She watched from the upstairs window.
His car had stopped at the gate at nine forty-three. She had been in the sitting room when she heard it on the drive, the specific sound of a car that had come from the city rather than from the local road, and she moved to the window without deciding to.
The headlights through the iron. The car parked just beyond the gate, the engine still running. She could not see his face from this distance. Only the car. Only the fact of it there stopped, with the engine on and the lights on and nothing happening.
She stood at the window.
She did not go down.
She watched.
The car did not move for twenty minutes. She checked the time when it arrived, and she checked it when it left. Twenty minutes was the difference. No call came to the intercom. The gate rec
