHYTHM SECTION
Mark Burnell

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999 Copyright © Mark Burnell 1999

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006513377

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DEDICATION

To my parents, with love and thanks for your ceaseless support.

EPIGRAPH

Character is destiny.

George Eliot/Mill On The Floss

Let’s make us medicine of our great revenge,

to cure this deadly grief.

William Shakespeare/Macbeth

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Foreword

0617 GMT/0117 EST

1: Lisa’s World

1

2

3

4

5

2: Stephanie’s World

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

3: Petra’s World

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

4: Marina’s World

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

5: The Rhythm Section

29

30

0617 GMT

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Mark Burnell

About the Publisher

FOREWORD

The Rhythm Section was first published in 1999 and the question I am most frequently asked about it is a variation of this: how did you know about 9/11 two years before it happened? The answer, of course, is that I didn’t. The reason I get asked this, however, is because of the similarities between the events of 11 September 2001 and the terrorist plot within the novel. Those similarities are not a coincidence. The terrorist plot in The Rhythm Section is actually closer in structure to the failed 1995 Bojinka plot than to anything that occurred on 9/11, but there is a strong connection between the two because 9/11 was born out of Bojinka.

On 26 February 1993, a Pakistani man known as Ramzi Yousef (probably born Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim, according to the 9/11 Commission, although this is disputed), parked a hired Ryder van in the car park beneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. The bomb in the back of the van was intended to collapse the North Tower into the South Tower. The device detonated, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand others, but failed to topple the North Tower. In the aftermath, Yousef evaded capture and fled the United States.

The following year, on December 11, travelling on an Italian passport, Yousef boarded Philippine Airlines PAL 434, bound for Tokyo from Manila, stopping at Cebu. During the first leg of the flight, he assembled and concealed a timer-controlled bomb with components he brought on board in Manila. He then disembarked at Cebu. The device detonated over Japan, as the aircraft cruised at 33,000 feet, blowing a hole in the floor but, crucially, failing to pierce the fuselage. Astonishingly, there was only one fatality, a Japanese businessman named Haruki Ikegami, whose body absorbed much of the force of the blast. The captain diverted to the airport at Okinawa and executed an emergency landing without further loss of life.

This attack was a successful test run for a far larger operation that would employ substantially more powerful bombs. Satisfied with his progress to that point, Yousef returned to Manila and began preparations for what became known as the Bojinka plot. His chief co-conspirator in this endeavour was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the architects of 9/11, while finance was provided by Osama bin Laden.

The Bojinka plot had three distinct phases: firstly, to assassinate Pope John Paul II; secondly, to place bombs on eleven airliners flying between South-East Asia and the United States (each flight included a stop): thirdly, to fly an aircraft into the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. The third phase was a reduction of a more ambitious attack that had originally included other targets, among which were the White House, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York.

The Bojinka plot was scheduled for January 1995, with the first phase, the assassination of Pope John Paul II, earmarked for January 15, three days after the Pontiff’s arrival in the Philippines. However, on the evening of January 6, a fire broke out in Room 603 of the Doña Josef apartment building in Manila. Yousef had rented Room 603 and was using it as an operational base. When the Manila police raided the apartment, the plot was exposed in its entirety; the bomb-making ingredients, the plans for the assassination of the Pope, the false passports to be used on the targeted flights and a laptop detailing almost every aspect of the plan.

The Bojinka plot was over and the conspirators scattered. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, however, remained convinced of the viability of the plan. Six years later, he revisited and refined it. 9/11 was a streamlined, simplified version of the Bojinka plot where bombs were ditched in favour of making the aircraft themselves the weapons. Like so many others, I watched the attacks on the Twin Towers as they occurred, understanding instantly that I was seeing history in the making. I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the link between the plot of The Rhythm Section and the Bojinka plot, even though I could not have known at the time that what I was watching was a refined version of it.

Ramzi Yousef was eventually captured in Pakistan in February 1995 and is currently serving a life sentence of 240 years with no parole at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and is being held at Guantanamo Bay pending trial.

All of this information is now universally available and has been for years. Much of it, though not all of it, was already in the public domain back in 1997 and 1998 when I was preparing and writing The Rhythm Section.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I found my opinion being sought. I remember sitting on a panel of a late-night radio talk show, surrounded by experts from the intelligence community and feeling somewhat of a fraud. There was an assumption among people I met that I had some special insight to offer, that I must have had sources or contacts within the intelligence community who had provided me with raw material for the novel. This was not the case. I never met anybody from the intelligence community until after 9/11. In some instances, my insistence upon this only appeared to strengthen their suspicion: well of course you would deny it, wouldn’t you?

Interestingly, those from the intelligence community whom I have subsequently met are often more interested in the fact that I reference Osama bin Laden in The Rhythm Section. I have always found this surprising for two reasons: firstly, bin Laden is only referenced once in the novel, and rather briefly at that; secondly, although he had yet to become a household name, bin Laden was already an established and recognised terrorist entity by 1997.

The Rhythm Section was researched and written in my own pre-internet era. As a technological late adopter, I didn’t use the internet at all during the preparation of the novel. Planning was done the old-fashioned way, collating material from books and articles. It’s a method that has served me well and which I still prefer. Although I use the internet now, I still require alternative verification for research. To mis-paraphrase a quote: ‘Google will provide you with a thousand answers. A library will provide you with the correct answer.’

I always travel to the locations in which my novels are set. Again, the internet is a useful starting point and can certainly reduce the amount of time spent scouting locations. But it cannot be a perfect substitute. Authors who are over-reliant upon on the internet run the risk of getting found out and that is a serious flaw for a thriller, where the suspension of disbelief is critical. The better the research, the more likely you will be able to take the reader with you. To remind me of this, I keep a terrible novel on a shelf in my office as a permanent warning of all the pitfalls that a thriller writer needs to strive to avoid: lack of character development, an over-reliance on plot, an overly contrived plot, any form of cliché, bad dialogue, to name but a few. This novel was a huge international bestseller and comfortably one of the worst books I have ever read. Its presence in my office, and the fact that is so awful yet sold so well, serves two purposes – firstly, as a constant reminder to be vigilant, and, secondly, to remind myself that the true taste of the public is ultimately unknowable and that the Gods that govern writing are capricious.

The Rhythm Section is written almost exclusively from the perspective of its central character, Stephanie Patrick. This was a proactive choice that was made much easier by the decision not to dwell too much on the characters of the terrorists. In almost everything I have ever read, heard or seen, it is striking how screamingly tedious most terrorists appear to be. They are voids, character replaced by incoherent rage or dogma, often spoon-fed rather than self-generated. Nothing in them is original. I see a similarity between the type of individual who becomes a suicide-bomber and the lengthening list of men who rampage through American schools armed with assault rifles. What unites them is their extraordinary solipsism. They dehumanise their victims because they lack empathy, a key marker for psychopathy. With a suicide-bomber or a school-shooter, it’s never really about the cause or the grievance. It’s about them. Hey, look at me. Please, just for a second…

Their empty lives are given relevance for a fleeting moment, although the increasing frequency of such events inevitably dilutes and diminishes even that. I wonder whether there may be a societal connection between the increase in American school slaughters and the rise of the age of the selfie. Suicide-bombers, after all, have often resorted to narcissistic pre-recorded messages which, while chilling to watch, are also pathetic and empty, generally leaving a lasting impression that they are the calling cards of the perennial loser.

Originally, the central character in The Rhythm Section was going to be male. This decision was more of a lazy default than a considered choice. Yet, looking back, I am convinced there must have always been some part of me that knew the character should be a woman. I have no recollection now of whether I ever ascribed a name to this male character. I don’t remember anything about his background. Perhaps that is the point: he was going to be central to the story whereas Stephanie is the story. Tellingly, when the central character was going to be male, I was focused on the plot. Once Stephanie assumed that role, I was focused on her and the plot evolved around her.

A lot of writing is procedure – planning, execution, revision – but occasionally one has a ‘eureka’ moment. And so it was with Stephanie. Once I committed myself to a female central character, Stephanie arrived fully formed, almost instantaneously. This I remember clearly. She came with a look, an attitude and a well-defined background. Most significantly, she had a name. I never considered other options. She was always Stephanie Patrick and that name represented to me everything that she was. Even the sound of it seemed to embody somehow the crystallisation of all that she was before The Rhythm Section begins, and of everything she then becomes.

If Stephanie’s greatest asset is her intelligence, her greatest flaw may be her temperament. She is difficult, spiky. She is prone to a quip when silence would be better. She’s got a smart mouth on her that can get her out of trouble, but no more frequently than it lands her in trouble. Academically gifted, she was rebellious at school just because…

Having played the part of the teenage rebel within the secure and nurturing environment of her family, her life is then ripped apart and, for all her superficial toughness, she is utterly incapable of dealing with it. By the time the novel starts, she is physically and emotionally ruined and, to a large degree, it’s self-inflicted.

This is a constant theme in Stephanie’s evolution; she may be appalled by her own behaviour and choices but she is no fan of self-pity. She is searingly honest about her weaknesses and the poor decisions she makes. She would love to be loved but can’t see how that could happen. Or that she deserves it. When she falls for someone she can never really do it completely: total trust is just too great a leap for her. Stephanie is a woman within whom there is a perpetual state of emotional civil war.

I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to write this introduction to The Rhythm Section since Stephanie will very soon cease to exist as a purely literary character. At the time of writing, filming is underway for a screen version of The Rhythm Section. The novel has been under option constantly since it was first published in 1999 and the wait has, at times, been very frustrating. For many years, I was convinced the film would never be made. But the team that has now been assembled to change that is so gifted that I can say, in all honesty, it’s been worth the wait. Blake Lively stars as Stephanie and her performance is just mesmerising. It has exceeded everything I had hoped for and anything I had to a right to expect.

A film is a collective effort and I would like to thank the many talented people who have worked on The Rhythm Section. Few, if any, authors have been better served by cast and crew. The public face of this film is most definitely female; producer Barbara Broccoli, director Reed Morano and Blake herself are a deeply impressive trio and it feels totally appropriate that they should bring Stephanie to the screen. She would definitely approve!

Mark Burnell, September 2018

0617 GMT/0117 EST

Outside, the temperature has reached –52°C. Inside, it’s a constant 23°C. Outside, there is speed. Inside, there is stillness. Outside, the air pressure is consistent with an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet. Inside, the air pressure is equivalent to an altitude of six thousand five hundred feet. Made from aluminium and assembled near Seattle, the dividing line between these two mutually hostile environments is just two millimetres thick.

Martin Douglas had his eyes closed but he was not asleep. The occupant of seat 49C, a resident of Manhattan and a native of Uniondale, New York, Douglas focused on his breathing and tried to ignore the tension that was his invisible co-passenger on every flight he took. The airline’s classical music channel piped Mahler through his headphones. The music took the edge off the drone of the engines, masking the tiny changes in pitch, every one of which usually accelerated Douglas’ pulse. Now, however, with soothing music in his ears and with the fatigue that follows relentless anxiety starting to set in, he was almost relaxed. His eyelids were heavy when he half-opened them. An inflight movie was flickering on the TV screens above the aisles but most of the passengers around him were asleep. He envied them. On the far side of the cabin he noticed a couple of cones of brightness falling from reading lights embedded in the ceiling. He closed his eyes again.

When the explosion occurred, North Eastern Airlines flight NE027 was flying over the Atlantic, bound for London’s Heathrow Airport from New York’s JFK. Including flight crew and cabin crew, there were three hundred and eighty-eight people on board the twenty-six-year-old Boeing 747.

First Officer Elliot Sweitzer was drinking coffee. Larry Cooke, the engineer, was returning to his seat after a brief walk to stretch his legs. The lights on the flight deck were dimmed. Outside, it was a beautiful clear night. A brilliant moon cast silver light on to the gentle ocean below. The stars glittered above the aircraft. To the east and to the north, the sky was plum purple with a hint of bloody red along the curved horizon.

The countless hours spent in a 747 simulator combined with years of actual flying experience counted for nothing in preparing the pilots for the physical shock of the blast. Sweitzer’s coffee cup flew free of his grasp and shattered on the instruments in front of him. Cooke’s seat-belt was not properly fastened and he was hurled into the back of Sweitzer’s seat. He heard his collar-bone snap.

Instantly, the flight deck was filled with mist as the howl of decompression began. Captain Lewis Marriot reacted first. Attaching an oxygen mask to his face, he began to absorb the terrifying information that surrounded him. ‘Rapid depressurization drill!’ He turned to his co-pilot. ‘Elliot, are you all right?’

Sweitzer was fumbling with his mask. ‘Okay … I’m okay …’

‘You fly it,’ Marriot commanded him, before turning to check on Cooke. ‘Larry?’

There was blood on Cooke’s forehead. His left arm was entirely numb. He could feel the break in the collar-bone against his shirt. Gingerly, he hauled himself back into his seat and attached his own oxygen mask. ‘I’ll be … fine …’

‘Then talk to me.’

On the panel in front of Cooke the loss of cabin pressure was indicated by a red flashing light. A siren began to wail. Cooke pressed the light to silence it. ‘I got a master warning for loss of cabin pressure.’

Sweitzer said, ‘We need to get to a lower altitude.’

Marriot nodded. ‘Set flight level change. Close thrust. Activate speed brake.’

A yellow light began to flash in front of Cooke. ‘I’ve got a hydraulics master caution.’ He pressed the light to reset it. Two seconds later, it went off again. ‘We’ve lost one set of hydraulics.’ The 747–200 was fitted with three different hydraulics systems. ‘I also got a fuel imbalance warning.’ A red master warning light came on, accompanied by the ringing of a bell. ‘Fire!’

Sweitzer said, ‘The auto-pilot’s in trouble. I’m getting a vibration.’

Marriot looked at Cooke. ‘Engine fire check list. What’s it on?’

‘Two.’

Under Cooke’s supervision, Marriot closed the number two engine, shut off the fuel control switch, and then pulled the number two fire handle to close the hydraulics and fuel valves. Then he twisted the handle to activate the fire extinguishers.

‘We’re losing the auto-pilot. The second set of hydraulics is going.’

‘Deactivate the auto-pilot, Elliot.’

Sweitzer nodded. ‘We’re going to have to slow her down. There’s too much vibration.’

‘Just keep her steady and make the turn. We’re heading for Gander.’

Gander, in Newfoundland, was the closest runway to them.

Sweitzer was struggling with the control column. ‘God, she’s sluggish!’

The fire bell sounded again in conjunction with a master warning light. Cooke said, ‘We need the second shot with the fire extinguisher. It’s still burning.’

‘I think we’ve got a rudder problem and maybe a jammed stabilizer. The trim’s shot to hell.’

Marriot turned the radio to VHF 1215, the emergency frequency. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is North Eastern Zero Two Seven. We are in emergency descent. We have structural damage. We have an engine fire, not extinguished.’

The violent deceleration hurled everyone forwards. Those whose seat-belts were unfastened were ejected from their seats. Martin Douglas was lifted from his but the belt cut across the top of his thighs and restrained him. His head hit the seat in front. The blow knocked him senseless and his body was immediately snapped back against his own seat.

He was only unconscious for three seconds. Despite being dazed, Douglas knew that his nose was broken. The back of the seat in front had crushed it and ripped the skin in several directions. Blood was seeping from the star-shaped gash but it was not slithering down his face. It was not staining his shirt or splattering his lap. Instead, it was being sucked off his skin. A sticky stream of crimson drops was hurtling forwards, flying over the seats in front, borne on the rushing air.

Further forward, part of the cabin floor had collapsed. Broken seats were wrenched from their moorings and sucked into the night. A tornado tore through the fuselage, ripping clothes from bodies, bodies from seats, hand-luggage from floors and overhead lockers. All of this debris was inhaled by some enormous invisible force towards the front of the 747. The majority of those who could were screaming, but their pitiful shrieks were lost in the roar of decompression. Others were unconscious. Or already dead.

The pain in his ears was agonizing, a consequence of the colossal percussive clap and the violent change in air pressure. But compared to the fear, his pain was a minor irritation. The terror constricted his throat, his stomach, his chest. As the aircraft began to descend, Douglas instinctively pushed against the arm-rests, raising himself upwards, stretching himself, as if to counteract, in whatever minuscule way possible, the 747’s descent. The entire aircraft was vibrating uncontrollably. To Douglas, it seemed that this was Hell and that whatever was to follow could be no worse.

The boy who had been asleep in seat 49B was no longer there. His belt had been fastened but not securely enough. The girl by the window was either unconscious or dead. Her hair was drawn forwards, masking her face, but there was a thick smudge of her blood on the window’s blind. It looked black.

Oxygen masks fell from the ceiling and were drawn towards the source of depressurization. Douglas reached for one, retrieved it by the plastic tube and yanked it towards him, placing it over his nose and mouth. Breathing through the mask proved to be harder than fixing it to his face; his lungs seemed to be shutting down, each breath becoming shallower than the one before, the time between them shrinking. Small white stars were exploding in his eyes.

He allowed himself to look around. It was dark in the cabin but of those he could see, he was one of the few who was still conscious. Even as a nervous flyer, he had never imagined that any fear could be so acute, that his worst nightmare made real would be quite so surgical in the way that it sliced him apart.

The fire bell sounded again. Cooke didn’t know where to start. Every light was ablaze. He guessed – because he didn’t want to admit to himself that he knew – that the fire, which was still raging, was burning through the third and last of their hydraulics systems. The aircraft’s descent was transforming into a plunge.

He gripped Marriot’s shoulder. ‘The fire’s spreading. You better make the call.’

Marriot checked the 1215 frequency. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is North Eastern Zero Two Seven. We are in emergency descent. We are going down. We have an uncontrolled fire on board. We have a complete hydraulics failure. We cannot complete our turn for Gander. This is our last call. Our position is fifty-four north, forty west. We will try to –’

Martin Douglas was on the verge of hyperventilating, a condition that would have been welcome. To pass out would have been a merciful relief. There was smoke in the cabin.

He had been in a car crash once. Travelling at over seventy miles an hour on a road that cut through a forest in Vermont, he had hit a patch of black ice. His car had skidded sideways and veered on to the wrong side of the road. Fortunately, there had been no oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, there had been pine trees lining the road. He’d had time to think, then – a few moments to anticipate the collision, to feel fear, to contemplate death as a serious possibility. This was different. Death was not a serious possibility. It was an inevitability. The aircraft was falling like a rock. Essentially, he knew that he was already dead.

When his breathing could become no shallower or quicker, he stopped. For a second. And then took a deep breath. With it, the accumulated tension flooded out of him. He felt it drain from his head, through his chest and stomach, down his legs and out through the soles of his feet and into the frame of the disintegrating 747.

And for one moment in his life, Martin Douglas was at peace inside an aircraft.

1 LISA’S WORLD

1

She’s a chemical blonde.

The carder was a stout skinhead in a Reebok track-suit who carried a canvas satchel stuffed with prostitutes’ advertising cards. Along Baker Street, he moved from phone-box to phone-box, sticking the cards to the glass with Blu-Tack. Keith Proctor watched him from a distance before approaching him. He showed him the scrap of card he’d been given by one of her friends and asked the man if he knew who she was. It cost fifty pounds to persuade the carder to talk. Yes, he knew who she was. No, she wasn’t one of his. He’d heard a rumour she was working in Soho.

On the fragment of dirty yellow card there was a photograph of a woman offering her breasts, plumping them between her hands. The bottom half of the card – the half with the phone number – was missing.

An hour later, Proctor hurried along Shaftesbury Avenue. The falling drizzle was so fine it hung in the air like mist but its wetness penetrated everything. Those who were heading across Cambridge Circus towards the Palace Theatre for the evening’s performance of Les Misérables looked suitably miserable, shoulders curved and heads bowed against the damp chill. The traffic on the Charing Cross Road was solid. Red tail lights shivered in puddles.

There was a cluster of four old-fashioned phone-boxes on Cambridge Circus. Proctor waited for five minutes for one of them to become free. As the heavy door swung behind him, muting the sound outside, he realized someone had been smoking in the phone-box. The smell of stale cigarettes was unpleasant but Proctor found himself grudgingly grateful for it since it mostly masked the underlying stench of urine.

Three sides of the phone-box were covered by prostitutes’ advertising cards. Proctor let his eyes roam over the selection. Some were photos, in colour or black and white, others were drawings. Some merely contained text, usually printed although, in a few cases, they had been scrawled by hand. They offered straight sex, oral sex, anal sex. They were redheads, blondes and brunettes. They were older women and they were teenagers. To the top of the phone-box, they were stacked like goods on a supermarket shelf. Black, Asian, Oriental, Scandinavian, Proctor saw specific nationalities singled out; ‘busty Dutch girl – only 21’, ‘Brazilian transsexual – new in town’, ‘Aussie babe for fun and games’, ‘German nymphomaniac, 19 – nothing refused’. One card proclaimed: ‘Mature woman – and proud of it! Forty-four’s not just my chest size – it’s my age!’

Proctor took the torn yellow card out of his pocket and scanned those in the phone-box. He made a match high to his left. The one on the wall was complete, the phone number running along the bottom half. He forced a twenty-pence piece into the slot and dialled.

A woman answered, her voice more weary than seductive.

‘I … I’m in a phone-box,’ Proctor stammered. ‘On … on Cambridge Circus.’

‘We’re in Brewer Street. Do you know it?’

‘Yes.’

‘The girl we’ve got on today is a real stunner. She’s called Lisa and she’s a blonde with a gorgeous figure and lovely long legs. She’s a genuine eighteen-year-old and her measurements are …’

Proctor felt deadened by the pitch.

‘It’s thirty pounds for a massage with hand-relief and her prices go up to eighty pounds for the full personal service. What was it you were looking for, darling?’

He had no answer at the ready. ‘I … I’m not sure …’

‘Well, why don’t you discuss it with the young lady in person?’

‘What?’

‘You can decide when you get here. When were you thinking of coming round?’

‘I don’t know. When would be …?’

‘She’s free now.’ Like a door-to-door salesman, she gave Proctor no time to think. ‘It’ll only take you five minutes to get here. Do you want the address?’

There were Christmas decorations draped across the roads and hanging from street lamps. They filled the windows of pubs and restaurants. Their crass brightness matched the gaudy lights of the sex shops. Proctor passed a young homeless couple, who were huddling in a shallow doorway, trying to keep dry, if not warm. They were sharing a can of Special Brew.

The address was opposite the Raymond Revuebar, between an Asian mini-market and a store peddling pornographic videos. The woman answered the intercom. ‘Top of the stairs.’

The hall was cramped and poorly lit. Broken bicycles and discarded furniture had been stored beneath the fragile staircase. Proctor felt a tightness in his stomach as he started to climb the stairs. On each landing there were either two or three front doors. None of them matched. Most were dilapidated, their hinges barely clinging to their rotting frames, rendering their locks redundant. On the third floor, though, he passed a new door. It was painted black and it was clear that a whole section of wall had been removed and rebuilt to accommodate it. It had three, gleaming, heavy-duty steel locks.

The door at the top of the staircase was held open by an obese woman in her fifties with tinted glasses. She wore Nike trainers, a pair of stretched grey leggings and a violet jersey, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The flat was a converted attic. In a small sitting room, a large television dominated. On a broken beige sofa there was an open pizza carton; half the pizza was still in it. The woman steered Proctor into the room at the end.

‘You want something to drink, darling?’

‘No.’

‘All right, then. You wait here. She’ll be with you in a minute.’

She closed the door and Proctor was alone. There was a king-sized mattress on a low wooden frame. The bed-cover was dark green. On the mantelpiece, on the table in the far corner and on the two boxes that passed for bedside tables, there were old bottles of wine with candles protruding from their necks. On top of a chest of drawers there was a blue glass bowl with several dozen condoms in it. The room was hot and reeked of baby oil and cigarettes. Proctor walked over to the window, the naked floorboards creaking beneath his feet. Pulsing lights from the street tinted curtains so flimsy that he could almost see through them. He parted them and looked down upon the congested road below.

‘Looking for someone?’

He hadn’t heard her open the door. He turned round. She wore a crimson satin gown and when she turned to close the door, Proctor noticed a large dragon running down the back of it. The gown was open and beneath it, she wore black underwear, a suspender-belt and a pair of high-heeled shoes. Her hair was blonde – chemically blonde – but her dark roots were showing. It was shoulder-length and, even in the relative gloom, looked as though it could have been cleaner.

No trick of the light, however, could disguise her paleness, her thinness or her weariness. She had a frame for a fuller figure but she didn’t have the flesh for it. When she moved, her open gown parted further and, from across the room, Proctor could see her ribs corrugating her skin. Her face was made-up – peach cheeks, bloody lips and heavy eye-liner – but the rest of her body was utterly white, and when she smiled she only succeeded in looking tired. ‘My name’s Lisa. What’s yours?’

He ignored the question. ‘You don’t look like you do on the card.’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t want to be walking down the street seeing myself in every phone-box I pass. And I don’t want people pointing at me because they’ve recognized me from my picture, do I?’

‘I guess not.’

She kept her distance and put a hand on her hip, revealing a little more of herself. ‘So, what do you want?’

Proctor’s hand was in his coat pocket. He felt the torn yellow card. ‘I just want to talk.’

Her cheap smile faded. ‘I don’t charge less than thirty for anything. And for that, you get a massage and hand-relief.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘I told you. Lisa.’

‘Is that your real name?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’d just like to know, that’s all.’

She paused for a moment. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you tell me? Who do you think I am? Lisa, or someone else?’

‘I think you’re someone else.’

‘Really?’ She smiled again but it failed to soften the hardness in her gaze. ‘Who?’

‘I think your real name might be … Stephanie.’ Not even a flinch. Proctor was disappointed. ‘Are you Stephanie?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On your money. If I don’t see some, I’m nobody. If you just want to talk, that’s fine but it’ll still cost you thirty. I don’t do anything for free.’

Proctor reached for his wallet. ‘Thirty?’

She nodded. ‘Thirty. And for thirty, I’ll be Stephanie, or Lisa, or whoever you want.’

Proctor held three tens just out of her grasp. ‘Will you be yourself?’

She said nothing until he handed her the notes. And then, as she was folding them in half, she asked, ‘What are you doing here? What do you really want?’

‘The truth.’

‘I’m a prostitute, not a priest. There’s no truth here. Not from me, not from you.’ When Proctor frowned at this, she added: ‘When you get home this evening, are you going to tell your wife you went to see a hooker? That you paid her money?’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Your girlfriend, then. Anyone …’ Proctor didn’t need to say anything. ‘I thought not. So don’t come here and talk to me about the truth.’

Not only was her tone changing, so was her accent; south London was being displaced by something less readily identifiable. Just as her opening remarks had been laced with a dose of sleazy tease, now she was cold and direct.

Proctor was equally blunt. ‘I think your real name is Stephanie Patrick.’

This time, he knew he was right. The surname betrayed her and she froze, if only for a fraction of a second. He saw her try to shrug it off but he also saw that she knew he’d seen it.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

For the first time, she looked openly hostile. ‘Who are you?’

‘Your name is Stephanie Patrick, isn’t it?’

She looked down at the money in her fist and said, ‘Let me give this to the maid and then we’ll talk. Okay?’

It took Proctor a couple of seconds to realize that the ‘maid’ was the fat woman who had admitted him to the flat. ‘Okay.’

Lisa – for that was who she still seemed to be – turned away and left him alone in the room. When she returned, a couple of minutes later, she had transformed into a man who was six-foot-four and built like a weight-lifter. He had no neck, his huge shaven head merging with the grotesque bulges of his shoulder muscles. His white T-shirt was so tight it could have been body-paint.

He didn’t need to raise his voice when he pointed at Proctor and murmured, ‘You. Outside. Now.’

Proctor rolled over, vaguely aware of the soggy rubbish that was squashed beneath his body. The drizzle fell softly on to his stinging face. One eye was closing. Through the other, he saw two walls of blackened brick converging as they rose. He was in an alley of some sort and it stank.

The beating had been short, brutal and depressingly efficient; the administrator was clearly no novice. After a final kick to the ribs, he’d hissed a blunt warning: ‘If I ever see you here again, I’ll tear your fucking balls off. And that’s just for starters. Now piss off out of here.’

With that, a door had slammed shut and Proctor had been by himself, lying on a bed of rotting rubbish. For a while, he made no attempt to move. He lay on his back, his arms wrapped around his burning ribs. He tasted blood in his mouth.

He looked up and saw smudges of buttery light seeping from cracks in drawn curtains. And from a partially-opened window, he heard Bing Crosby crooning on a radio.

I’m dreaming of a White Christmas …

2

Proctor saw her before she saw him. He was standing in a restaurant doorway, trying to keep dry. The drizzle of the previous night had matured into real rain. When he glimpsed her, she was heading his way, so he retreated from view. Inside the restaurant, staff were preparing for lunch, placing tall wine glasses and small dishes of chilled butter on tables draped in starched white cloth.

He waited until she was close. ‘Lisa?’

She stopped but it took a moment for her to recognize him beneath his mask of bruises. Proctor raised his hands in surrender. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I just want to talk.’

She looked as though she would run. ‘Leave me alone,’ she hissed.

‘Please. It’s important.’

He saw the hardness in her gaze again. ‘Which part don’t you understand? Or maybe you just enjoy getting your head kicked in.’

‘No, I don’t. That’s why I waited for you here and not in Brewer Street.’

‘How’d you know I’d come this way?’

He shrugged. ‘I didn’t. But I guessed you didn’t live there so you’d be coming from somewhere else. And then I guessed you’d come on the Underground, not a bus. And since this is on the shortest route between the nearest station and Brewer Street …’

‘Smart,’ she said, flatly. ‘But I could’ve come another way. I often do.’

‘You could’ve. But you didn’t.’

According to Proctor’s information, Stephanie Patrick was twenty-two. The woman in front of him looked at least ten years older than that. Her dyed blonde hair was dishevelled and with her make-up removed, her face was as colourless as the rest of her. Except for the dark smudges around both eyes. But now, in the morning, they were natural, not cosmetic.

She wore a tatty, black, leather bomber-jacket over a grey sweatshirt. Her jeans were frayed at the knees and down the thighs; given the weather, this seemed more like a financial statement than one of fashion. Her blue canvas trainers were soaked.

‘How long have you been here?’ she asked him.

‘Since nine-thirty.’

She glanced at her plastic watch. It was after eleven. ‘You must be cold.’

‘And wet. And in pain.’

He saw a hint of a smile.

‘I can imagine. He’s not known for his subtlety. Just for his thoroughness.’ She examined Proctor’s face. ‘You look like shit.’

Proctor hadn’t slept. When the paracetamol had failed, he’d resorted to alcoholic painkiller, which had also failed. And not being a seasoned drinker, the experience had left him with a hangover to compound his misery. His body was peppered with bruises, his left eye was badly swollen, his ribs ached with every breath and his right ankle, which had been twisted on the stairs, was aflame.

‘Look, if you’re not going to talk to me, fine. But let me ask you one question. Are you or are you not Stephanie Patrick, daughter of Dr Andrew Patrick and Monica Patrick?’

He needed to hear the answer that he already knew. She took her time.

‘First, who are you?’

‘My name is Keith Proctor.’

‘Why are you asking me these things?’

‘It’s part of my job.’

‘Which is what?’

‘I’m a journalist.’ Predictably, she grew yet more defensive, her posture betraying her silence. Proctor said, ‘Your parents were on the North Eastern Airlines flight that crashed into the Atlantic two years ago. So were your sister and your younger brother.’

He watched her run through the phrases in her mind before she chose one. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you. Leave me alone. Leave it alone.’

‘Believe me, I’d like to. But I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it wasn’t an accident.’

The bait was cast and she considered it for a moment. Before ignoring it. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t expect you to. Not yet. Not until you’ve given me a chance.’ She shook her head but Proctor persisted. ‘I need a cup of coffee, Miss Patrick. Will you let me buy you one, too? I’ll pay for your time.’

‘People pay me for my body, not my time.’

‘They pay for both. Come on. Just one cup of coffee.’

Bar Bruno, on the corner of Wardour Street and Peter Street, was half-full. It offered fried breakfasts all day. There was a large Coke vending machine just inside the door. Behind a long glass counter, sandwich fillings were displayed in dishes. The table-tops looked like wood but weren’t. The banquettes were covered in shiny green plastic.

They ordered coffee and sat at the back where there were fewer people. Stephanie wriggled out of her leather jacket and dumped it beside her. Proctor’s eyes were immediately drawn to her wrists. Both were seriously bruised. She looked as if she was wearing purple handcuffs. They hadn’t been there the previous night; he was sure he would have noticed. She saw him looking at them.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ she snapped.

‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk. Have you looked in a mirror this morning?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

Momentarily angry, she thrust both wrists in front of Proctor’s face for closer inspection. ‘You want to know what this is? It’s an occasional occupational hazard, that’s what it is.’ Then she was calm and stirring sugar into her milky coffee, before changing the subject. ‘Have you got any cigarettes on you?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘I didn’t think so, but you never know until you ask.’ Proctor watched her produce a packet of her own from her jacket pocket. She lit one and dropped the dead match on her saucer. ‘So, you’re a journalist.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t look like one.’

‘I didn’t realize there was a look.’

‘I’m not saying there is. I’m talking about the way you look. Good haircut, nice suit, expensive shoes and clear skin – apart from the bruises, of course. You look like you take care of yourself.’

‘I try to.’

‘Who do you work for?’

‘I’m freelance. But I used to work for The Independent and then the Financial Times.’

‘Impressive.’

‘Not to you, I shouldn’t think.’

Stephanie took a sip of coffee. ‘You haven’t a clue what I think.’

More than anything, she looked nervous, despite the aggression in her small talk. She fidgeted incessantly and her eyes never settled on anything. Proctor took a sip of his own coffee and grimaced.

‘Your parents were murdered,’ he said for effect. She seemed oblivious, as though she hadn’t even heard him. ‘Along with everyone else on that flight.’

‘That’s not true. There was an investigation –’

‘Faulty electrics in the belly of the aircraft which produced a spark igniting aviation fuel fumes, causing the first of two catastrophic explosions? I read the FAA and CAA findings like everyone else. And until recently, I believed them. Everyone believed them. And, as a consequence of that, some of the electrical systems on some of the older 747s were changed. Problem addressed, problem solved. Except it wasn’t. The problem’s still out there, walking around with a pulse, a brain and a name.’

Her look said it all. You’re either crazy or you’re stupid. Proctor leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘It was a bomb that destroyed that aircraft. It wasn’t an accident.’

He waited for the reaction; a gasp of shock, or a denial, or something else. Instead, he got nothing. Stephanie picked at her fingernails and he noticed how dirty they were. And cracked. Her fingertips looked raw.

‘How much money have you got on you?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Cash. How much have you got on you?’

‘I don’t know.’

She looked up to meet his eyes. ‘I need money and you said you’d pay me.’

Proctor was at sea. ‘Look, I’m trying to explain to you –’

‘I know. But I need this money now.’

‘Aren’t you interested?’

‘Are you going to give it to me or not? Because if you’re not, I’m leaving.’

‘I paid you thirty last night and look what it bought me.’

She stood up and picked up her jacket.

To buy himself time, Proctor reached for his wallet again. ‘There was a bomb on that flight. The authorities know this but they’re keeping it secret.’

Stephanie sounded bored. ‘You reckon?’

‘They even know who planted it.’

‘Right.’ Her eyes were on the wallet.

‘He’s alive and he’s here, in London. But they’re making no attempt to apprehend him.’

She held out her hand. ‘Whatever you say.’

Proctor gave her two twenties. ‘I don’t get it. This is your family we’re talking about, not mine.’

‘Forty? I need a hundred. Seventy-five, at least.’

Proctor gave a cough of bitter laughter. ‘For what? Your time? Do me a favour …’

‘Bastard.’

He reached across the table and grabbed a purple wrist. She winced but he didn’t loosen his grip. With his other hand, he pressed a business card on to the two twenties and then closed her cold fingers over it. ‘Why don’t you go home and think about it, and then give me a call?’

She stared him down with a face as full of hatred as any he had ever seen. ‘Let go of me.’

I am difficult. I always have been and I always will be. I’m not proud of it but I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s just the way I am, it’s my nature. In the past, I was aggressively difficult – sometimes out of pure malice – but these days, I would say that I am difficult in a more defensive way. It’s a form of protection.

Proctor was wrong when he accused me of not listening. I listen to everything. I just don’t absorb much. I am like a stone; a product of molten heat turned cold and hard. Yes, we were talking about my family. But the four that are dead cannot be retrieved – nor, for that matter, can the one that still lives – and that is all there is to it.

So as I walk along Wardour Street leaving Bar Bruno behind me, I don’t think about Keith Proctor. I am not interested in his conspiracy theories. I think about the hours ahead and those who will come to see me. The regulars and the strangers. And the one who left these bands of bruising around both my wrists last night. I doubt a man like Proctor could understand how I accept that and then return the following day to run the risk of receiving the same treatment. Or something even worse. The truth is, it’s not so hard. Not any more. I live alone inside a fortress of my own construction. Physical pain means nothing to me.

I am sure there are analysts out there who would enjoy studying me. Of course, they would be frustrated by me since I would refuse to speak to them. Nobody is allowed inside. That is how I survive. I am two different people; the protected, vulnerable soul within the walls and the indestructible, empty soul on the outside. When I am on track, this is how I live; but when I am derailed, it’s a different story.

It’s not easy being two different people at once. The pressure never ceases. Unless you have experienced it, you cannot know. So sometimes, when the borders blur, I fall apart. When I am cold and hard, I have to be in total control of myself – even in the worst situations. If I lose the slightest fraction of that control, I effectively lose it all. And then I crash. Spectacularly. Alcohol and narcotics are what I resort to in my pursuit of utter oblivion. When I come round from one bout of drinking or drug-taking, I immediately embark upon the next. It’s critical that I allow no time for sober thought because it’s during these prolonged lows that I see myself as others see me. Then the guilt, the shame and the self-disgust set in. In these moments, the hatred I feel for myself is too much to bear and it scares me to consider the options. So I’ll ignore the taste of vomit in my mouth and reach for the vodka bottle again. And I’ll keep going until I wake up and find the phase has passed and that I am as hard as stone once more.

Those analysts would probably say that my situation is, in part, a consequence of circumstance. And, in part, they might be right. But the greater truth is this: my situation is a product of choice. I chose this life. I could have had any life I wanted. I’m certainly intelligent enough. In fact, immodest as it sounds, I can’t remember the last time I encountered an intellectual equal. Most of the time, though, I pretend I’m stupid so as to avoid unnecessary trouble; in this business, nobody likes a smart mouth. They prefer a willing mouth.

So, of all the options available to me two years ago, this is the one I chose, which begs the obvious question: why? And the honest answer is, I don’t remember any more.

3

It was the smoker’s cough that woke her, a ghastly rib-rattling hack that repeated itself for the first hour of every morning. Stephanie was glad that it wasn’t hers. Then she remembered that it belonged to Steve Mitchell, Anne’s husband, and this reminded her of where she was. On their sofa, in their cramped sitting room.

Headswim brought on a wave of nausea. She swallowed. Her throat was dry, her skull ached, her nose was blocked. Anne and Steve were arguing in their bedroom, shouting between the coughs. The radio was on, loud enough to compete with them. Stephanie tried to ignore the noise and the smell of burned toast. How many consecutive hangovers was this? How long was it since Keith Proctor had bought her coffee? Four days? Five?

She struggled to her feet and tiptoed to the window. The Denton Estate in Chalk Farm, on the corner of Prince of Wales Road and Malden Crescent, had one high-rise building with several smaller buildings crawling around its ankles. It was a cheerless place, an ugly marriage of vertical and horizontal construction, in possession of one saving grace. The high-rise, where Steve and Anne Mitchell had their small eighth-floor flat, was a grim tower of red brick, but the view to the south was spectacular, worthy of any Park Lane penthouse. Stephanie absorbed it slowly, panning over Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park, Telecom Tower and the city beyond.

She went to the bathroom and locked herself in. She sat on the edge of the avocado bath, clutching the sink, wondering whether she was going to throw up. Last night, there had been gin, then some hideous fluid that passed for wine – possibly Turkish – before other drinks, the quantities and identities of which were now a mystery. She had no recollection of returning to Chalk Farm. But she did remember the foreign businessmen at the hotel in King’s Cross and how they had plied her with alcohol and yapped at her in a language that made no sense. With their droopy moustaches, their hairy backs, their potbellies, their gold medallions and their cheap polyester suits, they offered no surprises. Stephanie was regrettably familiar with the type.

At least it had only been alcohol. On the night after her second encounter with Proctor, she’d gone to see Barry Green and traded Proctor’s money for heroin. She’d asked Green to inject it into her – a service he sometimes provided for his regular customers – but he’d refused.

‘No punter likes to shag a slag with puncture points in her arm.’

‘What do you care?’

‘Plenty, as it happens. I don’t want to have to explain to Dean West why I put one of his girls out of action.’

‘I don’t belong to Dean West. I don’t belong to anybody.’

Green always found it hard to deny those who waved cash at him and so Stephanie got her heroin, smoking it instead of injecting it. As she had anticipated – indeed, as she secretly demanded – it was too much for her system; she threw up and passed out. When she came round, she was on a stained, damp mattress in a dimly lit store-room on the premises adjacent to Green’s ticketing agency. She was surrounded by cans of chopped tomatoes, bags of rice, drums of vegetable oil. She smelt the vomit on her jacket and the stench made her retch.

Green was standing over her. ‘That’s the last time, Steph, you got that? Any more and you’re gonna develop a habit. Are you listening to me?’ He bent down and slapped her face three times before wiping her saliva off the palm of his hand on to her leg. ‘You already do enough damage to yourself. You don’t need this.’

‘You’re right,’ she’d croaked. ‘I don’t need any of this.’

Anne Mitchell made Stephanie another cup of coffee. There was barely room for both of them in the kitchen. They sat at the small table, a tower of dirty plates between them; on the top one, tomato sauce had hardened to a crust. The gas boiler on the wall grumbled intermittently.

‘Steph, we need to talk.’

Stephanie had sensed this moment coming since Steve had gone to work. He was a plumber, which seemed unfortunately ironic considering his numerous infidelities. Whether Anne was fully aware of the extent to which he was unfaithful was unclear to Stephanie, but she knew he cheated on her and that she tolerated it because it was better than the alternative. Anne had been a prostitute when Stephanie first came to London and believed, for no good reason, that without Steve she was destined to become one again. He was still ignorant of her history and, in her mind, Anne had convinced herself that his infidelity was the price she should pay for concealing her past from him.

‘It’s Steve,’ she said, staring into her mug.

‘That’s what it sounded like.’

‘I’m sorry. Did you hear?’

‘Just the volume. Not the content.’

Anne had been pretty once; fine-featured with strawberry-blonde hair and freckles on her cheeks. Ten years ago, her regular clients had taken her away for weekends and bought her gifts. But when Stephanie had first met her, just two years ago, and shortly before she met Steve, she was selling herself cheaply and indiscriminately, and still not making enough. Now, she just looked exhausted, fifteen years older than she really was, suffering from too little sleep and too much worry.

‘You said a night, maybe two. It’s almost a week now and –’

‘It’s okay.’

Anne scratched a sore on her forearm. ‘If it was up to me, you could stay as long as you like. But you know how he is.’

Stephanie knew exactly how he was. Steve might not have known she was a prostitute but he regarded her as one, or as something equally deserving of his contempt. He never overlooked an opportunity to grope Stephanie, or to press himself against her. On one occasion, when she’d been in the bathroom, he’d barged in and locked the door behind him. Anne had been asleep on the other side of the flimsy partition wall, which was why he’d whispered his instruction to Stephanie, as he dropped his trousers: ‘On your knees.’

Similarly, she’d whispered her reply. ‘You put that anywhere near my mouth and you’re going to end up with a dick so short you’ll need a bionic eye to find it. Now put it away and get out.’

Since that incident, Steve had been increasingly hostile towards Stephanie. Consequently, her visits to Chalk Farm had become less frequent. Stephanie never stayed anywhere for long. It was nine months since she’d paid rent for a room of her own, in a flat for five that was home to eleven. Since then, she had rotated from one sofa to the next, stretching the charity of her ever-decreasing number of friends on each occasion.

‘How long have I got?’

‘You can stay tonight.’

Anne’s expression suggested that it would be better for her if Stephanie didn’t.

Stephanie sat in the last carriage, where a bored guard amused himself by hanging his head out of the door every time the train pulled away from the platform, reeling it in just before the tunnel. The Northern Line was running slow. It took half an hour to get to Leicester Square from Chalk Farm.

Stephanie preferred Soho in the morning, when it was quieter, when street-cleaners and dustmen were the ones who congested the pavements, not tourists and drunks. She stopped for a cup of coffee in a café and recognized three prostitutes at a table. None of them appeared to recognize her. She sat at the counter with her back to them. In her experience, friendships and solidarity were scarce among prostitutes. In a world mostly populated by transients, one hooker’s client was another’s missed opportunity, so there was little room for sentiment.

She overheard their conversation. They were talking about a Swedish hooker who had been gang-raped after stripping at a drunken stag night. Stephanie had recognized one of the girls at the table in particular. She called herself Claire. She was a seventeen-year-old from Chester, or Hereford, or Carlisle, or any one of a hundred other English towns that offered total disenchantment to the teenagers who grew up in them. Claire had come to London at fourteen and had been selling herself ever since. The previous year, she had spent three months in hospital after a drunken vacuum-cleaner salesman from Liverpool had beaten her to a pulp and left her for dead in a sleazy hotel off Oxford Street. She had deep, livid scars around her eyes and Stephanie knew that the reason she grew her hair long was to disguise the burns her attacker had left at the nape of her neck.

They were commenting on the Swede’s injuries with the indifference of accountants discussing tax rebate. Claire was as outwardly unmoved as the other two. As unpleasant as the facts were, they were not uncommon; if you were on the game long enough, you were bound to encounter violence. Stephanie was no exception. It was a risk run daily, a risk run hourly.

When working, Stephanie usually arrived in the West End during the late morning, from wherever she had spent the night, and then killed a few hours before being ‘on-call’. Most often, she watched TV with Joan, her ‘maid’. They drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and read the tabloids. At some point, she might eat – this was usually the only period of the day that Stephanie considered food – rolling all her meals into one. Sometimes she went to McDonald’s or Burger King, or sometimes she bought tourist fodder; grease-laden fish and chips or huge, triangular slices of pizza with lukewarm synthetic toppings and bases like damp cardboard. On other days, she visited the few friends she had made in the area; a nearby Bangladeshi newsagent, a Japanese girl from Osaka named Aki, or Clive, a diminutive Glaswegian who had a stall in the Berwick Street market and who allowed her to take a free piece of fruit from him each time she passed. When her mood was wrong, she drank before work, most often at the Coach and Horses, or else at The Ship.

As a rule, the later the hour, the rougher the trade so, given a choice, Stephanie preferred to stop working by ten. Generally, however, she found herself working later than that. And whatever the final hour, she was exhausted when it was over, even on a quiet night. Even on a blank night. Staying emotionally frozen bled all her mental stamina.

Stephanie drained her cup, left the three girls in the café – they were still discussing the attack on the unfortunate Swede – and walked to Brewer Street. She climbed the stairs and noticed that the reinforced door on the third-floor landing was open. A familiar voice came from within.

‘In here, Steph.’

Dean West. She felt her body tense and took a moment to compose herself before entering. West was drinking from a can of Red Bull. He wore a burgundy leather coat, a black polo-neck, black jeans and a pair of Doc Martens. As usual, Stephanie found her own eyes drawn to his eyes, which bulged out of his head like a frog’s, and to his teeth, which were a disaster. His mouth was too small for them; a dental crowd in an oral crush, a collage of chipped yellow chaos.

‘How was last night? Some hotel in King’s Cross, right?’

She nodded. ‘But there were two of them when I got there. Bulgarians, I think. Or Romanians.’

‘So? Twice the money.’

‘They wouldn’t pay twice.’

‘What?’

‘They didn’t speak English. They thought they’d already paid for both of them.’

‘I don’t care what they fucking thought. Money up front. That’s the rule. Always.’

‘Not this time.’

His anger deepening, West’s brow furrowed. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? We used to get on, you and me. I thought you was smarter than the others but now I ain’t so sure. What was the one thing I always said? Money up front! How many times d’you have to be told?’

‘I got the money up front.’ Stephanie handed West his cut. ‘For one.’

He began to count it. ‘Ain’t my fault you didn’t collect right. I want my piece of the second. And before you start, I don’t care if it comes out of your cut.’

‘They were both drunk when I arrived. They wanted me drunk too. Given the mood they were in, I thought it was best to go along with them. So I did everything they wanted and then I drank them under the table. That was when I lifted these.’ Stephanie produced two wallets from her pocket and tossed them to West. ‘You can take your cut for the second one out of there.’

West’s bloodless lips stretched into a smile as he examined the wallets. ‘Credit cards? Diners, Visa and Mastercard. Nice. What’ve we got in the other one? Visa and Amex Gold. Very tasty. Barry’ll be well chuffed.’ Barry Green, occasional vendor of drugs to Stephanie, also had a line in reprocessing credit cards, using a Korean machine that altered PIN codes on the magnetic strips. West’s good humour vanished as quickly as it had materialized. ‘But only sixty quid in cash? How much are you charging these days, Steph?’

‘The usual.’

‘And after that they only had sixty quid between them?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t counted it.’

‘Bollocks. You’ve trousered a little for yourself, ain’t you?’

A total of three hundred and fifty-five pounds. All she’d left them with were their coins. ‘They must have blown what they had on all that cheap wine they were throwing down my neck.’

‘Don’t try to be funny, Steph. And don’t try to pull a fast one on me, neither. Now cough it up.’

‘Just what Detective McKinnon was always saying to me. I’ve still got his number somewhere, you know.’

Superficially, West’s anger dissipated but, internally, he was seething and they both knew it. ‘Don’t push your luck, Steph. One day, it’s gonna run out.’

‘I know. And so will yours. We’re both on borrowed time.’

Dean West raped me once. I say ‘raped’ because that is how it appears to me now but, at the time, I was less sure. Anne Mitchell was the one who introduced me to him. She was still a prostitute in those days, working for West, and I think she did it purely to please him although she said it was in my best interest. She told me that for a small percentage of my earnings he would provide protection for me and that, anyway, without his authority, I wouldn’t be allowed to operate in this area. That was a lie. So were most of the things that Anne said in those days. But I don’t hold that against her. She was no different to anyone else in this business, no different to me.

It occurred here, in Brewer Street, in the very room in which I am currently standing. In fact, I am looking at West right now and I am wondering if he is also thinking about it. It seems a lifetime ago. Or rather, it seems like another life altogether. Not mine, but someone else’s. I barely recognize the Stephanie who features in my memories. If I was ever really her, I no longer am.

As I entered this room on that morning, he was polite in an old-fashioned way. Courteously, he held out a chair for me to sit in. This, I later learned, was typical of West. One moment he’s charm itself, the next he’s a savage. I have never discovered whether this is genuine or whether it’s something he has cultivated but, either way, it’s part of his legend. What is beyond dispute is that West has always enjoyed his reputation as a man not to be crossed. He’s thirty-five years old and has spent twelve of his last nineteen years in custody.

To look at him, you would never think he was so vicious. There is nothing in his physique that suggests menace. He is not particularly tall – five-nine, I should think – and he’s very thin with fine features; he has hands as delicate and long-fingered as a female pianist’s. His lank, light-brown hair falls limply from a centre parting, giving a rather effeminate appearance. In a crowd, he is invisible. But when the rage is in him, the bulging eyes threaten to pop out of their sockets, the pale skin becomes so bloodless it almost looks blue and he radiates a feeling that is unmistakable: pure evil.

There is no bluff with West. Everyone knows it. If he says he’ll play noughts and crosses on your face with a pair of scissors, you know he will because if you know anything about him, you’ll know that he’s done it before. When I first entered this room, about two years ago, I never even noticed the screwdriver on the table next to where I was sitting.

At first, he told me how sexy I was, how I was going to make so much money. He told me that if there was anything I needed all I had to do was ask him. Then he came round from the other side of the desk, picked up the screwdriver and stood behind me, before stooping to whisper in my ear, ‘I want to see what you’ve got. And then I’m gonna try you out. Now get your clothes off.’

He never threatened me verbally, or with the screwdriver. He didn’t have to. And the fact that he didn’t somehow persuaded me at the time – and for some time after – that it wasn’t really rape. Now I know that it was because my compliance was automatic and was based on the certainty that, one way or the other, West would have sex with me. There was no choice in the matter. Compliance was self-preservation. And this was before I knew of his fearsome reputation. I could feel the menace and I knew it was genuine. I think he would have preferred me to protest, or even to struggle, just to provide him with some justification for violence. But I didn’t. Instead, I stripped and let him take me as he wanted. It was mechanical, brutal and painful but I never let it show.

This disappointed him. So over the following fortnight, he forced me to have sex with him on a dozen occasions. Each time, he was rougher than before, determined to provoke some reaction from me, but I never gave him that satisfaction. My icy composure remained intact, each humiliation only serving to strengthen me. Every time he finished, I held his gaze in mine and we’d both know whose victory it was. With every attempt to break me, West unmanned himself a little more.

I see now how stupid this was. Sooner or later, his patience would have snapped and I would have paid a fearful price for his humiliation. Fortunately, it never came to that.

An East End heroin peddler named Gary Crowther fell out with Barry Green over some money that Crowther owed. As a favour to Green, Dean West agreed to teach Crowther a painful lesson, choosing to deal with him personally. Unfortunately, Crowther had come off a Kawasaki on the M25 the previous year. The accident had left him with multiple skull fractures and had required two operations on the brain to save his life. West’s first punch knocked Crowther unconscious and he never recovered. What should have been a mere warning ended up as murder.

I never saw the blow that killed Crowther – by all accounts, it was more of a slap than a punch – but I did glimpse the unconscious body through a partially-opened door. Just for a second, but a second is all it takes.

I was the only witness that West couldn’t trust. Those who dumped the unconscious Crowther in Docklands were West’s closest men. They were never going to be a problem. But considering how he had treated me, West had every reason to be nervous.

Most of all, I remember the confusion in his face because I don’t think I’ve seen it since. He was truly scared. He knew that if he was convicted, he was looking at a life sentence. As for me, he wasn’t sure whether to try to sweet-talk me or whether to resort to violence. As it was, he did neither because I made up my mind before he made up his. I said to him, ‘If I was never here, you’re never going to touch me again. Do you understand?’

Dumbfounded, he’d simply nodded.

‘Let me hear you say it.’

‘I understand.’

Since then, I’ve kept silent and West has kept his word and Detective McKinnon – the officer who headed the investigation – has remained frustrated.

As for the rape – or should I say, the first rape? – I have analysed it constantly since it happened. I cannot pretend it was the brutal assault it could have been – the type that makes the news, the type that leaves a mutilated corpse in its wake – but it was a horror to be endured nevertheless. Having been endured, however, I think the experience has been strangely empowering. Primarily, having survived such an ordeal, it taught me that I could survive such an ordeal.

I began to be able to see myself as West saw me – as a thing, not a person – and this has enabled me to divide myself in two so that there is a part of me that nobody can reach, no matter what abuses they visit upon my body. This has allowed me to do what I do, to cope with the repulsive acts I perform for my repellent clients. It’s allowed me to live with the threat of violence without it driving me crazy.

West still makes me nervous and my hold over him is tenuous. There is no guarantee that I won’t become a victim of his violence at some point. As the months have passed and the Crowther incident has receded, West has become more intolerant of me. Thinly-veiled threats are starting to seep into our conversations. I’ve seen the way he looks at me and I know he’d like to try to break me again, even though he says I am no longer attractive, that I’m disgusting to him.

It is true that I don’t look good these days. I’ve lost so much weight. My skin has no real colour, except for the red blotches. My eyes look permanently bruised but aren’t and my gums are always bleeding.

Perhaps the most humiliating thing that has happened to me in this, the most humiliating of trades, is that I’ve been forced to lower my prices. Anne once said to me, just as she was on her way out of the business and I was on my way in, ‘You don’t know what true degradation is until you have to discount yourself, only to find out it makes no difference.’

I am not in that position yet. But I am not far away.

I am twenty-two years old.

Joan was peeling the wrapper off her third packet of Benson & Hedges of the day. ‘You’re shaking.’

It was true. Stephanie’s hands were trembling. ‘I’m tired, that’s all.’

For Anne’s sake, she hadn’t returned to Chalk Farm, so the next two nights had been spent upon the lumpy sofa currently occupied by Joan’s sprawling bulk. Uncomfortable nights they had been, too; once the heating cut out, it had been freezing, so she’d curled herself into a ball and pulled two coats around her to keep warm. Then she’d sucked at the gin bottle until she’d passed out, managing three hours’ sleep the first night and two the second. Now she was paying the price for it.

Shrouded in smoke, Joan was chewing peanuts while flicking through the TV channels with the remote. On the floor, next to her overflowing ashtray, there were three phones, waiting for business. None of them was ringing. She said, ‘He’s ready when you are.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Big bloke. I think he’s had a few.’ She glanced at Stephanie through her tinted lenses and shook her head. ‘Better pull yourself together, girl. You don’t look a million dollars.’

Joan looked like a beached whale. In Lycra. Stephanie said, ‘Who among us does?’

She poured herself half a mug of gin, stole one of Joan’s cigarettes, and went to the bathroom. She washed her face, the cold water bringing temporary refreshment, before applying foundation and mascara. When she looked this bad, Stephanie always tried to draw attention to her mouth and to her eyes, which were deep brown beneath long, thick lashes. The lipstick she selected was a bloodier red than usual. No matter how emaciated the rest of her became, her fleshy lips looked as ripe as they ever had.

She changed back into her lacy black underwear and fastened her suspender-belt. There were mauve smudges on her thighs, souvenirs from anonymous fingers that had pressed into her too eagerly. The bruises around her wrists had faded to a band of pale yellow that was barely noticeable.

She drained the gin, took a final drag from the cigarette and rinsed out her mouth with Listerine. Then she took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. But when she caught her reflection in the mirror, the feeling returned; the fear of the stranger, the fear of fear itself. It was in her stomach, which was cold and cramping, and in her throat, which was arid and tight.

To the cadaverous face in the glass, she whispered a terse instruction. ‘No. Not now.’

‘Hi, I’m Lisa. What’s your name?’

He thought about it, presumably choosing something new. ‘Grant.’

Joan was right about his size. Not only was he tall, but he was massive. An ample gut hung over the top of black trousers that looked painfully tight. Stephanie never knew that Ralph Lauren shirts came in such a gargantuan size. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing thick forearms, each of which sported a large tattoo. His hair was buzz-cropped and a band of gold hung from his left ear. But the watch on his wrist was a Rolex. He looked as if he was in another man’s things. He looked like an impostor. Then again, they nearly always did.

‘What are you looking for?’

He shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

Stephanie put her hand on her hip, as she always did at this moment, allowing her gown to fall further open. In the right mood, it felt like a tempting tease. Today, it felt cold and sad. She watched his eyes roll down her body. ‘I start at thirty and go up to eighty. For thirty, you get a massage and hand-relief. For eighty, you get the full personal service.’

‘Sex?’

She wanted to snap but managed to restrain herself, forcing a smile instead. ‘Unless you can think of something more personal.’

Grant frowned. ‘What?’

Stephanie saw the fog of alcohol clouding his eyes. ‘So, what do you want?’

‘The full … thing … service …’

‘That’s eighty.’

‘Okay.’ When he nodded, his entire body swayed.

‘Why don’t we get the money out of the way now?’

‘Later.’

‘I think now would be better.’

‘Half now, half after?’

‘No. Everything now. It’s better this way.’

His mouth flapped open, as though he were about to protest, but no sound emerged. So he stuffed a hand into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of fives and tens. As he came close, she smelt the alcohol on his breath and the body odour that is peculiar to sweat. With fat, pink fingers, he sorted through the grubby notes and handed them to her.

She counted quickly. ‘There’s only seventy here.’

‘It’s all I got.’

‘It’s not enough. Not for sex. Perhaps there’s something else you’d like?’

He grinned stupidly. ‘Come on,’ he slurred. ‘Ten quid. That’s all it is …’

‘Yeah, I know. Ten quid too little.’

‘It’s my birthday on Saturday.’

Stephanie was aware of her irritation rising to the surface, the blood flushing her skin. ‘So come back then. And make sure you bring your wallet.’

Her change in tone seemed to have a sobering effect upon him. He straightened. ‘What do I get for seventy?’

The words seemed to echo in her skull. What do I get for seventy? The question was not new, nor was the contempt in the voice. Yet Stephanie had suspected there might come a moment like this. For several days, she had known something was wrong, but she had refused to accept it. Initially, she’d tried to ignore it, to convince herself she was imagining it. Later, as she felt the cancer of anxiety spreading within her, she had tried to crush it with reason. And when that had failed, she’d tried to blot it out chemically.

It had nothing to do with Grant. It could have been anyone. What do I get for seventy?

‘You don’t.’

Grant looked perplexed. ‘What?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You said you went from thirty up to eighty. Now what do I get for seventy?’

‘You don’t understand. I’m not doing anything. Not for seventy, not for eighty, not for one hundred and eighty.’ She thrust his money back at him. ‘Here. Take it.’

He swiped her hand away, the notes fluttering to the floor. ‘I don’t want it. I want –’

‘I know what you want. But you can’t have it.’

He took one step towards her and it was enough. Her right hand had already reached behind her and found what she knew would be there; on the table, by the bowl – an old champagne bottle, half a candle protruding from the top, its neck coated in dribbles of cold wax.

She swung her arm with all the might she could muster, creating a perfect arc. The glass exploded against the side of his face. Splinters showered on to the naked floorboards. Stephanie watched the lights go out in Grant’s eyes. He managed to raise a hand to his lacerated cheek but he was not aware of it. He lurched one way and then the other, before collapsing. The floor shook beneath the impact of his body.

It took Joan ten seconds to waddle through the door. She looked at the body on the floor and then at Stephanie, who was crouched over him, still clutching a fragment of the bottle’s neck in a way that suggested she might yet drive it into him.

Joan put a hand to her mouth. Stephanie turned to look at her, not a trace of an emotion on her face. Through her fingers, Joan muttered, ‘Oh shit, what’ve you done?’

Stephanie walked past her without a word and headed for the room next door. She shrugged off her gown and picked up her coat. Joan followed her into the room. ‘What’re we gonna do with him?’

Stephanie looked for the small rucksack that contained her worldly belongings. She opened it, checked nothing was missing and then fastened the straps. Then she started to put on her coat.

‘West’s gonna go fucking mental,’ Joan said. ‘We’ve got to get this wanker out of here.’

Stephanie looked at her. ‘If I were you, I’d get out of here. Right now. That’s what I’m going to do.’

‘You can’t just walk out. He’s downstairs, for God’s sake. For all we know, he could’ve heard it. He could be on his way up here right now.’

‘Exactly. And when he finds out about this, how do you think he’s going to react? Do you think he’s going to look for an explanation? Or do you think he’s going to look for someone to take it out on?’

Joan’s expression darkened. ‘Well, it won’t be me, love. I ain’t the one that done it.’

‘Fine. That’s your decision. But it’s not mine.’

‘I ain’t going. And you ain’t, neither.’

Joan reached for the phone. Stephanie grabbed her bag and ran.

Whoever answered the phone on the third floor took their time. The door was still shut when Stephanie passed it. The heels on her shoes slowed her on the uneven stairs but she reached the ground floor and was halfway to the front door when she heard the shout from above, followed by the multiple thump of descending boots.

She knew she had to lose them immediately. If her pursuers saw her, they’d catch her. She turned right and then right again, out of Brewer Street and into Wardour Street, before taking the first left into Old Compton Street and another first left into Dean Street. She never dared look back.

It wasn’t yet ten in the evening. The area was busy, which was a blessing. She turned right at Carlisle Street and only stopped running when that led into Soho Square.

The distance covered wasn’t great but her lungs were pleading for mercy. She slowed to an unsteady walk. It was then that she noticed that her coat was still only half-buttoned, which explained some of the astonished looks she’d seen on the faces that had blurred past her. Black underwear and a suspender-belt were all she had on beneath the coat. And given her appearance, she suddenly realized that if her hunters were asking pedestrians for the direction she’d taken, she’d be the freshest thing in the memory of just about everyone she’d passed.

She fastened the remaining buttons to the throat and forced herself into another run. She’d known she was unfit, but she’d never guessed that her physical decline had become so acute. For the moment, fear compensated but she knew it wouldn’t last.

She took Soho Street out of the Square and then crossed Oxford Street before turning round for the first time. There were no obvious signs that she was being followed. She headed up Rathbone Place and turned right into Percy Street. Her mind was starting to function again. The immediate danger appeared to have been averted but there was a more sinister threat ahead. If her pursuers returned to Brewer Street empty-handed, West would use his network to try to locate her. The word would go out and the search would be on. When that happened, anybody she passed on the street would be a potential danger.

She wondered how long she had and where she should go. Chalk Farm was out of the question. In fact, anyone she knew was out of the question; it was too risky to involve them. Which was why she chose Proctor. She felt nothing for him.

At the junction with the Tottenham Court Road, she turned left and headed north. She found a working BT phone-box outside the National Bank of Greece. She dialled and luck was with her.

‘It’s Stephanie Patrick.’

If surprise had a sound, it was to be found in Proctor’s silence.

She said, ‘Can we meet?’

He was trying to gather himself. ‘I guess … sure. Sure. When?’

‘Now.’

‘Now? Er, that’s not very convenient. I’m busy. Working –’

‘I’m in trouble. I need help. And I need it right now.’

4

I am drinking a cup of coffee in the McDonald’s on the corner of Warren Street and the Tottenham Court Road. I keep my head bowed, aware of the strange looks that I am attracting from some of the other patrons. I should be standing in the entrance to the Underground station across the street, but it’s cold outside. I’ll return there when it’s time to be collected.

I am trying not to think about the man I hit or the situation in which I find myself. Instead, I am thinking about the trigger.

I am wondering what it is like to be in a plane crash. To be going down and to be conscious of it. To know that you are doomed. What does that feel like? What does it sound like? These are matters that I’ve considered on too many occasions to count. The images creep up on me in the night. I see Sarah, my sister, her hair on fire. David, my younger brother, looks at the stump on his shoulder from where his arm used to hang. And my parents are ash, instantly incinerated and scattered on the wind.

These are the things that wake me at night. They’re the reason I drink myself to sleep. That’s where they belong – in the sleeping world. But tonight, they crossed over.

I looked at Grant – whoever he really was – and I thought about what we were going to do. For seventy pounds – not even eighty – since I would have discounted myself in the end. Except, it never came to that. Instead, I imagined my parents were in the room too, with David on one side, Sarah on the other, the smell of charred flesh everywhere, the floor slippery with their blood. I saw myself on all fours, Grant drunkenly ploughing into me from behind, my family watching, their total disappointment evident through their hideous wounds.

It has never happened before. I have never seen them when I’ve been selling myself. Some instinct has always blocked them – and anything I have ever cared about – from my mind. But lately, there has been something wrong. I’ve felt it building within me, a pressure in search of release. And now I know the cause.

Proctor. Proctor and his far-fetched conspiracy theories. He has resurrected the ghosts. He is to blame.

Outside, on the Euston Road, running over the underpass, there is a construction of concrete with a metal grille set into it. Perhaps it is some kind of ventilation unit. I don’t know. Anyway, beneath the grille, there is some graffiti which I noticed before coming in here.

It says: NO ONE IS INNOCENT.

Proctor was driving a small, rusting Fiat. Stephanie had imagined he’d be in the latest BMW or Audi, something sleek and German. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. Stephanie stepped out of the entrance to Warren Street Underground station and crossed the pavement.

‘You’re twenty minutes late.’

‘The car wouldn’t start.’

She looked at it disdainfully. ‘You don’t say.’

Proctor’s surprise was self-evident. ‘For someone in trouble, you’ve got a crappy way of saying thank you.’ When she failed to speak, he said, ‘Are you getting in the car, or not?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know? I thought you needed a place to stay.’

‘I need a safe place to stay.’

The wind blew newspaper along the pavement. She shivered.

Proctor nodded slowly. ‘I won’t harm you –’ She looked unconvinced. ‘– I promise I won’t.’

‘You can’t have sex with me.’

He found her frankness disarming. ‘What?’

‘You can’t have sex with me.’

Proctor attempted a little levity. ‘That’s a relief. You’re not my type. Now get in.’

But Stephanie looked as serious as before. ‘I mean it.’

‘I don’t believe this. Look, you asked me. Remember? I was the one who was working at home, who pulled on his shoes and drove up here to collect you.’

She clutched her coat at the throat. ‘I won’t let you –’

‘I don’t want to have sex with you. You look like death warmed up. Now are you getting in the bloody car or not? Because I’m not hanging around here all night waiting for the police to arrest me for kerb-crawling.’

Once again, Proctor saw a look that could have been sorrow, hatred or fear. Or all three. After a final suspicious pause, Stephanie got into the car.

Proctor kept both hands on the wheel and looked straight ahead. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Forget about it. You’ve no idea how refreshing the truth can be.’

It takes me time to remember where I am. This sofa is not in Brewer Street. It is in Bell Street, which is between the Edgware Road and Lisson Grove. I am in the living room of Proctor’s flat.

My life is precarious enough without climbing into strangers’ cars. Last night, I needed to get off the street, and to rest, so I was grateful for his intervention. But now that it is morning, I’ve got to think ahead and make plans. I have to keep moving – moving prey is harder to catch – until I can find somewhere secure to lie low. And for that, I’ll need money. The three hundred and fifty-five pounds that I lifted from the businessmen in King’s Cross will fuel me for a while but it does not represent a passport to a new life.

As I rise from the sofa, I become aware of how ill I feel. This doesn’t seem like a regular hangover; I ache all over and I feel sick. I am simultaneously hot and cold. Maybe this is my body protesting yet again at the way I have treated it.

I assume that Proctor is still asleep. I move quietly. When we returned here last night, we didn’t talk much. He showed me where the bathroom was and I changed into the jeans and sweatshirt that I was carrying in my rucksack. Then he sat me on this sofa and poured me one whisky after another. I don’t remember how many it took to eradicate my in-built sense of caution. Exhaustion was to blame, but by the time I was ready to talk, I was ready to sleep. Proctor realized this and fetched me a pillow and some blankets. I suppose he thought we’d talk this morning. He’s going to be disappointed.

He was wearing a worn leather jacket when he picked me up. I cannot see it in this room so I put on my shoes, gather my things, fasten the rucksack and pull on my overcoat. Then I open the door as quietly as I can and I tiptoe past Proctor’s bedroom, which is on the left, and make my way down the hall.

My temples throb. I feel nauseous.

Before I reach the front door, there is a final room on the left. Somebody could have used it as a second bedroom. Proctor uses it as an office. There are two tables in it; on one, there are box-files and correspondence, on the other, a computer. On the back of the chair between the two hangs his leather jacket. I creep into the office and run my hands through the pockets until I find his wallet. I open it up and ignore the cards. I am only interested in cash. He has eighty pounds; three twenties, two tens. I fold them in half.

Which is when I hear him behind me.

‘Are you looking for something of yours?’

Stephanie spun round. Proctor was filling the doorway, blocking her exit.

‘Or just something of mine?’

The wallet was in her hand.

Proctor was wearing track-suit bottoms and the same black shirt he had worn the night before. There had not been time to fasten the buttons. On one side of his head the hair was flat to the skull, on the other it stood out like bristles on a brush.

He looked dejected, not angry. But Stephanie had long since learned to distrust appearances. He said, ‘All you had to do was ask. I would have given you money.’

‘Yeah, right …’

‘It’s true.’

She squinted at him. ‘And why would you do that?’

‘Because I know about you.’

His hand was outstretched, waiting for the return of his wallet. Stephanie stepped forward to give it to him. And then she charged, ramming his chest with her shoulder, knocking him off-balance. Clutching the wallet as tightly as she could, she sped across the hall and reached for the front door. But Proctor’s hand grabbed her shoulder, spinning her round. In an instinctive continuation of the movement, she raised a fist and punched him on the jaw. Proctor recoiled, amazed by her speed and strength.

She tugged at the front door catch repeatedly but couldn’t open it. The knowledge came to her gradually, sapping her strength. She let go of the catch, her hand falling limply to her side. When she looked round, she saw the keys dangling from the key-ring that was hanging on the tip of his forefinger.

His other hand was massaging his jaw. ‘Double-locked, just in case,’ he said.

The front door was at the end of the corridor. Proctor had her penned in; there were no rooms to run to, no surprises left to spring. Stephanie’s reactions were automatic, a by-product of experience. She retreated into the corner and slid to the floor. Mentally, she began to go blank, closing everything down, numbing herself. When Proctor took a step towards her, she wrapped her arms around her head and pulled herself into the smallest human ball possible.

‘What are you doing?’

She braced herself for the first blow.

‘I’m not going to hit you, Stephanie. I don’t want to hurt you.’

Those very words had been the preface to a savage beating more than once. She knew that Dean West always tried a little kindness before administering his punishments. She stayed still, knowing better than to lift her head.

‘I’ll tell you what, I’m going to move back. All right? I’m going to move back to my office doorway and then I’m going to sit down on the floor, like you. And when I have, you can look up. Then we can talk. Is that okay?’

There was no reply.

‘That’s all I want to do. Just talk.’

She sensed his retreat before allowing herself to peep through crossed arms.

‘See? I can’t hurt you from here.’

Stephanie felt dizzy. She swallowed.

‘Where were you going to go?’

No answer.

‘Is there anywhere? Anyone?’

She was trembling.

‘What about last night?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to tell me what that was all about?’

She kept her head protected.

‘Look, I know you don’t trust me – there’s no reason you should – but I really have no interest in you, apart from what you can tell me. I have things to tell you too but if you don’t want to hear them –’

‘I don’t want to hear anything,’ she whispered.

Proctor shook his head. ‘This is your family we’re talking about.’

Stephanie shrugged.

‘How about if I asked you some general questions? Would you answer them?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s nothing you need to know about me or about my family.’

‘I see. Well maybe you could just sit and listen. I’ll tell you what I’m working on, what I’ve found out, how I’m –’

‘Don’t you get it yet? I don’t care.’

‘No. I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all. If it was my family on that 747, I’d want to know why it went down and who was responsible. I’d want justice. For them and for everyone else on board. And for all their relatives and friends who’ve had to deal with the aftermath. That’s what this is about, you know. That’s what this investigation was when I started. A human interest story. What happens to the families and friends of the dead a couple of years down the line when it’s no longer news? How do they cope in the long term? You may not talk to me but there are others who have. I’ve seen their grief. I’ve felt it. Two years plus hasn’t diminished it. They’ve learned to live with it – some of them, anyway – but the wounds haven’t healed. And they probably never will. Every single one of them has suffered and –’

‘Do you think that I haven’t?’ she snapped. ‘That I still don’t?’

‘Of course not. It’s just that –’

‘Just what? Odd that I don’t like to talk about it to journalists? I bet you think my situation is a consequence of the crash, don’t you? That would be a good story for you if it was true, wouldn’t it?’

He wanted to say yes, but said, ‘I don’t know enough about you yet. I can’t tell.’

‘You see? You’re lying like everyone else. I can see your outline from here: a family in ruins, four dead, two survivors, one who copes and one who can’t. Like you said, a human interest story.’

‘My story is changing.’

‘What makes you think I want to see my life in print?’

‘You wouldn’t necessarily feature.’

‘Not unless I improved the story. Then you’d include me. Right?’

For a moment, Proctor considered the temptation to lie. ‘It’s my job. It’s what I do.’

‘Yeah. Fucking people for profit. It’s what we both do.’

She looked in worse shape than she had the night before, outside the Underground station, when her skin had been a riot of goose-bumps tinted by the harsh light falling from street lamps. Now, wherever he looked, she was bones. Her cheekbones were too prominent to be attractive, her wrists looked swollen because her arms were so fleshless, and when her knees showed through the tears in her jeans they looked sharp enough to cut through her blotchy skin.

Proctor said, ‘I’m not writing the same story any more. This isn’t human interest. It’s gone way beyond that. Every day, I learn something new and the angle alters.’

‘Well, you’re a real one-man Woodward and Bernstein, aren’t you?’ He was surprised and it must have showed because Stephanie smiled humourlessly. ‘Yes, I know who they are and what they did. You think just because I sell my body I have the intellect of a footballer?’

‘No. I know that’s not true.’

Stephanie ran her hands through her tangled blonde hair. ‘So, all these other people you’ve been talking to – all the other ones like me – what do they think?’

‘About what?’

‘Your bomb theory.’

Proctor looked at the floor. ‘They don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘I haven’t told them yet.’

Stephanie felt herself tensing again. ‘Why not?’

‘I spoke to most of them before I found out. And when I did find out, I wasn’t sure it was true.’

‘But you are now?’

‘As sure as I can be, yes.’

‘When did you discover this?’

‘Three days before I came to see you for the first time. I never meant to say a word about it but when you refused to talk to me, I just blurted it out without thinking. It was frustration. It was unprofessional. And now it’s too late to take it back.’

Stephanie shivered and then felt hot. ‘Who else knows?’

‘No one. It’s just you and me.’

She made no attempt to conceal her incredulity. ‘You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?’

‘It’s true.’

‘Why haven’t you told anyone else?’

Proctor bit his lower lip for a moment. ‘Because I’m scared.’

The building in which Proctor lived was a small Victorian mansion block. It was not smart but his apartment had some style, although most of it seemed to have been lifted from a magazine. There was a Bose sound system, a widescreen Sony TV, and Danish furniture – armchairs, lamps, bookcases – all of it minimalist and clean. A beautifully-made wooden table dominated the centre of the sitting room. There were Turkish kilims on the floor, African batiks on the walls.

Stephanie lit a cigarette and noted his reaction, a grimace. When she asked him for an ashtray, he produced a saucer.

She said, ‘What do you know about him?’

‘I know that he’s young, probably no more than thirty, and that he’s a Muslim. I know that he’s living somewhere in this city. And I know that this is known at MI5, SIS and the CIA. And I’d guess we could include the FBI in that group, although I don’t know that for sure.’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘He probably has several but I don’t know any of them.’

‘Nationality?’

‘Same answer.’

‘What about a photo?’

‘I haven’t seen one.’

‘You’ve hardly narrowed the field much, have you?’

‘I can tell you that outside of those groups I’ve already mentioned, you and I are the only two people who know about this. And that we’re not supposed to.’

Stephanie’s cigarette was making her feel worse. She stubbed it out, half of it unsmoked. ‘That’s another thing. How come you know all this?’

‘I was contacted by a man at MI5.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

She pinched the top of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to will the pain into recession. ‘Why did he get in touch with you?’

‘Apparently, he discovered what was going on and couldn’t live with it.’

‘But when it comes to leaking classified information, he has no problem living with that?’

‘I don’t know what his deeper motive is. I think it’s possible that he had a relative or a friend on the flight. The point is, when it became apparent that the bomber was in London, MI5 were detailed to do the surveillance on him.’

‘Why wasn’t he arrested?’

‘I still don’t know that.’

‘Your whisperer at MI5 didn’t say?’

‘No. I think if he had and then it had come out straight away, it would have been too easy to trace back. He wants me to work it out myself so that it can look like it’s all my own effort. He needs to protect himself.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘Increasingly. At first, I was sceptical. But not now.’

‘How come he picked you?’

‘Because he discovered I was preparing this series of articles. There aren’t many journalists who are still working this story. For most people, it’s yesterday’s news.’

‘But if this is true, there’s no journalist in the world who wouldn’t take the bait. This story will make a legend out of the one who breaks it. He could have given it to anyone.’

‘He wanted someone who had a genuine interest, not an opportunist.’

‘Is that what he told you?’

‘No. It’s what I think, but …’

Stephanie suddenly felt faint. Her vision shimmered. She closed her eyes and hoped the moment would pass. It didn’t.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Proctor.

She swallowed and found her throat hot and dry. ‘I think I’m going to throw up …’

She rose to her feet and was dizzy. She stuck out a hand for balance. Proctor took her by the arm, guiding her swiftly to the bathroom. He left her there and returned to the living room, trying to ignore the sound of her retching. When she reappeared, her skin was grey and damp with perspiration.

He said, ‘I hope you don’t feel as ill as you look.’

The muscles in her stomach were trembling. ‘I thought it was some kind of hangover …’

‘Sit down. I’ll get you some water.’

‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’ When Proctor returned with a glass in hand, Stephanie had put on her coat and was fetching her rucksack. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s none of your bloody business.’

‘Look, you don’t have anywhere to go to.’

She looked insulted, then defiant. ‘I can’t stay here.’

‘Why not?’

Her eyes said it first. ‘Because I don’t trust you.’

‘Well, I don’t trust you, either. But I’m willing to take that risk.’

‘Then you’re an idiot. If you knew what I know, you wouldn’t say that so easily.’

‘I’m sure you’re right but if I was going to harm you, I’d have probably done it by now. You can leave if you want to. I won’t stand in your way. But if you want to stay here, you can.’

5

It was a savage strain of influenza that laid Stephanie low. Proctor offered her his bed but she refused, preferring the sofa. He made her soup, brought her tea, fed her aspirin. She was sullen and silent. For four days, she did little more than sleep. Her temperature fluctuated wildly and during the first forty-eight hours, she vomited repeatedly. The aches never ceased. It was like narcotic withdrawal, the destructive drug being Stephanie herself, her body rejecting every aspect of her poisonous life. At one point, Proctor considered consulting a doctor but Stephanie was adamant that he shouldn’t. When she awoke on the fifth morning, she knew she was getting better.

Proctor was making coffee. Not instant coffee, but real coffee. Stephanie enjoyed watching the little rituals of preparation, from the grinding of the beans to the cup. She noticed that Proctor was a man who enjoyed practical precision. She saw it in the way he kept everything so clean, in the order that ruled his flat and his appearance. There was no chaos around him and, she suspected, none inside him, either.

They returned to the living room. On the cherry table there were two bulging files, a folder, which was open, and an enlarged colour photograph of a Boeing 747. The fuselage and the engines were deep blue. Running forward of the wing’s leading edge were three enormous, crimson letters: NEA. North Eastern Airlines. The letters reached from the belly to the upper deck, and almost as far forward as the flight deck. On the tail, there was a white circle with two arrows pointing out from the centre, one heading north, the other heading east.

Proctor saw Stephanie looking at the photograph and said, ‘Flying in a pressurized aircraft at altitude is like flying in an aerosol can. Now if you imagine –’

‘I don’t want to imagine anything. Just tell me what happened.’

Proctor flicked through one of the files and unclipped a sheet of paper from it, which he then spread across the table-top. It was a diagram of a 747, seen from the front, from both sides and from above, this view including the lay-out of the seating. The North Eastern logo was in the bottom right-hand corner.

‘There were two explosions. The first one – the smaller of the two – occurred at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet. It blew a hole in the fuselage just in front of the wings, here –’ He pointed at one of the side views. ‘– and, less destructively, at the same point on the other side. Critically, the force of the blast was not powerful enough to tear the aircraft in two. As soon as it happened, the 747 fell into a steep descent while the flight crew tried to regain control. They were experienced enough – they had over forty-five thousand hours of accumulated flying time between them – but in this situation, there wasn’t much they could do.

‘At this point, it’s probable that most of the casualties were behind the blast. Those in the nose and on the upper deck – first and business class, mainly – would have been less likely to suffer the worst of the deceleration injuries, although they’d still have been damaged by them. In the end, of course, it made no difference. At twelve thousand feet, there was a second explosion and this was what tore the aircraft in two. Or rather, into pieces.’

Proctor poured some coffee into a pale lilac cup which was sitting on a saucer. Stephanie lit her first cigarette in almost a week, then took the cup and saucer and returned her attention to the diagram between them. ‘So what was all that stuff about electric wiring?’

‘The official verdict was inconclusive. The eventual findings dealt only in probability and theory, one of which suggested that a section of electrical wiring may have been faulty. There are lawsuits pending against both Boeing and North Eastern Airlines but while the cause remains only “probable” they are unlikely to be found culpable. If there was more conclusive proof that the cause was something mechanical or negligent, you can be sure that both Boeing and NEA would be investigating the matter more thoroughly, looking for ways out. With this verdict, they’re as happy as they can be in an unhappy situation. It’s no coincidence that pilot error is so frequently the cause of a crash; when the accused is dead, he can’t provide awkward answers to tricky questions. Pilot error is a lot cheaper than structural, mechanical or procedural failure.’

‘But there must be investigators who know the truth. What about the ones who discovered the evidence?’

‘Normally, when there’s a tragedy of this nature, there are investigators all over it. FBI, FAA, members of the NTSB – the American National Transportation Safety Board – to name but a few. They swarm all over the debris and all over the dead. In this case, however, the crash site was in the middle of the Atlantic. That severely reduced the number of agents who could physically get there. What’s more, the FBI reduced the number yet further by vetting those allowed to make the trip.’

‘I wasn’t aware the mid-Atlantic was part of their jurisdiction.’

‘It isn’t. But ultimately the ships and planes involved were, since the FBI was heading the investigation. Which is how they came to have the final say. They were very careful – and influential – about which FAA agents and, more specifically, which representatives from the NTSB were allowed out to the crash site. The same security applied to the testing conducted on recovered debris and human remains when they were returned to the United States.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘According to my source at MI5, the FBI received two warnings that a terrorist attack was on the cards. The first was about six months before, the second was just three weeks before. In their wisdom, they decided not to pass the warnings on to the airlines.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. They’d probably say that they get a lot of dud information – and a lot of hoaxes, too – and that they have to make a tough call each time. Perhaps they weren’t convinced of the sincerity or legitimacy of the warnings.’

In one of the two files that were on the table, Proctor had stored all the relevant articles he could find. They ranged from newspaper and magazine reports published in the immediate aftermath of the crash to coverage of the investigations executed by the FAA, the FBI and the NTSB. The initial assumption had been that flight NE027 had been brought down by a terrorist bomb. In the first forty-eight hours, all the usual suspects were accused; Arab terrorist organizations, Colombian drug cartels, home-grown fanatics from the mid-western militias. But during the months that followed, each potential villain was removed from the equation. Cocooned by her decline, Stephanie had still retained enough awareness of the outer world to recall the glacial progress towards a verdict that favoured structural or mechanical failure, ‘favoured’ being as close as it ever got.

There were photographs with the articles. Some were familiar; the section of pockmarked fuselage floating on the Atlantic’s surface, the huddle of women clutching one another for support at Heathrow. Other photographs were new, like the small collection of recovered items laid out on the deck of one of the salvage ships; several shoes – none of which matched, two soggy passports, a portable CD-player, a denim jacket, a necklace with a gold heart, a teddy bear with one of its legs missing. There was another set of photographs from inside the vast hangar where the retrieved wreckage was gathered and sorted. A series of struts running back from the 747’s nose to its hump were twisted like spaghetti. There was a seat that had been toasted to the frame, which was all that remained of it. Sections of fuselage had been burned black. In one shot, an investigator stood over some fragments of engine cowling. Behind him, fading from focus as the lines of perspective came together, was the rest of the hangar, its entire floor carpeted by debris. Disbelief was etched into the investigator’s face.

Stephanie said, ‘There must be some kind of evidence somewhere.’

‘There is. And wherever it is now, it’s conclusive. High explosives leave clues. A fuselage puncture is distinctive to look at. It’s petal-shaped and the petals themselves are bent in the direction of flight. The metal is super-heated by the roasting gases created by the explosion – we’re talking about a temperature as high as 5000°C – and is then instantly cooled by the freezing, speeding air outside. The heated forces generated by high explosives stretch, fracture and blister the aluminium skin of an aircraft in a way that leaves no doubt as to the cause. Similarly, those super-hot gases leave their mark on those who inhale them, in the form of severe burns to the mouth and lungs.

‘According to my source, the evidence shows that there was a bomb on board and that it was probably a shaped charge; that is, it was placed against the fuselage and designed to blow outwards, creating a hole in the aircraft’s skin. The smaller hole on the other side is really incidental.’

‘Why this flight?’

‘Who can say …?’

‘There wasn’t anyone important on board?’

‘Not really. Some prominent businessmen, a Congressman from Alabama, a French diplomat, a Swiss heart surgeon. But no one who ranks for something like this.’

The dismissive tone in his voice stung because it rang true; her family didn’t merit consideration. They were simply there to make up the numbers. ‘What about the second explosion?’

‘That was almost certainly a consequence of the damage sustained by the initial blast and by the descent that followed it.’

‘So how come Boeing and North Eastern bought the faulty electrics theory?’

‘They haven’t bought anything yet. But that theory is technically possible. The 747 is a very safe aircraft. A lot of trouble is taken to avoid the possibility of any kind of spark or electrical charge being released inside any of the fuel tanks. No electrical wires run through the central fuel tank in the belly of the aircraft. The pumps are housed on the outside. However, on some of the older 747s, there are wires running through the fuel tanks on the wings. But as a precaution, these are coated with aluminium, as well as two protective layers of Teflon.’

‘Was the North Eastern 747 one of that generation?’

‘Yes. It was the oldest aircraft in their fleet. It was still in operation after twenty-six years of service. Not that there’s anything unusual about that, you understand.’

‘So what was their theory?’

‘Their theory is that compromised wiring in one of the wing tanks caused flames to ignite. These travelled rapidly to the tip of the wing and then blew back into the centre tank along a venting tube that is supposed to let fuel vapours escape. Like I said, since this is only a possibility, it’s hard to blame anybody. For Boeing and for NEA, it could be a lot worse. Also, since this only affects ageing 747s, the cost of the alterations won’t be nearly so high for the industry. In fact, the proposed changes aren’t even mandatory. All that’s mandatory is close inspection, to see if wiring changes are necessary.’

‘And since there’s officially no terrorist involvement, no intelligence agency comes under scrutiny for ignoring the warnings?’

‘Correct. As a compromise, this works for all the parties involved. Everyone gets to breathe a sigh of relief.’

The following morning, Stephanie ventured outside for the first time since Proctor had brought her back to the flat. It was a crisp day and the chill cut through to the bone. When she’d seen her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she’d been shocked to see how thin she had become. Her ribs and collar-bones had never been so prominent. The hollows beneath her cheeks were as deep and dark as those in which her eyes hid. As a teenager, her full breasts had made her popular with the boys in her school despite her acid tongue. Now, she was almost flat-chested and only her mouth retained elements of voluptuousness. At least, it did when her lips weren’t cracked or blistered.

She walked past the old book shops, the Willow Gallery, the bike shop and the antiques shop. Bell Street felt stranded in time. At one end, it opened on to the Edgware Road so that, in a matter of a few short steps, one could stride out of the Fifties and into the present.

She drank a cup of tea in Bell’s Café, which had a green façade and a net curtain in the window that looked on to the street. Stephanie sat at a small table and toyed with the spare keys to the flat that Proctor had given her at breakfast. His sense of trust was easier to win than hers.

Part of her wanted to leave immediately but a growing part of her was content to stay. She was increasingly convinced that he would do her no physical harm; so far, he’d had her at his mercy for six days and he hadn’t tried anything. Furthermore, Stephanie had seen no sign of it within him. Besides, she had nowhere to go and no one to see. There was no genuine reason to leave. Except that sooner or later, there would be some sort of price to pay for Proctor’s apparent kindness. Experience had taught her that much.

They were in the kitchen. It was early evening and Stephanie was sitting on a wooden stool watching Proctor cut chicken breasts into thin strips. When he’d finished, he started to slice broccoli and courgettes with a clean knife on a clean board. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her staring.

‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘I’m smiling, not laughing.’

‘What about?’

‘Watching you chop food reminds me of my father. Not that you’re similar in any way. It’s just that he liked to cook and he was good at it. He taught me how to cook.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

Stephanie shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘What about your mother? Didn’t she cook?’

‘Very well. But she didn’t enjoy it the way he did. I preferred to learn from my father. I liked to watch him work with knives. He always cut things really quickly. He had these huge hands but he was so precise with a blade. There’d be a blur of steel and suddenly everything was beautifully sliced.’

‘I guess that comes from being a doctor.’

‘He was a general practitioner, not a surgeon.’

Proctor nodded and then wiped his hands on a tea-towel. ‘What were they like, your parents?’

Stephanie’s smile vanished. ‘They weren’t like anything. They were my parents.’

It was five-thirty in the morning. Stephanie was unable to sleep. She rose from the sofa and dressed quickly; it had been a bitter night and the central heating didn’t come on until six. She made herself coffee the way Proctor made it. Then she took the mug back to the living room and lit herself a cigarette. Down in the street, a man was scraping ice from the windscreen of his Vauxhall. Frozen breath shrouded his head.

On the cherry table were the reports that Proctor had been going through the night before. Stephanie sat down and began to leaf through the photo-copies. On the front cover of one plastic folder, a date had been scrawled in fluorescent green ink. It was only three months old.

There was some analysis on the causes of death for those bodies that had been recovered. Twenty-eight passengers remained unaccounted for. Given the crash site, Stephanie felt that number was remarkably low. The divers had made almost four and a half thousand dives to retrieve the debris and the dead. Their task had been made harder by the vast area over which material had been scattered and by the violent storms which settled over the region twenty-four hours after the crash. Approximately two dozen of the recovered bodies were more or less intact. The condition of the rest of the corpses ranged from ‘partially’ to ‘totally disintegrated’. Of all the photographs of the dead that were taken, only eight were deemed suitable for circulation for the purposes of identification, according to a psychologist assigned to handle the liaison between the authorities and the relatives of those on board. In the end, none of the eight was used.

There was another section from one of the FAA’s reports that described the impact of explosive deceleration on the passengers. Many of them had been killed instantly. The force with which their bodies had been thrown forwards was so powerful that some of them had been decapitated, while others perished due to the violent separation of the brain stem. Those who survived this were then subjected to numerous alternative forces. The pressurized air leaked from the puncture points in the fuselage with a power ferocious enough to strip a body of its clothes, to rip contact lenses from eyes. During the free-fall, some passengers were burned to death while others were cut apart by structural debris.

In another file, Stephanie came across a passenger manifest. Proctor had made several copies of it and scrawled notes over most of them. His comments were mostly concerned with structural damage from the first explosion. Stephanie looked down the list until she saw their names.

Seat 49A: Patrick, Sarah

Seat 49B: Patrick, David

Seat 49C: Douglas, Martin

aisle

Seat 49D: Patrick, Monica

Seat 49E: Patrick, Andrew

In that part of the 747, towards the rear of the economy section, the seats had been in a three-four-three configuration, split by two aisles. Seeing their names in print, seeing where they had been positioned within the aircraft, Stephanie felt numb. She could deal with the emotions that she saw in others; the instant despair, the long-term despair, the bewilderment and the rage. What she found harder to cope with was the brutal, clinical truth. Printed statistics, cause of death on a signed certificate, names on a passenger manifest.

She knew Proctor was looking at her before she saw him. He was in the doorway.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you?’

‘I heard you in the kitchen.’

‘The man in seat 49C, Martin Douglas,’ she said, staring at the name between her brother and her mother. ‘Do you know who he was?’

‘He was an architect from a place called Uniondale. He lived and worked in Manhattan.’

‘An American?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded to herself slowly. ‘So, an American architect condemned by an act of petulance from an English teenager he never knew existed.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘I should have been in that seat. It was booked in my name.’

‘How come you weren’t?’

‘It was a family holiday but I didn’t go. I said I couldn’t be back late for the start of my university term. Not even forty-eight hours, which is all it was. But that wasn’t the reason and they knew it.’

‘What was?’

Stephanie smiled sadly. ‘I don’t even remember. Something petty and hurtful, I expect.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s how I was back then. Spiteful and rebellious.’ She looked up at Proctor. ‘Now, I’m just spiteful.’

‘Martin Douglas would have got another seat, Stephanie.’

‘Maybe …’

‘The flight was almost full but not every place was taken. If you’d been on board, he’d have sat somewhere else and the death toll would have been greater by one.’

‘How old was he?’

‘If my memory serves me correctly, he was thirty-three.’

‘Married?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

Stephanie wondered whether those in row 49 had survived the first blast. Or even the second blast. And then she hoped that they hadn’t when she thought about the speed at which the flaming remains of flight NE027 had fallen towards the sea. At an impact speed of around five hundred miles an hour, the gentle waves below might as well have been made of granite.

2 STEPHANIE’S WORLD

6

This is my last cigarette. I draw the flame to the tip and inhale deeply. Proctor looks cross, as he always does when I smoke, but then he doesn’t know that I’m giving up. It’s a secret that will gradually betray itself, hour by hour and day by day.

It is almost exactly a month since Proctor collected me from Warren Street Underground station. I have lived with him since that night and I have started to change. Giving up cigarettes is a part of that process. A symptom.

I can’t pretend that I am any easier than I ever was but Proctor has earned some trust from me. He has allowed me to stay with him. He has not asked me to contribute to my keep. He has not made a move on me. He has not got angry at my continued reluctance to trace the bomber of flight NE027; he cannot understand my unwillingness, but he accepts that it is a fact. In truth, I cannot fully understand it myself.

I have not seen much of Proctor in the last month and his investigation into the crash has not advanced at all. Being a freelance journalist, he has no organization behind him to help finance his research. Instead, he writes travel articles for newspapers and magazines. At the moment, this is his only source of income. He tends to cram several trips together, if he can, thereby allowing himself uncluttered months in-between. Since I came to stay here, he has been to Israel for a week and to Indonesia for a fortnight. And today, he returns from a long weekend in Miami. He hates the work but he needs the money.

Within this flat – and the immediate area surrounding it – I have learned to feel safe. That is something new. When I stray beyond the confines of the Edgware Road or Lisson Grove, however, I begin to feel anxious. I think of Dean West, of Barry Green. I think of how I was when Proctor walked into my room on Brewer Street and how I regarded him as just another punter prepared to rent me for sex.

Then I think about how I regard him now and I am confused. He has resurrected my family but he has resolved nothing. Perhaps the reasons for my reluctance to seek answers are not so unusual. Perhaps I feel safer with the uncertainty than with the truth. What if the truth is worse than ignorance? I can cope without answers. It is more important to me not to be undermined. I do not want to relapse.

I have taken no drugs since I have been here. I am drinking less, too. I finished Proctor’s spirits within three days and he did not replace them. I could have bought replacements myself but felt too ashamed to. Ashamed. Given all that I have done in the last two years it seems strange to me that I should feel like that. But I did and, consequently, I adapted. Proctor himself rarely drinks and my habits have fallen into line with his. If he has a glass of wine and offers me one, I’ll accept. If he chooses not to, I won’t drink either.

Since I got here, there has been only one serious lapse.

Stephanie dialled the code and another three numbers before replacing the receiver, replicating the same action for the fourth time in five minutes. Her hand hovered over the phone. She knew she would see it through eventually because, until she did, the matter would continue to haunt her. Half an hour later, she dialled 1–4–1, followed by the entire number, and then pressed the phone to her ear. When it began to ring, she hoped there would be no reply. But there was.

‘Hello?’

Her vocal cords were paralysed.

‘Hello?’

This time, she managed a response. ‘Chris?’

‘Speaking.’

He was waiting for her to introduce herself. His voice had been instantly recognizable to her. If he’d cold-called her, she would have known straight away that it was him. But he had no idea who she was and the significance of that was not lost on her.

‘It’s Steph.’

The pause was as predictable as it was lengthy. ‘Steph?’

‘Yes.’

His voice dropped from a deep boom to a whisper. ‘I don’t believe it. Is it really you?’

‘Yes.’

‘My God. How long’s it been? How are you? Where are you? What are you doing?’

Stephanie closed her eyes and saw him clearly. Six foot two, dark hair that was thinning, unlike his waistline, which was expanding. That was how she remembered him. A sense of dress that followed the seasons without imagination. Today, since it was the weekend and he was home, he would be wearing blue jeans, a check shirt, a thick jersey – probably navy – and a pair of sturdy shoes. She felt the wind clawing at their farmhouse, which overlooked the small Northumbrian village of West Woodburn, not far from where they had all been raised. It was a bleak and beautiful place, sparsely populated. On the lower ground there were farms, while the higher ground was fit for nothing but grazing sheep.

‘Are you okay, Steph?’

‘I’m fine. How about you?’

‘I’m well.’

‘And Jane, how’s she?’

‘She’s well, too.’

‘What about Polly and James?’

Polly was her three-year-old niece. James, her nephew, was fourteen months old. Christopher said, ‘They’re both great. Polly’s been a bit feisty over the last six months, just like Mum always said you were at that age.’

Stephanie was aware of the pounding in her heart. ‘I just wanted to hear how you were, you know?’

‘It’s been a hell of a long time …’

‘I know.’

‘We lost track of you after you left that place in Holborn. What was her name? Smith?’

‘Karen Smith.’

‘That’s it. She said you walked out one day and didn’t leave a number.’

And you didn’t make the effort to look harder. It was a vicious circle. She’d never kept in touch with them so they’d made less and less effort to keep in touch with her. How long had it been since their last acrimonious conversation? Nine months? Ten?

Christopher had been instrumental in helping Proctor to trace Stephanie. Proctor had contacted him late the previous summer and had asked for an interview which had been granted. He’d travelled north to West Woodburn in the autumn and it was during the course of his interview with Christopher that he sensed there might be a story in Stephanie. The two remaining fragments of the family had not clung together for support in the aftermath of the tragedy. Instead, one had tried to cope with it and continue with as normal a life as possible, while the other had disappeared into the ether. Christopher had an old phone number – Karen Smith’s – but had insisted that she’d be unlikely to know where Stephanie was and that even if he found her, she wouldn’t speak to him. When Proctor had asked what Stephanie did, Christopher had been evasive and then dismissive.

‘I have no idea,’ he’d replied. ‘Probably nothing. In fact, probably less than nothing.’

But Proctor was persistent, spurred on by an instinct for a story. He’d contacted Karen Smith who, as predicted, had no idea where Stephanie was. But she knew some names and pointed him in the right direction. Moving from one shady acquaintance to the next, a picture gradually emerged of a girl with a future sliding into nowhere. From promising student to chemically-infested prostitute, she was perfect. Of all those who were connected to the dead of flight NE027, Stephanie’s tragic decline was the worst. And, therefore, the best.

‘What have you been doing?’ Christopher asked her.

‘Bits and pieces. You know …’

‘Like what?’

‘Odd jobs. Anything to help pay the rent.’

‘Where are you living?’

Stephanie felt the onset of panic. The conversation was already drifting the way of so many of its predecessors. She could hear it in Christopher’s tone, which was cooling. It was always the same. Off the top of her head, she said, ‘Wandsworth.’

‘Let me take your number.’

It was slipping from her grasp. All the things she wanted to say were still unsaid and, instead, she was being sucked towards the familiar vortex.

‘Chris, there’s something I have to tell you. About the crash …’

‘Hang on, I can’t find a pen.’

‘You don’t need a pen.’

He wasn’t listening to her. He never did. ‘Okay, what is it? You might as well give me the address, too.’

‘Chris, please!’

‘What?’

Stephanie shook her head. It could not be done over the phone. The moment was gone and the dark storm clouds were gathering at the horizon. ‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Do you need money?’

For some reason, that was the question that had always hurt the most. ‘No.’

After a pause, Christopher said, in a fashion that was equally critical and concerned, ‘Steph, you’re not doing anything … stupid, are you?’

‘Not any more.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing. Forget it.’

‘Okay, so give me your number and address.’

Stephanie fell silent.

‘Steph?’

The power of speech had abandoned her.

‘Steph?’

I got drunk that evening. I had plenty of vodka at the Brazen Head, which is at the far end of Bell Street, and then I returned home with two bottles of bad red wine. They slipped down as quickly as they came back up, which was shortly before I passed out. As an attempt to rinse the conversation from my memory, it worked, albeit temporarily. For two days, I felt I had the flu again.

Proctor is a fitness fanatic. He eats healthily and takes exercise, running three or four times a week. He performs a variety of stretches every morning before breakfast. He says stretching is more important than running or weights or any other form of exercise. I have caught him during his routine several times and we have both been embarrassed by it. It is not that I dislike what I see, or that he dislikes being seen. What makes us awkward are the things we think but which we do not articulate. On each occasion, I have noticed what good shape he is in. He is lean. Nearly all the bodies I have seen in the last two years have been flabby.

Although I have no feelings of affection for Proctor, I have wondered what it would be like to have sex with him. I cannot remember what sex was like with real people. For me, Proctor now has a personality – not to mention a genuine name – whereas all my clients were anonymous. They lied about their identities and the sex we had was purely physical. I faked the gasps of pleasure where required. I never felt anything, apart from occasional pain. In the last month, however, as I have gradually learned more about Proctor, I have speculated on how we would be together. Would the fact that I know him affect the way the sex would feel, or have I been permanently numbed to its pleasure?

How would I react?

I know that he has been thinking about it too. I see it in the glances he steals when he thinks that I cannot see him. And perhaps it is this more than anything else that has fostered the new self-consciousness that I feel for my body. As a prostitute, I will strip for anybody if the price is right. Nudity is nothing for me, nor is the exploitation of it by a stranger, as long as I am profiting from it. But Proctor’s gaze – even when I am fully clothed – can make me uncomfortable.

Over the last fortnight, I have started to perform some stretches myself. I have been amazed at how creaky and stiff I am. In general, the last month has been a great boost to my health; I have started to eat healthy food at regular intervals and I am sleeping properly. I have put on some weight and my skin looks less blotchy and grey. The smudges around my eyes are fading. But I am not supple in the way that I was when I was a teenager. I am upset by my physical condition and I am determined to improve it.

Christmas has been and gone. Proctor was in Israel, then. I was here, alone. It was the best Christmas I’ve had since the crash. New Year’s Day has gone, too. For that, he was in Indonesia. Now, we are in January. For everyone else, it is just another year. For me, it is another life. The changes that I have initiated have a momentum of their own and I cannot stop them.

Proctor was still frowning. Stephanie rolled an inch of ash on to a saucer. It had been less than an hour since he walked through the door, suitcase in hand, fatigue on his face. Now, after a shower and a change of clothes, he looked revitalized.

Stephanie said, ‘How was it?’

‘Terrible. If anybody ever takes you on a holiday to Miami, you can assume they hate you.’

‘So what are you going to say in your article?’

‘That it’s a winter weekend paradise.’ They were in the living room. Proctor was on the sofa, Massive Attack was on the sound-system. Noticing for the first time, he said, ‘New haircut?’

Stephanie ran her hand through it and nodded. ‘Do you like it?’

It was shorter than before, not quite touching the shoulders. The dark roots had been dyed.

‘Sure. It looks good, although I thought you were going to let the blonde grow out.’

She shook her head.

‘I couldn’t do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I always wanted to be blonde. When I was younger, you know …’

‘And now?’

‘It makes it easier to believe I’m someone else.’

‘I thought you were getting past that.’

Stephanie stubbed out her final cigarette. ‘I’m never going to get past that.’

Later, Stephanie came across Proctor in the bathroom. He was lying on the floor, beneath the sink, unfastening the panel at the end of the bath.

‘Is there a leak?’ she asked him.

He grinned. ‘I certainly hope not. Not after this kind of precaution.’

She saw that there were three computer floppy-disks on the floor beside him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘A bit of home security. This is where I keep the important stuff. The floppy-disks and my lap-top. There’s nothing on my desk-top of any significance – I back up information down a phone-line and then erase it – and I don’t keep any good material on paper. The juicy bits are here.’

‘Isn’t that rather primitive?’

‘Primitive is sometimes best.’

‘Why don’t you just get an alarm or something?’

‘In a place like this? Are you kidding? That’d be an invitation to a burglar.’

He put the three disks in an airtight plastic pouch already containing four. Then he re-sealed the pouch and replaced it, taping it to the underside of the bath. The lap-top, which was in a protective cover, was inserted between two filthy floorboards. Finally, he re-secured the panel with a screwdriver.

It was a soulless place, catering for the rush-hour trade in Victoria. There were fruit-machines along one wall, Sky Sport on a vast TV suspended over the bar and a sound system that played at a deafening volume. Proctor bought himself half a pint of Guinness and ordered a Coke for Stephanie. They sat at a small circular table with a good view of the bar.

Proctor wriggled out of a leather coat which he folded and placed on the bench beside Stephanie. He wore a denim shirt. The ironing creases were still sharp on the sleeves. Stephanie wore what she wore almost every day; faded jeans and a sweatshirt over a varying number of short- and long-sleeved T-shirts. Her blonde hair was scraped back and gathered by a clasp, which was a new look for her. Before, her face had been too gaunt to justify it. She wore no make-up, which was also a departure for her and one with which she felt increasingly comfortable.

Proctor said, ‘You see the guy on the stool, the one with the half-moon glasses and the charcoal jacket?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s who he’s coming to see. I don’t think Bradfield usually comes here but the man on the stool likes it because it’s crowded and noisy, good for anonymity.’

‘Who is Bradfield?’

Proctor took a sip from his glass and then wiped the thin line of cream from his upper lip with the back of his hand. ‘I told you. He’s a document-forger.’

‘I know. But why’s he important?’

‘It’s possible he forged a passport for our man. There’s this guy in Whitechapel – Ismail Qadiq – he’s an Egyptian T-shirt importer. His brothers run the manufacturing end of the business in Cairo and Qadiq brings the product over here and sells wholesale. But that’s not the only thing he’s importing. He brings in stolen documents for reprocessing, or brand-new documents, ready for use.’

‘Brand-new?’

Proctor nodded. ‘Genuine passports or driving licences from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria. Anywhere. They get stolen over there – or bought on the sly – and then they’re distributed all over Europe. There are dozens of ways into this country. Qadiq is just one. The point is, he may have actually seen our man, but he’s not sure. At least, that’s what he says but then he’s a compulsive liar. An intermediary brought a stranger to his Whitechapel warehouse – the place where he stores all his merchandise – and asked Qadiq to help process some documents as quickly as possible, including one Israeli passport and another in the name of Mustafa Sela. Money was no object. Qadiq says he never saw the stranger fully, that he was lurking in the background, but he told me that he organized it for the two men to meet Cyril Bradfield.’

‘So why do we need the man on the stool?’

‘Because Cyril Bradfield’s number isn’t in the phone-book. Because no one seems to be sure what he looks like or where he lives. Because Cyril Bradfield’s name probably isn’t even Cyril Bradfield.’

Stephanie sipped some Coke. ‘And he’s some kind of sympathizer, is he?’

‘Bradfield? No. He’s non-political. He’s not even in it for the money. Apparently, he’s in it for the love of it. For him, it’s art. And a question of quality. So naturally, he draws attention from the worst kind of people.’

‘How does the man at the bar fit into this?’

‘He’s a go-between for some low-life in Birmingham who reprocesses passports for the criminal fraternity and who prefers to have the artwork done down here. The go-between ensures Bradfield and his client never have to meet, which is better for all concerned.’

‘How did you discover this?’

Proctor smiled. ‘Slowly.’ He drained his half-pint glass and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

Stephanie thought about Barry Green and his sideline in altering the PIN codes on stolen credit cards. It felt as though she had borrowed the memory from someone else.

‘Straying a little, ain’t you?’

She looked up. The man before her had emerged from the sea of boozing suits, from the waves of accountants, local government officials and cut-price travel-agents. She checked Bradfield’s contact; he was still perched on his bar-stool, nursing a pale gold pint and a slim cigar.

She said, ‘I’m sorry. What did you say?’

‘You’re straying a little.’

He wore a suit as badly-fitting as any other she could see; tight trousers eating into a medicine-ball gut, a jacket with spare room at the shoulders, sleeves that ended inches short of the wrist. His face was pink and his neck was coated in shaving rash.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.’

‘Nah. At first, I thought I might’ve – you look different with your kit on – but not now. I couldn’t place your face and then it clicked. You work up west, not down here. Brewer Street, top floor, near the Raymond Revuebar. Right?’

Stephanie was reintroduced to one of her least favourite sensations as her stomach turned to lead and seemed to seep through her bowels, through the floorboards and deep into the earth below. Mentally, she reached for the mask; the hardness in the eyes, the firmness of the mouth, the determination to betray no sign of weakness. But there was nothing there and it showed.

‘It’s Lisa, ain’t it?’ The man was leering, enjoying her shock. ‘Remember me now, do you?’

Truly, she didn’t. He could have been one in a thousand. He might have been every one in a thousand. The pub seemed to shrink, the crowd grew taller, the lights dimmed, until they were the only two people in the room.

‘You’ve put some meat on. Don’t look bad on you, neither. You was well thin the last time I had you. But now you got more to sink into, know what I mean?’

There was no stinging comeback, there was no response at all.

He lowered his voice. ‘You on the meter?’

‘What?’

‘You working or what?’

‘You’ve made a mistake –’

His bravado was in his piggy eyes, which dropped to her thighs, as much as it was in his voice. ‘I got eighty quid in my pocket says you’ve got something for me down there.’

‘I told you –’

‘And I’ll go to a ton for a bit of A-level.’

Suddenly, Proctor was back, standing beside the man, looking at Stephanie, reading her alarm and saying, ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’

Once again, the words stalled in her throat.

Bristling with aggression, the stranger turned to Proctor. ‘Who are you?’

Proctor stared him down in silence. Stephanie watched the arrogance subside and the confusion surface. The man turned to her and said, unpleasantly, ‘Should’ve told me you was busy.’

‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’

Then he turned to Proctor, in a futile attempt to salvage some gutterborn self-respect. ‘I’m telling you, she’ll cheat you, that one. Bleed your wallet dry and won’t give hardly nothing back. So do yourself a favour and make sure she gives you full value, know what I mean?’

Before Proctor could protest, he was gone, back into the sea of suits. Proctor looked at Stephanie, grabbed his leather coat from the bench and took her hand. ‘Come on, we’re getting out of here.’

‘What about Bradfield?’

‘He can wait.’

The wind was brisk along Victoria Street. They stood on the pavement, waiting for a taxi. Stephanie was trembling, a fact that was more disconcerting to her than the cause of it.

Proctor said, ‘Are you okay now?’

‘I guess I’m cold.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I’m shaking.’

He took hold of one of them. It was icy. She lifted her gaze to meet his. He traced absent-minded lines across her palm. Then his fingers threaded themselves through hers.

She said, ‘We shouldn’t throw this chance away.’

He moved closer. ‘No.’

‘I’m talking about Bradfield.’

His cloudy vision cleared. ‘What do you mean?’

Stephanie smiled at his mild embarrassment. ‘I can get home all right. You should stay. If there’s a chance you’ll find him, you’d be crazy not to take it.’

Proctor knew she was right. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m fine. He was just some wanker trying it on. It’s happened a million times. I don’t know why it got to me this time. But it’s over now.’

They were still holding hands.

7

‘What are you doing?’

‘What does it look like? I’m cooking. Or at least, I’m going to.’

Proctor appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘What is it?’

‘Stir-fried vegetables with noodles.’

‘You’ve been waiting all this time? It’s midnight.’

Stephanie sliced the leeks that were on the chopping board. Then she placed a pan of water on to the blue circle of flame.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘Bradfield showed up a couple of hours after you left. He was only there for about ten minutes. I followed him and he went to a place called Gallagher’s in Longmoore Street, not far from where we were, maybe a ten-minute walk. He stayed there until closing time and then went home. It turns out the pub’s his local; his house is right down the same street.’

‘What happens now?’

‘I’ll go and see him.’

‘And what will you say?’

‘I don’t know yet but I’ll think of something. Do you want a glass of wine?’

‘Are you having one?’

‘There’s a bottle open in the fridge.’

‘Okay.’

The glasses were balloons on tall, thin stems. He handed her one and half-filled it.

‘Can I ask you something personal, Stephanie?’

‘You can ask.’

‘I know you told me once that you didn’t want to talk about your family, but would you tell me about them now? I’d like to know. Not for an article – in fact, I promise anything you tell me will be in confidence – but for me.’

‘You think a personal appeal cuts more ice with me than a professional one?’

Proctor smiled and shook his head, the two things coming to a sum total of weariness. ‘I don’t understand you. Every time I think we’re making a little progress, you say something and we’re back to square one.’

‘In that case, I’ll try not to raise your expectations again. That way, you won’t ever be disappointed. As for my family history, it’s very boring.’

‘I doubt that. There’s always something.’

My father, Andrew Patrick, was a doctor for Falstone and the surrounding area. Falstone is in north Northumberland, not far from West Woodburn, where my brother, Christopher, now lives with his family. The area my father covered was large, even for a rural practice. It is a wild, rugged place and it is perhaps the one thing that I have not poisoned in myself. I cannot rinse my love for it out of me. In the summer, it can be idyllic; warm days and nights where the light never fades – I have read books outside at one in the morning. In the winter, it can be hard and cold. During those months, it doesn’t get light until nine and it’s dark by four. But I have no favourite season when I am there; I love them equally, just as I love everything else about the land.

Both my parents possessed strong puritanical streaks and so the life we led was hard without ever being uncomfortable. It was an outdoor existence, mostly. They were keen on walking and were both expert climbers, a legacy of my mother’s nationality – Swiss – and my father’s fondness for Alpine holidays. They passed this love on to all of us. We lived for the land and off it, growing many of our vegetables and summer fruits, as well as rearing chickens and a small number of sheep. There were always dogs at home and they were always Boxers; we never had less than two, we frequently had four. All in all, we lived a life that might seem perfect to many.

But Proctor is right. There’s always something. And in our family, it was probably me.

My parents’ puritanism was matched only by their stubbornness. Consequently, our house was a fiery place to be. They argued with each other, they argued with us and we argued among ourselves. Except for David, who was the youngest of us, and who was crippled by shyness. When confronted, he always withdrew deeper into himself. My parents were strict with all of us and often expressed their disappointment at our behaviour or lack of achievement. But by far the largest share of their exasperation was reserved for me, their brightest child and their greatest frustration, a fact that was not lost on me, even at an early age. I under-achieved deliberately and I took a perverse delight in it. I was the archetypal ‘difficult second child’.

I never cried. I was sullen and cold. When provoked or angered, my resentment was usually silent and ran deep. I rarely forgave, I never forgot. I preferred my company to that of anyone else. The social aspects of family life held no attractions for me. Independence was what I craved. I longed for a future free of the family.

It wasn’t that they were unpleasant. It was that I was unpleasant.

My teenage years must have been a particular form of Hell for my parents. I rarely missed an opportunity to anger or disappoint them. I found academic work much easier than anyone else of my age but I frequently failed exams as an absurd act of rebellion. When my parents lectured me on the perils of alcohol, I went through a phase of getting drunk at every available opportunity and, if possible, in public. Even losing my virginity was an act of spite. It was genuinely nothing more. I treated the boy who took it as contemptuously as I treated my parents, whom I told the following morning. They were disgusted, then distraught. I was delighted.

I think about these things now – the pointlessness of it all, the needless irritation and sadness for which I was responsible – and I try to console myself with the fact that at least there was a reason for it, an explanation. But there isn’t. And now it’s too late to apologize. They’re gone. Dead. And if I hadn’t been such a spoilt bitch and refused to go with them, I’d be dead too.

There really is no justice in this world.

‘How did you find out what had happened?’

Stephanie cupped her glass of wine between both her hands. ‘It was when I was at Durham University –’

‘So you didn’t totally under-achieve, then.’

‘I was smart enough to know when it mattered and then I’d always do enough to get by. And I wasn’t going to miss out on a place at university. It was a chance to move away.’

‘What were you reading?’

She smiled. ‘German – I was already fluent. My mother was Swiss-German. We were all brought up trilingual. My father was fluent in French.’

‘Why didn’t you choose something more challenging?’

‘Because I wasn’t really interested. If I had been, I’d have made sure I went to Oxford or Cambridge. But for me, university wasn’t about degrees leading to professions. It was just a phase to be endured.’

Stephanie poured a small amount of walnut oil into the wok and then moved it over a flame. The vegetables were on the wooden board beside the chopping knife. Proctor was behind her and in this moment, she preferred it like that.

‘The night before I found out, I was with this second-year student. He was living in a rented cottage in Sherburn, an old pit village a few miles outside Durham. There was a party, we all got drunk, I stayed over. I didn’t get back to Hild and Bede – my college – until eleven the next morning. I was in my room, changing, when there was a knock on the door. It was another first year, like me. She was ashen-faced, she looked sick. I hadn’t heard the news or seen a paper, but she had. She said the Principal was looking for me so I went across to his office and he told me. I remember how hard it was for him, how he struggled to find the right words.’

Stephanie turned around. Proctor said, ‘How did you react?’

‘Predictably. No gasps, no tears. It didn’t seem real until I saw it on TV. Even at the funerals, I couldn’t absorb it. I kept expecting it to end, for someone to say that it had just been a macabre practical joke.’

‘And when that wore off, what then?’

‘Then I had to get away. From Durham, from Christopher and his family. From myself. And so I came down here. The rest … well, you know most of that already.’

‘You stayed with friends at first?’

‘They weren’t really friends, just people I knew. I moved from one place to the next – a couple of nights here, a couple of nights there. To ease the pain, I drank and took drugs. I’d done a bit of both at Durham, but when I got to London, I started to do more. Before long, and without really being aware of it, I gravitated towards similar people. Instead of wine and beer, I started drinking cheap cider and stolen spirits. Instead of a sharing a couple of social joints, I started scoring Valium, speed, coke, heroin. Anything to take me up or bring me down, I didn’t really care which. You know how it is. The habit gets worse, the crowd becomes seedier, the circle becomes more vicious. It didn’t take long for me to run out of money – six weeks, maybe two months, I don’t remember – so that was when I started trading sex for cash.’

‘That must’ve been hard.’

‘Not as hard as you might think. I was wrecked most of the time and I’d already been screwing a heroin dealer in return for a steady supply of tranquillizers. That was like a stepping-stone to the real thing. I got away from everyone else by moving to London and then I got away from myself by getting out of my head. Selling myself was the price I had to pay for that.’

Proctor shook his head. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ve tried.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean the reality’s not as titillating as you’d like it to be.’

He looked indignant. ‘I’ve never thought there was anything titillating about prostitution.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

He saw that she didn’t believe him. She said, ‘Whatever you say. The truth is, it’s dirty, monotonous and depressing. Occasionally, it’s dangerous. But most of the time, it’s as routine as any nine-to-five. Except we tend to work p.m. to a.m.’

‘How many days a week did you work?’

‘I’d say four to five, averaging five clients a day, at thirty to eighty pounds a go. Some days you get no one, other days you lose count.’

‘What kind of people?’

‘A mixture of regulars and one-offs.’

‘Can I ask you the most obvious question?’

She guessed what that was. ‘How do I do it with someone I find repellent?’

‘Yes.’

‘The same way a lawyer does his business with a criminal he’s sure is guilty. Dispassionately and professionally.’

‘But this is your body we’re talking about.’

‘Exactly. It’s not my soul – my spirit – so it’s not the real me.’

This time it was Stephanie who saw that her answer was doubted.

‘What do they tend to be like?’

‘They’re mostly middle-aged, mostly married. There are one or two who are nice enough – they tend to be the regulars – but the rest are wankers. Especially the ones who try to bargain. I mean, it’s bad enough without having to explain to some tosser that I’ll open my legs for eighty but I won’t for forty. Then you get the guys who can’t get it up or who can’t come. They’re the ones who are most likely to get abusive. They’re also the ones most likely to cry. But the ones I like the least are the macho ones who insist on the full half-hour – not a minute less – and are determined to try to break some kind of ejaculation record. It’s like some kind of virility test they have to pass. They’re pathetic.’

‘Do you have to see so many of them?’

‘Why? Do you think I enjoy it?’

‘No. But five clients a day at eighty quid a session, that’s four hundred pounds. Five days a week makes two grand.’

‘Let me explain something to you. Firstly, not all punters want, or can afford, the full service, so it’s not eighty quid a time. Then there’s rent. I paid a full rent to Dean West, my landlord. I also paid protection to him. If I’d gone outside him, I’d have had to pay a full commercial rent but I’d also have had to pay someone to take the flat in their name, since no agency is going to lease a place to someone who doesn’t even have a bank account.’

‘What?’

‘That’s right. No bank account, no National Insurance, nothing. And whoever rented the flat on my behalf would probably have skimmed some more off the top. Then I had to pay the maid – she cost fifty quid a day plus ten percent of what I made. On top of that, I had the cards to pay for. That’s twenty pounds for a thousand and ten pounds to the carder for every one hundred he stuck in a phone-box. And now that British Telecom is clearing some phone-boxes up to four times a day, that’s a hell of a lot of cards we’re talking about.’

‘I never really thought about the details,’ Proctor admitted.

‘No one ever does. The truth is, it’s bloody hard work.’

Proctor nodded. ‘It sounds rough.’

‘It is.’ When it looked as though he might be about to say something sympathetic, she cut him dead by adding: ‘But not as rough as the ride on North Eastern Airlines.’

He reached inside the fridge for the bottle and replenished their glasses. She shovelled some of the vegetables into the wok. The oil spat.

She said, ‘Did you know that they never found David? All the others were eventually identified – God knows how – but David was one of the twenty-eight they never recovered.’

‘No. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.’

Stephanie shrugged and seemed surprised at herself. ‘I don’t even know why I mentioned it. I mean, what difference does it make?’

Half an hour later, they had eaten. The topic of conversation had changed and so had the mood.

Stephanie said, ‘It’s my turn to ask you something personal.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Are you gay?’

‘What?’

She wasn’t sure whether he was merely surprised by the question, or angered by it.

‘Are you gay?’

‘What makes you think I might be?’

‘I haven’t seen you with anyone.’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been away a lot.’

‘I know. While I’ve been here. And no one called. At least, no one personal and female.’

He smiled at her analysis. ‘In answer to your question, no. I’m not gay. I’m just busy.’

Stephanie gathered their plates and took them through to the kitchen. Proctor followed. She placed the plates in the sink and turned on the cold tap. Proctor was behind her, but closer than before. She knew he would touch her before he did. He placed a hand on her hip and kissed her on the ear. It was a little peck followed by: ‘Thank you. That was delicious.’

The cold water was running over her hands. ‘It was nothing.’

‘It was thoughtful.’

He hadn’t moved away. He’d waited for a response, some form of rejection. There hadn’t been one and he took this as a sign of encouragement. He placed a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder and slowly turned her around. She let him. This was a moment that had been coming for a while.

Stephanie’s curiosity was marginally stronger than her trepidation. Proctor kissed her. He was tentative and closed his eyes. She kept hers open and never blinked. His hands moved around her, from the shoulders to the small of her back. Her lips felt numb against his.

She broke the kiss.

‘Are you all right?’ he murmured.

She recognized the sensation; the tension of a guitar string on the verge of snapping. Her pulse quickened, her fingers flexed.

He lowered his face towards hers once more, reading her silence as acceptance. But she turned her face away, grabbed his arms and pushed him back. If he was surprised by the vigour of her rejection, he was utterly amazed by the look on her face. Her eyes were aflame. The bitterness in them superseded anything he had seen in her before.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Keep away from me,’ she hissed.

He was dumbfounded. ‘Stephanie, what the hell’s going on?’

‘What did you think was going to happen?’ Even her voice had changed. Instead of rising to a hysterical shriek it had dropped to a growl. ‘That I’d find relief by letting you fuck me all night?’ She spat every word. ‘Is that what you thought? Me with tears on my face, you with a grin on yours?’

‘What are you talking about? It was just a kiss. I didn’t mean to …’

He took a step forward, she took a step back, until she found herself pressed against the sink. Her elbow knocked a wine glass to the floor. It shattered but her eyes never left Proctor. She felt the cold water splattering off the plates on to her arms. And then she felt the knife on the chopping board. She grabbed the handle and thrust the blade at Proctor who froze.

‘Come one step closer to me and I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I will.’

He raised his hands. ‘Take it easy, Stephanie. Just calm down –’

‘I mean it.’

‘Look, I’m sorry if I upset you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘If I misread the signals, I apologize. I didn’t want –’

‘Signals?’

‘I thought there was something … happening. Between us.’

‘Like what?’ Her fury was still building. ‘Do you see some neon sign over my head? You can fuck me if you want. What bloody signals?’

Proctor was bewildered beyond reason. ‘Stephanie, please …’

She was shaking. Her face had reddened at first but now the colour had drained from it entirely. He had never seen eyes so black or so brilliant. Her voice quietened to a brittle whisper: ‘If you ever touch me again …’

Proctor slowly extended his right hand towards her and said, softly, ‘Give me the knife.’

The swipe was so quick that neither of them saw the blade properly.

Stunned, Proctor looked at his palm, at the slice that extended from the base of the index finger to the edge of the wrist. For a second, it was a perfect scarlet line. Then the cut started to flow, streaming over his hand and fingers, curling around his wrist, coiling itself around his forearm, slicking the sleeve of his shirt, splattering on the tiles of the kitchen floor.

It was the sound of the front door closing that prompted him to gather his senses. Stephanie was gone and he needed medical attention.

At two in the morning, the busiest places in London are the night-clubs, the police stations and the Accident and Emergency departments of the city’s hospitals. Proctor descended from the first floor of St Mary’s Paddington and stepped out on to South Wharf Road. His palm had been stitched and bandaged. It was a freezing night. He glanced both ways, wondering which direction would most likely lead him to a taxi, even though Bell Street was not far away. To his right, he recognized the vast curved roof that covered the platforms of Paddington Station. Only a handful of lights were burning in the high-rise beyond. It stood out against the night, lit by the glare from the streets below.

Proctor turned left. He never saw Stephanie standing still in the shadows of the hospital. And she never saw him alive again.

8

I open the door to Proctor’s flat with my key – with his key – and my breathing stops.

I have spent the night on the streets. This is nothing new for me. I am familiar with the city as a bed. Like so many others in London, I’ve slept in shop doorways and close to the warm air exhaled by Underground ventilation units. I’ve sneaked into hotel service areas and stolen a few warm hours. Sometimes, a train station – or a bus station – has been the best place to rest. But tonight I wasn’t looking for sleep. I was looking for answers.

So I walked through the streets, mindless of my direction and only vaguely aware of my surroundings, which is unusual for me. I have learned to be cautious. Working at night in the seamier areas of the city, one quickly develops a sixth sense for danger. I can see behind me. I can feel a threat, smell its scent on the polluted air. Unless the drugs or the Special Brew have kicked in. Then I’m useless and vulnerable, which was how I was last night. All my defences were down.

I cannot believe what I have done. Until dawn, I don’t honestly think I even accepted what I had done. It seemed like a dream. But morning tends to bring clarity, in all its painful guises.

I don’t understand why I reacted the way I did. I knew Proctor was going to touch me, to kiss me. I wanted him to. The moment had been telegraphed; I had plenty of time to kill it before it even happened but I chose not to. I knew he would be tender and understanding. When he put his hand on my hip and his lips on my lips, it was much as I hoped it would be. No, it was better than I hoped it would be. And then … I snapped. Just as I did with my last client, even though the two situations could hardly have been more different.

Around seven this morning, I stopped at a café for a cup of coffee. I only just resisted my craving for a cigarette. For an hour, I agonized about what I should do before stumbling to a decision. It was a cowardly choice; to sneak back to Bell Street, collect my things and flee. I prayed Proctor would be out to make it easier for me. Then I could leave my keys with a hastily-scribbled note of apology. A month ago, his absence would have been an invitation to scour for valuables. But not now. I owe Proctor. He is the only man who has shown me any kindness in the last two years. And how have I repaid him for that kindness? By cutting him with a knife.

I cannot believe myself. What kind of cold-blooded creature have I become?

There were papers strewn across the floor in the hall of Proctor’s pristine flat. They were the first thing that Stephanie saw. The self-pity and the shame evaporated. Her skin prickled, her throat dried. She paused for a moment, pushing the door completely open and listening for the sound of movement. Nothing. Then she stepped inside and quietly closed the door behind her.

The paper trail led to the office on the right. From the short hall, she could see empty desk-drawers on the floor, the swivel chair on its side, the activated computer screen. She turned left. In the kitchen, every cupboard and drawer had been investigated. The fridge was empty. Its door was open, all its contents spread across the tiles. Clean cutlery cluttered the steel sink. Proctor’s bedroom looked no more dishevelled than that of the average student but, normally, it was clinically clean and tidy. The mattress had been removed from the bed and sliced apart. The sheets were screwed into a bundle in the corner. The cupboards had been checked, all the slatted doors were open. In the bathroom, the bath itself contained all that had been inside the medicine cabinet and the cupboard beneath the sink.

Proctor was in the living room, an island in a scarlet ocean.

Stephanie stood over him and found she was unable to cry out for help, to gasp in horror, to shed a tear. This wasn’t Proctor. It was only his body. Just as she wasn’t Stephanie when a stranger was using her. The spirit was gone but the sight still stopped her heart.

Proctor had been shot in the forehead and through the left hand. Also, there were dark glossy stains on his shirt and on his trousers, one on the left thigh and one around each knee. The bandage that had been wrapped around his right hand during the night lay in a crumpled heap on the sofa. The stitches had been plucked free of the injury that Stephanie had inflicted upon him and the gash had been deepened and extended. There were four cross-cuts on the same palm and she could see that the little finger, the index finger and the thumb had all been broken. His eyes were frozen open. A fat drop of blood sat on the left pupil.

She could not imagine the agony he had endured before his death and wondered how his torturer had prevented Proctor from screaming; howls of pain would surely have alerted the other residents of the mansion block. Ransacking suggested the killer had been looking for something specific. Torture suggested the killer hadn’t found it. Stephanie wondered whether the prize was what lay behind the panel in the bathroom. She had noticed that it was intact. Or maybe the killer was after something else – something that was actually retrieved. A piece of hard information, perhaps? A secret locked in Proctor’s mind? Would he have surrendered it? He must have known that he was going to die so did he try to take it to the grave? How resistant had he been to the pain? How resistant would she have been?

Stephanie picked up the phone. She pressed nine once, then twice. Think about it. Then she stopped, before replacing the receiver. There was nothing she could do for Proctor now. She was all that was left. She wondered whether she was in danger herself. Had the intruder expected to find both of them in the flat or was Proctor the only target? And who had the intruder been? Bradfield? An associate of his? Or someone else, someone invisible to her?

She needed time to think and somewhere safe to do it.

Auto-pilot engaged and emotions temporarily suspended, she drifted through the flat. Her little rucksack was in the corner of the living room, its contents scattered across the cherry table. The money she had stolen from her King’s Cross clients was gone, everything else – the worthless stuff – had been left. The panic rose within her but she beat it back. She returned her belongings to the bag and searched for Proctor’s overcoat. That was what he had been wearing when she had seen him leaving St Mary’s Paddington. She found it in the bedroom among a heap of clothes on the floor. The wallet lay beside it. The cash was gone. Only the cards remained; Barclays Connect and Visa. She rummaged through her own pockets and found six pounds seventy.

She put his wallet into her rucksack and went into Proctor’s office. She examined the computer screen. It was a letter to a features editor of a magazine she did not recognize. She scrolled down the page. The content was innocuous. Then she remembered that he had told her that he kept nothing of value on his desk-top. The necessity for torture became more apparent.

It seemed Proctor had kept his filing cabinet locked and had not been forthcoming over the whereabouts of the key since it had been prised open with a hammer and a screwdriver, which had both been left lying on top of it. The files had been examined and discarded. Stephanie got down on her hands and knees and began to sift through the papers.

It took thirty-five minutes to find the slip of paper with the PIN code for the Visa card on it. She found no number for the Connect card but made a note of Proctor’s birth date, his phone numbers, his fax number, his National Insurance number, his passport number. A three-month-old bank statement revealed a nine hundred and eighty pound credit in Proctor’s current account. She hoped his Visa card was as healthy.

She took the screwdriver from the top of the filing cabinet and went to the bathroom, where she unfastened the panel and retrieved Proctor’s lap-top and the plastic pouch containing the seven floppy-disks. There was too much to squeeze into her rucksack so she found another small shoulder bag on the bedroom floor. She helped herself to a tatty Aran jersey, a relic from a bygone era in Proctor’s personal fashion history. She also took some thick socks, three T-shirts and a navy blue silk scarf, which she wrapped around her throat. On the cherry table, by her rucksack, she noticed Proctor’s portable phone, which was recharging. She took it.

Her scavenging concluded, Stephanie wanted to do something about Proctor, to cover him, or to arrange him in some way that looked less awkward – less pained – and then to alert someone. But she did none of these things.

Instead, she gathered her bags and left the flat, taking care to double-lock the front door as Proctor had always insisted she should.

It had started to rain when she stepped on to Bell Street. She looked left and right, half-expecting an approach from a stranger, or a dark-windowed car to screech to a halt beside her. Or the cold dart of pain as the tempered steel slipped between her ribs, courtesy of an invisible hand. But there was no one and nothing. She turned right and headed for the Edgware Road. Cash was her first consideration.

She tried the Connect card at the first two ATMs she came to, using variations of the month and year of Proctor’s birth and the last four digits of his phone number for the PIN code. All were rejected. At the Halifax ATM, on the junction of Edgware Road and Old Marylebone Road, Stephanie played safe and inserted the Visa card for which she had a valid PIN number. She withdrew two hundred pounds and turned her attention to the next priority: getting off the street.

Sussex Gardens offered plenty of cheap, anonymous accommodation, the dingy terraced hotels set back from the road behind railings and hedges. She could have picked any one of two dozen places but settled for the Sherburn House Hotel for the flimsiest of reasons: its name. Sherburn was the village outside Durham where she had stayed on the night that flight NE027 had plunged into the Atlantic.

She paid cash and registered under a false name that she forgot almost instantly. Her room was on the second floor. The single bed had an orange bedspread, the curtains were maroon. There was a single-bar electric heater mounted on a wall. The wallpaper had been buttercup yellow once – the original colour was preserved in a rectangle where a picture had hung for years – but now it was dirty cream, with patches of brown where the damp was worst. In the corner, there was a sink with a small green bucket beneath it, to catch the drips leaking from the U-bend in the pipe.

Alone, Stephanie dumped her bags on the floor and sat on the bed. The springs squeaked as she sank into the quicksand mattress. She put her head in her hands.

What now?

A cigarette. I’d give anything for a cigarette right now. And maybe a drink. Maybe two. A shot of vodka would help, especially if it was a double. The first of several, perhaps. And then maybe something a little stronger, just to be sure.

I am standing at the crossroads. Again.

I have been here before. Of the choices that are available to me, I know one well and I can feel it drawing me towards it. It is the path that offers to numb the pain. It is the path which promises the bliss of ignorance as a solution. It is the path I chose last time.

Proctor’s lap-top was operating Windows 98. The last time Stephanie had used a computer she had been a student and Windows 95 had been the freshest thing on the menu. She never cared much for computers, or for the sad souls who were so infatuated by them, but she had learned the basics. At the time, she had been surprised by how easy she found it. Now, two corrosive years later, she felt less complacent. Working cautiously, it took her two hours to refresh her memory to a standard that allowed her through the system.

There was a list of the material stored on Proctor’s desk-top. Most of the files from the original investigation were on that; the interviews with the families and friends of those who had perished aboard NE027. She supposed that included Christopher and wished she could have seen what he’d said to Proctor. How had he coped over the last two years? Stephanie had done all she could to bleach her own memory but her brother wasn’t like that. Since his emotions rarely rose to the surface, what lurked beneath remained a mystery.

There was a form of diary on the second of the seven disks that she inserted into the computer, a chronological report for Proctor’s investigation. It showed the order in which he had contacted the bereaved and each of their responses to his request for an interview. Where granted, there was a file reference for the interviews themselves, all of which were stored on the desk-top. Most people had only been interviewed once, either by phone or in person, but some had been interviewed twice or even three times. The chronology also showed Proctor’s travel schedule and the actual dates for all the interviews he had conducted. Stephanie saw that Christopher had only been questioned once.

The computer record also told Stephanie something about Proctor’s MI5 contact. At first, she thought Smith was part of Proctor’s initial enquiry, someone close to one of the three hundred and eighty-eight dead. But the name cropped up more frequently than any other and Stephanie was then forced to reconsider her original opinion when she reached the following entries.

Dec 10 | Tried Smith. Phone disconnected.
Dec 15 | Smith called. Use outside phones from now on.
Jan 06 | Smith called. Watching and watched.

Watching and watched? Stephanie travelled through time, scrolling up and down the pages of the diary. She traced Smith’s first entry into the journal.

Jul 22 | Spoke to Beth Marriot, widow of NE027 captain – turned down request for an interview. Contacted by ‘friend’ who wants to help. Will deliver information.
Jul 25 | Contact of 22nd left package this morning. Incredible – clearly a crank! Signed Smith. Question – how did he find me? How did he know?

Stephanie proceeded slowly, assembling the bare bones of Proctor’s information. From the abbreviated notes in the diary, she saw how his initial opinion of Smith was gradually undermined. Each entry seemed to nudge him a little further along Smith’s path. The other contacts – the relatives and friends of the dead – made fewer and fewer appearances in the log until, on November 30, they ceased altogether, apart from Proctor’s first contact with Stephanie in mid-December. In passing, she saw two familiar names – Bradfield and Qadiq – which brought her back to the central questions: who killed Proctor? Why? And what about her? If Proctor’s flat had been under surveillance, the killer would have known that she was living there. Perhaps his murder had been more impulsive than that.

One of the disks had ‘Smith’ scrawled across the label in green felt-tip. Stephanie placed it into the computer. There were only three files on the disk. One of them detailed Smith’s version of the story, as told to Proctor.

Smith had become aware of Caesar – the name he, or maybe someone else, had ascribed to the alleged bomber of NE027 – when he had access to knowledge of an MI5 surveillance operation. It wasn’t clear whether Smith was actually part of the surveillance team detailed to watch Caesar, or whether he was running the operation, or whether he had no part in it but had, one way or the other, learned of its existence. Stephanie supposed the obfuscation was deliberate. It was clear that Smith had questioned the suitability of such an operation, only to be rebuffed by a higher authority. He claimed that SIS were aware of Caesar’s presence in London, as were factions within Scotland Yard. He also claimed that Caesar was currently masquerading as a student at Imperial College at the University of London, and he had even noted the course he was taking: a Postgraduate Study in Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology.

Smith’s outrage, Proctor noted, had felt genuine. And justified. Here was a man who had placed a bomb on an aircraft full of innocents – who had murdered them all – and who was now walking around London, as a free man, in the full knowledge of those agencies whose job it was to hunt such people and bring them to justice. Worse still, he was passing himself off as a student, living off government-funded grants paid for by the British taxpayer. Proctor, it seemed, had been persuaded of Smith’s integrity simply by the tone of his voice, since the two men never actually met.

During another conversation, Smith had warned Proctor to be careful about those with whom he spoke. Questions to the police, for instance, would inevitably be referred upwards and, sooner or later, someone on the inside would see his name. A direct approach to MI5 or SIS would obviously be swatted aside, in the first instance, and who could say what the longer-term consequences of such an action might be? The inference was clear. Tread cautiously, stay in the shadows, whisper it softly.

I am lying in bed, fully-clothed beneath the sheets, blankets and orange bedspread. The wall-mounted heater is on and radiating a pathetic amount of warmth. I am shivering but it has nothing to do with the fact that I am cold.

It is ten-to-midnight. There is a prostitute in the room to my left. She’s been intermittently busy since half-past-eight this evening. The headboard of her bed smacks the wall between us when she’s earning. I’m surprised she doesn’t break it since the partition is so thin I can hear nearly everything that is said between her and her clients. Those sad exchanges; the insincere teases and the lies. The whispers and moans of encouragement, the grunts and groans of faked release, I know her vocabulary in all its depressing entirety. I am her.

As for my shaking frame, who can say? It’s shock, certainly, and it was only a matter of time before I succumbed to it. Frankly, I’m surprised I lasted this long. But is there also something else?

Every time I close my eyes, I see Proctor, twisted and torn, drained, quite literally, of life. Or I see him as a kind man, someone who didn’t deserve to die, someone quite unlike me. All day, I was ruled by reason and protected from emotion. But now I am too tired to resist. An overwhelming sadness rises up within me and threatens to drown me. I think of his injuries and the sickening process that created them. And the fact that but for a cruel coincidence of timing – a coincidence born of my brutal behaviour – I would have been there when Proctor’s killer called. And either the two of us, as a team, would have survived, which is a jewel to add to my treasure-chest of guilt, or I would have gone the same way as him

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