I See You by Clare Mackintosh
For my parents, who taught me so much.
Acknowledgements
It is an accepted fact that second books can be tricky beasts, and this one would not have happened without the support, guidance and practical help of many generous people. My sincere thanks to Guy Mayhew, David Shipperlee, Sam Blackburn, Gary Ferguson, Darren Woods and Joanna Harvey for their help with researching this book. All errors are mine, and artistic licence is liberally used. Special gratitude to Andrew Robinson, who gave up so much of his time to help that I put him in the book.
Thank you to Charlotte Beresford, Merilyn Davies and Shane Kirk, for plot discussions and beta reading, and to Sally Boorman, Rachel Lovelock and Paul Powell for bidding generously in charity auctions for the right to name a character.
The life of a writer is frequently a solitary one. Mine is greatly enriched by the communities on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, the members of which are always ready with encouraging words, virtual glasses of champagne, and suggestions for guinea pig names. In both my online and my real life I continue to be astounded by the generosity of the crime scene, which could not be more supportive. Authors are a great bunch of people.
I am lucky to be represented by the best agent in the business, Sheila Crowley, and I am enormously proud to be a Curtis Brown author. Special thanks to Rebecca Ritchie and Abbie Greaves for their support.
I wouldn’t be half the writer I am without the talent and insight of my editor, Lucy Malagoni, who is a joy to work with. The Little, Brown team is exceptional, and my thanks goes to Kirsteen Astor, Rachel Wilkie, Emma Williams, Thalia Proctor, Anne O’Brien, Andy Hine, Kate Hibbert and Helena Doree for their enthusiasm and dedication.
There should be some kind of award for the families of writers, who put up with the mood swings, the deadlines, the burnt suppers and the late school runs. In the absence of medals, my love and thanks go to Rob, Josh, Evie and George, who light up my life and make my books possible.
Finally, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the booksellers, libraries and readers who loved I Let You Go enough to make it a success. I am so very grateful, and hope you enjoy I See You just as much.
You do the same thing every day.
You know exactly where you’re going.
You’re not alone.
1
The man behind me is standing close enough to moisten the skin on my neck with his breath. I move my feet forward an inch and press myself into a grey overcoat that smells of wet dog. It feels as if it hasn’t stopped raining since the start of November, and a light steam rises from the hot bodies jammed against each other. A briefcase jabs into my thigh. As the train judders around a corner I’m held upright by the weight of people surrounding me, one unwilling hand against the grey overcoat for temporary support. At Tower Hill the carriage spits out a dozen commuters and swallows two dozen more, all hell-bent on getting home for the weekend.
‘Use the whole carriage!’ comes the announcement.
Nobody moves.
The grey overcoat has gone, and I’ve shuffled into its place, preferable because I can now reach the handrail, and because I no longer have a stranger’s DNA on my neck. My handbag has swung round behind my body, and I tug it in front of me. Two Japanese tourists are wearing gigantic rucksacks on their chests, taking up the space of another two people. A woman across the carriage sees me looking at them; she catches my eye and grimaces in solidarity. I accept the eye contact fleetingly, then look down at my feet. The shoes around me vary: the men’s are large and shiny, beneath pinstriped hems; the women’s heeled and colourful, toes crammed into impossible points. Amongst the legs I see a pair of sleek stockings; opaque black nylon ending in stark white trainers. The owner is hidden but I imagine her to be in her twenties, a pair of vertiginous office heels stashed in a capacious handbag, or in a drawer at work.
I’ve never worn heels during the day. I was barely out of my Clark’s lace-ups when I fell pregnant with Justin, and there was no place for heels on a Tesco checkout, or coaxing a toddler up the high street. Now I’m old enough to know better. An hour on the train on the way into work: another hour on the way home. Tripping up broken escalators. Run over by buggies and bikes. And for what? For eight hours behind a desk. I’ll save my heels for high days and holidays. I wear a self-imposed uniform of black trousers and an array of stretchy tops that don’t need ironing, and are just smart enough to pass as office-wear; with a cardigan kept in my bottom drawer for busy days when the door’s forever opening and the heat disappears with every prospective client.
The train stops and I push my way on to the platform. I take the Overground from here, and although it’s often as busy, I prefer it. Being underground makes me feel uneasy; unable to breathe, even though I know it’s all in my head. I dream of working somewhere close enough to walk to, but it’s never going to happen: the only jobs worth taking are in zone one; the only affordable mortgages in zone four.
I have to wait for my train and at the rack by the ticket machine I pick up a copy of the London Gazette, its headlines appropriately grim for today’s date: Friday 13 November. The police have foiled another terrorism plot: the front three pages are rammed with images of explosives they’ve seized from a flat in North London. I flick through photos of bearded men, and move to find the crack in the tarmac beneath the platform sign, where the carriage door will open. My careful positioning means I can slide into my favourite spot before the carriage fills up; on the end of the row, where I can lean against the glass barrier. The rest of the carriage fills quickly, and I glance at the people still standing, guiltily relieved to see no one old, or obviously pregnant. Despite the flat shoes, my feet ache, thanks to standing by the filing cabinets for most of the day. I’m not supposed to do the filing. There’s a girl who comes in to photocopy property details and keep the cabinets in order, but she’s in Mallorca for a fortnight and from what I saw today she can’t have done any filing for weeks. I found residential mixed up with commercial, and lettings muddled up with sales, and I made the mistake of saying so.