Human Remains

talk?’
    ‘Not really. I’m on the bus, on my way to work.’
    ‘Ah. Maybe I could meet up with you later? What time do you finish?’
    ‘Well, I’m late going in already,’ I said.
    ‘It won’t take long. Look, I’m in the town centre. I could meet you off the bus and buy you a very quick coffee. What do you think?’
    ‘Well…’
    They didn’t even know I was coming in, to be honest. I’d not phoned to let them know, reasoning that neither Kate nor Bill would answer their phones, and, if they did, they probably wouldn’t much care.
    ‘I’d really appreciate it,’ Sam said. ‘I think we could really help each other out with this, you know? Nobody’s taking it seriously enough, and too many people are dying.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. Where was this conversation heading? It was making me feel uncomfortable.
    ‘So you’ll meet me? What bus are you on?’
    I told him, which he took to mean I had assented.
    ‘If you get off at the stop before the shopping centre, I’ll wait for you there, OK? See you in a few minutes, then.’
    He rang off. I put the phone back into my bag and looked out of the window at the houses lining the road. Big houses, large front lawns. The bus paused in traffic, outside a house that was obviously empty: no curtains at the windows, the lawn overgrown, weeds growing up through the cracks in the paving stones. Was there someone inside, after all? Someone waiting to be found?
    A few minutes later the bus turned the corner into the High Street. Four hundred yards further on, the shopping centre entrance would be the first of my two possible stops, there or the war memorial; from the shopping centre I would walk through the arcade, usually empty and cold first thing in the morning, but at this time of day it would be heaving with shoppers. And the bus was full of them now, too, about to get off. That was why he’d asked me to meet him at the earlier stop – I would be the only one. He wouldn’t have to guess who I was, and he wouldn’t have to risk me going off without him.
    I stood and went to the front of the bus, holding on to the pole and swaying as it bumped its way through the potholes. I could see through the front windscreen a figure standing waiting at the bus stop, and as I got closer I realised this must be Sam Everett.
    He was younger than I’d expected, certainly younger than me, maybe no more than twenty-five. He had dark hair that was long enough to curl over his collar, and wore neat glasses, black jeans and a black thigh-length coat over what looked like a band tour T-shirt. I thought I’d seen him somewhere before, but the memory wouldn’t come. When I stepped down from the bus I saw it was a Pulp T-shirt that he was wearing and I thawed a little towards him then, because I’d loved Pulp when I’d been at university, they were my all-time favourite band. I gave him a smile.
    ‘Annabel?’ he asked, holding out his hand for me to shake. ‘I’m Sam.’
    ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said.
    ‘Shall we go in here?’
    We headed inside a café called the Lunch Box. Once a greasy spoon that had catered for the taxi drivers and bus conductors on their breaks, it had been redecorated and refitted and now served panini and salad alongside the traditional full English breakfasts and chip butties.
    I found a table near the back and, while Sam ordered for us at the counter, I watched him standing there and thought for a moment that he looked a little lost. I didn’t know what I had expected a journalist to look like, but he probably wasn’t it. I’d been wondering why he looked familiar, and then I realised he was the journalist who had knocked on my door on the day I’d found Shelley Burton. The one who’d come with a photographer.
    ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘how much was it?’ I had my purse out ready, but he waved me away.
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.
    He probably got it all on expenses, anyway, so I put my purse back in my bag without further argument. It was warm in here after the chill of being outside, and I felt my cheeks glowing with it. This was probably a bad idea, I thought. I shouldn’t really be here with this man.
    ‘So,’ he said, as the man behind the counter brought two coffees and set them down in front of us on the table, ‘you’re working on the decomposed bodies, right?’
    ‘I wouldn’t say I’m working on them, exactly. I’ve been trying to establish how many of them there are and looking for patterns. Look, I really