Yes, travelling Portsmouth to London, late-ish evening of 17th October 2021. I was sitting opposite a woman and we got chatting. A woman in her 50s/60s came and sat next to me, with a small girl carrying a rucksack.
I gradually started to notice things throughout the journey, having initially assumed grandmother/grandaughter. Woman looked a bit weatherbeaten, had that alcoholic/heavy smoker look about her, with scraggy blonde hair, darker skinned (Roma?) child dressed in grubby pajamas.
It eventually became clear that this pair didn’t know each other. At all. There was a bit of interaction, such as “I’ve got your dad’s phone number and I’ll call him when we get there” then she started talking about specific directions and instructions and much mention of “When we get to the BBC…”
I’d briefly thought the woman might have been a social worker taking a small, withdrawn child to an emergency placement but the BBC thing… it just seemed really off and I was getting strange vibes.
I’d passed a note on the pretence of it being a phone number, to the woman opposite, which basically asked if she was thinking the same as me (she was).
When scraggy woman went off to the loo, I didn’t dare start chatting to the child for fear of drawing attention, but I texted British Transport Police. I’d hoped they’d meet them off the train but they didn’t, so we followed until they went through some turnstiles and I pointed them out to the female station worker, who told her female colleague, who legged it after them.
BTP eventually messaged me with an image from behind of this woman and child walking along - and said they never caught up with them.
It has haunted me ever since. I’ve kicked myself for not texting BTP sooner and desperately hope that there was an entirely innocent explanation.