Cambridge at night. The legendary night climbers are exactly that, legends. The university clamped down hard on the suicidal practice of scaling roofs and peaks at night and even the most idiotic of students doesn’t risk it any more. That thing behind the chimney stack, that is watching him even now – he can see the gleam of eyes when he glances back – is a cat, not a stalker.
Still Joe moves quickly, towards the end of the street, scanning the rooftops as he goes. Once, he hears a sound like that of a foot sliding along tiles. His nerve breaks, he turns and runs. He holds his breath as he plunges into the darkness at the corner and turns into Botolph Court. Still he runs. By the time he is out of breath and must stop he is at the corner of Trumpington Street, not far from the river.
He cannot go on like this. Either he gets over this unreasonable fear that Ezzy is alive after all and back in Cambridge, or he stops his night-time patrols.
A glimmer of movement in the distance down Silver Street catches his attention. For a second there, he’d seen a figure in white running across the bridge. Still breathing heavily, he crosses the street and walks until he has passed the apex of the bridge and is heading down to the common land behind Queen’s College. There, behind a clump of laurel bushes.
‘Felicity!’
The white figure disappears.
She cannot be out on her own at this hour, still wearing that skimpy white dress. Joe pulls out his phone and dials her number. After four rings it goes to answer mode. He tries her home number and by the time he has reached the spot, it has rung seven times.
No sign of the figure in white. Unwilling to give up, he heads across the grass in the direction of the Backs. He can hear movement.
‘Felicity?’
He walks quickly towards where he is sure now that he can hear voices and comes across them before he expected to.
‘All right, mate?’
The group of youngsters who are camped on the river bank regard him with surprise. Felicity is not among them, but one of the girls is wearing a white T-shirt.
‘My mistake.’ Joe turns and walks back into the city.
52
Felicity
It is the smell that brings her round. Felicity tries to cough it away but it comes back, stronger than ever. She sits up, gasping, and feels a moment of crippling fear when she realises she has no idea where she is. She can see nothing beyond a brick wall inches from her face.
The air is damp and full of sound. From somewhere nearby the yellow gleam of a streetlamp fights off the darkness. In the distance she can hear a siren. Beneath her is something that feels silky and sticky at the same time. Putting her hand down she touches the smoothness of a sleeping bag. She pulls her knees up and they rustle over carrier bags.
With an effort, she gets to her feet. She is in a rough sleeper’s den, between the unused rear doorway of a tall building and a refuse skip. Possessions lie scattered around her. It is urine that she can smell.
The gravel bites into her bare feet as she slides out from behind the skip. Her shoes are nowhere to be seen, neither is her handbag, but she is still wearing the white lace dress. She is filthy. The dress has a dark, damp stain on the front. She emerges from the alley into Downing Street and knows, from how few people she can see, that it is late.
It has happened again, except this time, instead of a great gaping hole in her life, flashbacks come thick and fast. She remembers Freddie staring down at her from the gallery in Heffers.
She reaches the end of Downing Street. She has no idea where her car is. She has no money to pay for a cab, and what cab would pick her up in her current state? She will have to walk home, barefoot.
The flashbacks keep coming. She remembers driving her car too fast and braking hard. She remembers people outside a pub, coming over to speak to her, the concern on their faces turning into alarm. She distinctly remembers, as she ran from them, someone mentioning the police.
She remembers hiding in a doorway, hearing a siren go past. Then she was driving, heading out of the city, with no thought in her head but that she