Close to the Edge Read online

  ‘Really?’ Laurie smoothed her hands down her thighs. ‘Thank you. It’s more than I deserve after the way I kept you waiting. I want to tell you why.’

  Paul said nothing. Laurie liked that.

  ‘I was all ready to get here on time. At six o’clock I was at Oxford Circus, and then I found I couldn’t get on the Tube. It wasn’t shut or anything. I just physically couldn’t go underground.’

  Paul took a swig from his glass. ‘I could say that’s no loss. I haven’t been on the Tube for the best part of a decade, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t be much comfort to you at the moment. Has it happened to you before?’

  ‘No. And that’s just it. I know why it happened as well. Yesterday morning I was on the Victoria line platform just here, and I saw a man fall under the train in front of me.’

  Paul frowned in sympathy. ‘God. That must have been terrible. Was he killed? Are you sure he fell?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s dead. The train was still travelling quite fast when it hit him. I left my name as a witness but I haven’t heard anything yet. And yes, he fell; I’m certain of it.’

  Paul looked like he wanted to reach over to her. Laurie wasn’t sure how she would have responded if he had. In the end, he confined his reaction to a single wry comment: ‘Well, that certainly puts my day in perspective.’

  He turned out to be the manager of a gym. At least, that was his job title. As Paul talked about what he did, however, it became clear that, while he might wear a suit to and from work, he was, as much as anything, a personal trainer, booked for appointments by the gym’s regular clients. So she was right in thinking he looked fit. God, it was good to meet someone whose first question wouldn’t be ‘What university did you go to?’

  Their food arrived: dhosas. Paul made Laurie guess what they were made of. She got the main constituents of the spicy potato filling easily enough, but would never have realised that the wraps around them were made from lentils. She had to laugh when Paul described his own efforts to make them once: the gloopy mess of ‘pulsating pulses’ that he left standing for days as it fermented down to a batter, and the end result – scraps of burnt leather with no resemblance to anything edible. What she was eating now, however, was delicious, the crispiness of the pancake contrasting perfectly with the mouth-filling warmth of the potato: comfort food for vegetarians. Laurie felt a tingle of pleasure at the new experience.

  Laurie looked across at the man in front of her. He ate neatly and methodically, finishing every mouthful before he spoke, keeping his elbows off the table and by his side. Mum would have liked that. Laurie stopped herself. Surely it was too early to be thinking along those lines? But he was kind as well as handsome; she could tell that already. She wanted to find out more about what lay beneath that suit.

  Paul returned her gaze. Could he read her mind? What he said, however, was entirely serious. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. How can you be certain that man fell? You hear about people jumping under trains all the time.’

  ‘He was as close to me as you are now. He was about to speak to me when he lost his balance. The train came in at just the wrong time.’

  ‘But he didn’t actually say anything to you?’

  ‘No. I think all he was going to do was tell me that I had a smudge on my nose. I can’t help thinking about the whole chain of events that meant I was standing next to him with a dirty face, and that if one of them hadn’t happened, he’d still be alive.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Paul sharply. ‘Don’t talk like that. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. You can’t blame yourself for something like that. It would drive you mad.’

  Laurie wasn’t sure about Paul’s logic, but she appreciated his attempt to comfort her. Her reply, however, didn’t come out like that. ‘You sound like my dad.’ Then she thought through the implications of what she had just said. ‘Don’t worry. It’s a compliment.’

  It was Paul’s response that made Laurie certain that he, too, was thinking this might be the start of something. ‘Hmm. Well, promise me that if you ever want to talk about it some more, you’ll call me. I don’t claim to have any great psychological insight, but this isn’t the sort of thing you keep bottled up inside.’

  Grateful that he had not attempted to draw any parallels with what happened to Mum, Laurie just nodded. She didn’t trust herself to talk. Then Paul continued, ‘there’s something else you should know about me. I’m a dad already: got two kids, Aidan and Mia. Their mum and I are divorced. They live in Oxfordshire now.’

  ‘Oh.’ Laurie felt she should be asking something in response while she tried to process this information. ‘How often do you see them?’

  ‘Every other weekend and a bit during the school holidays. So I’m off tomorrow until Sunday night – taking them to my mum’s.’

  ‘Are they still quite small?’

  ‘Six and four. We split up two years ago.’

  Tiny! Laurie tried to imagine how she would have felt if Dad had moved out when she was two. She could feel her eyes starting to sting in sympathy. ‘Oh Paul, I’m so sorry.’

  Paul had gone a bit red. He looked down at his lap as he continued. ‘It was my fault. I got too close to a client. Bethan always said one strike and you’re out. So I was. Wish I could turn back the clock. I can’t make up to the kids for what happened, but I’m trying to be there for them now.’

  A series of images jostled for attention in Laurie’s head: of Paul ‘getting too close’ to some gym-bunny, of an angry scene with his faceless wife, of children weeping for their father. She let the silence rest, not trusting herself to speak. Surely she should be feeling sympathy here for the wronged wife, not Paul?

  There didn’t seem much more to be said. Paul asked for the bill, and insisted on paying. It was still light outside. They walked back to the station, neither attempting to touch the other, talking of inconsequentialities – when the heatwave would break, whether it was a sign of global warming. Paul waited until the bus was slowing down to make one last admonishment. ‘I meant what I said. Call me if you want to talk about that accident any more.’

  The comfort Laurie derived from the idea confirmed what she already knew: she wanted to see him again. She turned to face him, ready to say goodbye. He was standing there. Did she imagine that his smile was slightly sad? That decided her. This time, when she leant towards him, it was for a proper kiss.

  After the electricity of the morning, the feel of Paul’s lips was everything Laurie had hoped. She wanted to linger, but pulled away before it developed into anything more. She wasn’t ready for that yet. She had at least some composure as she turned and got on the bus.

  Laurie went upstairs and took her favourite seat at the front of the upper deck. Her lips still tingled.. Staring out of the window, she tried to analyse her feelings for a man she’d known for little more than a day. Should she be put off by his confession of unfaithfulness? Somehow that seemed insignificant next to the news that he’d been married and had children. But that should have been no surprise either. He was at least ten years older than her. She could hardly expect that he would have been single all this time.

  Jess was watching an ancient repeat of Sex and the City when Laurie came in, but she turned it off to look her up and down, raising her eyebrows as she did so. ‘Nice outfit,’ she said. ‘I won’t even try to guess how much it cost, but I trust it was worth it. You haven’t texted me, by the way, but then you’re hardly late enough for me to start worrying. How did it go?’

  ‘It’s a bit complicated,’ Laurie had to admit. ‘He’s lovely, but he’s got two kids, and he’s not going to be around for the rest of the week. I’d like to see him again, I think. Fabulous body.’ She flashed Jess a smile.

  ‘Well if you fancy him that’s one hurdle cleared. Just remember you can always dump him later. Kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Send him a text now, to keep him warm. That’s my advice.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Laurie got out her p
hone to find Paul’s message so she could reply. There was nothing there: ‘I don’t understand. I saw him texting me.’

  ‘Well, sometimes they take a while to get through.’

  It didn’t seem very likely, but Laurie was grateful for the explanation all the same. Suddenly she was too tired to engage in the usual back and forth. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I can’t think straight. I’m going to bed.’

  It was a still, hot night. Laurie kicked off the duvet and lay on her mattress in her second-hand t-shirt, thinking of Paul in spite of herself. She remembered the feel of his lips and imagined the touch of his fingertips. Wasn’t she getting ahead of herself? The implication of the absent text was pretty clear; most probably they would never meet again.

  So when Laurie eventually slept it was to dream, once again, of Mum, of trains and tunnels and outstretched hands.

  Thursday, 23 July – 9 a.m.

  Facebook listed eighty Paul Collingwoods. Of the half with photographs, however, none matched the man Laurie was looking for. Forty-odd others were visible only as stylised silhouettes, and at least twenty of those were potential London-dwellers. There was no way Laurie was going to send all of them a friend request, and without that any message would just get stuck in a spam filter.

  The BT website was more helpful. There were seventeen Collingwoods with London telephone numbers; a surprisingly high proportion – eight – had the initial ‘P’, but only two of those lived in north London. Laurie noted the numbers. She would call them that evening, away from office eavesdroppers. Then she remembered; Paul had said he was going to be out of London for the rest of the week, taking his kids to his mum’s. Ah well. Perhaps a few days of enforced separation would be no bad thing. If she still felt like tracking him down on Monday, she’d know it was serious. Right now, Monday seemed a long way off.

  Laurie straightened in her seat. That had been an unproductive way to spend the first twenty minutes of her working day. It was time to get back to Michael’s model. He had been at his desk since she arrived, in much the same position as when she had left the previous afternoon: hunched over his keyboard, face rendered even more pallid by the glow from his screen. Only the different pattern on his shirt provided any indication that he had not been there all night. He must be expecting her to get down to work now, to match him keystroke for keystroke as she methodically changed the variables and noted each set of results. It was such a boring and repetitive process – even Michael looked glassy-eyed – but there was no help for it. She settled down to work.

  There was, Laurie had to admit, something faintly satisfying about the routine. It kept enough of her mind occupied to stop it wandering, but demanded nothing more in the way of intellectual effort. Enjoyment was too strong a word, but there was a sense of safety in the knowledge that she was doing exactly what Michael had asked her to do. So the ringing on her mobile, when it came, was a surprisingly unwelcome distraction. Neither Laurie nor her phone recognised the number. Might it be Paul? Laurie hardly dared hope as she pressed the green answer key.

  But it was a woman’s voice at the other end. ‘Am I speaking to Miss Lauren Bateman? This is Sergeant Atkins, British Transport Police, Euston station. I understand you reported your name as a witness to an incident here on the morning of the twenty-first of July.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Conscious that Michael had looked up from his computer, Laurie didn’t feel like volunteering anything more.

  ‘We’d like you to come in to make a statement, if that’s convenient.’ There was no interrogatory uplift to end the sentence. Its second half was there for form’s sake only.

  Laurie looked regretfully at her computer screen. Was it really half past three already? She must have worked through lunch without realising. Her sigh was entirely unintentional, but still audible at the other end of the line.

  ‘I’m sorry if it’s a bother to you, madam.’ Sergeant Atkins’s tone made it clear she wasn’t sorry at all. ‘But you will appreciate that there has been a fatality and we need to establish the circumstances surrounding it as expeditiously as possible.’

  Laurie surrendered. ‘Of course, when would you like me to come in?’

  It seemed that the sergeant was hoping to complete her paperwork this evening. She made it clear that she was expecting Laurie before then: in fact, as soon as possible. Quite why she was calling now, rather than earlier in the day, or even yesterday, never became apparent. Laurie didn’t dare ask, let alone suggest that she would have appreciated a little more notice. For all she knew, her evidence was necessary before they could release the body to the family.

  Laurie noted where she’d got to in her progression through Michael’s variables and rose from her seat. As if attached by an invisible cord, Michael’s chin rose to face her. Laurie looked at him and sighed. ‘I’m sorry about this. It’s a bit of a long story, but I was a witness to an accident a couple of days ago and the police want me to make a statement. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  As she changed out of her work clothes and cycled to Euston, Laurie tried to rationalise why she felt guilty at leaving Michael like that. It wasn’t as if she had to work on his bloody model for him; it was way beyond her job description.

  There was a man sitting behind the glass screen at Euston police station. He took Laurie’s details, registered that she was here to meet Sergeant Atkins, and motioned for her to sit in one of the three chairs that lined the flank wall.

  Laurie chose the seat nearest the screen. There was no one else in the room, but if anyone arrived, she wanted to make sure she was at the front of any developing queue. The plastic squeaked slightly as she settled into it. Posters on the wall told her about Crimestoppers, about always reporting a suspicious or abandoned bag, about when to call 999 and when 111 was more appropriate. It all felt so different from the last time Laurie had spent any time in a police station. Then, boredom had been the least of her worries.

  Laurie looked at her phone: no signal, no opportunity to divert herself in any way. For a moment she wished she had not deleted Candy Crush. Even the Metro would have been better than nothing.

  A man and a woman came into the waiting room. Laurie prepared herself to interact, to acknowledge some fellow feeling as they joined her on the chairs, but they let themselves through, past the glass screen, without even looking at her.

  Half past four: Laurie had been waiting for twenty minutes. Apparently Crimestoppers’ specially trained agents will make sure your report contains no information that could identify you. Every time Laurie shifted, her chair squeaked in sympathy, its sound amplified by the smallness of the room. Should she go and ask the man behind the screen if it was OK to go out and get a paper? Laurie got as far as standing up, only to see that she was now alone. Presumably the man only appeared in response to a buzz on the outside door; at other times, he had better things to do.

  It was another ten minutes before the door beside the glass screen opened, this time from the inside. A disembodied female voice said, ‘Lauren Bateman.’ Laurie got up and was almost at the door before she saw the speaker. ‘I’m Sergeant Atkins.’

  Laurie had never thought of herself as tall, so it was disconcerting to realise that her chin was level with the top of the policewoman’s head. Didn’t the police have some sort of minimum height requirement? Did the fact the sergeant wasn’t in uniform mean she was CID? Laurie considered asking, but something about Atkins’s manner – the way she had not yet made eye contact, the projected aura of having been interrupted on important business – discouraged any attempt at small talk. The magnanimous ‘No problem’, which Laurie had been prepared to issue in response to an apology for being kept waiting, proved to be entirely unnecessary.

  Then all thoughts of social niceties ceased. Along the corridor a door opened to reveal a young man dressed in the standard t-shirt and shorts of a tourist. Without trying to analyse his looks, Laurie could see immediately that he was beautiful; there was no other word for it
. Behind him a uniformed policeman had a grip on his elbow. The two of them stood there in the corridor, side on to Laurie, before the young man turned to the left and looked her full in the face. In that moment, he made his calculation. What occurred next seemed to happen unbearably slowly, although Laurie still had no time to cry out. In one move the man wrenched his elbow free from the guiding hand behind him, turned around, headbutted the policeman’s nose with an audible crack, and kneed him hard in the groin. Then he sprinted towards Laurie, clearly aiming for the door she had just entered while it was still ajar.

  The sergeant had her back to the corridor. The man dealt with her even before she realised there was a problem, pushing her over with ridiculous ease. Then he came to Laurie. The shove in her chest made her stagger back and out of his way. ‘How dare he?’ Instinctively, Laurie stuck out her foot, making the man stumble as he headed for the door.

  ‘Bitch!’ The man wheeled round and punched her hard in the stomach, a winding blow so painful she was sure he must have broken a rib. She crouched down, arms round her middle, desperate to breathe, unable to protect herself from the blows that would be sure to come.

  None did. Instead Laurie was assaulted by an alarm so loud she had to put her hands over her ears. She opened her eyes in time to see Sergeant Atkins and another policeman running past her, heading on into the train station, presumably in pursuit of the man who had vanished.

  The air seeped back into Laurie’s lungs. The pain receded. She stood up, uncertain what to do next. Then the man she had originally seen manning the desk appeared in front of her. He must be fifty at least, Laurie realised, with enough of a paunch to mean he wouldn’t be running anywhere very fast. Conversation was impossible, but he beckoned for Laurie to follow him further into the corridor. The policeman whose nose she had heard break was still there, sitting slumped against the wall. He must have been too wrapped up in his own concerns to notice what had happened to Laurie; now he eyed her over the bloodstained tissue pressed against his face. Her guide looked at him, clearly deciding what to do next. Then he opened the door beside him, the one from which Laurie had seen the two men emerge – was it really only a minute or so ago? – gestured for Laurie to go in, and closed the door behind her.