LITMIR.BIZ

       10

      Jane Maguire stood in a telephone kiosk in Basildon town centre. She could have been anywhere. One of the new towns built after the war to ease the pressure on London, its designers probably comforted themselves with the thought that a couple of hundred years would give it the feel of a real place. But in the decades that followed, up and down the country they had ripped the guts out of towns and implanted pedestrian precincts lined with exactly the same shops that she was looking at here. Why let the new grow old gracefully when you can make the old grow young grotesquely?

      The thought wasn’t hers but standing here brought it back to mind, and the dry amused voice that spoke it. She longed to hear it now at the end of the phone, but the ringing went on and on. Abruptly she replaced the receiver.

      It was time to move. The journey, though not long, had dulled the impression of the man in the tweed hat. Was he watching her or was it just her terror and guilt which needed some visible object to slacken the pressure within? No matter. Her mind had gone beyond rationality. Almost beyond pain. She needed a safe place to curl up in till she was able to plan the future – and feel the agony – once more.

      She started walking away from the commercial lights. She could have got a taxi where the bus had dropped her but she had felt a need for movement without confinement. The rain had grown finer till at last its threads wove themselves together into a silky mist which clung just as dampeningly but at least did not lash the exposed skin. She found herself walking faster and faster till suddenly, without conscious decision, she was running. Her newly bought clothing constrained her, particularly the waxed coat, and she felt an urge to pull it off, to pull everything off, and run with no restraint, as sometimes secretly she had done in the past when her cross-country training had taken her on a safe, secluded route.

      But here even a fully clothed woman running was going to attract notice. In fact in these conditions a woman walking, once she left the lights of the town behind, was likely to draw attention, both friendly and unfriendly. She slowed to a steady walk, pulled her hood up over her head, and tried to swing her shoulders with the aggressive rhythm of a man.

      A car passed, slowed, picked up speed. A lorry thundered by, almost upending her with its blast. A van drew alongside, matching her pace. A window was wound down and a voice said, ‘Like a lift, mate?’

      She shook her head, or rather her hood, vigorously and grunted a no in the lowest register she could manage.

      ‘Please yourself,’ said the voice, and the van drew away.

      She reached a crossroads, turned left on a narrower minor road, and after a traffic-free half a mile, she climbed over a gate into a field. By daylight she was sure she could have walked this path with her eyes closed. But with the pressing damp darkness closing her eyes against her will, things were very different. Her feet were slipping and slithering in the muddy ground and eventually she felt one of them sink in so deeply that the cold mud oozed over her new footwear.

      But her memory had not failed her. In mid-stride she hit the high wire fence, and clung on to it to stop herself falling as she bounced back.

      Slowly she moved to the left till she reached a metal support post. She let her hand run down it to three feet from the bottom. Then she reached through the mesh.

      For a moment she thought it was the wrong post. Then she found the loose staple and slipped it out. In a changing world some things didn’t change. She tried to think of another, failed, slid through the gap she was able to force in the fence, refixed it behind her, and set off now with perfect confidence at a forty-five-degree diagonal.

      There was a light ahead, the dim glow of a curtained window. She made for it, feeling a great sense of relief. The unanswered phone had been a worry. Even though she had a key, she would have felt uneasy about using it uninvited after the bitter words she’d flung over her shoulder last time she’d departed from here.

      Now there was concrete underfoot once more. She moved forward swiftly and as she passed the curtained window, she gave it the double rap with which she usually presaged her arrival.

      Inside there was movement and as she approached the door, it opened.

      There was no light on in the hallway and for a second she hesitated, unable clearly to make out the dimly silhouetted figure that awaited her there.

      Then it moved forward, and the dark was light enough for her to recognize the stubbly blond hair, the bright blue eyes, the slightly crooked and very attractive smile as he reached out his arms and said, ‘Hello, Jane. I’ve been expecting you.’