Ah, I get it. The transport woman. The card. Was that what I was supposed to have seen? A jumper? Someone throwing themselves under a London tube on a Wednesday afternoon? Oh God, how horrible. I’m glad I didn’t see what that tube worker thought I had. I’m sorry I was a case of mistaken identity and wasted time and – self-centredly – that I looked so terrible she thought I needed help. I feel sad. I let a long sigh escape me at the thought of wasted life. And I put the card in my canvas shopper and I stand still on the right-hand lane of the escalator as it slowly carries me to the noise and light of the city above.

CHAPTER 2

‘Good afternoon.’

People always look at me oddly when I walk up to the brown double doors halfway along the Haverstock Hill flank of Chalk Farm tube station, place a key in the rusting lock and step inside. Well, a little more oddly than usual, anyway, and if Dad’s with me then it’s quite the party.

‘Afternoon.’

The man who has wished me ‘Good afternoon’ is wearing a panama hat and a headache-inducing paisley shirt. He’s stopped on the pavement beside me, a little too close. He hasn’t seen me put my key in the lock yet: I can’t find the sodding thing in my bag – its contents are one huge, shifting mass; a haystack for many needles. He has seen me knock on one of the doors, but Dad never comes down if somebody knocks, going conveniently deaf as well as blind on such occasions.

‘What’s in there, then?’ the man asks.

I have my back turned so the late-afternoon sunlight can bucket into my enormous bag and aid the search for my key. ‘My purse, a box of Tampax and Estée Lauder’s Double Wear foundation,’ I retort. ‘Amongst a million other things.’

‘No, behind the doors,’ he adds. He looks cross with me and I have no idea why.

‘I live here,’ I say.

He looks up at the windows. ‘Unusual.’

‘Yes.’

It is unusual, I’ll give him that: Dad and I live in a flat above Chalk Farm tube station. The Palladian, as it’s known, is one of a kind – the only residence to actually form part of an underground station in the whole of London.

The man looks from me to one of the arched, small-paned windows above us, then back to me again. I’m still rummaging in my useless bag.

‘Seen enough?’ I ask. The man just shrugs.