The bright steel railway tracks were only a few feet in front of me. I sat forward on the bench and stared at them. How much pain would there be if you got hit by an intercity doing 100 miles an hour? Probably nothing at all, or maybe just for a second. It would be too fast. One second you’d be there – living, breathing, thinking. A functioning member of the human race. The next second scattered, extinguished, destroyed. Gone.

Larssen said: ‘Joe, are you still there?’

‘I’m fucked, aren’t I?’

He paused before answering.

‘We need to sit down and talk about this properly, Joe. Face-to-face. No more phone calls, no more getting on trains and running around the country. That’s my advice.’

‘Are you still representing me?’

He hesitated again, more electronic silence hanging between us.

‘If we start doing things my way.’

‘Does that include walking into a police station and giving myself up?’

‘You make it sound like you’ve been on some kind of crime spree.’

‘Just asking the question.’

‘The advice I gave you yesterday still stands, yes.’

The phone was hot against my ear.

‘So this is it, then.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Police, a murder charge, bail if I’m really lucky.’

‘Nothing’s certain at this stage. But we need to start being smart about all this.’

‘Do you think I’ll get bail?’

Once again, he avoided my question.

‘Are you on your way back to London?’

‘Due back in about three and a half hours.’

I agreed to get a taxi from King’s Cross as soon as my train got in and go straight to his office – no detours, no visits, no unscheduled stops – for 3 p.m. He and I would prepare and discuss strategy for an hour, and he would send one of the firm’s young associates to my house to pick up a suit for me to change into. Then he would drive me to Kilburn Police Station and I would give myself up to DCI Naylor before close of play today. Except Larssen didn’t call it ‘giving myself up’, he called it ‘making myself available for further questioning’.

It was 10.55 a.m. A week and a day ago, at this very moment, I had been standing in front of a Year Ten class discussing Of Mice and Men. Eight days ago.

I promised Larssen I would be there at 3 p.m.

Chapter 75

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