Matias Gori stood in the shadows of the doorway of the long-since closed Zimbabwean High Commission, underneath a faded poster advertising trips to the Victoria Falls, and watched Monica Hartson as she walked down the front steps of Charing Cross police station and headed for the Strand. It was approaching rush-hour and the streets were crowded, so her progress was slow and Gori was able to stay close, no more than five or six yards behind her, without any danger of being detected.
Hartson then crossed the Strand, picked up a free newspaper and ducked inside Charing Cross train station. Dropping a little further behind, Gori watched her buy a coffee before heading down into the Tube. Realising that he didn’t have a ticket, he followed her down the escalator and jogged over to the nearest machine. Grabbing a handful of change from his jacket pocket, he pushed in front of a group of Chinese tourists and dropped enough coins in the slot to get a standard single. He rushed through the barriers just in time to see the top of Hartson’s head disappearing down another escalator, heading for the Northern Line. Skipping down into the bowels of the Tube station, he watched her turn right at the bottom of the escalator, stepping on to the platform for trains heading north. Slowly, he counted to five and followed.
The platform was full, but not packed, with sweaty, tired and frustrated-looking travellers. A voice on the tannoy was apologising about interruptions to the service, caused by signalling problems, and the electronic board was signalling a four-minute wait for the next train. Faced with a sea of blank faces, Gori made his way carefully down the platform, always moving, never making eye contact. He found her about three-quarters of the way along, standing just behind the yellow line, sipping her coffee and staring at a poster advertising Errazuriz Chardonnay. The board now showed two minutes until the next train. Over the tannoy came an announcement about planned engineering works on the Circle Line. Keeping out of her line of vision, Gori walked past Hartson, to the end of the platform, placing himself behind a pair of women intently studying a copy of the A-Z.
The next train was due. Gori walked cautiously back along the platform until he was standing about two feet behind Hartson and slightly to her left, on the opposite side of her from where the train would arrive. He could hear it now steadily getting closer, until there was a sudden blast of air and the harsh clatter of metal on metal as it emerged from the tunnel. As she looked up, Gori stepped forward. The train was halfway into the station now and he could see the driver yawning in his cab. Leaning forward, he gave her a firm shove in the small of the back as he walked past. Without making a sound, she involuntarily stepped over the yellow line and off the edge of the platform, disappearing under the front wheels with the gentlest of thuds.
It all happened so quickly. No one on the platform seemed to notice. Not breaking his stride, Gori thought he caught a whiff of burning meat, as if you were passing a kebab shop, but quickly dismissed the idea. Doubtless it was just his imagination.
By the time it came to a halt the train was fully inside the station. The doors opened as normal and he heard the usual recorded message: Let passengers off the train first, please! Keeping a bored, vaguely annoyed look on his face, he allowed himself to be swallowed up by the disembarking travellers heading for the exit. Somewhere behind him an alarm sounded. This being London, however, no one paid it any heed. Everyone kept shuffling forward. A couple of Tube workers in luminous orange jackets appeared on the platform, their walkie-talkie radios cracking with static. Gori watched as they passed to his left, fighting their way through the crowd towards the driver.
It took maybe another minute for Gori to get off the platform and move into a tunnel that connected the different underground lines. Finally, the crowd began to thin and he was able to resume a normal walking pace. At the bottom of a set of escalators, he checked a copy of the Tube map and came to a decision as to where he wanted to go next. As luck would have it, he reached the Bakerloo Line just in time to jump on a train for Willesden Junction.
Barely ten minutes later, Matias stepped out of Edgware Road station. The sun was still strong and he felt thirsty. Ignoring the man selling the Big Issue outside the station entrance, he turned right, heading north. Entering the first pub he came to, he ordered a bottle of Heineken Export. When it arrived, he drank more than half of it in one go. It tasted good.