Kate was silent for a while, bludgeoned by yet more grief. She looked at the soft rain falling against the window. ‘Can I see the evidence?’
‘I’m sorry, but the investigating team don’t want to disclose it.’
She looked up, taken aback, hurt. ‘But it’s my daughter. I need to know what happened. She was a good cyclist. She was responsible, she knew about the dangers of HGVs. She’d cycle on the quieter streets just to avoid the heavy traffic. She’d stay back when a lorry was turning – she told me this! Do you see? I still don’t know what really happened. Why it happened. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Sarah gave a sympathetic smile but said nothing.
‘I’m her mother.’
‘I’m sorry, Kate, but in these cases, it seems hard . . . but the family is largely deemed irrelevant.’
She was so aghast, so demeaned, she was rendered speechless. It must be a mistake. But no, she could tell by looking at Sarah that it wasn’t.
Kate tried to keep her faith in the justice system but a few weeks later, Sarah came to the house with news that shocked her further.
‘I don’t understand. She died. How can the CPS not press charges?’ Kate stood up and went over to the kitchen window. Iris was watering the border at the front of her house. She’d planted a pink clematis there, for Becky, she’d said, and it was in full flower.
Kate knew Sarah was doing her best, but she found her calmness infuriating. Her shoulders were hunched aggressively as she listened to Sarah’s response.
‘They don’t believe the case is strong enough. They don’t think it will lead to a conviction.’
Kate spun around. ‘What?’
‘They’ve re-evaluated the evidence. They don’t think it’s strong enough,’ Sarah repeated.
‘I want to see the prosecuting officer.’
‘That is possible. But the meeting would just be to explain their decision. The CPS don’t have to justify it, nor, I’m afraid, are you able to challenge it.’
Breathing deeply to stop the pain and frustration overwhelming her, Kate forced herself to sit back at the kitchen table, opposite Sarah. She placed her palms quietly onto her knees. Appealed to her. ‘But surely . . . he killed her. He says he didn’t see her but that’s not good enough, surely? How can that be an excuse? Why didn’t he see her in his mirrors? And there was the sight test that he failed! What about that?’
‘I’m very sorry, Kate, but the unfortunate truth of the matter is that the sight test was done three months after the accident.’
‘So?’
Sarah looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t prove that his sight was defective at the time of the collision.’
Kate was aghast. ‘What? Why wasn’t it done before then? On the day?’
‘I’m afraid that’s a question the senior investigation officer would have to answer.’
‘I’m asking you.’
Sarah remained calm. ‘I’ll put that question to him for you.’
‘You do that. The driver should have bloody seen her! Why didn’t he? What was he doing? Where was he looking? I want to talk to him.’ Kate had started pacing again and could feel herself getting hysterical.
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’
‘Course not! Of course it’s bloody not! I’m not allowed to ask or to say anything. Not allowed to question anybody. Not allowed to see any evidence. Not allowed to have an opinion. I just have to listen to all this bloody rubbish and . . .’ She sat down suddenly, broken and deflated. ‘She’s my daughter, you know, my lovely, wonderful daughter.’
SIX
The summer passed in a haze of grief for Kate and, standing outside the courtroom, shivering in the cool breeze, she was suddenly aware it was the first autumnal day since Becky had died. Time was creating distance, but Kate didn’t get any comfort, in fact it was the opposite. The pain and the longing became increasingly more acute as she was channelled further away from her daughter.
‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ asked Tim.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to see him.’
She meant the driver. She wanted to see what the man who had knocked down and killed her daughter was like. And there was another reason. Secretly, instinctively, she felt that the coroner would come to this inquest with the same sense of disbelief, of incredulity, that she had endured now for months. He would hear the witness statements and the police reports and conclude that this had all been dealt with incompetently and inadequately. He would recognize that someone had died, and this was the main point here, and it was inexcusable and this hideous, sickening powerlessness would be taken away from her.
They were led into the magistrates’ court and the usher showed them where to sit. There were one or two witnesses and a few officials already present but he – the driver – was not there yet. Kate had been told that here in the courtroom she would finally be able to ask questions. She clutched her bag on her lap. Inside was a piece of A4 paper. She’d written them down. She looked around the room, at the wooden panels and desks, behind which were chairs covered in a blue, woven fabric. The court was small and with a sudden realization she saw she’d be sitting close to the driver; only a few metres would separate them.
Then the usher came back in and a man followed him. He was medium-height, slim build. A neat beard covered his lower face, almost disguising a birthmark that ran across his cheek and down his neck. He had brown hair, cut short, which made it stick up a bit, and he looked as though he was in his late thirties. Dressed in an ill-fitting dark-grey suit that seemed to hang off his shoulders, he looked straight ahead. Then she saw another man was with him. Puzzled for a moment, she wondered if she’d got it wrong, but then she realized with a jolt that the second man was his solicitor. It wrong-footed her. He didn’t deserve that, someone advising him on every word, every thought. Worse, she hadn’t even considered getting any help herself. Such was her financial state, it hadn’t even occurred to her.
She’d let Becky down. Again. She’d put her trust in the system, naively thinking seven months ago that it was so obvious the driver was in the wrong, justice would be served.
Tim put a hand on her knee as the driver sat down. Trembling, she reached for him, and he curled his fingers around hers. She forced herself to stay locked in some sort of pseudo-composure, even though her heart was racing. She looked across, at first dreading it, but the driver didn’t meet her eye. She carried on staring, convinced he would eventually glance over, until finally it dawned on her that he wouldn’t and then she hated him for his cowardice. She didn’t want him to have any part of this easy. She wanted him to see her pain, to know what he’d done, how he’d taken away the most precious person in her life. She wanted to go up to him and wipe that bland, tight-lipped expression off his face and shove him, punch him, scream at him over and over—
‘All rise.’
The usher had spoken, and they all stood as the coroner came in. He had a bright tie on, turquoise and green, and Kate knew it was irrational, but it lifted her. It reminded her of a national newsreader who she admired greatly for his intelligence and candidness and his signature clothing was bright ties. It gave her hope.
As the inquest unfolded, Kate listened to the witnesses give their statements: the woman who had been passing when the lorry pulled Becky’s bike under but had not seen anything as the wind and the rain on the night had meant she was holding her umbrella low to stop it turning inside out. She was the one who had called the emergency services, who had held Becky’s hand until the ambulance arrived. The investigative policeman spoke of how the driver had been breathalyzed and was within the legal limits, how the indicator lights were working. He stated how CCTV confirmed that Becky had been fifteen metres from the lorry when the driver turned on his indicator but there was no CCTV of the actual accident site. As such, there were no witnesses to the event itself.
Then it was the turn of the driver.
‘Mr Craven, if you could please
state your version of events?’ asked the coroner.
Kate watched as the driver spoke. He seemed calm.
‘I was driving along Red Lion Street in a southerly direction, intending to turn left onto Sandland Street. I had taken a wrong turn and needed to get back onto Gray’s Inn Road. I had my lights on and was travelling at eighteen miles per hour. I saw Miss Ellis in my mirrors. She was at least fifteen metres behind me. I put my indicator on then, as I approached the junction, I started to brake and checked in my mirrors again before performing my turn. I did not see Miss Ellis. I stopped as soon as . . . as soon as the accident happened.’
‘And then what did you do?’
‘I got out of my cab and went to the side of the road. I was told the emergency services had already been called so I waited until the police arrived.’
The coroner nodded. ‘Thank you.’ Kate then saw him look over at her. ‘Ms Ellis, do you have anything you wish to ask Mr Craven?’
‘Yes, Your Worship.’
‘Please proceed.’
Kate trembled. This was it, her chance for the truth, for clarity. She looked at the driver, but his gaze was down towards his hands. ‘Why didn’t you see her?’ she asked.
He didn’t speak. Instead, his solicitor looked up. ‘My client has already said that he checked in his mirrors before turning left and did not see Miss Ellis.’
Kate bit back her frustration. ‘I know that . . . but what I don’t understand is why. In his opinion.’
The coroner interrupted. ‘I should remind you, Mr Craven, that you do not have to say anything that may be incriminating.’
Just speak, pleaded Kate silently, just tell me. Tell me what happened because I can’t bear not knowing. You are the only person in the world who knows how it happened. At least give me this. Give me some explanation I can live with.
She watched as the driver turned to his solicitor and they conversed in low voices. Then the solicitor looked up.
‘Mr Craven feels that he has given all the information he can on this point and has nothing further to add.’
Kate felt something collapse, something die inside of her, and she knew the pain would never go away. She’d never know what really happened to her daughter.
She barely heard what was said in the last few minutes of the inquest, and it was only when Tim squeezed her hand that she saw the coroner look up from his notes and begin to speak.
‘The deceased was Miss Becky Ellis who died at seventeen twenty-nine on Friday the twenty-fourth of February 2017 at the junction of Red Lion Street and Sandland Street in London. The means of death was collision with a heavy goods vehicle. My verdict is accidental death.’
Kate didn’t see Craven leave the courtroom – she couldn’t bear to and so she left as fast as she could, Tim taking her hand as they walked rapidly towards the train station. It was only as she was about to get on the train that she realized she’d left her jacket behind and cried out in dismay.
‘I can’t go back in there, Tim, I just can’t.’
‘It’s OK, I’ll do it,’ said Tim and he walked with her back to the courtroom. Kate stayed outside, not wanting to be anywhere near the place, and she huddled against the wall as Tim went in to retrieve her jacket. Please hurry, she thought.
A man in a black leather biker jacket parked up his motorbike and, taking off his helmet, walked towards a street on the other side of the courtroom. He had a horseshoe moustache and Kate frowned as she saw him approach Craven’s solicitor, who seemed to be expecting him. But then Tim came back out and she quickly turned away. She didn’t see the two men exchange a few words and the solicitor leave. Nor did she see the man in leathers pull out his mobile phone and dial a number.
‘He got off,’ he said briskly, his voice low. ‘It’s done.’
Message imparted, the man hung up, then walked back to his motorbike and drove off.
SEVEN
Tim was still with her at five o’clock that afternoon. He’d rung in to work to cancel his evening shift, claiming he was unwell. They’d gone back to Kate’s house and he’d made lunch, then tea, and all of it had been left uneaten, the sandwiches still curling on the plates. He’d sat and asked if she wanted to talk but she didn’t, she wanted to rage.
‘Accident! How dare they. How dare they hide behind that word. It’s not a bloody accident, accidents are unavoidable. It wasn’t unavoidable, it was preventable. It had to be. There had to be a way of him seeing her. If you drive a lorry, you have to be able to see everything. Otherwise that lorry should not be on the road!’
‘You’re right. Of course you’re right.’
‘So why can’t they see this?’
‘I know it’s awful, it’s shameful, in fact . . . but they are following the rules.’
‘If they are following all the rules and still this happens then the rules are wrong! Someone has to change the bloody rules.’
Tim was quiet and she stopped pacing up and down the living room, realizing how much she’d been shouting. She felt bad, but at the same time was angry at him for not ranting with her.
He stood and took her in his arms and she felt herself crumple.
‘Do you want me to stay tonight?’
‘Yes,’ she said, crying into his shoulder. Then she pulled away and rubbed at the damp patch on his jumper. ‘Sorry.’ She caught his face, a glimpse of exhaustion, of worry. ‘Sorry, Tim. To go on so much . . .’
He quickly smiled, reassured her. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m here to look after you.’
She woke the next morning feeling spent. Looking over at Tim, she saw he was already awake and was lying silently, staring at the crack in the curtains where the autumn sunlight was streaming through. She put a hand on his arm and he turned. He looked tired and she tried to remember who had fallen asleep first the night before.
‘Morning,’ he said.
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she got up to go to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror over the sink, she saw that her once-few grey hairs now covered nearly half her head. Lines were etched around her eyes. Shadows fell under them. Something was missing. She tried smiling but the muscle movement in her face felt alien, so she dropped it.
She came out of the shower to find Tim had left the bed. Also, his clothes weren’t where he usually put them, folded neatly on the floor on his side, his ‘floordrobe’ as he called it, and for a moment she panicked that he’d got dressed and was downstairs wanting to go home, but then she could hear him, making breakfast. She could smell bacon. He must be ‘helping me get my strength’, she thought with a pang. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she would stay over at his flat and he’d lie in bed, enjoying watching her put her clothes on. They’d only been dating a few weeks before all this had happened. She was aware that it probably wasn’t what Tim had signed up for.
She wasn’t much in the mood for eating, and took her time getting dressed. She pulled on underwear and a T-shirt and that was about as far as her energy could take her. She sat heavily on the bed and wondered if the pain would ever go away.
Everyone else from the inquest had probably woken up that morning thinking of new things, something different. Now the inquest was over, the driver had dealt with the last of his inconveniences and could just get on with his life. Becky had been tidied away, the process had been processed and she knew she would never recover from it. It sickened her that no one had done anything, no one had changed anything, no one had taken responsibility. They had all just hidden behind the word ‘accident’. Her head fell into her hands. The rules were wrong. There would have been a way for the driver to have seen Becky. There had to be. This happened far too often in London. Why hadn’t the lorry had the right mirrors? she lamented. Why hadn’t the lorry had the right mirrors? It seemed so simple. And if it weren’t that, it would be something else simple. Simple compared to the way she was feeling. She held her head, folded over onto her knees and wondered how long she could stay there.
It came to her so suddenly s
he launched herself upright. She nearly fell, had to grab the end of the bed while the dizziness passed. Then she heard Tim calling. Maybe she would have that bacon sandwich. She pulled on some jeans and made her way to the kitchen. He smiled when he saw her and switched the kettle on. ‘Right, your tea is coming up. And I hope you’re hungry . . .’
‘Someone has to change the rules,’ said Kate.
She saw him stiffen. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I know that, you know that but, well, you’ve got to think of yourself, you can’t fight ’em . . .’
‘Why not?’
He looked at her worriedly. ‘Kate, you’ve been through so much these last few months . . . maybe . . . maybe you just need to take a break from it all.’
‘I can’t. I can’t just let her die and roll over when they tell me it was something unavoidable. It was avoidable, Tim. I’ve lost her and if I agree with what they say, then I’m as bad as them. My job was to protect her – is to protect her.’
He remained silent and she knew he disagreed. Thought she was acting irrationally. And in a way he was right. On the worktop was a plate with a just-made bacon sandwich. He sliced it and handed it to her. She looked around for another.
‘Are you not having one?’
He hesitated, then looked at his watch, and the panicked feeling she’d had before came back.
‘Tim . . . I know the last few months have been hard. Hard on you, too. We’d only just met when Becky died . . . and you’ve been the one thing that’s kept me going.’ She smiled quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to say that – I mean, it’s true, but I will be OK.’ She paused. ‘If you want to go. If it’s all too much for you . . .’
He looked at her, mouth slightly agape. ‘I need to call the depot. Check in about my shifts,’ he said by way of an explanation for glancing at his watch.
Her mouth twitched. A smile. ‘Sure?’
He pulled her to him. ‘Of course I am, you wally. And if you want to pursue this . . . then I’m right behind you.’
She scoured his eyes. ‘Really?’
The Daughter Page 4