“And she turned up here, huh? Been talking to her father, I’d guess.”
“He’s retired now.”
“And you don’t think he keeps talking to all his copper mates who are still there?”
I stopped a moment, knowing Indie was right. He met them at the pub every Friday and Saturday night when their shifts would allow. I’d watched him intermittently for the last few years. He’d drive to the metro station. Get the train into town. A taxi or a lift back. Sometimes the last bus.
I could never hear what they talked about, watching from a distance. Some days I thought about driving a knife right into his back. I would fantasise about it. Other days I’d just stay in the shadows, because even then, I felt closer to her.
And here she was in our kitchen. A coffee mug wrapped between her hands as I awaited Indie’s instructions to get her to leave.
“When this lot clear out, get her out of here.”
I nodded.
Back inside, Sophie hadn’t moved. Her lower back rested against the steel worktop, her eyes fixed on the door and then me as I walked through it. The kitchen door was thick. Thick enough to slow a fire. And our voices. But I still wondered whether she’d heard anything.
“You’ve changed so much,” she said suddenly, her eyes diverting from me and into the coffee.
“You haven’t.”
She smiled faintly.
“Yeah, I have. I know it. I can feel it.”
“You still look like you, Soph.”
“You don’t.”
“This is me now.”
She stared a little more. Her eyes wandering over my piercings, the tattoos at my throat, part hidden by my beard. Across my folded arms, over the tattoos hidden under the sleeves of my hoodie, then down to the ink staining my hands.
“I probably should go,” she muttered, placing her cup behind her.
I nodded.
But that’s not what I wanted. I wanted her to stay. Just so I could look at her. So I could trace the angles of her face with my eyes. Just in case I never saw her again. My memories had never faded. She still had a few scattered freckles. Five or six. She’d always hated them. Seen them as a blemish. There was never anything about Sophie that was a blemish, though. Every freckle, and now every tiny line on her face.
“Come on, then.” I pulled the kitchen door open. “Take you out the fire exit. The bar will be busy.”
The car park was as full as I’d ever seen it. Bikes squeezed into every space there was. Pity we didn’t have turnout like this in times of peace.
Sophie led me to her car. Parked just to the side of the entrance. Mercedes C-class. Sparkling white.
She opened the driver’s door and then paused, glancing back at me.
“Nice to see you, Ryan.”
“You too, Soph.”
The car pulled out smoothly, purring as it glided down the road, the taillights growing smaller. Then another engine turnedover. A car further down the road stuttering to life, the white of headlights slicing through the dark before it rolled out after her.
Too quick.
My jaw tightened. Most people hesitated. Checked the road. Took a second. This one didn’t. It just followed.
Chapter Eleven
