something to wake them up a bit. I’ll have to show them exactly what I am capable of.
Even though there are others out there, still alone, still undisturbed, transforming in the privacy of their own homes, I can feel I’m losing interest. I’ve observed so many of them now. And despite the differences, the variations in the process, there is little that happens which is truly surprising. So I need to introduce some variables, something new, that will reignite the spark.
In other words, the delectable Audrey.
I got into the town centre half an hour ago, at six-thirty, while it was still crowded with people making their way home and I could blend in with the masses. Directly opposite the Italian restaurant called Luciano’s is a fast food place with further seating upstairs. I bought a coffee at the till and took it upstairs with me. I should probably have ordered food as well but I am not willing to corrupt my digestive system with it or waste money by purchasing it. So it was just a coffee, and even that is scarcely drinkable.
Nevertheless, sitting by the window overlooking the square, it gives me a perfect vantage point from which I can watch the restaurant and the various pubs and clubs. I can even see the taxi rank if I stand up and lean over a little.
I see Audrey arrive with a female companion, at five past seven. She is wearing a short dress in a dark, silky fabric that clings to her thighs. Her high heels make her walk across the cobbled square look particularly hazardous. And yet, her thighs… I can’t tear my gaze away from them. I’ve been concentrating on them, gazing at various photos from her Facebook profile since Wednesday night, yet seeing them here, moving, rubbing against each other, the muscles under the skin and the flesh moving as she walks – the way her arse moves, visible through the outline of the tight, silky skirt – and the temptation to go out there and grab her, force her round to face me, and instead of speaking (for there is nothing, really, to say) to just run my hand up her thigh and push the fabric away…
They go into Luciano’s and shut the door.
I sip a lukewarm coffee that might as well be gravy, and wait.
Annabel
Keith Topping turned up about half an hour after the DCI had gone. He seemed nice enough when he finally turned up – but I got the distinct impression that despite being on call he didn’t consider applying for phone billings to be reason enough to come back into the office on a Friday night, however urgent they were. In the end he showed me how to apply myself – not something that was technically supposed to happen, but it would save everyone a lot of time in the long run, he said.
‘Won’t they need some sort of authorisation? I thought you had to put in passwords and stuff,’ I asked.
‘Usually you do. Not for something like this, though. As long as you use the Op Name – there, look,’ he answered, leaning over me and granting me a whiff of his armpit, ‘you put in the DCI’s Force Number there. Right? Think you can manage that?’
I was non-committal. I wasn’t planning on doing his job for him. I had enough work of my own as it was.
‘So…’ he said, as I started to write a list of queries for him to complete… ‘how have you been?’
‘Alright,’ I said.
‘We’ve all been really worried about you,’ he replied.
I looked up in surprise. ‘You don’t even know me,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
He looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well – you know. You’re one of the team. We look after our own.’
Really? I thought.
‘We got the CCTV back. That’s when it all went a bit mental. I don’t think any of us really believed there was someone behind it all until then.’
‘What CCTV?’
‘Of you. In the shopping centre.’
‘I didn’t know there was CCTV.’
Probably, if he’d thought about it for a bit longer, he wouldn’t have shown me, or even mentioned it in the first place. But he showed me where the file was saved on the Operation’s drive on the network, and before I knew it I was launching Media Player and waiting for the file to buffer.
The footage from the shopping centre wasn’t very good. The camera was facing into bright sunlight so there was a glare that obscured much of