The Glass Tower

by Gregg Dunnett

  As they talked Julia began to wonder if it actually might be possible – appropriate even – to stay involved, rather than simply dropping the couple off. Perhaps she could go into the house and accept the gratitude of Becky's parents, and reassure them that their daughter was okay, and had been safe and sensible in her decision to climb into a stranger's car? Yes, it was nearly midnight, but it was possible the parents were still up, perhaps even worrying. And if they were anything like as nice and interesting as Becky herself was – well that would be even more lovely...

  "Look out!"

  The voice was Rob's, but before Julia could even register this, there was the BANG! of an impact. Julia jerked forwards, and flinched as what looked like the wheel of a bicycle went bouncing off the bonnet of the car, then flew past the windscreen. Her foot went to the brake and pressed it hard. They hadn't been travelling that fast and the little car shuddered and slipped to a halt. They all sat in silence.

  "Shit." Rob said loudly. He opened his door, then fumbled to release his seatbelt.

  "What was that?" Julia asked, her voice still normal, disbelieving.

  "A bike." Rob finally released himself and struggled now to get his large frame through the car door. "It was a woman on a bike. You just fucking hit her."

  Julia blinked and said nothing. She gripped the steering wheel through her driving gloves, strangely aware that the elation within her was fast slipping away, as if draining out of an ever-expanding hole in the bottom of her mind. A kind of bewilderment took its place.

  Then Julia realised that Becky had left the car as well. The engine was still running. It occurred to her that she could just drive off. She could leave the couple behind, and then whatever had happened – she still didn’t know what that was – would be left behind too. Or perhaps wouldn’t have happened at all. But the passenger door was open. She couldn't drive with the passenger door open. So instead she uncurled her fingers from their grip on the steering wheel, swung open her own door and stepped outside.

  About fifty yards behind the car she saw, in the darkness, the boy bending over a shape in the road. Becky was standing next to him, her hands pressed against her cheeks. Julia found herself walking towards them. She felt like she had moved outside her own body, and was watching an actor perform her movements – badly. She could hear her own breathing, hard and fast.

  The moonlight threw the slightest of shadows on the grey asphalt. Julia's eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

  "Is she okay?" she heard a voice say. It was Becky. The figure in the road began to take a human shape, albeit twisted and wrong.

  "Is she okay?" Becky asked again, more insistent this time.

  "I didn't see her," another voice offered, tremulous and weak. Though she barely recognised it, Julia realised the voice was hers. "I didn't see her."

  Then Becky began moaning. A low, consistent tone, as if she had been wounded herself.

  "Rob?" Becky finally managed. She almost begged him. "Is she okay?"

  "I don't think so," he replied.

  None of them spoke for a long moment.

  "What do you mean?" Julia said at last. She sounded more herself again. "You don't think so? What does that mean?"

  "It means she's not breathing," Rob said. There was a clear undertone of anger in his voice. "What do you think it means?"

  "Well, she must be. She has to be." Julia heard herself laugh at the absurdity of any alternative. "She has to be okay. Doesn't she?"

  She hesitated again, and then something made her reach down, as if to check the prone figure in the road for herself. It was like pushing her hands through a portal into a horrible new universe, but still she did it. She touched the woman's coat with the tips of her gloves. But went no further.

  "Can't you give the kiss of life, or..."

  Becky's moaning got louder and louder.

  "Shut up, Becks," Rob said. He turned back to Julia. He was breathing heavily.

  "I can try," he said. Julia felt herself being pushed roughly out of the way. She didn't resist, but watched Rob as he rolled the figure onto its back. The way it moved – lifelessly – had a particularly sickening impact in the moonlight. It was hard to see for sure, but it looked as though Rob pinched the woman's nose – Julia could see she was not a young woman – and she felt a moment's disgust as Rob’s lips closed over the woman’s face. It wasn't clear if he knew what he was doing, or if he was simply copying the actions he had no doubt seen on countless TV shows and films.

  "Oh my God," Becky said. "It's not working." Julia turned to stare at her.

  "How do you know? Have you done medical training? Has he? Has Rob?"

  "No! He told you. He's studying engineering."

  "Did you see her?" Julia asked now. She remembered how she had been daydreaming about meeting Becky's parents just before the impact. Had she turned around to say that to Becky? She couldn't remember.

  Then another consideration suddenly flooded Julia’s brain. The concept of blame.

  "Did she have lights?" Julia asked. “On her bike?”

  "Yes! No. I don't know. I sort of saw her. I thought you had too. Oh my God," Becky replied.

  "But did she have lights?" Julia asked again.

  "Will one of you two fucking help me!" Rob interrupted them from the ground. Becky dropped at once to do what he asked, and now Julia was the only one standing back, watching with an ever-deepening sense of horror as Rob blew into the woman’s face and Becky pumped her palms on her chest. After what seemed like an eternity, they stopped.

  "It's no good," declared Rob. He got to his feet. The moonlight revealed the shine of sweat on his brow. Becky was moaning again.

  "What do you mean no good?" Julia asked.

  Rob turned to face her. "I mean she's dead."

  Five

  Rob stalked off back towards the car. The rear lights glowed in the darkness of the road ahead. A small trickle of smoke flowed out from the exhaust pipe.

  "Where are you going?" Becky asked.

  "To get my phone," Rob shouted back. "It must have fallen onto the seat."

  Julia and Becky were left alone. Becky climbed to her feet and stared at the body, her face reflected pale in the moonlight. Neither of them spoke. Julia noticed, by the side of the road, the bicycle. She walked over towards it. When she got there she stared at the machine. It was an old-style shopper-type bicycle with a basket on the front – just the thing you would expect an old lady to ride. Just not at midnight on an unlit country road.

  "There's no lights," Julia said to Becky. "She wasn't using lights."

  Rob was coming back from the car now, his hand glowing where he held a mobile phone.

  "No signal here, either. Can you try yours?"

  Julia supposed he meant Becky and she watched while the young woman also pulled out a phone. After staring at it for a few moments, Becky shook her head.

  "Nothing, not even one bar."

  There was silence for a moment. Julia had absolutely no idea what to do next.

  "Well?"

  Julia turned. She suddenly realised that Rob was talking to her. "Do you have a signal or not?"

  "My... my phone’s in my handbag," Julia said.

  "Well go and fucking get it!"

  Without replying Julia did what he said. Actually, it was a relief to get back to the car, to get away from that horrible shape in the road.

  The warm, bright icons of her mobile phone's home screen were comforting too, once she unlocked the screen. So much so that Julia thought for a moment that it was working as normal. But then she realised that for her too, the symbol indicating the signal was missing. Still she hesitated a moment before returning to where Rob and Becky were standing.

  "Nothing," she said, then went on, "what do we do now?"

  As if in response Becky began quietly sobbing. Rob turned and wrapped his arms around her, then said something quietly in her ear. Julia felt a sudden and utterly irrational rush of jealousy that Rob hadn't taken her in his arms,
and it was the absurdity of this thought that shocked her into action. She looked around, trying to work out what options they had available to them. They were on a quiet and empty part of a little-used road. And it was past midnight. The moonlight was enough to make out the road stretching perhaps a quarter mile in front of them and a good two hundred yards behind to the last corner. There were no street lights. No pavements. There were no houses, or buildings of any kind in sight along the road. And looking out over the fields there were no lights from any homes either, although the glow of Dorchester was visible on one side, perhaps five or six miles away. Julia supposed there may be houses too, out in the darkness, but the occupants were surely asleep by now, which explained the lack of lights. She wished, more than anything in the world, that she were tucked up in her own bed, with Edgar curled up on the duvet beside her. She shivered. It was a cold night, too. Above them the moon and the stars twinkled.

  "Are you quite sure…?" Julia began, addressing her question to Rob. "Are you quite sure she's...?" She couldn't bring herself to say the word 'dead'. But he seemed to understand anyway.

  "I think so," he replied, and his voice was steady now, as if comforting Becky had calmed him down too.

  "I'm not an expert, but she definitely isn’t breathing and I couldn't find a pulse." He turned to look at Julia.

  "It's kind of weird to touch her. If she really is... You know."

  And suddenly, despite his physical size, Julia realised just how young Rob was. He was just a boy. A scared boy.

  "She looks really old," Rob went on. "Like ancient. So maybe it was a heart attack or something?"

  Julia swallowed, forcing herself to focus. Was that possible? If so it seemed to offer a glimmer of hope.

  "Do you mean, she might have had a heart attack that made her swerve across the road?"

  "Sort of. Although she didn't really swerve. It was more like you hit her and then she had the heart attack."

  Julia turned away, feeling her stomach churn. She forced herself to walk the few steps to the body. This time she didn't recoil but crouched down beside it and tried to observe. The face was of an elderly woman, perhaps older than Julia had thought before. But even so she looked fit. Her hair was short and white, and she wore a scarf that had partially come loose, perhaps from the impact, or perhaps from Rob's attempts to resuscitate her. Her eyes were open and staring, and it gave the impression of life. But no part of her was moving. Her chest was still. She was wearing a cashmere sweater under a woollen coat, which Rob had pulled open, but none of it moved with the normal roll of breath. She was quite still, like a log. She wasn't lying normally, either. Not like a person might lie in bed. Rob had rolled her onto her back, but her legs had not fallen into the normal position, although Julia couldn't see what was wrong. Perhaps a broken leg. Maybe where the bumper of the car had impacted her. Julia screwed her eyes shut at the thought, then forced herself to keep looking. The woman wore trousers, with bicycle clips around her ankles. There was no blood, thank God. That might have been too much.

  There seemed no reason to touch her, to check for a non-existent pulse for example.

  Julia got back to her feet, and she sensed that both Rob and Becky had moved closer to her. She felt a hand placed softly on her shoulder.

  "Are you okay?" It was Becky. She seemed to have regained some of her composure too, and she didn't move her hand from Julia's shoulder. It felt nice.

  "You must be in shock. This is so horrible."

  Julia felt herself nodding.

  "Rob says we should wait until someone comes along, and then they can go for help," Becky said.

  Julia nodded again. "Okay," she said.

  She looked up the road. It stretched away into the darkness. She turned around and looked the other way. Still there was nothing to see, just the line of a hedgerow, rising up behind a low ditch. The scene was partially illuminated by the moonlight, disappearing into the distance.

  "I don't remember seeing a single car since we left the main road," Julia said. She wasn't deliberately trying to find fault with the idea, she was just speaking words as they appeared in her mind. But the consequence of it struck her.

  "Did you? I don't think I saw a single other car."

  "I don't know," Becky replied. "I wasn't... I wasn't really paying attention."

  For some reason, this made Julia feel just a little better about the situation. She wasn't the only one who hadn't been paying attention. It made it less her fault.

  "And she had no lights on," Julia said, returning to this theme.

  "Really?" Becky said this time. "I mean that's stupid. Really bad."

  "Yeah. How was I supposed to see her? How was anyone supposed to see her? We were just unlucky." Somewhere in Julia's mind a question formed, causing her to pause – who was more unlucky, those in the car, or the woman lying dead on the road surface? But the question didn’t quite make it to her consciousness, leaving only a vague feeling of emptiness.

  "Anyone that happened to drive down this road would have ended up hitting..."

  "She did have lights," Rob interrupted her, his voice cool. "I saw them, they weren't very bright but I saw them."

  For a moment Julia was silenced.

  "Well, why didn't you say something?" Julia asked at last. But Rob either didn't hear her or ignored her. He walked the few steps to the bike, and this time he picked it up.

  "Look, they're on a dynamo. They only work when you pedal. I guess she wasn't peddling very fast." He stopped and looked up and down the road as well. Clearly he had reached the same conclusion that Julia already had. If they were going to wait for another car to come along, they might be waiting for a very long time.

  "Well, why didn't you say something?" Julia asked again. She heard the growing anger in her voice.

  Rob turned to look at her. He was shaking his head.

  "I dunno. I just assumed you'd seen her. I..." He shrugged and then his shoulders drooped. Again, the movement revealed him to be just a boy, and the anger within Julia dissolved at once.

  "Maybe we should go and get some help?" Julia said, a few moments later. "If we struck out over the fields we might come across a house and they could phone for help."

  "Which way?" It was Becky who replied. "I can't see any houses so we could be walking for ages. And it's not easy walking cross-country in the dark."

  Julia looked around again. There was no obvious footpath to follow and she had to accept Becky had a point.

  "Well, along the road then?"

  "It might be dangerous. What if someone comes along driving too fast?"

  They were all silent for a moment after that comment.

  "Maybe we should drive to get help?" Rob weighed in after the silence became oppressive.

  "We can't," Julia said at once. "We can't leave the scene of an accident. It's against the law."

  "Well, what then? We can't just wait here all night. There might be no one along this road until the morning."

  Julia sighed, a long slow exhale of breath. Then an idea occurred to her. "Maybe you could stay here while Becky and I go for help?" It wasn't until the words were out that she realised she had assumed he would be the one who stayed, alone in the darkness, with just the dead woman for company. She shuddered, and whatever Rob thought of the idea he didn't reply.

  Suddenly there was a small flash. Julia turned and saw Rob was taking photographs, using his phone.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "I'm recording the scene. That way we can all leave. And the police will be able to see how things were. You know, for evidence. Because what else can we do? They'll have to understand," Rob carried on, his flash firing again and again in the darkness. A couple of times it went off in Julia's eyes.

  For a few minutes no one spoke at all. Rob moved around them, taking more pictures, and Becky stood tapping at her mobile phone, as if she might persuade it to find a signal through perseverance. When Rob finished, he moved over to the woman's bicycle and picked
it up again. He wheeled it forward for a little while.

  "It still works," he said. "You didn't hit her that hard."

  He told Becky to hold the handlebars while he lifted the back of the bike and spun the pedals round with his hands. As the wheels spun there was the soft burring sound of the dynamo and a faint red light lit up his face. The front light came on too, but it was incredibly weak.

  "How the hell could she see where she was going?” Rob asked. "And where was she going anyway?" He let the bicycle rest back on the ground. "I mean, what the hell was she doing cycling in the middle of nowhere this late at night?" His voice was becoming angry again. Julia felt herself nodding in agreement.

  "She was asking to get herself killed. Stupid." Rob sighed. He stopped speaking.

  "Maybe she lives somewhere near here?" Becky said after a while. "Actually, maybe if we drive on a bit, we can find her house. Maybe she'll have a phone, and we can call the police from there?"

  Julia was about to reply that it didn't matter whose house they found, as long as there was someone there and they had a telephone. But then a second thought occurred to her. When Julia had been checking her phone, it was an ambulance that she pictured in her mind. A big, brightly-lit, comforting ambulance, full of confident, professional doctors, who were somehow going to come and fix the situation. But Becky had moved on from that. It was the police she wanted to phone.

  "Why the police?" Julia asked.

  "What?"

  "Why the police?" she said again. Julia saw Becky twist to look at her.

  "We need to tell them. There's a woman that's dead! We have to tell them."

  For a long moment, Julia absorbed the reality of that. Of course Becky was right and she was wrong. But what would the police do? Would she, Julia, have to go with them? Would she have to sit in an interview room? Would they record the interview, like they did on the TV? Did she need a lawyer? Oh God! Where could she get one? She remembered how her agent had used a lawyer, to negotiate the contract she had signed. What was his name? Could she get him to come and help her? Or would he be in bed now? Would it wait until the morning…?