His pace slows as he steps under the semi-shelter of the naked tree. He peels back his hood. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ he says. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if it was really you on the phone.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘This totally breaches my conditions of bail.’
I take a few shallow breaths. ‘I had to talk to you. I need you to tell me what happened that night, and why you were chasing me in your car.’
He nibbles on his lip. I can see his fists twisting and turning in his pockets, his anger like a bolt of lightning in search of ground. He pushes his hands deeper, takes a step closer. ‘I can’t believe you’re still accusing me. I thought that if you wanted to talk, maybe you had finally come to your senses.’
His words give me the strength to push on. How can he still deny it? I remember him being here. I remember seeing him that night. I stand up, close the gap between us. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say. I know you were there.’ I feel myself getting angry, my voice becoming tight and shrill. I look over to the distant trees. No light from a cigarette shines now, no man on the other side of the park. We’re alone. How easy it would be for him to hit me, kill me, do anything to me in the dark silence of the park. Nobody would know. Nobody would hear me. ‘You ran me off the road.’
‘I didn’t run anybody off the road.’
‘But your car was there. You don’t have an alibi.’ I try to imagine that I know him, to recall a time we might have been here together. Did we share a kiss behind one of these trees, or make love in a car in the nearby woods? I stop for a second: is that a memory? Making love in a car, pushed up against the glass with the door handle pressing in my back? I know it is. But when I look up at Damien’s face, though it seems familiar, I don’t know how it feels. Not his touch. Surely there would be something about him that made sense to me if we had been together like that?
‘Damien, I need to ask you something.’ I try to swallow, find my throat dry, no moisture on my lips. ‘Are you lying to me because we were having an affair?’
‘What?’ He steps past me, sits down on the bench. I realise there is a look of utter bewilderment on his face. He rests his head in his palms. At last he turns, his eyes meeting mine. ‘How many more things are you going to accuse me of?’
‘But we must have been,’ I persist, despite my reservations. ‘Why else would I have been meeting you here?’
‘For a start, Chloe, you weren’t meeting me here. And I can assure you we most certainly were not having an affair.’ He regards me with disgust, as if the very idea of it makes him sick. ‘I had no idea who you were until my lawyer got hold of some photos of the crash and the victims. You didn’t even get your picture in the paper thanks to victim confidentiality. Not like me.’ I see his fists clenching before he stretches his fingers out, straight as knives. ‘Everybody knows who I am now, thinks they know what I’ve done. Do you know how people look at me? Like I’m a killer.’
His anger stirs something inside me. How dare he worry what people think of him when the death of my son should be on his conscience? ‘They look at you like that because you killed my son,’ I spit.
‘No I didn’t. Aren’t you listening to me, Chloe? I wasn’t there at the time of the accident.’
‘But your car was there with the keys in it. You had mud on your trousers. Paint from your car was found on mine. You had to have been there.’ The taste of sick swells and recedes. ‘If I’m so wrong, tell me what you think happened.’
‘I can’t. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I wish I did, but I have absolutely no idea what happened to you or your child.’
Although he is full of rage, I don’t fear him in that moment. And I think it’s because he seems so genuinely bewildered. If he was lying to me, surely he’d offer me another version of events. Surely he would have a story prepared. His uncertainty makes me want to hear him out. I realise that he seems more desperate than anything else, hopeful that I might believe him. In that instant, I think that just maybe I do.
‘I don’t understand, Damien.’
He wipes his eyes, sits back on the bench. ‘Neither do I, but I promise you, Chloe, I have no idea what happened that night. That’s why I called you as a witness. I hoped that when you saw me in court you would realise that it wasn’t me driving the other car. I assumed you wouldn’t want to see an innocent man go to prison for such a horrible crime.’ He pulls a tissue from his pocket, blows his nose. ‘I have a son too. Jonathon. I would do anything for him. But now I realise you don’t have a clue what happened either, so I’m fucked.’
He breaks down, hangs his head in his hands. I see a couple on the other side of the park, their eyes on us. My sympathy for him suddenly outweighs my anger. He is as broken as I am. I reach out, rest my hand on his shoulder. After a moment he straightens up, composes himself.
‘Why would you think we were having an affair, Chloe? We don’t even know each other.’
I feel so ashamed to tell him, but I have no other choice. I can feel myself getting hot, flushed, guilt oozing out of me. But if I can admit it to Andrew, I can admit it to this man. ‘I was having an affair with somebody. I came here to this park to meet him, I think. When you suggested meeting here, I assumed it was connected. When you gave an alibi that nobody could corroborate, I thought you were trying to protect yourself.’
‘I gave the only alibi that I could, Chloe. You’re right about me wanting to protect myself, even right that I’m guilty, but not in the way you think. We were both in this park on the night of the accident but we weren’t together. My car was stolen.’ He points across to the road. ‘I was parked just over there, on The Ride. I shouldn’t have been here, but I’d been working in Brighton that day.’ He takes a deep breath, stands up. For a second I think he’s about to leave. ‘Ah, fuck it. I might as well tell you. Being honest is my only hope now. I was here to meet somebody. A man.’
‘What man?’
‘I don’t know, Chloe. Anybody. Casual sex. People come to this park for that. I couldn’t tell the truth about being here because I’m married with a kid and I was out here looking for sex.’ He wipes his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Afterwards, my car was taken, I wasn’t thinking straight and ended up going for a drink in town with the man I met here. When they arrested me a few hours later I was drunk and I panicked, so I lied about where I’d been.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police when you realised your car was gone?’
‘A mistake,’ he says, hanging his head. ‘If I had I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I called you as a witness in the hope that your inability to confirm my presence that night might be enough to get me off. My lawyer is pushing me to tell the truth, but I’m trying to protect my wife and son. If she finds out she’ll take my son away from me. So when you called me tonight I suggested we meet here thinking that maybe it would jog your memory as to what you were really doing here. That you would remember who was really in the second car and make things easier for me. I was walking away along The Ride, towards those bushes.’ He points across the grass. ‘Somebody called out to me but I didn’t want to be seen here, so I started to run. The person who called out was you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. I must’ve dropped my car keys. I heard you shouting, saw you waving at me. I thought you were somebody I knew and I didn’t want to be seen, so I hurried away, headed into the bushes. About five minutes later, I heard a woman screaming. I came out to see if somebody needed help, and I saw a car racing away up The Ride. It was a black sedan. A Volkswagen.’
‘That’s my car.’
‘I looked down the road and the lights of my car were on. I reached into my pocket for my keys, only to find they weren’t there. Then my car came screeching past, chasing after the Volkswagen.’
‘Well who was driving it? If you saw who was driving it, then we can go to the police together, explain things.’
‘You’ve literally got no idea, have you?’ I shake my head. He seems to feel sorry for me. ‘It was you, Chloe. You were driving my car.’