Chapters (50)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Ninteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Letter From the Author
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
She was already at the pub when I got there, with a glass of red wine that was so big it was more like a bowl. I asked for what she was having and as I neared the table, Sasha got up and hugged me.
‘I really hate to admit it, but I missed you,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I kind of missed you too. A smidge.’
‘A smidge? A smidge? Bloody cheek.’
‘So tell me what’s been going on,’ I said.
Before answering, Sasha looked around like a spy in a black and white movie. She wasn’t doing it ironically though; she genuinely appeared concerned that someone might be listening in. The pub was busy with the after-work crowd. There was an important match on later which the pub was showing on a big screen, so the pub was filling up with a second wave of drinkers: young men, mostly, in football shirts. It was noisy and Sasha should have had to raise her voice to be heard. But as she spoke, the background hubbub dropped away so all I could hear was her voice.
‘Someone’s been following me around,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago, when I was coming home from work.’
‘When it was snowing?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. I was, like, struggling home, head down like this, because the wind was trying to blow my face off, and there was hardly anyone around . . . That was when I started to think someone was behind me, like I could feel eyes on me.’
‘Go on.’
‘But when I looked round there was no one there. The street was empty. There was a van over the road and I was convinced they were hiding behind it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I headed home as fast as I could. I tapped in 999 and had my thumb hovering over the call button, just in case. And that wasn’t the last time. It’s happened at least twice more, once when I was coming home from the pub, quite late. And once at the weekend, in the middle of the day. I was walking through the park and I was sure someone had followed me in and all the way through. But every time I looked round there was no one there.’
‘Do you think you imagined it?’
‘I’m not completely gaga yet, Andrew. But, actually, yeah, I did wonder that. Of course. But that time in the park, I retraced my footsteps and someone burst out of the bushes and legged it across the grass. Nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Christ. What did they look like?’
‘Dressed all in black. Slim. Wearing a hat. I mean, if there was a uniform for a burglar or stalker, he or she was wearing it.’
‘He or she?’