Page 42 of A Face in the Crowd
The man glances quickly both ways and then notices the group of children. His eyes widen again, the unease apparent. I’ve seen dramas with seasoned experts at following people. This guy is not a pro.
‘You were at the service yesterday,’ I add. ‘Then at the pub afterwards. Now you’re here. Who are you?’
He opens his mouth but no words come out. I wonder if I’ve misread things because, instead of being overbearing or intimidating, this man is tongue-tied and timid. I don’t recognise any of the symbols on his sew-on badges but one has a slogan, ‘Believe in Reality’. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean but it seems like the type of supposedly deep nonsense someone would post on Facebook.
I reach for my phone to take a photo, but Billy chooses that moment to pull against his lead and yank me into the park. By the time I’ve spun around to tell him ‘no’, the man is rushing away along the pavement at something close to a jog. I could probably catch him, but the young people have noticed something going on. One of them shouts across to ask if I’m all right and I end up flustered, trying to say I am while, at the same time, giving off every indication that I’m not. A couple of the boys in uniform start walking towards me.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ one of them asks.
Billy has somehow got his lead wedged between my feet and in an effort to disentangle myself, I stumble into the gatepost before righting myself. When I look up, the man is almost at the corner of the hedge that surrounds the park.
‘My dog tangling me up,’ I reply.
The lads continue over to me anyway. One of them pokes his head around the corner and looks both ways along the street; then they both crouch to make a fuss of Billy. He’s still not quite his exuberant self, but he sniffs both of the lads’ hands and lets them pet his head.
‘Thanks for checking on me,’ I say.
It’s not the first time that I’ve been upstaged by Billy. The lads call him a good boy and smooth his head and back until they realise their friends have started to walk off without them.
The lads stand and take one last look towards me before heading after their friends. When it’s just us, I rub the back of Billy’s head myself. ‘You could’ve chased after that man,’ I tell him. He looks at me as if to say,I would’ve done if you weren’t busy falling over my lead. He has a point.
We head back over the zebra crossing and amble towards home. It wasn’t that long ago I was ready to return to bed, but the weirdness of being followed has woken me up. I have the sense that the man in the green jacket wanted to talk to me, as opposed to specifically follow.
I’m lost in those thoughts as the shadow of Hamilton House falls across the street. I almost miss it and it’s only because Billy pulls towards the lamp post that I don’t. Taped to the lamp post is the thing I’ve been dreading since Friday. There’s one big word at the top of the poster: LOST.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I can’t stop staring at the poster: it is simple but effective, with black ink on white paper. It must have been taped sometime since last night. I was so focused on the footsteps behind me that I missed it on my first pass.
LOST!
I misplaced something important on the No. 24 bus on Friday 29 October. If you have any information please email me
There’s an email address at the bottom and that’s it. It feels incomplete, and yet whoever wrote this could hardly have put, ‘I lost £3,640 on the bus’. If he or she had left a phone number, they could have been bombarded with any number of crank calls. I guess it had to be something of this nature.
I could ignore it, pretend it’s not there or that I never saw it, but this represents more than that. This is a test of who I am as a person. When I first realised what was inside the envelope, I told myself I would hand it in. Then, when I spent a bit of the money, I told myself I would replace it. Gradually, over the past few days, all of that has eroded to the point that I’ve blown through a thousand pounds. Am Ithatperson, or am I someone who’ll email this person and say I found the envelope?
Money does strange things to people.
I take a photo of the poster and, after entering the hall, I let Billy off his lead and we head up to the apartment. He lags behind, tired from the morning walk. I end up waiting for him at the top of the stairs as he nudges past me, head drooped to the ground. After I unlock the door, he pokes his way in and immediately heads for his bed.
It’s as I’m about to close the door that I notice a sliver of light arcing across the landing floor. The source is quickly obvious: the door of Jade’s old apartment is open a crack. I stare at it for a second, wondering if it means someone’s about to pop out or in. When nobody does, I head into my own flat, leaving my door open a small amount in case I hear any movement from the corridor.
I swill out Billy’s water bowl and put down a fresh lot, then spoon some of his food into a separate dish. Billy would normally already be getting under my feet, ready to pounce the moment the bowl touches the ground, but when I look over to him, he’s on top of the blankets that line his bed, his ears down, eyes closed. I pick up the bowls and cross the room to hunch next to him, before ruffling his ears. His breathing is steady but even and he opens his eyes to acknowledge me.
‘Hungry?’ I ask him.
Billy rolls his head to the side and I tickle his chin. He laps the water and sniffs the food, though makes no attempt to eat anything. I spend a couple of minutes at his side, but it seems as if all he wants to do is rest – which is something I can understand.
I return to the hall where the apartment door opposite is still ajar. I take my key and pull my own door closed and then check both ways along the empty corridor before stepping across to the other side. I knock on the frame itself and call ‘hello…?’ through the slit.
Nothing.
I knock once more, check both ways again and then gently give the door a nudge. It creaks open ominously, like something from a horror movie before the bad guy surprises the plucky hero.
‘Hello…?’
There’s no reply and I take a single step into the apartment. When Jade lived here, I would occasionally catch a glimpse of the room within, but I’ve never been inside before.
