The Woman In The Golden Dress. Nicola Cornick

go somewhere new,’ she had said when she had called Fen. ‘Somewhere you never went with Jake. Don’t worry,’ she had added, taking Fen’s silence for impending refusal. ‘I know you’re still a bit iffy about going out but we’ll all look after you.’

      ‘I know you will,’ Fen said. She had injected some warmth into her voice. ‘Thanks. You have all been fabulous.’

      ‘So you’ll come?’ Kesia sounded eager. ‘Please do, Fen. We miss you. Jessie’s gutted she can’t be there too but Dev is whisking her away somewhere for their anniversary.’

      ‘She told me,’ Fen said. Jessie was still her best friend, the one constant in a life that had changed almost out of recognition. Her schoolgirl friendship with Kesia had survived too although Kes had been abroad travelling a lot. She was back in London now and keen to meet up with everyone, hence the invitation.

      ‘You can’t keep hiding away,’ Kesia said now. ‘It’s been two years, Fen. Show that loser he can’t ruin your life.’

      Fen appreciated the sentiment even if it was expressed somewhat insensitively. She no longer wanted to scream when people gave their opinion about her relationship with Jake. They had absolutely no idea what she had been through but she had accepted that now. She simply closed her ears to the words and accepted the clumsy kindness in the spirit it was meant.

      ‘Well…’ she said cautiously.

      ‘You’ll come!’ Kesia said instantly. ‘Fantastic!’

      Of course Fen had agreed. She acknowledged now that refusal had been impossible. Kesia, Laura and the others were amongst her oldest friends and they loved her. They had all stuck together through thick and thin, through college and awful first jobs and slightly less awful second ones. There had been marriages, children, divorces, affairs, all the successes and disasters of life. They had celebrated and commiserated, fixed the problems with wine and conversation like old friends did.

      Murder was different, though.

      Murder was unfixable.

      It had been an accident. Everyone said so, even the police. They had not pressed charges. Only she knew different.

      ‘Don’t leave me,’ Jake had pleaded. He had been very white. ‘I love you. Why would you walk out on me when we’ve been through so much together?’

      She had withstood his emotional blackmail that final time and she had gone, as she should have done years before, changed her name back, changed her appearance, changed her job, her home, her life. Yet the old one dogged her footsteps like a nagging shadow. She understood now that no one ever escaped their past, no matter how hard or fast they ran. You took it with you; it was a part of you.

      The train trundled into another station. It was stopping at every town and village between London and Newbury, or so it seemed. Fen glanced over her shoulder through habit but it was so dark outside and so brightly lit in the carriage that she could see nothing. It made her feel unpleasantly vulnerable, a sitting duck, even if there was no one out there, watching for her.

      The businessman got off at Reading. Fen watched him heave himself out of the seat and take his briefcase down from the rack overhead. There were dark sweat patches under his arms. She wondered if she was stereotyping him; city worker, a banker perhaps, expense account dinners, high blood pressure. She wondered what people thought when they saw her. Normally she dressed to be invisible. Tonight she had tried to dress the way she had done in the old days, in her favourite sequin skirt and white crop top, nude heels. She had straightened her hair so that the haphazard blonde waves were tamed into a shiny fall. She had even worn make-up. It felt as though she was in disguise. She had changed her appearance so many times over the past two years that she did not really know what she looked like anymore: glasses or lenses, brunette or buttermilk blonde, heels or flats, smart or vintage, real or a total fake.

      The train started to move again. She reached into her bag for the book that Laura had given her, Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer, an old favourite from their college days.

      Someone sat down beside her and she glanced up.

      ‘Evening.’ He nodded, smiled. It felt odd, courteous but ridiculously old-fashioned to be greeted formally by a complete stranger who had randomly chosen to sit next to her on a train. She almost smiled because it was so sweet.

      ‘Hi.’ She looked back down at her book. Then she looked up again. She couldn’t help herself. She might be single by choice but she wasn’t immune. Thirties, dark hair falling across his brow, deep brown eyes, good-looking without being devastating… There was something about him that drew her gaze. The hard line of his cheekbones and jaw made him look uncompromising in a way that might have intimidated her had it not been for his smile, which was dangerously disarming.

      He yanked his tie off as though it constricted his breathing and undid his top button, resting his head against the seat back, closing his eyes. Fen realised that she was staring.

      She went back to her book. The train was picking up speed. Brief flashes of streetlights, car headlights and isolated houses punctured the darkness outside. The interior of the train was so bright in contrast that it made her head ache. The familiar words on the page blurred before her eyes.

      ‘Haven’t we met before?’ The man had turned towards her and opened his eyes. They were a very dark hazel rather than brown. Nice.

      Fen sighed. As a pick-up line it was extremely lame.

      ‘No, I don’t think we have,’ she said.

      ‘Sorry.’ He sounded crestfallen. ‘I know it’s a cliché.’

      ‘Yes, it is.’ Fen could feel herself warming to him against her will. It was disconcerting. That easy smile was too charming. She felt a surprise tug of attraction and thought that at another time, in another life, she might have liked him very much.

      ‘I’m too old to indulge in wretchedly poor chat-up lines,’ he said. ‘I really did think that there was a connection between us though.’

      ‘If you say so.’ Fen buried her nose back in her book. Time passed. She realised she had not read a line, nor turned a page.

      ‘Is it a good book?’

      She wasn’t expecting further conversation. It startled her.

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘I asked if it was a good book.’

      ‘Um… it’s okay.’ She felt a little off-balance and answered at random. ‘I used to love it when I was younger. But it was written a while ago and it feels a bit dated to me now.’

      He tilted his head to read the title and author. ‘Georgette Heyer,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of her.’

      ‘Wow,’ Fen said blankly. She had never met anyone who hadn’t heard of Heyer.

      He laughed. ‘Thanks for making me feel illiterate,’ he said dryly.

      Fen realised she had been rude. She blushed with embarrassment. Then she met his eyes, saw the amusement there, and realised that probably very little, least of all her bluntness, could dent this man’s confidence. There was a core of steel beneath that easy manner.

      ‘Is she famous, Georgette Heyer?’ he said. ‘Have any of her books been made into films?’

      Fen made an effort. ‘Uh… no, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘She’s dead. Maybe they did a while ago.’ She smiled despite herself. ‘Though I don’t expect you would have come across them if they had. You don’t look like a fan of Forties and Fifties costume drama.’

      ‘Don’t judge,’ the man said mildly. ‘You never know.’ He looked cramped in the train seat, folded in, his legs too long for a comfortable fit. She could not look at him properly without turning sideways and that felt too blatant. She did not want to give the impression that she was interested. She wanted to go back to the book for the protection it gave her, but the archaic language