The Conductor's Coat

The coat hung behind the door of the spare room, where she was certain it had not hung the day before: heavy navy wool, brass buttons gone green, a ticket punch still in the pocket.

Pinned inside the collar was a railway badge stamped with her grandfather's number. Beneath it, sewn in faded thread, was a second number she didn't recognise — as though the coat had belonged to someone before him, and someone before that.

She thought of the solicitor's careful sentences, of Mrs. Hale's one ticking clock, of every name in the ledger. Then she put the coat on, because the night was cold, and went up the hill.