Dead Line

TWELVE

At least she knew where she was, not that it helped. Seventy feet below ground, thirty seconds out of Chalk Farm station, stuck in a tunnel with no sense they would be moving any time soon.

Across from her a morose-looking woman in a brown cardigan stared at the floor apathetically, while next to her a builder in dust-covered boots noisily turned the pages of the Sun. The headline read ‘Man in Box Mystery’. How ghoulish, thought Liz, then she remembered how an ex-boyfriend, a journalist on the Guardian, had claimed that such headlines were reassuring. ‘If I land at Heathrow and the headline on the Evening Standard reads, “Nurse Found Strangled,” then I know all’s right with the world. No terrorist bomb has gone off, no threat of impending nuclear war. Just a humdrum sex murder to titillate commuters.’

Looking at her watch, Liz saw they had been motionless for over ten minutes. Thank God she wasn’t claustrophobic; Peggy would be climbing the walls by now. Thinking of Peggy, she pondered the girl’s mix of shyness and delight as she’d described Tim. Liz could imagine their first dates, all in suitably intellectual places (the National Gallery, the Soane Museum). They’d have chatted earnestly over flapjacks and mugs of tea, discussing the comparative merits of the Metaphysical Poets, or the late Beethoven string quartets.

It was easy to be patronising, but Liz had to admire Peggy’s initiative – going to talks, meeting new people. Meeting men. There was no point in being stuffy about it, thought Liz, not if it worked for Peggy. And it had. And look at her own mother. Sixty-plus, a widow with a lovely house, an interesting job – even she had found company.

For years after her father had died Liz had felt responsible for her mother. Not enough for her to agree to give up what her mother regarded as her ‘dangerous’ job to go back home to Wiltshire to share the running of the garden centre her mother managed. But enough for her to make the tedious journey every month and keep in touch regularly by phone. Then earlier this year, out of the blue, her mother had acquired a boyfriend, Edward, and now she seemed contented and less dependent on her daughter.

Liz knew she should be pleased for her mother, but when she thought of all those weekends she had forced herself to drive down to Wiltshire when she would much rather have stayed in London, the anxiety when her mother had had a cancer scare just as Liz was in the middle of a complex and worrying case, she felt a flash of resentment. It was irrational, she knew it was, but she felt it just the same.

Liz tried to picture this new boyfriend of her mother’s, whom she’d never met but knew she would not like. He’d wear tweeds and be ex-army, a major perhaps, or even a colonel. He’d go on and on about the Aden campaign or wherever. God, how boring, thought Liz, and possibly venal – she was sure part of her mother’s appeal to Edward must be the creature comforts she could provide for him in her cosy house in Bowerbridge. Still, she thought grudgingly, her mother seemed to be enjoying this late romance of hers.

Whereas I’m just stuck in a rut, Liz brooded, watching as the woman in the cardigan yawned and closed her eyes. The only men she met were at work, and yet at work she found her emotions already engaged. By Charles, a man she only saw in the office and who was unavailable anyway.

It suddenly seemed ridiculous. I can’t go on this way, thought Liz, surprised at how obvious this realisation was. She couldn’t blame anyone but herself – it wasn’t as if Charles had ever encouraged her, or asked her to wait for him. She supposed he’d made his feelings clear, in his discreet and dignified way, but equally, he’d never pretended he could do anything about them.

All right then, thought Liz, cut your losses, and move on. Time’s a-flying, however young I feel. There must be men I can meet. The image of Geoffrey Fane flitted briefly through her head. There was something undeniably attractive about him – he was good-looking in an arrogant way, clever, quick-witted, amusing when he wanted to be. And best of all, Fane was no longer married.

But it wasn’t for nothing he was known in MI5 as the Prince of Darkness, and she knew she could never altogether trust him. No, like Peggy, she needed to meet someone outside the service, and she cheered up briefly at the prospect. There was just the small matter of how to meet this new someone.

A hissing noise of escaping air came from the tunnel, and the train slid forward as if on ice. The builder looked up from his sports page and briefly met Liz’s eyes. Across the carriage the older woman was sound asleep, her hands clasped in her lap.