The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows. Marnie Riches

and mansion blocks. Every window, a potential set of prying eyes.

       Not here.

      The man hastened along the pavement at a brisk pace, given conditions underfoot. Already some way ahead. The distance between them widening fast. But then, his belly was full. His body had been warmed by fine wine and brandy. His energy hadn’t been sapped by biting hunger, sucked dry by spending the harshest winter since records began on the streets. Robbed for breakfast. Moved along at lunch. Beaten up for dinner. Pissed on by other homeless, too drunk to realise what they were doing - the only midnight snack on offer.

       Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you piece of shit. Remember why you are here.

      He kept going. The moment would present itself. He had faith.

      Two women, moving towards him now. Bulked up with Puffa jackets and ridiculous furry hats. Blocking his view. Talking, talking. Espanol. Muy pericoloso. Muy dramatico. Hands beating the freezing air in telenovela-exaggerated movements, breath steaming like two pressure cookers on the boil. Tourists, no doubt.

       Get out of the way, you fat Spanish cows.

      Heart thudding, as they crowded his vision, snuffing out the sight of his target entirely.

      They passed him by. Grimacing at the sight and smell of a vagrant.

      The target was out of sight. Gone.

       Shit.

      His face prickled with anxiety. Panic rendered him almost breathless. Peering ahead. No sign of the rich, gutless fucker. Glancing in the doorways of the surrounding buildings. Not there. Glancing in the park. Not there either. Was this all in vain? He should have planned better. Had a plan B. All was lost. But then …

      Harriet Street. A sharp left, leading to Sloane Street. There he was. Pausing beneath the Victorian lamppost by the cast iron railings that fringed a 1930s block. An unwitting child, stumbled through the wardrobe wearing seasonal finery into a hard, white world. Waiting to be lured into the shadows by a ragged, destitute Tumnus.

      The man struggled to light a cigarette in the wind. Sputter, sputter, the flame died. He advanced to the doorway of this white stone and brick mansion block. Unobservant, as he finally lit his smoke. Opposite, every window had been obscured behind some kind of green builder’s gauze, stretched tight over scaffolding. Hiding the view below entirely. It was a gift from an otherwise vengeful and unforgiving god.

      Heart fluttering. Determination stiffening his aching spine. From the railing, he snapped one of those giant icicles that hung everywhere since the freak cold spell had descended on Europe. Ten inches. Sharpened by nature to a point. Galvanised by weeks of sub-zero temperatures.

      Five paces. Four. Three. Clutching the icy shiv in his frostbitten hand.

      The man was facing the other way.

      Jab, jab, jab in the sweet spot in his neck before the weapon could melt or weaken. The man’s blood gushed, hissing hot on the frozen ground, spattering against the wall. Screams coming out as gurgling. But he was the only human being within earshot.

      ‘That’s for Amsterdam, you piece of shit,’ he said, as the man bled out, staring glassy-eyed and disbelieving into the abyss.

      Running away, now, he tossed the icicle down a storm drain that had been cleared of snow. By the time the police found the body, all traces of the weapon would have been washed away in the dirt-splattered slush of the road. Melted by grit-residue. The only clue left at the scene would be the watery holes in the dead man’s neck: the calling card of Jack Frost.

       CHAPTER 2

       North West England, women’s prison, 27 February

      ‘Put a bag over my head, didn’t I?’ the woman said, biting nails that were already at the quick.

      Couldn’t have been more than twenty, this one. Looked nearer to forty with a complexion the colour of porridge. Overweight and swollen-faced, George guessed anti-depressants were at work. Dull blue eyes, as though the medication had caused a film to form over her sclera, preventing her from seeing the world in its grim true colours. Another poor cow in a pen full of poor cows.

      ‘What do you mean, you put a bag over your head?’ she asked the woman. She was poised to write. Steeling her hand to stop shaking. Unnerving to be back inside the very same prison she had spent three unforgettable months in – now a long time ago. A one-star vacation at Her Majesty’s leisure. All meals provided. The beatings had come for free. She had not known then that she would swap these Victorian red-brick walls of a one-time Barnardo’s home for the ivory tower of St. John’s College, Cambridge. No, she had been a poor cow in a stall full of crap, same as the others.

      Her interviewee leaned forward. Cocked her head to one side. Grimaced.

      ‘Are you fucking thick or what?’ A spray of spittle accompanied ‘thick’.

      Issued forth with venom, George knew. Tap, tap on her temple with her chewed index finger.

      ‘Donna.’ The prison officer’s tone issued warning enough for Donna to back up.

      ‘I said, I put the bag on my head. They didn’t know I had it. Tied it tight.’ Donna folded her arms. Smiling now. Satisfied. ‘It was Sainsbury’s. It had fucking holes in the bottom, didn’t it?’

      ‘Did you intend to kill yourself?’ George asked, a rash unexpectedly starting to itch its way up her neck. She knew Donna wouldn’t catch sight of it so easily because darker skin hid a multitude. She disciplined herself not to scratch.

      ‘Yeah. Course I bleedin’ did.’

      The prison officer, a heavy-set woman in her thirties, by the looks, laughed. ‘Come on, Donna. We all know you were doing a Michael Hutchence, weren’t you?’

      ‘What?’

      Donna was almost certainly too young to have heard of him, George thought.

      ‘Feller from INXS. Offed himself by accident, doing an asphyxi-wank or something.’

      Donna tugged at the collar of her standard-issue tracksuit – too tight over her low-hanging, braless breasts. ‘You taking the piss?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Insane laughter from both of them then. A camaraderie that George was used to seeing, along with the gallows humour. When the mirth subsided, Donna confessed the real reason for her grand polyethylene gesture.

      ‘I had bedbugs, didn’t I? They were biting like bastards.’ She started to rub her forearms through the jersey material. ‘I asked for a new mattress but they wouldn’t bloody listen. So, I puts the bag on my head, cos if they think you’re going to top yourself in here, you stand a better chance of them actually listening to what you’re on about.’ She glowered at the prison officer, seated beside her. Switched the glare for a grin like a deft pickpocket. ‘I been in here two years, right? Got another six to go.’

      George scratched at her scalp with the end of her pen. Got the cap entangled in one of her corkscrew curls. Unrelentingly itchy. Was it the nervous rash? Was this her body telling her brain that she was losing her shit? She couldn’t possibly be freaked out, though. Definitely not. Not after all this time. Not a pro, like her.

      She shuffled her sheaf of paper straight, as if to demonstrate to herself that she had mastery over everything. In control of herself and her environment at all times. Now that she was qualified, she spent more time inside prisons than out. Except when she was in Amsterdam with Paul. Bastard. Oh, well. Not everything was within her control.

      ‘What did you do, Donna?’

      ‘I didn’t do it.’