As she finished the chapter to her book, she closed it and rested it on her lap. She loved finishing a chapter just before her stop, it was a kind of surge of life's infrequent equilibrium that she secretly revelled in. She fingered the spine lightly, feeling the well-worn creases that held the yellowed pages of time that rested warm. It was a book she had picked up on Charing Cross Road, a second hand gem, bought and read in the first few months of working at MI-5. Occasionally, she would retrieve it from the shelf, and it was a ritual she had partaken in more and more frequently recently.
Stepping off the bus, she placed it in her bag once more, only mildy irritated that it knocked against her thigh as she neared her ornate front door. She loved that stained glass door and the loud click of her key in the lock. She was home. Some evenings, very much like this particular one for example, the house was too large for her. She'd notice more than usual the empty sound of her shoes being placed clumsily against the skirting board in the hall, or the sudden plunge into silence after deactivating the alarm.
It was the flicker of the television that woke him from his distant reverie. Recognising the Home Secretary on the 24-hour BBC News channel as the bulletin ran it's constant loop, he sat up slowly. Absent-mindedly rubbing his forehead still tense from the day's events, he vacated the sofa, determined in his mission to get out of the house, and out of his head for a while.
On the Millennium Bridge he strolled once more towards the South Bank. Turning on his heel, he looked round to see St Paul's Cathedral glowing in it's artificial light. He'd walked along this bridge many times before, sometimes alone, but it was the walks with her he remembered at this moment. He tried to imagine what she'd say if she was stood there with him, marvelling at the neo-classical architecture no doubt, he smiled to himself. Though of course, he knew he wasn't giving her enough credit...their talks on this bridge had been about far more than the average admirer of London's places of interest could possibly fathom.
Reaching the South Bank, he eventually approached the BFI after what seemed like a fairly strenous stroll beside the river. Crowds of cosmopolitan couples and accquaintances milled about the riverside cafe bar and the cinema entrance. He very nearly walked past, like he'd often done before when on more urgent business, but instead he choose to stop, noticing the posters for the London Film Festival that arrayed the building. He very quickly discovered, upon asking a nearby steward, that the showing tonight was The Red Shoes.
