by C. M. Ewan
I clasped a hand to the back of my head and stared over at the door to the wine cellar as Rachel switched on her phone. There were no sounds at all coming from the other side now. Was that a good thing or bad?
‘This is not going to be easy for either of you to look at,’ Rachel said.
‘Just show us, Mum.’
She took a deep breath and angled her phone so Holly and I could see.
I didn’t focus in to begin with but I was aware of something bright flashing up on screen. I heard Holly catch her breath.
Then I finally looked and my heart crumbled to dust.
‘What is this, Mum?’
‘It’s a still taken from a speed camera.’ Rachel’s careful tone was maddening to me. ‘This camera is just over a mile from where Michael . . .’
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.
I shook my head, a deep chill permeating my lungs. I felt like the wall of wine bottles had turned to rubber behind me; like I was sinking backwards into them.
I knew the camera Rachel meant. I’d passed it numerous times on the lonely drives I’d taken out to the spot where our son had died. A time and date stamp on the bottom right-hand corner of the image told me the picture had been taken less than thirty minutes before Michael’s official time of death. His recorded speed was seventy-one miles an hour.
The image itself was not very clear. It was hazed and milky, like it had been harshly lit or badly overexposed. In the foreground, I could see Michael clutching hold of the steering wheel of my Audi, sitting bolt upright with his chin raised high and his neck muscles pulled taut, like he was bracing for impact. Fiona was frozen in a pose looking half over at Michael, half out the rear window, twisted sideways in her seat with her hand flattened against the dash. They could have been arguing. Fiona could have been in the process of telling Michael to slow down or turn back. The rest of the image was a bright white haze, like backlit fog.
I had a harrowing thought then. This is the final image of my son alive. It was almost enough to make me roll away and curl up into a ball.
‘How did . . .? When . . .?’ I shook my head. This was too much. Too raw. I didn’t understand why this image had only surfaced now. To my knowledge, it hadn’t formed part of the investigation into the crash or the coroner’s hearing. Where had Rachel got hold of it from?
The coroner’s court didn’t have access to all the information they should have had. They didn’t know the full truth.
‘Is this real?’ I asked.
There were tears on Rachel’s cheeks. ‘It’s real.’
‘This is horrible, Mum. I don’t get why you’d want us to see this.’
I didn’t, either. Because even through the emotional haze I knew this wasn’t evidence of Michael’s innocence. The only logical conclusion to draw from this image was that Michael had definitely been speeding shortly before his death.
‘Just wait, OK? There’s more.’
Rachel swiped forwards on her phone. She showed us a second image that also appeared to be taken from a speed camera.
It was a shot of a different car. A silver Vauxhall. The number plate was clearly visible. Again, it was travelling at over seventy miles an hour.
‘This was taken from the same speed camera,’ Rachel said. ‘See the time stamp?’
And the date stamp. The image had been taken on the same date as the shot of Michael and Fiona. According to the time stamp, it had been recorded just seconds afterwards. I shook my head. I could tell Rachel believed this was significant, but I still didn’t get it. What were we supposed to be seeing here?
She swiped again. This time she showed us a different shot of the same car. It was a close-up of the front cabin, taken on a similar angle to the image of Michael and Fiona.
I had a pretty good idea why there were two images. A few years back, I got hit with three penalty points for triggering a speed camera close to Holly’s school. When the penalty notification had come in the post it had included a website link where I could view pictures of the offence. There’d been two images. One of my Audi shot from the front. Another of the cab to prove that I was the one doing the driving.
This image was clearer than the one of Michael and Fiona. I could see two men in the front of the Vauxhall, neither of them familiar to me, and a third man sitting in the rear left. All that could be seen of the figure in the back was an arm in some kind of black top and a sliver of jawline. The driver was thin and stern-looking with a rat-like face. He was wearing a black coat zipped to his chin. His front passenger was dressed in a black windcheater. He was bulkier than the driver and he had a square jaw and a boxer’s nose, sunken eyes. He was so tall that the upper portion of his forehead couldn’t be seen from the angle the image had been captured on.
A smaller man and a bigger man.
I felt my knees begin to flex. My backside hit the floor.
I didn’t know how to respond or what to feel. I felt like a stranger in my own body, all of my movements jerky and uncoordinated, all my thoughts jumbled and confused.
‘Michael and Fiona were being followed,’ Rachel told us.
That seemed like a stretch to me. These men looked to have been speeding, yes. But that didn’t necessarily prove they’d been pursuing Michael. I guess Rachel must have seen the doubt in my face.
‘These men were chasing them,’ she said, and I could hear her belief in the theory cutting through the pain that was tightening her voice. ‘You saw how the picture of Michael and Fiona wasn’t as clear as this, right?’
I nodded vaguely, still gripped by the strange sensation that none of this was real. And all right, so far I didn’t have the full picture. And maybe I could tell myself that Rachel had always wanted to believe that something else had happened that night so badly that she’d chosen to interpret these images to support that viewpoint.
But there was also something that cut against that. Rachel is the cleverest person I know. Emotional? Yes. Broken? No doubt. But I couldn’t believe she’d be laying out this theory for me – and especially not for Holly – unless she had some evidence to back it up. Rachel is a doctor, after all. She’s built a career from accurately interpreting symptoms and facts.
Rachel, I think sensing how badly this was hurting me, reached out to place a hand on my knee. I surprised myself by not pushing it away.
‘We think the car that was following Michael had their lights on full beam. We think they were trying to blind Michael and that’s why the camera image is overexposed.’
‘And by “we” you mean you and Lionel?’
‘And Brodie.’
Brodie.
‘He’s an investigator,’ Rachel explained. ‘Lionel hired him. He’s worked for Lionel before.’
As soon as she said it, I believed her. For one thing, there was that story Brodie had told me about his sister. Wasn’t that the kind of incident that would drive someone into that kind of work? But more to the point, I knew for a fact that in the years after Jennifer’s murder Lionel had hired a stream of high-end private investigators who’d been tasked with attempting to track down Tony Bryant, Jennifer’s suspected killer. Some of them were ex-cops. Others were ex-security services. Lionel had kept the hunt for Bryant going long after the police had abandoned their enquiry. It hadn’t worked, but Lionel had pushed things as far as he could.
Now, I felt a tightening in my chest as I thought about how he’d done the same thing for my family too.
‘That’s why I was here three weeks ago. Lionel invited me here so Brodie could update us both on what he’d found. Lionel thought it would be good for us to be somewhere I could think clearly. He knew I’d need time and space to get my head around everything, to try to come to terms with it. You shouldn’t be mad at him, Tom. He knew we’d disagreed about . . . all of this. About Michael. He actually started out on your side of things. He thought Michael did what they said too. Brodie’s been working on this for months now. He’s been keeping me informed. I think Lio
nel thought if he could prove to me, once and for all, that nothing happened that night . . .’
Then maybe he could fix our marriage. She didn’t have to say it. She didn’t have to say I told you so, either.
The silence in the cellar seemed to swirl around us. If these images were authentic – if Rachel’s theory was true – then I’d been wrong about Michael. I’d stopped believing in my son. Since his death, every time I’d thought of him I’d experienced a painful stab of guilt. Guilt for what he’d done. Guilt for how he’d snuffed out Fiona’s life along with his own. Guilt for how I’d let him down.
I’d shied away from thinking of my son to avoid that hurtful stab. Eight months when I hadn’t allowed myself to mourn Michael properly. Eight months when the truth behind his death had remained hidden and untold.
I thought of everything Rachel had wanted to believe. Everything she couldn’t let go of. Her stubborn refusal to accept that Michael had taken my car without permission and had driven it illegally simply to impress his girlfriend.
She’d kept believing in Michael, even when all the evidence went against it. Even when I’d begged her to give it up and accept the truth for what it was.
I looked at her now, my eyes stinging, my throat raw. I felt scraped clean, hollowed out. Rachel had been there for Michael. She’d tried to bear witness to who he really was. I should have done more to help her with that. I should have given her my support.
And yet still I felt angry with her. Still I’d been hurt and tricked. It was a difficult mix of emotions to get my head around.
‘But these pictures?’ Holly said. ‘Why didn’t the police just look at them?’
‘Because they were deleted. That same night. Someone went into the police system and erased any images the camera took between 9.18 and 9.36 that evening.’
I felt a banging against my ribs, like someone had injected adrenaline right into my heart. ‘Then how did Brodie get them?’
‘There’s a backdoor into the system. He found a backup of all the stored images.’
I opened my mouth to say something more but Rachel shushed me and cut me off. She turned and stared at the cellar door, keeping very still.
The door was motionless. Soundless.
Rachel passed Holly her phone, got to her feet and crept closer to the door.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ she whispered. ‘Do you hear anything?’
I didn’t respond. Neither did Holly. I was too focused on Rachel’s intensity. Still reeling from her deceit. I saw how completely she’d lived this. How thoroughly she believed the men outside the cellar door were two of the men from the speed camera image she’d shown us.
‘Do you think they’re still out there?’ she asked.
Again, I didn’t say anything. There was no way to tell. And I wasn’t sure what difference it could make.
‘We could open the door,’ she said, looking back at us.
‘No.’
‘No way, Mum.’
‘Just a crack. We could do it quickly. Tom, you could be ready to slam it shut if they’re still there.’
‘They have guns, Rachel.’
‘Don’t open it,’ Holly said. ‘Please don’t open it. Just . . . come back and tell us the rest. What else is there you haven’t told us?’
Rachel studied us a moment, biting her cheek. She looked back at the door. I could tell she wanted to open it. She wanted to take the chance that we could slip out and get away. That told me something about how concerned she was about Holly’s injury right now and about what she believed these men would do to us if they got in here. I found myself reaching over to squeeze Holly’s arm.
But still, I didn’t think we should open the door. My guess was this was just a tactic the men were using. If they knew they couldn’t get in here, then making us open the door was their next best move.
‘Mum, please. Seriously. I can’t stand it.’
‘OK, sweetheart. We’ll wait. OK?’
Her shoulders dropped and she returned to us, kneeling next to Holly and taking another quick look at the dressing on her side. She stroked Buster’s head and readjusted the towels that were wrapped around him. Then she took her phone back from Holly, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and flicked at the screen once more.
‘There’s one last thing you need to see. Brodie was able to adjust the speed camera image of Michael and Fiona. He used a computer program to reduce the headlamp dazzle, change the contrast settings. He was able to bring out a lot more detail.’
‘And?’
Rachel took a deep breath and showed us, and my whole world tipped on its axis yet again.
‘Keep going.’
Michael tries to see behind him in the rear-view mirror. But the dazzle of the headlamps from behind is too bright. All he can see is a dark outline of head and body.
‘I told you. Stop looking back here.’
Michael glances at Fiona instead. She’s sniffing, her face smeared with tears. He wants to tell her it’s going to be OK. Wants to say he knows what to do.
But he doesn’t.
Sixteen years old and he feels like such a boy.
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
Michael waits, then nods.
‘You should start thinking about what you need to say to each other.’
‘What do you mean?’ Fiona asks.
But Michael knows. He wishes he didn’t, but he does.
‘I mean your goodbyes. You understand? I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is now. There’s no other choice.’
Darkness hurtles by outside. Everything is out of control. This situation is so far beyond their control.
Michael’s skin prickles. He feels very cold. His heart thumps like a machine in his chest.
‘Hey. Hey, slow down. Don’t do anything crazy.’
But in all the things Michael can’t control about tonight, this is now the one thing he can control.
‘Slow down!’
Michael hunches his shoulder, grips the steering wheel and stamps on the accelerator.
34
With the contrast adjusted and the dazzle minimized, it was possible to pick out vague, blurred details in the whited-out space between Michael and Fiona. Like the smudged outline of a head and shoulders. Like the blocky rendering of something dark gripped in a hand sheathed in what appeared to be a blue glove.
I rocked back and jammed my fist in my mouth. My whole body shook.
This is how it happens. This is how your life changes in an instant. You believe the things about your child you really don’t want to. Michael is dead. It was his fault. He killed his girlfriend. You force yourself to confront that reality and you accept it even though it wounds you deeply. You know immediately a part of you died that night too. You know you will never recover from it. Your world can never be the same. Because what kind of son did you raise who could do something like that? What kind of father are you?
And then, suddenly, you’re exposed to a new truth. A different reality. Like stepping into a parallel – equally horrifying – world.
Someone had been in my car with my son and Fiona.
‘Brodie thinks the black shape in that image is a gun.’
I bit down on my knuckles. I felt like my jaw might crack. A gun. It looked plausible. I thought of the men who’d come here tonight and the firearms they’d been carrying. A swell of hot rage and regret sloshed around in my chest.
Had Michael known the same fears we’d faced tonight in the moments before he died?
‘Who is this?’ I asked, pointing at the blurred figure in the photograph.
Rachel just looked at me with tears in her eyes.
I jabbed my finger towards the cellar door. ‘Who are they, Rachel?’
‘Just . . . let me explain in my own way, OK? Lionel wanted my go-ahead, Tom. When I came here three weeks ago Brodie showed me these images and they asked me to think seriously about whether I wanted him to probe further. He warned me it could be dangerous.’
Dangerous.
I went to interrupt but Rachel raised her hand, asking for more time.
‘It’s like I said earlier. I was always going to tell you about this, Tom. That’s why I said we needed to talk. I knew this decision was too big for me to tackle by myself.’ Rachel glanced at Holly, not quite meeting her eyes. ‘And once we’d talked, your dad and I could agree whether to tell you too, Holly. At least, that was my idea . . .’ She shook her head and searched my face again, fighting back tears. From the way her expression stilled and she leaned back, I guess my reaction was worse than she’d feared. ‘You have to understand, Tom. I wasn’t shutting you out. But I was . . . hurt. And confused by what’s been happening between us. You moved out. We didn’t talk about it. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if you’d be prepared to listen to me.’
And honestly? Maybe I wouldn’t have been. But she still should have tried.
‘He was our son, Rachel. Our son.’
‘And my brother,’ Holly told her.
‘And that’s why we’re here now. That’s why all of us are here. So I could tell you. So we could decide what to do next.’
‘What’s to decide?’ Holly asked. ‘You should have just gone to the police with these pictures.’
But I knew that wouldn’t be straightforward for Rachel. Not when her opinion of the police was so low. Not when they’d failed to dig for a deeper truth the first time around. I could see why Rachel might have believed she’d have more chance of finding out what really happened by sticking with Lionel and Brodie. Particularly when the police’s own speed camera system had been compromised.
‘You still haven’t told us who was in my car with Michael and Fiona. Who are the men here tonight?’
Rachel glanced towards the door again. Then she closed her eyes and, in a low, modulated voice, she said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Because I was going to find out this week. Once I’d spoken to you about it. Once we’d both decided if we wanted to know more. Brodie was going to report back to us. If we wanted to hear it.’