Instead, she pushed through the glass to the sidewalk, where, thank goodness, Clara still waited for her. From the back, Evie hardly recognized Clara. Two days ago she had turned up at dinner with a jet-black Betty Boop hairstyle complete with center parting and pin curls to replace her lank, mousey brown hair. If it wasn’t for her standard uniform of sturdy, military-style boots and laddered black opaque tights disappearing into the briefest of denim shorts, topped by an oversized floral shirt covered by more black in the shape of a cheap vinyl jacket, Evie’s gaze might have glanced off the girl on the corner to continue looking for her daughter.
Her heart dipped with the abrupt realization that Clara was maturing in ways that Evie could only observe, because Clara no longer confided in her. In the past, when Clara was little, Evie had longed for her to grow up, but now she found it difficult to bear. Probably because the growing up was accompanied by growing apart. At least they both still adored twentieth century black and white movies, she mused.
Her wistful thoughts were interrupted when she spotted a stylish coupé idling at the curb. She didn’t need to look twice to recognize Clara’s boyfriend, Bon Galliers’ Rolls Royce Dawn because he had the top down. His chiseled profile was clearly visible in a belligerent line as his square jaw thrust outwards. He didn’t look happy. Had he and Clara had a fight? Could that be the cause of Clara’s escalating hostile snipes lately?
Evie nudged her elbow into Clara’s ribs to draw her attention from her smart phone. “Isn’t that Bon?”
The car crawled along, coming to a stop beside them as they waited at the corner to cross. She hadn’t been out with Clara for months and had decided to splurge on dinner and drinks at one of the local pubs on the waterfront where they could sit and soak up the sun and pretend to be on vacation.
At Evie’s poke, Clara’s head reared up like an attacking cobra’s and an ugly scowl crossed her face when she spotted Bon. She lifted her finger in a rude gesture that shocked Evie. “Loser! Stop stalking me!” Clara launched herself forward to rap on the window shield. “Do you want me to call the police, is that it? And I want my property back!”
Bon just glared back at Clara. Evie found the sight of his blank, unblinking stare almost eerie. A muscle in his jaw quilted in and out as though he was clenching his teeth. Without saying a word, he inched the car straight past them through the intersection.
Evie pulled Clara back from the curb. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Clara had been dating Bon for nearly a year. But come to think of it she hadn’t seen him around the house lately. She had put that down to her crazy shift work, which meant she often saw Clara for only short periods in a twenty-four hour day. When her husband first died, Clara was only twelve and Evie had managed to wrangle day shifts only so Clara would never be alone at night. But as Clara had gotten older Evie had caved in to the lure of the better-paying night shifts, allowing herself to believe Clara’s entreaties that she was old enough to look after herself.
Clara wrenched away from her, flinging herself recklessly onto the road and zigzagging diagonally through the intersection. A car honked as Clara’s angry strides had her dodging annoyed drivers. Evie watched, her legs cemented to the sidewalk, her heart in her mouth.
Waiting a few seconds for a break in the traffic, Evie managed to cross straight over, bringing her to the opposite side of the road to Clara. The teenager maintained a resolute gaze straight ahead as she approached Richmond Bridge. Evie hurried her pace, hoping for a break in the traffic so she could cross over to Clara, but a steady stream of cars and buses moved in both directions, splintering her view of her daughter.
Evie loved the eighteenth century stone arch bridge, connecting the two halves of Richmond and leading into the heart of London, because its span was dotted with classic Victorian-styled lamp posts. On Evie’s side of the bridge, the boathouses ran underneath along a promenade bustling with tourists and visitors either intent on hiring a skiff to take out on the river or lining up for the passenger boats plying between Kew and Hampton Court. Today, there was no time to admire the riverside development because her focus was on catching up with Clara.
She squeezed past a knot of people watching the boats on the water and ran across Bridge Road to grab Clara by the elbow. They were a few paces from a metal bench tucked into a nook along the bridge and overshadowed by a huge sycamore tree. One of the lamp posts Evie loved stood like a sentinel in the corner. She pulled Clara down onto the vacant seat.
“Okay, my girl, tell me what’s going on. The last I knew, you and Bon were inseparable, so what’s happened?”
Clara’s face turned sulky. It was a practiced expression that Evie had been seeing a lot of lately. “I haven’t told you because I know how much you love Bon.”
The unspoken accusation in her words was that Evie loved Bon more than Clara. It was ridiculous, of course. But, the hint of truth in Clara’s words brought an uncomfortable flush to her cheeks. Evie did love Bon, as the perfect first boyfriend for her daughter.
She had been enchanted by Bon since Clara first introduced them. She loved that Bon kept his eyes trained on Clara even when he was speaking to Evie. It was the little things that made the difference, she thought. Like the way he would send flowers to mark any special occasion or how he would leap to open the door for Clara, and that he rang her diligently in the mornings before she left for school and again when she returned home.
Occasionally Evie wondered what attracted Bon to her daughter, for they moved in different social circles. As the son of Viscount Dunreath, Bon was a quintessential blueblood. Everything about his appearance screamed elitism and arrogance, but Evie had never felt patronized. To her he was a ray of light brightening Clara’s life of shadows. Prone to hiding behind a veil of hair and clothes without color, in winter she buried herself in heavy black hoodies and in summer she masked her face with black-tinted glasses.
But Clara’s accusation rammed home her guilty feelings and made her snap more brusquely than she intended, “Stop making up excuses. I may be fond of Bon, but you’re my daughter. Now, what haven’t you told me?”
“I broke up with Bon.”
The words struck Evie like a challenging gauntlet, but with her dark glasses and face shaded by the tree they were sitting under, it was impossible to read Clara’s expression.
“I was never really into him that much anyway. He was the one pushing to have a relationship. But he won’t accept it. He doesn’t believe that someone like me can dump an Hon.”
Evie would ordinarily have bristled at the “someone like me” comment. They might not be upper crust, but the compensation for her husband’s death had enabled Evie to pay off a huge chunk of the mortgage so they could keep living in Richmond on her nurse’s salary. Right now she brushed aside her annoyance to focus on Clara. Her rude reaction to Bon driving past them had startled Evie. She needed to reinforce for her daughter that breaking up with a boy wasn’t the end of the world.
“I gather from your behavior back at the cinema that the break up wasn’t amicable?”
Clara snorted. “Far from it. He’s been spying on me via social media, hounding me with snarky comments and texts. And today he just happened to be driving down Hill Street at the exact time we were leaving the Odeon. Really? Pretty big coincidence. I think he just wants to see who I’m going out with.”
Shocked by these revelations of drama unfolding in her daughter’s life, guilt flowered in her chest again. How could she not know what was going on in Clara’s social life? What kind of mother did that make her? She cleared her throat uneasily, wary of scaring Clara away from more disclosures. “And are you going out with someone else?”
While she waited for an answer, Evie sucked in a deep breath, full of reeking traffic fumes underpinned by the briny scent of the river.
Clara turned her head to the side, her fingers picking restlessly at the fraying edge of her floral shirt.
“Clara, it’s okay to be dating someone els
e. But I’d like to know his name at least and perhaps meet him sometime.” Afraid of being too pushy, Evie swallowed the rest of her appeal, letting the silence thicken between them.
Words edged reluctantly out of Clara’s mouth as she stared straight ahead. “It’s not a he. I’ve been seeing Jemma.”
Evie struggled not to close her eyes and gasp. For sixteen years Clara had given no hint of burgeoning sexuality, now she felt as though she was being pummeled in the chest with the knowledge that she hadn’t a clue about what had become important to her daughter.
“You think you’re a lesbian?” Spoken out loud the words sounded clinical and cold and Evie regretted them. But what else could she have said? So, being a lesbian, that’s cool. Or, just simply, that’s cool. Because of course it was, and of course it didn’t change her feelings towards Clara. She had always worried that Clara was a loner, like her, but maybe Clara had just been struggling to find herself?
Clara shrugged. “I don’t know, mum. Either that or bi-sexual. I did like Bon. But I didn’t like the way he pawed at me or seemed to think I had to be there at his beck and call.”
Using her hands, she pushed herself upright and walked towards the edge of the stonework, lodging herself in the rounded alcove before the bridge proper began. From there, Evie knew she would have a view over the Thames and the line of colorful skiffs resting bow to stern below them.
Evie remained seated, both to give Clara a moment of space and to absorb the impact of Clara’s admission. Perhaps her confusion about her sexuality was because of spending her impressionable teen years without a male figure in her life? She had been stringent about keeping her casual liaisons confined to the bedroom rather than her life. Had that been a mistake? Perhaps, for Clara’s sake, she should have developed a lasting relationship with another man and brought him into their lives? She chewed the inside of her cheek. That was why she had been so pleased when Clara brought Bon home, so sure that Clara was about to embark on a wonderful new stage in her life.
The honking of a car horn brought her out of her reverie. Traffic had been passing over the bridge in a constant blur of motion, but now she was aware that no cars had traveled the lane in front of her for several seconds. A loud squeal of brakes and screech of metal made Evie turn away from her daughter and look up the street. She squinted against the sun, but it looked like Bon’s distinctive car, the Rolls Royce Dawn, was stalled and blocking the traffic from crossing the bridge. Cars turning south into Bridge Road from the A307 T-junction were banked up behind him and one had crashed, either into him or one of the other cars, Evie couldn’t tell.
What was Bon doing? The drophead coupé had its top up and with the sun reflecting on his windshield it was impossible to see the driver, but from where he sat in his car she was sure he had a perfect view of Clara’s back as she gazed out over the river. Her nerves jumped with alarm. Why was Bon parked in the street? Was he following Clara, like she insisted? A trickle of people dribbled from their cars, clumping together on the sidewalk next to Bon’s car.
Suddenly his engine gave a roar as he gunned the accelerator, so loud she heard it over the traffic passing in the far lane. At first the car remained stationery, growling like a hungry lion as he kept the pedal hard to the floor. Then he revved the motor again and the car shot forward, its trajectory heading straight for Clara.
Leaping to her feet, Evie screamed Clara’s name. She was just a few short yards away but horror rooted her to the spot. All she could do was watch helplessly. In a split second she saw Clara turning towards her as Bon’s car jumped the curb. The front bumper connected first with Clara’s legs, buckling them from under her so her torso snapped forward. The hood struck her pelvis and her head crashed against the windshield before her body shot into the air over the roof of the car, the impact tossing her like a rag doll to land behind the car on the road surface, almost directly in front of Evie.
The powerful engine wasn’t deterred by the stone bridgework, instead it acted as a fulcrum, aiding its speed to launch the car over the railing to sail through the air.
As the silver streak of Bon’s coupé disappeared from view, outside sound faded from Evie’s consciousness. A howling wail buffeted her mind like a hurricane as her eyes locked on Clara. Her own body sagged, her legs buckling so she had to crawl over the sidewalk to collapse beside her daughter, oblivious to the van traveling in the opposite direction screeching to a halt just inches away. Cars piled into each other, bumper against bumper, some slewing into the opposite lane, which was clear around Evie, thanks to Bon’s earlier actions.
“Terrorists! Terrorists!” Tinny-sounding screams punctured her bubble of grief, but they were easy to ignore. Streaks of motion blurred around her peripheral vision like annoying insects, as drivers abandoned their stalled vehicles, joining fleeing pedestrians to leave Evie and Clara as stranded as though they were alone on a deserted island.
The keening wail welled up Evie’s throat, strangling her even as her nursing instincts kicked in.
Clara lay still on her back, her limbs splayed brokenly, black-clad legs twisted like a contortionist’s, one arm bent behind her. Evie tenderly stroked her forehead where a bruise colored the skin, as she gingerly tipped her head to check for airway obstructions. Blood oozed from a laceration on her cheek, dripping down into her black, Betty Boop curls. Bereft of her sunglasses, her startled eyes gazed sightlessly back at Evie.
The sobs now broke through, as Evie placed her fingers against Clara’s neck, desperately willing herself to feel a carotid pulse. There was none. She bent her head, listening vainly for any breath or heart beat. Gulping down her whimpers, she raised herself over Clara’s chest, the heels of her palms pummeling rhythmically against her torso. How many times had she seen crash victims in the emergency ward? She’d dealt with lacerations, fractures, concussions, hemorrhaging, hematomas, contusions, abrasions, torn ligaments. Too many times to remember each case clearly. She’d done her best to repair all those injured bodies. Why couldn’t she fix her own daughter?
Tears dripped onto her hands. She concentrated on counting her compressions.
Chapter 2
Tuesday 4 July
Vaguely Evie became aware of a soft buzz of sound as a few bystanders approached, breaking away from the cluster of people milling across the street.
“We’ve called emergency services. They’re on their way.” The words broke against her concentration as jumbled sounds. She was panting now as she forced her hands and arms to keep pumping against Clara’s chest.
“Here, let me help.”
Someone’s hands tugged gently at her shoulders, pulling her away while she watched another pair of hands take her place.
A red mist crept into Evie’s vision almost as though the blood vessels in her eyeballs had burst, coloring her view. Where was Bon? For the first time, she lifted her eyes from Clara. Shrugging herself away from the woman who was trying to wrap a jacket around her shivering body, she stepped back onto the sidewalk, moving towards the edge of the bridge. Scrambling over the broken stone, trying to locate Bon’s car, she didn’t feel the roughness catch at the skin on her hands and legs, scraping like a cat’s claws.
The car had virtually flown through the air, like a stone flung from a catapult, to crash nose first into the steps, a good ten yards below the bridge. The steps lead down to the water where a row of skiffs had rested, roped together, stern to bow. That chain had been busted by Bon’s car, which teetered on an angle, driver’s side now plunged into the water. From her vantage point she could see the driver’s head listing out the open window. It looked like the car was slowly sinking sideways. If it did it would take Bon with it.
She fought against hands grabbing hold of her clothes and yanking her back from the precipice. She hadn’t even realized she had been clambering over the shattered stonework to get to him until they pulled her back to the pavement.
“Take it easy, lady. The ambulance is almost here. They’ll do their best to make
sure the injured survive.”
Evie’s nostrils flared, as though the words were a pungent odor. Survive. Yes, as a nurse she was dedicated to empathizing, to listening, to nurturing, to ensuring the injured survived. Evie was known for her focus. In the emergency ward, it was imperative to focus on the life-threatening injuries before dealing with the superficial wounds. So that the patient would survive.
Cocking her head to the side she heard the faint wail of the ambulance siren. Would it reach them in time to save Bon if he wasn’t already dead? The way his head lolled his neck could be broken. Had he survived?
In a frenzy she pushed past the faceless crowd gathering with ghoulish curiosity, to locate the steps leading down to the embankment. Running full-pelt, she stumbled over the last steps, grabbing the railing to save herself from a nasty tumble. There were fewer people on this side. She caught herself thinking it was just as well, because on the Richmond Boathouses side the wooden-topped tables and flimsy chairs were crowded with people drinking their chardonnay or beer, sharing cocktails and conversing, reading their tablets, texting on their phones or listening to music through headphones. A car crashing into their midst would have been disastrous. Her breath hiccupped.
If only Clara hadn’t got upset about seeing Bon and stalked off, they would be down there right now. Clara would still be alive. Perhaps not smiling and laughing, but at least scowling and texting while Evie sipped a white wine and perused the menu.
Survive. Using the railing, Evie dragged herself upright, running over the grass straight towards the steps leading into the water. The Rolls Royce looked like it had snagged itself on the line of boats, and their buoyancy was the only thing stopping the heavy engine pulling the car fully under the water. The river lapped over the hood, trickling into the interior over the window rim on Bon’s side.
Courting Death Page 19
