Her sudden interest in Fay irritated her. She wasn’t meant to feel like that.
As she debated with herself whether to knock or not, the door creaked open. Instinctively she turned away and pretended to be walking past. A couple of doors down, she ducked behind the thick round pillar to the portico of another house in need of renovation.
A middle-aged woman shuffled down the steps bumping a tartan shopping bag on wheels behind her. She stopped at the foot of the stairs to catch her breath, then unfolded the telescopic handle of the trolley.
From her hiding place Helen watched her. Was it Fay or one of her house mates? Her question was answered when the woman pulled up her jacket collar. The gesture was both furtive and familiar, and a tingling ran down her spine when she remembered how the woman in the blue car had done the same.
She was standing only a few feet away from her mother’s murderer. Her stomach churned suddenly, and her hands went sweaty inside her pockets. Now that she was here, nothing seemed quite as simple as it had when she left India.
Fay headed towards the main road and Helen hung back for a minute or so then followed her at a safe distance.
Walking behind her, she made a mental note of every detail, the quirks and physical features, the clothes. Prison had taken its toll. Fay was dressed in a shapeless raincoat and sensible, flat shoes, and her hair, once a frizzy, brown mop, was sparse and nicotine-grey, limp and unstyled. She hadn’t quite shed her prison pallor and walked with a slight stoop as if she carried the burdens of many people, or maybe the sin of what she’d done.
I hope you burn in Hell, Helen thought.
When Fay reached the main road, Helen found it was easier to follow her without being spotted. Here she could hide behind other shoppers and various racks and rails spilling out of the local shops onto the pavement. She didn’t want to confront Fay yet, just needed to find out what sort of entity she was before …
Before what?
Before she killed her?
Joe had said something like that, but she’d swatted the thought away. Obviously Fay had to pay for what she’d done, but even after years of thinking about this moment, Helen didn’t have a plan. And now, watching her had made her curious. Fay had known her mother. In fact, she’d have been the same age if she’d lived. They were friends.
So what happened for Fay to stab Mimi in the throat?
Helen fingered a Swiss Army knife she always carried in her jacket pocket. No one else was about; it would be so easy to just unfold the blade, plunge it into Fay’s back, and then melt away. There would be a certain ironic justice in that.
‘An eye for an eye’ and all that.
No, there had to be another way. Fay would pay for what she had done, but not like that.
Shepherd’s Bush Market was an open-air market, running parallel to the railway line. Helen passed under a painted metal arch and into the middle of the throng. A stall holder selling CDs and vinyl records was playing dub reggae on a portable stereo, and everywhere in this happy, bustling chaos the Afro-Caribbean influence ran high. The atmosphere took her right back to some of the places she’d visited while travelling.
Fay was still ahead of her, at a greengrocer’s. Helen kept her distance and pretended to be interested in tea towels. A sudden awareness made her turn around and meet the gaze of the guy manning the record stall.
Young, maybe a little older than her, he was dressed in jeans and a tight white T-shirt, which showed he was no stranger to working out. He had thick brown hair, which curled at the nape of his neck, and a small strip of beard shaped in a thin line from the middle to the curve of his chin. Clear, blue eyes. Helen supposed a guy like that would be considered attractive, if you liked that sort of thing. Sexy even.
He winked at her and smiled, but she ignored him in case he waylaid her and pressed her to buy something, another thing she’d learned while abroad. You were trapped if you met the eyes of a market trader.
A smell of fried onions and doughy bread drew her towards a refreshment stall. Next to it, two smartly dressed young mums were chatting, their plump babies slumbering contentedly in designer pushchairs. Suddenly conscious of her own dishevelled state, Helen ran her fingers through her unkempt hair as a spurt of angry jealousy surged through her. Life was so easy for people like that. How did they know what true survival meant? They’d never woken up in the dark, afraid and lonely, with no one to comfort them, never felt ostracised because they were different. And nor would their cute little babies when they woke up.
She clenched her fists to get her feelings under control. These women weren’t to blame for her bad luck.
One of them had left her keys and wallet on the counter behind her back and wasn’t paying attention to her belongings. It would be as easy as pie for a pickpocket to run a hand over the wallet and scoop it up unnoticed. Helen had seen this trick often enough and wondered if she ought to warn her, when again she felt as if she was being watched and turned around.