Terry Kingston was fed up with prowling around in Hyde Park, like some kind of cottager, chasing after a group of middle-aged women having a picnic, for God’s sake. It seemed obvious to him that his client’s wife was on a girls’ night out, and a pretty tame one at that, rather than taking part in any clandestine extra-marital relations – for tonight at least. Terry was tired and wanted to go home, get back to painting his fusiliers, he needed to finish them before the convention in Nottingham the following weekend. It had been more difficult to observe the women since they’d moved from Diana’s fountain; there was no obvious place for him to sit here, plus it was getting late for him to still be in the park alone, he’d look like a ruddy pervert if he wasn’t careful. He’d ended up having to hide behind a tree near the cafe, meaning he couldn’t actually watch them any more, but he could see along the path to the bridge, would know if anyone came or went – and although he could no longer hear the detail of what they were saying, it was pretty obvious no-one was having much fun. What are women like, he thought to himself. Why oh why had he ever married one, he’d have been so much happier with just his pets and his pastimes for company. And then he felt a flash of guilt about Maria – she’d been good to him over the years, it wasn’t her fault how he felt about women – and this train of thought led him morosely to wondering about Eileen, smug in her new life in a suburb of Liverpool, and he debated whether he should try to get in touch with her. She must be getting on now, it would be too late one day. Perhaps he should at least try, he thought, she was his mother after all.
Terry shifted on the patch of grass he’d made his seat for the past hour and looked at his watch for perhaps the twenty-fifth time. He’d been specifically told to wait all evening to see where she went afterwards. His client was convinced that she wouldn’t be coming straight home as she’d said – she always got in so late from her supposed girls’ nights out these days – and so Terry was stuck here. It was tedious, normally he wouldn’t take on a domestic job, creeping around in the bloomin’ bushes like this, but he was doing it partly as a favour, plus his client was very hard to say no to.
The dark was descending quickly now, and what little of The Serpentine he could see streaming away towards the bridge appeared blackly thick, like liquid mud. There was hardly anyone around – just a wiry, middle-aged woman with over-sized headphones and well-defined muscles who jogged elegantly past, her breath effortless, like a Kenyan marathon runner’s; and twenty minutes later a couple walking along the bank arm in arm, chatting comfortably, as if they were still in love.
Terry was sleepy. He rested his head against the tree and felt himself almost dozing off in the lazy summer air. He was tired of listening to all the bitching and moaning, glad he couldn’t make out the exact words – apart from the occasional louder one every now and then (murder he was sure was one, which had woken him up, and surely rape another). And then it went quiet suddenly, as though someone had told them to shush. He yawned. His eyelids started to stretch involuntarily downwards, his long lashes fluttering indecisively, as though debating whether or not to succumb to sleep – and then he flicked them up again, briskly. He’d been startled by a scream; well, not a scream exactly, more of an anguished roar, as if an animal had grabbed a woman’s baby perhaps, and was running off with it. He shrank into the shadows as a woman came careering past, sobbing. He watched as she threw herself down by the side of The Serpentine, her identity unclear in the darkness, and despite himself he felt a pang of sympathy as she knelt at the water’s edge and keened, head between her knees. What the bloody hell was going on? He thought he’d been hired simply to find out if his client’s wife was having an affair, and now it seemed he’d stumbled into a potentially more explosive situation.
Terry stood up and hopped from side to side, like a little boy who needs the toilet, trying to decide what to do. He sat down again, and waited. After a few minutes, he heard voices coming closer to him, and he shrank back into the bushes as he heard one of them slurring, ‘My God, I can’t deal with any more of this tonight, let’s just leave her to it.’
‘But d’you think she’s OK?’ said another voice, timid, anxious-sounding. ‘She’s hysterical … how’s she going to get home?’
A third voice cut in then. ‘That’s up to her. I really am past caring.’
‘But she’s right by the water,’ the timid voice said. ‘And she’s drunk …’
‘She’ll be fine,’ said the first voice. ‘And anyway, I’ve just about had enough for one night. If she does fall in she can bloody drown for all I care.’
The timid voice went to object, but the first voice said, ‘NO. Let’s go, she’ll be fine, there are loads of cabs up on the bridge. I need to get home now, I just can’t cope with anything else this evening. It’s all too awful.’
Terry pressed back into the undergrowth as the women started leaving. He counted five of them – although one was quite a long way in front, walking fast, as though she couldn’t wait to get away – but it was too dark to be sure from here whether his target was amongst them. Perhaps it was her who’d run off into the night – he wouldn’t put it past her, he’d always known she had some kind of screw loose, like most women. One of the group seemed to be limping, and another two were carting an enormous picnic basket and carrying folding chairs across their backs, like bows and arrows. They were nearly at the bridge now and he could see the outlines of four of them, a good hundred yards from him. It was probably safe for him to start following now. He hesitated again. Maybe he should double-check it wasn’t his target down by the water after all, just in case – his client would give him hell if he lost her, and it would only take a minute … but there again he might lose the others then, up on the road. Oh God, what should he do? After a few more agonised seconds Terry finally made up his mind, and he came out from his hiding place, glanced swiftly left and right, and moved carefully along the shadows.