It could be anywhere, this place.

A rest area in the countryside, just off the motorway. There’s a low-budget hotel on one side of the car park, gas pumps on the other. Inside the single-story building at the far end, there is a food counter, a shabby amusement arcade, and a shop with snacks and newspapers and a selection of bestselling books. Outside the entrance, a van is selling flowers. The bunches rest in battered metal buckets, wilting in the afternoon heat.

After parking, the man sits in the darkness of his van for a time.

Then he gets out and walks slowly toward the main building.

The first witness to see him is a teenager dressed in creased kitchen whites, who is leaning against the wall of the hotel, smoking a cigarette. Hours later, he will give the police the same vague description as others who are present here this afternoon. The man is tall. Long green coat; dirty jeans; work boots thick with dried mud. The teenager will mention brown tufty hair, and a sun-weathered face. But the main thing he will remember is a sense of threat that he can’t quite put into words.

“He was someone you don’t want to look at,” he tells the police.

The man stops briefly at the flower van. A young woman is working inside. From behind the counter, she can really see only the man’s upper body, and so she wouldn’t be able to describe his face even if, like the young man outside the hotel, she had been prepared to look at him for long enough.

She will be clear about the words, at least.

“Nobody sees,” the man says. “And nobody cares.”

Inside the main building, the man approaches the food counter and stands there for a moment without ordering. Another teenager is working there, but he’s too busy and distracted to pay the man much attention. He’s scanning the racks of burgers and hot dogs wrapped in greasy paper, making a mental count. A smart kid, this one. He’s only been there for two weeks, but he knows what sells and when, and has been trying to get the guy working the grills in the back up to speed.

“Nobody sees,” the man says. “And nobody cares.”