Over the Line

by Steve Howell

  “But why exhume the body?” I said, tentatively, thinking of Matt’s father alone in that room surrounded by his pictures of Matt as a boy looking so happy and hopeful.

  “I’m not at liberty to go into detail,” Richards continued, “but you’re intelligent people and I’m sure you realise we wouldn’t be doing this unless something new had come to light – well, in this case, something that was overlooked the first time around. Which means we need to do some more tests. We don’t dig bodies up for the fun of it.”

  Mimi was more subdued than I’d ever seen her. She looked dazed. All traces of irritation had vanished.

  “Will the media be told?” she said.

  “Of course,” the inspector replied. “We’ll be issuing a statement tomorrow. The body will be exhumed on Thursday night.”

  Mimi looked at me as if expecting me to say something, but I was struggling to know where to begin. I left her to rise to the occasion.

  “We’ll do whatever we can to help inspector,” she said, sounding calm and professional. “When we see Megan tomorrow – assuming we see her – we will, not for the first time, emphasise the seriousness of this. We can’t force her to listen of course, but we will tell her we think she should contact you without delay.”

  The inspector nodded and frowned slightly as if straining to summon the right words. “I don’t want to make threats Miss Jacobs – it’s not my style – but, to be fair, I think you need to know that if the tests on the body confirm our concerns, and if she doesn’t volunteer herself, I may have no choice but to issue a warrant for her arrest. I need to establish whether she’s a witness or a suspect in serious crime.”

  I gasped, loudly enough for Richards to stop and look from Mimi to me.

  “I’ll give you 48 hours,” he said, standing and straightening his jacket and turning to walk briskly to the car park.

  15

  Peer Problems

  “Dad, Dad. Is that you?”

  Danny had caught me in the no-man’s-land between sleeping and waking. At first I thought the phone ringing was part of a dream. Even after answering it I was disorientated and slightly surprised to see Mimi lying next to me.

  I mustered a mumbled, “Danny, hi! What’s up?”

  “What’s happening with Megan, Dad?”

  I could hear him breathing, softly and rhythmically, on the other end of the phone. Mimi stirred and rolled over, her naked back to me, her dark hair fanning across the pillow.

  “I don’t know yet Danny. It’s complicated.”

  “They’re saying she’s disappeared.”

  “Who’s saying?”

  “Everyone. It’s on Twitter… There are photos of you.”

  “Are there?”

  “They’re saying you don’t know where she is.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you read, Danny.”

  “But do you know where she is?”

  “I saw her yesterday.”

  “So what’s going to happen? What about the Olympics? Is she going?”

  “Sorry Danny. I don’t know yet.”

  Mimi bolted into an upright position, frowning and clutching the duvet to keep herself covered. I knew what she was thinking. We had agreed not to admit to any doubts about Rio. But that was for adults. I couldn’t lie to Danny.

  “So Dad, when are you going to come back to London? Am I going to see you on Sunday, like you said?” His voice, beginning to break, seemed to go up half an octave as he emphasised those last three words. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. I looked at my watch, which was pointless as it didn’t show the date. It said 8.20. I realised it was Thursday morning. Who knows what could happen between now and Sunday?

  “Shouldn’t you be on your way to school?” I asked.

  “I am. I’m outside school now. So Dad, what about Sunday?”

  “Yes. Sunday. I’ll see you then.”

  “Promise?”

  Mimi was following my amateurish parenting closely. She nodded vigorously and gestured with a hand like she was pushing me along, urging me to sound more reassuring.

  “Of course! Definitely. Tell Mum, okay?”

  The breathing again. I could sense him thinking.

  “Dad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course. Of course I am. Yep. Don’t worry about me… but I’ve got to go now, okay? Sorry son – we have to be somewhere soon.”

  “We?”

  “See you Sunday, Danny.”

  “Yes. Don’t forget.”

  ***

  Mimi and I decided to skip the hotel breakfast. We had to be at the university for ten thirty, and I couldn’t rock-up in a lived-in tracksuit and a crumpled T-shirt. I needed to buy some clothes, and there was no time to worry about style – as if I ever did. The solution was the nearest retail park, and grey trousers, white shirt and navy jacket from the first store we found. I tried them on and kept them on, dumping my sorry-looking coaching clothes in a carrier bag.

  While I was changing, Mimi had bought a full set of newspapers. The coverage wasn’t good. The Mail front page led with the Terry story, under a headline: ‘Meg mystery deepens – coach at wit’s end’. As expected, they made it sound like Megan was on the run and I was ‘in the dark’.

  “For fuck sake! He really screwed us,” I said.

  “Not here, Liam. Let’s go somewhere quieter,” she said, looking over her shoulder. Paranoia was setting in.

  We left the clothes shop and found a small family-run Italian coffee place housed, incongruously, in a Tesco the size of an aircraft hangar. We ordered coffees, succumbed to the tempting sticky pastries and sat as far away from the other customers as we could with the pile of papers in front of us. Finding the Meg story wasn’t hard. It was either on the front page or jumping out at us from one of the early news pages. This definitely wasn’t a sports story any more.

  I was still smarting over Terry. “The next time he fancies a pint I’ll pour it over his effing head,” I said.

  Mimi looked up from the paper she was reading. “Ha! I’ve got some better ideas, but let’s save that for another time.”

  The Mail piece was the most damaging, lent credibility by the quote from Terry, someone who had spoken to me. The others were more speculative: ‘Drug cloud over Olympic star’; ‘What’s Meg got to hide?’; ‘Meg avoiding steroid death probe’. None of them made specific allegations. The editors knew Jackie – with libel lawyers on tap – would be trigger-happy if they published anything they couldn’t back-up. But that didn’t stop them recycling the story of the police inquiry ladled with innuendos.

  “There’s nothing new here,” I said, “except Terry’s treachery.”

  “Hmm, well, it’s kind of new,” Mimi replied, picking up her steaming cappuccino and looking at me like she was about to explain something to a child.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that the news is there’s no news. There’s no news of Megan. Four days go by, and she hasn’t shown up. She still hasn’t made contact with the police. That’s the story. And it looks bad.”

  I put the paper I was reading down. It was depressing me. The previous night had been bad enough. After the inspector’s not-so-veiled threat, we had retreated to Mimi’s room only to be inundated with calls. Mimi had to fend off journalists, insisting to me she couldn’t go to ground when they were people she dealt with day-in, day-out. And I spent a few hours placating athletics officials and trying to track Megan and Jackie down.

  Megan didn’t respond to my calls, and I agonised over texting her. I even started tapping in a few words, but how do you tell someone their dead friend’s corpse is being dug up?

  As for poor Jackie, I thought she was going to pass out when I told her. She groaned and went silent and then mumbled something about calling me back. When she phoned again an hour later, she said her day had been spent acting as a punch bag for angry sponsors, placating them with the offer of a clear-the-a
ir meeting at Crystal Palace on Friday and promising – optimistically – that Megan would be there to answer their questions.

  I knew how fickle sponsors and their army of ‘brand guardians’ could be. One minute they are gushing with false jollity about everything being ‘exciting’ and ‘brilliant’. The next, the athlete loses form, and they are ever-so sorry darling but this isn’t working for them. There are honourable exceptions – especially the sponsors who love track and field for its own sake and who gain a vicarious pleasure from supporting an athlete through thick and thin. But at the higher levels of the sport, the big corporates take over, and it’s clinical: the only thing that matters is Return On Investment. When an athlete is yesterday’s success story, it can be as brutal as the treatment of anyone who’s surplus to requirements. Jackie had said, “If they’re half-way out the door now, imagine what will happen when they hear about the body being exhumed.”

  Of course Jackie was no saint when it came to driving a commercial bargain, but I could empathise with her. The only thing I couldn’t make my mind up about was who to feel angrier with: the sponsors or Megan for dragging us into all this.

  Mimi’s phone was vibrating on the table now, sending a ripple across my half-drunk coffee. She answered with a curt, “Yep”. I gathered it was someone from the university in a panic. Mimi tapped the phone off, scooped the papers up and said, “We need to go. The uni’s crawling with paparazzi.”

  ***

  The university campus was on a hill above Caerleon. There was only one way in, and it was jammed with photographers and fans being kept at bay by security guards in florescent yellow jackets and uniformed police. They had managed to keep a channel clear for cars to approach the barrier, but the photographers pressed forward when they recognised us, and some of them were leaning across the bonnet as we inched towards the man checking passes. Mimi showed him our invitations through the windscreen, not wanting to lower the window, and he lifted the barrier and waved us through.

  We followed signs for the Sports Hall tucked away behind the main building where the flustered university PR man was waiting at the entrance, clutching a clipboard in one hand and a phone in the other. This was obviously not a normal day at the office for him. He was young and looking around anxiously like he was desperate for the cavalry to arrive.

  “You must be Mimi,” he said as we approached.

  “Any sign of Megan?” Mimi replied with a nod.

  Yes, she’s with the Vice Chancellor,” he said. “She knew the back way in.” He chuckled nervously.

  Mimi threw him a sisterly smile and turned to me. “This is Liam McCarthy, Meg’s coach.”

  The university man shook my hand and gestured us towards the door. “We’re running late,” he said. “The parents and students have been in their seats for quite a while.”

  He directed us along a balcony overlooking the hall to the rows of seats on a retractable stand that filled the back third of the gym. Our seats were among the parents. Students filled the rows on the floor area, all of us facing a stage furnished with two lecterns and a row of upholstered throne-like chairs.

  Within seconds of sitting down, we were on our feet again as digital horns heralded the arrival of the academic hierarchy in a colourful array of gowns, hoods and hats. They trooped in from the balcony, down a central aisle and onto the stage, looking suitably ceremonial and generally very pleased with themselves.

  One of the academics remained standing to tell us she was using the powers vested in her to declare the congregation open for the conferment of degrees, diplomas and other awards. She invited the Vice Chancellor to speak. I still couldn’t see Megan.

  The Vice Chancellor’s speech was mercifully short, and soon the woman running the show was on her feet again announcing that she was presenting Megan Cerys Tomos to everyone – and there was Meg, popping up from among the students wearing a golden gown and a soft black hat. As she stepped onto the stage, my frustrations with her melted away, warmed by a sudden unfathomable sense of pride. As she stood there, looking composed and dignified, alongside the woman speaking of her accomplishments, I felt proxy for her poorly father.

  Megan, we were told, was – at twenty-one – already one of the most successful Welsh women athletes of all time. In her chosen event, the 100m hurdles, she had set European and Commonwealth records and won a gold medal at last year’s World Athletics Championship in Beijing. She was a Welsh speaker, born and bred in Newport, and had attended Caerleon Comprehensive School, where she was head girl and gained straight As at A-Level. Megan was destined for university, the woman explained, but winning gold medals at European and World Junior Championships had whetted her appetite for sporting success and, two years ago, she decided to put her university place on hold and move to London to work with a top hurdles coach. Her performance in Beijing had made her an international star, and in a few weeks she will go to Rio, aiming for an Olympic gold medal.

  “Megan,” the speaker continued, “Rydym ni’n falch ohonoch chi, mae Cymru yn falch ohonoch chi ac rydym yn dymuno pob llwyddiant i chi yn Rio mis nesaf. Megan, we are proud of you, Wales is proud of you, and we wish you every success in Rio next month. Is-Ganghellor, yr wyf yn cyflwyno Megan Cerys Tomos ar gyfer gwobr Cymrodoriaeth y Brifysgol. Vice-Chancellor, I present Megan Cerys Tomos for the award of Fellowship of the University.”

  Applause rippled around the hall. I had nothing to compare it with, but it sounded polite rather than enthusiastic. It had stopped by the time Megan had taken her certificate and stepped behind the lectern, leaving an uncomfortable pause as she unfolded her notes and smoothed them flat. I had never heard Megan make a speech and my stomach was churning even faster than it does when she’s on the start line. I squeezed Mimi’s hand, and she smiled anxiously back.

  “Diolch yn fawr Is-Ganghellor am yr anrhydded hwn,” Megan said tentatively. “Yr wyf yn falch iawn i’w dderbyn. Mae wir yn arbennig iawn i mi. Thank you so much Vice Chancellor for this honour, which I’m very proud to accept. This is really special for me. When the letter informing me of the university’s decision arrived a few weeks ago, it came as a complete surprise. It means a lot to me to be recognised in this way in my home town, by a university attended by so many of my friends.”

  Megan looked up from her notes and scanned the room as if she was searching for some of those friends. The hall was so quiet the slightest cough sounded like a firecracker.

  “That’s why,” Megan continued softly, “I want to dedicate this award to an absent friend. Someone who should have been with us today.”

  Mimi gasped like she had just been winded by a blow to the stomach. This obviously wasn’t in any script she’d written. I was gripping Mimi’s hand more tightly than could have been comfortable. Ahead of us, among the students, there was a ripple of movement and some shushing.

  Megan seemed undeterred. “Some of you will know Matt Davies, who went to Caerleon Comp and who I first became friends with when we were at Infants’ School. Matt died two years ago; a terrible loss to his parents Graeme and Julie and to his many friends. He should have been here today. He could have gone on to do great things, but he was taken away from us far, far too soon.”

  The student part of the audience seemed divided. Most of them were listening intently, but some were visibly uncomfortable, fidgeting and whispering to each other. The Vice Chancellor was looking sternly at that group, but someone – a female voice – said something; it sounded like she intended it to be a whisper, not mean for everyone to hear, but the word carried around the silent hall.

  “Hypocrite.”

  Megan paused and looked across the audience in the direction of the voice. There was more shushing. Heads were bowed in embarrassment. Everyone was fidgeting now. My eyes were locked on Megan’s face. I held my breath, wondering if she’d explode or manage to regain her balance; stay composed, like she would if she hit a hurdle painfully.

  Megan looked down at her notes, her hands gripping the podium. She continued.
“Those of you who knew him will know how kind and generous he was, and how much pleasure he took in the success of others.” She faltered and then looked up, saying, but beginning to choke on the words: “especially in mine.”

  For a second, it wasn’t clear if Megan had finished. The Vice Chancellor stood up and stepped forward to stand at her shoulder.

  Megan picked up the certificate and waved it defiantly, saying: “Felly, yr wyf yn neilltuo’r wobr hon i Matt Davies, ffrind arbennig, a gymerwyd oddi wrthym cyn iddo gael cyfle i wireddu ei freuddwydion ei hun. So I am dedicating this award to Matt Davies, a special friend, who was taken from us before he had a chance to fulfil his own dreams. Fy annwyl Matt. I ti mae hwn, ble bynnag yr wyt ti. My dear Matt. This is for you wherever you are. Diolch yn fawr.”

  The hall was silent. I was thrown by Megan’s use of Welsh. Speaking her first language, she sounded so different. I looked at Mimi, who seemed as stunned as me and was staring at the platform speechless.

  Some of the students started to clap. The Vice Chancellor joined in enthusiastically. Soon a few of the students were standing and waving at Megan. Most people were applauding, but it was noticeable that the students around the source of the voice were not joining in, and some were shaking their heads, vigorously, making a point.

  A man in the parents’ section stood up and walked out. It may have been paranoia, but I sensed him staring at the back of my head as he passed behind me on the balcony.

  Megan was still behind the lectern as if paralysed by the moment. The Vice Chancellor turned to her and, in a kindly way – like she was helping an old lady across the road – steered her towards a steward standing by the steps down from the stage. Megan sat down where she had been before, and I could only see the back of her head.