Chapter Forty-One

Rachel

I hurried around the supermarket in a daze. I kept my head low. I felt vulnerable in a way I never had before, reluctant to draw attention to myself. I threw items into my trolley – the basics to get us through a couple of days – and tried to shut out any unwelcome thoughts.

What if the killer had followed me here? He mightn’t be able to hurt me, here in this public place, but he could still get close enough to touch me. To spook me. To find more out about me. More ways to inveigle his way into my life. Could he be the man who’d asked me if the brand of shampoo he was buying was the best for highlighted hair? Who’d said his wife had asked him to pick some up and he didn’t want to get it wrong? Could he have been the man who’d brushed into me as I waited at the checkout line? He’d apologised profusely, taking a cursory glance at my trolley. Was that something more sinister than simple nosiness?

I didn’t know who to trust, and I found myself fumbling with my purse and bank cards as I paid for my shopping and packed it into bags.

‘You’re all fingers and thumbs,’ the cashier said with a smile.

I gave her a weak smile. A wicked part of me wondered if I should tell her the truth. That she would be on edge, too, if she was possibly being hunted by a killer.

Crossing the car park, I felt my pulse quicken as I pushed my trolley between lanes, hyperaware of the moving cars around me. Aware of doors opening and closing. Aware of the man standing by the trolley station, smoking a cigarette and looking around as if he was waiting for someone. I assigned his more distinctive features to my memory: a tattoo the full length of the calf of his left leg of a footballer mid strike. A Celtic band tattooed on his arm. A red Adidas T-shirt, baggy grey shorts. Sunglasses. Stubble. Short back and sides.

As I loaded the last of my bags into the car, he walked away – waving to a young woman pushing a trolley out of the shopping centre.

I climbed into my car and as I reversed out of my space, I saw a familiar-looking blue car in my rear-view mirror. I couldn’t be sure, but I was fairly confident it was the same one that had stopped in the lay-by where Michael and I had last met. There was no one in the driver’s seat, but even so, I pulled an envelope and a pen from my bag and scribbled down the registration number.