Over the Line

by Steve Howell

  “At first Matt was fairly calm. He sat down and slumped over the table. Will gave him some water, or something. I remember Will giving him a drink, but I’m not sure if he drank it.”

  Simmons pulled a piece of paper from under his notepad and placed it in front of Megan on the table. It was a floor plan of the kitchen, showing the fittings and furniture and a silhouette of Matt’s body on the floor.

  “So where was Matt sitting?” Richards said.

  Megan pointed at one of the chairs, and the inspector said, “Miss Tomos is pointing at chair number three”. They went through the same process to establish that, at this point, Megan thought Will was standing by the sink and she was just to Matt’s left near the corner of the table and on the spot where he died.

  “I fail to see how this helps, inspector,” Nigel said. “My client has acknowledged she was in the kitchen and witnessed Matt Davies collapsing. It was more than two years ago and her recollection of the details is bound to be affected by the passage of time.”

  Richards ignored him. “Miss Tomos,” he said. “What happened next?”

  “Matt got angry,” Megan said. Nigel slumped back in his seat, with a despairing sigh. “He was very agitated,” she continued. “He started ranting about stuff and pacing around.”

  “Did he approach you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there any contact?”

  “No. Well, nearly – he came close to me, right in my face, shouting.”

  “And did you push him away?”

  Megan paused. “No, not at all,” she said. “I stepped back.”

  “There wasn’t much room in that kitchen,” Richards countered.

  “I stepped back,” Megan repeated, looking past Richards now like she was visualising it, “and he turned to face Will who was still by the sink. I remember that. And I remember clearly seeing Matt’s face changing: his profile was different, like something had surprised him, and then I remember him grabbing his chest, and suddenly crumpling.” Megan put her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands. “I tried to stop him falling. I reached out, but I missed him… I wasn’t quick enough.”

  “My client’s exhausted,” Nigel said. “Do you have much more to ask?”

  Richards reached for the file and pulled out the papers he had tucked away earlier.

  “We’ve had a forensic report on the exhumed body this afternoon,” he said, looking at the papers but speaking to Nigel. “It’s established a DNA match between a blood sample taken from the corner of the table and Matt Davies. You’re aware of the blood sample?”

  “Yes, but why has it suddenly come to light now?” Nigel replied.

  “Because I’m being thorough, Mr Winters,” Richards answered. “It was overlooked, regrettably, in the first investigation. The sample was taken but never tested against the boy’s DNA. My colleagues were a little hasty in their conclusions, it seems. Which, I don’t deny, is very unfortunate. We don’t like having to exhume a body.”

  Megan was rigid.

  Nigel was taking his time computing this revelation. “So what you’re saying is, it looks like he bumped his head as he fell?” he said.

  The inspector nodded and then realised he needed to say the words. “Yes, that is my point, Mr Winters.”

  “But does it have any bearing on the cause of death?” Nigel said.

  Richards looked levelly at Nigel. “You mean, did he bang his head badly enough for that to be the cause of death, with obvious implications for anyone who pushed him?”

  “If anyone pushed him,” Nigel retorted.

  “Yes, if anyone did,” Richards agreed. “But, first things first, let’s wait for the pathology report. That will show if his skull was fractured.”

  Megan flinched and looked down at the papers on the table – the floor plan and the report – a brutally stark record of what had happened that night.

  Richards pursed his lips, as if mulling over what to do next.

  “Miss Tomos,” he said. “Just one more question, and then I think we’ll adjourn until the morning. Say ten o’clock here?”

  Megan nodded absently.

  “You were saying Matt was angry and ranting. What exactly was he angry about?”

  Megan was motionless for a long moment.

  Then she turned to Nigel. “I’d like to speak to you about this,” she said.

  The inspector raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Okay Miss Tomos,” he said absently, apparently perplexed by Megan’s need to delay her answer. “Interview adjourned at 17.33. We’ll be next door.”

  Megan waited for them to leave. She was looking down at her hands which were clasped together, resting on the table. Nigel stood up and did a lap of the room, finishing in the chair the inspector had been using.

  “What’s on your mind?” he said.

  Megan looked at him as if sizing him up, deciding how much she trusted him.

  “It was stuff about Gary,” she said. “Matt was ranting about Gary.”

  “Who the hell’s Gary?” Nigel asked.

  “He’s a police officer,” I explained. “He was involved with Matt in some way in the steroid scene. It all revolved around one particular gym and Gary was in the thick of it. I saw him there myself the other day, and he stopped us – me and Mimi – the day before.”

  Nigel seemed sceptical. “Stopped you?”

  “Breathalysed Mimi.”

  Nigel looked dismayed. He checked his watch as if he was wondering if he could still catch a train back to London.

  “Okay,” he said. “So you’re saying – alleging – that Gary was a dealer, but what evidence do you have for this?”

  “Everyone knows it,” Megan said. “He’s been hanging-out at that gym for years. Will says he runs the whole thing.”

  “Evidence?” Nigel repeated.

  “None as such, I suppose,” Megan admitted.

  “Meg, you can’t go around accusing police officers of being drug dealers without any hard facts. My advice is that you only tell Richards that there was some kind of problem between Matt and Gary. You don’t speculate that it was to do with drugs. It’s up to Richards to follow it up. Understood?”

  Megan nodded, and Nigel stood up and opened the door.

  “We’re okay to continue,” he told Richards, who was hovering outside.

  We all resumed our places, Richards checking his watch and looking eager to move things along.

  “Interview resumed at 17.41,” he said.

  Nigel took the lead. “My client has informed me that Matt was angry that night because of an argument he’d had with a police officer. She doesn’t know the details of that argument or the exact nature of the relationship between Matt and this officer. But she has a clear and specific memory of Matt mentioning his name and being angry about something.”

  Richards looked at Megan. “And we’re talking about?”

  “Gary Evans,” Megan said.

  Richards laughed and looked across at me. “Your friend,” he said. “He does seem to pop up a lot. Okay, Miss Tomos, and you’re confirming what Mr Winters has said on your behalf, that Matt was agitated because of an argument he’d had with Gary Evans?”

  Megan nodded. “Yes I do.”

  “And do you recall anything at all Matt said about Mr Evans?”

  “No, not really” Megan said. “To be honest, the whole thing’s a blur. I just remember him, Matt, being very agitated, and it was to do with Gary.”

  “Thank you,” Richards said, giving nothing away. “I think we’ll leave it there for today, Miss Tomos.”

  Richards gathered up his notepad, pens and file and ran his eyes across the three of us, settling finally on Nigel.

  “Mr Winters, we’ll resume at 10am tomorrow,” he said. “I have a few more questions about the night in question and about Miss Tomos’s relationship with Will Driscoll.” He waited for Nigel to nod. “Thank you. Interview adjourned at 18.05.”

  20

  Where’s Will?
/>   We had our de-brief in Megan’s car, parked at the back of the police station. Nigel wanted to go over everything and tried pressing Megan about Gary, but she looked exhausted and exasperated, and ready to risk a manslaughter charge on him.

  After twenty minutes, he gave up, told us to be at the police station half an hour early the next morning and left to find a taxi to take him back to Celtic Manor.

  Megan grabbed a baseball cap and some dark glasses from the pocket of the driver’s door and put them on, tugging the cap down as far as it would go. She checked herself in the mirror and seemed pleased with the effect.

  “I know a back way into Caerleon,” she said, her eyes darting in all directions as we pulled away from the police station.

  “Let’s stop to pick up a takeaway,” I said, suddenly desperate for food. As the tension eased, the adrenalin was replaced by a realisation I hadn’t eaten since having those two hotel biscuits for breakfast. Megan drove into the city centre, crossing a bridge over the river and passing the blackened remains of a castle, before heading out again on a road lined with shops. A sign for Fish & Chips seemed to jump out from the rest, both of us noticing it at the same time, Meg giving me a hopeful sideways look like a child wanting a treat. Chips were normally banned.

  “What the hell,” I said.

  Meg waited in the car while I went in. I don’t know if it was the smell of the sizzling chips or the anxieties of the day evaporating but I felt strangely euphoric. It reminded me of exams ending, of that sense of a weight lifting.

  I ordered extra-large portions of chips and picked the two largest fish from the golden pieces piled up on the display shelf. The woman serving was glancing at me as she shovelled the chips onto their trays and started wrapping everything. She was doing her best not to make it obvious, but she wouldn’t have made much of a spy.

  “Aren’t you that man…?” she said eventually. “You know, the coach of that girl?”

  ‘The coach of that girl’ – maybe that’s how I would be remembered, the title of my memoirs. There seemed no point in denying it. I looked over my shoulder. No one in the queue looked remotely like a journalist.

  “Megan Tomos, you mean,” I said, immediately regretting using her name and sensing a stirring of curiosity among the people behind me.

  “That’s the one,” she said. “My word, she’s in a bit of bother, isn’t she? Poor dab. Local girl. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “I bet they are,” I said, putting enough cash on the counter to cover the order and picking up the two bulging parcels of food.

  “Need a carrier bag?” she said.

  But my back was already turned, and I waved to say ‘no’.

  Megan’s alternative route to the hotel took us along a lane clinging to a hill above the river with Caerleon visible ahead, spreading out across the valley floor. The road was so narrow we had to stop half a dozen times at wider points to allow oncoming drivers to pass, giving everyone in each car plenty of time to check us out.

  “Shit, this wasn’t such a good idea,” Megan said.

  By the time we’d arrived at the hotel, my phone was buzzing with texts from Mimi.

  Nice chips are they?

  Tell Meg cap looks good too.

  #MegMugShots is trending on Twitter

  The last one made me bristle. I wasn’t expecting Meg to become an online sport. So much for the end-of-exams feeling.

  We went to my room, slumped into one of the armchairs and started devouring the fish and chips. Meg was staring at the floor, looking downcast and preoccupied. I juggled between stuffing food in my mouth and discreetly checking the photographs of us on Twitter. There were a couple of unflattering sideways shots of me leaving the chippie, and one taken on the lane of Meg through the windscreen with her cap and dark glasses looking like a fugitive. The picture of Meg had already been retweeted dozens of times.

  It was nearly eight. Mimi and Jackie would be starting their meeting with the sponsors any minute. I texted a ‘good luck’ message to Mimi, turned the TV on and switched channels to find the athletics.

  The 100m hurdles was scheduled for eight-forty. The studio panel of athletes-turned-pundits was already talking about the race and Megan’s absence and speculating about whether or not she would go to the Olympics. It was hard to tell how much they really knew. The news was out about Megan being with the police all afternoon, and they were talking sympathetically about how they hoped ‘for the country’s sake’ she would be able to ‘clear things up’ – like it was a minor misunderstanding.

  One said that, whatever happened, she couldn’t see Megan making it to the Olympics now. “This disruption has come at such a crucial stage, she’ll never be able to make up the lost time”. But another thought her fellow panellist was underestimating Meg. “She’s tough. Tough, tough, tough. A great competitor. I think she’ll bounce back.”

  I sensed Megan tensing as they carried on along these lines.

  “I can’t fucking stand this,” she said suddenly, leaping to her feet and tossing the remains of her supper in the bin. “Sorry, Liam, I need some space.”

  I felt bad for turning the TV on, but she was gone before I could say anything. I heard her slam the door of her room and thought I’d give her some time before checking if she was okay.

  The TV was now showing one of the races. Judging from the tempo, it looked like a 5000m. I hadn’t checked the programme and, at this point, didn’t much care. I sat back and watched as the women jockeyed for position in the leading pack.

  Megan came back in the room and paced around, switching between watching the race and playing with her phone.

  I was distracted by Megan and missed who won the 5000m. The panellists were back, and Megan flounced out again. They started speculating about who would win the 100m hurdles. Megan’s absence was a godsend for the Americans and the Russian, they thought, stating the obvious.

  It was painful viewing in so many ways, and I was relieved when they finally went back to the track for the women lining up for the hurdles – ‘Megan’s race’ as the commentator called it.

  My coaching instincts kicked-in, and I was interested now, sitting on the edge of my chair and mentally ticking-off Megan’s rivals as they appeared on camera. They were all there: three Americans, a Russian, a German - and three Brits for the home crowd to cheer. All of them looked in great shape, smiling to the camera, waving to the crowd and obviously relishing Megan’s absence. It was just as well she’d gone back to her room.

  The commentator was saying the conditions were perfect, a glorious summer’s evening at Crystal Palace, with a slight following breeze for the athletes.

  The starter brought them under orders, and they were away first time. The Russian led from start to finish, hurdling cleanly, crossing the line a clear metre ahead of the others. It was a comfortable winning margin for sprint hurdling. Her time was slightly faster than Meg’s at the trials but not as fast as her season’s best.

  Mimi rang. “What did you make of that?” she said, sounding harassed and anxious.

  “No worries for Meg,” I said.

  “Ha! Can’t say the same for the sponsors,” Mimi replied. “What a nightmare – they want assurances we can’t give, and are bailing-out like they’re on the frigging Titanic.”

  “Bailing-out? Already?” That was a shock, even by my low expectations.

  “One’s suspended its contract, another’s given us until Monday. They don’t give a shit about Megan. It’s all, ‘Darling, we have every sympathy but her brand is in tatters and she’s not taking us down too’.” Mimi fell silent. I could hear her breathing softly. “The cap and dark glasses didn’t help either. They’d all seen it. She looked like someone on the run, like she had something to hide.”

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling responsible. “How’s Jackie?”

  “How d’you think? Pissed off – to put it mildly. She’s still haggling – as we speak – with one of the sponsors... So how did it go with Richards today
?”

  “I’ve no idea really,” I said. “Megan admitted being there when Matt died, and he didn’t seem too surprised. It helped to get that out of the way right at the beginning. Then there was the blood sample.”

  “And?”

  “It’s Matt’s blood apparently, and the sample was taken from the corner of the table. So it looks like he hit his head as he fell and the question is, was that the cause of death? They don’t know yet if he fractured his head. They’re waiting for a pathology report.”

  “Holy fuck,” Mimi said. “And if he did and he was pushed…”

  “Exactly, and that little bombshell was dropped after we’d been there for five hours, and he wants us back tomorrow.”

  “Shit,” Mimi said. “Does that mean we can kiss goodbye to the Olympics?”

  I didn’t know where to begin with that, and Mimi sensed it.

  “You must be gutted,” she said. “After all the work you’ve done…”

  “I haven’t given up yet,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “But, with them leaving for the holding camp on Thursday, it’s touch and go. It looks like it’s all down to Richards and his pathology report. I didn’t get a chance to ask him when that would come through. If this drags on through next week, even if Megan’s eventually cleared legally, it’ll be too late for her to go to Belo Horizonte with everyone else. I suppose she could go later, direct to Rio, but it’s not ideal, she won’t have a chance to acclimatise.”

  Mimi fell silent, digesting the implications of that.

  “Oh well,” she said with an ironic tone. “The sponsors will walk, and I guess I’ll have to find another client.”

  I didn’t reply to that because ‘the client’ had walked back in. She was absorbed in reading something on her phone and didn’t seem to have heard Mimi’s last comment, which was just as well.

  “I’d better go,” I said to Mimi. “Meg’s back, and she is still the world number one.”

  “Ha, right – that’s okay then,” Mimi said, disconnecting.

  “What happened?” Megan was nodding towards the TV, which was still showing the athletics, but with the volume on mute.