The heavy slam of a carriage door echoes off the granite walls of Penzance station, followed by the wet click of a latch. Rain mists the yellow platform lights, turning the air into a shimmering, cold veil. Trev Pascoe moves down the rake of the Night Mail with the practiced, heavy-footed gait of a man who has walked these boards for forty years. He gives Branwen a sharp nod, his high-vis vest glowing like a beacon against the maroon steel of the train.
Branwen steps into her carriage, the air inside thick with the smell of warm diesel, old paper, and wet canvas. The sorting racks stand empty, waiting for the first drop-off at Truro, their wooden pigeonholes like a thousand silent mouths. Everything is in its place, just as it has been for twenty years. She checks the manifest on her clipboard, the paper damp at the edges, her green eyes scanning the familiar rows of sorted bags and parcel cages.
Behind a stack of grey bags in the corner, she stops. A single canvas sack lies on the floor, its fabric cleaner and coarser than the modern GPO stock. There is no sorting code on the tag, only her own name written in a precise, looping hand that looks hauntingly familiar. The unmarked canvas sack on the floor bulges slightly as something heavy shifts inside.
