He had entered the train by the gate at the rear of the last car. And – or so he thought – he had been the only one to do so. Was it possible that he had missed the entrance of this other man, who had somehow slipped on after Quinn but before the gateman closed the gate and rang his bell?

Or was it all in his head? Was this sensation of being looked at of a piece with the sensation of being followed?

Quinn turned his head. The man was seated on the opposite side of the car, just to Quinn’s right. And he was staring fixedly at Quinn. There could be no mistaking it.

The blinking of the carriage lights grew more insistent. The intervals of blackness increased in duration. Then all at once, the lights died completely, all along the length of the train.

There was a collective groan and a rustle of protest from the newspaper readers. But a moment later, the groan became a cry of anger tinged with alarm as the train came to a screeching, grinding halt.

It was strange how calm Quinn felt. After all, if the man was going to kill him, now was his opportunity. In fact, Quinn felt that he would be disappointed if there was not some attempt made on his life.

The darkness cloaked the movement of his hand. And hid the sleek steel object that weighted it with death. He held the gun out straight in front of him, then turned it slightly to his right. If the man got up to attack him, he would walk straight into the barrel. At which point, Quinn would squeeze the trigger.

There was risk involved in this strategy. The man might not mean him any harm. He might simply be an odd cove. Also, someone else might get hurt. The innocent bystander so beloved of newspapers, although Quinn doubted the existence of anyone who was wholly innocent.

Nevertheless.

He imagined the screams and panic that would ensue once the lights came back on and he was discovered holding a revolver out in front of him. That was bad enough. It would be worse still if the gun had been discharged and some harmless old buffer lay stretched out on the floor, blood pooling around him. He had seen enough violently slaughtered men to know it was not a good way to start the day.

Quinn returned the gun to its holster. There was a leather tightening around his chest. His heart beat harder, glad to have it back.

The brief outing of fatal metal had gone unwitnessed in the darkness. And no one saw now which of their number gave out a burst of sharp, nervous laughter. No one could mistake it for the sound of amusement. It was the sound of a man on the edge of losing control. A dangerous hilarity.

But this had gone on long enough, seemed to be the consensus in the compartment. Voices cried out, ‘What the devil …?’ They disapproved of the loss of power. They were affronted by that laughter. The door to the carriage opened and a yellow beam projected from the gateman’s electric torch. As the beam licked wanly at their faces, Quinn saw that the man opposite was still looking at him. The direction of his gaze had not changed one iota. In the brief play of light across the man’s features, Quinn formed an impression of his age and character. He was not a young man. No. He was more or less the age Quinn’s father would have been, had he lived. Had he not taken his own life, that is to say. There was something set and determined about the face. As if it was held in the grip of a great and unchanging emotion. The torch beam moved on. The face sank back into darkness, but Quinn was haunted by it. A deep, perpetual frown was cut into the forehead. The lips were pressed together in a grim, tense clench. The emotion he had seen on the man’s face was unspeakably bitter. And for some reason it was directed at him.

Quinn had the sense that if he shot the man now in the darkness, he would be doing him a great service.

Steadfastly ignoring all enquiries, the gateman walked the length of the carriage and pulled down the window to communicate with the gateman in the next carriage. It was decided that he would do the same, so that a chain of communication could be established with the driver.

Quinn had the sense that the darkness was enjoying itself now. And that the game it was playing was with him personally. Only he and the darkness knew the nature of that face. Only he and the darkness knew about Quinn’s careless gun-wielding.

And only the darkness knew where both these secrets might lead.

As unexpectedly as they had gone out, the lights flickered back into life. Newspapers were snapped back up in front of faces. Eyes flitted to find the points they had focused on before.

It almost seemed as if the darkness had brought them together. Some level of communal feeling had been allowed by it. Now that light was restored, every man fled back into himself, as if from an unseemly spectacle.

Quinn refused to look at the man. He stared at the dim reflection of his own face in the window opposite. It was blurred and hollow, almost featureless. The idea of a ghostly outrider came back to him. We are haunted by ourselves, he thought. And also sealed off from ourselves.

If we cannot understand ourselves, what hope do we have of understanding one another?

The gateman in the next carriage returned to pass on a message to their own gateman. Whatever the news was he seemed little inclined to share it with the passengers, and carried on a gloomy exchange with his colleague.

One of the pushier examples of the City type demanded to know what was going on.

The gateman turned to him with a sour, almost insubordinate eye. Weighing up his options, which for a moment seemed to sit between personal insult and social revolution, the gateman at last remembered the uniform he was wearing and touched the peak of his cap in deference. He sniffed noisily, deeply, as if the shifting of snot in his nose would imbue his words with more authority. ‘We’re being held at a signal.’

From another quarter came the question, ‘Why did the lights go out?’ To which he merely replied, ‘They’re back on now, in’t they?’

How easy it was for him to say that, thought Quinn. He had not nearly killed a man in the darkness.

To forestall any further interrogation, the gateman took himself back out on to his platform.

At last, the train lurched back into motion. Before long it was pulling into the next station. After the darkness of the tunnel, even the subdued platform lights appeared dazzling. Quinn rose to his feet. It was not his stop. But he could not bear the thought of sitting in the same carriage as that face for a moment longer.

FIVE

Quinn switched carriages at Knightsbridge. At Piccadilly Circus, he took the Bakerloo Railway south. He was not aware of anyone following him.

When he emerged into the daylight at Charing Cross Embankment station, the sensation of being followed returned.

Quinn paused at the entrance to the station. The man emerged from the lift after the one Quinn had taken. If he was following Quinn, he was doing so in a manner that was both haphazard and conspicuous. It was far more likely that there was nothing to it.

Quinn waited for the man to pass him. If the man betrayed no sign of emotion or interest as he did so, and went purposefully on his way, it would show that Quinn had been mistaken. He would be able to dismiss the stranger’s earlier fixed stare as mere eccentricity. Perhaps the man had stared at Quinn as he might stare into space. The bitterness of his expression was entirely unconnected to Quinn. And how did he know, really, that it was bitterness that was written in those features? He could not look inside the man’s heart. Perhaps that was simply the expression his face assumed when in repose.

But as the man reached the threshold of the Tube station, he turned decisively towards Quinn. His face was lit up in the cold glare of the sun. That same bitter expression was in place, as if it had been sculpted into his features. There was no mistaking it. This was a deliberate provocation. Quinn felt the heat rise in his face. Who was this man? What did he want with him?