Running Girl

by Simon Mason

  Like why she’d echoed what Naylor had said before about leaving him alone.

  Blowing on his hands, he stuffed them into his pockets and settled back to wait, an anxious look on his face.

  25

  AT SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening Detective Inspector Raminder Singh stood in his office, facing the corner of the wall. He was just about to perform the rehras. But the phone rang and he returned to his desk and sat down.

  ‘Singh.’

  Most members of staff had already left the building and there was a hush throughout the fifth floor. In this empty silence Singh sat there listening to the voice on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a while. ‘Yes, I understand.’ His voice was quiet, tense.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I take responsibility. But it’s my belief that the Porsche will prove to be—’

  He was silent, and the silence of the building closed around him again.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They arrived yesterday ... There have been some technical hitches. We’re hoping this is the breakthrough we’ve— No, sir ... Yes, I do. Tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.’

  He swallowed.

  ‘I understand my position. Yes ... No, I’m—’

  He held the silent phone for a moment before replacing it, and glanced at his watch. Then he opened the dossier in front of him and flicked again through the transcripts of the interviews conducted at the Academy, which he’d finished re-reading a few minutes earlier.

  He re-read the interview with MacArthur, then the interview with Alex Robinson, then sat there thinking.

  After a while he picked up the phone and called Mal Nolan.

  ‘Mal?’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I have a question about the caretaker at the Academy. Naylor.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could he have been stalking Chloe?’

  There was a silence while she thought. ‘It’s possible. But I don’t remember any of the kids saying Chloe talked about him.’

  ‘No. There’s no reference to him in any of the school interviews. None. Chloe claimed lots of men were stalking her, but never Naylor. Perhaps that’s what makes me think of him.’ He paused. ‘Did you trace his past employment records?’

  ‘Still waiting for them to come through. It’s odd. First they go missing from the school system, now Archives can’t find them, either. But they did find a couple of things. I was just going to call you about them.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘He’s been pulled in as a material witness a couple of times recently. One was for breaking and entering. Never charged. Lack of evidence.’

  ‘Were the school informed?’

  ‘No. You know what the regulations are. But the second thing’s more interesting. Last year Customs interviewed him in connection with a drugs bust. Again, not charged. Apparently he knew one of the guys who went down but that was about it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘There was a note in the file about a previous incident. Seems Naylor has a temper. There’s reference to a fight he got into. I followed it up, tracked down the guy.’

  ‘And?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘He’s still in a harness. Eighteen months later. Naylor nearly wrenched his head off.’

  Singh was silent.

  ‘Did the man bring charges?’

  ‘No. Too terrified. Naylor’s violent. Very.’

  Singh thought.

  ‘Do we have anything linking Naylor to Pike Pond?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s go back to those Froggett Woods residents who gave identifications before. Get a photo from the school. See if they remember ever seeing Naylor.’

  ‘Will do.’

  After Singh had put down the phone he sat quietly gazing at the desk, gathering his thoughts. But almost immediately the phone rang again.

  ‘Yes?’

  It was Lawrence Shan with the calls team. As he listened, Singh’s face suddenly contracted. ‘What? Who did?’ He listened intently. ‘Friday what time?’ His knuckles were white round the receiver. ‘What witnesses? Are they sure?’ He got to his feet. ‘Yes, immediately,’ he said. ‘I’m setting off now. Put a back-up team in place when you get there and wait for me. Yes, armed. And Lawrence? I don’t want anything going wrong. We bring him in safe and sound. You know what the press will make of it if he’s harmed.’

  26

  IT WAS EIGHT forty-five, completely dark, and Garvie was numb with cold by the time his wait came to an end. For some time he’d been wondering anxiously about getting home before his curfew and he was on the point of calling it a day when he heard voices, and a few moments later half a dozen men appeared round the back of the building, walking together on the other side of the road. They must have been let out of the rear exit. It was too late now to move so he pushed himself further into the shadow of his doorway and hoped they’d go past without noticing him.

  They came closer along the pavement opposite. Naylor was at the back of the group on his own carrying his blue motorcycle helmet. Like the others, he walked with his shoulders up and his head down against the wind, smoking. From his doorway Garvie watched as they came up the road together, their silhouettes sliding along the dark wall behind them. They drew closer, heads still down, until they were opposite him, then began to move beyond him, and they were almost all past him when Naylor suddenly glanced across the street and met his eye.

  At first Garvie thought he hadn’t recognized him. Naylor gave no sign of it, just carried on walking along the side of the building and round the front to the car park. Leaving the others, he spent some time unlocking his moped, pulling on his gloves and helmet. Then, just as Garvie thought he was going to mount up and drive away, he turned sharply and looked directly towards the doorway where Garvie was hiding.

  Garvie slipped into the street and walked in the shadow of the wall in the opposite direction. It was instinct. There wasn’t a conversation, however awkward, he couldn’t talk his way out of, but something in that small movement of the man’s head when he turned to look in Garvie’s direction gave off the wrong sort of vibe. He felt what he’d felt before: the man was hot and cold. An obsessive. The sort of man who hid inside himself, watching, until he’d worked out what to do, and then did it, however savagely, until he couldn’t do it any more. Alex had been right: he was a psychopath. How long had he been watching Chloe and what had he done?

  In any case, he was the wrong sort of man to have a disagreement with.

  As he walked Garvie heard the moped start up behind him. The engine ticked over, revved up once, twice, and settled into a whine as it set off. Garvie walked on without looking back, listening to it. In a second it would either fade away as Naylor drove off in the other direction or get louder as he came after him.

  It got louder. Much louder, very quickly. All at once the engine roared, and Garvie turned to see the moped’s headlight hurtling out of the darkness of the street directly towards him.

  He considered the situation. Beside the pavement next to him was a low wire-mesh fence bordering three sides of a vacant lot standing between two tower blocks, and he hopped over it and headed diagonally across the waste ground through weeds and broken bricks towards the far corner, where he could see a glimpse of road. A few seconds later he heard Naylor reach the fence behind him and turned to see what he would do – drive past, or turn back and head for home. He did neither. He screeched to a halt and sat there in his helmet, twenty metres away, staring at Garvie over the wire. He didn’t say anything, just stared. But his fury was unmistakable. There was something else about him too, a purposefulness. As Garvie watched, he silently reached behind him and took something out of a box on the back of his moped. Something thick and heavy-looking, glinting silvery in the streetlight. A wrench. Attaching it to his wrist with a loop, he looked along the fence both ways, as if considering his options, then kicked
his moped into action, up the pavement towards a footpath that ran round two sides of the fence to the other side of the lot where the road was. He was going to try to head Garvie off.

  Garvie was a rational thinker, precise and unsentimental, and therefore he took a moment to think, rationally, precisely and unsentimentally. Then he ran.

  In a sprint he went across the broken ground towards the road at the far side, occasionally glancing across to check Naylor’s progress round the perimeter. By now the man had manoeuvred his moped onto the path and was whining noisily along the fence to the far edge of the lot. He was going much faster than Garvie had expected.

  Garvie picked up speed. He leaped a pile of rusty wire which appeared suddenly at his feet and got to the far side of the lot just as Naylor was rounding the near corner of the fence.

  Running down a shallow embankment, he reached the road. BANK AVENUE, the sign said. It was a wide road, well-lit and completely deserted, and Garvie had no knowledge of it. He looked both ways, then ran across it, sprinted along the front of an empty office block and turned smartly into a side street, Clavell Way.

  Hearing the moped whining behind him, he knew Naylor had already left the footpath, and a second later the roar of the engine told him the bike had crossed the embankment. Garvie ran thirty metres down Clavell Way before throwing himself into a doorway. He was just in time. A second later Naylor came into view along Bank Avenue. The man slowed to a standstill and sat motionless on the idling bike, looking down the street, scanning it from side to side intently. For a moment he seemed to look straight at Garvie lying in the shadow of the doorway. Then he turned, kicked the moped forward and accelerated away, out of sight. Garvie picked himself up and looked at his watch. He had a couple of minutes, maybe less, before Naylor realized his mistake and came back for him. He set off again, checking his bearings as he went.

  Thirty seconds later he heard the moped in the distance slow down, come to a stop, and then, unmistakably, start back again.

  Now he ran hard, looking from side to side for options, but Clavell Way was a long straight road without side streets, parked cars or any other distractions. There weren’t even any doorways for him to hide in, only plate-glass windows and smooth, high walls of the office blocks. The far end of the street was more than two hundred metres away.

  Behind him the moped sounded suddenly nearer and, glancing back, he saw a headlight turn into the street. He ran on, hearing the mounting whine of the engine as Naylor came after him.

  He had no choice now but to keep running. He ran in full view down the middle of the road, looking left and right as he went.

  He thought to himself: What I could really do with now is a calming cigarette.

  He ran harder. The moped behind him got louder.

  Still he ran, looking from side to side all the time for an escape route that didn’t exist. No exits in the long, tall-sided street. No barrier to duck under, no fence to hop over, no alleyway to dodge into. No break at all in the smooth, high walls ... except, suddenly, a small gap of shadow that appeared out of nothing and could have been anything, just up ahead, on the right.

  The moped roared in his ears. Lit up in its headlight’s beam, he saw his own running shadow appear waveringly on the road in front of him and knew he was out of time. Swerving sideways, he leaped across the pavement and threw himself full-length into the gap at the side of the road.

  He fell.

  He went tumbling down a concrete flight of pedestrian stairs and landed on the walkway below. Above him the moped gave a scream, then there was silence.

  Lying there on the ground, dazed and coughing, he looked back up to the street. At the top of the steps Naylor slowly appeared astride his moped, a black silhouette staring down at him. Garvie scrambled to his feet and stood there, looking up. Neither of them moved or spoke. Garvie could almost see Naylor working out if he could leave his moped and catch him on foot. But Garvie had a head start, and luckily Naylor didn’t look much of a runner. After a long moment Naylor slowly backed off the pavement, swung his moped round and drove away at speed, back towards Bank Avenue, the sound of the engine narrowing into the distance.

  Garvie felt himself all over and cursed. His pack of Benson and Hedges must have fallen out.

  He stood there listening. In the distance the sound of the moped faded, came back, stopped, started up again, all the time moving away. Where was Naylor going now? Was he going back to wait for him in Bank Avenue? Or was he trying to head him off again? Garvie looked along the walkway to where it disappeared between railings into the shadows of the surrounding tower blocks. Perhaps Naylor knew where it came out. Garvie didn’t. Standing there, he admitted to himself he had no idea where he was at all.

  27

  IF THE CITY is a maze, the business district is an unlit maze.

  Big blank buildings dark and empty. Sheer walls of reflective glass and shiny black stone. Deserted plazas surrounded by arcades full of nothing but shadow.

  Not a maze. A trap.

  The first thing he did was call Abdul.

  ‘My Garvie, how is?’

  ‘Is a bit weird, Abdul. Are you up at the shops?’

  ‘Non, non, I go big job. At the airport.’

  ‘Oh. Is that where you are now?’

  ‘Oui, is where.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, then.’

  ‘Is OK, Garvie man?’

  ‘It’s fine, Abdul. Yeah. Catch you later.’

  He hung up and looked around. Sighed.

  For three quarters of an hour he made his way along walkways, across plazas, down steep-sided streets and alleys, staying in the shadows of the tower blocks, listening all the time for the sound of a moped. Several times he heard it whining in the distance. It came and went, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther off, as if Naylor were circling round, waiting for him to reappear.

  He met no one. All the cafés he passed were shut up for the night. Everywhere was deserted.

  As he went he checked place names. Exchange Street. Fulton Plaza. City Gate. Corporation Tower. One by one he put them in his mind. He made a map in his head, interlocking and precise. For half a mile, a mile, he walked backwards and forwards until he had worked out exactly where he was.

  Eventually he came to a junction of two roads and an unlit alleyway, and without hesitation turned into the alley and made his way in the fetid darkness past industrial bins and skips until he came, as he knew he must, to a main road that ran towards Market Square. It was a wide road, well-lit and deserted. If he wasn’t wrong, it was Bank Avenue again. He checked the road sign. He wasn’t wrong. He calculated he was about quarter of a mile east of where he’d last left it. Looking along it, he could see the clock tower of St Leonard’s that stood in Bridgewater Street at the corner of Market Square. All he had to do now was walk down the road to get to it and hide himself among the crowds of friendly people. Nothing simpler.

  He didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was, in the shadow of the alley corner, listening. There was no sound of Naylor’s moped any more. A solitary car went past, and after two or three minutes another came by the other way. Otherwise everything was silent. Still he made no move to step out into the open road. Another minute passed. And another. He checked his watch. Quarter to ten. He cursed as he remembered his promise to his mother. It was time to go. And at that moment he heard a moped start up loudly not fifty metres away, and as he watched from his hiding place Naylor turned into the road out of a nearby side street and cruised along it, looking around. He drove past the alley without seeing Garvie in the shadows and went on towards Market Square, his moped whining. Garvie waited for a minute longer, then turned and quietly went back the way he’d come.

  First he phoned Alex. No answer. Then Felix. No answer. Smudge’s voicemail message told him ‘The Smudgster’s not available right now. So get lost.’ He looked at his watch. Nearly ten o’clock. Finally he called home, but his mother didn’t answer, either. If he was in luck she was already at work. I
f not, he was in trouble.

  For a long time he went among the streets, moving stealthily from shadow to shadow. He walked so far he left the business district altogether and came to the side of a canal, a place of derelict warehouses and lock-ups, old cobbled streets collapsed into the ground, weed-choked courtyards behind tumbledown brick walls. There were no streetlights here. But there were people; he saw them standing around blazing oil drums and squatting on tyres, their tents and lean-tos standing amongst the rubbish. Dogs scavenged here and there. He watched them for a while, then turned and went back among the tower blocks.

  It had been some time since he heard the distant whine of a moped circling round. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. He made his way to Fulton Plaza, an oblong space of smooth granite, accessible only via pedestrian walkways from lower levels except for a single narrow street hidden between high concrete walls. There were arcades on opposite sides of the plaza, dark, quiet, hidden places with stone benches for resting on.

  In the darkest shadow of one of these arcades he settled himself on a bench and prepared to outlast Naylor. It was a safe place sheltered from the chilly night breeze. If the worst came to the worst he could stay there until morning. He listened. Everything was quiet now, as if the whole city were asleep. It was half past ten.

  He called Alex again and there was still no reply. It was strange for him not to answer and Garvie wondered uneasily why he wasn’t picking up. He called his mother on her mobile, and this time got her voicemail.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ he said in a bright, false voice. ‘Smudge and I got a bit carried away with our calculus and I didn’t realize what time it was. Best if I stay over, Smudge says. Just wanted to let you know. See you tomorrow.’

  His voice echoed briefly under the arcade, then everything was quiet again. He switched off his phone. Drawing up his knees, he stared across the plaza and gave himself up to thought.

  He thought of a running girl. A girl on the run. Running from a stalker. Running into town to meet a stranger. Running for help to a friend who hated her. Running all the way to Pike Pond, to end up with nothing left, not even her own running shoes. The technical description of them ran in his head, clear and precise, like a strip of ticker tape.