Dino lopes off and Salvi turns away to banter with the bulldog, laughing about goldfish in plastic bags on buses, or something. Delaying coming back to me because of what I might say? Philippa and me, Philippa and me. What is it? I think of the other two women I have seen Salvi interact with, the women I have fretted over. The woman with the overly shiny red hair flopping over one eye; the colleague he kissed, with the oversized sunglasses. I turn my back on the stall. I take my phone from my pocket and check the photos of Philippa I have saved. The one from the news report … Philippa with her friends and cocktails … I go to the last one, the only close-up picture of her, the black-and-white photo where she has the shadows of branches on her face, like lace. I look and look at this photo, while Kylie is ‘Spinning Around’ and the smell of candyfloss burns my nostrils, until I realize one of the shadows of the branches is not a branch at all, but a long, searing scar.

There is a laugh behind me. I turn and Bulldog is laughing heartily and slapping Salvi on the back while Salvi grins like the cat that got the cream. Salvi has certain tastes, doesn’t he? I think I know what they are. He has a taste for the scarred and the ugly. Philippa had a scar on her face. I have a birthmark on mine. Is that woman’s floppy red hair hiding a scar or facial disfigurement, too? And the colleague outside the Old Bailey. She has something too, doesn’t she, under those huge sunglasses? Something that caught Salvi’s eye and put her in his gaze. A gaze with a smile that is actually a taunt. I realize now why Philippa moved down two carriages. Someone was staring at her, weren’t they? Making her feel uncomfortable. And I realize exactly how Salvi could have gone from her to me: because he was moving to his next victim, project, item of curiosity. I was the next bearded lady. The next freak. The next woman with the kind of face Salvi really likes.

‘You knew Philippa,’ I say, when Salvi finally makes his way back. I am shaking and grip my hands together, fingers entwined, so he won’t notice. ‘And you were with her the afternoon she died. What happened, Salvi? Were you in a relationship with her?’

He rams his change into his front jeans pocket. Checks his watch. ‘Anyone who jumps under a train is nothing to do with me,’ he says cheerily. ‘Stupid cow.’

‘So you knew her?’