"Where Is My Husband!"

The sky over Harringay was the colour of wet newspaper, hanging flat and heavy, refusing to brighten. The air wasn’t cold enough to numb her skin, but settled insidiously into her sleeves and seams. Raye walked fast along Green Lanes, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets, her breath puffing in short, uneven bursts. The pavements were slick from last night’s rain, reflecting the neon signs of the early-opening shops in long, broken streaks.

She hadn’t slept properly. But she never slept well in January.

A bus hissed past, spraying her boots. She didn’t flinch. She crossed toward the station, weaving between people with a purpose she didn’t feel. Her phone buzzed: a notification she ignored. Another. She ignored that too.

The call centre had cut her hours again. She wasn’t due in to work today, but she walked the route anyway.

Outside the off-licence near the railway bridge, a man was shouting into his phone about a headline for an article he obviously hadn’t read. A woman live-streamed her walk, narrating the weather like it was breaking news. A group of teenagers filmed each other doing something halfway between a dance and a dare.

Everyone performing, broadcasting and looking for something elusive.

Raye kept walking and cut through the alley behind the station; the one that always smelled faintly of damp cardboard and fried onions. A fox darted across her path, pausing to stare at her with the boldness of a creature that had learned humans were too distracted to be dangerous.

“Morning,” she muttered.

The fox blinked and vanished.

She reached the New River Path and slowed. The water was still, a dull grey mirror reflecting the low sky. A jogger passed her, breath sharp, headphones leaking a beat from a song she half-recognised. Something about longing. Something about searching. Something about a woman asking a question no one could answer.

Raye stopped at the railing and gripped the cold metal as if it might shock her awake.

Her phone buzzed again. This time she checked the screen. It showed a link to a video, sent from an account she didn’t recognise. She pressed play:

A woman walking along the same path she was standing on, wearing the same coat and the same boots, keeping the same pace as her, with the same tilt of the head when the wind hit.

Not her, but close enough that her stomach tightened at the resemblance.

The woman turned slightly, as if sensing something or someone close behind her.

The clip ended abruptly. Raye continued to stare at the screen, the cold nibbling her fingertips. She checked the video’s timestamp: two hours ago.

She looked up and down the path. It was empty. A gust of wind rippled the river’s steely grey surface. A siren wailed somewhere near Manor House. A bus rumbled across the bridge.

Raye slipped her phone back into her pocket and started walking again: faster this time, her shoulders tense and her eyes scanning the path ahead.

She didn’t know exactly what it was she had seen, or who had sent it. She didn’t know why her chest continued to feel so tight.

But she did know one thing: someone was moving through her life like a shadow. Someone who wasn’t her. And someone who was close.

She walked on, her boots hitting the wet pavement in quick, steady beats, the cold January air sharp in her lungs, the city humming a familiar tune to which it had forgotten the words.