2

A burn and a bed of dry thistles was no place for a nap.

Janet cupped her hands to her mouth and called, “Hello along the burn!” There was no answer, no movement. She thought for a moment and then climbed off her bike, her legs not at all like jelly. Maybe she’d exaggerated their distress. She walked the bike back off the bridge, losing sight of the sleeve and the other bike’s wheel, and looked along the embankment for a way down to the creek.

It’s steep, but not a bluff, Janet thought. There is no edge and the world is not waiting to tip me off of one. There was no clear path, either, but the verge was wide enough for a car to have pulled off the roadway, at least to get two wheels off the pavement, anyway. She stepped over tire ruts to study the slope. It didn’t immediately strike terror, so she leaned her bike against the bridge, and made sure her helmet sat straight and firm on her head.

“I can do this,” she said out loud and then, calling, “Hello! Hello!” even louder, she picked her way downward. The burn continued its gurgle. A curlew cried. No one answered her calls. When she reached the burn and started along its bank, Janet took her phone from the pack at her waist.

She came upon the bike first, its rear mudguard knocked sideways. Then the man—crumpled. She didn’t know him. He’d been wearing a helmet, too. It hadn’t saved his neck, though, and it was clear he would never be able to tell her how he came to be there.

She said, “Hello,” again, softly, as she knelt to feel for a pulse. His skin was as cold as the rock she stumbled backward to and sat down on.

She pressed three nines on her phone—the police emergency number—and looked back up toward the road. How had he managed to lose control so completely and end up all the way down here?

“A man,” she said when the dispatcher answered. “Older, but not elderly. He and his bike came off the road.” She held back tears, wondering where they’d come from, and answered the dispatcher’s questions about where and who and how. “He must have flown down the bank and then came off his bike. And then the rocks. Or first the rocks. I don’t know which, but he hit his head or broke his neck. Or both. Yes, I am sure. He is dead. Yes, I can do that. I’ll stand by the bridge—the Beaton Bridge? I’ll stand there so you’ll see where.”

Before she climbed up to the road, Janet went back to stand over the man whose tweed blended in with the thistles. He’s dead. Thistles are dead. A natural and unnatural bed. One of his hands lay in the burn palm upward, fingers curled and cupping the water like an offering.

She made another call on her way up the bank. Constable Norman Hobbs answered. “Norman, I’ve just called 9-9-9. It’s Janet. Marsh. To report a fatality. In case you haven’t already heard.” She knew she was babbling.

“I have heard, Mrs. Marsh. Are you safe?”

She hadn’t considered that. She stopped, listened, scanned the area with all its possible hiding places. Hiding what? Who?

Hobbs cut into her thoughts. “Janet?”

“I think so?” She hadn’t meant it to sound like a question. And of course he’d heard about her call. As local constable, he would be first on the scene, if she’d stop delaying him. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine. I’ll be standing by the bridge.”

“I’ll see you shortly.”

When Hobbs disconnected, Janet debated calling her daughter to let her know she might be late to the shop. But Tallie was the one who’d asked her if she was trying to prove something by getting back on a bike after all these years.

Janet called their business partner Christine instead. She and Christine Robertson, a Scot transplanted to Illinois and now replanted in her hometown, had been friends since Tallie was in grade school. Christine, a retired social worker, knew a thing or two about people proving themselves. Janet pressed Christine’s number, meaning to remain calm and give only the basic facts. The climb up the steep bank got to her, though, and the facts became even more basic.

“It’s me,” she said. “I’ve found a body.”

Christine’s response was more basic yet. “Again?”