âI assume youâre single, too.â
âSingle?â
âAs in unmarried.â
âOf course,â Dee laughed. ââ¦Why?â
Baxter hesitated, then finally decided to get round to the reason heâd approached her. He grimaced before relaying, âYou canât be married because thatâs part of the jobâgetting married.â
Getting married? Dee repeated the words to herself, as if by doing so, they might take on a new meaning, but they didnât. Then she took to staring at him as if he were completely and utterly mad.
He wanted her to marry him and she didnât even know his name!
BAXTER was just about to give up the search when he found the right girl.
She was sitting in a long corridor that connected underground platforms. He looked for the usual cardboard sign saying âhungry and homelessâ. There wasnât one. She sat, eyes on the ground, playing a flute, and left passers-by to choose whether to throw a coin in her instrument case or not.
But she was still one of them: the dispossessed, the destitute, the growing army of young people living on the streets. It might have shocked him, their numberâit was such a contrast to the affluence of central Londonâbut heâd been warned that the capital had changed in ten years. And, besides, heâd seen worse on the streets of Addis and Mogotu.
Later he was to question why heâd selected her. At the time it was first impressions. She was wearing an army-surplus jacket and torn jeans, but at least they looked reasonably clean. She was young, but not too young. The flute playing put her one up the scale from begging, but still suggested she might be desperate enough.
Or perhaps it was simply the dog.
Heâd seen several homeless people with dogs. Mostly men or couples, New Age travellersâwhatever they wereâwith some scrawny animal, perhaps in the hope of eliciting more sympathy than their merely human plight. But theyâd been mongrels, dogs cast on the streets like their owners.
This girlâs dog was something elseâa pure-bred retriever with a healthy coat and benign disposition; he barely opened a sleepy eye at the world passing by.
The girl didnât look up either, even when he drew near and threw a pound coin in the case. She might have nodded in acknowledgement of the offering, but her eyes remained fixed on the ground while her fingers continued to scale the instrument.
Baxter walked along, stopping only when heâd turned a corner. He was in two minds. He hadnât really caught a good look at her face, but what heâd seen of herâhair cropped short, and the three gold rings adorning one earlobeâwasnât exactly to his taste. She wasnât the sort of girl he would have dated, but that was scarcely relevant. At least she didnât look as if she might do nightshift as a hooker, which was more than could be said for some of the girls heâd considered that day.
He rehearsed what he was going to say before retracing his steps and coming to a halt before her.
Dee had a good memory for shoes. After all what else did she stare at all day? You didnât stare at the punters. They were nobody. Start looking at them and they might think they were somebody. Terry had told her that. He worked a pitch on the Northern Line, playing a guitarâbadly.
So it was the shoes she recognised. Brown laced boots of the walking kind. They had passed five minutes earlier, dropping a pound in her flute case. Now they were back, and she didnât think it was to admire her virtuoso performance.
She resisted taking a squint at their owner, and kept playing. It had happened before. Guys who fancied their chances. Guys who imagined she might like to make more money flat on her back. She kept playing, but this one stood where he was, waiting for her to acknowledge him.
When she finally looked up, she was surprised.
Sheâd expected some creepy-looking individual, and instead registered a tall man with brown hair streaked blond by an un-English sun, straight brows and an angular face that could have belonged to a male model.
The handsome face creased into an equally handsome smile that had Dee muttering âPhoney,â to herself even before he spoke.
âYouâre very good.â He nodded towards the flute.
âI know,â she responded, unimpressed.
He was disconcerted for a moment, then murmured dryly, âNot hampered by false modesty, either.â
She shrugged, dismissing his opinion, then, raising her flute back to her lips, waited for him to move on.