Free A Wayward Game by Pandora Witzmann

Sallow still lives, and then
feel my heart constrict as a curtain in one of the windows
twitches.
    For an instant
– little more than a second – I see a bleary image of a man who, at
this distance, looks like Sallow. He peers out of the window, and
across into the city. He’s dishevelled, as far as I can tell,
wearing a bathrobe, his hair rumpled with sleep. He should be at
work at this hour, but of course he could be ill, or hung over.
Given what I’ve heard about his leisure pursuits these days, I
guess it’s the latter, or some combination of the two.
    The curtain
falls back into place, and Sallow disappears.
    Don’t be
afraid. Fear can make you freeze. Over the years, I’ve taught
myself to overcome my fear – not by denying its existence, but by
acknowledging and then defying it. If you’re afraid of flying, get
on the plane anyway. If you’re afraid of water, jump into the pool,
and you’ll be so busy trying to swim that you’ll soon forget to be
afraid. The moment you stop moving, however, you’re done for. I
hitch my handbag up onto my shoulder and walk away, as nonchalantly
as I can. My trembling heart slows as I walk, and my fear fades,
but a nagging unease remains.
    I walk back
into the heart of Greenwich, and am surrounded by a sea of
pedestrians and roaring vehicles, and by the security of anonymity.
A gaggle of Italian teenagers, accompanied by a weary teacher, walk
by, talking loudly. A tour bus creeps past, and I catch the guide
talking about Maritime Greenwich. Everything is so commonplace, and
so comforting, that for a moment I wonder if I’m not just allowing
my nerves to get the better of me.
    I make my way
back to the tube station, and board the train that will take me
back to the centre of London. I sit down next to the window, and
feel my taut body beginning to relax. The train clatters through a
tunnel, and then emerges into the light once more, and I look back
across the Thames. Greenwich begins to recede into the distance,
but the ugly tower of Lexwood House remains visible for a long
time, glowering over the city, and watching me as I watch it.
     
~
     
    Lucy Lowry died
in a car accident four years ago. She has no particular connection
to this story, except insofar as she was, when alive, a reporter
for an obscure local newspaper called the South-West London Gazette
and, during her time there, mentored an aspiring young journalist
called Katherine Argyle.
    I stayed in
touch with her over the years, grateful for the help she had given
me, and when she died I went to the funeral, and then helped her
sister to clear out her rented one-bedroom flat in Kingston. There,
amongst all the usual effects of a single thirty-something working
woman – bank statements, old make-up, a jumble of shoes and
handbags, and contraceptive pills to delay the pregnancies that
would now never arrive at all – I found her staff ID card. Knowing
as I did by then that having a few aliases to hand can be a useful
thing, I stuffed it into my pocket and took it home with me. It
wasn’t an honest or honourable thing to do, I suppose, but I like
to think that Lucy would have understood. Sometimes, if you want
that big story, you have to resort to slightly underhand
methods.
    I glance down
at Lucy’s card. The photograph shows her as she was shortly before
her death, and she was not dissimilar, physically, to the woman I
have become. She could easily pass for my sister – or even,
perhaps, for me. Like me, she was brown-haired, indistinctive,
easily confused with another. Her hair was a touch lighter than
mine, and her face a little plumper, but no one, glancing at this
tiny photograph, would guess that the woman staring out from it was
not me.
    Or so I hope,
at least. I hold the card more firmly, and walk the remaining
distance along the quiet suburban street.
    Finding out
William Walsh’s identity and address proved relatively easy, of
course, but that is no guarantee of success. Perhaps he has