by S J Bolton
Felix’s solicitor leant forward to study the photograph. ‘This is very indistinct,’ she said. ‘I can’t even make out what model of car we’re looking at.’
Felix could, but he had the advantage of knowing exactly what make of car it was; he’d been in it at the time. Objectively speaking, though, his solicitor was right. In the photograph, the car appeared nothing more than a blur against the dark background of the trees. There were no lights on that stretch of the A40, thank God, and the lights from the service station didn’t come anywhere close.
Sunday, 25 June. There had been no moon, and they’d talked about how dark the night was. Amber, who’d always had a fanciful side, had mentioned its possibility for black deeds. Shortly afterwards, Xav had announced that he was going to do the dare; his words had made it a dare, one that would ultimately challenge them all. Until that moment, Felix’s escapade a couple of weeks earlier had been a one-off.
‘Do you have a registration number?’ the solicitor asked.
They couldn’t have, Felix realised. If they’d had the registration number of the car back in June, he’d have heard of it long before now. For a fleeting second, he found himself wishing they had. Xav would have been fined, they’d all have been in trouble, but it would have blown over and they’d never have risked it again.
‘Not on that occasion,’ the detective said. ‘But we went back through the service station’s CCTV footage. It took us a while, but we found images of the same car entering the A40, in the early hours of the morning, travelling in the wrong direction, on five separate occasions.’
All five. They’d been recorded on tape every time they’d done it. How could they not have thought of that possibility?
‘Do you have a registration number?’ the solicitor repeated.
They couldn’t have. They’d have come for him long before now.
‘I’m coming to that,’ the detective said. ‘So, you see, Felix, I’m not buying this story that last night was a one-off because Megan was overtired or drunk, because in the first place, she wasn’t drunk, and in the second, she – or someone – had very obviously done it before.’
13
A telephone rang as Amber and Xav followed Megan’s mother along the narrow hallway. Megan’s mother turned quickly, her tear-stained face alarmed and hopeful at the same time.
‘That could be Megan,’ she said. ‘I need to get it.’ Standing to one side, she indicated the stairs. ‘Go on up. Second door at the top.’
Amber felt Xav’s fingers against her spine, pushing her on.
‘Hello!’ Megan’s mum’s voice was loud in the cramped space. ‘Meg? Is that you?’
On the landing, they faced four worn white doors.
‘Second one.’ Xav wanted to get this over with; Amber didn’t want to start.
She shouldn’t be surprised at how small and – yes – how mean Megan’s house was. She’d been outside it more than once, had seen the narrow front door, the dustbins in the street, the bikes chained to railings because there was no room for them in the houses. She should have expected the depressing interior but had simply never thought about it before. Megan’s life, her life outside the gang, had never entered Amber’s head.
Megan’s room was small, barely space for Amber and Xav to move around past the single bed, the desk and chair and the coat stand, strewn with Megan’s coats and jackets, which was serving as a wardrobe. Most of Megan’s out-of-school clothes were from the city’s charity shops and Amber had always assumed it was because Megan’s style veered towards the edgy, the retro, the quirky. In Megan’s bedroom, in an instant, Amber realised it had been driven by necessity. The whole room spoke of ‘not enough’.
Not enough money for new clothes. Not enough space on the narrow bookshelf for Megan’s collection of paperback classics. Not enough time or inclination to keep the windows cleaned or to repaper the walls.
Above the bed, the only ornamentation in the room beyond Megan’s own possessions, was a cork noticeboard covered in photographs of the six of them: on the river, in Port Meadow, in front of ancient stone buildings. In the centre was the official portrait taken after they’d been appointed senior prefects. The six of them leaned, gleaming and fresh, just a tiny bit smug, over the rail of the first of the white bridges leading to School Field.
‘Am, check the bed.’ Xav was already making his way through the bookshelf, pulling out volumes and shaking them to loosen anything tucked inside. ‘Get a move on.’
Amber dropped to the carpet – thin and a bit sticky – and felt beneath the bed for a large envelope, maybe a slim plastic bag. She slid her hands between the divan and mattress and shook first the duvet and then the pillow. The divan drawers were overflowing with Megan’s school clothes.
Downstairs, the muffled sound of talking had stopped. Megan’s mum was as slight as Megan herself, and would make little sound on the stairs.
‘Am, for God’s sake. Behind that board.’
On her feet again, Amber had lifted and replaced the cork board when the door opened. They were out of time.
‘They’ve charged her.’ Megan’s mum grabbed at the doorframe as though the climb up the stairs had exhausted her. ‘They’ve charged her with murder.’
‘What?’ Xav dropped the book he’d been holding as Amber felt something vice-like grip her chest. Murder? What was the woman talking about? Causing death by dangerous driving, Talitha had said, if they were unlucky; death by careless driving if things went Megan’s way. The harsher charge carried a maximum fourteen-year sentence, but Megan would serve seven years at most, fewer probably, because of her age and it being a first offence.
‘How can it be murder?’ Amber’s voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. ‘She didn’t mean to kill anyone – it was an accident.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Xav lean back against the desk.
‘There was a witness.’ Megan’s mum looked on the verge of collapse. An unhealthy sheen of sweat had broken out on her forehead. ‘On that bridge, the one that goes over the motorway.’
‘The A329,’ Xav muttered.
‘This witness said Megan drove straight at the other car. They said she meant to hit it.’
It was true, or sort of. They had driven into the path of the other car. Amber saw Xav’s face, as white as her own must be, saw his hands shaking, the clenching of his jaw as he swallowed hard. Dan had frozen at the wheel, unable to move, and Felix had grabbed it, trying to steer them to the hard shoulder. The other driver, though, had done the same thing and they’d only avoided a head-on collision because Felix had quickly steered them back again. To anyone watching, it could have looked like a deliberate attempt to cause a crash.
‘They said she’s done it before,’ Megan’s mum went on. ‘That she’s been doing it all summer. They won’t even let me see her.’
As though in a daze, Xav picked up the dropped book and put it back onto the shelf.
‘She’s eighteen,’ Megan’s mum said, as though announcing a fact they couldn’t possibly have known. ‘That’s an adult. I have no rights. I can’t do anything to help her.’
‘Does she have a solicitor?’ Xav said. ‘A good one, I mean. We can talk to Tal’s dad. He’ll know someone.’
‘Why, Xav? Why would she do such a thing?’ Megan’s mum – for the life of her Amber couldn’t remember her name – looked from Amber to Xav and then back again. ‘Did something upset her? Did she fall out with you two?’
It had been a massive mistake coming here. It should have been Talitha and Felix; they would know what to say, what lies to tell. There were no words in Amber’s head, and Xav seemed equally at a loss.
‘There’s been something wrong all summer,’ Megan’s mum went on. ‘Something happened. I thought it was boy trouble.’ Again, her eyes went from Amber to Xav and then back again. ‘Did she say anything to you?’
Megan’s mum gasped, as though suddenly the room was short of oxygen. ‘She was going to Cambridge,’ she wailed. ‘How could this have happened?’
14
Talitha had been at the window of the pool house for nearly half an hour, waiting, when finally, Xav and Amber came back. As she waved at Xav she saw, reflected in the window, Felix pouring himself another drink, although she’d already said it wasn’t a good idea. Dan was worrying her even more than Felix. Since getting back from the police station, he’d closed in on himself, barely speaking, knocking balls around randomly with the pool cue, although she’d never known him show the slightest interest in the game before. He hadn’t even told his parents what was going on.
‘Any luck?’ Talitha asked when Xav and Amber had joined them in the pool house.
Amber shook her head. ‘We felt like complete heels.’
‘We are complete heels.’ Xav collapsed into a chair. ‘Her mum’s an absolute mess and she’s got no one with her. There’s something else, guys. She told us—’
‘She let you look though?’ Felix was still behind the bar and if he stayed there much longer, Talitha was going to drag him out; she didn’t care what weight advantage he had over her. ‘Did you get into her bedroom?’
A ball, the blue, rattled against the wood and Daniel watched it bounce back over the green felt. He hadn’t even acknowledged Xav and Amber. Occasionally, his eyes drifted to the TV, playing silently in the corner.
‘It’s not in her bedroom,’ Amber said. ‘Listen, there’s some—’
‘Somewhere else in the house?’ Talitha said.
‘We could hardly search the whole house,’ Xav snapped. ‘Besides—’
‘We can when her mum’s at work,’ Felix suggested. ‘Drink, Xav?’
‘No!’ Talitha almost yelled. ‘For God’s sake, Felix, no one should be drinking.’
‘Keep your hair on.’ Sulkily, Felix put the bottle down. He didn’t though, abandon his own drink, keeping his hand firmly wrapped around the glass, as though Tal might take it from him.
Daniel had flinched at Talitha’s raised voice, as though still struggling with a hangover. ‘She may have left it in the car,’ he said.
‘Shit, I didn’t think of that.’ Felix was getting nasty. ‘I should have climbed inside while the tow truck had it swinging in the air.’
‘If she’s hidden it in the car, we can get it when the police release it,’ Talitha said.
Felix downed his drink. ‘She didn’t go to the trouble of getting proof only to hand it right back to us. It’s somewhere in the house and we have to look when her mum’s out.’
‘It’s risky,’ Talitha said as Xav and Amber shared a look she couldn’t interpret.
‘So is leaving it lying around,’ Felix replied. ‘I’ll sleep a lot easier if we know Megan can’t change her mind. Without that letter and the photograph, it’s her word against ours.’
‘Guys!’ Xav raised his voice. ‘You need to—’
‘Shush,’ Talitha darted to the TV and turned up the volume.
‘Oxford police have confirmed tonight that eighteen-year-old Megan Macdonald, a former head girl of the prestigious All Souls’ School in Oxford, has been charged with three counts of murder.’
Silence gripped the pool house as a photograph of Megan appeared. Taken shortly after becoming head of school, she crouched with the master’s dog, Poppy, by the river in Christ Church Meadow. She looked serious and beautiful, and with her short silver-blonde hair, a little bit edgy; the scholarship girl from a single-parent family who hadn’t only survived her six years at the most academic school in the country but had thrived there and come out on top.
‘Megan Macdonald will be remanded in custody until the trial, expected towards the end of the year,’ the newsreader read on, as the picture of Megan vanished. ‘And now the weather—’
Talitha switched the television off, amazed to see that her hands were trembling; she hadn’t known hands really did that.
‘Murder?’ Felix said. ‘How the hell can it be murder?’
‘We need to keep our voices down,’ Talitha said in hushed tones. ‘Dad’s in the house and sound carries with the windows open.’ She glanced out at the terrace as she spoke, as though her dad might be lurking outside. ‘He said earlier that the police are always asking themselves, “What are we not being told?” He was looking right at me when he said it.’
Daniel said, ‘You think he suspects something?’
‘He always suspects something,’ Talitha said. ‘It’s his nature.’
‘How can it be murder?’ Felix said again. ‘Dangerous driving, you said, Tal, at worst. Obviously, she didn’t mean to kill anyone.’
Xav said, ‘She didn’t kill anyone. Daniel did.’
Daniel’s hands tightened around the pool cue.
‘Don’t.’ Amber put a hand on Xav’s arm. ‘There was a witness,’ she added.
It took a second for Amber’s words to sink in. ‘What do you mean?’ Talitha said, and then she, Dan and Felix listened, in growing horror, as Xav, with occasional input from Amber, explained what they’d learned from Megan’s mum.
‘A witness will have seen us.’ Daniel looked ready to run. ‘We all got out of the car. That’s it, game over.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Xav said, hurriedly. ‘Am and I were talking on the way back. If we’d been seen, they’d have arrested all of us by now.’
‘But—’ Daniel couldn’t go on.
‘I think you’re right, Xav.’ Talitha was struggling to stay calm. ‘But a witness could make a big difference.’
At that moment, the door opened and Talitha’s father stood in the doorway. None of them had noticed him crossing the terrace. ‘Did you all see the news?’ he asked.
As Talitha nodded, Xav said, ‘We were wondering what you thought about the murder charge. We heard there was a witness on the bridge.’
‘Apparently so.’ Barnaby Slater didn’t even look at Xav. ‘A couple who missed the junction were performing an illegal U-turn on the A329 above the motorway. The passenger saw the near collision and then both cars stationary, one on the carriageway, the other having crashed.’
‘Did they stop?’ Xav asked. ‘Did they try to help?’
‘Apparently not. They thought the incident might be gang related, so they didn’t risk it. They drove onto the next exit and alerted the emergency services.’
Talitha felt tension draining from her.
‘Will Megan be convicted?’ Felix asked.
‘Too early to say.’ Talitha’s dad continued to address thin air rather than look at Talitha or any of her friends. ‘The CCTV footage the police got from the service station will be significant. It proves Megan was lying when she said she’d driven that way once, by accident.’
‘Suggests, not proves,’ Talitha corrected her father. ‘That’s what you said earlier. The police can’t prove the car on camera was Felix’s mum’s, and if they can’t do that, they can’t prove Megan was driving.’
Barnaby looked down his nose at his daughter. ‘Nevertheless, there’s a reasonable chance a jury will believe it was your mother’s car, Felix, and that it was Megan behind the wheel each time,’ he said. ‘And if the jury believe she deliberately put lives at risk six times, they won’t be at all sympathetic and they won’t consider it an accident. The sentence could be harsh.’
‘How harsh?’ Amber asked.
Barnaby shrugged. ‘Life. We’re talking two young children. Mind you, a lot can happen between now and the court date. The police will be wanting to talk to all of you again. You can certainly forget about going to Sicily on Saturday.’
‘Will they let us see her?’ Xav asked.
>
‘Almost certainly not,’ Barnaby snapped. ‘And if they do, you should assume your conversation will be witnessed or recorded. You all need to be very careful.’ He looked round the pool house, from one pale face to the next, finally making eye contact. He knows, Talitha thought.
‘It’s probably not a good idea for you to spend too much time together in the coming weeks. And on that subject, Tal, your mother and I would like you to join us for dinner. Ready in five minutes. Drive safely on the way home, the rest of you.’
The door swung shut behind him.
Amber was the first to break the silence. ‘We can’t do this. Megan wasn’t even driving the car.’
‘It makes no difference,’ Felix said. ‘Sorry, but it doesn’t. If we confess, it won’t get her off. We’ll go down with her.’
‘Felix’s right,’ Daniel said.
‘Well, you would say that,’ Amber snapped. ‘Three people died last night. I can’t believe how selfish we’re all being.’
‘Amber, shut the fuck up. We have to focus,’ Felix said. ‘The fact they let us all go means nothing. They need time to compare our stories, look for inconsistencies. They’ll want to talk to us again, and when they do, we can’t afford any mistakes.’
He looked at Xav. ‘Before you two got here, we were going through the dates when the car was seen on the road and talking about what we should say.’
‘We think, keep it vague,’ Talitha interjected. ‘That’s what I did today. Each time they threw a date at me, I said I couldn’t remember, that I was probably with you lot, because we’ve been together most of the summer, but I couldn’t say for certain.’
‘I said the same,’ Felix said. ‘I told them I needed to check my diary.’
‘We should stick to the truth as closely as possible,’ Talitha said. ‘We can say we were here on those nights, that we’ve had a chance to think back, look at diaries, ask parents, et cetera, and that we were definitely here. It’s the truth, so we shouldn’t try to pretend otherwise.’
Felix was nodding. ‘We got here, sometime late evening, probably after the pubs closed, and then we hung out, swimming, playing pool, watching movies. We went to sleep at some point and didn’t notice Megan slipping away.’
