For twelve years, Sandra had dreamed this day would come.

She had seen it play out in her fleeting happy moments and her worst nightmares. Sometimes she had killed the man standing in front of her, rubbing his cheek theatrically, as she clawed at the air with her dirty fingernails. Sometimes she had stopped him right as he was about to take her sister's life. She had pulled her sister away. Then she would wake up and Frances was still dead.

Occasionally, in her dreams, Sandra herself was the one who died.

'You murdered her. Admit what you did,' she screamed, her voice hoarse from shouting. She kicked out at a nearby table in rage. An old man was sitting there, saying nothing, doing nothing. How could he, when her sister was dead and she was standing in front of the man who killed her?

A teapot slid to the floor and shattered.

'Leave him,' Rita gasped, her tight arms crushing Sandra's belly, constricting her breathing. Sandra elbowed her in the face but Rita held on with enraging tenacity. If she cared about justice, she would let her do it, she would let her smash his face in, Sandra's mind screamed. Near the counter, a waitress was crying in shock. The floor was scattered with shards of ceramic and spreading pools of tea and water.

'You're worth more than this,' Rita panted. 'Don't ruin your life for him.'

'He's already ruined my life! He destroyed my whole family!' Sandra spat, hot tears running down her face. He was talking to the woman at the checkout now in the soft tones he used when he wanted to manipulate someone. He had pulled the wool over Frances's eyes so many times. All the affairs. All the lies. Why couldn't anyone see what kind of man he was?

'...Sandra is deeply disturbed,' she caught him intoning sorrowfully.

The woman at the counter wasn't fooled, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Her voice shook with the same anger Sandra felt boiling inside her. 'Get out! Don't come back. You're banned.'

Rita loosened her grip, her hand still on Sandra's coat. She was saying a bunch of words, trying to be comforting.

As if Sandra was a child that had misbehaved, or a dog.

'My wife's tragic death was hard on us all, but especially Sandra, who already found life difficult,' Jon drawled in a sincere, obsequious tone. Sandra pictured herself dashing his face on the counter, bleeding out with a fork stuck in his neck. One day. One day. 'I do apologise. Let me pay for some of this damage. How much was the teapot?'

'No. Out or I call police,' the woman yelled, pointing a finger at Sandra. 'You too. Go.'

'Let her wait until they've gone.' Rita's hand momentarily let go of Sandra's clothing, then nudged her towards a group of seats where a thin, tanned, bearded man in glasses was sitting. So a Spanish detective was as bad as all the English ones, she thought as she stepped towards the sofas, seeing her as just a grieving family member, someone to pity. 

Sandra lowered herself into a sagging armchair, perched on the end, ready to erupt. She thought of the useless family liaison officer she had had, the one who had broken the news he was being released, all that claptrap about how she knew 'you'll find this difficult, but we're also disappointed by this outcome.'

As she caught her breath, her eyes fell on the book which the man - Rita's husband, she guessed - had open on a random page. The parts Sandra had forced herself to read in the lobby gave her goosebumps. She had stared into the mind of a psychopath.

'Do you want me to get you a drink?' Rita said gently as she took out her purse, a distraction to Sandra's thoughts as her eyes roved the back of the cafe. 'Then I can walk with you to the door.'

Had he gone? What of Timothy? He had always been rather timid. Henpecked, as people once said, by his wife Ophelia, Sandra's one-time 'friend'. Grist to the mill for a monster, she thought bitterly. Squinting, she couldn't see Timothy. They had left. Ophelia, for her part, had spent the whole of yesterday pretending not to recognise her. Today, she was nowhere to be found.

'Don't patronise me, Rita,' Sandra snapped, smacking her hand and purse away. 'I can see myself out. I don't want your sympathy. Read that book, that's all I want. See for yourself who Jon Phillips truly is.'

*

The ticket from here to Sandra's home town of Whitstable had cost £42. The convention ticket would be refunded, or so they said, but receiving any money back from her wasted journey would be a different matter. She doubted Erica Scott had any cause to worry about anything like that, regardless of her frequent complaints about what happened 'in this economy'.

A magnet for men, that's what she would have been, Sandra thought.

To someone like Erica, it would have all been so exciting and dangerous. Never mind who got hurt. Sandra remembered the look she had seen on her face as she spoke to that man. The spark that had seemed to pass between them. Erica had little idea that she had been flirting with a monster, and probably hadn't even cared. She had been appalled, baffled, that anyone could equate her to someone like Javier Castella. They would have laughed about it, of course, asked how that woman could have got so triggered, or whatever people said these days?

The tube train pulled into London Victoria and Sandra hauled herself up. A sign in the station said that the underground line underneath had been newly extended. The escalator to the platform looked futuristic and went on forever. On either side was a line of silver-framed screens, showing an advertisement for a new musical about right-wing American senators. Time Out had given it 5 stars and called it 'the funniest thing to come out of our grim political moment in years'.

Sandra felt a surge of irritation. How could anyone enjoy such frivolous rubbish?

It was only when she was halfway up the escalator to the overground trains that she realised she had left a carrier bag on the tube, one of the countless unexceptional Tesco bags she had stored around her house. How typical of her, absent minded as she was, to leave it on the seat. Sandra wondered for an instant if she should try to report them to lost property, if stations still had that.

But as she walked with heavy feet towards the ticket office to try and claim her 42 quid back, she realised what a terrible, stupid mistake that would be.

It would be better to pretend that the bag had never existed. Better for it to be removed by a cleaner or destroyed by security, like the other unattended items the disembodied voices on Britain's transport network were always warning about. Better for it to be forgotten altogether.

Sandra didn't want to imagine what would happen if they took a proper look inside.

She pictured some detective, maybe the big man with the Scottish accent, firing questions at her, all pretence of empathy gone. 'Sandra, how did this item come into your possession? Sandra, how did you get this? Sandra, what were you intending to do with that?' Anger and anxiety blazed inside her at the idea. The things they would say. The things they would think. The police wouldn't care that Erica was banging her sister's murderer, that she wasn't really trying to hide it, that she was so shallow that she wouldn't have cared even if she thought he was guilty.

They would only care about the fact a young woman was dead.

Maybe it was just as well that Rita seemed keen to get her out of Jon Phillips's sight, to patronise and pity her rather than actually listening, as much as Sandra still stung with the pain of it. Rita was a detective. The rational side of Sandra's mind knew that while she hated being perceived as vulnerable or as he had insinuated, 'finding life difficult' - ugh! - the consequences could be much worse if Rita realised she was sane.

'Can I help you?' the cashier said, beckoning her to come forward. 

'Yes, I need to change my ticket. The event I attended was cancelled, so I have to travel today,' Sandra said, handing it over.

The cashier shook his head and stared disapprovingly. 'You'll need to pay the full price, I am afraid.'

Tutting, Sandra dug out her purse, swallowed her rage at the unfairness of it, the way people looked at her, the way that nothing in this country worked as it used to when she was a girl. She had been memorable today in all the wrong ways; she couldn't give anyone else anything to wonder about. 'Oh no. What a pain. I've been so stupid. I should have checked.'

'Wait. I can offer you a split ticket, you'll save £15,' the cashier said. 'That way you'll only pay £27. How's that?'

'Wonderful.' She paid the £27 and walked towards the ticket barrier. As she did so, her eyes were drawn to a pair of police officers walking past a coffee shop, a tall black man and a shorter white one, both dressed in fluorescent jackets. The white policeman stared straight at her.

She looked away, put her ticket through the machine and walked towards the waiting train, holding her breath until she stepped into the carriage and found a seat by the window. From there, she stared at the officers, imagined their conversations, little dialogues playing out about her. She hadn't dropped anything else, she didn't think. Or had she?

Had the bag been handed in? Had they looked in it?

She only tore her eyes away from the police when the train pulled away from the platform, leaving them behind.