The Last Bus

Hanna took the eleven-fifteen bus home from town every Friday.

It was the last bus of the night, on Route 14, between the town of Helmsford and the village of Vaersholm. The route was forty-eight minutes long. The bus had eleven stops. Hanna got on at stop two. She got off at stop nine.

Most Friday nights, the bus had between three and six passengers. Hanna had — over a year of taking it — got to know the regulars by sight. The man with the tan briefcase who always got off at stop four. The woman with the small dog in a basket who got off at stop six. The two teenagers in matching tracksuits who got off at stop seven. The old woman who knitted at stop eight.

For the last six weeks, there had been a new passenger.

He got on at the same stop as Hanna — stop two, in town. He sat at the back. He wore a dark coat and a soft cap. He was, Hanna thought, around forty. He had a thin face and tired eyes. He read a paperback. He did not look at his phone. He did not look out of the window. He did not, ever, get off.

Hanna had noticed this on the third Friday. The man had, on her first two Fridays of seeing him, simply been there. On the third, she had — for no particular reason — looked back as she got off at stop nine. She had seen him still in his seat, paperback open, settled in for the rest of the route.

She had thought: odd. He must live in the village past mine. Or in one ofthe small farms after stop ten.

But on the fourth Friday, she had — out of curiosity — asked the bus driver as she got off:

"Where does the man at the back get off?"

The bus driver, who was an older man called Ole and whom Hanna had been greeting for a year, had thought about it.

"That one. He doesn't get off, Hanna."

"Sorry?"

"He stays on the bus. We loop back into the depot at midnight. He gets off there. He's been doing it for about six weeks. He pays the full single fare, every Friday, and he just rides the whole route, and at the end he goes back into town with the bus, and gets off at the depot. Or — that's what I assume. I haven't actually watched him leave the depot. He always thanks me politely. He's quiet. He doesn't bother anyone."

"That's — that's a strange thing to do."

"It is. But he's quiet. And he pays. And — Hanna — I've thought about it a fair bit. I think he's lonely. I think the bus is something to do on a Friday night. I let it alone."

Hanna got off at stop nine that fourth Friday and walked home, thinking.

By the fifth Friday, she had started — without intending to — to watch him.

He was not, she could see now, just lonely. He was — careful. He held his paperback in a particular way. He sat in the same seat every time. He looked, occasionally, very briefly out the window when the bus passed certain landmarks — the petrol station outside Vaersholm, the small church between stop seven and stop eight, the war memorial at stop ten. Each time he looked, his face did the smallest possible thing — a tightening, a slow release, a returning to the page.

Hanna, who had always been a noticer, noticed.

By the sixth Friday she had a small theory. She had not told anyone. She had not yet told Ole. She had a notebook, in her bag, in which she had