Very Nearly Dead

by A K Reynolds

  ‘Nope, sorry. These things take time.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go with that. I don’t want to go see my customers with my car in a state. It’d create the wrong impression.’

  I don’t know why I offered him an explanation for wanting the job doing quickly. And I don’t know whether he believed it.

  ‘You’ll need this,’ I said, handing him the key to the vehicle. ‘By the way, I forgot my mobile. Could you possibly order a taxi to take me to the railway station?’

  He turned up one corner of his mouth and disappeared indoors, if his brick shed could possibly be described as indoors. He emerged a minute later.

  ‘On its way. Best get back to work.’

  He donned his mask and got back to his paint job while I stood shivering on the dirt track, waiting for the taxi. The wind got up and blew a discarded takeaway carton into a puddle next to me. The taxi arrived so I got inside, noticing Davis looking at me. I gave him a friendly wave through the window as I departed. He waved back, which surprised me.

  I caught the train to London and disembarked at Kings Cross, picked up a copy of the Evening Standard on the platform, and boarded a train headed for Crystal Palace. It’s a journey I normally enjoy, but there was no enjoyment in it that day, only concern, as I scoured the newspaper, firstly to confirm again it really was the twenty-fifth of January and not the twenty-fourth, and secondly for information about my hit-and-run victim. There was none. I didn’t know whether to feel relief or puzzlement, and decided on the former.

  When I got home I read it again cover to cover, to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I hadn’t. There wasn’t so much as a sentence about Sean Price in it.

  I called my bank and arranged to make a cash withdrawal of £2,000 to pay Jack Davis. It occurred to me it’d be tricky explaining the withdrawal to the police if they ended up investigating me, then I put it to the back of my mind. I couldn’t afford to worry about detail. I had to concentrate on the big picture – concealing the damage to the car.

  Afterwards I switched on the television hoping to catch some news about Sean Price’s death, and hoping at the same time not to. I wanted to know how the investigation was going, and preferably to hear it was going badly, due to a lack of leads.

  There was no mention of anything to do with a dead boy on the television news, and nothing on the local radio station, so I checked the internet. There was nothing there, either.

  The news of his death didn’t seem to have broken, which was odd. It gave me the troubling idea I might have moved his body during my blackout. I put it to the back of my mind where it kept company with other troubling ideas.

  My stomach rumbled and I realised I was hungry. I forced down a couple of hastily made sandwiches while considering the threats I faced. It occurred to me the police might make door-to-door enquiries in the area. But then again, they probably wouldn’t. They were understaffed, as Doug, a copper at the Crystal Palace nick, was always telling me. They had other things to cope with. Paperwork mainly, he said. They spent more time on that than they did on keeping our streets safe, according to Doug. It was something I’d always deplored in the past. Not anymore. I now applauded the fact they were too bogged down with paperwork to carry out their job effectively.

  When I’d eaten, I called my secretary. ‘Camilla,’ I said. ‘It’s Jaz. How are you?’

  I had to begin the conversation with small talk. Camilla might have been my secretary, but I also thought of her as a friend.

  ‘I’m fine, Jaz, how are you? And where have you been? You’re not sounding your usual self.’

  ‘I’m not. Please cancel all my appointments this week. And please pass on a message to Brewer. I’ve got flu. I’m really ill. I can barely stand up. I would’ve rung in yesterday to let you and him know, but I was so poorly I didn’t feel able to do even that much.’

  I didn’t have to put on a special poorly voice to convince her. It was genuinely croaky because I was upset.

  ‘You sound dreadful. I’ll tell Brewer right away. He had a bit of a grumble about you not ringing in yesterday, and another one this morning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You poor thing, I hope you get better soon. Don’t worry about your files. If anything urgent comes up, I’ll take care of it, and if I’m out of my depth I’ll discuss it with Stephen.’

  Stephen was the partner in charge of the criminal law department at Womack and Brewer.

  ‘Thanks, Cam. It’s very good of you. I’ll have to lie down now. I’ll be back at work as soon as I can. Bye.’

  ‘Bye, Jaz.’

  That would buy me some time at work. Things were falling into place.

  The afternoon stretched ahead of me. How could I fill it in such a way that I wouldn’t make myself more worried and paranoid than ever? I felt a desperate urge to go back to the scene of my crime, and check if there was crime scene tape around it, but managed to dismiss the crazy idea. Instead, I stayed indoors and watched daytime television, while resisting the voice in my head which was telling me I should drink a couple of bottles of red wine. Go on, why don’t you, it was saying. You know you’ll feel a lot better if you do.

  My first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was scheduled for 7pm that evening. I had to attend, because if I didn’t, I was going to take the advice the voice in my head was giving me, sooner rather than later. At 6.45pm I put on my parka with the hood up and walked to the local church hall where the meeting was being held. It was an unpleasant, ugly stone box with fluorescent lights dangling from the ceiling. The harsh light they gave off made me feel bilious. Beneath them, in the middle of the room, there was a semicircle of uncomfortable metal-and-plastic chairs. A couple of people were sitting in those chairs when I entered. Their veined noses and puffy cheeks told me they were heavy drinkers, so I assumed they were members of the AA and occupied one of the chairs.

  Thank God, I thought, that I don’t yet look like those two. I hope I never will.

  The chairs filled and I counted twelve of us in the semicircle when the meeting began. There were four empty chairs, so I assumed they’d been expecting sixteen and four had fallen off the wagon.

  Five of us were women, six were men, and one appeared to be transgender – man-to-woman. The men all looked as if they’d done something they shouldn’t and been caught doing it. The women and transgender person looked as if they couldn’t believe that it had come to this.

  As a newcomer I had to introduce myself and tell my story. It was a big ask for me, because my mind was too busy fretting about the boy I’d run over to focus on storytelling. Nevertheless, I came up with something. ‘Hello, my name is Jasmine Black, and I’m an alcoholic. I’m trying to think about how and when my drinking went wrong. I began in my teens. I had a group of friends and we used to buy bottles of White Lightning and drink them in Crystal Palace Park, and smoke a few joints, just for fun. Then something happened, and I began drinking to escape.

  ‘For most of my twenties it was like that. In the last couple of years it’s got worse. I’m a solicitor, and a couple of years ago, I got someone off who was a murderer. I was sure he did it, but I raised enough doubts to convince the jury to let him off. Over the years, I’ve got a lot of other people off, too – criminals who were all guilty.

  ‘Being congratulated by wife beaters and rapists and the like for helping them, and getting them off, didn’t sit well with me.

  ‘At the end of each case I drank to get over the feeling I’d done a mischief to the victim and family of the victim. I’d remember seeing them in court every day of the trial, the victim and her parents, husband, and sometimes her children, too. I had to act as if I didn’t care about them, but I couldn’t help caring. It might be time for me to quit my job as well as the drink. Thanks for listening.’

  When I mentioned quitting my job, I surprised myself. It hadn’t occurred to me before. The last thing I wanted to do, or so I thought, was give up the career I’d so carefully been building for myself, and which I�
��d proved I was good at. The impulse to give it up must have been a subconscious one, bubbling away under the surface, possibly for years. Now it was out in the open I wondered if I’d dare act on it.

  The other attendees clapped, then it was someone else’s turn to give a speech. At the end of the meeting I was given a buddy to help me mend my ways. It would be his job to counsel me, and help me stay on the wagon. He was a middle-aged man called Bernie with a lined face and hangdog expression.

  It was only day one, but I felt as if I’d made progress. Still, I couldn’t feel too pleased with myself. I had the sword of Damocles hanging over my head and there was no telling when it would drop. It was hard not to spend all my time feeling as if my world was about to implode.

  I got home and drank a cup of camomile tea in the hope it would calm me a little. Every time I had nothing else to think about, I heard a squeal of tyres, imagined a young boy’s face twisted in fear, and felt those two horrible impacts of my car hitting first flesh, then concrete.

  I spent what was left of the evening feeling anxious and watching TV, then turned in. Even though my head was buzzing with paranoia I was able to sleep, because fatigue caught up with me. I didn’t sleep too well, though.

  The next day – Friday 26 January – I got up early, went straight to my bank, withdrew the £2,000 in cash I needed to pay Jack Davis for the repairs to my car, and headed up to Luton.

  ‘Good as new,’ Jack said, when he showed me his handiwork. I inspected it carefully and had to admit he was right. Then I counted out the cash into the rather greasy palm of his hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Drive carefully.’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Beware of joyriders.’ He said it with a smile, the only smile I’d ever seen him make.

  I gave him a thin smile in return, got in my car, and drove back to Crystal Palace.

  I left the car out on the drive, as I thought it might seem suspicious if the police made house-to-house enquiries and some neighbour, trying to be helpful, said, ‘There’s a woman down the street drives a blue Audi and she used to park it outside all the time, but now she hides it away in her garage.’

  That was unlikely – the police had bigger fish to fry. But, I told myself, you can’t be too careful – not in this situation.

  I was still officially ill, and I planned to go on being ill for at least another week. It would take that long to get myself into a good enough frame of mind to cope with work. When I did, I’d have to give some thought to handing in my notice, but that was something which would have to come further down the line. Quitting my job would be stressful, and I had a pile of stress on my plate already, far too much to digest at one sitting. I couldn’t face heaping any more on it. And before I could even think about work, I needed to know what was going on with the police investigation, if there was one.

  Perhaps there was a bundle of papers at the bottom of a lot of other bundles on an overworked constable’s desk. Maybe that was why I hadn’t heard anything. It didn’t make me feel any safer. Once my victim’s bundle reached the top of the overworked constable’s pile, I’d be under investigation. Then they’d get me.

  I just about managed to sleep that night, but it was a fitful kind of slumber, very far removed from the sleep of the just, and I woke up early the next morning.

  Most unexpectedly, I was in a reasonable frame of mind.

  Jaz, I said to myself, somewhat optimistically, I’ve just thought of something. You know how you’ve missed a day? That could mean a lot of things. It could mean the accident involving the boy never happened. Sure, you ran into a lamp post, but you might have imagined the bit about the boy. After all, there hasn’t been any news about a boy being knocked down on Fosby Street.

  When the thought hit me, I was once again seized by a desire to return to the scene of my crime and investigate what’d gone on. So strong was the impulse I wondered if I had the gall to take a walk down Fosby Street, and decided I had. I put on my coat and took a stroll.

  The scene of the accident was only two miles away from mine, but what a difference those two miles made. I lived in an area where the houses were in good condition because they were lived in by owner-occupiers. The boy had been run over on a street with houses which were more-or-less identical to the ones on mine, but most had overgrown gardens and looked in need of repair, because they’d been converted into multiple-occupation rentals for young people on low incomes.

  I walked past the lamp post I’d crashed into, and gave it a furtive glance. There were blue marks on it. On the pavement nearby there was a stain, hardly noticeable, probably something you’d only see if you set out to look for it, as I had. I was convinced it was a blood stain, the blood of Sean Price. I hadn’t imagined it, then. I had indeed killed someone, and my own life would never be the same again. There was ample evidence that someone had run over someone else. Plus there had been a body. Why weren’t the police onto it?

  I hurried to the end of the road and took a different route home. On the way my mobile phone rang. Without thinking, I swiped the screen. It was Camilla. I cupped my hand around my face, hoping to supress the traffic noise.

  ‘Hi, Jaz, how are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Badly. I’m still in bed.’

  A particularly noisy car drove past. It must’ve had exhaust problems. I coughed loudly several times.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you? Some shopping perhaps?’ That was typical of Camilla. She was very considerate, but the last thing I needed was a visit from a work colleague.

  ‘No, thanks for offering though. You’ll have to let me be now, Cam. I’m so tired.’

  ‘Okay, take it easy. Promise me you’ll give me a call if you need anything.’

  ‘I promise. Bye, Cam.’

  ‘See you, Jaz.’

  I did feel genuinely ill, just not with flu, and I’m sure it showed in my voice. I was coming down with a bad bout of anxiety. I decided I should do something about it. I took a detour to the eight-till-late to buy a bottle of fresh orange juice. The walk would do me good, I told myself, and so would the juice.

  I got to the shop, picked a bottle from the fridge, and went to the till, which was near the door. While I’d been doing my shopping a woman had come in, and she appeared behind me with a basket of shopping. I paid for my juice. As I did so, I heard her say to the proprietor, ‘Did you hear about the hit-and-run the other night?’

  That was enough for me. I panicked and fled, or at least walked very quickly, back home.

  I told myself I had to get into a good frame of mind so that I could get back to work and do the things I normally did. Then, as I could hardly bear to sit still, I took a walk through Crystal Palace Park and somehow whiled away the afternoon and evening.

  On Saturday 27 January I woke up early. Everything was as it should be. I hadn’t crashed my car, hadn’t been driving while under the influence of drink, and hadn’t killed anyone. I was happy, or at least as happy as I usually was when I got up at the weekend. It was a state of affairs which lasted for about half a second before I remembered the accident. In an instant I went from moderately pleased with myself to near suicidal.

  I got out of bed with difficulty because the depression which hit me made me want to lie down feeling sorry for myself. With an effort of will, I forced myself to go to the bathroom. Once there, I performed my morning ablution rituals in an attempt to bring some normality back into my life. While showering, I experienced a hot flush and felt as though I was going through the menopause even though that was, hopefully, still many years away. When I’d done with my hot flush I began to think more clearly.

  Three days had gone by since my accident. No-one could now prove I’d been drunk at the time. The charge of driving while under the influence of drink was no longer a threat to my liberty. What, then, did I have to fear?

  I reasoned it out: if and when the body was examined, it might be possible to link it to me by the traces of paint it would have on it. A fore
nsic examination of my car would reveal the recent repair. There was, of course, the possibility of a witness in the other car which had been parked up the road.

  Rather than facing a charge of causing death while driving under the influence of drink, I’d face the slightly lesser charge of causing death by dangerous driving. The tariff for that could range from two years to fourteen in custody, depending on the gravity of the offence. The gravity would no doubt be near the maximum because of my failure to come forward and confess when I’d done it. Better news than the sentence for the offence aggravated by drinking, but hardly reassuring.

  Once I was up and dressed, I got on my PC and searched for news of unidentified bodies in Crystal Palace in January 2018. There hadn’t been any.

  I thought I must’ve made a mistake, so I did all the searches again with different search terms, but still nothing came up. The body of the boy had not only not been identified, it hadn’t even been noticed.

  But someone had found his body, because it wasn’t still there. And if someone had found his body, there was no excuse for not reporting it to the police. And no excuse for the police failing to investigate the matter. There was probably no excuse for me not already residing in HM Prison Holloway.

  Unless, that is, he is still alive.

  If so, there would have been no report of a death, but certainly, you would think, there would have been some mention of the crippled victim of a road traffic accident – perhaps a story about an unidentified someone who was in a coma at the local hospital. But when I checked, there was nothing. This was odd, because I had no doubt that my road traffic accident had been newsworthy, at least in the locality.

  I went out and bought a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile and telephoned the hospitals which would have been involved in the boy’s care if he’d been admitted to a hospital. I told them I was trying to find my brother Sean Price. They all informed me they had no records of any Sean Price being admitted.

  What could it mean?