the number one to arbury

encounter

Here comes. The point of no return.

London has been merciless on me. Either that or I was just unfortunate to land on the wrong side of the city. I've never been able to stay in one spot for more than three days – at some point someone would come at me and tell me to get out of the place.

'Get outta here, you dirty bitch!'

Of course I'm dirty, sir, that's what comes from living on the road.

At least that was what I wanted to say to him, complete with a flying soda can to his bloody head. But it all happened in the wee hours, I didn't have the energy to go full blast on him.

That's the fifteenth eviction of the month. And I'm already tired of London.

So I park the car in front of a corner shop and walk inside. I have no idea where I'm going next, but I know I only have so much left stocked up in the car. As I go through the aisles, I pick up my starter pack: bread, crackers, tinned tuna, bottles of water. I heave the basket, heavy from all the water, up to the counter. The man behind the counter picks up the items and scans them, then takes the basket under the counter and leaves the items lying on top.

'Would you like to use a plastic bag?' he asks, thick with an accent I recognise.

'Sure.'

From under the table again he pulls out a large plastic bag and puts the items in, stacking them up like a puzzle.

I slip some cash over the countertop and he takes it, counts it in a blink of an eye and returns a twenty-pence change.

'Here you go,' he says, giving me the items in a bag and the change money wrapped in the receipt paper. 'Thank you.'

Just when I am about to step out, someone comes up to me from behind. A boy, my brother's age, with black undercut hair, its front spiked up in the style of apparently a cockatiel, and a seemingly maintained five o'clock shadow.

'Excuse me, Miss?'

'What is it?'

'Is the car in front of the shop yours?'

It's actually my uncle's – hell, I shouldn't even be driving yet. But that is not something to be given to strangers.

'Yes...what's the matter?'

'May I ask where you're heading?'

'Well, I'm not sure, most likely out of London.'

I close the door at him and run for the car's front door. With a click and a slam once I'm in, he's at a distance from me now. But he runs out the shop, towards the car, with the change in his hand and a small plastic bag hanging from the other.

He knocks at the window. I open it slightly, only so I can hear him without his hands getting inside and touching things.

'Could you take me to Cambridge?'

Lina Taylor. My sister's friend in Cambridge. Maybe I might as well head there. But this man, I don't know what he's up to. He seems hellbent on hitching my ride – not that there are a lot of cars driving across this place, but he's been so persistent in asking me to give him a ride.

'Well...where in Cambridge, exactly?'

'You know Trumpington?'

I just shrug. I have no idea where that is in Cambridge, all I know is that that's not where I've heard Lina lives.

'I'll tell you where to stop.'

He sets his bag in the footrest, under his legs, and swings the door in two times before it closes. I start up the car and set the map on my phone to take us to Cambridge – he'll tell me where to go next.