The Best Of Times

by Penny Vincenzi

  ***

  Andrews asked for the forensic evidence; it was complex and highly technical, as it always was. Clearly the cause of the whole thing had been the wheel nut shattering the lorry’s windscreen; there was also considerable detail about a car two behind the lorry, which had apparently had a blowout, and caused considerable further damage, and which had had a large rusty nail in one of its tyres that would certainly have contributed to, if not caused, the blowout.

  ***

  Michael Andrews called Sergeant Freeman to present the police evidence. He liked and respected Freeman; he had heard evidence from him many times. He had a certain lack of humour, and he tended to be rather self-important, but was inordinately thorough, incredibly hardworking, and he presented his evidence with great clarity. It took almost half an hour; at the end of it, Andrews was already tired, and it was only eleven. The concentration required by these big cases was exhausting; it never ceased to surprise him. He called a break for fifteen minutes, and sank gratefully into the peace of his own room, a huge mug of strong, sweet coffee supplied by his staff. He worried sometimes that at the age of fifty he was getting a bit old for this game, and then reminded himself that he had found inquests tough at thirty.

  ***

  Patrick Connell had obviously once been a big man, Andrews thought, watching him as he came to the witness stand; he was tall, but frail, and walked leaning on two sticks and with a heavy limp. He asked him if he would like to sit down to give his evidence; Connell said he would rather stand, but halfway through what was obviously a gruelling experience, he was forced to give in and sit.

  “Now, Mr. Connell, tell us about your recollections, as far as you can remember. We have heard you suffered memory loss, but anything you can tell us will be important.”

  The evidence was faltering, faulty indeed; Connell had no real memory of the aftermath of the crash before he reached the hospital, and indeed very little of the next few days; memory had begun to return, but only in fragments. “It was a very disturbing time, sir, as you can imagine, I’m sure.”

  “Indeed. Now… you weren’t feeling sleepy beforehand? It says in your statement, if I might remind you again, that you had been to see your doctor about this tendency of yours to feel sleepy on the road. Remember you are under oath.”

  A hesitation; he could feel the lawyers stiffen.

  “I had been, sir, yes. About half an hour earlier. But I’d stopped for a coffee, and I was eating sweets, jelly babies-they’re my life-savers, odd though it may sound to you, sir-and I was talking to my passenger immediately before the crash; I do remember that very clearly…”

  He had gained confidence now; he gave a clearly honest description of blame-free driving, within the speed limit, of the other vehicles, of the E-Type ahead of him, “just pulling ahead… He was driving very nicely, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it… and may I say how pleased I am also that you have made such a good recovery, Mr. Connell, from your injuries. You may step down.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  ***

  Andrews asked for Connell’s passenger next: he looked at her as she took the stand, tiny, pretty little thing, clearly absolutely terrified, and asked her very gently to take the oath. Her hand shook as she held the card; he wondered how good a witness she would be.

  But she was very good: calm and clear describing how one moment everything had seemed perfectly fine, nobody speeding, nobody cutting across anybody, and then how the windscreen had so suddenly shattered. “It was terrifying. Like being in a thick fog. And then somehow, we stopped and we were in the middle of all this… this chaos.”

  “How long would you say it was before you felt the lorry veer over across the lanes of the motorway?”

  “Oh… it all happened so slowly. It seemed like hours; I suppose it couldn’t have been more than… what, ten seconds. And then quite quickly there was this terrible, awful noise and horns going and brakes screaming and then we… we stopped.”

  “Yes. I don’t think we need to go over the next few minutes; your statement was very clear, and it must have been very traumatic for you.”

  He felt bound, driven by personal curiosity as much as professional, to ask her why she left the scene of the crash.

  “I don’t know,” she said simply. “I wish I did, and I’m terribly ashamed of it. But I can’t explain it; I really can’t. I suppose I panicked. I remember thinking that if I got away, left the accident, it would be all right-no one would know I’d been there. I could just… just forget about it. It was so horrible, all the injured people especially-Patrick… Mr. Connell-and the wrecked cars, and people shouting and screaming. I felt I… well, I had to get away.”

  “So you walked quite a long way, you say, and then hitched another lift and went home to Cardiff?”

  “Yes, that’s right. And then I sort of managed to persuade myself that it hadn’t happened. Or rather that I hadn’t been there. That it was nothing to do with me. And the more time passed, the more impossible it got to admit. Until there were stories in the press, implying that Patrick-Mr. Connell-had gone to sleep.”

  She started to cry; Michael Andrews waited patiently, then said, “Try not to feel too distressed, Miss Linley We all make mistakes and do things we can’t explain. I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Connell are most grateful that you told your story when you did.”

  “Yes. Thank you. And we have become good friends now. But only because they’re so good; they’ve been so forgiving.”

  Andrews found himself rather taken by her; he thanked her for all her evidence, and then asked her if she had managed to get the part she’d been auditioning for. He did that sometimes, ventured into the personal or lighthearted where he felt it would help the atmosphere. Georgia said she had, and added that it would be shown on Channel Four in the spring.

  “I have to tell you, Miss Linley,” he said, “commercial advertising is not normally allowed in the courtroom. However, I will make an exception in this case.”

  ***

  He heard the evidence of Jack Bryant, the owner of the E-Type. He couldn’t think who he reminded him of, and then realised; he was a dead ringer for that Nigel Havers character, the Charmer, the same smooth dress style, the same confident public-school manner. Andrews was about to dislike him, when he said right at the beginning of his evidence, after taking the oath, “I feel absolutely ghastly about this. Terrible. The whole thing could be said to be my fault…”

  “Mr. Bryant,” said Andrews, “as I said at the beginning, we are not here to establish blame. Merely to find out what happened. Now, we have heard it was one of your wheel nuts that flew off and shattered the windscreen of Mr. Connell’s lorry; can you tell us how you think this could have happened?”

  “No,” said Bryant, “I really can’t. I checked them all really carefully-my mechanic will second that-before I set out. I was going to Scotland, long way, for a bit of shooting, and I wanted everything to be as safe as possible.”

  “Indeed. And you weren’t speeding at all?”

  “No, I most definitely was not. Chance’d be a fine thing, in that car. Very beautiful, but not much of a goer these days. She’s an old lady, bit past her prime…”

  Every inquest has its turning point; this one was provided by one of the experts at the police Forensics department.

  “Thing is, you can overtighten those old nuts. One turn too far and it can break the thread-in our opinion, and on examining the car when it came into our possession, that’s what happened.”

  Andrews looked at Bryant; he was visibly limp with relief. And then at the families: it was the kind of thing that was in a way most painful, the fatal event that was still an accident, an act that had killed, but made in good faith. He was not surprised to see them all sitting up very straight suddenly, their faces taut, and, in the case of the young girl’s mother, already in tears…

  ***

  The morning moved on. He heard some excellent evidence given by a youn
g man, William Grainger, a farmer whose land bordered the M4: clear, concise, very helpful. Some more, very painful to hear, from the husband of the young mother who had been killed. They broke for lunch after this; Andrews felt he was not the only one who needed it.

  ***

  In the afternoon Jonathan Gilliatt took the stand; now here was a smoothie, Andrews thought-even if he was a hero… Very self-confident he’d be, his evidence very well presented.

  He was wrong; and it was not.

  Gilliatt was uncomfortable, nervous, unclear as to exactly what he had seen of the crash, admitted-wiping his forehead repeatedly-that he and his passenger had been having what he called “a rather heated exchange” just beforehand.

  “Sufficiently heated to distract you?” Andrews said, and yes, he said, and he was very ashamed that he had allowed it to do so.

  “Not a good thing to be distracted on a crowded motorway, I’m afraid. Fortunate you were in the inside lane. You had met your passenger at a business function, I believe?”

  “We had met through business, yes.”

  Cagey answer. Should he press this? Andrews thought. No. It was hardly relevant.

  “Now, I believe also that you were on the phone? Which must have added to your distraction.”

  “I was, yes. Very, very briefly.”

  “You don’t have a hands-free?”

  “Not in the car I was driving, no. Well… that is to say, I do, but it wasn’t working properly. The car was brand-new, and there were teething troubles generally with the communication systems. The GPS wasn’t working properly either. I knew I shouldn’t have answered the phone, but I was pretty sure it was my wife; she’d been trying to get through, and she’d have been worried. And I had to get to my clinic in Harley Street…”

  “I see. But you were obviously driving perhaps unnecessarily slowly, given that you were under pressure. Why was that?”

  “Well… as I said, there’d been the storm; conditions were nasty. I was tired; I think I must have been feeling generally nervous.”

  “And then…?”

  “Then, as it says in my statement, I realised the lorry was all over the place, that it could be very dangerous. I literally flung the phone into the back and… next thing I knew, I was on the hard shoulder. With all the… the carnage about a hundred metres behind me.”

  “And then you walked back to see what you could do?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Which was very commendable. Well done. Now… I would like to ask you about the victims, and your undoubtedly splendid work amongst the injured… and I think that when I have finished, some of the relatives may want to question you. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  “I would like to call Abigail Scott. Miss Scott, please take the oath. But first we shall hear your statement from Sergeant Freeman…

  Bit of a baggage, this one, Andrews thought. Very attractive, and very, very sexy. Unlikely the relationship with Gilliatt had been purely professional. No doubt he’d considered himself perfectly safe… and then found himself skewered by fate.

  “Miss Scott. You were in the car with Mr. Gilliatt. I wonder if you can add to his evidence in any way, or rather confirm that, as far as you could see, there was no question of anything cutting in front of Mr. Connell’s lorry, from any direction, that might have caused him to swerve.”

  “No. Nothing. I saw the whole thing, obviously, and everyone seemed to be driving very carefully and well.”

  “Including Dr. Gilliatt?”

  “Yes, he was driving very carefully.”

  “But he admits himself he was distracted, that you and he were having a… a heated discussion?”

  “Yes. We were. But it wasn’t making him drive badly. He… he’s a very good and careful driver always.”

  “You’ve been driven by Mr. Gilliatt before, I assume from that?”

  “Yes. Yes, I had.”

  “In the course of your mutual professional duties, I presume?”

  There was a long silence; the legendary pin dropping would have sounded like thunder.

  Then: “Not always, no.”

  Andrews could feel the entire courtroom tautening.

  “Your relationship wasn’t entirely professional. Is that what you’re telling us? Remember, you are under oath.”

  “Yes. I mean it wasn’t. I… liked him a lot. For a while.”

  “I see. So… I want to keep this conversation relevant to the proceedings, Miss Scott.”

  “Of course.”

  “So… this heated exchange. Was it of a personal nature? I ask only because it seems to me that could have been more distracting for him.”

  “Well, it was personal. Yes. He had told me that he didn’t think we should continue with our… our friendship.”

  “And…?”

  “And I was… disappointed. So I was arguing with him.”

  “And… did you win this argument?”

  “No. No, I didn’t. Any ideas I had of continuing with our… relationship were futile. He made that very clear.”

  “Your relationship? I thought you said it was a friendship. Or do you regard the two as the same?”

  “Not really,” she said, and her eyes meeting his were what Andrews could only describe as bold. “I suppose you could say it was-had been-more than a friendship.”

  “Well, we need not concern ourselves with the precise nature of it,” said Andrews, aware that the entire court longed to concern itself exactly thus. “But you are still quite sure that this conversation didn’t distract him in any way from his driving?”

  “I’m quite sure.”

  “Or that you might have failed to notice something untoward or dangerous yourself?”

  “I’m sure about that too.”

  Then: “How did you get home from the crash? Did Mr. Gilliatt drive you?”

  “No, of course not. I told you. Our relationship was over. Anyway, I was helping to look after some little boys, the ones from the minibus. I went back to the hospital in the ambulance with one of them, who was having an asthma attack. Shaun, he was called; he was a great little boy. I’d had asthma as a child, so I knew how to help.”

  “Well… thank you for your frankness, Miss Scott. It’s been most helpful and much appreciated. Thank you. You may step down.”

  ***

  Andrews looked round the court; if this was a play he thought-and inquests so frequently provided wonderful theatre-it would be the obvious point for an interval. He called another break. He desperately wanted to get this over in one day.

  ***

  He heard evidence then from the young couple whose baby had been induced prematurely by the accident; he found them mildly irritating without being sure why. And then he said he would like to hear from Toby Weston, the bridegroom who had crashed into the back of them following a blowout.

  “But first we should hear your statement, Mr. Weston. Sergeant Freeman…”

  Weston stood up: good-looking young chap, Andrews thought, seemed pleasant, very conventionally dressed. He’d had a tough time, almost lost his leg. And missed his wedding. Fate again: relentless, unpredictable fate…

  “Er… could I say something, please?” Weston said.

  “You may, Mr. Weston. As much as you like. Once you have taken the oath. First we should hear your statement. Sergeant…”

  “Yes, but-”

  “Sergeant Freeman, please go on.”

  Freeman cleared his throat and began to read the statement; told of the desperate rush to get to the church, the buildup of delays… and how Weston had wanted to check the tyre pressures, had been concerned that one of them was soft. “‘However, Mr. Fraser, my best man, persuaded me not to, said it was unnecessary and that we should get on our way again.’”

  At which point another young man stood up very suddenly in his seat and said, “But… I… That’s not…” His face was scarlet and distorted with some kind of emotion; Andrews he
ld up his hand.

  “Your turn will come,” he said. “And I will decide when. Please sit down, and be good enough not to interrupt proceedings again. I would remind you this is a court of law, and you are required to show it a proper respect. Sergeant Freeman, continue, please.”

  Sergeant Freeman continued; and then Weston took the stand and the oath. Andrews watched him with interest. Another emotional revelation, perhaps?

  “Now, Mr. Weston, perhaps you would like to start by telling us what you wanted to say.”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, you see… well, that is, my statement wasn’t entirely correct.”

  “Really?” Andrews’s voice was full of innocent disbelief.

  “No. No, the thing is… that bit about the tyres, that’s not right. I… When I gave my statement to the inspector, I wasn’t at all well. I was in a lot of pain: I’d been running a temperature; I had an infection in my leg; they… well, they’d thought they might have to amputate. It had all been very traumatic; I was still very upset. And confused.”

  “I’m sure. Very understandable. I believe your leg is to a large extent recovered now.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is, thank you. Anyway, it was not correct to say that Barney-Mr. Fraser-had persuaded me… not to check the type pressures. It was at my insistence that we left immediately and drove on. I’d had… well, I’d had a rather… rather pressing call from my father-in-law-to-be. I just felt that we had to get to the wedding no matter what. Mr. Fraser was very anxious to check them, very unhappy at leaving them. I’m extremely sorry about the… the confusion. Really very sorry indeed.”

  “Well, well,” said Andrews, “thank you for that, Mr. Weston. Of course, we have heard from Forensics that in their opinion the blowout was caused by the presence of the nail in the tyre, so I don’t think you need to worry on that score. But accuracy in statements is, of course, very important, as I’m sure you realise, and mistakes can waste time and indeed change the outcome of an enquiry in certain instances. It’s always a pity when it is lacking, and indeed deliberate inaccuracies can be regarded as an offence. Do you have any other corrections?”