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Until the cardigan.
He was jabbering away.
‘. . . you wouldn’t believe the amount of journalists up there—’ when suddenly he broke off, leaping out of his chair.
A woman from another table was walking past us on her way to the door. Slim, early twenties. Petite. Curly hair worn loose down to her shoulders.
‘Excuse me,’ Matty said as he leaped up, touching her lightly on the arm. ‘I think you forgot your cardigan.’
‘My cardigan?’
He nodded, flashed one of his charming smiles.
‘It’s on the back of your chair.’
She looked over to where he was pointing.
‘You must have eagle eyes! It’s practically camouflaged.’
He smiled wider.
‘Glad to help.’
My mother thawed after that, became quite chatty. It was me who lost my voice.
We were sitting a number of tables away from the curly-haired woman, but Matty had seen everything. Only one thing made sense. He’d been watching her.
A woman; same age, same hairstyle as all the Shadow’s adult victims.
If that’s all that had happened, I might have persuaded myself it meant nothing. If he hadn’t said what he did next.
We were back on the subject of Niamh Keenan. In retrospect, he couldn’t stop talking about her. Another sign, I suppose.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said, peeling apart my millefeuille, eating it in creamy layers. Saving the iced topping till last.
‘Don’t get what, pumpkin?’
‘Why the police think the Shadow killed her. She was a kid. The other victims are all grown women.’
Matty helped my mother to more tea, topped up his own cup.
‘I expect it’s what he did to her toes,’ he said.
The pastry lodged in my throat, smothered my voice.
Scotland Yard had never revealed that the Shadow did anything to his victims’ toes. Or what had happened to Niamh’s.
That was something only the killer would know.
