Five Hundred Miles From You: the brand new, life-affirming, escapist novel of 2020 from the Sunday Times bestselling author

by Jenny Colgan

  She took her overnight bag as she was coming back on the night train, which she was rather excited about; it stopped just up the road and was patently the best way to get there, even if it was expensive.

  All she had to get through was the trial.

  Her heart was beating hard all the way to the airport. Being in Scotland had felt safe; protected; away from everyone else. Not having to face what had happened. There weren’t any teen gangs in Kirrinfief, at least not that she’d heard of. Children ran around practically free range, something that had surprised her when she’d first noticed it, but then realised that everyone knew everyone in their small corner of the world; their children were everyone’s children. It was nice to see children playing in the streets and down on the little shore and not have to worry about them.

  As the little twin prop plane burred its way down the length of the country, Lissa looked at the patchwork fields through the window, unable to concentrate on the book Zoe had pressed on her, worrying more and more about coming face to face with Kai’s family again. Would they be mad at her? Would questions be asked about that dreadful night at the hospital? No complaints had ever been filed; nothing had happened to her except the secondment, and that hadn’t ended up feeling like a punishment at all.

  Maybe, she thought, it would be straightforward. Would take two minutes. And there would be . . . the Loch Ness monster. She bit her lip. It was nice of him, that was all. And no doubt he wanted to cast an eye over the person who’d been sleeping in his spare room, would be trying to work out whether she’d killed all his plants or broken his fridge or not. At least he probably knew she hadn’t exactly been having wild parties.

  Then another two weeks to pack up and then . . .

  Well. She’d think about the future when she had to. She had had a little fantasy, it was true. Of possibly renting out the guest room, if he was keen; just imagine living somewhere you could afford to have a spare room on an NHS salary. It still beggared belief. Of finding a job nearby. Maybe not what she was doing, but there must be something. Of, dare she say it, escaping once and for all. The pressure and the racing and the craziness of the city. Just turning her back on it. Leaving the fancy restaurants and the high heels and the hot new things to other people. People who got more out of it than she did. People who wouldn’t be constantly worried every time they heard an ambulance whoop or sirens go off or a helicopter pass overhead.

  She blinked. She had barely slept and the drone of the engines was making her want to drop off, but every time she came close to doing so (and everyone else was comfortably snoozing), she remembered, yet again, what the day was for, and bolted back upright again.

  Southwark Crown Court was a squat brown ugly eighties building put up by someone who had obviously taken their inspiration from an out-of-town supermarket. It was faceless and bureaucratic; neither terrifyingly grand nor trying to be welcoming. It simply was. Lissa supposed in some way that that was the point.

  It was boiling. A damp, oppressive heat. Lissa couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so hot. She was wearing far too many clothes, it was ridiculous. She pulled off her large coat and jammed it on top of her wheelie bag, making it unwieldy and hard to get past the crowds on the tubes. She’d forgotten about those too. So many people! How did anyone get anywhere? And could she really have forgotten about this in such a short space of time? She felt herself begin to sweat. This was the last thing she needed, looking damp and flustered.

  Roisin, short, business-like and dressed in a smart black suit and heels that looked absolute torture to march about in all day, met her at the side entrance. People were milling around and Lissa was anxious, concerned about seeing the boy’s mother again; jerking back, again and again, to the memory of everything that had happened before.

  She looked around nervously. How would the families of the defendant be? Angry? frustrated? Violent?

  Instead, she saw a mixed line-up of smartly dressed solicitors and barristers hurrying in and out of entrances; clerks with huge bundles of papers and files, sometimes rolling them along in carry cases; and other people, some dowdily dressed, smoking patiently by the bins or sitting staring into space. It did not feel like a cheerful place, and nor was it meant to.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Roisin, sitting her down in the witness waiting room after they got buzzed in. It was completely plain and bare, and the coffee, in a thin white plastic cup, was absolutely disgusting. Lissa kept forgetting and taking automatic sips of it.

  She read over her statement again. It was just as she recalled and she felt her heart begin to thump. The day, the person she’d been visiting. Seeing the boys in the walkway. Hearing their banter. Then the flash, the hideous flash of the phone, glinting in the sun; the crunching of bones; the squelching of flesh.

  The rush. The ambulance. The sitting. The begging. The bargaining. The faces.

  She started to cry.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Roisin again, glancing at her watch. ‘Come on! You’ve been a big tough A&E nurse! You’re used to all sorts! How come this one is bothering you?’

  She remembered the boy’s soft face lying on the hard pavement.

  ‘It just does,’ she said.

  ‘Well. Distract yourself,’ said Roisin. ‘How’s country life treating you?’

  At this, Lissa felt herself turned pink.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘Seriously? Lots of cows to talk to?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Lissa. ‘Lots of cows.’

  ‘Isn’t it freezing? I couldn’t handle the weather.’

  ‘It’s fresh,’ said Lissa. ‘I quite like it. It’s better than . . .’

  She indicated out of the tiny window where the heat shimmers came off the pavement and the scent of bins rose into the stuffy air, smoke everywhere.

  ‘Well,’ said Lissa. ‘I quite like it.’

  Roisin sniffed and Lissa bent again to the black and white sheet of paper.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Cormac woke early that morning, the room stuffy already, excited about something before he remembered exactly what it was. He sat up, grinning to himself. Then he stopped and felt worried instead. Today was the day. He was going to meet Lissa.

  He told himself to stop being daft. He was a grown man, and he felt like a teenager on a first date. Getting overexcited was only going to lead to disappointment. Plus she was stressed out and worried anyway; the last thing she’d be thinking about was him. But he could be there for her, take her to lunch – he was proud of discovering somewhere lovely to take her – listen to her, get to know her. That was all. Yes.

  He still couldn’t keep that infernal smile off his face as he got into the shower, and as he pondered the new slightly flowery shirt Kim-Ange had persuaded him to buy. It wasn’t his style at all, and had been to his mind hideously expensive, but Kim-Ange had been extremely persuasive on the issue and sure enough, nobody had pointed and laughed when he’d worn it to the pub for half an hour just to give it a run out.

  The way he was thinking about Lissa though . . . nothing Emer or Yazzie had ever come close to. No. He was being ridiculous. Overthinking everything.

  But it was the first time in such a long time that he’d just felt so . . . so alive.

  He thought back to Robbie. He’d better call Lennox and see how he was doing, although so far no news felt like good news. And Lissa would be seeing him of course . . .

  Don’t go overboard, he told himself. But she was in for such a tough day. Testifying in court. Reliving that awful time. I mean, he had to play it cool.

  Or, he also found himself thinking, he could turn up early, go support her in court. It wasn’t right she had to be in court by herself. He could just say hi, just let her know that he was there for her. Would that be weird?

  It was a glorious day out there. Perhaps he would take a stroll – just a casual stroll – in his new shirt, along the South Bank, a place he had come to . . . well. It wasn’t Scotland. But it defini
tely had something. So. He could take a stroll. Get a lovely cup of coffee that took someone quite a while to make and grind beans and stuff and, well . . . he could see where the day took him.

  The curvaceous woman and the tightly pulled back hair barely gave the man in the flowery shirt who held the door open for her a second glance as she marched towards it, head down, anxious beyond belief about what was coming.

  Cormac didn’t notice the woman either; he had meant to look around for someone who might be Lissa, but his phone had rung just as he was walking in. He recognised the number and picked it up, grimacing.

  ‘Hi!’ came the English-sounding voice. ‘Is that the lifesaver?’

  Cormac frowned.

  ‘Larissa, hi.’

  ‘Hi! Listen, darling, beautiful day – we’ve got lunch booked on the roof of Coq d’Argent. It’s beautiful and you’ll be able to save anyone that falls off it. See you there, yah?’

  Cormac passed the door to the girl behind him, who took it with muted thanks and dived past the annoying man walking too slowly in a flowery shirt.

  ‘I’m a bit busy today,’ he said quite happily.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, darling – we’ll be there all afternoon. Ciao!’

  But Cormac’s thoughts were still on a laughing girl with tumbling curls, plus he had realised to his slight annoyance that he was miles too early – bursting, truly, from turning up, too excited and over the top – and was contemplating going back out again to find another coffee, but then he’d have had far too much caffeine and that really wasn’t an ideal situation for meeting someone in either so he decided to go fill up his water bottle from somewhere and sit on the front and stare out at the passing boats and, hopefully, calm the crap down before he ruined everything.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Roisin passed over the piece of paper.

  ‘Are you ready? You do know this is a murder trial?’

  ‘Why isn’t it manslaughter?’ said Lissa.

  ‘Because we have evidence the defendant thought Kai was a gang member from a rival group, even though he wasn’t. It was mistaken identity, but we’re fairly clear it was deliberate. Kai was the youngest of the friends; he was only fifteen. They thought he was a runner. He wasn’t. The driver never meant to get caught, but he did mean to do it.’

  Lissa thought again of the car speeding up. Speeding up. This was worse: it had not been a hideous accident, but a deliberate attempt to extinguish a young life. The wrong life. It was almost unbearable.

  Lissa took a deep breath and bent her head to the paper. The words swam in front of her eyes.

  . . . I saw the car swing round the corner and mount the kerb . . .

  She saw the boy again, his phone glinting as it was thrown up, and fell, thrown up and fell, spinning in the sunlight.

  . . . and when I got to him . . .

  She remembered the trickle of blood dripping from the side of his mouth; the shouts and yells of the rest of them chasing the car down; the cries and the shrieking of brakes and the drip drip drip of the blood.

  Blindly, panicking, unable to breathe, her heart trying to burst out of her chest, she stood up, leaving everything behind her, and ran out of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Cormac wandered back into the courthouse, figuring he needed to use the bathroom and surely the case would be starting soon. He was still annoyed at how restless he felt. When someone pushed past him . . .

  It was a flash, nothing more, he didn’t catch sight of the person . . .

  At first, he dismissed what he glimpsed because he knew she had curly hair, that was what he pictured, then it struck him, as the figure dashed past in a blur, ringlets bouncing out of their tight band, that after all she might well be here by now, and by the time his heart had suddenly dialled up to a hundred miles an hour and he’d turned around, there was a loud bang, and he realised that the figure had disappeared into the disabled toilet and locked the door behind them.

  Ah. Now here was a thing. Lurking around the loo was . . . Cormac tried to think of a worse possible way to meet Lissa for the first time – if it even was her; it might just have been his mind playing tricks. How would he even know?

  The corridor was empty and he backed away carefully, concerned at the loudness of the bang she (if it was her) had made and the speed she’d been running. Whoever it was, they were clearly upset.

  He was about to take out his phone and text her, then he put it away again. If it wasn’t her, it would be very weird. If it was, saying ‘Have you locked yourself in the toilet right now?’ was hardly going to come over well.

  He was turning to go over to the courtroom, check if he could see her there, when he heard a noise coming from the door. Just a sob. The tiniest little sob.

  Cormac stopped in his tracks. Whether it was her or whether it wasn’t . . . someone was really upset. And it just wasn’t in him not to pay attention to that.

  He went over to the door and knocked gently.

  Lissa froze. She had tried to keep quiet, but it was almost impossible; the lump in her throat was overwhelming. Oh God. She couldn’t believe it. Someone needed to come in. She was gasping for breath, didn’t know what to do. She tried to calm herself down.

  ‘Um . . .’ Cormac listened. He could hear heavy breaths. If she was genuinely having a panic attack, adding an extra stressor by identifying himself was probably the worst thing he could do. If it even was her.

  Lissa put her hands on her knees, tried to suck in some air.

  ‘Just a minute,’ she managed weakly.

  She straightened up slowly, trying to breathe properly. She didn’t recognise her own face in the mirror. She was being ridiculous. This was nuts. She had to go and do this. She had to . . . she had to . . .

  She felt the tears welling up again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ came a soft voice.

  She froze. She hadn’t thought even so far ahead, just knew she had to escape that airless little room; the words in front of her; the memories.

  But time was moving on; they were going to call the case. There was a whole roomful of people waiting for justice; waiting for her to help Kai. She had to be there. But she couldn’t.

  There was a silence. Cormac cursed to himself. He couldn’t believe he’d spoken. Now what kind of trouble was he in?

  If he said who he was, she might get really upset or take umbrage or it might be just incredibly weird.

  If he didn’t and she found out later, that would be awful too. But he couldn’t run away. She needed help. He knew she did. He couldn’t leave.

  That was when Cormac MacPherson, in a split-second, made possibly the most ridiculous decision of his entire life.

  ‘Yeah awright, luv, tell me what’s up, duck.’

  He winced at himself. He sounded more Welsh than Cockney, probably. Or just downright insane.

  Lissa squinted. The voice – she couldn’t tell where it was from – sounded kind. She threw more water on her face, trying to make her heart stop racing. But she couldn’t stay like this, she couldn’t.

  Snuffling slightly, she moved a little closer to the door, tried to catch her breath.

  ‘I have to . . . I have to testify.’

  On the other side of the door, Cormac blinked. He wished he could go inside, hold her, tell her everything was going to be all right.

  But he didn’t know this person. He didn’t know her at all. Instead, he found himself saying, ‘Oh yeah. Innit?’

  Then wincing all the more, Lissa replied: ‘I . . . It should be straightforward. Just . . . just say what happened.’

  ‘Yeah, that sounds awright.’

  ‘And . . . I’m just so scared.’

  ‘Wot ’appened then?’ said Cormac. ‘Tell me . . . duck.’ He wasn’t at all sure about duck. ‘Weren’t rude or nuffin’?’

  Lissa slumped to sit down on her bag, her back to the door. Cormac sat down too, his back on the other side, separating them only by a few centimetres of wood.<
br />
  ‘Oh . . . no,’ she said, half smiling. ‘No, “nuffin’ rude”.’

  She squeezed her eyes together. A kind stranger on the other side of the door . . .

  ‘Sorry, do you really need the bathroom?’ she said, suddenly gripped by the worry that it might be an actual wheelchair user outside.

  ‘You’re awright, luv,’ said Cormac, begging himself to stop talking. There was a pause. And somehow, Lissa found her heart rate slowing a little as everything went quiet.

  ‘I just have to tell them . . .’ Lissa began. Cormac pressed his head against the door to hear her better. ‘I just have to say . . . that I saw the boys. Talking, and laughing. And then I saw the car. And the man in the car. And I saw him hit the boys. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. That’s all . . .’

  Her voice caught as she saw once again the phone whipping through the air; heard the hideous clunk of Kai’s head on the concrete.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cormac. ‘You can do that.’

  ‘I saw . . . I saw the car come round,’ said Lissa again, her voice still wavering. ‘I saw it come round too fast. I saw the colour of it. I saw it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cormac, more encouraging now.

  ‘I saw it hit . . . I saw it hit the boys. I saw it. I saw him. I saw him hit the boy, and Kai . . . Kai’s . . . the boy’s . . . Kai’s phone. Went up. In the air. I saw it. And he went up, he was thrown up and . . . and he killed him. I saw it. I did. I saw it. I was there.’

  ‘. . .?’

  ‘SCUSE ME.’

  Cormac blinked, the spell broken, and looked up. A large girl with a lot of straw-coloured blonde hair and a crop top that seemed slightly unusual in a court situation was glaring at him.

  ‘Need to use this loo.’

  She didn’t seem obviously disabled but Cormac knew better than to judge that. On the other side of the door, Lissa had gone totally silent, just, Cormac thought, as she needed to speak up.