David woke shortly after six and knew the date before he knew what time it was.
17 November.
He remained in bed for twenty minutes, surprised by how ordinary he felt. For months he had imagined this morning possessing some special atmosphere, as though the significance he'd assigned to the date might have contaminated the weather or altered the light. Instead there was the ceiling, the distant plumbing of another apartment, the faint pressure in his bladder. He showered and made coffee.
The surveillance was finished. David knew Steve's routine better than he needed to and, more importantly, knew when the only crossing that mattered would take place. He had spent months waiting for 17 November and had no intention of cheapening the occasion by watching the preliminaries. Morning, lunch, afternoon: Steve could have those. David would see him after work.
The day Steve died.
The phrase no longer troubled him. It empowered him. He felt like fate itself.
At twelve-thirty he glanced at the clock and pictured Steve approaching the crossing, then pushed the thought away. That wasn't the crossing that mattered. The seventeenth was merely the green-light day: from Steve finishing work onward, the first suitable crossing would be the one. If Steve appeared with colleagues or crossed alongside another pedestrian, David would abort and return tomorrow. He wanted Steve, not collateral casualties.
Yet somewhere beneath these sensible contingencies lay an unreasonable certainty that none would be required. Months of repetition had transformed 17 November from a prediction into something closer to a fact.
Today would work.
David spent the afternoon in his apartment. At four he changed into dark trousers, trainers and an unremarkable jacket, checked his phone and walked to the lock-up. Shortly before five he raised the metal door and looked at the old saloon he'd bought two months earlier.
The engine started immediately.
David drove with almost comic care: speed limits, indicators, mirrors, a complete stop at an amber light he could easily have beaten. If a police car appeared now, the whole enterprise might end with the bathetic discovery that Steve Penderhurst had been saved by a defective brake light.
At 5:08 David reached the road leading towards the crossing and parked approximately four hundred metres away. He had originally considered six hundred, but four gave him ample distance to build speed while remaining close enough to monitor Steve through the zoom lens on his phone. In the gathering dark the crossing itself was indistinct; magnified on the screen, it sprang towards him—the lights, white markings, opposite pavement and the mouth of the street Steve used on his way to his car.
He thought of the dark at five in November, and the dark at nine in May. Why had Steve worked late that night? David knew his habits now. Steve rarely worked late—once every few months, perhaps. Yet on 6 May he had been there, crossing that road at exactly the wrong time, just as David happened to be driving towards it.
What forces had brought them together that night?
David didn't know. But increasingly he disliked the word accident.
David settled in.
He had expected trembling hands, a pounding heart, perhaps nausea. Instead he felt the concentration of a man waiting for a particular train.
The first pedestrians were irrelevant: a woman, then a man behind her. At 5:29 three people appeared from Steve's direction and for a moment David thought the tallest was him. Wrong coat. Another man appeared alone at 5:33. Not Steve. There was no reason for concern; David had seen Steve leave as early as 5:15 and as late as 5:50.
At 5:41 a couple waited at the crossing while a cyclist passed behind them. David watched them cross and considered the rule. If Steve appeared among other people, he wouldn't move. There would be another opportunity. What mattered was that 17 November had arrived. The machinery was finally in motion.
At 5:54 the crossing was empty.
Steve wasn't there.
Six o'clock came and went. David's calm began to fray. Steve occasionally worked late, but by 6:15 the constant zooming had given him a headache and an unwelcome possibility had occurred to him.
Steve might have left early.
David rejected it almost immediately, not because he possessed evidence against it but because it felt wrong.
Steve was supposed to be here.
Supposed to be?
According to whom?
For months David had constructed this evening so repeatedly that somewhere along the way he had confused intention with memory. He didn't merely expect Steve to appear; some part of him felt he had already seen it happen. Steve would emerge alone, approach the crossing and press the button. The signal would change. Steve would step onto the road. David would start the engine.
That was what happened on 17 November.
Except it wasn't happening.
By 6:45 impatience had become anger. David wasn't frightened and, more surprisingly, wasn't relieved. He felt cheated. Now eleven months of watching, the car, the lock-up, the mantras, the date itself—and Steve Penderhurst had failed to attend.
Shortly after seven, David finally put the phone down. He stared towards the distant crossing with a resentment so disproportionate that under different circumstances he might have recognised its absurdity. Steve had already taken almost everything from him. Now he'd managed to ruin his own murder.
Fine.
Tomorrow.
The date had been arbitrary anyway: two words carried out of a dream and elevated into prophecy because David had needed something solid around which to organise himself. Tomorrow would be 18 November and Steve would still need to get to work.
David returned the car to the lock-up and walked home. It was 7:21 when he reached the apartment. He threw his jacket over a chair, plugged in his phone and went to the kitchen for water. The disappointment remained, but what irritated him most was the certainty. He had known Steve would be there.
Back in the living room, David picked up his phone and opened the local news.
The photograph registered before the headline.
David knew the crossing instantly. Police tape ran across the road, an ambulance stood beyond it and a dark car rested at an angle with two wheels on the pavement.
MAN KILLED AFTER CAR MOUNTS PAVEMENT AT PEDESTRIAN CROSSING
The incident had occurred shortly after 12:40 that afternoon. Witnesses reported seeing a vehicle leave the carriageway before striking a pedestrian near the crossing. The victim had been pronounced dead at the scene. The driver remained nearby and had been arrested.
David read the name of the victim.
Steve Penderhurst.
For several seconds he experienced no recognisable emotion. His mind rejected the information not because Steve was dead but because Steve had died incorrectly.
12:40.
At 12:40 David had been sitting in his apartment. He remembered looking at the clock and imagining Steve going out for lunch.
Steve had been going out for lunch.
David enlarged the photograph. The car wasn't his. Of course it wasn't; his car had been sitting untouched in the lock-up. A man had been arrested at the scene.
David put the phone down, then picked it up again.
17 November.
The same crossing.
A car had mounted the pavement.
Steve had been alone.
For several months David had repeated that Steve Penderhurst would be hit by a car on 17 November. He had planned the road, the speed, the crossing and, if necessary, the pavement. He had spent the evening waiting to make it happen.
He had been six hours too late.
Someone else had got there first.