BooksBarbecue
Back Platform Seven
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Landing Page
  3. Platform Seven
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. PART ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. PART TWO
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. PART THREE
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. PART FOUR
  20. 10
  21. 11
  22. 12
  23. 13
  24. 14
  25. PART FIVE
  26. 15
  27. 16
  28. 17
  29. PART SIX
  30. 18
  31. 19
  32. 20
  33. PART SEVEN
  34. 21
  35. 22
  36. 23
  37. 24
  38. 25
  39. Acknowledgements
  40. About the Author
  41. By the Same Author
  42. Copyright

There are others, out there, and I’m certain that grey shape is trapped in the multi-storey car park as surely as I am trapped in the station. I turn back towards the concourse. As I do, a woman in an orange trouser suit with a green T-shirt underneath crosses the road in front of me. She has white hair in a swinging bob and a cigarette held loosely between the fingers of one hand. She pauses as she crosses the road, to allow a small red cardboard box to bump and cartwheel across the road ahead of her. I rush past her and over the barriers, to the safety of Platform One.

I am not alone.

PART THREE

7

It is Monday. I’m in the entrance hall before dawn, watching the staff walk up and down in little dancing movements, slapping their arms around their torsos like athletes limbering up. A queue of cars builds up to enter the car park. Time elongates, decelerates. Passengers begin to flow through the concourse, moving as if in slow motion. Then there is a blur, a blare of sound, and they speed up again. Eventually, the flow diminishes. Men and women come in single file, some but not all of them hurrying because they are late. All at once, it is daylight. The rush hour has been and gone. The entrance hall echoes and the staff have time to hang around and chat. No sign of Caleb.

Perhaps he really was ill. What was it he told his office on Friday? A virus. They can make you poorly for days. Perhaps he made the mistake of going out over the weekend, thinking he was through the worst of it, and set himself back. We’ve all done it. Then I remember my conviction that there was nothing physically wrong with him and I start to feel a bit frightened. What if he never comes back? What if he’s lying on the carpet in his flat, slipping in and out of consciousness, with nobody to miss him or raise the alarm? What if he’s simply moved away from Peterborough? St Neots, perhaps. I’ll never see him again.

On Tuesday morning, I wait again, but no matter how many commuters stream through the concourse, there is no sign of Caleb. I’m there from 7 until 10 a.m. and I watch everyone who comes through the sliding doors. There’s no way he could slip past me.

I will be here at that time all week if I have to, and the week after that. There is nothing else for me to do.

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