She could see the older man watching the approach to the station, and saw him register her leaving the shop. She strolled along without hurry, getting used to the feeling of walking on high heels again, looking in the shop windows. On the pavement in front of the greengrocers they had a display of indoor plants, including a huge cactus with vicious spikes all over it. Peruvianus monstrosus, it said on a card. Alex looked at it gleefully. Just what she needed. A monster all right. Protective disguise and a handy weapon if they tried to grab her.

She bought it, and carried it away gingerly. No amount of careful wrapping by the shop assistant was going to render it harmless.

She crossed the side road, and passed the man waiting on the corner, without him giving her a second glance. She let out her breath. Nearly there.

The younger white man had hidden himself inside the station. When she turned into the entrance he moved forward two paces and Alex heart nearly stopped beating. She emphasised the sway the high heels gave and jauntily wagged her bottom. He eyed her legs, sniggering. She ignored him, took out her ticket and slid through the barrier, hardly daring to breath. She glanced back. He was still staring at her.

There were a few people on the platform, and she pretended to study the underground map, keeping her back turned to them. Suppose he decided to come down on the platform? She walked further along. If only a train would come. Each minute ticked past, each second seeming like ten years, but eventually the train came, almost empty, and the doors opened.

She fell into a seat, gasping. Escape. The sweat broke out on her forehead beneath the cap. She took it off thankfully, and mopped her face.

The doors slammed shut, opened a second time for a latecomer, closed again, and they were finally on their way. Alex closed her eyes, and began to breathe more freely.

As the train gathered speed she tried to relax. She'd escaped, hadn't she? But there was something wrong still. Her sixth sense was still on full alert, the adrenaline still running.

Almost the only thing that Alex could remember clearly about the man who had mugged her outside the hospital in Swindon was his distinctive blue striped trainers, with a frog-shaped stain on the side.

Under cover of the large cactus on her lap, she could see the trainers away at the other end of the compartment, blue and white with the unmistakable stain.

She closed her eyes again, and groaned to herself. He had been waiting on the platform all the time, lurking behind one of the concrete platform divisions that carried the name of the station. He must have spotted her when she took her cap off and jammed his foot in the doors to make them open again.

Did he think she didn't know him? And what was he going to do anyway? There was no chance here of forcing her off the train. Much too risky for him.

But why were they coming after her anyway? Not, surely, just because she had seen them entering the house. The older man had said the boss wanted to keep everything quiet. They didn't want the police drawn in. It would have been better to let her get away.

She stared blankly at the advertisements for economical telephone calls and travel insurance, and one that told her A bottle of champagne before breakfast did wonders for your love life.

Whatever they were looking for hadn't been in the black bag after all. They had come looking for it in Bev's house. And now they thought she had it. They'd need to know where she lived. And then find a time when she would be on her own. A dark night, a deserted street... Trainers thought he was going to follow her home.

She was angry again. They were forcing her to cower and run like a criminal. They had murdered her mother, and now they were after her too. Well, they weren't going to find it as easy as they thought.

To her relief more people got on the train. She looked at the station plan above the windows, thinking furiously, planning. Finsbury Park - that would be the best place to put her plan into action. It was an interchange station, with more people getting off the train and rushing through the short passages, which connected the Piccadilly Line to the Victoria Line. There was more than one passage. Alex smiled grimly. The next station then.

The train rattled into the station, and she used the Peruvianus Monstrosus ruthlessly to force a way through to be the first out of the doors.

She went with the crowd, dodging and weaving among them, along the platform to the exit. Trainers was after her quickly but he was a big man and he couldn't slip through the gaps as she could. Despite the high heels she had a ten-metre start The crowd poured up the exit stairs, but Alex continued on swiftly through the short passage to the other platform, ran along the platform to the next interchange passage, and back to the original platform.

She hovered in the passage, waiting for the next train. Had he seen her? Had he been fooled into thinking she had gone up with the exit crowd and left the station?

Almost immediately, to her relief there was the musty breeze, which heralded the next train as it rushed into the station. The doors opened...the passengers streamed off. Alex began to move forward, and at that moment, felt somebody behind her. She swung around. Trainers was coming up directly behind her, reaching for the carrier bag. Without a second thought she threw the spiky cactus directly at him, and he recoiled involuntarily. Alex jumped into the train, walking quickly along the centre of the compartment to the next doors.

Trainers, cursing, disentangled himself from the cactus, kicked it away, and leaped across the platform to the train as the doors hissed and started to close. Alex, timing it perfectly, slid her thin body out through the closing gap of the other door. All the doors slammed shut, and the train pulled out of the station. Trainers was peering at her through the window. She grinned and raised her arm in salute and saw him banging his fist angrily against the holding rail.

'Here you are, love.' A large, elderly lady had picked up the cactus and was tenderly putting it back in its pot. 'I saw you drop it as you ran for the train. It isn't damaged much.'

'Listen, you like cactus?' Alex looked anxiously at her watch. Trainers might already be on his way back from the next station. 'You can have it. I don't want it.'

'Great,' said Alex. 'Enjoy.' And laughed aloud at the expression on the woman's face, as she ran up the stairs to cross to the northbound Victoria Line.

Elation spread over her. She realised that under the fear she was actually enjoying herself. But she couldn't afford to take chances. It was possible that there might be other people following her - somebody she hadn't spotted. She didn't know how big the organisation was. She glanced around at the other people near her on the platform, but she didn't recognise anyone from Oakwood. What had happened to the other two men?

When the train came she rode it out to Walthamstow Central. She'd lived there for three weeks once, and could dodge anyone in the long street market if she was still being followed.

She left the station, crossed the road and lost herself in the crowds of the bus depot opposite, watching the station entrance, hidden behind a bus shelter, but nobody came hurrying out or looked as though they were searching for someone. It seemed she was clear.

All the same Trainers could still be lurking around, craftily waiting in case she showed up again at Finsbury Park. She would give him plenty of time to get bored and give up before she travelled back to Islington.