Tom Weaver: The Dead Tracks

'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.

Chapter Six

My parents had been gone for three years by the time Derryn died, and I'd been an only child. No brothers. No sisters. I'd relied mostly on friends at first, and — for a while - they would drop in on rotation. But then things gradually started to change. Before Derryn died, we'd all joke around, laugh at each other, get into beer-fuelled arguments about football and films. After I buried her, none of that seemed to matter any more.

Only one person ever understood that.

When I got home just after eleven, I looked across the fence into next door's front room and saw my neighbour Liz leaning over her laptop. Liz had been different from everyone else, despite the fact she'd never had any right to be. She'd moved in three weeks after Derryn died and didn't know me at all. But, as we started to talk, she became the person who would sit there and listen to me - night after night, week after week — working my way back through my marriage.

About three or four months in, I started to realize she felt something for me. She never said anything, or even really acted on it. But it was there. A sense that, when I was ready, she would be waiting. When I had needed it, she'd given me practical help too. She was a brilliant solicitor, running her own firm out of offices in the city. When my case before Christmas had gone bad, she'd sat with me in a police interview room as they tried to unravel what had happened and why. In the aftermath, I'd lied to the police and, deep down, I knew Liz could tell. But she never confronted me, and never mentioned it. She understood how the loss of my wife had changed the need for me to confide in someone, and seemed willing to ride it out.

As I stepped up on to the porch, my security light kicked in. Next door, she clocked the movement. Her eyes narrowed, and then I passed into the full glow of the light. She broke out into a smile and got to her feet, waving me towards her. I nodded, moved back down the drive, and up the path to her front porch. The door was already open, framing her as she stood in the kitchen searching in a cupboard.

'Hello, Mr Raker,' she said, looking up as she brought down a top-of-the-range grinder. On the counter was a bag of coffee beans, wrapped in silver foil.

'Elizabeth. How are you?'

She shook her head. She hated being called Elizabeth.

'I'm good. You?'

'Fine. You been in court today?'

'Tomorrow.'

'Oh — so are you sure you want me bothering you?'

You're a nice distraction,' she said, and flashed me a smile.

The house was tidy and still had that 'just moved in' feel, even though she had lived there for nearly two years. The living room had a gorgeous open fireplace, finished in black marble with a stone surround. Logs were piled up in alcoves either side, and a small wooden angel, its wings spread, was standing where a fire should have been. The rest of the room was minimalist: two sofas, both black, a TV in the corner, a pot plant next to that. There was a Denon sound system beneath the front window. On the only shelf, high above the sofas, were four pictures, all of Liz and her daughter. She'd married young, had her daughter shortly after, and divorced soon after that. Despite Liz only being forty-three, her daughter Katie was already in her third year of university at Warwick.

I sat in the living room. She closed the top on the grinder and set it in motion, the noise like tractor wheels on stony ground, the smell of coffee filling the house. When she came through, she pulled the kitchen door most of the way shut and perched herself opposite me.

'So what have you been up to?'

'It was support group night.'

'Ah, right, of course. How was that?'

'Pretty good. I wasn't sat next to Roger this week.'

She smiled. 'He's the Mazda RX-8 guy, right?' 'Right.'

'Where did you eat?'

'Some Thai place in Kew.'

'Oh, I know where you mean. I took a client there once. He'd been charged with receiving stolen goods.' She paused, and broke out into another smile. 'Shifty so-and- so, he was. Luckily, what jail time I saved him was made up for by the big fat bill I posted through his letterbox at the end of the trial.'

'Are you expensive?'

'If only you knew how expensive.' She winked. 'You find yourself in possession of any dodgy DVD players, David, you know where to come.'

She smiled again, and we looked at each other, the noise of the coffee grinder filling the silence.

'So are you on a case at the moment?'

'You remember Megan Carver?'

She paused for a moment. She knew the name, but couldn't think where from. "Wasn't she that girl who disappeared?' 'Right.'

'Wow. Big case.'

'Big enough. I'm trying to find her.'

'If she's even still alive.'

'Yeah, well, I think there's a distinct possibility she's not.'

She didn't pursue it any further, although as her eyes lingered on me I knew she wanted to. It was more than a natural curiosity. There were obvious parallels between our work — the damaged clients, the unravelling of lies and half-truths, the building of a case — but, deep down, I knew her reasons were much simpler than that: she wanted to feel we were moving somewhere.

'Oh, I almost forgot,' she said after a while, and disappeared down the hallway.

I looked up at one of the photos on the shelf again. In it, Liz had her arm around Katie's neck, and was dressed in a skirt and vest. She looked fantastic. Dark, playful eyes; long chocolate-coloured hair; slim, gentle curves. We'd never talked about the relationships she'd had since her daughter was born, but it seemed impossible that there wouldn't have been some. She was beautiful without ever suggesting she knew it, which only made her more attractive.

She returned a couple of minutes later. In her hands was an envelope. 'Here,' she said, and handed it to me.

'Are you charging for the coffee?'

'Ha ha — you're a funny man, Raker. No, one of my old clients just opened a new place. I don't know what it's like, but maybe you can treat a few of the guys at the group one week. Working in law, I have no real friends, so it makes more sense for you to have them.'

She was smiling.

I looked inside the envelope. There were eight vouchers with the name of a newly opened Italian restaurant in Acton at the top. Each one got you a free main course.

'Are you sure?' I asked.

'Yeah, absolutely.'

I glanced at her, then down at the vouchers again. Don't think it through. Just do it. I looked up. She was watching me again, that same look on her face.

'Are you free Friday?'