The fog was spreading its cool, damp presence like a living creature, clinging to everything and making the sidewalks glisten. I was an hour from home on one of my nighttime prowls around the city, and I’d more or less decided to tell Nat about my breaking and entering and the files I’d stolen. I was walking along the Embarcadero, near the bow-and-arrow sculpture no one seems to know the name of, enjoying the smell of the damp and salty fog moving off the Bay. At first I just had a prickling sort of awareness of someone else nearby. I looked around casually, because I’m a city girl and it’s smart to be vigilant. I didn’t see anyone, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. As I walked on, although I couldn’t hear them, I could almost feel footsteps behind me.
By the time I was half a block from home, I’d gradually picked up the pace until I felt like one of those race walkers—heel-toe, heel-toe, hips wiggling and elbows flying—but I still hadn’t seen anyone. My nerve broke. I ran up my front steps, fumbled with my key, and slammed the door behind me. I leaned against it for a few seconds to catch my breath and took the inside stairs two at a time. I crossed the front room in the dark and sidled up against the closest window frame. Keeping to one side, I peered down onto the street, almost convinced I’d imagined the whole thing, but as I watched, someone crossed the street and stood in a doorway opposite. He was in deep shadow, his head covered by a hoodie and his hands stuffed in the pockets of a hip-length padded jacket. Next door, I could see Matthew’s legs and bottom half, wrapped tightly in his duvet, emerging from the doorway of Bonbons Chocolat. As I watched, he shifted and rolled over. My shadow didn’t move. I pulled back, leaned against the wall, and tried to catch my breath.
I peered down onto the street again, but the doorway opposite was empty. He was either standing in Aromas’ doorway underneath my perch, or he’d left. It was deeply unsettling to think of him loitering below me, but if he meant harm, I couldn’t leave Matthew out there alone.
Out of habit, when I walked alone at night I carried my keys poking through my fingers like a knuckle-duster, which Nat assured me was called brass knuckles, but sterner methods seemed to be called for. I raced through the apartment and dug out my gun—unfortunately, I still hadn’t taken the marksmanship course that went with it—from its box in my bedroom closet. I stuck it in the back waistband of my jeans, where I hoped it wouldn’t go off accidentally and shoot me in the backside. I took it out and checked the safety again, then replaced it. When on earth had I become a person who took a gun to a—a brass knuckle fight? When had I become a person who took a gun anywhere? I opened my outside door as stealthily as I could and looked in both directions, but I saw no one except for Matthew.
I approached his comforter warily. “Hey, Matthew,” I whispered.
He didn’t move and I heard nothing, just the residue of silence, of something that had been there, and now wasn’t.
“Matthew?”
He shot upright, his eyes wide, and thrashed around in the comforter cocoon until he freed his arms. “Thief! Thief! Thief!” He was shouting
“No, not a thief. It’s just me. It’s Theo, from the soap store.”
I tried to shush him with some “calm down” motions of my arms, which he misread as an invitation to continue fortissimo, because, dear God, he was still shouting. “Theo! Theo! Theo!” He started to pant and I had just enough time to realize I should have left him to sleep peacefully when I heard the pad of running footsteps fading in the distance.
Matthew wouldn’t come indoors, even into the garage, but I was finally able to persuade him to make a nest of his comforter in the tiny paved yard behind Aromas. He insisted on bringing his shopping cart, too. The space was clearly deficient in some way because he wasn’t happy about it, inclined to grumble about thieves, the rattle of the cans in the bottom of his shopping cart, sounding like stage thunder rolling across the dark and empty gardens. I took him a mug of hot milk and a cheese sandwich, and he eventually settled down. He drank the milk and stuck the sandwich in one of the grimy plastic bags hanging from the rope round his waist, and all I could do was hope he didn’t plan to eat it.
I went upstairs. Lucy’s nails clicked on the hardwood as she made her way down the hallway. She waddled in my direction only to discover that, for the umpteenth time in our life together, I had come home without dog treats. She sniffed my hands and huffed her disappointment at me before turning and heading back to bed. I lay on the bed next to her and stared at the ceiling.
My first thought, as always, was for the relentless British tabloid press. A single photo of me on a San Francisco street would blow my carefully crafted new life to smithereens. Paparazzi would be dropping out of trees and camping out on my doorstep to capture the first photos of me since my “mysterious” disappearance from London more than a year before. I resented being afraid, but I was even more puzzled. A nighttime pursuit made no sense. Next, I thought of Sergei Viktor Wolf, because Grandfather had implied that his appearance could mean some sort of danger for me. I didn’t think he’d be able to produce the light, running footsteps I’d heard, carrying his overweight. Besides, if Grandfather had been in touch with him, he’d have no more reason to follow me.
None of my thoughts were conducive to getting any sleep.
Over the next couple of days, with my nerves set on hypervigilant, I thought I identified two men, one slightly taller than the other, and a woman. They wore a variety of hats and scarves, but they were at a disadvantage, since my daytime routine was basically spent in the Gardens, where they couldn’t follow, and on the half block between Aromas and The Coffee, which didn’t leave them much scope for staying incognito. All the same, they didn’t come close enough for me to get a good look at their faces, and they had a talent for melting away if I walked in their direction. Being followed wasn’t a new experience for me, so I thought I knew the difference between seeing someone from the neighborhood a little more often than usual, and pursuit by a stranger. It used to happen a lot but now, when I was living anonymously so far from home, it shouldn’t be happening at all.
I was forced to rethink my assumptions. Tabloid photographers were basically hit-and-run artists and wouldn’t be bothered to follow me for longer than it took to capture a few frames of me looking furtive and anxious, which, frankly, they could achieve anytime they watched me for more than five minutes. So who were they? And, equally important, what did they want? My next guess, that it had something to do with the lawsuit against Aromas, seemed all too possible, and I should probably have thought of that first. Just because Katrina was dead didn’t mean the lawsuit had died with her, and I’d heard nothing, one way or the other. Did private investigators get hired over slip-and-fall lawsuits? And was this how Katrina had discovered what she’d discovered about my life? But if Katrina had hired him, wouldn’t the contract have ended with her death? I’d believed the lawsuit was a personal vendetta, but was the property developer, Amos Noble, somehow involved?
And what could I do about it? My shadow, or shadows, hadn’t threatened me, or even come close to me. And in broad daylight on a busy city street, it seemed somehow embarrassing to make elaborate, or indeed any, preparations for self-defense.
I was wary of telling Grandfather. I was almost sure he wouldn’t think I was imagining ways to include myself in the family business, but it was enough to make me hesitate. He’d just begun to think I was resourceful and brave; it hurt me to think of disappointing him. I couldn’t confide in anyone else. Any sensible person—even Nat—would insist I report it to the police, who were certain to ask me why I thought I was being followed. Explaining without telling them I was living here under an alias would be complicated. I thought of consulting Inspector Lichlyter, who at least knew who I was, but the same lack of concrete evidence applied—no one had approached me, or tried to run me over, or left threatening notes.
But I gave up my late night walks.