I Follow You

by Peter James

  ‘Something’s come up. I’m needed – an emergency op, just got a call.’ He pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up, as if in evidence.

  ‘Great,’ she said, dispirited.

  He ignored her tone; he really didn’t have time for a row now.

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. You think I really want to spend my Saturday in theatre?’

  She looked a tad more understanding and put her arms around his neck. She smelled of face cream and onions. ‘Of course not, it’s just they’re going to be so disappointed.’

  Isn’t childhood all about feeling disappointed when your parents let you down? Doesn’t every child have parents who let them down? he thought. ‘Why don’t you take them yourself and I’ll try to join you as soon as I’m finished?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Sure. It’s just it would have been nice to do something all together. But it never happens, does it? It’s difficult, but we’ve both got to try harder to find quality family time.’

  ‘Well, hopefully I’ll be able to get away.’ He went upstairs to strip off and shower. And standing on the scales, he was annoyed to see that instead of having lost any weight from his exertions these past weeks, he’d gained two pounds.

  When he came back down thirty minutes later, changed and refreshed, the television was still on, now with a cookery show, but there was no sign of anyone. Just a note on the island unit.

  See you at the zoo, if you can make it! X

  He made himself some porridge and ate it whilst reading the island’s paper, the Jersey Evening Post, noting with particular interest the ongoing controversy over the location of the new hospital, and wondering if it would ever actually get resolved. Then he flipped through the first few pages of The Times.

  Half an hour later, Marcus drove to the hospital. Although ailments and injuries did not adhere to a Monday-to-Friday schedule, this place was always quieter at weekends. Which meant less risk of being disturbed. Good.

  After first checking Kath Clow wasn’t in and on call today, he entered his office and closed the door, then sat at his desk and logged on. Without a glance at the emails that had poured in since yesterday, he went to the parkrun website and looked up Georgie Maclean’s time.

  And grimaced when it came up.

  Twenty-three minutes and three seconds. She’d done the course fifteen minutes faster than his time.

  At the start he’d heard her say she was going for under twenty-four minutes.

  Maybe she’d never had any intention of waiting to have coffee with him. Or was he just overthinking all of this?

  I will get faster, just you watch, Georgie! I will get closer to your time.

  He pulled up the images on his phone that he’d started to group into an album called ‘Running’. Screenshots of running drills and exercises, stretches and routines. He smiled to himself, realizing that nearly all the images were of super-fit young women. Perhaps he needed to redress that balance. Then, more recently, the photos of Georgie running along the promenade which he had taken the first time he’d seen her. Followed by the pictures he’d taken of her earlier today, at the parkrun. Added to them was a screenshot of the photograph Georgie had posted of her flat lay.

  He stared at the neatly laid-out, brightly coloured kit, and for some minutes luxuriated in the mental image of Georgie naked before she put it on. And afterwards, of her drenched and sweaty, peeling it off. She had a great body, for sure, the kind of tight, slender body that had always turned him on.

  He was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn’t hear the sound of his door opening. Then, suddenly, he became aware of a shadow.

  He spun round and saw his medical student, Robert Resmes, standing right behind him.

  He jumped up, startled, slamming the phone face-down on his desk and obstructing the Romanian’s view of his screen. ‘Haven’t you heard of knocking, Robert?’

  ‘I did knock,’ Robert said, giving him a strange look.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were coming in today,’ he said. ‘I had a free day and Dr Noon invited me to spend it with him in the Emergency department. One of the nurses said she’d seen you entering the building, so I thought I’d come up and see if you were dealing with an emergency or something.’

  ‘I came in to get some filing done, all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Resmes stood, giving him an odd, knowing smile.

  ‘You can go back to Adrian Noon, OK?’

  ‘Yes, right, good. I’ll see you Monday, then?’

  Resmes continued to stand for some seconds. Then, taking his time, he went out calmly, closing the door behind him.

  Marcus again entered Kath Clow’s username and password and pulled up her files on Georgie Maclean. He wanted to make sure everything was going well, taking care to note anything significant so he could impress her next time they met.

  Georgie had had her twelve-week scan before Christmas. She was now in her second trimester. She had recently received the Harmony test results and it was good news. The 99 per cent risk assessment chances of the baby having any of the three chromosomes they were most concerned about – thirteen, eighteen and twenty-one, or Patau, Edwards and Down’s syndromes – were less than one in ten thousand.

  He studied her notes and her entire medical history once again, with great care.

  35

  Saturday 12 January

  El Tico was rammed with couples and families seated at the long wooden tables, and Georgie and Roger had to stand in a queue, the tantalizing smell of hot food and the near-deafening babble of conversation all around them, before being told they could be seated in half an hour. Roger laid his keys and his phone on the bar counter while they waited.

  ‘Don’t you forget those, they’ve got my hotel keys on there.’

  ‘They’re quite safe, don’t worry.’

  They didn’t worry, as they stood watching, through the rain-spattered windows, a few brave surfers out on the grey, roiling waves, Roger with a Bloody Mary, Georgie with a Virgin one. The fingers of Georgie’s free hand were entwined with Roger’s.

  ‘Cheers!’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t it bad luck to clink glasses without alcohol in both?’

  He shook his head. ‘Do you know why people touch glasses?’

  ‘I suspect I’m about to find out!’ she grinned.

  ‘Goes back to the Middle Ages, when no one trusted anyone. If you went to someone else’s castle and were offered a drink, your glass would be filled to the brim as would be your host’s. As you touched glasses, you’d make sure some of your wine, or ale, slopped into your host’s – that way if you were being given poison, he’d drink it too.’

  ‘I like it, but what’s that got to do with alcohol?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe the alcohol killed whatever poison might be in your drink.’

  ‘Any other superstitions you can diss?’

  At that moment, much sooner than they had expected, a server came over to them. ‘Mr and Mrs Richardson – your table is ready.’

  They took their seats at the window end of a long table, next to a glum-looking elderly couple who were sitting in silence, and picked up the menus. For a short while they studied them. ‘I’m having the pancakes,’ Georgie said. ‘I’ve been craving them! And I’m ravenous.’

  ‘With marmalade?’

  ‘With mascarpone cream and warm maple syrup – and I’m going to ask if I could have some marmalade as a side order.’

  ‘Go for it! I’ve got an expectant father craving too!’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A burger, mustard, pickle, fries, ketchup!’

  ‘You go for it, you’ve earned it, all that hard work!’

  ‘Hard work?’

  She leaned across the table, whispering so the elderly couple next to them couldn’t hear. ‘All that sacrificial sex!’

  He gave her an impish smile. ‘Wasn’t totally hard work – not all of it.’


  ‘No? Wasn’t tooooo tough for me, either. Not all of it, anyhow.’

  They locked smiling eyes.

  The waiter arrived just then and they gave their orders – luckily, marmalade was no problem – with a glass of red wine for Roger and a Diet Coke for Georgie. They sat in contented silence for a couple of moments, then to their relief the couple next to them departed and no one took their place.

  ‘I quite liked her calling us Mr and Mrs Richardson,’ Georgie said. ‘I think I’ll be able to get used to that!’

  ‘Me too, Mrs Richardson. Has a nice ring to it! So, have you had any thoughts about that envelope? About finding out whether our bump is a boy or a girl?’

  ‘Have you? What names would you favour?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. I did like George but that would be too confusing. I really like Robert, too. For a girl, I quite like Edith – I know it’s old-fashioned, but it seems to be coming back,’ he said.

  ‘What about Archie or Kit?’

  He nodded. ‘I like those too, especially Kit.’

  ‘For a girl I like Laura or Rebecca. Edith is cute though.’

  ‘Well, you’re the one doing the heavy lifting!’

  ‘When you and Roxanne were trying for a baby, did you think up names?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but it was the same way we always used to decide on everything. She said what she wanted and I’d go along with it.’

  ‘I never took you for a doormat or a pushover.’

  ‘Yup, well, you never met Roxanne. She was a control freak – if she didn’t get her way she’d go into a sulk for days.’ He shrugged. ‘In the end it just became easier to say yes.’

  ‘Which is what you said when she told you she’d fallen in love with someone else?’

  He smiled. ‘I’ve never owned a boat, but an old mucker of mine, Paul Templeman – who was my best man first time round – you’ll meet him one day – made a shitload of money in a property development and bought a yacht – which turned out to be a money pit. He said you have two moments of happiness when you own a boat. The first is the day you buy it and the second is the day you sell it.’

  She gave him a quizzical stare. ‘Meaning in your case?’

  ‘The day Roxanne and I married. And the day we were divorced.’

  ‘I hope you never say that about me.’

  He stared at her. ‘Never, ever, ever.’

  Georgie leaned across the table and kissed him. As she sat back, their food arrived.

  Both of them tucked in, ravenously. She stole one of his chips, dunked it in the bowl of ketchup and ate it. ‘Know what I fancy, when we’ve finished?’

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘Going straight home and taking you to bed.’

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ he replied, raising his wine glass. ‘I was just thinking the same thing.’

  36

  Sunday 13 January

  Ignoring his nagging calf muscle, Marcus let himself out of his front door. The low winter sun shone from a clear steel-blue sky on a chilly, but glorious, morning, the kind where the island looked its very best. Perhaps he’d see Georgie again today, out in this good weather.

  He’d been frustrated that aside from yesterday he’d not spoken to her for several weeks, not since before Christmas. He’d noticed she’d done several runs in and around York over the festive season and, checking her social media, he’d found pictures of her and Roger with her in-laws-to-be. He hated all those smug, smiling faces – except Georgie’s, of course, and did she even want to be there? – and the ridiculous photo of them all around the Christmas dinner table wearing party hats.

  He began his warm-up, stopping periodically to do his stretches as he headed down toward St Brelade’s church.

  During the evening, whilst Claire had been drooling over Richard Madden in Bodyguard on catch-up television, he’d been thinking about Georgie Maclean’s latest activity, wondering whether her pregnancy was affecting her performance. He so desperately wanted to beat her!

  Aside from the York trip, she was a creature of habit with her routes, and since returning from her travels she had slipped straight back into them. But the times of her weekday runs varied a little, presumably to fit around her work. She seemed to prefer early morning, but a few were quite late in the evening, he noticed. On Saturdays she either did a long run on her own or the parkrun, and Sundays she began pretty much on the dot of 8.00 a.m.

  For one of her regular runs she would head west from her home in Beaumont over to the Corbière Lighthouse, from which she looped back. Either continuing past Beaumont towards St Helier or, on her longer run days, carrying on some distance past the port of St Helier. His watch showed 8.32 a.m. If he headed west, towards Corbière, on the track she always looped back on, there was every chance he would see her.

  Forget it, stop being stupid. Take a different route. Stop torturing yourself over her. Why are you obsessing so much over this one woman? She is just rejecting you like all the rest. Move on.

  But he couldn’t.

  He stretched once more, then broke into a run, almost immediately stopping as his right calf muscle tightened. Cursing, he knelt down and began massaging it. A male jogger pounded past him, from the Corbière direction. He began running again, and although feeling tight, close to protest, the muscle held. For several minutes. Then spasmed again.

  It felt like someone had dug a knife into the lower half of his leg and was twisting it.

  Gasping in pain, he knelt and massaged his calf, hard. He heard footsteps pounding towards him and turned, peering up from beneath the peak of his baseball cap. A young man with a tiny rucksack on his back, sucking on a water tube, ran full-tilt past him.

  He returned to his calf. The massage was working, it was starting to feel better. Then more footsteps approached, but before he could turn, a woman shot past him. In a pink baseball cap.

  Too late, he realized it was Georgie.

  She ran on, in her pale-blue top and shorts. Running belt. Ray-Bans. Ear buds. Easy strides taking her towards a blue horizon.

  What are you listening to through those ear buds? Van the Man?

  Such gorgeous, sexy legs inside her compression socks.

  He changed direction and began running after her. Getting ten yards before his calf muscle griped again.

  No.

  He knelt and massaged it once more. By the time he stood up again, Georgie was way in the distance. No chance of catching her up.

  But he knew her likely route – if he could head over to where she would be looping back, he might be able to see her then. Perhaps catch her for a chat right at the end of her run?

  He began running once more, but his calf muscle felt like an elastic band about to snap. He slowed to a power walk and it felt better. He carried on, as fast as he could, continually looking at his watch, calculating. How far was she going today? When would she be coming back?

  He had to stop and massage his leg again.

  A group of four guys, all chatting, raced past him. Cyclists. Joggers with pushchairs. And more headed towards him. Then he saw the pink cap.

  Georgie! Bearing down fast. Her face set in grim resolve. It was definitely her.

  He stood up, all smiles, and raised a hand in recognition. ‘Hi, Georgie!’ he said.

  She half raised a hand back, barely glancing at him, before looking straight ahead again. ‘Hi, Marcus!’

  As if he was just another meaningless stranger in a crowd.

  37

  Monday 14 January

  The stage of tuition before student pilots made their first solo was known as ‘touch and goes’, also known as ‘circuits and bumps’. With the instructor alongside them in the cockpit they would complete circuit after circuit of the airfield, landing, slowing but not stopping, then opening the throttle and taking off again and repeating the process.

  Roger Richardson usually loved seeing his pupils at this stage, where they rapidly gained in confidence. His best ones had what he liked
to call ‘kind hands’ – it meant they were gentle and smooth with the controls. But not this idiot. The man in the hot seat to his left, gripping the control column as if he was steering a Grand Prix race car, was a contender for the title of his least favourite student pilot. Ever.

  Byron Wilding was fifty-seven, overweight and held the misguided belief that he was immortal. American born and raised, he had relocated many years earlier to England and subsequently, some years later, had moved to Jersey.

  Wilding’s life had been punctuated by a couple of incredibly lucky escapes. In 1995 he’d been the sole survivor in a private charter jet that had crashed in Portugal, killing the pilot and three of his board members. On 11 September 2001, he had overslept – due to a booze-fuelled night spent with his mistress in a Manhattan hotel, as he’d bragged to Roger. It had meant him failing to turn up for an early-morning meeting in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre.

  When Roger had asked him to what he attributed his luck, he’d replied with his catchphrase, ‘I guess someone up there likes me.’

  Why on earth anyone up there should have liked this conceited tub of lard, in Roger’s view, beggared belief.

  Byron Wilding had amassed a fortune through building one of the largest groups of outlet malls in the world, proudly telling Roger that he’d done it all himself from humble roots. His father, back in Baton Rouge, had been a hospital janitor and his mother a school dinner lady. He had survived three heart attacks yet had somehow sailed through his medical, being signed off fit to fly.

  ‘I guess someone up there likes me,’ he’d replied again when Roger had quizzed him about this.

  As further evidence of his belief in his invincibility – and clearly in his immortality too – Wilding had bought an expensive twin-engine executive plane which had been delivered to Jersey some months earlier and was parked in a hangar. Obtaining his basic Private Pilot’s Licence was his first step towards getting his ticket to fly his aircraft himself.