He pressed a button, and the bus door swung open.
Donna stared at him open-mouthed. “You can’t just leave me here. How am I supposed to get home?”
“Out,” he said, pointing at her. His forefinger practically jabbed her in the eye.
“We’re in the middle of the harbor,” she protested. “There’s nothing here.”
“Get out! You’re gonna get me in trouble!”
He lunged in her direction, and before she knew it, Donna was standing in the road. The bus door swung shut, and the #6 pulled away. Its headlights were off, she saw.
Donna stood on the curb, utterly defeated. There was a guardrail behind her, and she leaned against it. Her stomach cramped with a new attack of nausea. She dry heaved. Her legs were rubber. She looked around. There was nothing to be seen but factories, dimly lit mastodons that grinned at her with their concrete maws. Two windmills turned beneath the starless sky. Their sweeping blades seemed to slice through her skull, so sharp was the pain in her head.
Where was she? She fished her phone from her pocket, but the battery was dead. It had died before the end of her shift, but she hadn’t worried about it, had simply planned to plug it in when she got home. She wasn’t wearing a watch, so she had to guess at the time. How long had she slept? How big was the Ghent harbor? Didn’t it extend all the way up to Zelzate?
She swallowed a sigh and began walking, sunk in despair. She assumed that the bus had been coming from Meulestede, so she headed back in that direction. Would she be brave enough to stick out her thumb if a car or truck came by? How long would it take her to reach a house or any other sign of life? Inside her heavy coat, she shivered. She buried her hands in her pockets, and her breath came out in clouds of white. Could things be any worse? What was wrong with her? Every time she began to get it together, something led her astray. First the divorce, then someone else’s mistake had wound up costing her her job. And now that she’d finally found a new position, this...
She put one foot in front of the other and tried to maintain a steady rhythm, counting her steps until she reached the perimeter fence of yet another factory. She was an insignificant speck compared to the huge silos and the cranes with their long metal arms.
Chin up, Donna, she told herself, this can’t last forever. Ghent has to be around here somewhere. Sooner or later, you’ll make it home.
She stiffened when a yellow light suddenly enfolded her. To her astonishment, the #6 bus loomed into sight and slowed to a crawl beside her. Its passenger door opened. She looked in and saw the same driver, Dieter Doremans, smiling at her. “Get in,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She turned away and resumed walking, staring at the ground. “Never mind,” she muttered. “I’m fine.”
She quickened her pace, but the bus kept up with her. She was penned in by the factory’s high fence on one side and the rolling colossus on the other. “Come on, get in. I’ll take you home, I owe you that much.”
Despite herself, she snuck a glance at him. He nodded encouragingly. She stopped walking, and the bus also came to a stop. “Come on, it’s warm in here,” he said. “I can’t leave you out here in the cold. That was stupid of me, unprofessional.”
She hesitated.
“I’ll take you back to Meulestede, then you’ll be close to home,” he said, waving her aboard.
She gave in. The idea of snuggling into her bed was too appealing. Without a lift, who knew how long it would take her to trudge home in the cold and dark?
She climbed onto the bus, and the door folded shut behind her. Without a word, she took a seat near the front and cast a suspicious eye to the back. He followed the movement of her head in his rearview mirror. “There’s nothing there,” he said. “I screwed the hatch shut, it was just a little loose.”
Donna sighed with relief. She’d probably just imagined the hand.
The driver grinned. “All’s well that ends well,” he said. “I’ll take you back. What’s your name?”
She relaxed. “Donna,” she said. “Donna Daems. And you’re Dieter Doremans. We have the same initials.”
He smiled.
Donna rested her head against the back of her seat and laughed. “You won’t believe what I thought I saw in that heating space back there. I must have been dreaming.” She looked at him in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to echo her laughter. But the reflection showed only his eyes, and there was no trace of humor in them now.
“What?” he said, his voice high-pitched. “What did you see?”
She swallowed. “A hand,” she said. “A human hand.”
The bus came to an abrupt stop. They were at the intersection of two roads that seemed to lead nowhere. The traffic light turned green, but the bus stayed where it was. She thought she could hear a truck approaching, but it was a freight train that roared by on the harbor track that ran parallel to the road. The racket seemed to go on forever.
Dieter turned around and stared dangerously at Donna.
“Let me out,” she yelped. She jumped to her feet and hurried to the door, banged on the glass with her fists, but all she accomplished was to bruise her knuckles.
“Open the door!” she shouted.
Dieter got out of his seat and came toward her.
“Get away!” she screamed, as loudly as she could. She buried her face in her hands, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled them away.
“Calm down,” he said. She looked at him and saw that he was crying. Surprised, she dropped her arms. She was so taken aback she couldn’t speak. He collapsed onto the nearest passenger seat like an empty burlap sack.
“You’re right,” he said. “It was a hand.”
The horror of that statement propelled Donna’s fists back to her mouth.
“There was nothing I could do. It just... it just happened. My wife... she was cheating on me. I suspected it for weeks, but yesterday I caught them. He ran off. I was so angry I pushed her, and she fell down the stairs.”
Donna stared at him, her eyes wide open. “You have to turn yourself in,” she said. It was all she could think of to say.
He seemed not to hear her. “Last night, after my run but before I reported in, I swung by our house. I wrapped her body in a couple of trash bags and hid it on the bus. It was late, nobody saw a thing. They never check the heating vents at the depot, and I knew I’d have the same bus tonight. I was going to get rid of the body, somewhere in the harbor.”
“You have to turn yourself in,” Donna repeated. “This won’t solve anything. You’ll be the obvious suspect if your wife just disappears.”
He looked at her, his eyes watery. “I just got this job. I really like it. I don’t want to mess it up. I can’t go to prison.”
Donna felt sorry for him. Another D.D. with a brand-new job. Another D.D. who’d do anything to keep it.
She wanted to pat his shoulder but stopped herself. “I understand,” she said. “More than you know.”
He looked a question at her.
“You say it was an accident,” she said. “Why not just take her back home and put her at the bottom of the stairs? Moving the body makes it look like it wasn’t an accident.”
“You read too many mysteries,” he said. “No one would believe me. You’re not a cop, are you?”
“No, no,” she said quickly, “I’m a nurse. I know what a fall does to a body. Let me look at her. Maybe I can get rid of any sign she was pushed.”