The Four Last Things. Andrew Taylor

St George’s, Kensal Vale. He was not surprised when Angel announced her decision the following morning over breakfast.

      ‘Won’t it be dangerous?’ Eddie stabbed his spoon at the photograph of Sally Appleyard. ‘If her husband’s in the CID, they’ll pull out all the stops.’

      ‘It won’t be more dangerous if we plan it carefully. You’ve never really understood that, have you? That’s why you came a cropper before you met me. A plan’s like a clock. If it’s properly made it has to work. All you should need to do is wind it up and off it goes. Tick tock, tick tock.’

      ‘Are we all right for money?’

      She smiled, a teacher rewarding an apt pupil. ‘I shall have to do a certain amount extra to build up the contingency fund. But it’s important not to break the routine in any way. I think I might warn Mrs Hawley-Minton that I may have some time off around Christmas.’

      During the next two months, from mid-September to mid-November, Angel worked on average four days a week. Sometimes these included evenings and nights. Mrs Hawley-Minton’s agency was small and expensive. Word of mouth was all the advertising it needed. Most of the clients were either foreign business people or expatriates paying brief visits home. They were prepared to pay good money for reliable and fully qualified freelance nannies with excellent references and the knack of controlling spoiled children. The tips were good, in some cases extravagantly generous.

      ‘It’s a sort of blood money,’ Angel explained to Eddie. ‘It’s not that the parents feel grateful. They feel guilty. That’s because they’re not doing their duty – they’re leaving their children to be brought up by strangers. It’s not right, is it? Money can’t buy love.’

      They were very busy. On the agency days, Angel took the tube down from Belsize Park and made her way to Westminster, Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Kensington. She looked very smart in her navy-blue outfit, her blonde hair tied back, the hem of her skirt swinging just below the knee. Mrs Hawley-Minton’s girls did not have a uniform – after all, they were ladies, not servants – but they were encouraged to conform to a discreetly professional house style. Meanwhile, Eddie saw to the cooking, the cleaning and most of the shopping.

      In their spare time they made their preparations. For one thing, Angel insisted on repainting the basement, a refinement which Eddie thought unnecessary.

      ‘What’s the point? We only did it eighteen months ago.’

      ‘I want everything to be nice and fresh.’

      They shared the outside research. Angel liked to say there was no such thing as useless knowledge. If you gathered all the information that could possibly be relevant, and tried to predict every contingency, then your plan could not fail. Working separately, they quartered the broad crescent of north London between Kentish Town in the east and Willesden Junction in the west. They went in the van, on foot and by public transport. Afterwards Angel would set little tests.

      ‘Suppose you’re travelling from Kensal Vale: it’s rush hour, and there are roadworks on Kilburn High Road, and you want to cut down to Maida Vale: what’s your best route?’

      The riskier part of the research involved the surveillance of Lucy and her parents. Angel insisted that they be even more cautious than they had been on other occasions because of Michael Appleyard’s job. It was easier once they had worked out the geography of the Appleyards’ routine. Like the majority of Londoners, the Appleyards spent most of their lives at a handful of locations or travelling to and from them; their city was really an invisible village.

      Angel spread out the map on the kitchen table. ‘Four main possibilities. St George’s, the flat in Hercules Road, the child minder’s house, Kensal Vale library.’

      ‘What about shops?’ Eddie put in. ‘She and her mother often go down West End Lane. And they’ve driven up to Brent Cross at least twice since we started.’

      Angel shook her head. ‘I don’t like it. Too many video cameras around, especially at Brent Cross. Remember that boy Jamie. Jamie Bulger.’

      That year a dank autumn slid imperceptibly into a winter characterized by cutting winds and relentless rain; pedestrians wrapped up warmly and hurried half-disguised along the pavements. On research trips Angel usually wore her long, hooded raincoat, often with the black wig and glasses.

      ‘It makes you look like a monk,’ Eddie said with a chuckle as she checked her appearance in the hall mirror one evening. ‘Or rather, a nun.’

      She slapped him. ‘Don’t ever say that again, Eddie.’

      He rubbed his tingling cheek and apologized, desperate as always for her forgiveness. However hard he tried, he sometimes managed to upset her. He hated himself for his clumsiness. It made everything so uncomfortable when Angel was upset.

      Eddie worried about Angel going out alone in the evening. These days no one was safe on the streets of London, and beautiful women were more vulnerable than anyone. One night in October she returned home towards midnight with a torn coat, her colour high and the glasses missing. She told Eddie that a drunk had pawed her in Quex Road.

      ‘It was disgusting. It’s made me feel physically sick.’

      ‘But what happened?’ Eddie drew her towards the sitting room. For once the roles were reversed. He felt fiercely protective towards her. ‘How did you get away?’

      ‘Oh, that wasn’t a problem.’ She drew her right hand out of her pocket. Silver flashed before his eyes.

      ‘What is it?’ He looked more closely and frowned. ‘A scalpel?’

      ‘I cut open his hand and then his face. Then I ran. If people behave like animals, they have to be treated like animals.’

      On another occasion they went together to St George’s and stared at the grubby red brick church with its sturdy spire and rain-washed slate roofs. Angel tried the door but it was locked. Eddie was surprised how angry this made her.

      ‘It’s terrible. They never used to lock churches when I was young. Not in the daytime.’

      ‘Did you go to church?’ Eddie asked, suddenly curious. ‘We didn’t.’

      ‘Didn’t you?’ Angel raised her eyebrows. ‘Shall we go?’

      By the middle of November, Angel had decided that it would be best to take Lucy while she was in the care of the child minder. According to the Voters’ List, her name was Carla Vaughan. Angel summed up the woman with three adjectives: fat and vulgar and black.

      ‘You think it’ll be easier if we take her from there?’ Eddie asked.

      ‘Of course. The Vaughan woman takes far too many children. There’s no way she can keep track of them all the time.’

      ‘She was giving them sweets when they were at the library. I bet she doesn’t make them clean their teeth afterwards. And they were making a dreadful racket in there. She was almost encouraging it.’

      ‘She’s a disgrace,’ Angel said. ‘When she’s at home with them, she probably sits them in front of the television and feeds them chocolate to keep them quiet. I’m sure she hasn’t any professional qualifications.’

      ‘Lucy’ll be better off with us,’ Eddie said.

      ‘There’s no question of that. She’s just not a fit person to have charge of children.’

      By the afternoon of Friday the twenty-ninth of November their preparations were almost complete. That was when Eddie acted on the spur of the moment; as so often, it seemed to him that he had no choice in the matter. The sense of his own helplessness outweighed even his fear of what Angel might say and do when she discovered what had happened.

      Circumstances played into his hands – forced him to act. Rain, a cold dense blanket like animated fog, had been falling from a dark sky for most of the afternoon, persuading people to stay inside if they had any choice in the matter. At Angel’s suggestion, Eddie set out to explore the geography