Did he catch us? Did he see where we went? The carriage is rammed; the good people of Surrey heading up to Oxford Street for a bit of lunch and shopping. A French family sits in a neat row, legs crossed at the ankles, and stares at the rumpled scruffiness of their English cousins. Some Japanese throw broad, nodding smiles at everyone who brushes against them. Collette and Hossein are forced down the carriage as the doors open at Embankment and the Charing Cross brigade force themselves on board. They’re miles from the doors. They’ll be the last off at Oxford Circus.
She catches Hossein’s eye and he jerks his chin to his left. He’s with us, the look says. He’s still here. She tips forward beneath the arm of an American frat boy in an ironic Cambridge University T-shirt and verifies the truth. There he is, two doors up, one hand holding the metal bar above his head, a circle of space a foot wide all around him. She swears, inside. Go away, Malik. It’s been so long, now. Aren’t you tired of it? Don’t you wonder if it’s time that Tony let it go?
Oxford Circus, and the crowd bursts from the carriage like champagne from a shaken bottle. It swirls around them, a rushing flood of humanity, and carries them towards the exit tunnel whether they wanted to go or not. She feels Hossein’s hand slip into hers, gives it a squeeze before a man in a suit barges between them, bellows an excuse-me as though it’s a reproach. It’s slow. So bloody slow. He could be coming up behind me but I must not look she tells herself. The only advantage we’ve got is that he might not know that we know he’s there. She’s certain she can hear his heel segs scraping over the floor, knows it’s her imagination, but hears it anyway, drowning out a hundred other footfalls.
Tunnel, steps, tunnel, escalator. The stairs on the tube are just steep enough to snatch your breath, not steep enough to take you upwards fast enough. A scrum at the bottom of the escalator, people sighing, checking their watches, edging past each other in the hope of gaining a second’s advantage. Practising the London Air Stare that lets them push past strangers by pretending they don’t see them. She’s got in front of Hossein, steps on to the stairwell, knows from his familiar feel that he’s right behind. They tuck in to the right, let the hurriers march past. No point attracting attention by joining them, puffing themselves out now when they might need to run later. She can’t stop herself; looks below her.
He’s not there. Good God in heaven, he’s not there! She feels the tension leave her neck, a rush of painful heat as her muscles relax. Then another as they tighten up again when she spots him ten steps down on the parallel stairs.
Up to the top, Oyster cards out as they approach, a rush through the barriers. For a moment, she’s lost, confused, doesn’t know which of the hundred exits to head for, then Hossein touches her arm and they hurry, dodging their way round knots of tourists who’ve stopped to check their guide books, for the nearest. Run up the stairs and turn left towards the Circus.
Even when she lived in London, she rarely came to Oxford Street. It scares her. Whenever she’s in these huge, distracted crowds, all she can think of is suicide bombers. It’s like that every time. Her mind fills with images of the men in front of them throwing their coats open with a bellowed allahu akbar, of light and smoke and body parts. Whenever she’s here, she wants to wrap her arms around her head and protect her face from flying glass. They weave their way into the funnels behind the crowd barriers and march smartly down Regent Street.
Again, he takes her hand, and pulls her along like a child. Here, the pavements are wide and the crowds are thinner, but their progress is still painfully slow. Where do we go now? Into Soho? Those mazes of streets where a single turn can leave you suddenly marooned, alone, unseen? The self-regarding streets of Mayfair, where every frontage is a gallery with a ring-and-wait sign on its locked front door? She glances behind her as they pass the old Dickens and Jones building, sees Malik reach the corner of Little Argyle Street. He must know we know, she thinks. Why doesn’t he give up? He can’t think he’s going to do anything here, and we’re hardly going to lead him home.
They reach Great Marlborough Street and wheel in, past the florid Tudorbethan frontage of Liberty on the other side of the road. No, this is nuts, she thinks. The road is the one the Londoners take to avoid the tourists on Oxford Street. It’s almost empty: a traffic warden and a wino, a skinny lad smoking outside an office three hundred yards away. Crazy. We should stay where the crowds are. She starts to tug him back but Hossein pulls her on. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘I know.’