Killing Cupid (21 page)

‘And have you spoken to her since?’

‘A few times. I saw her a few years ago. But I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to forget she exists. Which isn’t easy. And now I’ve got to go back there, to see her. I’m still having to play her fucking power games.’

‘Well,’ said Emily. ‘I think that you should go and show her what a wonderful man you’ve turned into.’

I kissed her. Having her beside me, I felt a lot braver. And maybe this will sound weird, but she makes me feel more normal. For years I’ve worried that I’m some kind of freak, that I was never going to fit in and be like other people. I felt like an alien. I suppose I took a perverse pride in it – I liked to think of myself as extraordinary. Now I know I’m not extraordinary – but Emily is.

What will I do if she changes her mind about me, realises that I’m not normal, or if she finds out about the things I’ve done in the past? She’ll leave me – and I don’t know if I could bear to lose her. Not now, when I’m just starting to feel better.

Chapter 21

Siobhan

Monday

I’m looking at what happened this morning as material for the novel. I certainly don’t see it as spying… although I hadn’t intended to follow her like that.

I just went back to Alex’s house again, that was all. Seeing as I chickened out of asking for my money last time. And now it’s definitely been over a month since we agreed he’d pay me back. My credit card bill needs to be paid. I think I’m going to have to ask him for the interest on the payment too. I’m so not stumping up for it myself.

It was fun at first, actually. I wore shades and a scarf around my head, a la
Thelma and Louise
, even though it was a tad grey and parky to be out in sunglasses. I thought I’d drive over there, phone to see if he was in, then if either of them answered, hang up and wait like I did last time until he came out. I’d changed my mind about ringing the doorbell and confronting him directly in his house. I don’t know – seeing him acting so normal with that woman made me think that perhaps he’s more schizophrenic than I’d previously thought. (Or maybe it’s just me who brings out the psycho in him?) Anyway, I decided that it would be best to wait till he went out, then follow him and make it seem as if we’d just bumped into one another by chance. I don’t want to make him angry.

But I didn’t even need to phone – I was just parking the car when the front door opened and he came out, with that girl again. He didn’t look quite as happy as he had the other day, though. He had a furrowed brow and a kind of nervous, peaky look about him. Ha. Perhaps his new relationship’s on the rocks already, I thought – until they put their arms around each other and walked off down the street like they were practising for a three-legged race.

The girl was dressed in a knee-length grey skirt, boots, and a short cream jacket – smart clothes, but they looked terrible on her. The skirt was too tight, and showed her bulgy ass, and the jacket was clearly undone not out of choice, but because there was no way that it was going to stretch across those great melons of hers. The boots made her knees look fat. She was carrying an overnight bag, and I felt a stab of somewhat irrational fury at the thought that she must have stayed at Alex’s over the weekend. Her hair was tied back in one of those big Johnny Loves Rosie silk flower hair clips, and she looked as if she’d just got out of the shower, shiny and overripe, like a past-it plum.

She looked innocent, too. I wondered if I should warn her – surely that would be the sisterly thing to do. She’d be horrified if she knew that only a month ago Alex had been stalking me. I disliked her on sight, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see her get hurt. Alex was a dangerous man.

Once they were at a safe distance, I got out of the car and followed them. They took a left into Arcadia Road, and I realized that they were probably heading for the tube, so I sped up. I was intrigued. She was dressed for work and he was out of work, so where were they going on a Monday morning? It would be quite a challenge following them into the Underground without being spotted.

When I reached the Tube, I lurked in the entrance until they’d safely gone through the turnstiles, into the corridor which led to the escalator. I bought a Zone 1-6 return ticket and dashed after them. By the time I got to the top of the escalator, they’d reached the bottom and were turning left into the southbound platform. I heard the sound of an approaching train, but couldn’t tell which tunnel it was coming from, so I galloped down the escalator stairs, two at a time, barging past a group of Japanese tourists and a couple of skateboarders.

I charged onto the platform just as the train pulled in. Glancing frantically around, I saw Alex and the girl preparing to get on, one carriage down. That was OK – I could keep an eye on them from inside the train.

Then disaster struck. The doors opened, and in my dishevelled and panicked state, I propelled myself forwards too quickly into the carriage, feeling myself tilt towards the dirty corrugated iron floor of the train. Trying to regain my balance, I overcompensated and lurched back – right out of the train again! I landed on my ass back on the platform, with the faces of the other passengers gazing out at me in utter amazement. I felt myself begin to blush, but worse was to come – when I looked to my left, I saw that Alex and the girl still hadn’t got into their carriage, and had witnessed the whole undignified scene! Thank God I was in disguise.

I was so embarrassed that I once more launched myself into the train, where I finally landed unceremoniously on my hands and knees – on the same dirty floor I’d only just prevented myself falling onto before. Bloody great private detective I’d make! I couldn’t have drawn more attention to myself if I’d taken off all my clothes and run up and down the platform screaming, ‘look at my knockers, Alex!’

‘Are you OK?’ asked a bemused Indian woman, offering me her hand. I took it and struggled to my feet, although her hand felt so soft, and she was so small and light, that I nearly pulled her down with me first. Someone else handed me my shades, which had fallen off.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I eventually replied, mortified, regarding my ripped jeans and straightening my skewed headscarf. My right knee was bleeding, and my palm grazed – but my pride had taken the severest battering of all. All around me, passengers’ lips were twitching and sniggers being suppressed. And then – then! – I looked through the glass window in the doors dividing my carriage from Alex’s and saw both him and his fat girlfriend peering through at me, laughing hysterically!

I wanted to cry. How utterly, utterly humiliating. And what if Alex had recognised me? If he’d looked through two minutes earlier, he’d have seen me without the sunglasses.

I’m such a sodding failure.

At the next station, I got off the train – carefully – and walked past Alex’s carriage as if heading for the exit. He and the girl were sitting near the door dividing their carriage from the one I’d just left, and they had their heads together. He definitely didn’t see me, so I ducked back into the next carriage down, where I positioned myself with a clear view of them through the other door. Morning rush hour was well and truly over, so I had no problem getting the seat I wanted.

Seeing them together made me feel sick, and I realized I was shaking. Partly from the shock of my fall(s), but mostly I think with sheer anger, that I was reduced to following this little geek and his fat girlfriend around London, making a fool of myself in the process, chasing after money that he owed me. I wish I was a bloke. It would be so much simpler – I’d just kick his head in until he paid me back.

They got off at Kings Cross, and Alex didn’t once look around as I followed them through the tunnels and up to the main line station. It was much easier to slip along behind them in the wide crowded concourse – lots of bagel stands and coffee bars to lurk behind. People were looking oddly at me again, but compared to the humiliation in the tube train, it was nothing. Alex bought a ticket, and they walked slowly to a gate which said ‘Milton Keynes’ on the screen next to it.

Then they kissed; lengthily, disgustingly, pornographically. I wanted to heave. He was running his hands all over her back and blubbery buttocks, pressing himself against her as if they were going to get down and dirty right there on the platform. They both looked upset, as if he was going away somewhere for ages.

What if he was running away, to get out of paying me back? But he had no luggage with him, just a WHSmith bag which looked like it had a book in it. He couldn’t be going for long. I decided to march up to him then and there, and demand my cash. I was just working up to it, my breathing shallow and adrenaline pumping through me, egging me on – when a whistle blew and Alex tore himself away from his girlfriend, waving behind him as he jumped into the train.

Damn, I thought. Now what? I felt at a sudden loss, all dressed up for battle and no-one to confront. The girl turned away, a troubled expression on her chipmunk face, and walked right past me without seeing me. I felt like a ghost. Instinctively, I turned too and began to follow her. I was curious. Who was she? What was so fucking brilliant about her that Alex could just drop me and fall in love with her instead? I’m much prettier! I bet I’m more interesting and successful, too.

She got back on the Northern Line, and I sat down three seats away from her, hoping she wouldn’t recognise me as the woman who’d fallen over. The whole time I toyed with the idea of going up to her and warning her about Alex, but something kept preventing me. I made little deals with myself: if the seat next to her comes free, I’ll do it. If she uncrosses her legs, I’ll do it. If that man leaves his newspaper behind when he gets off, I’ll do it. But none of those things happened, and before I knew it she was getting off at Tottenham Court Road.

I followed her past the umbrella-sellers (it was starting to rain) and the fake designer bag stall on the corner, across the road opposite the Dominion Theatre, and then right into a little side street past the YMCA. The streets looked weirdly shimmery through my sunglasses, which were starting to annoy me. I felt as if I was walking around in a fog. Then I realized that there was absolutely no reason I shouldn’t take them off, since Whatsherface didn’t know me from Adam. I whipped off both the scarf and the glasses, relishing the feel of the drizzle on my forehead and flat hair, watching as the girl walked into a newsagents across the road. I crossed too, intending to loiter outside, reading the headlines of the papers in a plexiglass cabinet on the pavement.

Another woman was just coming out, a tall, skinny, Cruella de Vil- type with the boniest knees I’ve ever seen. She was ripping the cellophane off a packet of Malboros, and she and the girl nearly bumped into each other.

‘Morning, Emily, so glad you could struggle in for us today,’ I heard her say to Alex’s girlfriend. Emily – what a typical, mealy-mouthed wimpish sort of name. Emily blushed puce.

‘Sorry I’m late, Pernilla,’ she said. (Pernilla? That was even worse than Emily) ‘I had a doctor’s appointment – I did email you about it on Friday.’

‘I don’t recall,’ said Pernilla coldly, and I felt like cheering. I lifted up the flap of the newspaper cabinet, and pretended to scrutinise the front page of the Daily Sport. ‘See you back in the office.’ Emily nodded, bolting into the newsagents, and Pernilla began to teeter across the road on her spindly legs, sucking on a fag like it was a McDonalds milkshake.

On impulse, I whipped out my shades, put them back on, and hurried after Pernilla. I don’t know what possessed me – and in truth, I’m not at all proud of myself, even though Emily had been laughing at me in the train – but I brushed past her, my heart thumping.

‘Emily hasn’t been to the doctor’s,’ I said out of the side of my mouth, like the spy I was. ‘She’s been with her boyfriend. I saw her.’ Wincing at my sneakiness, I doubled back on myself, dashed away and hid around the corner before Pernilla could say anything in reply. I saw her turn round, mystified and shocked, but by that time I was already out of sight. She stood puzzled for a second, and then marched angrily up the steps of a tall Georgian building in Bedford Square.

(I changed my mind. So what if I get her into trouble? She laughed at me. They both did.)

Emily hurried out of the newsagents a minute later, unwrapping a Twix and shoving a finger of it into her mouth as she went into the same building. I let a safe period of time elapse before sauntering past and noting the plaque on the wall by the door: Frazer Shaw Publishers Ltd. She bloody would work for a publisher, wouldn’t she! Frazer Shaw are quite decent too – not one of the biggies obviously, but I think they do quite a bit of contemporary fiction. I began to regret talking to Pernilla, just in case she turns out to be an editor, and Patricia sends my novel to her. Perhaps Pat’s so impressed with the 20,000 words I emailed her last week that she’s already thinking about showing it to editors - it’s going so well at the moment. So maybe this was a mistake. …I know it’s unlikely that she’d remember me, but you never know. Wouldn’t that just be my luck?

Chapter 22

Alex

Monday

The day started well. Emily came with me to the station after a wonderful night together, lying in bed, making love, drinking wine and eating Belgian chocolates in frilly paper cases beneath the quilt; it was like being in a little shelter, the two of us protected from all the missiles and bullets the world could throw at us. On the way to Kings Cross we saw something really funny: a mad woman hurling herself on and off the Tube train, for reasons best known to herself. She was a real Care in the Community case, by the look of her. Emily and I giggled about it all the way to the station, and our shared laughter helped alleviate my nerves about seeing The Dragon – although even as we were laughing I felt uncomfortable about how close I’d come to a breakdown in the past. It could so easily have been me entertaining the commuters on the Tube. And now here I was, about to get on another train to visit the root – the living cause – of those problems.