Everything to Nothing (57 page)

‘Oh my God
Michelle, oh my fucking GOD!’

Screaming,
Sally ran down the verge to the car but Michelle did not follow. It
looked like it was not too badly damaged from the angle she was
looking at it from. She was viewing it from the right hand side and
the main shell of the car looked like it was intact and the
numerous airbags had deployed which obscured her view through the
car. She could see David though, and as she approached she heard
him moan. ‘David! David don’t move, please don’t move!’

She stuck her
head through the side window that was down when they crashed, and
moved the airbags off David. It was then that she realised all was
not right with the car. ‘Oh my God, where’s the other half of the
car!’

Length ways the
car had been ripped in two straight down the middle. Frantically
she looked around unable to see where the other half of the car
was, and then she looked back up the hill to where Michelle had not
moved. For some reason she seemed to be staring at a tree.
‘Michelle? Michelle?! David, please don’t move!’

At a fast run
Sally moved back up to Michelle, stood next to her and followed her
eyes. At the base of the large oak tree was a twisted, crumpled,
crushed lump of metal that could not be described as resembling
anything like a car.

‘Sally, oh my
God Sally...’ whispered Michelle, her voice shaking.

‘It’s okay
Michelle, it’s okay! He would have been thrown clear!’

Ripping her
eyes from the base of the tree she looked at Michelle who was
shaking from head to toe and shaking her head from side to side.
Slowly she raised her shaking hand and pointed. Sally quickly saw
what Michelle was pointing at.

A solitary arm
was lying on the ground and glinting in the sun, clearly visible
around the wrist, was the watch Michelle had got Simon for his
twenty-first birthday.

Without saying
another word Michelle collapsed next to Sally in a dead faint.

Chapter 42

Simon’s funeral
took place on a Saturday, two weeks to the day after his wedding to
Michelle should have occurred. For the first week Michelle had been
in hospital on a strong sedative to calm her because every time she
woke she was hysterical. After the week the doctors slowly brought
her off the sedative and Sally was by her bedside to offer her
support whenever she could be away from David’s bedside.

He had got
through the accident relatively unscathed considering the force of
the impact. With cuts and bruises his most serious injury was a
broken leg and a fractured wrist. The airbags and the fact that
Simon’s half of the car had taken all the impact spared him from
more serious injury. For him though, like Michelle, the most
serious injury was psychological.

The toxicology
report had shown a high concentration of chemicals usually
associated with the drug crystal meth in David’s blood. Everybody
of course remembered the encounter with Sarah and the blame for the
crash was laid firmly at her feet, but the police had been unable
to trace her.

David though
was still taking full blame for the crash because he knew he was
driving too fast. He had screamed at Sally one day that if he had
been driving slower when the drug took its hold Simon would not
have died. She stated once again it was not his fault but David
became hysterical so the doctors had to sedate him again.

Later, the
police spoke to David about the incident as he lay in hospital and
when the questions turned to drugs one of Mr. Gallagher’s top
lawyers swiftly intervened stating that David had never shown any
evidence of drug taking, not even a cigarette never mind such a
vile substance as crystal meth and that the police had a name to
follow up. Confronted by one of the best lawyers in the country
whose reputation went before her, the police did not press the
matter and David was formally exonerated of all blame for the
crash.

This did not
help him though. He stayed away from the funeral hiding behind the
excuse that it would not be appropriate and it would upset Michelle
and Simon’s family. Michelle was relieved when Sally told her that
he would not be coming, but she would of course be there to support
her.

Michelle was
relieved because she knew that if he saw him she would end up
trying to kill him. In her heart and in her head the blame for her
fiancé’s death lay firmly with David for driving too fast and she
knew that she would never be able to forgive him. Her opinions were
never voiced to Sally but they were voiced openly to Simon’s
family.

But they were
not concerned with attributing blame. All they cared about was the
fact they had lost a loving son and that the driver had been
illegally drugged by a crazed drug addict. That fact was enough for
them; they did not want to ruin another young man’s life by openly
blaming him.

*

For the next
few months David’s physical wounds healed but his mental scarring
did not. He slumped into a severe depression and nothing that Sally
could do or say could bring him out of it. Despite numerous
vacations to luxurious hotels and appointments with psychologists,
David’s depression seemed to deepen. Mr. Gallagher noticed it at
work but did not do anything about it, deciding to give David
whatever time he needed.

Sally did see a
slight improvement but one day she walked in on him unannounced at
work and caught him drinking from a bottle of whiskey at his desk.
Furious she ripped it from his hand and smashed it against a wall
where it left an inkblot pattern that a psychologist might have
liked to analyse.

The argument
raged for over an hour, which included David missing an important
meeting, and he pleaded with her not to tell her father. When she
had slowly calmed down she reluctantly agreed, knowing that if he
lost the job he loved it could finish him off. She did clearly
state that if she saw anymore evidence of him drinking that it
would be the end of not only his job but also their relationship.
So David invested in the strongest mouthwash he could find and
carried on drinking.

The numerous
private investigators they had hired to try and track down Sarah
had so far turned up nothing. All the investigators came back with
the same story, that the streets were awash with drugs and trying
to find one drug addict out of so many was, well, it was needle in
a haystack time.

Without this
closure of justice that everybody craved for, David slumped even
more into a severe depression. His drinking picked up and Sally
suspected this, but in her heart she still loved him and supported
him as best she could.

One day though,
for the first time David came to work drunk. And not a little drunk
either, a lot drunk. The first action he took that day was to swear
at his secretary and make a lewd comment about the size of her
breasts. The next action he took was to consult his calendar on his
computer which showed him that he had a meeting with an important
South Korean company about a huge contract that his boss had been
negotiating for months. With a loud belch he reached into the
bottom drawer of his desk and took a swig from a bottle of vodka.
Wiping his hand across his mouth, he farted and then chuckled his
way out of his office up to the boardroom.

As soon as he
entered the room Mr. Gallagher knew there was something seriously
wrong but the South Korean representatives were already present.
Desperately he tried to make eye contact with James but he was deep
in discussion with one of the Korean directors and before anyone
could react David was introducing himself to the Chairman of the
massive South Korean conglomerate that could have bought Mr.
Gallagher’s company at breakfast, Microsoft at lunch, Apple at
dinner and Shell at coffee and mints.

‘Pleased to
meet you. And your name is?’

‘Chairman
Kim.’

‘Chairman Kim.
Well at least that’s going to be easy to remember. Why are you all
called Kim? It’s like those fucking Indians; they’re all called
fucking Patel. Why is that? Well hello legs! And who do we have
here?’ Brushing past the Chairman who looked at Mr. Gallagher in
total surprise, David sat next to a beautiful Korean woman. ‘And
what is your name? Hang on, let me fucking guess. Kim, right?’

‘I’m sorry, but
I find you very rude. Please apologise to Chairman Kim or this
meeting will go no further.’

Without even
bothering to turn round David lifted his hand and waved it in an
arrogant fashion. ‘Sorry Chairman. Didn’t mean to be rude. Hey,’ he
then said, turning his attention back to the female executive, ‘I’m
not too keen on being here today. I know the manager of the Hilton
who can get us the Presidential Suite right now. We could have a
day and night there of some serious fun!’

With a look of
total surprise she turned to look at the Chairman and then her eyes
met Mr. Gallagher’s. He had a look of horror on his face and they
all heard him say, ‘James, in the name of all that is holy get him
out of here!’

James though
had not needed any prompting. He was already at David’s shoulder by
the time Mr. Gallagher spoke and he gently laid a hand on his
shoulder. ‘David, why don’t we go up to your office and we can talk
about this?’

‘Fuck you old
man,’ and he shook his hand off. ‘I’m talking to this lovely lady.
We’re bonding, getting to know each other.’ Now in a stage whisper
from behind his hand he said, ‘I think she kind of likes me.’

‘David, please.
Let’s go and talk about this outside.’ Again, very gently, he laid
his hand on David’s shoulder.

Quick as a
flash David was up out of his seat and he pushed James hard and
shouted, ‘Stop fucking touching me!’

James went
flying and crashed into the solid oak boardroom table and there was
a crackling noise as five of his ribs cracked and snapped with one
being pushed firmly inwards puncturing the delicate tissue of one
of his lungs. Everyone let out a cry of astonishment and without
saying another word David straightened his jacket and walked out of
the room.

For a moment
nobody moved, but then the Korean female executive leapt out of her
seat and rushed over to James. ‘I think you’d better call an
ambulance, and quickly! He’s hardly breathing and his pulse is
faint. Quick, call an ambulance!’

Another member
of the board called for an ambulance while Mr. Gallagher tended to
James and made him as comfortable as he could. Soon the paramedics
arrived and after they had stabilised him they carefully placed him
on a stretcher, wheeling him out and down the elevator to the
waiting ambulance.

Mr. Gallagher
saw him down and then had an argument with himself about going to
the hospital with James or going back upstairs and trying to calm
the Koreans. Thinking about what James would have wanted him to do,
he returned back to the boardroom only to be greeted with empty
seats where the Koreans had been sitting and flustered members of
his own board.

‘I’m sorry Mr.
Gallagher,’ apologised one of his directors. ‘I tried to stop them
but they stormed out without saying a word.’

Also without
saying a word Mr. Gallagher sat in his chair at the top of the
table and discreetly snapped a pencil in two. He was beyond
angry.

*

‘James is lying
in hospital with a collapsed lung which the ribs that David broke
punctured. This is it Sally. I’ve supported him for as long as I
can. He is no longer part of the family.’

Mr Gallagher
had returned home not too soon after the Koreans had left and had
called Sally up to his office in the mansion.

‘What?! You
can’t possibly mean that, surely you can’t?’

‘I’ve paid for
him to have the best psychologists money can buy and they have had
no effect. He is not going to snap out of it!’

‘So that’s it.
You’re just going to abandon him?!’

‘Yes, and so
are you. I want you to break up with him.’

‘You want me to
do what?’ Sally’s voiced screeched. ‘I don’t think that is a
decision you have the right to make!’

‘As long as you
live in my house with my ongoing support you will have nothing more
to do with that man! If he had not been driving like a lunatic none
of this would have happened!’

Before he could
stop himself the words were out. Straight away he cursed himself
but rallied instantly preparing for the onslaught that he knew was
about to happen. But it did not come. Instead, across the face of
the daughter he loved more than life itself, was a look of so much
hurt he thought his heart would break. But he needed to snap her
out of it, to get rid of this man who was like an anchor around the
family and the company, dragging them down.

‘I cannot
believe you just said that.’ Tears were now welling up in Sally’s
eyes.

‘Oh wake up and
smell the coffee Sally! Everyone blames him for Simon’s death,
everyone. Michelle does. Simon’s family does.’

‘They don’t. It
was Sarah’s fault, everyone knows that.’

‘No, what
everyone knows is what everyone read in the police report which
stated that to have such a catastrophic collision that actually
ripped a car in two length ways, the car would have had to be
travelling at over seventy miles per hour, maybe even over eighty.
Eighty miles per hour on that narrow, twisty stretch of road.
Eighty Sally, eighty. The police only let him off with my
intervention. I only intervened because I thought he and you had
suffered enough! If he’d just been driving at thirty or forty… Now
you tell me who is to blame?’

‘Sarah. He’s a
good driver it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t spiked his
drink.’

‘I don’t care
if he’s Michael fucking Schumacher! He should not, should not,’ he
hammered his fist into the desk for emphasis, ‘have been going at
that crazy speed!’