Danny Cole had not slept properly since ,he laid in bed staring at the ceiling of his flat on Brennan Road and drifted in and out of something that felt more like falling than resting dropping off for twenty minutes, and staring at the ceiling over and over again .
By four in the morning he gave up entirely,
got up and made tea with scramble eggs and bread he sat at his kitchen table in the dark with both hands wrapped around the mug .
He kept thinking about the fifteen minutes inside that shop, walking the aisles and picking up the milk and bread and the cheap pasta he lived on during the week. Within fifteen ordinary minutes on the pavement a girl with dark hair stood talking to a man she didn't look comfortable talking to, when he came out they were both gone.
He had not thought anything of it not until after the incident at the park he was thinking everything about it now.
He had grown up in Ashford Hollow , he was borned and schooled here too and never quite managed to leave the way he always said he would.
He knew the streets and the feeling of each of them like the back of his hands.Which roads flooded in winter.
He knew Clover Street had done a scaffolding job there last spring. he spent three weeks on the yellow building on the corner the one the neighbors said the girl lived in. He remembered the job because it had rained the entire first week and the foreman had been in a foul mood about it and Danny had eaten his lunch every day sitting on the kerb outside because the site hut smelled like damp and old coffee.
Standing at the park gate Monday morning with everyone looking at him and the police officer writing things down and his coffee going cold in his hand he had said what felt important, the grocery,the girl,the man and how she looked uncomfortable, he had said all of that clearly and carefully and then he had stopped.
Because the next part had felt too blurry and
uncertain in his mind .
I think I saw him walking toward her street twice the same older man in the grey coat but he wasn't sure enough to say it out loud to a police officer with a notebook because he had not been paying close attention , he just glanced up and had seen a grey coat moving away down the street and thought nothing of it and gone home.
He wasn't sure enough.
But he was sure enough that it wouldn't leave him alone.
His phone was on the table in front of him.
He looked at it.
He had found the number online Ashford Hollow police non-emergency line, typed it into his phone at eleven o'clock last night and then sat there looking at it for twenty minutes and put the phone down and gone to bed.
He picked it up again now.
Put it down again.
It's nothing, he told himself "You're not even sure you glanced up for two seconds and you saw a grey coat, half the men in Ashford and they are older men too.
He got up. Rinsed his mug. Stood at the kitchen window.
The street below was empty. Five in the morning and Ashford Hollow was still dark and still quiet just the orange glow of the streetlights on the wet pavement and a cat crossing the road with that particular cat confidence of an animal that owned everything it walked on.
Danny watched it until it disappeared around the corner.
He thought about the girl.
Nadia. That was her name he had heard it at the park gate, passed through the crowd in that low urgent way information moved in small towns, Nadia. The girl from the yellow building on Clover Street, with the headphones who worked at the pharmacy or used to.
He hadn't known her.
Not really, not beyond the nodding acquaintance of people who lived in the same small town and crossed paths occasionally without ever stopping. He might have seen her before, he couldn't say for certain, Ashford Hollow was small enough that faces became familiar without names ever being exchanged.
He hadn't known her.
But he had seen her.
And now she was gone and he was standing in his kitchen at five in the morning unable to sleep because of fifteen minutes and a grey coat walking in a direction he wasn't certain enough to report.
He picked his phone up.
Put it down.
Picked it up again.
Just call, he told himself. Say what you saw. Say you're not sure. Let them decide if it matters. That's their job not yours.
He dialed before he could talk himself out of it again.
It rang four times.
"Ashford Hollow police. How can I help?"
"Hi." His voice came out rough , he cleared his throat. "My name is Danny Cole, I gave a statement yesterday morning, in Kelmore Park, about the...eeee dea..dd girl."he fidgeted nervously.
"One moment." The sound of typing, "Yes Mr. Cole. Do you have something to add to your statement?"
"I think so, I'm not.... I just want to be clear with you I'm not so certain about this, but there's something I didn't mention yesterday."
"Go ahead Mr Danny "
Danny looked out the window. The cat was gone. The street was empty and orange-lit and perfectly still.
"The man I saw," he said. "The one with the grey coat, when I came out of the shop and they were both gone I saw him, Just for a second walking away down the street."
"Which direction?"
"Toward Clover Street," He paused,"I know that street. I did a job there last year,he was walking directly toward it like he knew where he was going."
Silence on the other end, just the sound of more typing and clicking.
"And you didn't mention this yesterday because?"
"Because I wasn't sure," Danny said. "I'm still not sure, I glanced up for two seconds. But it's been sitting with me all night and I thought.... I thought I should say it. Even if it's nothing."
"You did the right thing Mr Cole," the officer said, "I'll make sure this is passed on to the detective on the case."
"Okay," Danny said. "Good, Okay."
He hung up.
Stood in the kitchen for a moment.
He didn't feel better exactly, he didn't feel worse, felt like a man who had put something down that he had been carrying all night .
He went back to bed and put off his light he thought about the fifteen minutes interval .
Thought about the grey coat walking toward Clover Street like a man who knew exactly where he was going.
Thought about the girl who hadn't looked comfortable, who had kept looking down the street like she was waiting for something to interrupt them.
He fell asleep just before six.
Outside Ashford Hollow was waking up the first lights coming on in windows up and down Brennan Road, the first cars, the first sounds of a town moving through another ordinary Tuesday like nothing had happened.
Like a girl with dark hair and headphones hadn't gone into the dark on Monday night and not come back out.
Danny slept off his brain was tired of overthinking and shut down .In his dream he was standing outside the grocery on the high street and it was nine o'clock and the pavement was wet and the man in the grey coat was walking away down the street and Danny was watching him go and he thought of following him,but his feet wouldn't move.
And the grey coat got smaller and smaller until it turned the corner onto Clover Street and disappeared and Danny stood alone on the wet pavement outside the grocery with his shopping in his hand and the night closing in around him.
And somewhere in the distance a girl laughed then stopped abruptly.