I See You(10)

‘You’ve been great,’ she told Kelly, ‘it’s the least I can do.’

‘Save the compliments for when we find the guy who stole your keys,’ Kelly had said, privately thinking the chances were slim. She’d been coming to the end of a month-long secondment to the Dip Squad when the job came in, and she’d taken to Cathy Tanning immediately.

‘It’s my fault,’ the woman had said, as soon as Kelly had introduced herself. ‘I work such long hours, and my journey home is so long, it’s too tempting to go to sleep. It never occurred to me someone would take advantage of it.’

Kelly thought Cathy Tanning had got away lightly. The offender had rifled through her bag while she leaned against the wall of the carriage, fast asleep, but he hadn’t found her wallet, zipped into a separate compartment, or her phone, tucked into another. Instead he’d pulled out her keys.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Kelly had reassured her. ‘You have every right to grab forty winks on your way home.’ Kelly had filled out a crime report and seized the CCTV, and when she’d picked up the call from the press office later that day, Cathy had seemed like the obvious choice for an Underground crime poster girl. Kelly scanned the copy for her own quote, noticing she’d been referred to as DC rather than PC. That would piss off a few people at work.

Cathy is just one of the hundreds of commuters and tourists who fall victim each year to thefts from bags and coat pockets. We would urge passengers to be extra-vigilant and to report anything suspicious to a British Transport Police officer.

Kelly carefully cut out the article for Cathy, and sent her a text message to thank her once again for helping out. Her job phone was switched off in her locker at work, but she’d written down her personal mobile number in case Cathy needed to get hold of her.

Kelly was still in half-blues – a civvy fleece pulled over a white shirt denuded of its tie and epaulettes – and she bent down to unlace her boots. Some of her old school friends were going out for drinks and had invited Kelly to join them, but she was up at five in the morning and there was no fun in being sober on a Friday night. Toast, Netflix, tea and bed, she thought. Rock and roll.

Her phone rang and she brightened when she saw her sister’s name flash up on the screen.

‘Hey, how are you? I haven’t spoken to you in ages!’

‘Sorry, you know what it’s like. Listen, I’ve found the perfect thing for Mum’s Christmas present, but it’s a bit more than we’d usually spend – do you want to come in with us?’

‘Sure. What is it?’ Kelly kicked off one boot, then the other, only half listening to her twin sister’s description of the vase she’d seen at a craft fair. They were halfway through November; it was weeks until Christmas. Kelly suspected she had been born without the shopping gene, always leaving things to the last minute and secretly enjoying the fevered atmosphere in the malls on Christmas Eve, filled with harassed men panic-buying over-priced perfume and lingerie.

‘How are the boys?’ she interrupted, when it was obvious Lexi was about to move on to suggest presents for the rest of the family.

‘They’re great. Well, a pain in the neck, half the time, obviously, but great. Alfie’s settled in to school brilliantly, and Fergus seems to have a good time at nursery, judging by the state of his clothes at the end of the day.’

Kelly laughed. ‘I miss them.’ Lexi and her husband Stuart were only in St Albans, but Kelly didn’t see them nearly as much as she’d like.

‘So come over!’

‘I will, I promise, as soon as I get some time off. I’ll check my duties and text you some dates. Maybe Sunday lunch sometime?’ Lexi’s roasts were legendary. ‘I think I’ve got a few rest days together at the start of December, if you don’t mind me crashing on your sofa?’

‘Brilliant. The boys love it when you stay over. Although not the third – I’ve got a reunion to go to.’

The almost imperceptible hesitation, and Lexi’s subsequent deliberately casual tone told Kelly precisely what the reunion was for, and where it would be held.

‘A reunion at Durham?’

There was silence at the other end of the phone, and Kelly imagined her sister nodding, her jaw jutting forward the way it always did in anticipation of an argument.

‘Freshers of 2005,’ Lexi said brightly. ‘I doubt I’ll recognise half of them, although of course I’m still in touch with Abbie and Dan, and I see Moshy from time to time. I can’t believe it’s been ten years, it feels like ten minutes. Mind you—’

‘Lexi!’

Her sister stopped talking, and Kelly tried to find the right words.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t it …’ she screwed up her eyes, wishing she was having this conversation in person, ‘bring everything up?’ She sat forward, on the edge of the chair, and waited for her sister to speak. She touched the half heart at her throat, suspended on its silver thread, and wondered if Lexi still wore hers. They’d bought them that autumn, just before they went off to uni. Kelly down to Brighton, and Lexi to Durham. It was the first time they’d been apart for longer than a night or two since they’d been born.

When Lexi eventually answered, it was in the same measured tone she had always used with her sister. ‘There’s nothing to bring up, Kelly. What happened, happened. I can’t change it, but it doesn’t have to define me.’ Lexi had always been the calm one, the sensible one. The two sisters were theoretically identical, but no one had ever struggled to tell them apart. They had the same squared-off chin, the same narrow nose and dark brown eyes, but where Lexi’s face was relaxed and easy-going, Kelly’s was stressed and short-tempered. They had tried to switch places many times as children, but no one who knew them was ever fooled.