Dodds left his camera at home, satisfied that he had done his best given the limited opportunities provided by the daily trips to and from work. Surreptitiously taken photographs were never going to be good enough; he needed to get closer to her. Foregoing his morning journey to Rosewater Drive, he spent more time than usual concentrating on his appearance. It was time to get to know her. On reaching his office, one of the first telephone calls Dodds made that morning was to the offices of Johansson Brown. Again he asked to speak to Heather Marshall and again a receptionist informed him that employees were not allowed to take private calls. He left a message for Heather to call him back and sat for the rest of the day waiting for the phone to ring. It did not. Once more, he followed Heather as she left her place of work that evening, this time closing the gap as she reached the station platform. When the underground train pulled in, he positioned himself directly behind her and allowed himself to be jostled onto the train. There were no available seats and he stood directly behind her as the train jolted out of the station, allowing his hip to brush gently against her backside. She did not react: it was just not possible to avoid contact in such cramped conditions. Her neck was less than six inches in front of his face and Dodds longed to kiss it, to lick her earlobes, to taste the saltiness of her suntanned skin. The nerves in his hip burned, as the movement of the train rubbed her backside against him. At five-foot ten and wearing two-inch heels, Heather topped him by a good six inches. Peering around her shoulder, Dodds’ eye line was on a level with her collarbones: he wished her blouse were open by at least another button, only the very top of her cleavage was visible to him as he tried to peer down inside the garment. Reaching behind her, he grabbed a metal upright to help steady himself and in the meantime positioning his hand so that his fingers were no more than three inches from her breast. A particularly heavy jolt, as the train rattled across a set of points, pushed her against his knuckles: for a fleeting, exhilarating moment he felt her softness, before the train’s motion pulled her away from him again. This proximity to her was intoxicating. The smell of her hair and the perfume she wore, filled his nostrils: he smiled to himself, knowing the brand names of both her shampoo and the perfume from his earlier investigations. Each time the train stopped, people got off and, disappointingly from Dodds’ perspective, Heather moved slowly away from him.

MARCUS LYNDALE