“Maybe not for you. But any woman desperate enough to dress up as a cartoon character is looking to get laid.”
The car might have hit a bump or something.
“Actually, Leia, laid. Clue’s right there, when you think about it. Hey, is this Wimbledon?”
Roddy’s gargled response wasn’t audible, but Shirley could read a street sign. This was Wimbledon.
She snatched the phone before he could prevent her. “How close are they?”
“Give it back!”
“When you tell me—”
“I don’t know without looking at it!”
He had a point. She tossed it back into his lap, screen down, and he fumbled it the right way up. “They’re on the common. Or Louisa is. Her phone, anyway.”
She’d already seen a marker for the common: they were heading in that direction.
“And Princess Leia’s not a cartoon.”
“She isn’t?”
Roddy rolled his eyes. “Well, sometimes she is. But that’s for kids.”
They’d rounded a junction and a darkness opened up ahead; they took another corner, and it settled on their right. Somewhere out there, Louisa’s phone was throbbing. Louisa lived miles away; even a crow in flight would have its work cut out. So what was she doing here, if not engaged on some adventure or other? With Lech? And how come other slow horses got to pair off, while Shirley was stuck with Roddy Ho? It wasn’t fair.
She dipped a hand into her pocket and fastened her fist around an inch-square cellophane envelope. And then a bus rolled past, masked passengers staring out from alternating seats, and in its wake a car; the driver’s face briefly visible as a grid of tattered lines.
“Was that Lech?”
It was, or had been.
He’d driven in a circle: the length of Windmill Road, then, pleasingly, left onto Sunset, which made him feel all Hollywood. He was now heading back up Parkside, whose trees hid the common from view. Louisa was out there but couldn’t offer clues as to where precisely, beyond feeling she’d run in a curve since leaving the car—nobody steered by the stars anymore, or not in London, where light pollution swaddled the city like a tea cosy. And there were two men out there with her, also following de Greer, and if they weren’t Park they could be anyone. It wasn’t so long since a pair of Russian hoods had toured Britain, leaving mayhem in their wake . . .
But once you started a hare, you had to follow it to its den. Louisa was out in the dark because of him, which meant he had to be ready to help her if needed. All those times he’d been inside the van, admiring the way the guys watched each other’s backs: here those moments were, like an immersive flashback. But he had to find her first.
He turned onto Windmill Road again. “You still with me?”
Louisa’s voice was laboured. “Uh-huh.”
“Are you on a path?”
“Not anymore.”
“Do you know what direction you’re heading?”
“I think back the way I came. But I’m not positive.”
Lech rubbed a hand across his cheeks, a gesture that had changed meaning in the past year. Once, he’d have been checking whether he needed a shave. Now, he was verifying that his face remained a welter of crazy scars.
“Can you see the road? Or any road?”
“A road. Dimly.”
It was a difficult distance away, difficult to estimate and difficult to keep in focus, and Louisa had other things to worry about, such as the way the ground dipped and lurched with every step. The two men in front had moved further apart, gaining ground on de Greer, and even as she watched they were putting a spurt on, as if this were their optimal moment; the darkest patch of ground between here and the world. She didn’t think they knew she was there. She’d turned her headtorch off, shrouding herself in darkness, which meant she wasn’t moving as quickly as them: the ghostly number eleven floating easily over the stumbly ground, the green trainers an effortless rise and fall, closing the gap between themselves and the orange piping on de Greer’s tracksuit. Only Louisa felt like a whole person; a solid figure in a murky landscape.
One thing was clear, though. Whoever these comedians were, they weren’t innocent souls on an evening run. They were closing in on de Greer the way dogs move in on prey, or the way Louisa imagined they might; with extra sudden speed, and joy coursing into their tastebuds.
She heard a woman gasp: de Greer realising she wasn’t alone.
And then the world grabbed Louisa by an ankle.
Like most falls, this one took forever, and she was already counting its possible cost before she hit the ground: she might break a bone, or mash her face into something unforgiving. But instinct reached out a helping hand: she was halfway curled into a ball before she landed, taking the brunt of the impact on her right shoulder. My shooting arm, she thought. She didn’t have a gun. Where did these thoughts come from? It hadn’t been soundless, her brief and unexpected flight, but she hadn’t cried out, and when she righted herself, and located the other figures again, they didn’t appear to have heard her. Shaken but unstirred, she got to her feet. Green Trainers and Number Eleven had come to a halt. Sophie de Greer stood halfway between them. No physical contact appeared to have occurred, but it didn’t look to Louisa like a meeting of friends.