Read Online The Stranger on the Train by Abbie Taylor - Free Book Online Page A

carpet.
    â€œHello,” he said into it in his deep voice.
    The man on the other end was obviously still there, because Detective Hill, after listening for a moment, spoke again. Emma was still too flustered to hear much of the conversation, apart from the occasional “Mmm” and “I see.”
    When Detective Hill had hung up, he said to Lindsay: “Mr. Townsend was planning to drop the bags here this evening. Apparently he’ll be cycling past on his way home from work. I’ve told him we’d prefer it if he dropped them at the station.”
    Lindsay was nodding. But Emma’s brain was starting to work again. How much had this Rafe person seen? Had he seen Antonia? Had he noticed something about her that might identify her?
    â€œNo,” she interrupted. “Can’t he bring the bags here? I want to talk to him. I want to meet him properly.”
    â€œIt might be better to let us take care of it,” Lindsay advised. “We can take his statement at the police station.”
    â€œI want to hear what he says,” Emma insisted. “He was there. He saw Ritchie. You ask him. He saw what happened, he’ll tell you.”
    Lindsay hesitated. She looked at Detective Hill, who was busy cleaning something out from under his thumbnail. He shrugged.
    â€œAll the same to me,” he said. “We can do the statement here.”
    â€œYou’re sure about this?” Lindsay asked Emma. “You’re sure you’re in a fit state to have this man come here?”
    â€œI am. I want to see him. I want to hear what he says.”
    Lindsay phoned Mr. Townsend back. They agreed between them that he should call at the flat in twenty minutes.
    While waiting for Rafe Townsend to arrive, Emma pushed back the sliding glass door to the balcony and went out for some air. She walked up and down, pacing and re-pacing the three steps it took to go from one end of the balcony to the other. The balconies of the tower block opposite bulged with jumble: drying clothes, pushchairs, strings fluttering with flags. Windows, hundreds of them, studded the block, some blacked out with tinfoil or paper, like missing teeth in a row of mouths.
    Imagine, Emma kept thinking. Imagine if this Rafe Townsend had seen Antonia. Recognized her, even.
    â€œOh, yes,” he might say to the police. “We’re regular travelers, that woman and me. I see her most days. She gets off every evening at Tower Hill.”
    And there was another thing she kept thinking. Now they’ll have to believe me . For some reason, she just couldn’t shake the feeling that the police were suspicious of her. As though they didn’t believe her version of what had happened. They were trying to get CCTV footage, they said, that would show Ritchie getting trapped on the train. But so far they’d had problems finding the film. “Did anyone else see what happened?” Detective Hill had kept asking her. “Did anyone at all see you with Ritchie?” It was driving her mad. Well, now she had a witness. They’d have to stop all the endless, pointless questions and get on with looking for Ritchie properly.
    The intercom buzzer sounded. Emma stopped her pacing and rushed to the sliding door. Voices swelled from inside the flat.
    â€œ. . . good of you to come . . .”
    â€œ. . . awful. I can’t believe . . .”
    Quickly, Emma stepped through the door. Detective Hill was standing in the middle of the sitting room, talking to a dark-haired man in a red T-shirt. Rafe Townsend, Emma presumed. She stared hard at him, trying to figure out what kind of a witness he might make. Whether he looked the type to be observant. Her first thought was how young he looked. She’d had an impression in the tube station of a much older man. This person was about her own age, lean and tanned. He wasn’t as tall as Detective Hill, but that didn’t mean he still