Footbridge Road

Footbridge Road becomes Burke Devore’s surveillance point as he watches Kane Asche and his wife, hoping to catch Kane alone. The road’s slope gives Burke a view of their garden and house, while its connection to New Haven Road lets him follow a lead toward a nearby nursery. Its importance lies in the gap between what Burke can see and what he needs: from the roadside he can observe the couple’s closeness, but he cannot make them separate.

Setting and Access

On his first visit, Burke walks up Footbridge Road and stops to catch his breath beside a stub of stone wall. When he returns, he sits in the Voyager parked by the roadside near that same landmark. From the vehicle, positioned above the property, he can look down the slope toward the uncleared land above the house and watch Kane and his wife work in their garden. The familiar wall and elevated view make the road a practical observation post, a place Burke can occupy without approaching the couple directly.

The road also shapes his movements. After leaving the couple’s house and garden in view, Burke drives toward a small mall north of town, where a garden nursery stands across the parking lot from an Italian restaurant. He later turns onto New Haven Road to eat, then returns to Footbridge Road. When he checks his road atlas, he finds that the road curves around and heads south, away from home; he makes a U-turn and retraces his route. The geography offers him a way to watch and reposition himself, but not an easy way to control the circumstances he is waiting for.

A Roadside Watch

On the Thursday he settles in to watch, Burke arrives shortly before nine. Kane’s black Honda Accord is already in the driveway, but the couple has not yet come outside. At about nine-thirty, they emerge dressed for gardening, bringing out seedling flats and stakes, then digging and planting together. From his raised position in the Voyager, Burke sees them pass tools and talk, sometimes laughing. Their cooperation is visible across the slope; Burke’s surveillance turns that ordinary shared work into an obstacle.

The domestic routine continues through the morning. The couple brings a cordless phone into the garden, and the wife answers it twice, once handing the phone to Kane, but neither call draws either of them away alone. When they go to the mailbox, Burke can see Kane sort the mail and distribute it between them; he sees the wife ask a question and Kane shake his head. They carry the mail to the side porch together, return to the garden, and at half past twelve compare watches before going inside hand in hand for lunch. The details matter to Burke because each ordinary action confirms that they remain together.

Their closeness also leaves Burke conspicuous but unnoticed. He recognizes that he is plainly visible from the road as they approach the mailbox, yet neither looks toward him. He waits briefly after they go indoors, in case Kane comes back out to go to a store, then drives away to eat spaghetti carbonara and have coffee. On his return, the couple is gardening together again. He decides there is no point continuing to watch that day: the pattern seems settled, and he leaves the possibility of another attempt for Friday.

The Limits of Observation

Footbridge Road lets Burke observe the couple, but watching does not give him the opening he wants. He resists parking in the same place for too long, fearing that Kane or neighbors farther up the hill will notice him. He drives another quarter mile, pulls off to consult his atlas, and then turns around. These adjustments reveal the narrowness of his position: he must remain close enough to see the house and garden while avoiding the attention that his parked car may attract.

The failed surveillance also sharpens his intention. Burke thinks he cannot tolerate the Asches’ togetherness indefinitely and believes they must separate, or else. He has a horror of killing the wife, but an even greater fear of remaining in what he describes as a swamp until it changes him permanently. He reaches the decision that if the couple insists on living together, both will have to die together. Footbridge Road thus marks a change from waiting for a convenient separation to accepting a more lethal alternative.

The Road as a Staging Ground

On a later approach, Burke turns right onto Footbridge Road and slowly climbs the easy slope. The Honda is no longer in the driveway. He sees the wife alone in the garden, wearing a pale yellow T-shirt and white headband, with a clipboard on which she appears to be drawing a garden chart. The missing car suggests that Kane has gone somewhere, and Burke suddenly connects the absence to the nursery near the mall where he ate the previous day.

He makes a U-turn at the same place as before and drives downhill more quickly. He hopes to encounter Kane traveling in the same direction, so that he can pull alongside and shoot him; meeting him head-on would not serve his plan. Burke also recognizes that he cannot repeat the method he used against Everett Dynes in Lichgate if Kane is inside a car. Traffic at the turn onto New Haven Road delays him, leaving him watching for the black Accord among the passing vehicles. Footbridge Road is therefore both a route into Burke’s plan and a measure of its dependence on chance: he can trace the car’s likely destination, but the road and traffic still dictate whether he can act.