Mark was coming to the end of his shift, he was a delivery driver for a stationary supply business. Often one of his last jobs of the day was to go around a few of the local stores where the company had staff temporarily based doing displays or promotions and give them a lift back to the depot with their equipment.
Clare was a regular pickup on these trips for Mark, and although they didn’t really cross paths in any other aspect of their work, they had gotten to be friendly over the months, even flirting a little. She was younger than Mark, perhaps 20 to his 25 and was a single mother who lived in the neighbourhood along with her two year old daughter. Mark had never heard her talk about the girl’s father, and he hadn’t asked figuring if she wanted him to know she would have brought it up by now.
It took Mark about 10 mins to help load all of Clare’s gear in the back of the van, and they set off on the twenty or so minute journey across the city to the main depot. The van was a larger model with three seats in a line in the front and Mark had gotten used to Clare opting to sit in the middle seat rather than the further away one, where most passengers sat when there were only two of them.