Conundrum
Page 17
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All was dark.
John sat transfixed in his car, staring at the mesmerising orange lights of the power station.
He often came here. It was somehow tranquillising, as the bright, white beam of the newer lighthouse pierced the darkness, rotating endlessly. The peace was a million miles from his busy film making schedule, but now his mind was overwhelmed with sadness.
If he could have had one wish, it would have been for peace of mind – to bypass this grief for his girlfriend and concentrate on his burgeoning movie success. But where could he go to negotiate with fate and tweak his circumstances? He often went for walks and always wondered if he might find some kind of inspiration if he walked far enough. Maybe he'd need an endless succession of wishes. What if movie success wasn't all it's cracked up to be? What would he wish for then - simplicity? And would that not get boring eventually? Were there any answers to life's endless striving for something different? His mind returned to the present.
“Why did she have to do it?” the 33-year-old sobbed, with his head pressed to the steering wheel.
The verdict had been 'accidental death,' but he was convinced it was suicide.
As he gazed back up over the steering wheel, the surreal display of lights seemed to numb his thoughts. Behind where he was parked lie the eternal blackness of the night sky and velvet sea.
A pair of headlights was coming down the lane.
John found this irritating. He just wanted to be alone and somebody was about to intrude. “Who drives to Dungeness at half-one in the morning?” he muttered to himself.
As the car got closer, the lights were almost painful to the eyes. A left hand indicator came on and the fluorescent strip down the side of the car became visible.
'Oh no – it's a police-car and it's turning in. Usual nonsense I expect – “What are you doing out here so late?” It's a free country - mind your own business!'
The police car spun into the gravel entrance, but to John's relief, it just turned around and parked parallel to his car about ten feet away. Then the lights went out.
The police officer sat motionless in the driver's seat, staring at the serene glow of artificial lights.
Officer Clarke had been signed off with stress after that fateful day, but even now that he was back at work, the guilt was still there.
If he'd been able to get to the top of the tower more quickly he could have given his colleague the back-up he needed; between them they could have saved the woman. And if he had been honest about his vertigo and not blagged his way into a job, it would have been another officer on duty that day altogether and the lady would still be alive. His little omission at his interview had been the first domino in a chain of events that had led to a woman's death.
The thoughts went round and round his head in an endless spiral. He was stuck in a swirling quagmire of futile conjecture. If only he could relieve the pressure in his mind in some way, like sticking a needle into a boil. His brain was driving him crazy. It was sapping his energy, as any machine in overdrive tends to do. How could he function properly as a police officer in a state like this?
The sweep of the lighthouse beam came past again, and the officer gazed at the light in the way that a child might look at a parent in supplication. He let out a huge sigh and his brain began to take him around the merry-go-round of thoughts again.
It was around 2am that the other car's headlights went on, and after firing up the engine, it pulled out of the recess and turned right.
'I suppose I'd better get back on duty,' thought Officer Clarke, and with that, he too turned the key in the ignition and slowly crept out of the car park.
Gazing down from the top of either lighthouse, or even from a high vantage point of the power station, the view would have been the same; two pairs of red rear lights moving slowly away from the glow of Dungeness, and out into the darkness of the empty marsh.
The light continued its inexorable sweep, but for now at least, both men were way beyond its reach.