She scanned the faces of the people as they left the train, looking for the one that she’d been shown at the briefing that afternoon. She slid the gun from her bag, flicked the safety off, and held it easily beneath the hat. The train eased into Platform Five and disgorged another cloud of tadpoles. She put her Kindle back into her bag, took off her stylish forties hat and rested it on the balcony wall in front of her. She would easily spot Chris when he emerged. See you in a few minutes.” She returned a brief acknowledgement and peered down at the platforms. It was Chris again: “Just left Stockport. Still, they had more similarities than differences, and had been together now for twenty years, married for the last ten. ![]() ![]() He preferred to read graphic novels about brightly-coloured heroes with impossible superpowers, and women with large breasts and highly impractical outfits with which to contain them. He had made fun of her fascination with the war, although it was the reason she had ended up in her current job. Perhaps in a previous life she had even been a Spitfire pilot. It was almost as if she’d been born out of her natural time, this feeling that her natural place should have been there, in the midst of that maelstrom of horror. She had told him how comforting the sound of a Spitfire engine seemed, how it felt inside as if she heard it every day rather than just at the annual air-show. She had tried to explain her fascination with the Second World War that it all felt remarkably familiar to her, even though she had been born twenty-two years after its end. He’d been mystified as to how she could be gripped by a dry tome about the inner workings of the Enigma Machine, or the mundane diaries of a grocer’s experiences in the Air Raid Precautions service in Hythe. Her husband had always scoffed at her choices of reading. She settled back happily to read about drug use and abuse in Nazi Germany. ‘Once there were mountains on mountains, and once there were sun birds to soar with, and once I could never be down,’ Bowie sang to her. “Good luck, lads,” she murmured, and plugged in her earphones. A group in red and white raised a chant of “United! United!” and she smiled. People wriggled about like tadpoles, weaving through each other in an almost Brownian motion that was quite hypnotic. From here she could see the platforms below. She ordered a Caramel Macchiato and took it to a table on the balcony. That would give her half an hour with a hot drink and her book. Really looking forward to being at home with you and a nice glass of red.” We’re running late but should be into Manchester about quarter past. It’s a bit rubbish and packed with United fans, but needs must when the devil vomits on your cornflakes. “Finished work and just caught the train. The incongruity of the message appealed to Deborah’s Luddite love of old things, rather like the faux-wooden case that held her Kindle. The text alert repeated, an audio capture from an old computer game. This has led me to call texts ‘faxes’ from time to time, much to the amusement of the younger wombats. It’s a sound clip from the classic noir adventure game, ‘Under A Killing Moon’, concerning ‘a humble PI trying to save the world as we know it’, Tex Murphy. I can’t now remember who else was involved in our conversation, but this far-fetched idea sprang from a conversation with my lady of swans, The text alert that story-Deborah uses - “You have a fax” - is actually the one I use on my own phone. ![]() The station herein is Manchester Piccadilly, where I have sat many a time nursing a coffee (or a G&T if I’m being seduced into sin by watching the crowds mill about below. Bowie, of course, in his pomp on his tenth album.
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