Cliff Edge: a gripping psychological mystery

by Florrie Palmer

  She sighs and decides to think of something other than herself. What about Meg? What love life lies ahead for her? She is so pretty and so much fun. There are boys out there who would love her but however could she get to meet them? Llangunnor did not have a lot to offer in that department.

  There must be a way to help Meg be more independent. She has come to terms with her disability so well. Jane racks her brains and realises that although there are not many suitable men in Llangunnor village, there’s a great big police station brimming with horny, young, single PCs.

  She decides she will throw a party for her 23rd birthday in March. It will be at the station and she will invite the entire headquarters force. She began to cheer up after feeling rotten for thinking about her old lover. She would do her best to make 2018 the year in which Meg finds her metaphorical feet.

  7 January 2018, 1.20pm. Pembrokeshire

  As the team begin their search round the perimeter of the Cauldron, the wind has dropped which is a relief for all concerned, especially the police constables and sergeants who gingerly move on their hands and knees like four-legged animals stalking prey. They are studying every inch of ground as they go.

  It is a wide net and constables have been sent to check on rental properties from Nevern to Glanrhyd and Moylegrove.

  PC Rhys Roberts arrives back at the station. He was up early and has rung so many doorbells and knocked on so many cottage, farm and house doors that his knuckles hurt. But he has had what he feels was a successful morning. With only three more properties to visit before he had expected to return to Fishguard Town Hall with no information, he had struck lucky. Jane’s office door will be the last he will knock on today.

  ‘Come in,’ she says.

  He enters and shuffles on his feet while he waits for her to finish the form she is filling in. She puts down her pen and looks to him. ‘Any news, Rhys?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She raises her eyebrows and gestures for him to sit down. Jane listens carefully as the constable tells her how at a property near Moylegrove, a woman had opened the door with two dogs pushing at her legs. When he had put the question to her that he’d been asking all morning, she had seemed a bit uncomfortable. Roberts said he had seen a row of hooks in the porch on which hung outdoor coats and walking poles. He’d asked the standard questions, taken the woman’s usual address in Cambridge and advised her to remain at the house the rest of the day as his superiors would want to ask her some more questions. Roberts had some nous and Jane made a mental note to bear it in mind.

  ‘I smell a rat there, ma’am. The woman appears to be there alone which is strange. When I asked if the place belonged to her, she said she had been a guest of the owners over Christmas, and they had both gone missing. She had tried to contact them with no luck and hadn’t known what to do since one of the dogs was theirs, so she had stayed in the hope they would return. Sounded very fishy, I thought. I think we should take a look. Oh, and by the by, I snapped a photo of her in case she tried to make a getaway. I also noted the number plate of her car.’

  ‘Excellent work, constable.’ Jane looks at the picture. She recognises her. She interviewed her three days ago about the missing woman who cleaned the house occasionally. She said she was a guest of the owners. They were out that day. How come she’s still there alone? Now she or they may be associated with a death by drowning. Jane’s antennae quiver with interest. ‘Met this one before. By the way, I’d like you to come with us later, Roberts. Okay?’

  Roberts grins broadly, unable to extract the excitement from his reply. ‘Oh, yes… I mean, yes of course, ma’am. Certainly, ma’am.’ So much more interesting than the usual drudge of paperwork, clearing road accidents and so on.

  Jane buzzes through to Evans and asks him to find out fast as he can what rental agency deals with the letting and when he’s found it to ask them whether the place is currently let or not, who owns it and so on. She suggests he tries the local ones first. ‘So, crack on with that then and soon as we know, we’ll get over there.’

  Evans likes investigative work. It’s his forte. He summons a few members of the force to help track down which agency lets the property and gives a local list to himself.

  While Jane has a moment, she calls Meg. ‘Hey. How’s it going?’

  ‘Not good, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Now don’t go being upset, Janey, but I fell out of the chair, see?’

  ‘You fell? Meg? Oh God, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? How in God’s name? Was Carys with you? Why didn’t you or she call me? Are you back in the chair safe and sound?’ Jane’s head spins. She feels entirely responsible for her sister and worries constantly about her welfare. It wasn’t always easy juggling her job and caring for Meg but mostly it goes okay. It is only when things don’t go smoothly that she finds it hard. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, darling, I’m bombarding you. Just tell me, lovely, are you all right?’

  ‘Firstly, I’m all right so don’t worry now but I’ve done something to my left wrist. It’s very painful. Carys just popped out but she’ll be back in a while and the doc’s on the way now. I didn’t call as I know how busy you are at the moment.’

  ‘Was Carys there when it happened?’

  ‘She’d just popped across to do something for her husband.’

  Jane’s voice was sharp. ‘What time was that, then?’

  ‘Oh, around two o’clock, I think it was. But don’t worry, I’m just a bit bruised and the wrist’s unhappy but I’ll live.’

  The sisters shared a fighting spirit.

  ‘You in much pain, lovely? How in hell did it happen?’

  It was explained that the doorbell had gone and Meg had manoeuvred her chair to the front door. When she had tried to reach the lock to turn the catch, the front wheels of the chair had caught up with the doormat and as she had tipped her body forward, she’d leant too far and fallen. She’d tried to stop herself from falling out but one of her legs had become trapped behind the footrest bar and over she’d gone, her wrist taking the brunt of the fall.

  Meg laughed but Jane could tell she was trying hard to sound more nonchalant about the incident than she probably was. It must be frightening to be cast on the floor, in great pain and alone. Although she knew it was unreasonable, Jane felt annoyed with Carys for leaving her sister. And why hadn’t she taken Meg straight to the doctor? She should have loaded the chair into her estate car, the car that Jane had partially paid for so that the wheelchair could fit in the back.

  ‘I never did get to answer the door. The bell rang once more then whoever it was went away. When Carys came back a few minutes later, she couldn’t get in as I was wedged up against it. Lucky you’d given her a back door key, wasn’t it? Anyway, she helped me back into the chair and called the doctor right away.’

  ‘Couldn’t you use your mobile?’

  ‘That’s the thing, see, I’d left it on the big table.’

  ‘Oh Meg. Not wise, not wise at all. Remember what I’ve told you a thousand times about keeping it with you.’

  ‘I know, I know. But I knew Carys would be back soon. The fucking pain wouldn’t lessen whether I was in my chair or on the floor. I was okay waiting.’

  Meg had always liked to have the last word and had never been lightly spoken.

  Their father, an electrician, and mother, a dental assistant, Jane and Meg had grown up in Radyr, a suburb north of Cardiff with a brother, Griff, six years younger than Jane and four years older than Meg. The family had been a happy one. Her parents set the bar with their kindness to others, their hard work, their care and love of their children and each other. Like most families, this one had not been perfect. Dad had been capable of extreme grumpiness, and Mum had an overfondness for shopping and a lack of care with money that used to aggravate Dad a good deal. A typical boy, as a child Griff was naturally self-centred, Meg an attention-seeker and Jane herself had a surfeit of ambition as well as a strongly stubborn and determined s
treak. The latter was to come in very useful in the future that lay ahead of her.

  On October 5th, 2013 at about 10.50, Mr and Mrs Owen and Meg, eighteen years old at the time, set off to visit Mrs Owen’s elderly great-aunt in Cardiff for her ninety-fourth birthday. They boarded an eight-carriage diesel train on the City Line at Radyr that took a quarter of an hour to reach Cardiff and they travelled at the back of the front coach.

  At 11.06, a Cardiff train departed for Swansea. About two miles to the west, the route crossed over the mainline between London and South Wales. The diesel train on which they were travelling should have been held safely at a red signal until the points were set correctly and the way was clear. But it passed the red signal and ended up running the wrong way along the mainline. It collided nearly head-on at a combined speed of about 130 miles per hour with the train from London to South Wales carrying 421 passengers.

  No warning, no screech of brakes: there was just a huge deafening bang, and they were thrown about, carriages lurching, rolling and crashing.

  As well as hearing the impact, Meg, who had been sitting with her back to the direction of travel, had felt it through her seat. For a moment or two, it had seemed that they might be all right, since the train had continued on its way. But then it had derailed and the wheels had ploughed over the sleepers and through the ballast beside the tracks until it had done a half somersault before crashing onto its side.

  The high-speed train was a much more substantial construction than the smaller train, the leading car of which was totally destroyed. The diesel fuel carried by the smaller train was dispersed by the collision and ignited in a giant fireball that caused a series of separate fires in the wreckage of the carriages.

  The drivers of both trains died, as well as twenty-nine others: twenty-four on the diesel and six on the high-speed train.

  Sometime around three o’clock in the afternoon, while on the beat in Swansea, young PC Jane Owen had received an urgent call. Almost unable to string her words together, the shocked young constable had managed to phone her boss and explain what she had been told. He had unhesitatingly sent a police car to pick her up and race her to the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff.

  In the crash, Mrs Owen had died first. She had been violently thrown across the train and hit her head hard against a steel upright bar before falling to the floor with others on top of her. Mr Owen was jettisoned onto the floor where, as the carriage rolled, suitcases and bags from the racks above hurtled down onto him, followed by people. His neck had been broken but he was still breathing when the rescuers had cut through the wreckage and got to him.

  The rescuers had got Mr Owen into one of the first ambulances to arrive but he had died on the way to hospital.

  They had then found Meg, unconscious. Because of her serious injuries, medics decided to put her neck in a brace, strap her tightly to a stretcher and winch her up into an air ambulance helicopter that could get her to the hospital faster than any of the muddle of emergency vehicles that were now banked up on the roads near the scene.

  It was just after they got her out that a fire had engulfed the carriage. The fire brigade had done their best but it was a powerful fireball and burnt hard before they could put it out. The most seriously injured and those in danger of dying were moved first so Meg was one of the earlier victims to arrive at the hospital.

  About ten minutes after Meg was rescued from the train, she had briefly recovered consciousness and been able to tell a nurse her sister’s name and that she was in the Swansea police.

  Their brother Griff was studying to be an engineer at a college in Swansea. Jane called and he came as fast as he could.

  When Jane had arrived at the hospital, Meg had already sunk back into unconsciousness. Desperate, Jane asked whether her mother or father were in the hospital but in the chaos that followed the tragedy, no one seemed to know. That they were missing had soon become certain.

  Somehow, the way people do get through terrible things, Jane and her brother had gone through the crisis and together the pair had howled with pain and grief. They had stayed at the hospital, hoping against hope that Meg would come around. When eventually she had done so, she had been in great pain and could not feel her legs. The doctors explained that she had sustained a severe injury to the lower spinal cord that had resulted in paraplegia. She would never walk again. Her right shoulder blade had fractured, the humerus dislocated and the surrounding tendons had been badly torn. She had broken her right wrist. She had lost a front tooth and bitten through her cheek but fortunately, apart from bruises and cuts, her head had escaped injury.

  In the next couple of days, the blackened, dead bodies had been gradually brought into the nearest hospital morgue where relatives were invited to view them or if they were too badly burnt, to inspect the charred remains of watches, rings, wallets, handbags, jewellery or any other personal items that had survived the fire in their attempts to identify the victims. It had been a horrendous experience for the families who could smell the diesel and the smoke on the bodies and personal items. Jane had had to identify her missing mother by means of a charred bracelet and her engagement ring.

  Jane and Griff had gone through the most horrible feelings they could imagine. Time had frozen, leaving them feeling like zombies who didn’t know which way to turn.

  Meg had had to become her siblings’ main concern now. The grief they had felt for their parents had had to be contained when they were at her bedside. The doctors had agreed with Jane to delay telling Meg the full news about their parents. Since they didn’t visit the hospital, obviously she realised something was up, but Jane had allowed her to think they were injured rather than dead.

  There would never have been enough time for her to absorb the shock of what had happened to her, but inevitably the news had had to be broken sooner rather than later.

  The poor young girl had subsequently sunk into a quagmire of despair. It had made dealing with her paraplegia doubly difficult. But in time and with the aid of tablets and counselling, Meg had sourced some fight in herself and once she had, a great deal of courage and endeavour had emerged.

  Since the terrible accident that destroyed their lives, at the age of twenty-seven, Jane had to make a huge sacrifice to become Meg’s father, mother, sister, carer and friend. Given a decent compassionate leave, she used the three months to get all the help the state could offer for Meg when she came out of hospital. She turned the dining room into a downstairs bedroom for her and the NHS had helped, adding a specially adapted shower to what was luckily a generous-sized downstairs toilet for the newly disabled girl.

  Meg was in the hospital for six months where she had extensive physiological help as well as physiotherapy to teach her to do as much as she was able for herself, but that she was paralysed from the waist downward was undeniable. Her shoulder injury had affected a nerve that had made it difficult to use her right hand and meant she could not lift it higher than about twelve inches. In time, physio did help with that injury and very slowly she acquired more movement.

  Unfortunately, Jane’s boyfriend had fallen at the first hurdle and broken up with her. Deeply hurt though she had been, she had realised that such a man would never have been worth the having.

  Griff did what he could but he was not yet working and Jane and he agreed he must somehow finish his course. Their mother’s sister came twice a week to give Jane time off from this terrible burden and other members of the family stepped forward to do what they could. But after the initial horror of it all had eased, their help gradually waned. Jane didn’t hold it against any of them as they had their own lives to lead. Social service’s support was helpful but the truth was that it was still nothing near enough. Meg needed a great deal of care.

  As the years have gone by, Jane has built a generally good system of care support that has meant she can continue to work. This is vital not only financially but for Jane’s own sanity and well-being. She knows she would not have been able to bear caring for her
sister for the rest of her life without something to escape to and she loves her work.

  Her workmates have been extremely supportive of the enormous burden that has landed on her small shoulders. They are very fond of her and lost in admiration at how she has managed. On the occasions when Meg has had to see doctors or her specialist, they have stood in for Jane with no hesitation.

  When Jane was offered a place at the Carmarthen headquarters as a junior detective, it had meant a rise in salary and an opportunity she had always wanted. She had sold the old Radyr house, given a portion to Griff and bought the bungalow in Llangunnor in which they now live.

  Once Meg had come to terms with her fate, she turned out to be an excellent patient who seldom grumbled. She has adapted so well that she has managed to keep her strong sense of humour intact, and she shares the family trait of determination, inherited from their adored mother.

  She remembers nothing about the crash. She doesn’t recall being in pain, or afraid, or bloody and battered from the multiple cuts to her face and hands. But Jane remembers everything. Whenever anything happens to Meg it brings all the trauma back and she cannot help feeling anxious.

  However light Meg makes of her fall out of the wheelchair, this phone call has reawakened all Jane’s fears about her sense of responsibility for her sister.

  11

  Summer 2017. Trumpington

  When, to her surprise, Sara looked back at the darkness that had encompassed her mind during her breakdown, she was not sure how she had got through those months of despair and the weeks of waiting for the pills to kick in. But the knowledge that they had helped her out of a morass of misery dared her now to believe that although she was not yet sure what, something good would come to her life soon.