a long stare to convey the same message, and saw it hit home.
As I stalked to the door, I found myself thinking I could get to like being scary.
Chapter 4
By the time I got home, I’d slid all the way down the helter-skelter from the tough detective who doesn’t let anyone intimidate her to the usual version of me, second-guessing every decision I’d made that day and wincing as my feet complained about hours of punishment in heels. It didn’t help that I had to take a long route back. Rob and I had moved to a flat in Dalston, in a purpose-built block of no charm whatsoever. It was an easy enough commute to work for both of us, but I was still getting used to the area. I hated the fact that we’d had to leave our flat in Battersea, where we’d been happy, because the stalker I tried not to think about had found out where I lived.
My usual inclination was to stand up to being bullied, but I was scared enough of Chris Swain to follow elaborate precautions in order to avoid being traced. He was a rapist and a coward, a peeping Tom and a technological genius who ran password-protected websites in shady corners of the Internet where like-minded creeps could share their fantasies – and memories. I’d been the one who uncovered the truth about him, and I was his ultimate target, or so he told me. He’d found me before; he could find me again. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him this time. Our landline was ex-directory and all of our post was redirected to work; I had no magazine subscriptions and wasn’t a member of any organisations that might put me on a mailing list. None of the bills were in my name. I took different methods of public transport home, when I had to rely on it rather than getting a lift. I hadn’t replaced my car when it died; Rob parked his anywhere but in front of our flat. I checked, always and methodically, that no one was following me on my walk home, and I never went the same way twice.
Chris Swain had affected every decision we’d made in moving. The area was a busy one, well served by public transport but with a shifting population who wouldn’t pay any attention to us. The flat was on the second floor in a modern building with good security and CCTV. It had low ceilings and small, bland rooms: a sitting room that did double duty as a dining room by virtue of the table in the corner, a galley kitchen, a poky bathroom that got no natural light, one bedroom with built-in cupboards and a bed and no room for anything else. We kept the blinds down in the bedroom almost all the time, more aware than most that privacy was an illusion in urban areas. It was a six-month lease and there was nothing to make us leave at the end of those months, but nothing to make us want to stay either. Functional was one word that occurred to me about it. Bleak was another.
It took me three goes to get my key in the door and the first thing I did was fall over the suitcase in the middle of the hall. I landed on my knees with a bang.
‘Jesus. Fuck.’
‘If that’s a request, Jesus is busy. He told me I should stand in.’ Rob came out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. ‘Are you okay?’
‘The booze is taking the edge off the pain.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I fell among thieves.’ Since I was down there anyway, I sat on the floor and pulled off my shoes while Rob finished brushing his teeth. ‘Liv made me go for a drink.’
‘Twisted your arm, did she?’ He said it lightly, but I felt guilty anyway. When he came back to the hall he put out a hand to me and I allowed myself to be lifted to my feet, smelling mint.
‘I hadn’t been out for ages. Joanne was there too. And Christine. Do you remember her?’
‘The analyst? Yeah, she was sweet.’
‘She remembers you, let me tell you.’
He grinned. ‘I deny everything.’
‘She said she fancied you rotten.’
‘That’s nice.’ It wasn’t an unusual event in Rob’s life, and not just because he was tall and lean and