And then the signal improves and she’s looking at a clear picture on her phone. Rob’s staring directly at the camera, smiling in a way that she hasn’t seen before, top lip curling a fraction into what looks like a taunt. Almost a snarl. Is she imagining it? The tingling feeling returns, her scalp prickling as the room begins to spin.

‘Rob?’ she asks. His smile seems to adjust, flatten out, as if he’s suddenly remembered he’s on camera. It’s the Rob she knows again, but the damage is done. She grabs the phone and smacks it face down on the kitchen table, like she’s trapping a wasp in a jar. She leaves it there for a few seconds, breathing fast and hard.

26

Jake

‘Thanks,’ the man says. ‘Back there—’

‘No problem,’ Jake says, interrupting him. He is still buzzing, in a shaken-up sort of way. It’s not every day he saves someone’s life. And within twelve hours of almost losing his own. After leading the man away from the railway track, Jake suggested they go for a walk together and he didn’t protest.

They are now seated on a bench in the woods on the far side of the railway, looking down through a line in the trees at Hotspur House, a country pile on the distant horizon. It’s an old vista, a legacy of when this whole area of woods and parkland was landscaped by Capability Brown. All around them are stacks of timber, ready to be taken away and logged.

‘Were you really going to go through with it?’ Jake asks. Although the immediate danger has passed, he still wants to keep the man engaged.

‘Of course,’ the man says, almost indignantly. They sit in silence. ‘Maybe,’ he adds quietly.

‘So what’s the problem?’ Jake asks.

He is happy to wait for an answer. He can never bring back the woman who died on Southall station, but it feels like he’s finally made amends of sorts. Kate would be proud of him. And the woods look so beautiful today. They used to come up here together in the spring, have picnics amongst the bluebells.

‘I never asked you your name,’ he says, a seed of an idea beginning to form in his mind. The man doesn’t answer.

‘Do you drink?’ he continues. No reply. ‘I’m Jake, by the way.’

He resists offering his hand. Too formal for a pair of washed-up bums on a bench. It was Jake’s idea to come up here, far from the railway line, from his boat. He smelt alcohol on the man when they walked through the trees, where the ground was recently a carpet of blue.

Bluebells.