The postman’s fingers were pressed against the hot metal of the door, preparing to shut it and begin his round, but something made him hesitate. He glanced down the empty street. After a few seconds of indecision, he sidled closer to the door and peered through the gap to the interior of the van.

The woman was lying there, rough strips of duct tape silencing her mouth and binding her ankles, her eyes wide and terrified. They spoke to him, those eyes. Pleading, asking for his help.

He stared at her, willing himself to lock the door and make a start on delivering his letters, but his shoes were stuck to the road, as if the asphalt had melted and was holding him hostage.

The woman’s eyes were brown and ordinary, and they were fixed on him.

He shut his own, squeezing out the glare of the daylight and the weight of her accusation. When he opened them again, she was gone, and all that remained was a stain on the floor of the van.

* * *

The postman hadn’t seen them bring out Adam Stanton’s body. Sunday was supposed to be his day off and it would have looked weird—suspicious, even—if he’d been hanging around. But he had heard about it. Everyone had. What a grade-A fuckup.

Now he wasn’t sure how to feel. A seagull shrieked overhead, bringing with it a flavor of the coast. Southend-on-Sea was eight miles away. On a morning like this, it would quickly fill with day-trippers, sunlight scattering glitter across the waves, the smells of hot fat and Hawaiian Tropic. But this street with its squashed-up houses and barely-room-to-pass pavements, dog dirt and prison-gate walls of laurel and yew was a world away, and beginning to give him the creeps. He examined this unfamiliar sensation. He wasn’t one to scare easily.

This was a new job for him. Only a few weeks old and he’d given it everything so far, but it wasn’t working out in the way he had hoped. Still, the residents were friendly enough and that had made it easier.

He pushed the earlier unpleasantness to the back of his mind and began to walk, his shoes playing a rhythm on the heat-baked pavement, light dripping through the gaps in the leaves.

Shifting his mail pouch into a more comfortable position, he lifted a hand to the mother from number thirty, who was struggling down her path with a double buggy. Grinned and raised his eyebrows at the suit running to the station. Offered up a good-morning to Mrs. Clifton from number twenty-seven, who was putting out her rubbish.

“Any chance of a cuppa?” he said, a grin on his face, one of the lads.

It had become a standing joke. He said it every time he saw her, and every few days she relented and went inside to boil the kettle. Then they’d stand at the top of her drive and chat for ten minutes or so.

She smiled at him, an indulgent, motherly look. “Go on, then, you cheeky beggar.”