Friday, 10 March, 3.18 a.m.
Graham Skander was dreaming.
He was diving the coral reef in Tobago where he had been only one short month ago. A fish was ahead of him, jewelled scales bright blue. He felt the sun on his back, heard his breathing rasping loudly in the snorkel mask, as he sucked on the pipe. He pursued the fish, camera in hand. He wanted to—
Bang!
Startled, it took him a while to surface, to leave the coral reef, open his eyes and process the sound, wondering whether it had been part of the dream. He lay for a minute, still confused, and then he heard a hissing sound. He knew what that was. Not part of a dream.
He threw back the covers, planted his feet on the floor and crossed to the window.
The Grange was an eighteenth-century house, symmetrical, red brick. It had been there long before the A49 had become such a rat run. It was his wall that cars had to manoeuvre and one or two had hit it before. He knew the sound and it made him angry. The insurance companies might rebuild but they never did it quite like it was before. Graham lived there alone since his wife, Rita, had left, citing his irascible nature which apparently was peppered with ‘boringness’. Her word, not his.
Peering through the window, he recognized the signs instantly. A blaze of lights obscured by a cloud of steam. He could hear the hiss from the radiator, smell the stench of burning tyres as he breathed in petrol. Another bloody car taking the corner too fast now embedded in his bloody wall, he thought crossly. He slipped his bony feet into his slippers, tied his dressing gown around his waist and stomped down the stairs.
Fumbling for the key, he spared a fleeting thought for the driver. But when he reached the car and shouted, ‘Hello, are you all right?’ he saw that the damage to the car was much worse than usual. The bonnet was completely crumpled but, worst of all, he saw something he had not seen since seat belts were made compulsory. Someone … A woman? Slumped half through the windscreen, her face embedded in the wall. Blood everywhere. And her face. Oh, God, her face.
His ‘Hello’ died in his throat. He didn’t need to have a medical degree to see that she was dead. And, he harrumphed bravely as he turned back towards his house to ring the emergency services, looking at the state of her face, thank God she was.
But he couldn’t say that to the operator when she asked which service he required and what had happened.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak. ‘Umm.’ It was as far as he got at the first attempt. He cleared his throat. ‘Graham Skander here.’ He could hear the shock making his voice waver. ‘From The Grange. Preston Gubbals. A car has …’ Again, he cleared his throat. ‘Embedded itself in my wall.’ He recovered himself a little. ‘Not for the first time. A woman driver. I think … I’m afraid I think … I think she’s dead.’
The operator provided the solution. ‘Ambulance then, and the police.’ Something of Felicity Corwen’s character peeped through. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Nothing a good malt won’t cure,’ he said bravely. Then added, ‘Poor woman. Her face, you know. Gone through the windscreen. Met the wall.’
‘You leave it to the police,’ she soothed, ‘and go have that malt.’
‘Happy to.’
He knew he would get no more sleep tonight. And if he did, after hours of questions and recovery vehicles and the inevitable noise and delay, he would not be dreaming of coral reefs again this night – and probably not for a long time.