The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows: A gripping thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat

‘What?’ Sophie asked.

‘Nothing.’

Together in the cavernous reception area, they signed in. All brown, white and black marble harked back to a time when London was swinging and fabulous. Now, rendered fashionable again by a passion for all things mid-century, George reflected. If she could only afford her own place, she might go for that retro-look too. In fact, she’d settle for bloody Ikea if it came to it. As long as it was hers.

High above the city, George and Sophie sat in comfortable armchairs. Biscuits artfully arranged on a plate. Herbal tea in hand-painted mugs. They were facing a dumpy middle-aged project worker called Graham Tokár. He oozed well-meaning and an energy that almost audibly crackled, directed, quite plainly, towards Sophie. Had Sophie at some juncture also offered him a fuck in a pub over a burger, George wondered?

‘So, I’ve told George, here, about the charity funding initiatives that lessen the poverty and social exclusion of the Roma,’ Sophie said.

‘That’s right,’ Graham said, angling his body towards George but not tearing his gaze from Sophie’s eyes. ‘Musical institutes. Education grants. Lobbying European parliament for change. We work with the poorest people in some of the most financially stagnant and racist environments in Europe.’ He finally looked at George. The spark had vanished. ‘And many of the staff, Europe-wide, are Roma too. Like me. I’ve got a Scottish mother, but a Hungarian Roma dad.’

George looked down at her notes. She followed the line of her pad to Graham Tokár’s shoes. He had a piece of chewing gum stuck to the heel of his left foot. This much, she could see, as he crossed his legs. In his right ear, he wore a small, silver sleeper. He was clearly an articulate and interesting man, but she hated his earring. His ears were wrong.

‘You know you’ve got an infection in your piercing,’ she said, pointing to the inflamed flesh of his earlobe.

He touched his ear self-consciously. George made a mental note not to shake his hand when they left.

‘Have I?’ he asked, face flushing red right up to his hairline where his greying hair had started to thin. ‘Oh, well, did Sophie tell you about—?’

‘Look,’ said George, blinking hard. Checking her phone. No messages from the police about her stolen laptop. Shit. ‘I’m a criminologist. I’m doing research into trafficking. Not the Roma. Sophie asked me to come here today, and it’s nice of you.’ She rammed a biscuit hastily into her mouth. ‘And these biscuits are great.’ Speaking with her mouth full. ‘But to be honest, I can’t see the point—’

George could feel her colleague’s eyes boring into the side of her head. She felt instinctively that both Sophie and this charity project worker thought her an outrageous arsehole. Was she being rude? Probably.

‘I spend a lot of time in prison,’ she said by way of an apology. ‘I’m specifically interested in hearing how the Roma are embroiled in human trafficking. As victims. As perpetrators. Anecdotes. Groups you can put me in touch with. Stats. That sort of thing.’

Graham Tokár was looking at her with his mouth hanging slightly open. He glanced at Sophie, a look loaded with judgemental import.

‘What about criminal empires in countries where the Roma live?’ George asked.

‘Shqipëtar,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘It’s an Albanian legend.’

At her side, Sophie started to nod. She closed her eyes, as though Graham was about to give a virtuoso performance. ‘It refers to the Son of the Eagle,’ she said.

Graham rubbed his earlobe. ‘Albanian legend has it that there was an eagle soaring in the sky with a fat, venomous snake in its mouth, right?’ He sniffed his fingers. ‘Below it, the eagle’s defenceless eaglet lay in the nest, watched by a young man.’

‘What young man?’ George asked.

‘It’s not important. Just this young man. Anyway, when the eagle dropped the snake, presuming it to be dead, the snake fell into the nest, right? Apparently it was still alive. So, it was about to attack the eaglet, but the youth shot it with an arrow. Then, the youth takes the eaglet but is confronted by its parent …’

‘The eagle,’ Sophie said. Grinning.

‘Right. The eagle who thought the youth was deliberately kidnapping its offspring. So anyway, the eagle realises the boy had saved the eaglet and …’

George checked her phone again. ‘I’m listening. Go on.’

Bunched eyebrows said Graham Tokár was getting annoyed with her. ‘So, the eaglet flies over the boy for the rest of his life, acting as his guardian, and he becomes the best hunter. A real hero. The son of the eagle.’

‘What’s that got to do with—?’

‘Rumour has it that the big-wig who runs trafficking out of Albania – and lots of Roma kids get sucked into that – goes by the nickname Shqipëtar.’

‘I’ve read about him,’ Sophie said. ‘Apparently only people high up in the trafficking network know who he is, but his tentacles stretch into Western Europe.’

George frowned. She wrote three lines of notes, then ate another biscuit in silence. ‘Eagle,’ she said. It rang a bell, but she wasn’t sure why. She rifled through her memory of all the names on her homespun trafficking database but nothing resonated with her. Thought about the pile of handwritten notes from her women’s prison sessions. They, at least, were still at Aunty Sharon’s. There was something in among those notes. Something that almost clicked but didn’t quite. Eagle. She needed to get out of this air-conditioned box and get her hands on that paperwork while her hunch was still fresh.

She stood abruptly. Stuck out her hand. ‘Bye, then. Thanks for the biccies.’

Outside, Sophie ran after her. ‘You are such a dick!’ she said. ‘I thought you were cool, but you’re really not. You’re a fucking … a fucking …’ Her attractive face screwed up in undisguised irritation.

‘Psychopath?’ George offered, walking as briskly as the poorly gritted pavement would allow. She headed towards the Palace of Westminster, the pale stone towers of which seemed to reach up into the white sky; trying to poke a hole in snow-heavy clouds so that they might pull more clement weather forth.

Sophie grabbed her arm.

George shook her loose. ‘Please don’t touch me. I don’t like being touched unless I invite it.’

Halting by Victoria Tower Gardens, which was playing host to a pack of American school kids engaged in a snowball fight, Sophie swung her satchel across her body. ‘I don’t think I want to work with you. Sally seemed to be describing another bloody person. You’re strange!’ Sophie looked her up and down. Those green eyes were now judgemental and hard.

By the time George had thought of the right thing to say to her, Sophie had crossed the road and was already some two hundred yards away, making for St. James’s Park tube, in all likelihood. ‘Fucking hippies!’ George said, thinking wistfully of her former landlord, Jan. He had been one for grabbing her in suffocating hugs. But he had never condemned her. She was torn. She wanted to like Sophie. Found her charismatic. But … perhaps she was becoming strange.

Bound for Waterloo Station, she crossed Westminster Bridge, barely glancing up at Big Ben as it chimed 4 p.m.

Darkness had already fallen. Her breath steamed on the air, catching the light cast from the street lamps. Workers, heading home early in the bitter chill, passed her by. Her heart was heavy. Her feet were leaden. County Hall seemed a long way away, on the other side of the river. The train station, even further.

‘Eagle,’ she said, dodging a red Routemaster that spattered grey slush over the pavement. Aunty Sharon said the new buses weren’t a patch on the old. ‘Son of the Eagle.’

As she traversed the slippery backstreets behind county hall, making her way down to York Road, she saw the homeless making their beds for the night in doorways. Begging for spare change. Selling the Big Issue. Many were drinking super-strong lager and cosying up to their dogs. The lucky ones had cocooned themselves inside cardboard boxes. Poor bastards.

The smell of urine was strong, even in this cold. She shied away from them. When one of the forlorn figures lurched at her from who the hell knew where, she balked.

‘I’m skint, mate!’ she cried, clutching her bag close.

But the face was familiar.

‘You!’ George said, scrutinising the woman’s pinched features, barely concealed by the hood of an old, soiled parka.

The woman’s blue eyes were sharp, focused on her goal. ‘If you want the laptop back, I need a thousand in cash.’

George grabbed her arm, pulling her close so that she could smell the woman’s stale breath. No alcohol on it. She smelled thirsty and of sore throat. ‘You been stalking me? Have you been to my fucking place in Cambridge. Was it you?’

‘No,’ the woman said. ‘But I know where your laptop is. You can have that and the stick back. Intact. For a thousand in cash. I’ll come to your aunts. Call the police, and I’ll make sure it’s destroyed.’

‘But … I haven’t got—’

The woman dug her fingernails into George’s hand, so that she was forced to let go of her. Nostrils flaring, she had the desperate, haunted look of someone who was standing right at the edge of life and sanity.