He sprinted back to Eva’s room. ‘We’ve got company,’ he said.
‘Who?’ She was dressed – jeans, jumper – and had just pulled on her trainers. She picked up a small bag from the table beside the bed.
‘Just move!’ Joe hissed.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her down the stairs. No time for stealth – their footsteps seemed to shake the whole house. The van’s lights were illuminating the frosted glass in the front door, and he could see silhouettes approaching. ‘Who is it?’ Eva shrieked.
‘This time of night, it’s not the fucking milkman. Get out the back!’
Eva groaned as she saw the glass missing from her French windows, but she clambered through the hole with Joe following close behind. He helped her over the low fence into the neighbours’ property. They sprinted across the half-dozen gardens, giving no thought to secrecy or silence. Joe saw the upstairs lights come on in two of the houses. Clearly they were disturbing people with their noise.
They reached the end of the terrace in a little under a minute. From the last garden they could open the gate over which Joe had had to scramble. The moment they were on the street he grabbed Eva’s hand and pulled her in the opposite direction to her own house. He looked over his shoulder. Two figures were running towards them, unrecognizable in the pale yellow lamplight, but Joe instantly spotted the handguns they were clutching. The two men were thirty metres away and closing.
‘Run!’ Joe hissed.
They turned out of Dawson Street and into Halfway Parade. On the other side of the street, the Hand and Flower, where Joe and Eva used to drink when they were teenagers, was turfing out its customers. The road was busy – buses, minicabs, even a couple of cyclists with flashing head-torches and hi-vis jackets. Twenty metres ahead, two passengers were stepping into a bus. Still clutching Eva’s hand, Joe ran towards it, just managing to jump on board before the doors hissed shut. It pulled away almost immediately as Eva, breathless, waved her police ID at the driver.
Joe’s attention was elsewhere. He was staring through the window at the two figures that had just arrived alongside the moving bus. They both wore jeans, trainers and hoodies. The face of one of them was obscured, but Joe just caught a glimpse of the other. Dark skin. Yellow teeth. The same kid who had been loitering outside his house in what seemed like another lifetime.
Weapon or no weapon, he wanted to burst out and get his hands on the fucker. Eva would be safe on the bus. Now it was accelerating, and the kid had disappeared. All twenty or so other passengers were staring at the two of them with suspicion.
Joe turned to Eva. ‘We can’t stay on here,’ he breathed. ‘Too many people. Where can we talk?’
Her face was deathly white. She looked almost too petrified to respond. ‘Next stop,’ she whispered.
A minute later they stepped off the bus. Eva walked briskly, with Joe following. She turned left, off the high street and into a long residential road that Joe remembered from his youth. It extended half a mile, becoming gradually more shabby the further they walked. It started to rain again. In the distance Joe saw the twinkling lights of three tower blocks, and it was only then that he realized where Eva was taking him.
The bandstand – that crumbling old relic by the swings and slides in the recreation area, a stone’s throw from Lady Margaret Road – was their place. It had always been deserted in bad weather, and it was deserted tonight. Joe only gave up his heavy overcoat, putting it around Eva’s shoulders, when they reached the recreation area and he had established that nobody would see his prison uniform. Eva gave him a grateful look, but then he noticed her eyes lingering on the blood on his hand and the uniform. She wasn’t at ease, and Joe didn’t blame her.
Stepping onto that empty bandstand was like stepping back in time. The white paint on the wrought-iron railings was still peeling. There was the familiar smell of rotten wood from the damp decking. The park around them was bleak and neglected, with high-rises twinkling all around. An old tramp was sleeping on a bench by the adjacent playground, using his coat as a tarp against the downpour, but apart from him, there were only Joe and Eva in the vicinity. They sat down side by side with their backs against the railings, looking towards the middle of the bandstand.
They remained silent for a full minute, listening only to each other’s exhausted, shaking breath and the patter of rain on the roof of the bandstand. When Joe finally spoke, his voice sounded monotone.
‘I was in Pakistan when they went in for Osama bin Laden.’
He could sense Eva holding her breath.
‘I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. My mate who was with me died the next day. I got sent home and someone tried to do me in a hit and run. I took…’ He felt a shadow cross his mind. ‘I took Caitlin and Conor away, somewhere I thought was safe. They found us, I don’t know how. They killed Caitlin and tried to make it look as if I’d committed suicide. But then they were disturbed…’ He heard his voice waver. ‘… Conor saw his mum’s body. He saw the knife in my hands.’
Eva put her hand on his knee.
‘What did you see?’ she whispered. ‘In Pakistan, I mean.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Only that they removed two bodies from bin Laden’s compound.’
‘Two? But… I saw it on the news. They all said—’
‘I know what they said.’ He sensed Eva tensing up at his aggressive tone, and immediately regretted it. He took a deep breath and continued. ‘In Barfield four Arab guys tried to kill me.’
Another silence.
‘Joe,’ Eva said timidly. ‘Are you sure about all this? It sounds like…’
Joe snorted. ‘Like I’m cracking up? That’s what they all think. My OC. Even Caitlin thought I was imagining things.’ He turned towards Eva. ‘And they’re right.’ It was the first time he had admitted it, even to himself. Somehow it made him feel lighter. ‘I have flashbacks. Blackouts. But they did kill Caitlin, Eva. They did try to cut me up in Barfield. Someone’s turning your house upside down right now, and I’m not making that up either…’
‘Wait,’ Eva breathed.
On a reflex, Joe looked over his shoulder to check nobody was approaching. But the rain was falling heavily again. Apart from the sleeping tramp, they were alone.
‘The men who attacked you in prison. They were Middle Eastern?’
Joe nodded.
‘Were they in the visiting room the day I came?’
Joe thought back. He could see two of them in his mind, sitting ten metres to his left. ‘Yeah.’
‘There was a man,’ said Eva. ‘He looked, I don’t know, Arab or Asian. I know that doesn’t mean anything, but he was in the visiting room with us.’
Joe tried to sharpen his memory. There must have been a third man sitting there – the inmates wouldn’t have been in the visiting room without a visitor – and the more he concentrated, the more a blurry face came into his mind. If Joe saw him again, perhaps he’d be able to make a positive ID. But without something to jog his memory…
‘Would you recognize him?’ he asked Eva.
She nodded. ‘I think so…’
They fell silent again, then Joe said quietly: ‘You don’t have to help me. If anyone suspects you know where I am, they’ll—’
‘—break into my house at night? I think it’s safe to say somebody already suspects.’
Joe nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
Eva stood up, walked to the other side of the bandstand and stared out into the rain. ‘Remember last time we were here?’ she asked. Joe nodded. He also remembered the photograph he’d found in her sitting room.