The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

TRAIN, NIGHT by Nicholas Royle

Alex, I never said it was you. I never said the man on the Tube was you. I said he looked like you. So much like you it was like we were back together again. And since I couldn’t be with you any more, I could be with this version of you. That’s what I was saying. That’s what I said.

I never said he was you. I made it perfectly clear that he couldn’t be you and that I understood that. His head was shaved. You would never do that. You’re too proud of your hair. You wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of wearing it long. He was also younger, ten, maybe fifteen years younger. But his bone structure was the same, his eyes were identical. You know what, I’m coming round to the idea that he was you, after all. Nor was it on the Central line that I saw him. It was the Hammersmith & City line. That’s what I said and that’s what it was. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush, you got that bit right. I got on at Shepherd’s Bush and he was already on, having boarded at Hammersmith or Goldhawk Road. There he was, in my carriage, and there was a seat right opposite him, so I took it. Because it was the Hammersmith & City line, I saw him in natural light, and natural light leaves no room for doubt. The Central line is underground at Shepherd’s Bush and while I’ll admit the Central line does have a peculiarly attractive light, it’s not the same. I might not have been so certain. Plus, if it had been the Central line, how would I have followed him off the train at King’s Cross?

I didn’t say I followed him into an abandoned building either. I followed him into an art gallery, that place on Wharf Road, that big one with the exposed brick walls. I said it looked like an abandoned building. Just as the man on the train looked like you. Geddit?

Anyway, I found out who he is. OK? Maybe this will make you happy, because it should demonstrate to you once and for all that I don’t think he’s you. I know he’s someone else. He’s an actor. I know because I saw him in something on TV. I was watching this crime drama, alone in the flat, because, you know – I live alone these days, with my unwashed towels and chipped cereal bowls dusted white with crushed paracetamol. That’s another thing about your email. You contradict yourself. One minute you say I walked out on you, then you’re saying you left me. Make your mind up. You can’t have it both ways. So I’m watching this thing. It was ITV but it was quite good. You wouldn’t have given it a chance, of course. That was how I knew you wouldn’t be watching it, because it was on ITV. I presume you don’t watch ITV with Fareda, either. I presume you’re as judgmental as you ever were. See, I don’t mind writing her name, now I know what it is. I don’t bear her any ill will. As a matter of fact I feel sorry for her. Are you going to do to her what you did to me? Poor girl.

There he was, in the background in one scene. Little more than an extra but he did have a line of dialogue. It was him, I was certain of it, and he looked as much like you on TV as he had on the train. His name was in the credits. Let’s call him Anthony.

I discovered something else. That film you showed me shortly after we first started seeing each other - Un soir, un train - that black and white Belgian film from the 1960s. You said I looked like Anouk Aimee. Looking back, maybe you wanted me to infer that you looked like Yves Montand. I watched it again the other day. As you know, when I say the other day, I generally mean the other week. You used to find this charming. The way the film pans out is a bit like what happened to us. That village where Mathias and his two companions end up, where they can’t understand a word the villagers are saying, that’s a bit like us at the end. It was like we were speaking different languages, and not just different languages from the same group, like two romance languages, but two completely different languages from different origins entirely. Arabic and Hungarian, Inuit and Welsh. Although, of course, only one of us had changed the language they were speaking.

It’s scary, a bit creepy, that film. Maybe you shouldn’t give a copy to Fareda. Maybe you shouldn’t take her dancing, either. That’s when I fell in love with you, you know. When we were dancing at that party in Shepherd’s Bush and every five minutes a train went by on the elevated line above the market. You grabbed me and made me watch as one went past.

“Look at them watching us,” you shouted into my ear.

“They think we look good together.”

I watched the figures silhouetted by the yellowish light inside the carriage, while you held me around the waist.

How I wish now I could have been one of those passengers inside the train looking out at the people dancing. You would have been no more than a frame-grab to me and I would have got off at Hammersmith and carried on with my life. A different life.

A couple of days after the party, we watched Un soir, un train for the first time.

I guess you thought the two of them – Mathias and Anne, Yves Montand and Anouk Aimee – were supposed to represent the two of us. If so, then the flashback in London is probably when they are happiest. The way they sit in the back of Michael Gough’s car when he takes them on a drive through Rotherhithe, both of them in the back so they can be together, leaving the front passenger seat empty, like it was a taxi. The way they hold hands, later when they’re out of the car. The look Michael Gough gives them when he sees them holding hands. I think he’s envious of them because they’re so happy together. Like we used to be.

The tape was recorded off Japanese TV. Do you remember that? A friend of yours had taped it for you because it was so rarely screened. So it was in French with Japanese subtitles. We had to watch it six or seven times before we knew what was going on and we laughed when we realized that Mathias and his companions couldn’t understand what the people in the village were saying either.

I started looking out for Anthony on the Hammersmith & City line. After all, I’d seen him twice, so there was a good chance he worked or lived somewhere along the line. A good chance I’d see him again. I didn’t carry my DV camera. I wasn’t going to film him this time.

The reason the footage I sent you was so uneven and featured other people as well as him, especially the stuff I shot in the gallery, was because I was having to do it on the sly. It’s not easy filming from inside a half-fastened coat.

I tried boarding the same carriage as the last time I’d seen him. Then I tried varying which carriage I got in. I still didn’t see him.

I was looking out for him on TV, too, and in Time Out and online, but it seemed like he wasn’t doing anything that was listed anywhere.

I watched Un soir, un train yet again, rewinding the tape endlessly to study the scenes shot in Rotherhithe. Both locations were previously unknown to me, yet notable enough to appear in The London Encyclopaedia, which you may remember buying me. I hung around the gallery on Wharf Road, but I didn’t see Anthony there either.

Then one morning I got on the train and there he was again. Sitting more or less in the same place. Looking every bit as much like you as he had done before. I didn’t stop to think. If I had done, I might have got tongue-tied and everything might have played out very differently. I contrived a conversation. It was easy. He was reading a script. I asked him if he was an actor and he smiled and said he was. It was so easy. Because his bone structure is the same as yours, his smile is the same as yours too. His teeth are slightly whiter, but that’s OK. It really did feel like I was sitting there and talking to you. Except it felt like talking to you at the beginning, not the end. And not now. Talking to you now – writing to you now – feels very different. We talked until King’s Cross, where he said he had to get off. I said I was getting off there too. I wondered if he was going to Wharf Road again, but I didn’t ask him that. I said, “Where are you going?” He said he was going to a rehearsal. He had a part in a play and they were using the director’s flat on Gray’s Inn Road as a rehearsal space. I said that sounded exciting.

He asked me what I did. It wasn’t like he’d only just thought to ask. I’d just not given him the chance.

“I’m a film-maker,” I told him, as we were about to part on the street.

“Really?” he said. “Now that’s exciting.”

The way he said it, I could tell he meant it. I guessed he preferred film to the stage.

“Do you have a card?” he asked me. A card! Me!

“I’ve run out,” I said, and as I scribbled my number on an old receipt, my sleeve rode up and I realized he’d be able to see the marks on my forearm.

“Well, I never had any,” he said carefully, then wrote his own number in small, precise figures on an empty page of a little notebook that he produced from his shoulder bag. He tore the page out along its perforation and added: “I should probably get some.” We said goodbye and I set off in the opposite direction to his, but then turned to watch him go, weaving through the commuters. He’s even a similar height to you.

I waited for him to call me and when he did I said there was a location in Rotherhithe I needed to have another look at and would he like to meet there for a drink? Before leaving the house I slotted the tape into the VCR again. The thing I discovered about Un soir, un train, is that it’s not actually a black and white film, after all. I looked it up to check something, and every source that lists it, from Time Out to the IMDb, has it down as colour. Maybe some incompatibility between Japanese TV and the UK standard. I couldn’t – and still can’t – figure out why you gave it me so close to the end. What was it – a week, two at the most, before things fell apart? Were you trying to convince yourself we still had a future? Was your butterfly mind already selecting a new film to show to Fareda?

I picked up the remote and had a last look at those London scenes. In the back of the car. Michael Gough telling Mathias and Anne how Rotherhithe is “notorious”. His dialogue, of course, is in English. Their arrival at Bermondsey Wall East, walking on to Cherry Garden Pier, then the visit to the Angel pub. Some kind of balcony, sitting down, holding hands, Michael Gough remaining standing, but that’s when he notices their clasped hands.

I also opened a file on my laptop and brought it up to date. When I’ve finished with it, I’ll print it out and close the machine down.

I’ll take the tube to London Bridge and walk down impossibly narrow streets between fantastically tall buildings. Converted wharves. Exclusive flats, apartments. Portered, gated. The kind of place we could have ended up sharing in another universe. I’ll skirt the Design Museum, cross a bridge of wire and stainless steel. The river a constant presence on my left, tide creeping in.

Bermondsey Wall West, cut inland, along a bit.

Derelict wharves and warehouses. Gaps in the gentrification. Back towards the river. Bermondsey Wall East, Cherry Garden Pier, the first of the two static locations. I can’t walk on to the pier as they did in the film. It’s owned by a private company now. City Cruises plc. I’ll walk up the ramp towards a blue door with a no-entry sign on it, barbed wire coiled above. A security light will flick on, blinding me.

A hundred yards further downstream, the Angel. Lights burning at the windows will turn the blue air a half-shade darker. The light won’t last much longer. In the film, Mathias and Michael Gough enter the pub while Anne remains outside. Next shot, the two men are on a balcony, where Anne joins them.

I’ll push open the door and go inside. The first thing I’ll notice, like the last time I was there, will be the Sam Smith’s logo on all the taps and bottles and I’ll think to myself, as I did before, that you wouldn’t have liked that. This pub has been there since the fifteenth century, and the moment you come along, you find out it’s a Sam Smith’s joint. Beer’s just beer to me, as you know. But I remember how Sam Smith’s used to provoke extreme reactions in you. I’ll look around. There’ll be a handful of locals in. Sam Smith’s or no, it’s a decent-looking old-fashioned boozer, lots of wood and brass, comfortable seats. I’ll move through into the back bar and my eye will be drawn to the picture window. On the other side of the window a balcony, and out on the balcony I’ll see Anthony’s shaved head shining under the artificial lights. As if sensing my arrival, he will turn round.

Anthony will already have a drink. He won’t be bothered by it being a Sam Smith’s pub. He’ll be trying their own-label wheat beer, which is OK, he’ll say. I’ll get him another as I buy myself one. We’ll sit on the balcony overlooking the river. I’ll make sure he’s sitting on my right, like in the film. I’ll imagine Michael Gough leaning on the handrail looking alternately out at the river traffic and back at the two of us. Anthony will ask me about “my work”. I’ll take out my DV camera and tell him I’m in the middle of making a short film. I’ll say I’d be grateful for his help and he’ll say he’d be glad to provide it.

“Samuel Pepys used to drink here,” I’ll tell him, “and Judge Jeffreys, the Hanging Judge, so called for obvious reasons.”

“A strict disciplinarian, I presume?” he’ll say.

“He would sit here and watch pirates being hanged on the other side of the river at Execution Dock,” I’ll tell him.

“Execution Dock?” he’ll ask.

I’ll point across the river to Wapping Old Stairs.

“They used to bring convicted pirates from Marshalsea Prison. The rope they used to hang them only had a short drop, which wasn’t enough to break their necks, so they’d do ‘the Marshal’s dance’ as they slowly suffocated.”

“And people call us uncivilized today,” Anthony will say.

“They’d be left there until three tides had washed over them,” I’ll say as I balance my camera on the hand rail to get a shot of us sitting side by side, me and the man who looks like you. This is the shot from Michael Gough’s POV. I’ll ask Anthony if we can hold hands for a moment. He’ll agree. He’s a professional.

I might hold his hand for slightly longer than I need to for the shot. Then I’ll explain that the next shot is more complicated and that his role will be to act as cameraman. I’ll tell him I’m going to disappear for a bit. I’ll walk to the tube at Rotherhithe, which is only a couple of minutes from the pub. Take the East London line one stop under the river to Wapping, then walk to Wapping Old Stairs. I’ll ask him to stay on the balcony and watch out for me coming down the steps on to the foreshore and then film me, zooming in for a close-up.

“Won’t it be very grainy?” he’ll ask. “The river’s wide here.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I’ll say.

I’ll produce a stamped padded envelope with your name and address on it and ask him, when the shot is complete, whatever he thinks of it, to stick the tape in the envelope and post it. He’ll nod, but look puzzled.

“You’ll be coming back, right? Or do you want me to come round there?” he’ll ask me.

“Neither,” I’ll say.

Still he’ll look confused.

“I want you to hang on to the camera for me. Post the tape and hang on to the camera.” If he remains silent and just sort of frowns at me, I will go on: “You’ve heard of Dogme? Lars Von Trier? His set of rules for film-makers?”

“It’s something like that?” he’ll say, brightening up.

“Why didn’t you say?”

“Great,” I’ll say. “But I want you to promise me you’ll keep filming, even if it looks a bit weird. A bit extreme. Just keep filming. There’s only about ten minutes’ space left, in any case.”

“And then I post it to this -” he’ll look at the label-

“Alex guy? What’s he, your editor? Your collaborator?”

“Something like that. Promise?”

He’ll promise.

“OK, I’m going to go now,” I’ll say to him. “Thanks for your help. Thanks for everything.”

I might kiss him, or I might make do with having held his hand.

When I’ve gone, he’ll sit and wait for a bit, then start to get impatient as he watches the stairs across the river. It is a long way, almost 300 metres. He may experiment with the zoom on the camera, see if that gives him a better view. What he gains in image size he’ll lose in definition. He keeps checking, both with the camera and the naked eye. He’ll pick up the padded envelope and perhaps feel the outline of something already inside it. I think he’ll take a look, see it’s a sealed envelope bearing the same name as on the label, and quickly put it back. He’ll check his watch, see it’s been fifteen minutes already. How long can it take to go one stop? He’ll think about having another drink, but will decide he’s too nervous and mustn’t risk missing me.

Eventually, just when he’s about to try my mobile number, he’ll see a vague shape coming down the steep slippery steps of Wapping Old Stairs. He won’t be able to recognize me, but he won’t question that it’s me for a moment. Why should he? In a slight panic, although he’ll have had almost half an hour to prepare, he’ll fiddle with the camera, trying to frame the best shot. He’ll press the red button before I’m quite ready, but that won’t matter. He’ll squint at the tiny screen, trying to work out what I’m doing. He’ll wonder if I’m waving or semaphoring or doing something weird with a rope. At that distance, he won’t be able to tell, not even on full zoom. He might be able to see my feet leave the ground. He’ll need to rest the camera on the hand rail to keep it steady, while on the screen he’ll watch a grainy, degraded image of me dancing.