Bridge of Sighs

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘I just called to say I love you.’

  Stevie Wonder. She laughed at herself. Maybe it wasn’t just young men whose thoughts turned to love when spring beckoned.

  Right now, had she been a bird she would have been sitting at the top of a bush, beak wide open, trilling a welcome to the warmer days ahead.

  11.45 a.m.

  They’d been to visit their daughter who had just had a baby at the maternity hospital in Birmingham. The birth had been uncomplicated. ‘A normal delivery,’ Stella had announced proudly. She was due to be discharged later that day. And now, thinking of baby powder, nappies and breast milk, they were heading home. They’d travelled along the M54 and had hit the A5. Initially they were happy and relaxed, both dreaming of the little girl and her future. Radio 2 was playing old songs. Eileen was humming along to an old Elvis ballad that took her right back to her courting days. She turned to smile at Felton, her husband, wondering if he too recalled the moments.

  Afterwards she could never again hear ‘Wooden Heart’ without a shudder and a bubble of nausea, but at the time she was smiling, lulled by the sunshine streaming in through the windscreen, the vision of their exhausted daughter, enveloped in her loving husband’s arms, and the tiny wrinkled face of their new grandchild who was to be called Kate. Not Catherine or Katerina, Cathy or Katy. ‘Just Kate,’ Stella had said firmly, brooking no argument or objection. But they wouldn’t have said anything even if she’d chosen to call the baby Muriel.

  Even when they first saw the boy standing up there on the bridge they had still felt happy, excited.

  The sky was blue that morning, practically cloudless, which made visibility just about perfect. But that, cruelly, made subsequent events all the more vivid. The day was warm for the month – another curse – the A5 was not that busy and they were in no great hurry. They were meandering, both of them still breathing in that soft, sweet-milk baby scent.

  ‘Kate,’ she murmured and they both smiled. They had their separate dreams. He was already constructing a dolls’ house. In his mind he was beginning to plan tiny rooms, a staircase, battery-operated chandeliers. Pictures. While she was equally busily dressing the little girl in pink with lace and ribbons – no, not ribbons. They get caught with dreadful results. She snatched back the ribbons and proceeded to imagine knitting something pink. Stella hadn’t wanted to know the sex of the child before it was born. ‘It’d be like opening your presents before Christmas,’ she’d said and her husband, besotted both with his wife and the image of fatherhood, agreed. So all Eileen’s knitting so far had been white or lemon. The layette would soon be augmented with pink.

  They expected to arrive home in less than half an hour and planned to tidy up the garden after the recent storms. Afterwards they would separately estimate their speed as having been sixty miles per hour, or thereabouts. Eileen’s eyes were lazily scanning the road ahead, watching the sporadic shadows of other vehicles chase and then pass them. She looked up at the dazzling sky then along the verge where some unfortunate was waiting for the breakdown services. At least it isn’t raining on him, she thought before she tutted at the litter. How could people just chuck things out of their car, making the countryside filthy?

  And then.

  Her eyes drifted upwards to the bridge in the distance, seeing the silhouette of the child who had climbed the barrier. He seemed to be looking along the A5. At them. Now he was standing on the top rail. Balancing. He shouldn’t be there, she thought. Afterwards she would remember details. He was alone, wearing a red anorak and a blue beanie. But as she looked upwards, dumb and mute with horror, he seemed to raise his arms up, like Christ in Rio, almost in blessing. Then he toppled and fell through the air, spread-eagled like a sky diver, landing in a horrible crunching, swerving, skidding blur, thumping down on their bonnet before being tossed into the road. The breath that came out of her was a scream, her thoughts tumbling out.

  Make it a dream. Make it a nightmare. Make it not real.

  Then she started to shake. ‘Felton?’ Her husband had somehow, God knew how, managed to brake and put his hazards on, but all around them was mounting chaos, drivers, taken unawares by the sudden drama, unable to process the information quickly enough, failing to stop, slewing across the lanes, banging into one another like huge metal dominos, while a few vehicles, drivers intent on their journey, or perhaps not processing what had just happened, looped around them and carried on, slipping past the chaos and mounting pandemonium, screams, shouts, noise. It seemed to take forever for the whole scene to come to a crazy, slewing stop, and then there was a deadly quiet and brief stillness except for cars braking and skidding far behind them. And something was happening on the opposite carriageway as drivers heading east knew something was happening and were slowing to see what. Eileen, still belted into her seat, scrabbled around but she couldn’t find her bag, couldn’t find her mobile phone. Couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She felt waves of dizziness and sickness as her eyes and then her brain initially tried to reject the dreadful image of the child thumping down on their bonnet but then, peering through the windscreen at the bloody dent, feeling and hearing the impact again and again and again, they both knew it had been for real. People were getting out of their cars to look. Look? She couldn’t look, not to the side, to the front or behind her. She couldn’t move. She wanted to shut her eyes, shut it out. She didn’t want to see his broken body because she knew it was there – somewhere in that confusion of vehicles all at the wrong angle to each other and the road. And if she saw it she knew it would stay in her mind forever. Whenever she closed her eyes, in the future, it would be pasted to the inside of her lids. When she slept it would invade her dreams. And worst of all, when she held her new beautiful little granddaughter, Kate, she would remember this boy in the red anorak and blue hat who had died (because he must be dead) on the very day that Kate had been born.

  And so she focused only on her husband. ‘Felton.’ She tried her voice cautiously. ‘That was,’ she began to say, watching the colour drain from his face as it must already have done from her own. ‘It was …’

  They both knew what it was.

  Now the cars were stopped, the A5 blocked, it was quiet. The people standing on the road seemed like zombies, mute, not quite knowing what to do. They looked at each other, shocked into silence. And after the silence came a noise from a distance, softly approaching at first but increasingly strident. It was the noise of approaching rescue, of normality, of order, of the authorities. Police, ambulance. Even a fire engine screaming towards them along the hard shoulder. Eileen felt a sense of relief. These were the people who could return the scene to normal, make sense out of madness. Someone must have made the call and summoned them. And now the sirens were closer, screaming all around them. More were joining them. Louder and louder. Lights brighter and brighter. Relief had arrived, people who knew exactly what to do in such a situation. The peaceful scene had been shattered in the blink of an eye. From beginning to end was less than eight minutes.

  THIRTEEN

  Tuesday, 28 March, 5 p.m.

  Alex rang her as the afternoon was drawing to a close. For Martha it had been a peaceful, pleasant day. She had eaten her lunch while still working, to Jericho’s disapproval, but she’d cleared a backlog of form filling and felt the usual satisfaction when you’ve completed a mundane task. She was just wondering what to cook for tea when the phone rang.

  Jericho had got used to the fact that though he fended off all the coroner’s calls, somehow DI Alex Randall had become an exception. So when he picked up the phone and recognized the voice he didn’t even ask but put the call straight through.

  ‘Martha.’ She immediately picked up on the sense of foreboding in the detective’s voice.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Remember my saying that this felt like the beginning of something …’ He hesitated, not wanting to use too melodramatic a word. ‘That it felt like there was something dark about Gina Marconi’s death?’

&nbs
p; ‘Yes.’ She wondered what on earth was coming next.

  ‘There’s been another death …’

  Afterwards she would toss those two words around: another death. Why, she would wonder later, was he linking the two together? Even in sparsely populated, generally healthy Shropshire, people died every day. ‘What – another car accident?’

  ‘No. A young lad. A boy called Patrick Elson jumped off an A5 bridge this morning. We found his schoolbag on the bridge over the dual carriageway.’

  ‘Another suicide?’

  ‘It looks like it. A couple driving in the Shrewsbury direction saw him standing on the parapet over the road. They saw him jump and he hit their car …’ He hesitated before adding: ‘And others.’

  ‘I take it he’s—’

  ‘Yes, multiple injuries again. The boy’s mother—’

  She interrupted. ‘How old?’

  ‘Twelve.’ He resumed his story. ‘The boy’s mother can’t understand it. He should have been at school. He wasn’t in any trouble. According to his mother he wasn’t depressed or ill. He didn’t take drugs.’

  They all say that.

  ‘So could it have been an accident?’

  ‘Even if it was, his mother says it would be out of character for him not to be at school and he wasn’t exactly a daredevil sort of boy. If anything, he was a swot.’

  ‘So what was he doing there in the first place? Why was he there instead of at school?’

  ‘We don’t know. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Pretty horrendous injuries. Mark says he can fit in the PM in the morning. Mother has identified him.’

  ‘Right. I’ll need to speak to her and anyone who witnessed the boy on the bridge.’

  ‘Plenty of those,’ he said, with cynicism, ‘but the main witnesses are the couple who were driving back to Shrewsbury after visiting their daughter. She’d just had a baby, apparently. Anyway they were returning home along the A5. The woman, a Mrs Eileen Tinsley, saw the boy climb up on to the top rung and fling himself off. Those were the words she used.’

  ‘Fling himself off – like flying?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  Twelve years old, she was thinking. Drugs? They made you believe you could fly through the air, even off a bridge over a busy dual carriageway, and come to no harm. ‘We’ll need a full toxicology screen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She just needed to check on a detail. ‘Could it have been an accident and he fell? Is it possible someone dared him and he either overbalanced or was pushed?’

  ‘The couple said he was alone. They didn’t see anyone anywhere near him.’ He finished with, ‘Now do you see why I link the two together?’

  ‘I’m beginning to. I’d better talk to the boy’s mother. Is she in a fit state to …’

  ‘I think you would be the best person.’ He sounded relieved.

  FOURTEEN

  Wednesday, 29 March, 10 a.m.

  Martha felt it would be politic to be certain of the known facts so she left it until the next day before contacting Eileen Tinsley and her husband, Felton. The poor woman would have been in shock on the Tuesday. But as she had analysed the sketchy facts between the two apparent suicides she began to draw parallels between them and see why Alex Randall had linked the two deaths. Though there were obvious differences – sex, age, background – there were also apparent similarities. Two violent and inexplicable suicides in such a short time?

  She needed to learn more facts about these two disparate people, delve into their backgrounds, not just focus on their deaths. And she mentally warned herself against jumping too far in her conclusions. It was too easy to make connections where there were none, spot ghosts hiding in shadows, imagine circumstances which simply didn’t exist.

  Begin by learning the facts.

  Her first call was to a very shaken Eileen Tinsley. She could hear the waver in her voice, particularly when she explained who she was.

  She began by apologizing for the intrusion, using her tried and tested phrases, ‘at this difficult time’, and so on. She explained her position and role and the purpose of her call.

  Eileen Tinsley still sounded shocked. ‘It’ll stay with me, Mrs Gunn,’ she said, ‘possibly for all my life.’

  Again Martha used well-worn phrases. ‘Counselling will be made available, Mrs Tinsley, but for some people the images just naturally fade and that’s the way they deal with it. Now all I want is this. Simply the facts.’

  ‘OK.’

  Martha’s calm manner appeared to be having an effect.

  ‘We were returning from Birmingham. My daughter had just given birth. We didn’t stay long. She was tired and wanted to be alone with her husband and little Kate.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The weather was just gorgeous. We were both dreaming, I suppose, thinking about the little girl, making plans. You know?’

  ‘Yes,’ Martha said again.

  ‘We were going at an average speed. About sixty. The radio was on …’ She paused. ‘Elvis. Some cars were going faster than us. Someone had broken down on the hard shoulder. I remember thinking, Lucky it’s not raining. And then I looked up and the boy was standing on the rung halfway up the railing on the side of the bridge. He was looking down. It seemed as though he was looking down at us. Before I knew it, he was balancing on the top rail and then he flung his arms out and launched himself into the air. And then …’ Her voice tailed away.

  ‘Did you see anyone else on the bridge with him?’

  ‘No. He was on his own.’

  ‘Did it seem like a deliberate act or possibly a daredevil stunt? A stunt gone wrong?’

  For a brief second there was no response. Then Mrs Tinsley said quietly, ‘He knew what he was doing, Mrs Gunn. He was looking straight at us.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘We talked about it last night,’ she said. ‘He was focused on the road so he didn’t quite see what I did. But he did look up at one point and said he saw the boy with his arms outstretched. The boy didn’t look as though he toppled. No. He was more like a diver on a board – poised, in control, balanced. It’s an awful thought but he was quite graceful as he fell.’

  The image was painfully graphic. ‘The boy’s name,’ Martha said slowly, ‘was Patrick Elson. He was twelve years old. He lives – lived – in Shrewsbury with his mother.’

  ‘The poor woman.’

  Martha thanked her for her help, asked that she contact her if she or her husband thought of anything else that might help them understand Patrick’s death. She said that her officer would be in touch to give her the details of the inquest, which she would be expected to attend. She reassured her that her statement would not need to be more than she had just delivered.

  She finished with another platitude. ‘And I hope that your love and care for your new little granddaughter will help dispel these dreadful images. I’m sure there is some sad story behind Patrick’s death.’

  Eileen Tinsley muttered her thanks and Martha put the phone down. Alone in her room she could think. Plan, work this one out and wonder.

  She looked down at the folder she was amassing on the boy’s death. Alex had emailed through some pictures taken at the scene. And according to the local news website, flowers had already been strewn on the A5 hard shoulder, which would soon be cleared by the police as they were a ‘driver distraction’. A few more bunches had been tied to the railings of the fateful A5 bridge. The pictures had zoomed in on one or two of them so Martha could read a few of the scrawls. Messages of affection and the ubiquitous: Why?

  She read through Alex’s email a second time, detailing the facts the police were gathering.

  Patrick had been twelve years old, his mother’s only child. According to Amanda Elson he had had no contact with his father; she had brought him up alone, but he’d had adoring maternal grandparents and a vast collection of aunts, uncles and cousins. According to the statements so far he had been a happy, intelligent, sensitive boy with a small cir
cle of friends. A bit of a geek, according to one or two social media tributes. His teachers and schoolmates had echoed this sentiment. He was more than bright. One or two of his relatives had called him brilliant. A few more had commented: ‘Really clever’. His mother described him as always top of the class.

  She took a good look at the photographs sent over to her. Patrick Elson had a thin, sensitive face, bright and eager. Clear blue eyes, looking straight at her, open and friendly. He had big teeth, an engaging smile. No hint of trouble or unhappiness. The picture had been taken at the beginning of the last term, just after Christmas, three short months ago, and Patrick was neat in his school uniform. So what, she wondered, had turned this fresh-faced boy into someone who dived off a bridge on to a dual carriageway and certain death? She looked back at other observations. He had been small for his age but intelligent beyond his years, fond of reading and of science projects. In particular, one teacher had commented, he had been interested in space. The teacher’s name was Freddie Trimble. For the first time that morning, Martha smiled. The name evoked Dickens. She would try and contact him herself. Of all the statements, she felt he would be the one to provide more detail to the picture of the dead boy.

  Next she leafed through the police photographs taken of his bedroom walls papered with pictures of the planets and the International Space Station. Again, according to Freddie Trimble, Patrick had followed Tim Peake’s progress every second that the astronaut had been up in space and he had wanted to be an astronaut too. OK, Patrick, she thought, it was a long shot. But now it would be an unfulfilled ambition. He would never even get the chance.