Follow Your Fantasy: Deeper. Nicola Jane

I get you a taxi?' he asks.

      'Yes, please.' The address is only a few blocks away but you don't want to walk around with a priceless antique.

      You wait only a few moments for the doorman to hail your taxi but it's long enough to look around in paranoia that somehow the value of what you're carrying is visible. As the doorman is opening the door for you, you notice a guy leaning against a silvery-blue car ahead of you. He's smoking and looks like he's been up all night, for several nights. Even the way he draws on the cigarette looks like it's costing him effort. The way he's half sitting on the rear of the car suggests it's his and when you turn around as your taxi pulls off, he proves your hunch right by stubbing out the cigarette and opening the driver's door.

      You turn forward again and then, a few seconds later, mounting unease makes you turn back. Sure enough the blue car is two cars behind your taxi. Why would anyone be following you? How could they actually know what you've got with you?

      Or, are they following Giselle? You didn't notice the guy when you arrived at the hotel, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. You've no idea what Giselle was wearing when she arrived so you can't be sure if it's a mix up or not. You can't even really be sure you're being followed. The guy finished his cigarette and it was time to leave, that's all.

      You're too unnerved to risk opening the parcel in the taxi. Even if the blue car is nothing to do with you, you can't whip out a pile of diamonds in front of the taxi driver. You run your fingers over the brown paper still hidden in your bag, trying to make out the size and weight of the stones. You don’t have time to explore much longer as the taxi pulls up in front of a nondescript, brown brick building. Somehow you'd expected a more vaudevillian style theatre with red lights around a 'Leon The Great and Powerful' sign. If there wasn’t a number above the door, you'd have thought you'd come to the wrong place.

      You step out onto the pavement and see the car overtake you and turn right at the next junction. You look down, making more of putting your purse away than you need to, face turned away from the road as car headlights sweep past. Maybe you should have got the taxi to go a less direct route but it's too late now. What are you thinking? That you're in some low budget film noir?

      You shake your head at yourself and hitch your bag onto your shoulder. But even though you think you're overreacting, something makes you hesitate before approaching the building. You pause until the taxi has left, straighten your skirt up and fluff your hair to kill a few moments before approaching the doorway of the theatre. There's only one buzzer next to a metal door and darkened windows. You press and the door clicks open straight away. There can’t be anything suspicious going on in a place that doesn't even check to see who's trying to get in. You tell yourself that five times before pushing the door open and entering.

      Weak lights flicker on when you find the switch before letting the door close behind you and you find yourself in front of an unmanned ticket booth with a glass screen. Tatty posters peel away from the walls and the floor has a stickiness that makes your feet feel dirty even through your shoes. You can't hear anyone.

      You're alone, really alone where no-one can watch you for the first time since you got Josephine's jewels. Your bag is open in a split second and you peer into the envelope. The strings, as now you can see there are multiple threads of them, lie in a tangle and you look for somewhere you could tip them out onto. Maybe the ticket counter–

      There's a cough behind you, back towards the door you came in by, and you jump with a scream and drop the package.

      'Forgive me,' says a soft male voice. 'I never can resist that little piece of theatrics.'

      You turn and see first only what you already know is there. A corridor with a closed door at the end and smooth walls, meaning no-one could have entered without you noticing. Then you register the outline of a man even as your eyes scan the walls again. He's improbably dressed for a ticket seller, and you'd have guessed him to be the magician just by what he's wearing. Even if he didn't have the ability to walk through walls.

      He has a black top hat and his goatee-accentuated face is complete with monocle and a twirling moustache that can only be called whiskers. The rest of his clothes fit the look with a white shirt and a black frocked coat with, of course, a watch and chain looped across his stomach. A red flowered silk handkerchief peeks from the top pocket of his waistcoat. Showtime must be soon.