He stood in the crowded compartment looking around him, curiously, innocently. There were two pretty-ish girls not far away, in suits, listening to their music, plugged into their tiny earphones. Smartly dressed, jewellery, quite heavy make-up…One of them glanced blankly at him, as if aware of his gaze, and then looked away. Ingram felt his cock stir and he wondered if this might be a day for Phyllis also. My god, what was wrong with him? Did other men in their fifty-ninth year think so constantly of sex? What was that expression, that term? Yes — was he an ‘erotomane’? Not the worst category of sexual offender in which to be classified but sometimes he wondered if there were something clinically wrong, or diagnosable, about his obsessions…Then again, he reflected, as he walked up the steps leading out of Bank Station and saw the glass tower that contained his company — CALENTURE-DEUTZ pic — on several of whose floors some 200 of his employees were settling down to their day’s work, perhaps such feelings, such urges, were entirely healthy and normal.
He knew something was wrong as soon as he saw both Burton Keegan and Paul de Freitas waiting for him in the lobby. As he strode towards them he consciously began to run through the worst possible scenarios, preparing himself: his wife, his children — maimed, dead; an industrial accident at the Oxford laboratories, contamination, plague; some terrible stockmarket upheaval; a boardroom putsch — ruin…
“Burton, Paul,” he said, keeping his features as impassive as theirs, “good morning. It can only be bad news.”
Keegan glanced at de Freitas — who would be the messenger? Keegan stepped forward on de Freitas’s nod.
“Philip Wang is dead,” Keegan muttered in a low voice. “Murdered.”
4
ADAM WOKE AT DAWN. Seagulls chanted and screamed in the air above him, flying low, swooping aggressively overhead, and for a brief moment he thought — oh, yes, of course, I’m dreaming, none of this happened. But the cold in his legs, the overall feeling of dampness and the itch of uncleanliness made him remember, forcefully, the fraught conditions he was in. He sat up, feeling depressed and almost tearful as he reflected on what had happened. He looked out at the river and saw that it was at full tide, brown and strong. He felt hungry, he felt thirsty, he needed to piss, he wanted a shave…The urination requirement was easily satisfied — and as he zipped up his fly he recorded bleakly that this was the first time in his entire life that he had ‘slept rough’. It was not to his taste.
He pulled on his raincoat, picked up his briefcase and pushed his way through the dewy bushes towards the Embankment and watched the first commuters whizz by on the near empty road, beating the rush-hour. He jumped over the fence, snagging his raincoat on the railings and — once freed — wandered off. It was cool this early in the morning and Adam felt the chill, as he paused and brushed the leaves and grass off the skirts of his already stained raincoat. He had to eat.
In a café on the King’s Road he ordered a ‘Full English Breakfast’ and quickly consumed it. He checked his wallet — notes and coins to the value of £11838 pence. He thought that if he were going to turn himself in he should at least look presentable and so went to a chemist where he bought some disposable razors and shaving foam — now his hunger was satisfied he found he wanted to shave, more than anything — and rode the Underground from Sloane Square to Victoria Station where he paid £2 for admission to the new ‘executive washrooms’. He shaved carefully and closely and combed his hair, sweeping it back from his forehead so that it sat thickly in place, the scores from the tines of the comb visible like corduroy — it already seemed unpleasantly greasy after his night in the open. On the station concourse he asked a transport official where he could find the nearest police station and was given directions to one close by on Buckingham Palace Road, a few minutes walk away.
Finding it easily, he paused a moment to gather his strength before confidently climbing the steps to what seemed a newish police station — all angular caramel brick blocks and bright blue railings. He had deliberately not thought about what was about to ensue — or what would be the immediate consequences of his inevitable arraignment. There was too much unhelpful, damning evidence against him, that was obvious, indeed that was why he had run away last night. He bleakly assumed he’d be arrested and kept in cells, before he was assigned a lawyer. He knew that he looked far too conveniently like the perpetrator — they wouldn’t just listen to his version of events and let him go back to his hotel and wait for their call. And then, thinking of a telephone call, he suddenly remembered the job, the senior research fellowship, that he’d been interviewed for yesterday afternoon. They had promised to phone him…There had been no call on his cellphone — rather, his ‘mobile’—since the interview. He checked his phone for a second and saw there were no texts, other than spam messages from the phone company. His texting life had been more or less moribund since he had left the States — no banter or chatter from friends, colleagues or students any more — the silence of guilt…Still, he was curious to know about the Imperial College job. Had he been selected, he wondered, did they want him? He felt rueful, hard-done-by: whatever happened to him next was hardly going to look impressive on his curriculum vitae.
He stepped through automatic doors into a small lobby with a reception desk facing him, empty. A running red illuminated sign above it informed him that ‘the station officer will be with you shortly’. A man and a woman sat waiting, also, staring silently at the floor. Adam stayed standing and turned to check his reflection in one of the glass-covered noticeboards — full of warnings, instructions about domestic violence complaints, job opportunities in the Metropolitan Police, legal notifications and photofit pictures of various villains. His eye swivelled instantly, uninstructed, to find his own name displayed there: ‘ADAM KINDRED — WANTED. SUSPICION OF MURDER’. Even more alarming than seeing his name was seeing his face — a familiar image of himself, cropped from another photo (there was a stranger’s shoulder in the bottom right-hand corner). Adam immediately knew where the photo had been taken as he contemplated his younger, smiling self — at his wedding to Alexa. He knew, also, that he was wearing a tailcoat, a grey waistcoat and a silver silk tie, in the English tradition, even though the wedding had taken place in Phoenix, Arizona, and all the other men present were wearing dinner jackets and bow ties. There had been some gentle mockery. He looked at his younger self: the smile was broad, his hair was considerably longer and a thick forelock, displaced by the buffeting desert wind, hung over his brow, rakishly. Self-consciously, Adam smoothed back his shorter, greasier hair. He looked different now — leaner and more worried. Then he thought: where in Christ’s name had they found the picture so quickly? His father? His father was in Australia with his sister. No…He stepped back, shocked — it must have come from Alexa, his ex-wife. He thought through the chain of events again, bitterly: no wonder they were on to him so fast — the name and address in the ledger at Anne Boleyn House led them straight to the Grafton Lodge Hotel (Seamus and Donal knew all about the job interview); then emails, telephone calls to his former employer, family members. A photo provided by the ex-wife (“Adam? Are you sure?”—he could hear her voice, just not quite protesting enough), then scanned and sent electronically to London in a fraction of a second. Maybe they’d contacted his father as well?…He began to feel sick. He could see it from the police’s point of view — they were only looking for one man, the man who had signed himself in to Anne Boleyn House, the last man to see Philip Wang alive, the man whose fingerprints were on the murder weapon — an open and shut case. Find Adam Kindred and you have your murderer.