I pull my earbuds from my ears and stare at him as he looks down at his phone. The options run through my mind: was he at Noah’s party? Or has he been following me for a while now and I clocked him subliminally?

I swallow hard and watch the windows, waiting, waiting, waiting for the black of the tunnel to turn to light. I glance up at the little lights on the wall – we’re arriving at Châtelet. A soothing voice over the loudspeaker reminds us in French, English and then Spanish to take our belongings with us when we leave. I look over to the man, he sits still, staring down at his screen. People are lining up at the door, holding on for stability as we draw to a stop. I glance back at the man: still no movement.

It’s now or never.

The doors beep and open. I wait for a moment to see if he moves. He doesn’t. And so I stand up and rush over to the door and out onto the platform the moment before the doors close again.

I look around me. There’s the woman with the stroller and a guy with grey hair, a couple of other people from other carriages all heading for the exit. And then… shit.

He’s there too.

Standing between me and the staircase.

He must have seen me and used the other door.

The train starts to move again and the air swirls with dust. Everyone is moving towards the stairs except me and him. He’s just standing still, doing nothing, staring down at his phone, frowning. The little hairs on the back of my neck are standing up on end now.

I’m going to have to move past him.

And so I look down at my phone like I’m texting someone and rush to join the crowd.

The air is filled with chattering, a text message beeping on someone’s phone and the thud of footsteps as we move up the cement stairs, and I don’t know if he’s behind me or not and I don’t want to turn around because then he’ll know I’ve clocked him.

And what then?

But my phone is still there in my hands and, fuck this, I have an idea. I move through to the camera, rush to the top of the stairs and, when I get there, I turn around and start snapping photographs.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

The lens isn’t specifically aimed at him, but he’ll know he’s in the frame. So the question is, what will he do about it? Here, in the midst of witnesses with CCTV watching?