LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Eighteen

      Frankie parked his scooter in the same place as he had the day before, near the cottage outside Turners Fold, his helmet chained and padlocked to the footboards. He clambered over the gate again and set off along the two-rut track, looking around as he went, checking that no one could see him. When he got close to where he had been the night before, the spot marked by a stick jammed into the ground, he crawled along the floor to make sure that he couldn’t be seen, his knees swishing through the long grass that gathered against the wall.

      He peeped over the wall and smiled when he saw he had the same view, that he’d got it right. The bathroom window was closed now but the curtains to the bedroom were open, like they had been the night before, when he had caught her as she went in after her shower, a towel around her body.

      He wanted to get closer now. He had taken a few pictures the night before. He had trained his camera on her but then turned away as her towel slipped down her body. His camera had carried on clicking though, because he knew it was different that way. He wasn’t looking at her body, he knew it was wrong to do that, but his pictures were different. They were just photographs, not really her. Not really any of them. His photographs. Just scrambles of colour.

      He reached into his bag and produced his water bottle. He knew he could be there for a long time.

      Then he noticed that her car wasn’t there. There was the red sports car, but the house looked dark.

      It was time to get closer.

      I found Susie waiting for me under the vast timetable at Victoria station as we’d arranged, conspicuous in her heels and short skirt among the backpackers and metropols. I weaved through the travellers; when I caught Susie’s eye, she rushed towards me and grabbed me by the arm.

      ‘About time,’ she said, her voice tetchy.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Why the urgency?’

      ‘Because I can’t smoke in here,’ she said, and she set off towards the exit.

      ‘Slow down,’ I said, laughing. ‘Don’t you want to know how I’ve got on?’

      ‘Walk and talk,’ she said. Once we got outside, she pulled a cigarette packet from her handbag and lit up quickly. She blew smoke past me and sighed. ‘Go on, what’s the news?’ she said, suppressing a cough but seeming calmer now.

      ‘I went to speak to my old editor.’

      Susie looked suspicious. ‘You told me that much, but why couldn’t I come along?’

      ‘Because I didn’t want you to be annoyed if he wasn’t interested.’

      ‘And is he interested?’

      I nodded and smiled. ‘Oh yeah, he’s buying,’ I said, although when a smile broke across her face too, I added quickly, ‘but Claude’s got to come forward. Without him, you are the story, and if it’s just you, you won’t get much more than a new handbag out of it. And it could ruin your life.’

      Susie took another long pull on her cigarette, a determined look in her eyes. ‘He’ll come forward,’ she said. ‘Follow me. I know where we need to be.’

      She walked off ahead of me, towards the jukebox rumble that drifted onto the street from the Shakespeare, a red-fronted pub opposite the station, though the music couldn’t compete with the constant roar of diesel engines from the stream of buses and taxis. It was a busy corner of London and right now it seemed like everyone—suits and shoppers, groups of old ladies—was leaving, heading for the trains or coach station.

      Susie pointed ahead, past a double-decker heading to Brixton. ‘That’s where I first saw him, crossing the road there,’ she said. ‘He was carrying a Sainsbury’s bag, with a newspaper under his arm.’

      ‘So he was living around here, not just passing through,’ I said.

      Susie smiled. ‘You’re sharp.’

      ‘So why don’t we just go to where he is, if he’s not far away?’ I said, trying hard to keep the frustration out of my voice.

      ‘Because this is how he wants it.’

      ‘And how long do we wait?’

      ‘Until he feels the time is right,’ Susie said.

      ‘Is he watching us now?’ I asked, looking around.

      Susie shrugged. ‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘Probably, even.’ She brandished her phone. ‘He’ll call me, when the time is right.’

      I sighed, impatient. I pointed to a small park nearby, really just a triangle of grass behind black railings. ‘We’ll go in there and wait.’

      We crossed over and stepped up to the gate, but it was locked. Instead, we had to settle on the wall near to a statue of some old soldier. I tried to give myself a good view down the street towards where Susie had said she’d first seen him, but I couldn’t help wondering again whether this was some elaborate hoax. And for what purpose? Susie looked ill at ease as she sat on the wall. It was low down, really just a base for the railings, and so she had to position her legs side-saddle to protect her modesty. She kicked away an old sandwich carton and then slipped off her coat. I saw her tattoo, barbed wire wrapped around her arm, the black now faded to grey, the sharp outlines made jagged by time.

      ‘He must have friends down here, someone sheltering him,’ I said. ‘A person couldn’t stay hidden

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