Calm yourself.

Three things.

A Who Wants to Be a Millionaire quiz machine.

The green baize covering the pool table.

Stainless steel stools with black leather seat pads guarding the bar.

Calm.

I wait.

The traffic whizzes by. A number of pedestrians. None of them are him. Rather than bringing me down, I find this thought cheery. Last time Fregoli led me to believe that he was everywhere. Now I can count on one hand the number of times I have caught sight of him. It has to be real, doesn’t it?

The football has finished. The pub now half-full. The jukebox plays ‘Bat Out of Hell’. I make a deal with fate. If you play Steps next I know I’m in the right place.

‘Crazy Nights’ plays instead.

I glance at my watch. Archie will be in bed by now. I feel wretched that I haven’t kissed him goodnight. I wonder what I’m doing here. Whether I should go home.

But then I see him.

He’s heading towards the pub, drawing on a cigarette, smoke pluming from his nostrils.

It’s him.

The age doesn’t fit. He looks older. Greyer. But it’s definitely him.

My senses are in overdrive. Conversations roar around me. The smell of hops is nauseating. Adrenaline floods my body. I’m torn between fight and flight. I want to run. I want to run and never look back. I screw up my eyes, the image of Archie is painted on the inside of my eyelids, his arms around the bear.

Be brave, Leah.

I open my eyes, the street is empty. I turn my head. He is standing next to the table, looking at me with an odd expression on his face.

Without thinking what I am going to do, I leap to my feet. He turns and runs. The hunter has become the hunter.

‘Stop!’ I cry. Not knowing what I will do if he does.

The doors crash open as he thunders outside. He is pelting down the street but he’s not as fast as me. Not as fit. All the hours spent running after Archie are paying off. He throws a glance over his shoulder, expression turning to panic when he sees how quickly I am gaining on him.

‘Stop!’ I shout again, stretching out my arm. My fingers brush against his back.

It’s the blast of horn that alerts us both to the car that is hurtling towards him.

Honestly, I cannot say whether I grabbed him to pull him back or to push him forward but somehow he is sprawled on the road in line with the oncoming traffic.

My thoughts skip from horror to fear to a morbid relief that now it really will all be over.

Chapter Thirty-Six

George

Now

George sits at the kitchen table, moonlight pooling through the window as he nurses a nightcap. He can’t believe that tonight an innocent man could have died. Not quite so innocent. He was a drug dealer and thought Leah was a copper chasing him. He was lucky the car didn’t kill him. At least a broken pelvis will keep him off the streets for a while. But still. After the police brought Leah home and told George that she was in shock, he knew he should look after her but he couldn’t help asking what she was thinking.