He bobbled his head side to side, a wry smile on his face. “We-ell,” he said, “it’s not really, but I seem to find myself in something of a rut.” It was true, more than a decade had passed since he’d published anything substantial. “I was thinking I might try something completely different,” he said, tapping at the side of his temple with his forefinger. “See if I can shake something loose.”
The following week, when the new Rankin duly arrived, Miriam set aside a copy. Only Theo didn’t turn up to fetch it, not that day, or the next, or the next. She had his address—they’d mailed books to him in the past—and she knew exactly where he lived, it wasn’t very far from her narrowboat, less than a mile farther along the canal, so she decided to deliver it by hand.
She wasn’t sure if this would be an intrusion, but in fact, when he opened the door, he seemed genuinely pleased to see her. “That’s so kind of you,” he said, inviting her in. “I’ve been a bit under the weather.” He looked it. Dark circles under his eyes, whites yellowing around the pupils, his face flushed. The house reeked of smoke. “Difficult for me,” he said, his voice cracking, “this time of year.” He didn’t elaborate and Miriam didn’t probe. Awkwardly she laid a hand on his arm and he pulled away, smiling, embarrassed. Miriam had felt such tenderness toward him, when first she got to know Theo Myerson.
They took their tea out onto the little patio outside his kitchen and talked books. It was the start of summer, evenings lengthening, the smell of wisteria heavy in the air, music playing softly on a radio somewhere. Leaning back, eyes closed, Miriam felt an immense sense of contentment, of privilege. To be sitting here, in this gem of a London garden, right in the middle of the city, conversing on myriad topics with this distinguished writer at her side! She glimpsed, opening up in front of her, the possibility of a quite different life from the one she currently led, a far richer （in the cultural sense）， more peopled life. Not that she imagined anything romantic, not with Theo. She wasn’t stupid. She had seen pictures of his wife; she knew that she did not compare. But here he was, treating her as an equal. As a friend. When she left that evening, Theo shook her warmly by the hand. “Drop by anytime,” he said with a smile. And, foolishly, she took him at his word.
* * *
The next time she came to see him, she had an offering. Something she thought might draw them together. A book, her book, telling her own story, a memoir she had been working on for years, but that she had never had the courage to show to anyone because she had never trusted anyone enough to let them see her secret truth. Until she met Myerson, a real writer, a man who also lived with tragedy. She chose him.
She chose badly.
She believed she was entrusting her story to a man of integrity, a man of good character, when in fact she bared her soul to a charlatan, a predator.
You’d have thought she’d be able to recognize them by now.
* * *
The first predator Miriam ever met was called Jeremy. Jez for short. On a stifling Friday afternoon in June, he picked them up, Miriam and her friend Lorraine, in his pale blue Volvo estate. They were hitchhiking—people used to do that in the 1980s, even in Hertfordshire. They’d bunked off the last two periods at school and were headed into town to hang out, smoke cigarettes, try on clothes they couldn’t afford to buy.
When the car pulled up, Lorraine got into the front seat, because why wouldn’t she? She was the slim one, the prettier one （although to be honest they were neither of them lovely）。 She was the one he stopped for. So, she got the front seat. Miriam climbed into the back, sat behind Lorrie’s head. The driver said hello and told them his name and asked for theirs, but he never looked at Miriam, not once.
In the footwell of the car, empties rattled around Miriam’s feet, beer bottles and a whiskey bottle. There was an odd smell, underneath the smoke from Jez’s and Lorraine’s cigarettes, something sour, like old milk. Miriam wanted to get out of the car almost the second she got in. She knew they shouldn’t be doing this, knew it was a bad idea. She opened her mouth to speak, but the car was already moving, accelerating hard. Miriam wondered what would happen if she opened the door—would he slow down? Most likely he’d think she was mad. She wound down her window, breathed in the hot summer air.
A song came on the radio, a slow one, and Jeremy reached out to change the station, but Lorraine put her hand on his arm. “Don’t,” she said. “I like this one. Don’t you like this one?” She started to sing.