Tessa winced. The birthdays. Normally Lyla and Charlie had a joint birthday party up on the moor or down on the coast, as they were born two days apart. It made sense, and Tessa knew it helped Lyla and Kath, because it disguised the fact Lyla had few if any school friends. Her loneliness was diluted by the presence of her cousins and their friends. But this year Dan had different plans. Tessa shook her head. ‘Do we really have to do this? Can’t it wait another year?’
‘I promised him Disneyland Paris. God knows why. Stupid. But I can’t go back on it, and he’s so excited, as is Oscar: they were banging on about it in the car. And it’s all arranged, on our way back from the holiday, the Canaries, some nice winter sun!’
‘But Lyla—’
‘I’ll pay for them to do Disney, they could come for the weekend.’ Dan’s smile was expansive. ‘I’ll pay for them all! Lyla and Kath, even Adam, of course I’ll pay.’
‘You know Adam won’t accept. He’ll see that as charity, he’s proud. And he’ll want to be with Lyla, for her birthday treat. Like any dad.’
Dan shrugged. Yes, I know. ‘Perhaps we can have a second party when we get back from holiday?’
‘Hmm,’ Tessa mused. ‘I guess we could do Two Bridges Hotel again; they always like having parties there, that creepy walk to Wistman’s Wood. I don’t know.’
‘OK.’ Dan glanced her way, and frowned again for a moment; then he turned, distracted. ‘Jesus, what the fuck are they doing now? Boys! Foxtrot, Tango! Stop it!’
He paced out of the kitchen to break up the fraternal squabble in the living room. Tessa could hear Charlie saying gimme it back gimme it back gimme it back. The fight didn’t sound too bad. It was the silent fights that were the worst: they usually meant Charlie was throttling Oscar leaving him nearly asphyxiated. Or vice versa. It was amazing how these two brothers could so obviously love each other yet so frequently assault one another.
Tessa took the mugs and put them in the sink, thinking about Dan’s answer. Kath’s chronology. Something had clicked, there was something here. Information. What was it?
Methodically, she washed the first mug, placed it on the metal dish rack. She looked out at the garden as she rinsed the second mug, at the swing and the footballs and the big plastic toy car, big enough for a kid to sit in, though the boys were fast growing out of it now.
The car. That was it. Dan said he had driven so fast from London to Plymouth to see his sister, he could have got caught by the police, snapped by a speed-cam.
Tessa stopped rinsing, the mug suspended in her hand. She stared out at the sunset. Dan said he had driven the car too fast, but that was all wrong. Because he didn’t drive to London. Tessa distinctly remembered the conversation, late on Boxing Day. How he couldn’t face the holiday traffic, the gridlock on the M5. How he’d decided to take the train to London, instead.
Why was her husband lying, on this of all subjects? Was it just the confusion they all felt?
Tessa put the last mug down, pensively. She could hear the boys, still fighting in the living room.
Gimme gimme gimme.
Burrator
Sunday morning
I am here, I have returned. The scene of the crime.
The waters are a tranquil black under a very grey sky. My hands are thrust in my anorak pockets, hidden from the wintry cold. I am staring at the break in the granite wall through which I drove on that night, three weeks ago.
This gap is barely wide enough for a car. Which means Tessa was right. You’d have to steer carefully to get through this space. Which also means: I must have done it. I deliberately drove myself between the broken-toothed brickwork, right into the deep, dark, freezing water, just so I might die.
I step closer. Nervous. As if I might fall in. As if I might find the truth.
I want the truth; but I am so scared of it.
Someone has lashed grey metal caging across the fatal gap. Presumably this is to prevent copycat suicide bids, to prevent all the other thirty-six-year-old Dartmoor mothers-of-one from driving into the reservoir for no apparent reason; but I wonder why they haven’t simply finished the rebuilding.
It’s like one of those churches gutted in wars, kept in a state of burnt disrepair, as a sobering memorial.
Or maybe the council ran short of money, or the builders are on holiday. Because this isn’t a memorial: no one remembers. I know this because I’ve finally discovered the courage to browse my mysterious suicide bid, and I have found one tiny original report, on a local news website.
It is algorithmically repeated in other places, but not elaborated or pursued. I also know Adam kept it all off Facebook: he curated our social media, to save my reputation.
So this article is it, apart from gossip that might have spread from police or nurses.
Taking out my phone, I read the stored news item.
Accident at Burrator Reservoir
A 36-year-old woman, believed to be local, survived a serious accident on 30 December when her car veered into Burrator Reservoir, a well-known Dartmoor beauty spot. The incident is thought to have occurred around 9 p.m., though the victim was not rescued until the early hours of 31 December. The victim is now in Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, in a stable condition …
There’s one more brief paragraph, but that’s it. That’s my fate, the vivid cruelty of my life and its near ending, summarized for the world.
I walk right up to the wall, place my phone on the flat, cold, Victorian capstones, and stare at the placid waters.
The stunned calm of deep winter stills everything. No birds sing, no ducks quack, the water is a silent mirror to the oppressive ceiling of empty sky. The woodlands over the water, gathered under the high granite knuckles of Sheepstor, are intensely dark and motionless. There is no one looking at me from behind the old trees, no one watching. No one sees me.
It is difficult to imagine this place as a scene of drama. But it was. I try to picture that night; to picture me: slowly driving off the B3212, passing the little Spar in Dousland, and heading down the Burrator side road, all the way down here, the night before New Year’s Eve. What was I wearing, did I have make-up on, how did I prepare for this date? Was I excited, shivering, zombie-like? Was I hungry, thirsty, crying?
An icy breeze stirs the Burrator waters, combing them with black ripples, which plash against the brickwork. Then it dies away, and the stillness returns. Like the world is waiting for me to work things out.
I try to invoke my expression in that final second. Was I thinking of Lyla?
I know I wasn’t drunk. The hospital tests showed barely detectable levels of alcohol in my blood, and no evidence of illegal drugs. So I was sober. When I did it. I don’t even have that excuse.
Picking up the phone again, I stare at the words as if they will magically transform into an answer. But all I get is more questions. Why did I sense it was icy that night? I’ve checked and rechecked the weather. It was mild and dry, as Tessa said. No ice to skid on, no frost, nothing like that.
Completely dry.
The mysteries deepen like the dark waters of Burrator. And deepening them further is Adam. I definitely saw guilt on his face. And Adam is, usually, pretty much an open book. An honest man. He rarely, if ever, lies.
It’s one reason I love him.
So why does he feel guilty? What isn’t he telling me? Perhaps it is guilt related to my suicide bid, that feeling of I should have done something. The stuff everyone feels when someone they know attempts self-murder. I should have talked, should have been there, should have called after Christmas. It’s one reason I find suicide so detestable, one reason I cannot really believe I did it: suicide infects everyone around it with a lifelong sense of self-reproach that can never be erased. And I would not do that to Adam, I would not do that to Lyla.
A cronking noise distracts me and I look up. Five ravens are wheeling across the whiteness, five black cruciform shapes, spiralling repetitively. Are they hunting, or mating, or something else? I don’t understa
nd their behaviour; Lyla would surely know. She likes crows and ravens, rooks and magpies, the birds of winter. She says they are collectively known as corvids and they are clever. So perhaps the corvids understand, maybe they were there that night, the winter birds, the crows and ravens. Because no one else knows, and no one else saw.
But someone can see me now.
There is a dark figure on the hill to my left, staring down, in my direction. I think it is a man. The figure is silhouetted by the grey clouds, a black shape of a human; but his stance suggests he is holding binoculars. Observing something. Could be a birdwatcher: Burrator gets a lot of them. Twitchers looking for raptors and waterfowl.
The man moves further along the lip of the hill. He moves in a distinctive way. I know that walk, that stance, the set of the shoulders.
It’s Adam.
And he is definitely watching me, not any birds. He must have followed me. My husband is stalking me. Perhaps he thinks he is doing me a favour, protecting me from myself; perhaps he was worried I would drive into the water again.
Anger seizes me. This is wrong. He might have been doing this for weeks! It’s disturbing. Sinister.
Flushed with fury, I jab at my phone as I stare at him, high on the hill. Let him see me calling him. Let’s see how he reacts.
But of course there is no reception. Wherever you really need reception on Dartmoor you can’t get it. As if it’s an ancient law, made by the stannary parliaments, the medieval laws of Methral Brook and Great Week Mine. No Reception When You Need It. So instead I stand here and shout up at the hill, like a madwoman. ‘Adam!’ The figure does not move.
‘Adam, I can see you! Adam!’
My desperate shouting fades to nothing. The figure is moving away.
‘Adam!’
Could he even hear me? Now he’s gone. Possibly it wasn’t Adam after all. But I am sure it was. Yet what was he doing? Looking after me? Watching over me? He said he might have to drop Lyla at the Spaldings’, because sometimes he has to work Sundays. Sometimes he has to work every day.
Whatever the case, I don’t need looking after, and I certainly don’t need to be followed, as if I am some criminal. Or someone who requires handholding, as if I am going to jump in the water all over again.
But the confrontation will have to wait; I have another, more pressing task. Which requires a different kind of courage. Seizing the moment, I scroll to the end of the report on my phone, to that vital name. The solitary eyewitness to my self-murder.
Brian Angove.
Venner
Sunday morning
It’s not hard to find his house. There are only about six cottages in the tiny hamlet of Venner, a mile from Burrator. The hamlet is so small, it has no church, no pub, no shop, just a few thatched cottages sending wisps of smoke into the cold white sky, like graphite doodles on blank paper.
Brian Angove’s cottage is called The Mallards, according to Google.
And there it is. A little black plaque bearing a blue duck, beyond the garden, a red-painted cottage. On a bright day it must be very pretty, the sort of place that makes tourists slow down for a minute to take a blast of photos on their phones, before heading on to the gastropub, five miles away, the one that does Exmoor lamb.
Smoke curls from this cottage too. So Brian Angove is in. Swallowing my anxieties, I creak open the tiny gate and walk up the path, count one two three, in time with my vigorously beating heart, and knock on the door with the cast-iron handle.
There is no immediate response. I glance at the windows. The glass is so thick and antique it is hard to tell if anyone is inside. A solitary crow watches me from a telegraph pole, its head tilted in curiosity. Perhaps it followed me from Burrator.
I knock once more, to no effect. There’s no one in. Sighing with a mixture of dismay and relief, I turn, and head for the car.
‘Hello? Can I help you?’
It’s him. I recognize his image from my internet search. He’s a retired county councillor. Sixty-seven, but seemingly hale and hearty. Brian Angove is wearing a pale-blue cardigan and brown corduroys; I hear the yapping of a dog in the dark interior of the cottage.
He squints at me. Comprehension dawns. ‘Oh my word. I know who you are.’
I shrug.
‘Please,’ he says. ‘Come in. I’ve got a pot of tea on the go. It’s Darjeeling.’
I accept his invitation and step into his fragrant little cottage, full of old photos and sun-bleached gymkhana rosettes and fading photos of children. He takes my coat and delivers it to some closet, then returns and guides me down the hall to a neat kitchen table, where he pours the tea into floral china cups, stopping for a moment to say, ‘We could have something stronger if you like, Mrs …’
‘Redway. Kath Redway.’
‘Yes. That’s it. Redway, yes of course.’ His smile is kindly: he wants to help, but I see pity too.
‘Tea is fine,’ I say. ‘It’s very nice of you, thank you. I’m so sorry to bother you.’
‘It’s no bother,’ he says. ‘I’m all alone here, on Sundays especially. I’m more than happy to talk if it helps. If that doesn’t sound too peculiar.’ His face flushes for a moment. ‘In the circumstances. Ah.’
‘No it’s OK, it’s OK.’ I hurry on, because I am worried I will stop and walk away if I pause, even for a moment: I have dreaded this meeting since I discovered the identity of the witness.
‘Mr Angove—’
‘Brian.’
‘Brian, I don’t know if you know all the facts surrounding my case. You know. My …’ I can barely say the word. ‘Suicide. The facts surrounding my suicide attempt. All that kind of thing. Um.’
His gentle eyes meet mine and I see the pity again. I suppose it’s better than hatred, or contempt. The woman who tried to leave her daughter alone in the world.
‘All I know, Kath, is what I saw. What I told the police when they asked. That’s all.’
‘So I better tell you more about me.’ My words rush out like young Dartmoor rivers. ‘I have mild retrograde amnesia, because of the brain trauma, from the crash. That means I can’t remember much or even anything of the few days before—’ Again, I cannot say it. ‘What I did that night.’
‘I understand, I do understand, rest assured. My wife had memory loss before she died.’ His voice is soft. Sad. ‘She had Alzheimer’s, very early onset. I understand these things, I do not judge. And I’m presuming, in the light of what you say, that you want to know exactly what I saw?’
‘Yes,’ I say, very quietly. ‘Yes please.’
He pours more tea. And he tells me everything I expected, everything they say. A mild and dry December night. No ice, no frost. He was walking his dog around Burrator, across the dam at River Meavy, into the oakwoods. Then he saw me and my car. An old Toyota. Parked on the tarmac. Next to the dam and the reservoir.
‘I was parked?’
‘Yes. That’s why I stopped and looked. Not many people come to the reservoir at night, in the winter.’
‘And it was just me in the car?’
He frowns. ‘You, ah, really want all the details?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. I remember thinking it was a little peculiar. A person alone in a car, at the reservoir, in the dark. Looking at the water. And you were sitting up straight, perfectly still. As if you were thinking very hard.’
Something puzzles me here. ‘If it was dark, how could you see anything?’
‘It was a full moon, and the clouds were broken. You had a hood up, an anorak, or something. But I saw your profile.’
‘Definitely me?’
‘As the police said when they interviewed me, who else could it be?’
I stare at my Darjeeling. It’s nice. Posh tea. Posher than the tea we have at home. Made with real tea leaves. I have an urge to swill them around, like my mum in one of her pagan moods, in the candlelight of a Salcombe evening, with all her hippy friends gathered around the Tarot cards, the African masks smirking on the wal
l. The only difference is that I want to see the past. Not the future.
I look directly at Brian.
‘And what happened next?’
He shakes his head, slowly, regretfully. ‘You drove your car nearer to the reservoir. Which did slightly alarm me, as there was that temporary gap in the wall. But you stopped again.’
‘And after that?’
‘I watched for a while, but you simply sat there. And I’m afraid to say,’ he blushes and sighs, ‘well, I got a bit bored. I reckoned you were meditating, thinking about something. People do that, come down to Burrator to think. The water is calming, isn’t it? Peaceful. So I carried on walking Delilah. Our usual route. I thought no more about you until I reached the top of the reservoir, where you can look down. And then I saw it.’ He shrugs, and looks quite pained. This is the moment. ‘I couldn’t quite believe it.’ He closes his eyes as if he is saying a brief prayer; he opens his eyes and looks at me. ‘I watched as you drove quickly through the gap, into the reservoir. Into the waters. Just like that. It was horrible and strange, I’m sorry, almost like a dream. A nightmare.’
I wonder if he is going to cry; I wonder if I am going to cry.
We both drink our tea. He continues, ‘What struck me was the silence, the quietness of it all. It wasn’t loud or dramatic: it was a quiet, mild evening and you quickly drove into the water and the car sank, so silently, so fast. And seconds later it was as if you’d never been there.’
If I hadn’t seen it, no one would have known. Gone forever, in the blink of an eye.’
I say nothing. My quietness is painful. Brian says,
‘Kath?’
‘Sorry. Uh. Sorry.’ I want to block this out, to retreat from this terrible image, the car sinking so quickly. In the blink of an eye. ‘So what happened then, after I drove in the water? What came next?’ He looks at me, mournfully, and sympathetically.
‘Well. I was quite paralysed. I stood there for a while, a minute or so.’
‘Why?’
‘I was so shocked, I’m sorry – but then I ran straight home. I hadn’t brought my mobile, there’s no mobile reception down there anyway, so I had to run home. I don’t run very fast, I’m afraid, not these days. I got to my house and called the emergency services and they took it from there.’
Just Before I Died Page 10