TWENTY-NINE | APPEARANCES

The diner was crowded, full of locals who were full of gossip. I had to push my way through to get to the staff room at the back of the building, and I immediately regretted coming in through the front. It was early afternoon, which wasn’t usually a busy time for Ella’s, and, though it was bright and sunny outside, creeping through the wet leaf mulch and around the bins out the back felt less dignified than entering through the front doors, with the flickering neon sign overhead.

“They say he jumped,” one old man was saying to another.

"I heard that he was pushed," the other man retorted.

“Ben, his name was,” said a middle-aged woman, before taking a tiny sip of her coffee. She looked up at me as I passed, and I smiled at her politely.

Mae was behind the counter, and, despite the crowd, she was leaning against the bar and chatting idly to an older couple, who had l