The meanest Flood

said.
    ‘That’s right. I’m travelling alone.’
    The guard turned to the woman with the necklaces. She didn’t speak but looked directly at Danny, pursing her lips and slowly shaking her head from side to side. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She turned and walked back along the aisle.
    ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ the guard told the magician as he turned to follow the woman.
    Danny made light of it with the travellers seated around him. ‘I don’t know what that was about,’ he said.
    But the blond young man avoided his eyes, looked out of the window, and the black woman picked up a magazine. After a moment she asked to be excused and he let her get out of her seat. He thought she was going to the lavatory and would be back in a minute or two but she didn’t return. Unkind, the magician thought. The stature of the woman had been pleasing and her smooth black skin had given her the quality of a trophy sitting beside him. The only white hunter on the train to have bagged one that beautiful.
    The incident was disturbing. It preyed on his mind. The mousy-haired woman shaking her head and walking away was the kind of gesture his mother used to make when she was disappointed in him.
    Danny took the Metro to the airport and the mousy-haired woman from the train came and sat opposite him. ‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ she said. ‘Please forgive me.’
    ‘It’s fine,’ he told her. ‘No one got hurt. Mistaken identity. Happens all the time.’
    ‘I shouldn’t have put you in the spotlight like that,’ she said.
    Perhaps she was deranged? A bangle around each of her ankles seemed to confirm it. And all the metal on her person. A large brooch on her lapel which he hadn’t noticed on the train. A white bird perched on the edge of a cliff, caught on the point of lurching into space.
    ‘I didn’t have enough cash for the fare and I couldn’t think what else to do.’
    ‘No, I can see your predicament,’ he said, winging it, unwilling to disagree with her in case he triggered some violent reaction. But curiosity got the better of him. ‘Have we met?’ he said. ‘What I mean is, do we know each other?’
    ‘You chose me,’ she told him. ‘In the theatre. Nottingham?’
    ‘Ah, yes.’
    ‘And now we’re lovers.’
    Danny coughed. He looked around the carriage to check if anyone had heard her. She gazed at him with rapture, her eyes unblinking.
    ‘Quite,’ he said.
    The woman was a nutcase. Out of it. Danny got ready to defend himself if she attacked. There was no guard on the Metro but surely the other passengers would help him. She was a small woman but quite obviously raving mad. Without any civilizing restraints she could cause a lot of damage and as things stood at the moment Danny Mann was the likely target of her aggression. The magician wasn’t a coward but he tried to avoid physical pain, especially the kind that involved unknown elements like sharp finger-nails and teeth and the pulling out of hair.
    He smiled at her.
    She returned his smile with one of her own. There was coyness in it, something approaching innocence. It was the kind of smile that believed in itself. A rare thing. If you didn’t know that it was fuelled by insanity, you would be moved by such a smile.
    ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, keen to maintain the equilibrium.
    The smile again. ‘You are funny,’ she said.
    Danny felt confused, as if he’d been caught out in something. But he couldn’t imagine what it was.
    ‘I’d go anywhere with you,’ she told him. ‘Obey any command.’
    ‘Yes, but...’
    She was racing ahead of him. A moment ago he’d been in touch. He’d felt equal to whatever it was she was going to throw at him. But already he was stuttering. What on earth was she talking about? ‘Obey any command?’ he asked, his voice low and coming from way back in his throat.
    ‘Try me,’ she said. She parted her legs and ran the middle finger of her right hand around her knee and along her thigh.
    ‘Oh my God,’ Danny said. He glanced around as though he might find his God in the carriage. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he said. ‘Sweet Jesus Christ.’ His hands were fluttering like a couple of birds. He clasped them together and placed them consciously on his knees, watched them sternly until they were still. But as soon as his consciousness lapsed they were off again, fluttering away as if a cat had raided their nest.
    ‘You like me, don’t you?’ the woman said. She had injected a