Extract From Notebook 4
I felt sorry for you on the bus this morning, Nell. I think you thought the rather large man sitting next to you was me. But I was farther back, out of sight.
I’ve been following you for a while now, longer than you know.
Months, not weeks. I remember the day it began.
You came out of the building where you work and I was there, right in front of you.
I could afford to take risks back then. Now I wait in the shadows.
I may have learned how to make myself invisible, but I prefer to be careful.
That day, the day it began, I followed you all the way to the bus stop.
As you passed the entrance to the underground station, you took a copy of the free newspaper and on the bus, once you’d read the main articles, you tackled the crossword, not the cryptic one, the easy one.
I didn’t think any less of you for it, you have to be of a certain mind-set to enjoy cryptic crosswords.
It has nothing to do with intelligence. Although, when you got stuck on “volley of gunfire” in five letters, I was tempted to lean over—I was sitting behind you—and tell you the answer.
I could have. You would have taken it well, I know that, and you would have thanked me for my help.
I also know that as you thanked me, you would barely have given me a second glance, not from a lack of manners but because you avoid looking closely at people in case they look too closely back at you. Because you have secrets, Nell.
In the event, you finished the crossword in under ten minutes, then turned to the back page and completed the one there in equal time. I like that you try to improve your mind, rather than sitting with your earphones in, your head bent over your mobile, like others do.
Not that it changes anything. We won’t be doing crosswords when I kill you.