Page 13 of Return Ticket

She stepped back out onto the street, and stopped short. A dark green Jaguar was parked a little way down the road. The station was on a street that ran parallel to the main road and ended in a cul-de-sac. While a footpath allowed pedestrian access to the main road from both ends, cars had no through way.

The car had obviously gone down the street, turned at the tight circle at the bottom, and come back up.

She tried to make out who was sitting in the driver’s seat.

She had had a nasty run-in with a man who drove a green Jaguar some months ago, and she had thought a few times that he’d been following her.

That worry had faded over the last month, she realized. She hadn’t thought of him in a while, but here was a Jag, parked near the station, and there was definitely someone sitting in the driver’s seat.

She would never be safer than now, she decided. She was right outside the station. There were people about, and it was midday.

She stepped off the pavement, making straight for the car, determined to pass in front of it and see who was behind the wheel.

As she got halfway across the road, the car’s engine revved, and began to edge out of its parking space.

Gabriella changed her trajectory, not wanting to put herself right in front of a moving car. Instead, she headed for the driver’s door. Forget politeness, she wanted to peer right in.

With a squeal of tires, the car lurched out, clipped the bumper of the old Morris Minor parked in front of it, and roared off.

Gabriella stood in the road, her focus on the Jaguar as it drove away. She had gotten the look she needed.

The man behind the wheel was definitely the man who’d tried to assault her a few months back.

He had refused to look at her or meet her gaze as he pulled out and drove off, but she recalled his jowly face and red cheeks, his blonde mustache, all too well.

She hadn’t been mistaken. Hehadbeen following her.

The question was, why?

She lifted her shoulders high, then relaxed them down, trying to shake the tension off, and then turned and walked back into the station, going straight through and out the back entrance.

It was how she went home every afternoon, and if she took this way, she could cut across further down the road and end up on her usual route. It was a roundabout way of doing it, and it would take her longer, but she was deeply disturbed by Mr. Jaguar’s interest in her, months after their clash.

She thought about their interaction as she walked, her head on a swivel, although he would not have had time to get from the main road to her current position if he was still in his car.

She kept close to the railings of the large townhouses she passed, moving at a fast pace.

When she saw a flash of dark green up ahead, she ducked down a set of basement stairs. She stood halfway down, on the slick stone of the steps, grabbed the metal railings above her head and rose up on tiptoe, her face pressed between the metal bars so she could see onto the street.

A dark green Mini Cooper drove past, and feeling a little foolish, but still with heart thumping, she walked back up onto the street and went on her way.

She felt a constant fizz of adrenalin in her blood for the rest of the afternoon, although she didn’t see a green Jaguar again.

Either the man didn’t know her current route—and that might have been why he had parked outside the station, so he could follow her— or he had somewhere else to be this afternoon.

She was exhausted by the time she made it back to her flat. Mr. Rodney was not in his garden, and given that it looked like it would start raining any moment, she didn’t need to guess why.

She loved talking to him, but today, she just wanted to get home, curl up under a blanket, and close her eyes for a little bit.

As she stepped inside, Solomon was coming down the passage from the direction of Mr. Rodney’s flat, heading out.

“Gabby,” he said.

She smiled back. “Hey, Solomon. How’re things?”

His gaze sharpened on her face. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “A long day. I got electrocuted, and then someone who I fined a while back was waiting for me outside the station.” She lifted her shoulders, surprised at herself for telling him.

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