The Runaway Read Free Page A

would never let her down.
    However, most drivers on the Great West Road at eight-thirty on that November morning didn’t see Stella Darnell lingering with her dog by the subway railings. And those who had, quickly forgot.
    Stella had no recollection of how she found herself shivering in the crisp cold beside the Great West Road. She tugged the dog away from the railings, intending to lead him back to the house. This brought the animal to life and with huge force he dragged her away from Rose Gardens North where she lived and down the ramp to the subway.
    â€˜Heel!’ She deepened her tone in imitation of Terry Darnell, but the dog wasn’t fooled and propelled her onwards. Stella careered towards the mouth of the tunnel.
    The rumble of engines bounced off blue-tiled walls either side of the ramp. Confused by the cacophony of sound that seemed to come from all around her, and intent on keeping hold of the lead, Stella forgot the safety drill.
    On their walks Terry would teach his daughter to be a detective. Together they spotted clues and he encouraged her to draw conclusions. He taught her to truly observe: to note minor changes in the street, the colours of cars; to pick up the slightest nuance in behaviour. When they were going into the subway it was Stella’s job to check the mirror above the tunnel. Not a proper mirror, it was a circular sheet of metal tarnished with starbursts of oxidation like lichen, angled to reflect the inside of the subway. Relishing her task, Stella would crane up to make out the pools of bleak light drifting from lamps in the tunnel ceiling between the tiny encrustations on the metal. She would then ‘report in’ on what she could see to her dad. Never did it occur to her that he could see perfectly well for himself.
    If Stella didn’t see the square of light at the end of the tunnel, it meant someone was there blocking it out. She must hold tightly to Terry’s hand and keep close to him all the way through. There was no question of danger, because Terry Darnell was a policeman and he caught criminals. If the person was a criminal, then Stella believed her dad would catch him and take him to Hammersmith Police Station. So far – to her disappointment – this had not happened.
    If the mirror reflected the lamps in the tunnel and she could see the square of light, Stella could run in all by herself.
    Now, chasing along with the dog, Stella didn’t do the check. Mindful only of the leather lead cutting into her palms, she plunged into the gloom of the underground passage, her footsteps drowned by the engines above.
    *
    In the glare of the low autumn sunlight, the figure close by the embankment wall might have appeared, to a casual observer, insubstantial – perhaps a blackened post or a stain on the high brick wall discoloured by two centuries of mud and slime. The ‘stain’ moved; it was a person. A tall woman in a long black coat, dressed inappropriately for the muddy shoreline in black boots with platform heels. Her glossy dark hair was twisted up into a bun and this, together with a somewhat obdurate expression, gave her a look of overarching authority, as if she might stop the receding tide should she wish to.
    Sparks of light flickered on the Thames as a breeze chased ripples over its surface. Trees on the far bank, a display of reds, golds, ambers and yellows, reflected a kaleidoscope of colours in the water. The woman stood in the lee of a moored barge in a suntrap. The bright winter light showed a fine-boned beauty that the years would only refine.
    Isabel Ramsay shut her eyes and, feeling the warmth of the sun on her cheeks, let herself believe it was summer, her favourite season and the only time she felt alive.
    A bird crossed her sightline, the whirring of its wings loud in the immediate quiet. She traced its flight towards Barnes Bridge, leaning slightly in the direction it had taken as if she might fly after it. The bird was larger