She crossed a road. This made her a little dizzy; not the action in itself, but emerging from her memory to concentrate on doing so. It took effort, peering back into her past. It wasn't pleasant. For some reason an image of Jackson Lamb swam to mind, cloistered in his gloomy office, but it swam away again. Safely over the road, she risked a look back. Sean Donovan was not following. She hadn't really expected him to be. At the very least, she had not expected to be able to spot him doing so. He was part of her past, but other than knowing that much, she had little to go on. Of their actual lovemaking, if it could be so described, she had no memory. In those days, two drinks in, her immediate future became a blank slate, with everything scrawled thereon erased within moments of its appearance. He could have written her sonnets, or transcribed arias, and it would all be the same to her. But she knew that was never the case; that it had been fuck-buddy sex like always, because in those days anyone would have done, just so long as she had someone to cling to as she slid into the dark. Poems and operas were not required. A bottle would do the trick. But while it was true that there were many she'd forgotten, of whom she'd barely been aware even while they were inside her, Sean Donovan had at least been there in the morning once or twice. Fond of the drink himself, he'd done her the false kindness of pretending they were as bad as each other. Man, my head this morning. We pushed the boat out all right. But what for her had been blackout territory, for him had been a night on the tiles. She'd been a willing enough partner in this, because she was always willing back then. And if she'd been otherwise, Catherine wondered now, if she'd been sober, would they have stood a chance together? But there was no answering that. She wasn't far from a Tube station. From there she would make her way home, but first she took out her mobile and made a call. At the other end a phone went straight to voicemail. She didn't leave a message. Phone back in her bag, she continued up the road. A hundred yards behind her, a black van idled.
Real Tigers by Mick Herron (2016)
