February, earlier that year
The last conversation Pete had with his wife was short, to the point. He picked up his mobile, alerted by Tara’s assigned ringtone.
‘Are you finishing on time tonight?’ she said.
‘No, I’ll be a couple of hours late. Rav’s dad’s had a fall so I’m covering until he gets back from the hospital.’
‘Well get home as soon as you can,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something I want to tell you.’
‘What is it?’
‘No. I want to tell you to your face.’
‘Sounds intriguing.’ He smiled. ‘Where are you now?’ He looked out of the window at the lumpen clouds, the heavy precipitation, hoped she wasn’t too far away from home.
‘On the M1, just coming back from my last appointment in Leeds.’
‘Drive carefully in this, Tara.’ Rush-hour traffic on a freezing February night with a sky full of sleet that would likely turn to snow at any minute. ‘Don’t take any chance—’ Three curt beeps. The line had gone dead. The M1 had patches where the signal died. He contemplated ringing her back, but didn’t want to distract her. She was a sensible driver, of course she’d take care.
An hour and a half later, he’d been checking the breathing apparatus when the fire station alarm had gone off, the persistent beep-beep calling Red Watch to arms.
‘I hope this isn’t another bleeding parrot stuck in a tree,’ said Jacko, who’d spent two hours the previous day trying to coax an escaped African Grey down from a giant conifer.
It wasn’t. It was a major road traffic collision on a dual carriageway. It was carnage. A lorry driver had skidded on the wet snow, crossed the central reservation and caused a ten-vehicle pile-up. And smack in the middle of all that bashed and mangled metal was a red car with a customised black stripe, just like the one Pete’s wife drove. Because it was the one his wife drove.
It was weird the things a brain remembered. That day had started so normally and he could recall it all – even now – in glorious technicolour. Meeting Krish by the office door, who took the piss out of his new haircut: ‘Bet that clogged up someone’s Flymo.’ He could remember Dave Prigmore nearly crying because he dropped his ‘Mr Wonderful’ mug and smashed it. He could remember Sal Thomas being giddy as a kipper because she’d won the lottery – well, one hundred and forty pounds. He could remember Jacko talking to a reporter at the Daily Trumpet who wanted to run a piece on him rescuing that parrot. But everything that happened after his eyes picked out that red car sat as a jumbled mess in his head and the events would not unpick themselves but stayed there, scratching against the inside of his skull like a big, knotted ball of barbed wire.
*
Three weeks later, Tara’s funeral had been jointly arranged by her family and Pete, both carefully respectful of the other’s wishes. Tara’s dad owned twenty florist shops across Yorkshire and his youngest daughter’s funeral was as flower-filled as her wedding had been; no expense spared for Bob Ollerton’s girl. She rode to the church to be buried in a carriage with six white horses as she had ridden to it to be married two years previously. She would be interred wearing a white suit, white flowers studded in her long caramel hair; white lilies punching out heady perfume sat on top of her white coffin. The organist played ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ on both occasions and Tara’s sisters each stood at the pulpit and gave readings. Her mother was a bastion of dignity, her father was an emotional wreck. At the funeral he sat holding his wife’s hand and his son-in-law’s, squeezing tight as if they kept him from falling into an abyss. People said it was the most beautiful funeral they had ever been to, which was a consolation to the family because they wanted to do her proud.
At the other side of Pete sat his twin brother Griff. There was only one man as good to have in a crisis and that was Pete himself.
The white coffin was lowered into the churchyard ground and dozens of pink roses were kissed and dropped in with her. Except for two red roses from Pete; one for his wife, one for his unborn child.
The pregnancy kit was still in Tara’s handbag when her effects were returned to Pete. She had wanted him home that night to tell him to his face that she was pregnant.