I returned to the office the following week. The rain still hadn’t let up and on the first morning it was horrendous, with a perpetual thick stream of heavy raindrops spattering and soaking every inch of the pavements, whilst ankle deep water covered parts of the roads. I knew that, despite my umbrella, I’d be soaked to the skin before I even reached the tube station and I considered taking the Peugeot, which was still sitting outside Zara’s flat, the boot now full of Helena’s belongings, which I’d resolved to either take to charity or sell.
I exited the flats, car key in hand, but then changed my mind and put the key back into my pocket. I’d probably end up paying as much for parking as it would cost me to get a taxi. I might as well put the car up for sale while I was at it, I thought, ruefully, but it was such a shame. It had been Helena’s little car and it had taken us ages to find, me and Christian. I could still remember the delight on my daughter’s face when she’d first seen it that Christmas morning, little more than a year ago. But Helena no longer needed it and I hadn’t driven it since I’d arrived here seven months ago. For the short distance to the office and the odd trip to my mother’s it wasn’t worth what I was paying in tax and insurance – or the stress of trying to remember how to drive on the left hand side of the road.
The traffic was busy. I couldn’t find a taxi and decided in the end to take my chances and run for the tube. Oli was in the office when I arrived. He laughed at my soaking and dishevelled appearance as I entered and came over to help me off with my coat. He fetched the towel from the closet and handed it to me with a smile and a tentative kiss on each of my wet cheeks. I was reminded of the first morning I’d met him, when I’d come for my interview, when the weather had changed unexpectedly, so that, en route, I’d been soaked to the skin. Oli carried on working for a moment while I stood, towel-drying my hair in the closet doorway. I peeked out from behind the towel to watch him as he moved back and forth between the computer and the printer and the cabinet, where I’d neatly reorganised his whole filing system the very first week that I’d arrived.
After a few moments, he finished what he was doing and sat down in the chair in the corner of the room.
“So,” he asked. “How was your Christmas?”
“It was okay.” I walked over and hung the towel over the radiator to dry then switched the kettle on. I tipped the old coffee grinds down the sink and started to make a fresh pot. “How was yours?”
Oli shrugged and smiled. “Uneventful. It would have been much, much nicer with you.”
I smiled as I opened the fridge and found a carton of milk. I didn’t have to open it to know that it was off. Oli took his coffee black, but he knew that I drank mine white. I thought about Christian; he was very much more house-trained than Oli. He would have made sure there was fresh milk in the fridge for me on my return. His mother had taught him well. Or maybe it was because he’d lived alone all these years... or maybe he just wanted to please me, to make me happy, and that was why he remembered these things – because he cared. Had Oli been thoughtless, I wondered, or was he just busy? Was I reading too much into this carton of old, smelly milk – comparing Oli to Christian now, and trying to find a reason why he wasn’t up to scratch?
I looked across at him. He was now leaning back in the chair with his arms folded, smiling his handsome smile, his head cocked to one side slightly, his face lit up and beautiful. I thought how different it was to Christian’s sad, dejected, broken face, the face that now mirrored his broken heart, the one that I’d destroyed. I wondered what Oli’s face would look like to me after we’d been together for five years, like Christian and I had, or for ten, or fifteen, when we were older and had lived together for all those years. I wasn’t naive. I knew that once the novelty of waking up to that smile every morning had faded, there had to be something much more solid and lasting underneath. But how would you know? How could you possibly know? I’d thought I’d known with Larsen, but I’d been wrong about him.
But I knew Christian. I knew that I’d been happy with him. We had things in common. We had a lot to talk about. He was caring and considerate and we got along well. I certainly hadn’t ever been unhappy with him, and there were a lot of women – women like Catherine and Lindsay – who would settle for that. They dreamed of just that, in fact: a quiet, restful, easy life, with a man who would behave in the same way from one day to the next, one who would never yell at you or drive you crazy: a man who truly cared.
“Sorry. My fault,” Oli said, jumping up and nodding at the milk carton. “I’ve been so busy without you. I’ll go and get some more.”
“No,” I put my hand up to stop him. “Please. Don’t worry. I’ll have it black.”
Oli took my raised hand and used it to pull me closer to him. His arm circled my waist. “I’ve missed you,” he said, softly, into my ear.
I felt a spontaneous burst of desire rising within me, intermingled with a nagging pang of guilt. I stepped back a little and stroked his hair, my hand trailing down his cheek, the slight roughness of his five o’clock shadow grazing my fingertips. “It’s really good to see you again. I just...”
“You told him.”
I nodded. “He was very hurt. But he thinks we have something worth saving.”
Oli nodded slowly. “And you?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know. I broke it off with him. But I feel terribly guilty about that.”
Oli nodded and let me go. “I understand.”
I smiled and stroked his arm. “Can we just give it a little time?” I asked. “It’s still a bit raw...”
“Raw?” Oli looked confused. “Cru? Uncooked? As in a vegetable?”
I laughed. “Sensible. Delicate. Painful.”
Oli smiled. “Ah. Entendu. It’s understood.” He stood back a little, as if physically demonstrating that he was willing to place some distance between us. He continued to look me in the eye. “I still have plenty of work for you, though. I still need your help. If you want to stay with me for a few more months?”
I nodded. “Yes. I do. Most definitely.”
“Good.” He clapped his hands. “So, let’s get to work. And you will tell me when your...your vegetables are...cooked?”
I laughed and nodded. “Yes. I will.”
*
A couple of weeks later, Helena rang. “I’ve got a big competition coming up the second week in February,” she said. “It’s the qualifying heat for the British Championships. Put it in your diary: the fourteenth, at Camden. It’s a Friday, in the morning, so you’ll need to take the day off work.”
“Oh,” I said. “Valentine’s Day.” Did this mean I’d be spending it with Martin?
“I know,” she said. “You and Zara can be my Valentines.”
“What about your dad?” I asked. “Won’t he be there?”
I could hear Helena sighing down the phone. “Yes. But, look, Mum. Can’t you both just try and... well, you know? Get along? Or just ignore each other. I don’t care either way, really I don’t. I just really want you to come.”
“And I really want to come.” I did. I was delighted that she’d asked me. I hadn’t had an invitation to a competition for weeks and, all of a sudden, here it was, and a big competition at that: the moment when she might qualify to swim on a national level. How could I miss her moment of glory?
But I couldn’t deny that the thought was making me incredibly nervous. I wouldn’t sleep from now until the race, I knew.
“What about your dad? What does he say?”
“He’s cool with it. He said ‘the past is the past’. So?”
I took a deep breath. “Of course I’ll come. And I’m sure Zara will, too. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“That’s brilliant! Okay, I’ll see you before then, anyway. Love you, Mum.”
“I love you too.”
I ended the call and threw my phone onto the sofa. The past is the past. I somehow doubted that very much. But then, on the other hand, I’d had several calls, numerous texts, and more than one visit from Helena since I’d returned from France – and all without any more interruptions from Martin.
Maybe he’d accepted the situation? Maybe his vow to make sure that my daughter didn’t want to know me was nothing more than hot air, after all?
My phone bleeped. I picked it up. It was a text from Helena, with a selfie attached, a head shot of her with her goggles on, her hair tucked up inside her cream swimming hat. Her right hand was clearly holding the camera. In her other hand, propped up by her thumb and forefinger, was a shelled boiled egg, wearing a pair of miniature goggles. I burst out laughing.
“Which one’s you?” I texted back.
As the day of the competition approached I, predictably, became more and more nervous. Both Zara and Catherine had told me that they’d come too, for moral support, and I was particularly touched that Catherine was coming. She hadn’t seen Martin for several years and, I knew, wasn’t particularly looking forward to the prospect of coming face to face with him again, any more than I was. But she’d promised me that she’d be there.
“You’re more important to me than The Pig,” she’d said, using the name that was now firmly entrenched as Martin’s. “He can snort all he wants, he doesn’t frighten me anymore.”
On the morning of the competition, I woke early.
“I thought I heard you. What are you doing up?” asked Zara, coming into the living room and finding me on the sofa, watching the news with the sound turned down.
“Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. It’s okay. I needed the loo.”
“I woke at four,” I explained. “I couldn’t get back to sleep again.”
Zara sat down, yawned and patted my shoulder. “The Pig?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Never mind,” she told me. “We’ll get this over with and then tonight we’ll get some wine and get completely smashed.”
I laughed. Zara couldn’t really drink very much without it affecting her medication. I knew that her idea of getting smashed was to drink one and a half glasses of wine instead of one.
“Oli wants to take me out for dinner,” I said. “For Valentine’s Day.”
“Well, there you go,” she said. “Even better. There’s nothing better than sex for stress relief. Although, laughter’s meant to be pretty good too. Maybe you could laugh at him while you’re having sex?”
I laughed. “I said dinner, not sex,” I told her. “And the way I’m feeling right now, I’m probably going to want to go to sleep by nine o’clock.
Zara narrowed her eyes. “Come on, Lizzie. It’s been weeks since you ended things with Christian. Stop beating yourself up. You need to have some fun.”
“Maybe.” I lay back onto the sofa and closed my eyes. “Maybe not. Maybe I’m just a very bad person.”
“Don’t be so silly. That’s just the stress talking. You’re just tired. It makes you feel low. But you can’t feel guilty about Christian forever. You might as well be with him now, if you’re not going to make a go of things with Oli.”
I sat up. “I hope he leaves me alone. I hope he just stays away.”
Zara frowned and scratched her head. “What?”
“Martin,” I said.
“Oh. The Pig.” She stood up, crossed her legs and hopped up and down, tugging at her pyjama bottoms.
“Go!” I laughed, pointing at the bathroom.
“Probably best,” she said, and made a dash for the loo.
Catherine arrived at nine. “Sky’s gone on to the pool,” she said. “But I thought you’d want us to all turn up together.”
I got up and put my coat on. “I really appreciate that, hon. This is really silly, isn’t it? Here we are, three women in our forties, and... this is playground stuff.”
“Well, that’s because The Pig’s a kid.”
“A pig can’t be a kid. A kid’s a goat.”
“Well, he’s a cross between a pig and a goat.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. And don’t call him that in front of Helena, whatever you do.”
As it turned out, Martin behaved impeccably. He sat on the team bench with Sky, his eyes on Helena the whole while, keeping his distance from the three of us as we sat up in the spectator seats. It made me feel physically sick to look at him, but the pool was packed to bursting and the scale and importance of the competition soon began to put Martin’s presence into perspective. After the first few races had taken place, I began to relax a little. I was too tired to focus very hard on anything other than my amazing daughter, who was limbering up on the pool side, intermittently clapping and cheering her team mates on. When the race was announced, and her name came up on the screen in front of us, my heart swelled with pride. “Women’s two hundred metre freestyle,” boomed the loudspeaker. “Helena Taylor, representing London and the South East.”
Zara nudged me. “Get her,” she said. “London and the South East.”
Catherine looked at me and smiled.
Helena hadn’t been exaggerating about her training or her times. She was a good metre ahead of her closest opponent throughout the race and came in a clear first a few minutes later, in record time.
“You must be so proud,” Catherine said. “I’m so glad I came. She’s amazing.”
I sighed. “It pains me greatly to say this, but I think some credit probably has to go to...”
“The Pig.”
I nodded.
“Well, never mind. She’s done it. You were here. The next competition will be easier.” She peered down at Martin who stood at the poolside now, explaining something to Helena, pointing at the pool. “He hasn’t even looked this way. Hopefully he’s called a truce.”
I nodded. “Let’s hope so.” Martin now had his hand on Helena’s bare shoulder, and I wanted to go right on down and remove it. But I knew that it probably wasn’t a good idea to go down to the poolside at all, not even to congratulate Helena. Instead I ushered Catherine and Zara out of the building as quickly as possible and, once we were safely round the corner and on our way back to the tube, I sent her a text message which said, “You were amazing! Congratulations, my darling. Can we meet up so I can buy you a celebratory lunch? Sometime when you’re less busy of course.” Which, of course, meant, “When you’re no longer with him.”
Twenty minutes later a text came back: “Thanks. Woohoo. I did it. So pleased. Going back to McLaren now, but can meet later if u like?”
I texted back. “You won’t have company?”
Her reply: “No. It’s okay. Call you after Dad’s gone.”
I took the tube back to the flat with Zara, Catherine having now gone off to work. Zara got changed and collected up some of her art stuff, then also said goodbye and set off to Barts hospital, where she was doing some voluntary work – art therapy – with a small group of patients there. I made myself a cup of tea, took my shoes off and lay down on the sofa. I was so tired that I immediately began to drift in and out of a pleasant, but light sleep. After an hour or so, I woke up hungry and decided to see what Helena’s plans were, before I ruined my appetite by making myself something to eat. I picked up my phone and dialled her number. My call was answered almost immediately.
“Lizzie,” said Martin’s voice on the other end.
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “Where’s Helena?”
“Why? What do you want?” he asked.
I sighed. “I want to speak to my daughter. We’re meeting up for a meal, if that’s all the same to you?”
There was a slight pause at the other end. “Well, you can’t. Something’s happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s not well.”
“What?” I sat bolt upright on the sofa. “What do you mean, not well? Where is she?”
“She’s here, at her digs. I brought her back, but she’s not well.”
“What’s wrong with her?” My heart started to thump in my chest.
Another pause. “Look. I haven’t got time to explain. You’d better get down here as quickly as possible,” he said, and hung up.
I pulled my shoes on, picked up my handbag and ran out of the door. My mind was racing? What on earth was wrong? Was it serious? And if so, didn’t he need to call an ambulance?
I ran out onto the street. It was raining again, not heavily, but steadily. I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialled Helena’s number. Martin answered again. He asked, “Are you on your way?”
“Yes,” I said. “But... is it serious? Do you maybe need to call an ambulance?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s lying down. You’ve got her old Peugeot, haven’t you? Just get here as quick as you can.”
I glanced round at the Peugeot that was sitting in the street next to me. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll bring the car. It’ll be quickest. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll wait for you outside.”
“But, Martin, what’s wrong with her? Is it serious? If she’s so unwell she can’t speak to me, shouldn’t you call an ambulance?” I ran towards the Peugeot and unlocked the door. “Martin?”
No answer. I realised he wasn’t there.
My heart started thumping heavily against my chest. What on earth had happened? What was wrong with Helena? Was it perhaps something internal, some kind of injury caused by the exertion of all the training she’d done? What if it was neurological – something to do with her brain? My mind started working overtime as the pain I’d felt at the loss of our lovely young patient, Jenna, started to rise up again, setting off alarm bells in my mind.
I jumped into the car, wondering anxiously whether it would even start after sitting idle all winter. But fortunately it purred into life straight away and I quickly headed out onto Clerkenwell Road, then south towards Farringdon, the rain beating gently down onto my windscreen and my wipers flicking hypnotically back and forth. It was less than a ten minute journey by car from here to Southwark, I knew, depending on the traffic. All I had to do was take deep breaths, stay calm, drive carefully and make sure I stayed on the left.
It was in fact an easy journey – a straight run all the way down Farringdon Road, over Blackfriars Bridge and then on down into Southwark, to McLaren House. The traffic was no worse than I’d expected for a Friday afternoon, in the rain. I was aware from my trip down here with Helena when she’d moved in, that the one way system took you round the block a little before getting to her building, but I managed to negotiate the diversion successfully – all things considered – and was heading into Westminster Bridge Road, just a short distance away from McLaren House, when I spotted Martin standing in the street up ahead of me.
He spotted me at the same time and waved slightly. I slowed down a little, hoping that he was about to direct me into a parking space. My heart started beating rapidly again, as I anticipated running into the building and taking my daughter in my arms. But as I drew nearer, I wondered whether Martin had seen me after all, as he appeared to be glancing around him in all directions, as if he were looking for someone else. An ambulance, maybe? I took a deep breath and tried not to let my fear overtake me again.
The road was quiet and there were no cars behind me, but there was clearly nowhere to park on that street after all, so I sped up a little and was almost parallel with Martin when, to my absolute astonishment, he suddenly darted out into the road in front of me. It happened in a split second: one second he was on the pavement – looking back and forth, up and down the street – and the next, he was in the road. I knew instantly that I was going to hit him. There was no way of avoiding him, as he’d literally jumped right out in front of me – but I wasn’t going very fast and I quickly slammed my foot down to hit the brake. To my absolute horror and confusion, instead of slowing down the car shot forward instead, at speed. Martin’s body connected with my bonnet, where he remained, prostrate, arms spread out in front of him, as I lost control of the steering wheel, mounted the pavement and crashed head on into a wall.
I blacked out instantly. I could remember nothing more until I woke up in hospital several hours later, apart from a brief flicker of a memory of my car door being opened and someone asking if I could hear them, and wanting my name. I’d tried to talk, I recalled, but my speech had come out slurred, as if I were drunk. I remembered my head aching badly, along with my ribs, and I had a vague recollection of the ambulance staff leaning over me, whilst bright lights were shone into my eyes and the uniform of a police officer flashed into my peripheral vision. But my lids were so heavy that I couldn’t keep my eyes open for long, and I soon drifted back into unconsciousness for what turned out to be several hours.
I spent two days in hospital, with a police officer sitting beside my bed the entire time. I’d suffered a cut to the head and bruised ribs, but miraculously nothing more. On the second day, I was able to sit up and drink through a straw. The police officer remained seated next to me, silently. I asked about Martin, but no-one would tell me a thing. I couldn’t understand why nobody had come to see me; not Helena, Zara, Catherine, or my mum.
“See? I’m okay, now,” I told the nurse on the Sunday morning, as she removed my IV drip and took the cannula out of my hand. “Please. I need to see my daughter. I need to know if she’s okay.”
“Sorry.” The nurse refused to make eye contact with me. Instead her eyes flickered over to the police officer, who was on the other side of the bed.
“We’re investigating a serious road collision,” said the officer. “Your daughter’s alright, but she’s a witness. You can’t see her or anyone else. Not yet.”
I blinked. “Helena’s a witness? You mean, she was there? In the street? When the crash happened?”
The officer said, “She gave a statement to our detectives on Friday night. That’s all I can tell you.”
At that moment, a man and a woman entered the ward, spoke briefly to the nurse who had been looking after me, then looked over in my direction and made their way over to my bed. I knew instantly that these were the detectives in question, and that I was about to be arrested again.
“Elizabeth Taylor?” asked the female, as I was handcuffed by the uniformed officer. I nodded. “You are under arrest for attempted murder. You do not have to say anything...”
“Murder? You are joking, right?” I said, stupidly, tears springing to my eyes and my heart racing with fear. “I don’t understand...”
The detective ignored me and continued to caution me while I searched my foggy mind for an explanation, or a clue I’d missed as to what had lain ahead. I’d known that the police would want to talk to me as soon as I was well enough; I’d had a police officer sitting next to me for the past two days. But murder? I hadn’t seen that coming! How stupid was I? I’d spent the past two days believing that it was the manner of my driving that was in question. I’d thought that the police would want to talk to me about the condition of the Peugeot, about how I’d come to hit Martin, about the car leaping forward – and I had a good explanation for all of that.
At least – I had an explanation for my actions. I had absolutely no explanation for Martin’s. But I’d been in no doubt whatsoever that the accident had been his fault. He’d left me no time to stop! What else could I have done? I’d been driving carefully. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen him. In fact, I’d had him in my line of vision the whole time, right up to the moment when he’d suddenly jumped out in front of me, and in an attempt to minimise the impact, I’d slammed on the brake. Only it wasn’t the brake, it was the accelerator. I’d done what Helena had done, the very first time she’d driven the car. But, given the circumstances, given that Martin had jumped right out in front of me and frightened the hell out of me, surely that couldn’t amount to murder? Surely the whole thing couldn’t have been my fault?
I now knew better than to try to explain all this to the officers. Instead, I went with them quietly and did everything they asked. When I arrived at the police station and was read my rights, I asked for a lawyer. I was also allowed one phone call, to someone who wasn’t connected with the arrest, namely Helena, Martin or Sky. Sky? What the hell did he have to do with this? I called Tim and Annalise’s phone number, in the presence of the custody sergeant and the female detective, and told Annalise what had happened. Ten minutes later, a colleague, highly recommended by Annalise, was on the phone. Her name was Sarah. She was kind and reassuring, as well as professional. She made me promise not to speak to the police about what had happened until she was present, and told me to remain calm and patient while the officers continued their investigation and took their remaining statements.
“What statements?” I sobbed down the phone. I was in a private room now, next to the custody sergeant’s desk. “I don’t understand who else they need to talk to. It was an accident. What’s it got to do with my daughter? Or Sky?”
Sarah spoke slowly and gently. “Lizzie, I understand how upset you must be. You must be extremely frightened, and I’m going to do my level best to help you. But I’m going to be honest with you. From the little I’ve been told, this is about more than just a road traffic accident and some vague assumption that you’ve caused it. Martin’s in a serious condition. He was crushed by your car against the wall, from the waist downwards. His injuries are life-threatening; he could die. But despite his injuries, he was conscious for a short while at the scene. He hasn’t made a full statement yet, but it seems he told the police that you put your foot down and drove at him deliberately, whilst he was crossing the road.”
My legs gave way underneath me. I lost my grip on the phone receiver and dropped it onto the table. I stumbled into a chair, then picked up the phone again and put it back to my ear. The civilian jailor heard the noise from outside and opened the door.
I looked up at her, tears streaming down my face. “Please,” I mouthed. She nodded and stepped back out of the room.
“Helena and Sky were two of the first on the scene,” Sarah was saying. “They heard the crash from inside the building. They’ve both given statements to the effect that you’d phoned Martin beforehand.”
“What? What do you mean? Helena was unwell...” I realised as I said this that it hadn’t, in fact, been true.
“Slightly before the crash, Martin told Helena and Sky that you’d phoned, that you’d become jealous when you’d found out that he was with Helena still, at her lodgings, and that you’d made threats to him, saying you were on your way down there to ‘sort him out’.”
“Oh my God! It’s not true!” I sobbed. “None of it. He hates me. He tried to rape me, and then he tried to turn my daughter against me... and now he’s done this. He jumped out in front of me, I swear! He’s done this deliberately. He’s crazy...”
“Lizzie, listen to me,” Sarah interrupted me. “I need to get full, written disclosure from the officers in the case. I need to find out what else – if anything – they’ve got, and then I will be taking a full and detailed account from you of what happened. But until the police have finished taking their statements, you need to keep calm and exercise your right to silence. I really need you to do that for me. I promise you, you’ll have all the time you need to talk to me about this. I’m going to want your full instructions. But, just not now, not here, over the phone.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“As soon as they call me, I’ll be on my way.”
“Are they going to remand me? Am I ever going to get out of here?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s going to be an uphill struggle if you’re charged. But if that happens, we’ll put a strong bail application together at court. For now, let’s just take this one step at a time.”
The officers were ready for interview at around seven on the Sunday evening. Sarah arrived, wearing jeans, trainers and a fleece top, and instantly put me at ease. The police hadn’t let her see the statements they’d taken, but they’d given her a written disclosure notice that made it clear that they’d now taken statements from Helena, Sky, and the doctor looking after Martin. My heart wrenched in pain as Sarah read it out loud to me – I still hadn’t got myself any proper reading glasses – and I heard my daughter’s account of what had happened, how I’d been unable to accept Martin’s presence in her life, and the shock and pain she’d felt on running out of McLaren House to find her father crushed and bleeding in the street.
The evidence from Sky was the most shocking of all. He, too, had run out of the building with Helena and witnessed Martin’s injuries first-hand. But during the interview, his ten page statement was read out in full and I was astonished at the vitriol within it. It detailed the entire history of the feud between me and Martin: Sky’s very own, personalised account of my abortive attempts to steal his father away from his mother all those years ago; my invasion of Helena’s privacy by accessing her phone and reading the text messages he’d sent her; my announcement, within his earshot at the poolside in Guildford that I wanted to kill Martin and wipe the smug smile off his face – along with numerous other things I’d supposedly said or done that evidenced my ‘obsession’ with both Sky and Martin, and an entirely unreasonable amount of speculation as to why I might have been driving down to Southwark with Helena’s fencing sword in the back of my car.
Sarah interrupted several times, pointing out anomalies, hearsay and general weaknesses in the evidence, and telling me not to answer a question if she believed it to be unfair or unfounded, or if the officer had asked the same question more than once. I was immensely comforted by her presence and it wasn’t just to do with her knowledge of the law. I was locked up in a building that consisted entirely of people whose sole aim was to gather evidence against me so that they could charge me, convict me and then have me locked up again. It felt something of a relief to have someone there who was on my side, someone I could talk to in confidence, someone who would pass me tissues while I cried, and who would fight my corner, at a time when I had so little control over the situation, when the odds seemed so overwhelmingly stacked against me.
But I didn’t need Sarah to point out to me that the evidence was indeed stacked against me. Why, after all, would someone risk their life to deliberately jump out in front of a car? I, myself, couldn’t comprehend how Martin could have been quite that crazy, crazy enough to have taken such a ridiculously dangerous chance in order to nail me, to teach me a lesson, to get me out of Helena’s life, once and for all.
I did my best to give the police an explanation for his actions; I told them about the threats he’d made to me, the attempted rape last September and the false pretences under which he’d got me into my car and heading down to Southwark two days ago. But I was at a loss to explain the accident itself. I’d been driving slowly, I told them. Martin had known I was coming by car. He clearly hadn’t expected me to put my foot on the wrong pedal. He clearly hadn’t anticipated that the outcome would be anything as bad as this. He hadn’t intended the scene of the accident (the scene that Helena and Sky would stumble upon, moments later) to be anywhere near as gruesome or severe.
But it wasn’t until after the interview, when I was back in my cell – no longer being filmed and recorded and feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights – that I was able to even begin to absorb the ‘evidence’ that had been put to me and to comprehend the full extent of what Martin had done. He’d staged the whole thing. He’d set me up. He may not have known that the outcome would be as serious as it had turned out to be, but he’d taken a massive risk, all the same.
He couldn’t have thought it through, I concluded. He’d wanted to see me, to cause trouble in some way, and so when I’d phoned Helena (she’d been having a bath, according to the police, while Sky and Martin waited for her in the common room), Martin, having gone briefly back to her room and ‘just having happened’ to answer her phone, had taken the opportunity to summon me there.
But jumping out into the road in front of me – well, that had to have been a stupid, spur of the moment decision. Though, in hindsight, I could see now that he’d already had it planned when he’d waved at me as I’d driven down Westminster Bridge Road towards him. He’d been aiming to get me to slow down enough so that the impact wouldn’t be too great when I hit him. And the reason he’d been looking around him as my car had headed closer had been to make sure that no-one was watching, that there would be no witnesses to what he was about to do in that split second before he jumped.
My cell was freezing cold. I lay down on the hard, thin mattress, pulled the single blanket I’d been given over my shoulders and closed my eyes. I had a long hard road ahead of me, I knew; I needed to be strong. The pure injustice of the situation was going to be impossible to bear if I thought about it for too long, or too deeply. I needed to find a way to carry on.
Something inside me froze at that very moment, reflecting the temperature around me. I realised that I was angry, angrier than I had ever been in my life. In the past, I’d often cried when I felt angry, and my tears of frustration had easily been mistaken for weakness. I was a woman. Being emotional was part of that – it was what made us female. I’d never tried to deny my femininity or behave like a man. But I would no longer cry. I would no longer feel anything, I decided. It was all just too painful. The only way I could deal with this was to die, just a little, inside.