Ash & Bone

26

Vanessa had been thinking about Maddy. Oh, not constantly, far from it: too busy for that. A gang of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, bored by the school holiday, had been entertaining themselves by chucking stones from the pedestrian bridge between Churchill and Ingestre Roads down on to the trains below. On the last occasion they had shattered the windscreen, injuring the driver seriously, twenty-seven fragments of glass having to be removed from his face and neck. Then there were the two fifteen-year-olds who, three times in a week, had robbed a local newsagent of the contents of his till, once making their getaway on stolen bikes, twice on skateboards. To say nothing of a plethora of burglaries that needed checking into and logging, crime numbers to be assigned, anxious or angry people to reassure, the whole tedious and largely pointless business set in some kind of motion.

Still, through it all, there were moments, unbidden, when she would remember Maddy's laugh, Maddy's smile, Maddy's fear. It's not funny. It's not some bloody joke. No joke at all in the end, no joke at all. A statistic, a tragedy, a headline for as long as it was news; the object of an inquiry going nowhere, an absence, a pall of blue-grey smoke rising into the winter air.

Even at that time of the evening, too late for the last stragglers returning home from work, too early for the raucous and the semi-drunk on their way back from the pub or off for a night's clubbing, she had to push her way through to the doors when the Tube pulled into the Archway. An elbow at her back. A face along the platform she half-recognised. Nobody.

Coming up out of the station, uncomfortably aware of the waft of her own sweat, she walked through the usual congregation of beggars and Big Issue sellers colonising the pavement, and joined the small crowd of people waiting at the lights. Sometimes she took her life in her hands and crossed against the red, traffic bearing down from several directions, but tonight, after a split shift and a couple of hours of unpaid overtime catching up on paperwork, the energy was lacking.

On the opposite corner, someone pushed out of the pub just in front of her, and for a moment she jumped, startled, and then, music and voices spilling through the door, considered a quick half before going home, maybe a rum and Coke. But the moment passed and she walked on, crossing the road again, lower down, much the same path, much the same steps Maddy would have taken so many evenings before.

A chill moved inexorably along Vanessa's arms.

You're not getting weird on me, are you? Freaking out?

Turning past the bollards at the top of her own street, away from the noise and the traffic, she laughed. Stupid mare! Silly tart! For God's sake, get a grip!

Lights showed behind a good few of the windows, blinds on the upper floors left open. The overlapping sounds of TV sets and stereos, indistinct and comforting. A dozen houses shy of her own she started feeling around in her bag for her keys. Stopped to disentangle them from her notebook and the charger for her mobile phone, something made her look across the street.

Someone was standing in the half-shadow a short distance down the street. A silhouette and little more. Broad and tall against the overhanging hedge. A shape. A man. Though she couldn't make out his face she knew his eyes were focused on her. Watching her.

Fear froze her, her legs, her voice, and then she hurried, half-ran the short distance to her door; key in the lock, she swung her head round and there was nothing there.

An empty road, an empty street.

Dark on dark.

Inside, she slammed the door closed and leaned back against it, catching her breath, her thoughts, slow, slow, slow, before climbing the stairs towards her flat on the second floor.

Without switching on the light, she crossed to the window and looked out. A couple were walking along now, arms round one another's shoulders, heads close; further along, a man, smaller, not the one she'd seen, was watching his dog defecating at the side of the road. Her breathing was almost back to normal, her blood ceasing to race. Already she was thinking of what she should have done, how she should have stood her ground, challenged him. She was a police officer, for God's sake. But police officers, she knew all too well, could be victims too.

It was some while before she left the window, drew the curtains, switched on the light. What had she said to Maddy? Report it, why don't you? You should.

There was a bottle of white wine half-empty in the fridge.

Half-empty or half-full?

Tomorrow, she would report it to the local station, even though she could see already the bored officer, hear his questions. This man, what exactly did he do? Maybe she would even phone Frank Elder, mention it to him? Or Karen Shields?

She could see the expression on the other woman's face, sympathetic but matter-of-fact: after what happened to Maddy, you're bound to be jumpy for a while. Apprehensive. Imagination in overdrive. Wouldn't be natural otherwise.

The wine tasted thin and bitter in her mouth and she poured the remainder down the sink. In bed, she moved the small reading lamp down on to the floor to lessen the glare, but left it switched on through the night.