He pulled off the main road and drove a short distance down the lane, slowing to a stop beside a narrow grass verge. What the hell was he doing here? He sat for a moment, rocking gently back and forth in his seat, wrestling with the urge to drive away, but he knew that he couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, he switched off the engine and felt the dreadful silence flood in around him. A reluctant figure, he got out of the car and began to walk slowly back towards the junction.

It had been very different that night. The cold glow of blue lights, normally so familiar to him as a police officer, suddenly took on an ominous aspect. Was that how they looked to normal people?

He wasn’t sure where he’d parked – probably up on the main road somewhere – and he hadn’t been walking, he’d been running.

But he’d been too late.

Another officer had seen him running through the glare of the headlights, had rushed forward to intercept him, strong arms folding round him in a dreadful embrace from which he couldn’t break free. Together with a paramedic, they’d managed to keep him back from the tangle of metal, illuminated under the harsh glare of the fire-engine lights. Their restraint had eased when he’d identified himself as a fellow police officer, then tightened as he told them why he was here. He couldn’t make out the words they said to him then – too many voices speaking at the same time – but he remembered their faces, the first time he saw that painful sympathy that would become so familiar in the days to follow.

He struggled, but there were too many of them, and he was suddenly so very tired.

‘That’s my wife’s car,’ he’d howled, arms outstretched as they pulled him backwards into the gloom. ‘Alice!’

37

Monday, 3 September

Naysmith woke and slowly opened his eyes. The sheets felt stiff as he turned over and focused on the bright blue digits of the hotel alarm clock glowing in the darkness beside him: 6.07 a.m. He let his head sink back into the pillow, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep again now. Rolling onto his back, he yawned and gazed up at the ceiling. What had woken him so early?

The bed wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he savoured the warmth for a moment more before propping himself up and slipping a foot out from under the covers. Hotel carpets all felt the same. He yawned again as he sat on the edge of the mattress and wearily stood up, shivering a little as the cool air touched his naked skin. Wandering over to the window, he pulled the heavy curtains aside and reached out to put his hand on the cold glass. The foredawn sky was still quite dark, tinged with a faint glow on the horizon. Before him, the long, thin basin of Heron Quays stretched away towards the distant Millennium Dome and its illuminated pylons. To his left, the towering skyscrapers of Canary Wharf stood like a line of sheer glass cliffs, looming high above him, the reflection of their lights glittering in the water below. An expanse of buildings divided by narrow waterways, like some futuristic Venetian landscape overtaken by steel and mirrored windows. It was strangely beautiful and he stood for some time, watching the still-quiet city as it slowly began to stir and the glow on the horizon grew almost imperceptibly brighter.

The lobby was still quiet when he came downstairs, and the vacant-eyed staff didn’t acknowledge his presence. He’d tasted the hotel coffee last night and wasn’t about to repeat the mistake, but he remembered there was a Starbucks in the mall under Canary Wharf – it wasn’t too far and the walk would clear his head. As he went down the broad carpeted steps and out onto the street, the air felt cold, but a few minutes later he was warming up as he turned off the road and took a short cut through a private car park. A train rumbled slowly overhead as he passed under the elevated track and on to the footpath that ran along the edge of the water. It was peaceful here, with nobody around save for a lone fisherman perched on one of the old steel moorings beside a ‘Fishing Prohibited’ sign. Naysmith smiled, but his eyes were drawn by habit to the CCTV camera overlooking the path. It was the third one he’d seen since leaving the hotel. That familiar restlessness was growing inside him once again, but he didn’t want to think about it yet.

Not now, not so soon.

His shoes echoed with a soft metallic ring as he made his way over the suspended steel footbridge that arced across to the far side of the quay, where the first commuters were making their way to work, dwarfed by the towering office blocks. Little people, inconsequential people, hurrying along unaware of who was walking beside them. He smiled for a moment, despite himself, then shook his head.

Coffee. He was just going for some coffee.

Walking into Canada Square, he gazed up at the skyscraper before him, its pinnacle nearly scratching the cloud cover, red lights on each corner blinking against the dull grey sky. A steady stream of people poured out of the tube station entrance on his right – so many tailored suits and big watches, so much macho posturing . . . and yet he could almost smell the fear on some of them. This was no place for the weak.

There was already a queue in Starbucks when he arrived. Waiting in line behind a middle-aged woman with a sour face and an expensive coat he gazed out at the concourse, watching people pass by. So many powerless lives, drifting blindly until chance brought them into his path. It could be any one of them . . .

‘Let me have a large hazelnut latte.’ The woman in front of him had a scornful tone, and lacked the courtesy to say ‘please’. He stared at the back of her head, at her dry, bleached hair, with slight regret. It was tempting, but he knew he couldn’t choose his targets – to do so would be to break the rules of the game.

When it was his turn, he thanked the attractive Asian girl who served him and was rewarded with a friendly smile. Taking his drink, he made his way through into the brightly lit mall and wandered along between the still-closed shops.

Sometimes he resented the thoughts that rose, unbidden, in his mind. So compelling, so dominant that they drove out everything else. Sometimes he almost wished things had been different, all those long years ago, and that his life might have followed a less turbulent path, an easier path. So many victims, their lives suddenly able to play out, uninterrupted. Altered fates and different histories, all because of him. And he might have been one of them, one of the little people, free to drift through their insignificant little lives.

But that wouldn’t have been his life. He wouldn’t be the person he was now, without those experiences. This life, this extraordinary existence, was his and he could not – would not – hide from it.

He took the escalator up to the DLR station platform, emerging into thin daylight under the high glass-canopied roof. The conference he was attending ran for the whole week at the ExCeL Centre, but there were no direct trains from here – he would have to change at Poplar.

As he stood there, gazing out along the tracks, he could feel the anticipation growing, but he pushed the thought away once more.

Not yet . . .

He watched the train as it crept into the station, got on board and found a seat by the window, then stared out through his own reflection as they emerged from the forest of skyscrapers to trundle out above the water and building sites beyond. Canary Wharf was surrounded by an expanding swathe of redevelopment, like a smouldering fire slowly consuming everything around it.

And as he gazed across the changing cityscape, the idea began to take shape. A new challenge, something to make his week in London more meaningful, more exciting.

This time, he wouldn’t find the target – he would let the target find him. He wasn’t exactly in a rush, and there was plenty of time before his first appointment at the conference. Yes, this could work very well. The next station was Poplar, where he had to change trains anyway. He would get off there and wait on the station platform. The first person to make eye contact would be the one. It would be perfectly random, and acquiring a target there could lead to an extremely intriguing game.