Chapter 3: HELEN

She was standing in the middle of the lawn behind the house, perfectly still, her back to me. There was frost on the grass, and dead leaves, their edges silvered in the last of the winter daylight. A birdbath stood on a stone pedestal with ice in it, and something else, a small rounded object, perhaps a dead bird: I couldn't quite see from here. I'd rung the doorbell at the front of the house but couldn't hear any sound. I'd knocked, but not too hard; this was a house of grief. Then I'd come along the narrow redbrick path and through the gate by the hedge and seen her there on the lawn, a thin figure hunched in a sheepskin coat, facing away from the house. I couldn't see that she was watching anything in particular; there was a tennis court and a summer house and, farther away, a shed with some gardening tools leaning against it and the door half open. It was intensely quiet here, but in the distance there was traffic, its sounds muted, it seemed, by the cold and the lowering dark.

She turned round and saw me.

I hadn't gone close, not wanting to startle her. We stood facing each other for a time in silence. Then she spoke.

'Who are you?' 'Victor Locke. I'm sorry to disturb you.' I meant her reverie. She'd known I was coming; it was just four.

She seemed not to connect, then said, 'Oh yes. You're coming to tea.' She still didn't move. At this distance she looked insubstantial, a small cold face above the coat, her hands tucked into the sleeves, her feet together in their fleece-lined boots. There was a toy railway engine not far from where she stood, lying on its side among the frosted leaves. I hadn't been briefed that the Maitlands had any children.

I went towards her. That's right. I'm sorry about your husband.'