Dear Mr and Mrs Everett
I hope this letter does not upset or distress you, although I fear it may do so. I am sorry if that is the case but it is a letter which I simply had to write.
My name is Meg Winter. I am the woman who was in the car with your son on the night he was murdered four years ago.
As you may or may not know, I was seriously injured in the crash and although I recovered from my physical injuries, I was left in a coma.
It is my good fortune to have now recovered from that also, although it has left me with what is known as psychogenic amnesia. In short, I can remember nothing about that night, nor can I remember anything at all about your son. I have been shown photographs of him but I am afraid I have no recollection of him whatsoever and no knowledge of what I was doing with him that night.
I am writing to you now because, since regaining consciousness, and in spite of this huge gap in my memory, I have been consumed with strong feelings that somehow I played a part, however unwittingly, in what happened to him.
The grief and sadness which you have both suffered has troubled me greatly. The fact that he was with a complete stranger that night and that no one has yet managed to solve the mystery of his death must be a dreadful burden for you.
The very least I can do is to attempt to remain a stranger no more and to tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened. Nothing I can say will change those events, I realise that, but I felt it was important to try to make contact with you, so I approached Vectra Pharmaceuticals who very kindly provided me with your address.
Reading this back, I fear that it is not as coherent as I would wish, nor does it really express my sympathy strongly enough, but I want you to know that it is meant very sincerely. I hope you understand.
Since getting out of hospital just a few months ago, I have become more and more determined to get my memory back. Your son was the last human being with whom I had contact before his death and my injury. I know little about him – just his job, where he came from, but nothing of any great detail. It does not tell me what sort of a person he was and I would really like to know more.
I do not know how you will react to this letter. I hope you will do so with kindness and if you can bring yourself to reply to me, I would appreciate the gesture.
May I extend to you my condolences and my good wishes.
Yours sincerely
Meg Winter
She sat in the deli with the Independent review section and a mocha. She was getting the hang of this coffee business.
The deli had changed hands recently, although it did not make much difference except that now there was bratwurst in the chill cabinet. The new owner was German, called Werner, a scrawny man in his late forties, maybe even beyond, with a thick mop of hair that was early George Harrison.
She drank her coffee but her attention had drifted away from the paper.
She thought of Dan. It was still all a bit tentative, frustrating. Neither of them seemed ready to take the big step.
Maybe he didn’t want her. Or maybe he was just afraid it would go wrong.
They had been to the cinema a couple of times and a concert, the Corrs at the Waterfront Hall. One night he had come round with a pizza and a video. It was Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks.
Now she got the joke.
She finished up and paid. Werner walked past and stuck something on the big front window. When Meg went outside she glanced to see what it was. In thick red marker it said: PART-TIME STAFF REQUIRED. APPLY INSIDE.’ She stood looking at it for a few moments and then she went back in.
There was a little office at the rear of the kitchen. When Werner asked her whether she was working anywhere at the moment, she levelled with him.
He listened while she explained, his blue eyes giving her a cool examination from under the edge of the Beatle thatch.
‘When could you start?’ he said.
‘Any time. Today. Tomorrow.’
He thought. ‘Your national insurance would have to be sorted out.’
She could see that he was not certain about her but that he was tempted. She was presentable and she wasn’t stupid. Plus he needed someone in a hurry.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll try you out. See how you do. Come in tomorrow. One of the other girls will show you the ropes.’
‘Great,’ she said, ‘great.’ She shook his hand, which he was not expecting, then she said: ‘There’s just one other thing. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell any of the staff about my – my background. At least not straight away. I’d rather do that myself.’
He shrugged. ‘Sure. Fine with me.’
The hours were eight to four, three days a week, except Sunday when it was eight to two. The money wasn’t much, two-fifty an hour, but the money wasn’t the point. She found herself getting up in the mornings and looking forward to going to work, glad to have something to do at last.
Apart from Werner she was the oldest person working there. Her first shifts she spent with two girls, Ruth and Bronagh, who were both twenty-two and were still hunting for a proper job a year after leaving university. They were curious about her but they did not know who she was and she did not enlighten them. Not yet.
‘What did you do before?’ Ruth asked. She was tiny with large breasts crammed into a white t-shirt and Meg watched how men’s eyes followed her round the room.
‘I used to work in the old Central Hospital before they closed it. Then I was away for a while.’
‘Were you a nurse?’ Bronagh wondered. She had long hair, tousled, and it reminded Meg of her own before she cut it.
‘No,’ Meg said and turned away to wipe a table. That would be enough for now.
Dan called in after the first couple of days and drove her home when her shift was over. They sat in the van while she told him all about it, how much she was enjoying having something to do. She would have been happy if he had come in and stayed for a while but he didn’t suggest it and she was afraid to offer.
They told her Sunday mornings were the busiest and they were right.
Her first one exhausted her. People came with their families. They queued for tables and then ate bagels with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs or else bacon with waffles and syrup. Newspapers were strewn everywhere. By two, when her shift ended, she wanted to go home and lie down.
She was getting ready to leave when Ruth came to her. ‘Bronagh and me were wondering. Are you doing anything on Wednesday night?’
Meg pretended to leaf through her mental diary Then she said: ‘No, I’m not. Why?’
‘Have you ever been to the Fly?’
She shook her head. ‘No, what is it?’
‘It’s a pub in Lower Crescent. They have salsa nights sometimes. Great music and everything. Drink at cheap prices.’
Bronagh joined them. ‘We thought we might go, the three of us,’ she said, then smiled. ‘It’ll be a late night but we’re all off the next day.’
Meg looked at them as they waited for her answer. They would have been talking about her, wondering. They knew she lived on her own. They thought she was lonely. And maybe they were right.
‘That sounds great,’ she said and they both grinned.
She found herself girlishly thrilled by the idea of having somewhere to go and the task of finding something to wear.
She felt comfortable and not too ostentatious with a black jacket and trousers, like a man’s dinner suit, that she tried on in Oasis. She bought a plain white shirt to go with it and strappy black shoes with heels.
Bronagh and Ruth picked her up in a taxi that hooted at her front door.
Ruth was bursting out of a scarlet dress with thin straps. Meg found it hard to keep her eyes off the mountainous bosom. Bronagh was in trousers and a see-through blouse, under which her bra was an elaborate pattern with flowers blossoming at the nipples.
Flaming torches mounted on the walls lit up the Fly’s front door. A couple of grinning bouncers in cerise shirts greeted them like long-lost friends but that was because of Ruth, Meg reckoned, bouncing ahead of them into the bar.
Inside, the decor was purple and orange with huge silk lampshades shaped like witches’ hats. There was an open spiral staircase leading to two other floors above and trompe-1’oeil cobwebs had been painted up the walls. People were dancing, drinking, trying to make themselves heard above the music. The DJ stood under coloured spot lamps in a loose silk shirt with a pattern of Bacardi bottles on it. Above a bass and piano riff and a battery of congas and timbales, a sparkling trumpet solo split the air.
Meg felt as if they had just arrived in Cuba.
Ruth caught her by the arm and hauled her over to a table where there was a group of young men, slick-haired, expensive shirts, their teeth dazzling in the coloured light. She tried to introduce them but Meg didn’t get any of their names. They probably didn’t get hers either. She raised a hand and mouthed ‘Hi.’
One of them moved over for her to sit down. He was about twenty-three.
Bronagh had vanished but now she was back, carrying three bulbous, stemmed glasses full of a cloudy liquid and crushed ice. She set one in front of Meg.
‘What’s this?’ There were little straws in it.
‘It’s a margarita.’
‘Oh, no, really – I don’t—’
‘Try it,’ Bronagh said. ‘Just a sip.’
She did. It didn’t seem too heavy on the tequila.
Maybe just the one.
She had three over the next couple of hours. Then she drew the line and went on to mineral water, to everyone else’s disapproval. But she had begun to feel a dangerously relaxed inner glow and the boy beside her had made her laugh once or twice. He wasn’t bad looking.
He asked her to dance.
Out on the floor, he pranced in front of her, eyes closed, his face fixed in an intense expression. Meg felt suddenly that he looked ridiculous and in that moment she wanted to be somewhere else. With someone else. Not this silly boy.
She excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. When she came out he was dancing with Bronagh. Ruth was kissing one of the other boys, whose hands didn’t know where to go next.
She went outside and found a taxi. She was back home within minutes.
It was twelve fifteen. She dialled Dan’s number. His voice was drowsy when he answered.
‘Were you asleep? Did I wake you?’ she said. ‘Meg?’
‘Just thought I’d ring and say goodnight.’
‘What . . . what time is it?’
‘Quarter past twelve. I’ve been out partying with some of the girls from work. Salsa night down at the Fly. I came home early. Too old for that sort of thing.’ She was giggling.
He paused. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘As a matter of fact I have. Margaritas. Very nice.’
‘How many?’
‘Well, I probably shouldn’t drive. Have you had anything to drink tonight?’
‘No. Not a drop.’
There was a little silence. ‘Well then, you could drive, couldn’t you?’
She was naked under her cotton robe when she opened the door to him at one thirty. There were no words.
They kissed with a desperate hunger. His hands explored her, his coat rough on her skin, the buttons cold against her nipples.
She unzipped him and from the pocket of her robe she took a condom which she had bought from the machine in the ladies’ room at the Fly.
He groaned and she had a feeling they would not even make it to the stairs.