The familiar figure was crossing at the pedestrian lights when Danny Flynn first spotted it. Standing outside the patisserie shop, looking in, he had been using the window as a mirror, to try to spot the man who he knew was following him. Flynn had been standing there for at least five minutes, stock still except for the occasional slight shifting of weight from one foot to the other. His eyes, however, had flickered ceaselessly from left to right across the glass, desperately trying to identify the stalker, until suddenly they had collided with the reflection of Detective Sergeant Fox. It wasn’t the face that he recognized – that was largely in shadow – but the overall shape and size of his body and the way he carried it. You don’t forget the person who deprived you of your freedom.
He resisted the temptation to jerk round and check he hadn’t been deceived. Instead, he watched the man’s reflection move across the road and turn right along the opposite pavement. Only then did he turn his head briefly to satisfy himself that he was correct, that the man who had been following him in the shadows was none other than that plain-clothes policeman who had entered that café on that terrible afternoon. He hadn’t realized who he was at the time, in fact he’d barely noticed him come in and sit down. The bloody manager had been pissing him off. The capuccino he’d ordered had been luke warm, and there’d been dead weavils on the sandwich. But the manager insisted they were stray poppy seeds. Danny had lost his rag at that point. Not that he was later able to remember exactly what happened, but he did remember the pain as the copper bent his arm around his back and shouted at him to calm down. He’d ended up in Littlemore Hospital for six weeks as a result, so of course he could remember Detective Sergeant Fox.
Danny turned back towards the window. He watched with mounting anxiety as Fox’s reflection stopped outside the music shop. Flynn had gazed into that window many times himself, admiring the guitars and drum kits. But how much could the policeman see in this light? Was he too using a shop window as a mirror? Was he watching him watching him? Inside Flynn’s head the voice was persistent now and urgent. Run it was saying. Run while you can. Before it’s too late. Run. But Flynn was rooted to the pavement. Because overriding all was the fear that if he moved first, if he, Danny Flynn, started to walk or run, then the policeman would see him, and follow him again, flitting in and out of the shadows, remorselessly, relentlessly, back to his flat, back to his home. And who knew what he would do then?
Quite suddenly, Fox moved on. He glanced briefly at the posters in the video shop window, walked a few paces further, then turned right and disappeared out of sight down James Street. Flynn emitted a gulp – but not of relief. The policeman had gone, yes, but where exactly had he gone? James Street was Danny’s street. His address was technically Iffley Road, but the house in which he lived stood on the corner, and from his second floor window at the back he could – and often did – look right down James Street until it bent to the left out of sight. If he was in the Cowley Road, he always walked up James Street to get home. James Street was his patch. But what if the policeman was waiting? In the shadows behind a hedge. Or suppose he had taken up a position of surveillance in one of the upper rooms? Danny was still using the shop window as a mirror, watching the corner of James Street in case Fox should retrace his tracks, but his heavy breathing was steaming up the glass. He knew he had to get home. If he could just get home, then he would be all right. He could lock himself in, and he would be safe. He looked at his watch, and decided to wait two more minutes. When they had elapsed – and the large policeman not reappeared – he took three deep breaths, and set off across the road. An oncoming car had to brake sharply, but he didn’t notice. Once over the road, he turned left as Fox had done, walked as far as Marston Street, and stopped. Then, he took another deep breath, turned right, and plunged fatefully into the darkness of Marston Street.