by S J Bolton
Just as well, really, because no one would be around this autumn to pick them.
Sophie, Mrs Robinson – oh God, he’d never be able to hear that song again – was wearing a polka-dot shirt with a stain on the right shoulder where the baby had dribbled, and she had a tiny scar above her left eyebrow. The older child was about four, with curly dark hair and shining eyes; the baby was plump and creased and scowling.
Sophie, Lily, Maisie. He wondered which of the three they’d heard screaming last night. Not the baby, surely; no baby could have screamed that loud.
‘The little girl was alive when she arrived at the JR,’ the detective continued, JR being common parlance for the John Radcliffe Hospital. ‘Badly burned, but alive. She lived about an hour.’
Daniel opened his mouth to say he’d heard about the accident on the radio and remembered in time that the detective hadn’t yet told him how the family had died. He should really be asking what the Robinson family had to do with him, shouldn’t he, although maybe he’d already left it too late? And wasn’t that something his solicitor should have asked? It had been a mistake to agree to the duty solicitor; he should have called his dad, who would have made sure he found his own. The others would have done exactly that, he was sure of it. Talitha would have her dad, and Felix would insist on waiting till his parents had found the best possible solicitor.
Better advised than he, any one of them could drop him in it, in spite of what they’d agreed last night, in spite of the promises they’d made to each other. And still, details from the Robinsons’ lives were bouncing up to wound him afresh. There was a cat in one of the flowerbeds, a black cat with a white vest and white tips to its ears, lying in that contorted way that cats have, licking its fur, totally self-absorbed.
‘We’ll be releasing this photograph to the media in a short while,’ the detective said, before Daniel had a chance to speak. ‘We haven’t named the victims yet. Mr Robinson, who is understandably devastated, wanted some time to contact all his family members. It seemed the least we could do.’
‘What does this have to do with my client?’ Daniel’s solicitor asked, and it was about fucking time.
The detective stuck a finger in one hairy ear and scratched. ‘Oh, did I not mention? They were killed in the early hours of this morning on the M40. Just shy of junction seven. By your friend, Megan Macdonald.’
Not by Megan, though, by him. Not that it had been his fault; Felix had grabbed the wheel, had wrenched it out of his hands. It had all been Felix’s idea anyway; they’d practically forced him into going along. It should be Felix who’d confessed, not Megan.
‘Mr Redman? Have you nothing to say to that?’
‘No. I mean—’ He had to get a hold of himself. ‘What are you talking about? Megan wouldn’t kill anyone.’
‘She confessed. We have her signed statement.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he managed. ‘I mean, how?’
So, she’d done it. Until that moment, Daniel hadn’t really believed she would. He’d been convinced she’d change her mind at the last minute and tell the police what really happened. He’d even wondered if she’d never meant to take the blame at all, had simply wanted to be the only one to own up and get more lenient treatment. All night, while the other four had dozed, even slept from nervous exhaustion, Daniel had been going over scenario after possibility, weighing up probabilities and coming to the inescapable conclusion that he was fucked.
Even now, he was reticent, knowing that the police pulled all sorts of tricks in interviews. They could be trying to catch him out. Even his solicitor could be in on it because, let’s face it, he’d been useless.
‘She was driving the wrong way down the M40,’ the detective explained. ‘She joined at junction eight, where it becomes the A40 into Oxford, and went onto the wrong carriageway.’
‘She wouldn’t have done that.’
He was going to be fair to Megan; he wasn’t going to throw her under a bus. ‘She was a good driver,’ he went on. ‘Better than the others. She passed her test first time.’
‘The others?’ the detective echoed. ‘You don’t drive then?’
‘No. At least, I’m learning, but I haven’t taken my test yet.’
He had, though, he’d taken it twice, although the others only knew about one time. After his first failure, he’d kept his second date secret. He would never pass it now, he realised; he would never get behind the wheel of a car again.
He should admit to that, or they might wonder what else he’d lied about. Or he could just say he’d made a mistake, said ‘taken’ when what he really meant was ‘passed.’ His dad would be pissed off, he realised, about his decision not to drive. His dad still hadn’t given up hope of his only son one day taking over what he called ‘the estate’, but which really was only a big farm.
God, it was so hard to keep his mind focused.
The detective was talking again. ‘The A40 into Oxford would have been the most sensible route home for her,’ he was saying. ‘Straight down to the Headington roundabout, round the ring road and then into town via the Iffley Road.’
‘Sounds right,’ Daniel said.
‘So, what do you think made her turn right onto the A40 instead of left? It’s not as though it isn’t obvious – there are chevrons, no-entry signs.’
Of course there were. If he closed his eyes, he could still see them.
Daniel shrugged. ‘It was dark. And late. She’d have been tired.’
‘With respect, my client can’t be expected to know what motivated Miss Macdonald,’ the solicitor said. ‘By her own admission, she was alone in the car.’
The detective’s eyes peered into Daniel’s. He knew, Daniel realised. He knew everything; he’d been right, this was a trick, and—
‘She’d been drinking.’ He hadn’t meant to say that – it just slipped out.
‘Megan had?’
‘We all had. We started at four o’clock, in the park. Then we went to the Lamb and Flag till last orders. Then Talitha’s house and Felix started making cocktails. We were all hammered. Amber was throwing up at one point.’
The detective frowned. ‘If you were all drunk, how did you get from the Lamb and Flag to Talitha’s house?’
Daniel looked at his solicitor.
‘Daniel? How?’ the detective insisted. ‘Did someone collect you? Did you get public transport? A taxi?’
‘Felix and Xav both had cars,’ Daniel said. ‘They didn’t drink much in the pub. When I said we were all hammered, I meant later, when we were at Tal’s. By then, we didn’t think we’d have to drive again.’
‘But Megan did? Any idea why?’
‘I was asleep. I didn’t see her leave.’
‘More than one of you claim to have been asleep when Megan left. If you were all asleep, I wonder what could have happened to make her, of all of you, feel the need to go home?’
Daniel’s solicitor spoke up. ‘My client has told you he was asleep. He can’t possibly know.’
The detective ignored him. ‘But you do know that she was drunk?’ he said to Daniel.
‘He can’t necessarily know that either,’ the solicitor said. ‘He wasn’t inside her head.’
‘Apologies. Daniel, you said that she’d had a lot to drink.’
‘Yes, she had,’ Daniel said. ‘That must have been what happened. She had too much to drink, got it into her head that she needed to go home, and then made a mistake at the junction because her judgement was impaired.’
He’d done it now, turned Megan into a drunk driver who’d killed a mother and two young kids. Being drunk was so much worse than making a mistake when you were tired. He’d really dropped her in it now. But it had been her idea; she’d wanted this.
The detective produced another photograph and turned it to face Daniel. It showed an Oxford street of terraced houses.
‘Do you recognise that car?’ the detective’s fat finger pointed to a red Golf convertible.
‘Yes, that’s Felix’s. At least, it’s his mum’s, but Felix drives it.’
‘I’ll tell you what puzzles me, Daniel,’ the detective leaned back in his chair. ‘We spoke to the owners of the other two cars in the picture – the ones to the front and back of the Golf – and they hadn’t been moved since early the previous evening. That means that when Megan got home last night, having just caused a fatal accident, and drunk according to you, she nevertheless managed to park the car perfectly in what is a very tight spot.’
The detective stared at Daniel for several seconds before he spoke again.
‘How do you think she managed that?’
12
‘Megan took a blood test at nine o’clock this morning,’ Felix and his solicitor were told by the detective who’d been assigned to them. He was a thin man wearing a pink shirt and a purple tie. ‘It found no traces of alcohol in her bloodstream.’
Felix’s solicitor, a woman of about his mother’s age, gave a slight shake of her head; they’d already determined that that meant keep quiet. Felix had insisted on waiting until his parents found a solicitor trained in criminal law to attend his interview. So far, it seemed to have been a good shout; she’d won every single stand-off with the officer.
‘Felix?’ the detective prompted.
‘That wasn’t a question,’ the solicitor said.
‘I’ll try again. Given what we know about how alcohol leaves the body, and given the six-hour interval between the fatal crash and the blood test, it seems unlikely that Megan was, to quote you and one or two of your friends, “well away”, “hammered” and “out of it” when she drove your car home.’
‘Again, that is a conclusion on your part, not a question,’ the solicitor said.
‘So, would you like to reconsider your view that she was drunk?’ the detective asked.
Felix made a ‘How should I know?’ gesture. ‘I wasn’t keeping tabs,’ he said. ‘I made the drinks – I didn’t pour them down anyone’s throats. I assumed she was drunk because the rest of us were. She might not have been. I don’t know.’
‘I think my client has answered that question,’ the solicitor said.
The detective glanced down at the notebook he was using as a question prompt. ‘You say the news of her poor results came as a surprise?’
This time, Felix had no need to seek advice from his solicitor. ‘Too right. I’d have put money on Megan doing the best of all of us.’
‘So, what do you think went wrong?’
He genuinely had no idea. Megan’s near-genius was something that he, like the others, had always taken for granted. ‘Problems at home?’ he said. ‘Something she didn’t tell us about. I’m speculating, to be honest.’
‘Which isn’t helpful to any of us,’ his solicitor added.
Now that he thought about it, there had been something off about Megan that summer; she’d been on edge a lot of the time, quicker to snap, especially at him. And out of the whole group, she’d become the only one really prepared to stand up to him. He’d ignored it, refused to acknowledge that he might be being challenged for leadership.
‘Would you say she was a good driver? Careful?’ The detective had apparently decided to ignore the solicitor.
Felix shrugged.
‘For the tape, please.’
‘She was OK,’ he said. ‘Not great. Maybe a bit careless.’
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he wondered if they were a mistake. Megan was actually a pretty good driver, and the others would probably say so.
‘And yet you let her drive your mother’s car?’
The solicitor said, ‘It’s already been established that Miss Macdonald took Mr O’Neill’s car without his permission in the early hours of this morning.’
‘Where had you left your keys?’
‘My what?’
‘Your car keys,’ the detective clarified. ‘I assume your mother’s Golf needs them in order to work. Most cars do.’
Felix looked at his solicitor; this time nothing came back.
‘Felix?’
‘I can’t remember. I told you, I was drunk.’
‘Most people keep their car keys in their pockets. Did you?’
‘I guess so. Sounds about right. Except, no, I couldn’t have done, because then Megan couldn’t have got them without me knowing about it.’
‘We had plenty of time to talk to Megan while we were waiting for your solicitor to arrive,’ the detective said. ‘And we asked her how she got hold of your keys. What do you think she said?’
‘My client has no possible way of knowing what Miss Macdonald said in her interview.’
The detective’s eyes sharpened as he looked back at the solicitor and, for the first time, seemed her equal. ‘He would if the two of them were both telling the truth,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Felix said. ‘I can’t remember what I did with my keys. I’m always leaving them lying around when I’ve had a few. She could have picked them up anywhere.’
A page, and then another, in the detective’s notebook were turned. The solicitor sat stony-faced. Felix looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. He’d been here almost two hours.
‘Where were you in the early hours of Wednesday the seventh of June?’ the detective said at last.
For a moment Felix had absolutely no idea and had opened his mouth to say so, when the significance of the date hit home.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said anyway.
So, this was how everything ended, in a dingy beige room with no windows and dust in the corners. And still, he had no real idea of how it could have gone so badly wrong. He should be in the Lamb right now. They’d had a table booked for six, their champagne-breakfast celebration.
Because Wednesday, 7 June was the night he’d driven his car down the M40 the wrong way; the night it had all started. Megan had betrayed them.
‘Have a think about it.’ The detective seemed oblivious to the turmoil in Felix’s head. ‘It’s what, nine, ten weeks ago – early in the summer holidays, not that long.’
‘I’d need a diary. I left it at home.’
Felix wondered if he might be about to cry.
‘Specifically, what were you doing around two forty-five, three o’clock in the morning?’
Megan had stitched them up, after promising faithfully that she wouldn’t.
‘We can have your diary brought in,’ the detective said. ‘Maybe one of your parents can get it – we’d like to talk to them too. I’d also like to know where you were on the nights of Sunday the twenty-fifth of June . . .’
In the Golf, Xav at the wheel.
‘Monday the seventeenth of July . . .’
Talitha’s turn.
‘Tuesday the twenty-fifth of July . . .’
Amber. Bet the bitch hadn’t told them about her own stint in the driver’s seat.
‘And Sunday the thirtieth of July.’
‘My client has already told you he can’t recall without the help of a diary,’ Felix’s solicitor said. ‘So, I can’t really see the point of these questions.’
‘I’m getting to the point.’
Felix had no idea how it had happened, but the mousey detective had changed, become bigger somehow, more in control of the room.
‘And you can be sure we’ll be asking the same questions of your friends,’ he added. ‘One of them might have a better memory than you, Mr O’Neill.’
One of them would drop them all in it, if they hadn’t already. Amber, probably. But if Megan had already told them everything, it was all over anyway. He would kill her, Felix realised. If she’d thrown them to the wolves, he would find her, and he would kill her. It didn’t matter how long it took.
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‘You see, in the early hours of Sunday the twenty-fifth of June, we had a call from a lorry driver who’d stopped at the Oxford service station on the M40, junction eight,’ the detective explained. ‘He’d been driving through the night from Antwerp and needed some fresh air. He went for a bit of a walk towards the edge of the grounds that surround the station.’
The detective stopped to let his words sink in.
‘He saw headlights entering the A40 directly opposite where he was standing but travelling in the wrong direction,’ he went on. ‘Being from the continent, he’s very conscious of how easy it can be, especially when a driver is over-fatigued. He thought it might be a fellow European, making a big mistake.’
It hadn’t been a mistake. Xav had been at the wheel. He’d driven the wrong way down the slip road, pushing sixty miles an hour.
‘We weren’t unduly worried at the time,’ the detective continued. ‘There had been no reported accidents. We assumed, like our witness, that it had been a mistake, with no unfortunate consequences, luckily. But then we had another call, from a driver who’d seen a car driving the wrong way down the M40 in that area that very same night. The car had actually kept pace with him for a while, and he was sure there was more than one person in it.’
‘What does this have to do with my client?’ the solicitor asked.
The detective said, ‘Were you in that car, Felix?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know who was in that car?’
‘How could I?’
‘Was it your mother’s car?’
‘It couldn’t have been.’
The detective reached down into a briefcase on the floor, which Felix hadn’t noticed before, and pulled out a photograph.
‘Two reports made us take the incident a little more seriously,’ he said. ‘So, we approached the service station, and it turns out they have a CCTV camera that captures traffic on the opposite carriageway.’