Ossington Bus, home late from Mercer Union

Caucasian woman, early 60s, wearing a canary-yellow linen blouse and white capris, a plastic bag of emptied pistachio shells sitting beside her.

P.D. James, The Lighthouse (Seal Books)

Page 167:

Professor Glenister stood for a moment silently contemplating the corpse, then gently she touched the muscles of the face and neck and moved to test the joints of each of the fingers curved over the lower sheet as if half-clutching it in death.

She's lived in this neighbourhood her whole life. She rings the bell and glides up to the front, gently steadying herself on the back of seats, reaching out to clutch a bar. The bus lowers and she steps gingerly onto the curb. The night is warm. I open the window and the breeze carries in fish and pastries. She bends to tighten the velcro straps of her white running shoes then power walks past the man on the bike, drunk and cat calling a brick wall.