“And guess what? He did it. He only finally did it after all this time.” Geraldine looked up from her documents. “Popped the question.” Denise flashed an engagement ring. “Bit blinkin’ slow on the uptake, I tell you. Might be a PC, but he’ll never make a ruddy detective.”

  Geraldine wasn’t really listening.

  “Sorry, sorry, I...I’ve got the most terrible...” She rubbed the centre of her forehead. Which was when a bullet seemed to hit the window behind her and a small stone matching the circumference of the tiny hole in the glass rolled under the typist’s table.

  “Blimey!”

  Denise ran over, peered through the shattered glass, down into Wardour Street, and so did Geraldine, but there was no obvious culprit out there, not one that was making themselves obvious, anyway. In any case, Geraldine knew perfectly well who had thrown it. The only person with any reason to do such a thing...Natasha.

  Natasha Selkirk.

  “Hello? Someone playing silly beggars?” George Runnymede, pipe jutting as if he was a diver going underwater with a snorkel, bent down to pick up the stone from the carpet. “Good heavens! You haven’t got any enemies out there, have you, Geraldine?” It took her a moment before realising this was meant as a joke. He dropped it into the waste paper bin, where it tinkled.

  “I’ll get a glazier in, shall I, sir?”

  “You do that, Denise. Good girl.”

  After about half an hour, Geraldine found herself taking the key to the ladies’ loo, going up the stairs to the next floor, and sitting there, crying. She didn’t know why. When she began to think her colleagues might be worried how long she was gone, she flushed the toilet tissues she’d mopped her eyes with, flushed them, and tidied herself in the mirror.

  Walking back down to the next floor she saw Denise coming out of the EBFC offices with her coat on.

  “Thought you’d fallen in or something.”

  “No...I hadn’t,” said Geraldine.

  “Oh. See you tomorrow, then. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.” Denise saw Geraldine look puzzled. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course. See you tomorrow.”

  Geraldine went back to her desk, hoping Denise hadn’t noticed her red-rimmed eyes. Runnymede was fussing with a piece of cardboard and a roll of Sellotape, trying to cover the hole in the windowpane. He had a look of a man not used to manual labour, so Geraldine took over.

  “Rushing off?” he said when she had put her own coat on.

  “No.” She looked at her watch. It was five past five. “Not really. No.”

  “Sun’s over the yard arm, so to speak. A little snifter? For relaxation purposes?”

  She thought about the offer, briefly, thought it was good of him to be kind, and nodded. She didn’t want to think about seeing Dave. The incident with the window had rattled her and she didn’t want to tell Dave about it—or about anything, really.

  “G&T?”

  “Why not?” She followed him into his office.

  “Ice?”

  “That would be nice. Ice would be nice.” She smiled, thinking she’d made a witticism, but of course she hadn’t.

  “Cheers, m’dears.” They clinked glasses. Hers was a little musty. Dusty. But she didn’t complain. She sat down in the chair facing his desk, as she always did, but he pulled his chair round to sit closer to her. Though, when he had, he seemed bereft of any idea what to talk about. A look of panic took him over. He rearranged his tie, crossed his legs, and took another mouthful of his own drink. Whisky and soda.

  “Down the hatch, eh?”

  “Bottoms up,” said Geraldine.

  “Would have...er, been in the war, like me, you see. Your father.”

  She smiled at the clumsy, fumbling, endearing way he wanted to show sympathy for her loss. It showed what a nice, decent man he was, underneath being a boss.

  “Far East. Burma,” she said. “Spent a lot of time in hospital with rheumatic fever. I’m sure it weakened his heart.” She sipped the G&T this time. The first large mouthful had gone to her head. “I don’t think my mother will ever forgive the army for that. Sorry...” She felt weepy again, but managed to keep her tears at bay.

  “Geraldine.” Runnymede leaned his shoulders forward, threading the fingers of both hands together, the thumbs sticking up and wiggling. “I hope I don’t need to say this. But you always know you can talk to me, don’t you? My door is always open.” He stood up and sat on the edge of his desk, opening a lacquered cigarette box. “Always.” She couldn’t help noticing that his flies were open—wide open, exposing the off-white of his underpants. She tore her eyes away, not wishing to linger on the sight, and stood up sharply. “Don’t go. Please don’t!” Runnymede caught her upper arm and his grip was surprisingly firm. She was facing the door but he was behind her. She felt him press against her lower back, holding her by both arms now. “I can help. I really can...if you let me.” His lips pressed onto the back of her neck. When his tongue licked her ear lobe, a sickly tremor ran from one end of her body to the other. She didn’t want to turn and look into his face, which she knew would be salivating and obscene. He reached around and grabbed hold of her chin, at the same time as he pressed his private parts against her bottom. “Good girl.” She twisted out of his grasp and ran to the door, shutting it and the door to the stairs after her, without looking back.

  She decided she did want to see Dave after all, and went straight over to the Cameo in Poland Street. The front door was open and she descended the narrow steps to the basement. The ground floor was given over to a record shop that always seemed to be blasting out reggae. She knocked on the door to the projection room, but Dave wasn’t there. There was another man. She said “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” and quickly shut the door. She could only hear laughter from the screening. Retraced her steps to the surface.

  Where was Dave if he wasn’t working and he wasn’t with her? She tried not to think about it. A man who looked Greek or Turkish was having a loud argument with a taxi driver. She crossed the road from a young couple with their arms around each other who looked as though they wanted to occupy the whole width of the pavement. She thought they were on drugs. All she wanted to do now was to get to her bus stop but she had to side-step drunks and all sorts. And even though she didn’t look over her shoulder, she had the uncomfortable feeling someone was following her through the streets of Soho.

  She took a shortcut down an alley where prostitutes hung out of windows or lingered in doorways. She knew what they thought of her, just to look at her—and knew what they thought she thought of them. And they were right. So she kept her head down and avoided eye contact.

  But it wasn’t a cut through at all. It didn’t lead anywhere. What was she thinking? All that was facing her was a house or hotel, a door painted black, and railings. No way out to the left or right. She had to go back the way she came. She turned around and stopped in her tracks, almost wanting to scream. George Runnymede, her boss, stood there, looking sweaty and horrible in his gabardine raincoat. He had the flowers Denise had put in a vase in the office. He held them in his hand like a bouquet, but they were dripping. His fist was shiny with water.

  “Geraldine. Geraldine...”

  He was suddenly on top of her, a stumbling, bumbling mass, his sheer weight forcing her against the railings and the flowers were on the ground under his feet, being trampled, and he didn’t care. His hands were all over her, as if he’d never seen a woman or touched a woman in his life.

  “Mr Runnymede. Mr Runnymede! I’m not that kind of girl. You know I’m not!”

  “Don’t give me that, buttercup,” he snarled, panting. “You are. You all are!”

  He reached up from her breast to touch her cheek. She grabbed his trembling hand and bent it back forcefully, not caring whether she broke his wrist in the process. He shrieked like a pig. His whole body buckled. Holding his little finger and thumb, she impaled his palm on one of the spikes of the railing. Leaving him hanging there sobbing and dribbling as she ran away.

  Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson. Sing little birdie. Her father had always thought she was a one, with that alluring sway in that skirt of hers, that implausibly thin waist, that permanent grin on Teddy’s face. What had they been up to, eh? That was what the audience was all thinking, wasn’t it? That was what the nation wanted to know.

  Geraldine and Dave and Mum sat watching the variety show on telly, and after that Geraldine made her a hot water bottle, which her dad always used to do. When her mum had gone up and she’d sat back down, Dave had turned over and a spooky old Universal monster film was on, all black and white and shadows and crescendos of music that made you jump. A man who was half wolf lurking in a mist-laden forest.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s just a film,” said Dave, one arm stretched along the back of the settee. “The stories from Trinidad my father used to tell me, about “pookies.” Now they was scary. We’d run away and hide and never come back for a week.”

  His free hand crawled over her thigh like a spider. She was meant to laugh. She didn’t. Dave’s face fell. She noticed. She was annoyed with herself, but couldn’t help it. Why were there so many things she didn’t find pleasant or good or funny at the moment? He lifted her hand to kiss it. She snatched it away from him, pretending it was part of the action of getting up to walk to the TV set.

  She changed channels and sat back down. “I can’t understand why people want to watch such horrible things. I find them repulsive.”

  Dave sighed. Geraldine didn’t look at him. A few minutes later he stood up, put his coat on. She didn’t look up either as he walked to the front door and shut it after leaving.

  She didn’t like being late for work but the bus had been delayed because of road works. She was out of puff by the time she got to the office. George Runnymede was leaning over Denise’s desk, going through his revisions to her typing.

  “My handwriting’s atrocious, I know. Honestly, I’d be better off employing a circus of trained spiders.” He looked up, tie dangling, as Geraldine turned to face them both after hanging up her coat. “Good morning, Geraldine.”

  Geraldine looked down. He had both of his hands flat on Denise’s desk. She could see no hole in his right hand where the spike of the iron railings had penetrated the flesh.

  “Good morning, Mr Runnymede.” She walked to her own desk.

  “How are you today?”

  “I’m well, Mr Runnymede. I’m very well.” She sat down and got on with her work.

  At lunchtime, she met Dave in his projection room, after getting sandwiches for them both from the deli in Broadwick Street. From the screening room she could hear the dulcet tones of Albert Finney. Dave liked chicken and peanut butter, which she thought was an odd combination, but he insisted was delicious. She usually opted for ham, which wasn’t delicious, always, but also didn’t involve tasting something that sounded appallingly awful. You knew where you were with ham.

  “Have you got those pills?”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because I want to calm down, that’s why.”

  “You should go to the doctor then.” Dave was admonished by her frown. He went to his coat on the hook behind the door and handed her a brown envelope from one of its pockets. “You need to be careful with those.”

  Geraldine put them in her handbag. “But I am careful, aren’t I? I’m careful about everything.”

  As she left, Dave called out to her up the stairs. “I’ll see you in the pub, then. Usual time?” It was a question, but he didn’t get an answer.

  During the afternoon the usual tea and Garibaldis were on offer but Geraldine declined. Denise’s boyfriend prattle was becoming painful. Geraldine had taken two of the pills to not much effect, and took herself to the loo and took two more, slurping water in her cupped hand from the tap. Even after that, she had difficulty concentrating on her reports—inevitably focusing on Denise’s flowers in the vase opposite her, even though she’d seen them crushed underfoot in the alleyway that led to nowhere. Her brain felt heavy and treacly, like when a storm is coming and the pressure outside rises and does strange things to the contents of your skull. She didn’t want tea, or biscuits—she just wanted to feel normal again. George Runnymede was no longer in his office, but perhaps she simply hadn’t seen him leave. He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air, after all. That would be preposterous. She didn’t know why she thought such a silly thing.

  She walked into the Nag’s Head earlier than normal, wanting to get a drink inside her before Dave arrived. The ceiling was lower than usual, and had black beams from which hung horse bridles and various other ancient accoutrements. The jukebox and fruit machine had been removed, and the floor for some reason was scattered with sawdust. Many of the drinkers froze and stared at her unashamedly, pint glasses—no, pewter tankards—halfway to their shiny lips. The barman was fatter than she ever remembered him being, with rolled-up shirtsleeves, a tan leather waistcoat and muttonchop whiskers, cleaning a tarnished goblet with a filthy rag. She was sure she’d seen him before, and she had—many times. The poor devil was fatally typecast.

  “I suppose you don’t much like strangers round these parts,” she said, through thin lips. If it was a joke it was lost on him. The barman looked blank. Geraldine saw a string of statutory garlic hanging up on the wall beside him and had to smile, albeit humourlessly.

  “Give me a port and lemon.” She caught her reflection in the mirror behind the bar now that the landlord—landlord?—moved aside. She was faintly unsurprised to see that, in reflection, she was dressed as a nun. “Cheers,” she said to herself as she received her drink and took it to a table.

  A man was sitting at the same table, not looking her directly in the eyes, and wearing sunglasses. She recognised him instantly. Gore ran down one side of his face and covered his throat, where she could see, on one side, two deep puncture marks. He wore the black suit of a Victorian undertaker, scuffed and torn after his fight beside the Bavarian ravine.

  “It’s out there in reality,” Marcus stated in a kindly tone, without an ounce of aggression or malice. More one of thoughtful and considerate advice. “Horror. Death. Pain. The blood. The violence.” Somehow her eyes were drawn to his mouth. “You don’t have to look for it. You just have to open your eyes.”

  A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

  “I see you’ve got one in.” Dave grinned, behind her. “Sorry. Did I frighten you?”

  She shook her head. “Miles away.”

  “Top up?” He was already halfway to the bar. Central casting had changed their mind about the muttonchop guy—the barman was now thin, curly-haired and wearing a T-shirt.

  She didn’t have time to answer. If she had, her voice would have been drowned by the violent screech of brakes outside. More alarming was the immediate chill of complete and utter silence, as if the air itself had been sucked away. A couple of regulars near the door were on their feet already. With the door open, Geraldine could hear the ticking engine of a stationary car. Dave headed out to see with the others what had happened, and she was up and beside him. It was too late to try to hold her back, to stop her from seeing what was spread over the tarmac. Dave tried to turn and catch her by the shoulders but the image was already imprinted—not imprinted so much as replayed, like a strip of film through the gate of the projector. A cyclist had been knocked off his bike, and had rolled into the path of an oncoming van. In the crimson-almost-ink-black pool that was spreading like an oil leak, his head crushed by the wheel—half gone, sliced in half, just like her father’s.

  Later. Trafalgar Square. They sat huddled like orphans on cold stone steps, looking at the lions. Tourists and courting couples milled around them, holding hands, pecking cheeks, fooling about, laughing, but Dave could see Geraldine wasn’t aware of any of the life, or love, passing by in her vicinity. She wasn’t thinking about anyone else in the world. Not Dave. Not anybody living.

  He took her cold hand in his.

  “This isn’t real,” she said, shivering in the night air with his jacket around her shoulders. She looked frightened but absolutely firm in her conviction, concentrating hard as if trying to explain to him the truth self-evident to her. “He wants me to know what’s real. He wants me to know what horror is like.”

  Dave didn’t know how to reach her. He just hoped squeezing her hand would keep her from running away. “Geraldine, bad things have happened. I know. Your father. The accident earlier. But blimey—he doesn’t make them happen.”

  Geraldine turned and stared at him fiercely. “How do you know?”

  “Get that down you, sparrow. You are eating?” Geraldine didn’t reply in the negative but he could see through her. Harry Sheinberg, big and powerful mogul though he was, seemed to care about her well-being more than anyone. She hoped so, anyway. Hoped someone did. Care, that is. “Sleeping?...Yeah. Well. That won’t do. That will not do. You need to take a holiday and put all this behind you, girl.”

  “He won’t let me though, will he?”

  “He?”

  They walked from the pie and mash stall between Clerkenwell Station and Smithfields, where the meat workers all hung out. He’d told her about it over lunch at Pinewood and promised he’d take her there for jellied eels one day—You can keep your posh grub, I’m telling you. Now they were stepping in Sheinberg’s old footsteps as a kid, when he had no shoes on his feet, instead of a Roller in the drive, and a Mini for his daughter.

  “Your friend,” she explained.

  “Come again?”

  “Marcus Rand. Your director. He wants his revenge on me. He wants me to suffer.”

  Sheinberg’s wooden fork lowered and he stuck it like King Arthur’s sword in his mound of potato, on the foothills of which gravy was congealing.

  “Marcus Rand is six feet under, love. He’s not going nowhere.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said earnestly. “I have to find out how to stop him.”

  “Listen, flower...I’m not being funny, but—”

  She cut him off. “I know what you think, and—and I know it’s what everybody thinks. That he’s dead and gone. But he isn’t. I know he isn’t.”