THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. by David Videcette

something would happen and he would be standing back there in the present, angry at the world.
    He downed his pint. It didn’t taste great after the numerous fruit-flavoured shots still coating his mouth. His arm wobbled slightly as he put down his glass.
    ‘I’m done with this shit tonight. I’m going.’
    As Jake walked past the bar on the way to the exit, the song was still playing.
    His head was spinning and the bright lights from the dance floor hindered his vision. Was he drunk? What was he doing here? The brunette was no longer dancing across the room. Why had he come to Leeds? ‘Angels on the Subway’… Was that the song?
    He’d had the chance to change things yesterday. He’d messed it up. His phone wasn’t charged. How had that happened? If he’d been able to communicate with the call handler, would all those people now be dead?
    If he hadn’t been looking at his handset, would he have been able to avoid the nail bomb?
    Had he been drunk the night before? Forgotten to charge his phone? Fuck the drink. He hadn’t seen his daughters in two months; couldn’t remember the last day he’d had off to spend with Claire. He’d been too busy at work. Had he been drunk the night before he told his ex-wife it was over? Forgotten what marriage was like because he’d been too busy at work to try? Drowned himself in drink because he was too scared to be a father – agonising over when he would get the chance to do the growing up he needed to do himself?
    This song was driving him crazy. The Angel. That was near King’s Cross. The King’s Cross – scene of one of the bombs.
    ‘Hello,’ he heard a female voice call across at him. Jake looked up. It was the brunette in the black rah-rah skirt. She was heading toward him. He wished it was Claire. He needed her there; needed her to make him feel better.
    Before he had a chance to reply she’d grabbed him at the shoulders – and, reaching up, began kissing him passionately on the lips.
    She tasted of stale beer, of cigarettes.
    He suddenly saw black smoke. He pulled away. Looked at her. But there was nothing. There was no smoke.
    Did he really want to be with this woman? His drunkenness was making him confused. She grabbed his hand and smiled conspiratorially, leading him past the bar toward the toilets. There were no words but they both knew where they were headed and why. They slid into a cubicle and she locked the door behind them.
    Once the door was secure, she faced him, kissed him, unzipped his flies, then turned her back and bent over the toilet, pulling up her skirt as she did so. She looked exactly like Claire from behind. He yanked aside the black thong underneath. Then he was inside her.
    What was he doing here? He hated himself. He hated that he was drunk. Again. Using anonymous sex as a conduit to feel something, anything.
    He had hold of fistfuls of her hair as he drove into her from behind. He was being overly rough. She was screaming, ‘Harder, faster!’
    It was angry sex. The fury in Jake welled to the surface. He didn’t understand it. Bitterness coursed through him.
    He began swearing at her, ‘Fucking dirty bitch!’
    Jake was lost. Who was he? Who was this girl? Why was he taking his anger out on Claire’s Yorkshire lookalike in a piss-stained cubicle? She probably would have fucked any man that had shown her the slightest bit of attention in that club – he was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
    Maybe he should have listened to Helen’s words of warning?
    He stopped. Pulled out.
    The girl turned and looked at him, confused.
    ‘What the fuck did you stop for?’ she shouted.
    Jake did up his flies.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he left the cubicle.
    ‘Come back here, you stupid wanker!’ she called after him, slurring her words.
    Drunken sex with a drunken stranger wasn’t the answer to his problems tonight.
    He hated himself. Helen was right.
    He had to get out of the place.

13
    Tuesday
    12 July 2005
    0545