Free Fall Girl by Toni Jordan

I’ll say that for him. It’s been a while since I’ve seen parking karma that good.’
    â€˜Right,’ I say. I am inside the Zoology building, with my mobile. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll make a note.’
    In the last twenty minutes of Daniel’s drive, Anders will have entered the Zoology building by the front door. He is wearing the uniform of the university’s Property and Campus Services Division, who really should deadlock their storage cupboards. Anders wears steel-capped boots and a set of keys hangs off his belt loop. The navy and fluorescent-yellow shirt is slightly tight around his chest; the trouser legs were let down by Aunt Ava very late last night but are still a little short. Anders carries a long thin aluminium strip and walks with the hip roll of someone who has not much to do and all day to do it. He looks sleepy but works fast. Using a tool from his collection, he will open the dinky locks on two glass display cabinets in the building’s foyer. Students and academics will walk back and forth past him—they will not give him a second glance.
    Anders does not suffer from nerves and has no fear of discovery. He knows the magic power of the uniform, a lesson his father taught him; for one whole year when my Uncle Syd was young, before security tags on clothing, he made a good living wheeling racks of expensive frocks right out the front door of department stores. Not only are people in uniform never questioned, but no one ever looks at their faces. To make doubly sure of his anonymity and freedom to do as he pleases, and also in cases where a uniform is not appropriate, Anders knows to carry a clipboard and pen.
    The first display cabinet he will have opened is where the department displays its publications, showing off its successes to visitors and students and staff. Zoology members in the news , it says. White scientific papers are displayed there, glued onto blue cardboard. He will have removed two and replaced them with papers that look identical except that the lead researcher is now Dr Ella Canfield. They cannot be overlooked, unless you have seen them a hundred times, in which case they look the same as they always have.
    The second cabinet is the building directory, a wide panel with dozens of flat aluminium strips bearing names and room numbers etched in black. There are plenty of empty spaces and into one of them he will have slid the strip he brought from home, with my name and room number. While he does this, he will be noisy and showy, banging the glass with the strip. When he walks out he will stomp his feet. This, too, is learned. Bystanders mistrust anyone who acts furtive. As he steps out the front door, he will turn to the left to wait at the back of the building for the precise moment to undo his work. As he turns, if our timing is correct, he will see Daniel Metcalf walking up the slope.
    When Daniel reaches the door, he will hold it open for a woman coming out. She is in her early fifties but could pass for younger. She is wearing a tailored tweed suit, black pumps, black glasses suspended around her neck by a chain. The woman will smile at him and flutter her eyes. He will smile back. There—a connection is made. He is a stranger here, uncertain, perhaps looking down from time to time to check a map of the university that he holds in his hand. She belongs here, knows her way around. It is natural that she will speak.
    â€˜Can I help you?’ she will say. She could be the Dean’s secretary or an administrator, but she is not.
    â€˜I’m looking for Ella Canfield,’ Daniel will say.
    â€˜Oh,’ Ruby will say. For this job, she is our steerer. It is her task to appear unconnected but in reality steer the mark towards me. She will give a sniff as if she knows me well but thinks me beneath her, and she might gesture Daniel along the corridor. ‘Dr Canfield. If she’s not in the lab borrowing equipment or in the field,