Read Online The Last Voice You Hear by Mick Herron - Free Book Online
Authors: Mick Herron
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been one a minute. So many people, getting out of this place. She’d seen them in the morning too, when relative directions of travel had made them appear stationary in the sky. Like everything else, it fell to points of view. One person’s speed of flight was another’s standing still.
Zoë moved on. In the next carriage down, she stopped a woman on her way back from the buffet car holding a bottle of water and a plastic cup; asked her if she’d known Caroline Daniels, and received a confused, slightly frightened negative in reply . . . It was pointless, this random interrogation. She knew that already. She might as well have stood in Paddington throwing sticks, hoping to hit Alan Talmadge . . . But it had caught hold of her, the urge to ask questions of strangers. There were connections to be made. Caroline Daniels couldn’t have made this journey daily, with the same collection of people, without forming bonds, even invisible, silent bonds. If Zoë had kept routines – which she didn’t. But if Zoë had kept routines, she’d have noticed when elements went missing; she liked to think she’d have questioned the difference, if only for her peace of mind.
Outside dusk was falling, though it wasn’t so dark yet she couldn’t see. They were into fields now; in one, a bunch of rabbits – ‘bunch’ was not the proper term, she knew – sat by the track eating something; all except the chief rabbit, which was fixed bolt upright, ears tuned for maximum reception, attention focused on the carriages walloping past. There’s a trainspotter in every crowd. Maybe she should be questioning him instead. She spoke to three more people, two of whom had never been on this train before in their lives. This was how they put it: ‘in their lives’, as if an alternative opportunity existed. Such random thoughts were born of tiredness, but the suggestion was enough to stir the possibility that Caroline Daniels was here yet, using the train again not in her life but after it, like that Dutchman doomed to be eternally on the move. His sin, if Zoë remembered, was selling his soul to the devil. Caroline’s problem had been falling in love. The cynical might find a parallel, she supposed.
In the next carriage, by an empty window seat, sat a youngish blond man in an aubergine top, who recognized her, she could tell, from the morning’s journey. He had not, then, offered her his seat. He stood now as she approached, looking like he intended to block her way, though in fact he was gesturing towards the space next to him.
‘I saved you this,’ he said.
‘That was kind.’
‘Least I could do. I was rude this morning. I hope you were okay. Didn’t have to stand, I mean.’
‘You couldn’t let me past, could you?’
His face fell; an exaggerated collapse. ‘You’re sitting somewhere else?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. It’s not a full train.’
She could have asked him about Caroline Daniels, she supposed, but he would have taken it as invitation. It was better to wait while he delivered a rueful smile, made a boyish pass at a lock of hair that had dropped across his forehead, and stepped aside. ‘Nice almost meeting you,’ he said.
She reached the buffet car; began questioning the woman working there, but gave up when told she’d only been doing the job three days. Then Zoë sat with a cup of coffee, having brilliantly resisted the temptation of a miniature vodka; sat opposite half a face looking back at her from behind a newspaper; an attractive man, or so he seemed until he lowered the paper, but whatever it was that seemed handsome in isolation was rendered null by symmetry. She looked away.
. . . The train pounded on. It stopped once, somewhere it shouldn’t, and pulled into Oxford as a light scatter of rain was departing. Zoë stood on the platform while the crowd, a good third of the train’s passengers, dispersed; most of it over the bridge across the line, thence to cars, buses, taxis, bikes. A dozen or
Zoë moved on. In the next carriage down, she stopped a woman on her way back from the buffet car holding a bottle of water and a plastic cup; asked her if she’d known Caroline Daniels, and received a confused, slightly frightened negative in reply . . . It was pointless, this random interrogation. She knew that already. She might as well have stood in Paddington throwing sticks, hoping to hit Alan Talmadge . . . But it had caught hold of her, the urge to ask questions of strangers. There were connections to be made. Caroline Daniels couldn’t have made this journey daily, with the same collection of people, without forming bonds, even invisible, silent bonds. If Zoë had kept routines – which she didn’t. But if Zoë had kept routines, she’d have noticed when elements went missing; she liked to think she’d have questioned the difference, if only for her peace of mind.
Outside dusk was falling, though it wasn’t so dark yet she couldn’t see. They were into fields now; in one, a bunch of rabbits – ‘bunch’ was not the proper term, she knew – sat by the track eating something; all except the chief rabbit, which was fixed bolt upright, ears tuned for maximum reception, attention focused on the carriages walloping past. There’s a trainspotter in every crowd. Maybe she should be questioning him instead. She spoke to three more people, two of whom had never been on this train before in their lives. This was how they put it: ‘in their lives’, as if an alternative opportunity existed. Such random thoughts were born of tiredness, but the suggestion was enough to stir the possibility that Caroline Daniels was here yet, using the train again not in her life but after it, like that Dutchman doomed to be eternally on the move. His sin, if Zoë remembered, was selling his soul to the devil. Caroline’s problem had been falling in love. The cynical might find a parallel, she supposed.
In the next carriage, by an empty window seat, sat a youngish blond man in an aubergine top, who recognized her, she could tell, from the morning’s journey. He had not, then, offered her his seat. He stood now as she approached, looking like he intended to block her way, though in fact he was gesturing towards the space next to him.
‘I saved you this,’ he said.
‘That was kind.’
‘Least I could do. I was rude this morning. I hope you were okay. Didn’t have to stand, I mean.’
‘You couldn’t let me past, could you?’
His face fell; an exaggerated collapse. ‘You’re sitting somewhere else?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. It’s not a full train.’
She could have asked him about Caroline Daniels, she supposed, but he would have taken it as invitation. It was better to wait while he delivered a rueful smile, made a boyish pass at a lock of hair that had dropped across his forehead, and stepped aside. ‘Nice almost meeting you,’ he said.
She reached the buffet car; began questioning the woman working there, but gave up when told she’d only been doing the job three days. Then Zoë sat with a cup of coffee, having brilliantly resisted the temptation of a miniature vodka; sat opposite half a face looking back at her from behind a newspaper; an attractive man, or so he seemed until he lowered the paper, but whatever it was that seemed handsome in isolation was rendered null by symmetry. She looked away.
. . . The train pounded on. It stopped once, somewhere it shouldn’t, and pulled into Oxford as a light scatter of rain was departing. Zoë stood on the platform while the crowd, a good third of the train’s passengers, dispersed; most of it over the bridge across the line, thence to cars, buses, taxis, bikes. A dozen or
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