Owen Prideaux

Owen Prideaux is 34 and serves pasta to those who tip him and stories to those who lend him an ear. He was born in Swindon, the son of a truck driver and a pharmacy clerk, and was the first in his family to study literature at the University of Bristol. The money ran out before the last year and he went back to the working road with a backpack and a dream. He has been at the downtown Italian restaurant for two years, where he says he waits tables to pay the rent and keep his afternoons free for writing.

He lives in a room above a laundromat, over a glass counter and a permanent smell of soap, with a window onto the back alley. He has a pine desk he sanded himself, a creaky chair, a makeshift shelf of crates and a pile of spy novels he calls research. He eats what is left over at the restaurant, sleeps late and wakes later still. His mother calls on Sundays and asks if the book is finished yet.

He is thin and tall, with pale, freckled skin, tousled red hair and a sparse beard. He wears a white waiter's shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a black apron tied at the waist, a pen behind his ear and a curious, anxious gaze that slides over people as if studying a cast. He talks a lot, fast, with smiles for no reason, and treats each customer as a character, inventing a life for them while he pours the wine.

About Sunday lunch, his account is that of the one who served: mushroom risotto for Mr. Danek, pasta for the daughter and a bottle of white wine, at the same window table as every Sunday. By the end of lunch, he was sweating a lot and his pupils were the size of pinheads, and the waiter thought it was the wine. The kitchen has since been sealed, but nobody else fell ill. He says he has been there two years and knows the customers like the back of his hand.

Owen knows that a waiter who notices everything and takes notes on what he sees is the kind of witness the police cling to, and that the same taste for watching can turn against him. When the detective asks why he knows so much about the customers, the answer comes with a nervous smile and a bad joke. It may be the harmless curiosity of a frustrated writer. It may be someone who observes because he has reason to observe. The detective will have to decide which.