The Dead Tracks

Chapter Five

Three weeks after Christmas, a leaflet got posted through my door. It was advertising a support group for widows and widowers under forty-five. I wasn't a great believer in fate. In fact, I hardly believed in it at all. But I understood why people might when that leaflet landed on my doormat. At the time I was fresh off a case that had almost killed me, and I'd spent Christmas alone watching old home movies of Derryn. Physically and emotionally, I was low. So in the second week of January, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go along, not expecting it to make much of a difference. Nine months later, it was still part of my weekly routine.

Most Tuesdays we met in a community college in Acton, in a room that smelt of stale coffee. But once a month, we all chipped in and went for a meal somewhere. If I hadn't already agreed to go, I might have cancelled it to concentrate on the Carver case, but it was too late to back out now. Instead, I headed from the Bryant house to my office in Ealing, picked up a change of clothes and some deodorant, and then drove to the restaurant. It was a Thai place in Kew, close to the river.

Something sizzled in the kitchen as I entered, the smell of coconut and soy sauce filling the air. There were fourteen of them sitting at a big table by one of the windows. The woman who ran the group was a short, dumpy 32-year-old called Jenny. Her husband had suffered a heart attack running for a train at King's Cross. She saw me, came over and pecked me on the cheek. I'd liked Jenny pretty much from the first time I'd talked to her. She was lively, quick-witted and fun, but she had an understanding of people; an ability to read and connect with them. We walked to the table together, and I apologized to everyone for being late, shaking hands and saying hellos to some of the regulars. There were two spaces left: one was in the middle next to an accountant called Roger, who, after a couple of glasses of red wine, always started talking about the brake horsepower of his Mazda RX-8; the other was right at the end, next to two faces I hadn't seen before.

'David, we've got a couple of new arrivals tonight,' Jenny said. She leaned in to me as we walked towards them. 'I was hoping you could keep them entertained for me.'

Jenny introduced them as Aron Crane and Jill White. They'd both lost their partners, and had got to know each other by sharing a morning coffee-shop routine. I wondered whether they'd since got together, but they sat apart from one another at the table, and — as we got talking — reminisced about their partners in a way that made it obvious they weren't a couple.

We ordered, and spent the next half an hour drifting through polite conversation: the weather, the traffic, a local MP who had been caught with a rent boy and his trousers round his ankles in a toilet in Bayswater. Both of them seemed pleasant enough. She was closer to my age, maybe just the wrong side of forty, and had deep blue eyes — how you imagined the sea would look in places you couldn't afford to go — slight imperfections in her skin, like acne scars, and a small mark just above the bump of her chin. Both she was acutely aware of. When she talked, her hands automatically went to her face, the fingers of one hand resting against the curve of her jaw, the other tucking her blonde hair behind her ears. It was an appealing quality: a kind of underlying shyness.

He was in his mid-to-late thirties, dark brown hair, the same colour eyes and a slightly bent nose, as if it had once been broken and not reset properly. He was dressed conservatively — collared shirt, grey trousers, plain jacket - and if I'd had to take a guess, I would have said he was a City suit, burning in the fires of middle-management hell. He had a put-upon look, as if he could never quite get his head above water.

'So what is it you do, David?' he asked as the food arrived.

'I find missing people.'

'Like an investigator?'

'Yeah, a bit like one.' I smiled. 'Except I don't have a badge to flash and I don't get to kick down doors. Much.'

Aron laughed. Jill gave a thin smile, as if I'd just offended her. I tried to work out what I'd said. Maybe the police comment.

Aron looked at her, then back at me. 'Jill's husband used to be a policeman. He was…' He looked at her again and she nodded, giving him permission to tell the story. 'He died while on duty. Shot.' He paused. 'And she's still trying to find out who did it.'

'Oh, I'm really sorry,' I said.

She held up a hand. 'It's okay. It's been nearly a year — I really should be better at hiding my emotions.' She smiled for real this time.

The conversation moved back into more general subjects — films, sport, more on the weather — before it led to why we were all in London. Jill was in marketing, and had only recently moved to the city after her husband got a job with the Met; Aron confirmed what I'd suspected — that he was in finance — and worked for an investment bank in Canary Wharf. Eventually, things came full circle and returned to my work.

'So do you enjoy what you do?' Jill asked.

'Yeah, most of the time.' I held up my left hand and wiggled the fingers where the nails were damaged. Though not always. Sometimes it just hurts.'

'How did you do that?'

I paused, looking down at my fingers. 'Some people just prefer to remain hidden,' I said, trying to make light of it, trying to deflect any further questions.

It was just easier that way.

Outside, while a couple of them — including Aron - were sorting out the bill, I got talking to Jill on her own. The night was cold. Above us, the skies opened for a moment and the moon moved into view; then it was gone again behind banks of dark cloud.

'Thank you for keeping us company tonight, David,' she said. 'I realize it's probably not fun being lumbered with the new people.'

'It was good to meet you both.'

'I'm really glad Aron persuaded me to come along. I wasn't sure about it, I must admit. But I think this'll be good for me. As you know, we were fairly new to the city when Frank died; I mean, we have friends dotted all around the country, but not too many here in London. And I've basically spent the last year not going out.'

'Everyone here will understand that part.' I glanced inside at Aron and then back to Jill. 'So did you two just bump into each other?'

'Pretty much. Aron gets his morning coffee from the same place as me. I just said hello one day and then, after that, we gradually started chatting and, well… here we are.' She stopped. Studied me, as if turning something over in her head. 'Actually, we were thinking of going out for a drink Friday night. You're quite welcome to come.'

She looked at me, her eyes dancing in the light from the restaurant. I looked inside at Aron, laughing at something Jenny had said to him, then back to Jill.

'I don't want to step on any toes.'

Her eyes followed mine. 'Aron?'

I nodded.

'Oh, no - we're just friends. I'm not ready for anything like that.' She glanced inside. Why don't I take your number? I can drop you a text, or give you a call, and if you decide you'd like to come along, then you can. But there's no pressure.'

I gave her my number. As she was putting it into her phone, she looked in at Aron again. Maybe she wasn't ready. Maybe he wasn't either. But they definitely felt something for one another, even if it was only a kinship. And I didn't want to get in the way, because I knew a little of how that felt; of finally finding a connection with someone in the shadows left behind.