The Best of Times (36 page)

“Georgia,” said Linda very gently. “Georgia, was that … you?”

CHAPTER 28

The story had come out haltingly, punctuated with much weeping and sheer blind terror at what she had done—and concealed—through two long, dreadful weeks.

She had quite simply panicked: Linda had tried to tell her that it
was not so unusual, not so terrible a thing to do. But Georgia would have none of it: “It was horrible, awful. He’d been so kind to me, and there he was unconscious, with God knows what injuries, and did I try to help? No, I just ran. It was disgusting of me, Linda; I’m so, so ashamed. But somehow the longer I left it, the worse it seemed. And do you know what my very first thought was? After we’d crashed? That I’d miss the audition. Can you imagine anything as awful as that?”

“You were in shock; it brings about some very strange behaviour.”

She had felt dazed at first, she said, not sure what she was doing, and, “I felt very sick and dizzy. Two men by the lorry asked me if I was all right and I couldn’t speak to them; I threw up right there in front of them; it was horrible. And then I had to sit down for a bit. Everyone was much too busy looking after people who were really hurt to bother about me. After that I climbed over the barrier, by the hard shoulder, and slithered down the bank and started running. All I could think of was getting away; does that sound crazy?”

Linda shook her head. “Not at all.”

“There were all these cars crashed into one another, and huge white things everywhere. I didn’t know what they were then, but of course they were Patrick’s load, fridges and freezers and stuff. I just turned my back on it all and ran—towards Cardiff. That was all I wanted: to get home. I found a sort of track thing and followed that, and when I couldn’t run anymore I walked, on and on. Every yard I went, I felt less frightened; I was farther away from it all; I felt … safer. How weird was that? I cut up into that bloke’s land, that farmer guy who was just on the TV, and then on to a village, and then I hitched a lift in a car going to Bristol.

“The driver said he’d been avoiding the M
4
, that there’d been a terrible crash, miles and miles of tailback, and I had to pretend to be surprised. Oh, God …”

In Bristol she had eventually managed to get a lift in a lorry going to Cardiff. “I was scared of being in another one; I thought he might crash too—”

“And … tell me, do you think Patrick went to sleep?”

“No! Of course he didn’t go to sleep. It wasn’t his fault in any way at all. In fact …” She paused, gathered her breath, then said in a desperate shaky tone, “In fact, if it was anyone’s fault it was probably mine.”

• • •

Shaking, clinging to Linda’s hand, she rang the programme help line, who said they’d get the police to call her.

“Pretty soon, they said … Linda, I feel sick. I feel so awful. What will they think of me; what will they do to me? I’m disgusting; I deserve to be … to be put away somewhere. Oh, dear. Can I have another cigarette?”

It was a measure of her distress and of Linda’s intense sympathy with that distress that Linda had actually agreed to let her smoke. She loathed not just smoking, but smokers. To allow Georgia to smoke in her flat was akin to handing round glasses of wine at an AA meeting.

It was she who took the call; she passed the phone to Georgia.

“It’s a Sergeant Freeman.”

“Thanks. Hello. Yes, this is Georgia Linley Yes, I did. Of course. Yes, I think I can help. I’ll … I’ll ask … Um, Linda, they want us to meet them at some police station in the morning. They’re going to ring back with the exact address. Is that OK? … Yes? Hello. Yes, that’s fine. Thank you. What? No, it’s not my mum; it’s my agent. No, I’m fine, thank you. I’ll be there in the morning.”

She put the phone down and looked at Linda, her face somehow gaunt, her dark eyes red with weeping, her small, pretty nose running; she wiped it on the back of her hand. She looked about six.

“You will come with me, won’t you?” she said with a tremor in her voice.

Linda held out her arms and said, “Of course I will. Come here, you.”

And Georgia went to sit next to her on the sofa, resting her head
on Linda’s shoulder, and said, “I couldn’t do all this without you, you know.”

“Well, I’m glad to have helped.”

“You have. So, so much.” Another sniff, then: “You’d be a great mum, you know. You really should, before it’s too late …”

“Well … thanks,” said Linda.

• • •

The police were very kind, very gentle with her.

She sat, her teeth chattering with fright at first, but still telling her story perfectly lucidly, up to the point of the actual crash.

“We were just going along very steadily, chatting. Patrick was absolutely fine, not going fast at all, driving really carefully in the middle lane. We’d been through a storm—that was quite scary; it got very dark, and he slowed down a bit, said the water on the road was dangerous after the heat. But the sun was out again; it had stopped raining. And then—suddenly—there was this great crack of noise and we couldn’t see. Not at all. It wasn’t dark, just everything blurred. It was like being blind. It was so, so frightening, because the windscreen was just … well, you know, impossible to see through. And Patrick just … well, slammed on the brakes and then swerved, quite sharply, and he was hooting and shouting—”

“Shouting? What was he shouting?”

“Oh, things like, ‘For the love of God,’ and, ‘Jesus’—well, he is Irish,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “And then the lorry just wouldn’t stop; it went on and on—it seemed for hours I couldn’t see anything, except out of the side window, and I could see we were going completely across the middle of the road, with the traffic on the other side coming towards us. It was weird; it all happened so slowly. And then … then we stopped. And I felt a sort of violent lurch as the trailer went, and there was this horrible noise and … Oh, dear, sorry.” She started to cry.

“Now, now,” said Sergeant Freeman, “no need for tears; you’ve
been most helpful—your account is quite invaluable. With the lorry driver unable to remember anything much, this is the first really lucid account we’ve had. So, what did you think had happened? To cause it?”

“Well, the windscreen shattered. There wasn’t a hole in it; the glass just had all these weird patterns all over it, making it impossible to see.”

“Something hit it, perhaps? Maybe that was the crack you heard.”

“Yes, but what could it have been?”

“That’s for us to find out. You can stop worrying about it now.”

“You’re being so kind,” she said. “You must be so … so shocked at me, by what I did.”

“Miss Linley” Freeman said, “if you saw one percent of what we do, you’d understand that we’re not very easily shocked. Isn’t that right, Constable?”

“Absolutely right,” said Constable Rowe.

“You might be shocked at this, though,” she said, in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. “I think … well, I think some of it … could … could have been my fault. You see, I … well, I dropped a can of drink. As we swerved. On the floor. It was rolling around. I think … it might have interfered with Patrick’s—Mr. Connell’s—brakes. And if I hadn’t done that, maybe he could have stopped. I mean … oh, God—”

“Miss Linley,” said Sergeant Freeman, “we will of course put this into our report. But I really don’t think you should worry about it too much. The brakes in those things are huge, very powerful, and power-assisted. One small can of drink rolling around would not have had the slightest effect. What would you say, Constable?”

Constable Rowe smiled at Georgia and said yes, indeed, he would say the same thing.

He found himself very moved by Georgia’s distress. She hardly looked old enough to be out in the world at all, let alone hitching lifts in lorries.

“Really?”

“Really. I hope that makes you feel better.”

“It does. A bit.” But she was still looking very uncertain.

“So … you would say the whole accident was caused by this shattering of the windscreen? By Mr. Connell being unable to see? Not because of any other cars? Please think very carefully, Miss Linley; it’s very important. Very important indeed.”

“Oh—definitely, yes. Suddenly, he had to drive without being able to see. It was like he was blindfolded. That was the only reason, I’m sure.”

“Well, that’s pretty clear. Now, let’s just talk about the other cars, Miss Linley. Did you notice any in particular?”

“Oh … a few. You notice everything from up there. I was talking to Patrick, describing things to him; he asked me to, said it helped ward off what he called the monster.”

Sergeant Freeman looked up sharply.

“What monster would that be?”

“Well … being sleepy. He said it was like a sticky monster in his head. But”—she looked at them—“but he was not, I swear to you, not remotely near going to sleep; you really do have to believe me—”

“It’s all right,” said Freeman, and despite the soothing words, Linda thought that she could detect a slight change in his expression. “That’s absolutely fine. Now, go on; tell us about the other cars.”

“Well, there was a lovely car in front. A sports car, maybe an old one, bright red, amazing. By the time of the actual crash, he’d gone. But he was driving very nicely, not speeding.”

“Right. How far ahead was he, would you say? When the windscreen went?”

“I’m not sure. Impossible to say. I mean, I could still see him quite clearly—”

“Could you read the registration number? I mean, was it near enough for you to read it?”

“I … don’t think so. He was pulling ahead quite fast. I s’pose about fifty metres, something like that?”

“Right. What about a dark blue Saab? Did you notice that?”

“Oh—yes. They were beside us. Just before it happened. Well, a
bit behind—you can’t see anything when the car’s right beside you. I noticed it in the mirror, and I was interested because it was such a nice car, and there was a man and a woman in it, and they seemed to be quarrelling—she was waving her arms about and stuff. And then—” She stopped. “Look, I don’t want to get anyone into trouble—”

“Don’t worry about that. Tell us what you saw.”

“Well … he did seem to be on a mobile. But then … I heard the crack and Patrick hooting and shouting and … well, I’ve told you the rest.”

“You have indeed. So, there was no question of their driving in any way dangerously? Pulling out in front of the lorry, for instance?”

“No, no, not at all.”

“Right. Well, you’ve been very helpful, Miss Linley very helpful indeed. And try not to worry about that drink can. I really think you can put your mind at rest, although we will put it into the report, of course. One last thing—did you notice a white van at all, with the back doors just tied shut? On the road that afternoon? At any stage?”

“I certainly did. He was driving like a maniac. But he couldn’t have had anything to do with it; he passed us doing about ninety ages before the crash.”

“You didn’t notice any writing on it? Any logos of any kind?”

“No, I’m sorry. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Was he alone in the van?”

“No. Well, he had a big dog sitting beside him.”

“Well, I really cannot tell you how helpful you’ve been, Miss Linley. You’ve given us an invaluable account, and the information on the other cars is most helpful as well.”

Soon after that, having read her statement and signed it, she was told she was free to go.

• • •

“Poor Mr. Connell will be pleased, won’t he?” said Constable Rowe. “S’pose you’ll be letting him know.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Today?”

“No, Monday morning will do perfectly well.”

“Yes, of course,” said Constable Rowe hastily, and then added, “I was wondering: might the windscreen have been shattered by that wheel nut?”

“Very unlikely,” said Freeman, “very unlikely indeed.”

• • •

“Hi, William. It’s Abi.”

“Abi! Oh, my God. Yes. Hello.”

“Hello, William. What kind of a reception is that?”

“I … Oh, sorry. Yes. It’s wonderful to hear from you.”

“Hope so.” She laughed. That laugh. That—almost—dirty laugh. “I did warn you I’d ring if you didn’t. Anyway … I thought it might be good if we went out tomorrow night. What do you think?”