by Anna Legat
‘Could it be the accident – the shock of it?’
‘That’s what he said at first, and I believed him. They referred him to that therapist, a psychologist through the NHS. I forget her name, a foreign sounding name... He went a couple of times, and stopped. It wasn’t helping him, he said. He had nothing to talk about, didn’t remember anything. But I don’t think it was the accident. Why would an accident make a man abandon his family?’
‘I guess the trauma –’
‘He started going off the rails way before the accident. Now I can see it, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? The accident just tipped him over the edge. But it didn’t take much, he was already halfway there.’ She glances furtively towards the closed kitchen door, then turns to Gillian and says, ‘I don’t want the boys to know any gory details. I don’t know what to tell them. It’s best if they’re thinking it was the accident that made Dad a little confused. And I want them to think Dad’s going to get over it, so we’re just waiting for him to come to his senses, and to come back home.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper, ‘But I know better.’
‘What do you mean he started going off the rails?’
‘Firstly, he lost the promotion. Didn’t tell me. I found out from my own sources. Then the car antics! He never cared about what car he drove – anything with four wheels would do. Then, out of the blue, he goes and gets himself this ultra-expensive convertible. Some vintage model. Aston Martin of all cars! It cost an arm and a leg – money we don’t have! So he goes and re-mortgages the house! We were just one year from paying it off and now I’m stuck with another five years of mortgage repayments while he and the car are both gone! God knows where!’
Gillian thinks – a classic case of midlife crisis doesn’t necessarily signify going off the rails, but then some cases may be more severe than others. Perhaps Trevor Larkin had taken his to an entirely new level.
‘I should’ve never trusted him with money and the house! Would you believe he was able to move all our accounts to a different bank, somewhere in Greyston, Newport Street, and he got all those loans without me ever realising what he was up to? For God’s sake! We’ve been banking all our lives with the same bank in the High Street, here in Sexton’s Canning, and he goes and takes it all off to some new bank in Greyston! A man is going bonkers and no one can stop him! He lies, manipulates, tells me a pack of lies about better interest rates, and I buy it because I trust the bastard! Look what he’s got us into! And where on earth is he!’
Gillian is trying to think through Mrs Larkin’s ravings. There is something significant in what she is saying – Gillian must capture that something before it is buried in the avalanche of words. Is it the vintage car? Is it the mortgage? Loans? Banks?
Yes! She’s got it! The Newport Street bank in Greyston – that’s Emma Rydal’s bank. Trevor Larkin did know Emma Rydal! That was how he knew what she looked like!
Her telephone rings. It’s Webber. ‘Where are you? Giacomo Vitoli has woken up. They’ll let us speak to him. Are you on your way? I’m going there now.’
*
If Trevor Larkin looked bad, Giacomo Vitoli looks much, much worse; he looks like a man raised from the grave against his will. He doesn’t resemble, not in the least, the handsome, if rather mature groom from the wedding photo in his house at 44 Arcadia Close. For one his jet black locks are gone. They have been shaved off and now the thin regrowth is white. So is the stubble on his chin. His face is drawn, droopy and murky grey. And he appears defeated. Has someone already told him his wife and her cousin have been charged with attempted murder against his person? If so, it comes as little surprise the poor man would sooner be dead.
‘I’ve been asking to see my wife, Megan,’ he makes an effort to speak. It’s a rusty, gravelly voice – a voice from beyond. Obviously, he doesn’t know what Megan has been up to. ‘Can I see my wife, please? She can’t drive. Someone will have to bring her to me.’ He scowls at Gillian and Mark. ‘Who are you?’
Mark presents his ID and tells him who Gillian is. ‘We need to ask you a few questions about the accident, Mr Vitoli.’
‘Can this not wait? I’d like to see my wife.’
Gillian is not known for her sensibility or sensitivity. She is in the crime detection business, not witness counselling. She has heard about showing compassion and treading softly around victim’s emotional wounds, but that is theory. In theory everything is nice and cosy. In reality, it isn’t. Reality bites, as the saying goes. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr Vitoli, but there won’t be a better time. I mean, it will hurt all the same whenever you find out...’
He presses his lips together. He doesn’t ask if anything has happened to his wife. He already knows – through osmosis. Gillian only confirms it, ‘Your wife has been charged as an accessory before the fact to an attempted murder. Mr Ryan Parks is the principal accused, your wife’s part was to aid and abet, to make it possible for him. We believe Mr Parks sabotaged your van’s brakes. We believe that was why you had to come off the road. Is that what happened?’
‘How do you know... how can you know my wife had anything to do with it?’
‘She’s admitted to discussing it with Mr Parks, giving him the key to your garage that Monday morning, before you left for work. In her defence she claims she didn’t believe Parks would’ve gone through with it; she thought he was just fantasising – her word, not mine.’
‘Megan lives in an imaginary world, most of the time,’ Vitoli says without looking up, as if he is talking to himself. Perhaps he needs to justify her actions in his own eyes. Any delusion is better than accepting the blinking obvious. ‘She doesn’t go out of the house. She doesn’t know what’s going on out there. She believes everything people tell her, people like Ryan... She’s impressionable. In truth, she’s a good person. If she says she didn’t believe he’d go through with it, then that is exactly... She was just playing around. What does she know about car brakes? What does she know about –’ He is now looking straight at Gillian, a plea for mercy in his eyes. He has already forgiven his prodigal wife – a foolish old man in love.
Gillian won’t argue with him. She needs him on her side. ‘A good lawyer may yet get her out of trouble, and she has been cooperating with us, which should speak in her favour,’ she concedes, though deep down she doesn’t hold her breath for Mrs Vitoli’s chances of escaping a custodial sentence. It will be a high-profile trial. The public will cry for heads to roll.
‘She would,’ Vitoli nods, ‘Megan would’ve done that – worked with the police, to help. That should count for something?’
‘Yes, I’m sure it will. I need your help now. Mr Parks stands accused of attempted murder. We can show criminal intent on his part as far as you are concerned. But, you see, four people died in that collision. Mr Parks could’ve anticipated that his actions would result in multiple deaths, but he didn’t care; he went ahead and cut your brakes. That’s a manslaughter charge on top of attempted murder.’
‘Four people?’ Vitoli’s face is ashen.
‘They deserve justice.’
‘I should’ve never let that man into my house. He tricked Megan...’
‘Mr Vitoli, can you tell me what happened? It’s very important that you tell us –’
He frowns; he’s making the effort to remember. Gillian steals a glance at the clock. She hasn’t got much time left. The doctor gave her ten minutes and then he wants his patient to rest. Go on, hurry up! She urges Giacomo Vitoli.
At last he speaks. ‘Have you got a cigarette?’
Gillian bites her lip. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.’
‘I need a cigarette,’ he insists, a typical smoker with the first withdrawal symptoms after weeks of nicotine deprivation.
Mark steps in. ‘You can’t smoke here. Smoke alarms would go off. And we don’t have much time. You doctor wants us out of here in a few minutes. We need your help, sir.’
Vitoli drops his head to his chest. His craving won’t be satisfied. There
is no bargain to be had. He takes his time. He speaks slowly as if doubting himself, ‘I had a small private job in Greyston. I left home at eight, or thereabouts. I go steady – I’m not a race driver, you know?’
Gillian nods encouragement.
‘I see this lorry top of the hill, you know – by Poulston junction. It’s coming right at me, horn blazing. No, hang on,’ he pauses, re-thinks, ‘This idiota is overtaking me. That’s what happened first: he’s overtaking me, but he isn’t, if you know what I mean. He’s taking his time, so I did,’ he glances at Gillian. There is guilt in his eyes, ‘I did speed up a bit – to teach him a lesson, like... Then I wave my fist at the bastard, telling him go on, you imbecile, overtake! Except he can’t because I’ve put my foot down so maybe he can’t so I go for the brakes, ‘cos I can see that bloody lorry is getting closer and another idiota stuck his nose out too from behind the lorry. Except yeah, I can see now the brakes aren’t working. I close my eyes and turn left, into the ditch, and pray to God I live through this. Because I know that man, he’s gonna get it, he’s heading straight for that lorry.’
‘It was a woman, the one overtaking you – it was a woman, Emma Rydal.’
Vitoli scowls, shakes his head. ‘No, it was a man. I could swear it was a man. In a fancy black car.’
Webber interjects, ‘How well did you see him?’
‘Not well, not really, wouldn’t recognise his face, wasn’t looking straight at him... but I’m sure it was a bloke. I think it was... No, I am sure it was! Definitely a bloke. You just know, don’t you?’
Everything the man says seems wrong as if he is talking about a different accident altogether – the man driver, the black car. Gillian asks again, ‘Are you sure it was a man and he was driving a black car? You see, the problem is that our reconstructions points to a woman. And a red car. Can you think back –’
The doctor materialises by his patient’s bedside. ‘That’s it,’ he informs Gillian and Mark. ‘Your time’s up. Mr Vitoli needs to rest.’
IN THE WEEKS LEADING TO THE ACCIDENT
Trevor couldn’t believe his eyes. The man was a... woman. Up to this moment Trevor wouldn’t be swayed in his firm conviction that only a man could drive like a total maniac and have no regard for his own or other road users’ safety. Only a man could be as daring and reckless as to overtake on blind corners and speed under the noses of speed camera warning signs. Only a man would be able to hold his nerve while losing himself wholly in a surge of pure adrenalin. It was all to do with testosterone.
And yet that man was a woman.
Even on foot, she was in a hurry, her high heels drumming impatiently on the tarmac of the carpark. In those razor-sharp high heels her every step was like a slash. The woman walked like she meant business. And she drove the same way, too. Trevor stared. Her calves were sculpted to perfection, taut and powerful. Her skirt had a slit that travelled up her leg, part-revealing a thigh that alluded to velvety smoothness. Trevor’s eyes followed the line of the slit to her hips. They were swaying with every step: voluptuous, round hips narrowing to a small waist held together by a single button of her smart suit. And there, between the lapels of the suit, bursting out of a white shirt, were her ample breasts. Just like the hips, those breasts rippled with every step.
She caught Trevor’s eyes as she passed by him, her head turned slightly towards him, and she smiled. She did smile at him! It wasn’t the absent-minded polite smile of a stranger – it was a knowing smile, mischievous and taunting. She was provoking Trevor! She knew he had followed her all the way here, to this stupid supermarket carpark. She had been at it all along: passing him on the road, teasing him, trying his patience. She would get what was coming to her. If that’s what she wanted...
He couldn’t say no to her, no man could! She was beautiful. There was no other word for it – plain beautiful. She had the feline soft face of Marilyn Monroe when she lifted her chin and sent an air kiss into the ether. Any man would go into space, and beyond, to catch that kiss.
Oh, she bloody well was a tease! A daredevil! But she didn’t know what a dangerous game she was playing here. Because Trevor wouldn’t be teased. He would rip that one button from that suit of hers and reach for those milky tits, and he would throw her over the bonnet of that red car of hers, face down, and he would tear open the slit of her tight dress all the way to her narrow waist, and he would let her have it. She had been asking for it all along. Since that first day when she had come close behind him, rubbed herself against him like a purring pussy cat, and overtook him. She wanted to be followed. She wanted to be pursued and be caught, and be had.
Trevor was standing with his camera phone dangling from his wrist, watching the woman cross the carpark to the entrance of the supermarket. She disappeared behind the glass door, but he was still standing there, contemplating the possibility that she might wish him to follow her there.
He decided that she did. It was her plan to entice him here to this crowded place where their anonymity would be protected. She had planned it all along. Trevor was beginning to see the wood for the trees. This was their meeting place. Only he had to catch her first. They would both enjoy the chase. Their very own hunger game.
His pace quickened. Cold air hit him as he entered the aisle with frozen foods. He needed cooling down; his heart was pounding; his blood pressure must have reached new highs. She wasn’t here. Trevor navigated the choppy waters of irritating shoppers with kids climbing shopping trolleys and drab middle-aged women gossiping in the middle of aisles. He was in fresh produce now. Apples, pears and cabbages soliciting attention from the stalls, but the woman was not here. Trevor abandoned his hand basket (he didn’t know why he had picked it up in the first place), and ran. He was crossing different aisles, reversing, stopping, dashing to the left, ducking to the right. Nothing. She was elusive. She was playing hard to get.
He was getting desperate. Out of breath. The only place he hadn’t checked was the toilets. The ladies’ loos were by the fire exit door leading out to the loading zone. Trevor found it with some difficulty, mainly because he couldn’t ask for directions. How could a single bloke go around inquiring after the whereabouts of the ladies’ toilets? But he found them. He was panting; he leaned against the wall, head down between his knees – catching breath. And he was watching the shoes trotting in and out of the loo. He would recognise those deadly heels.
Ten minutes later, he was strolling up and down in front of the ladies’, pacing like a tiger keen to seize his prey. Nothing. She had vanished into thin air.
For a split second Trevor considered bursting into the toilets and kicking open each cubicle, one after another. She would see he meant business. But if she wasn’t there after all that fussing, he would only make a fool of himself and get marched off the premises in shame. Trevor knew when to call it a day. He decided to go home.
Walking to his car, he began to wonder what the hell had possessed him to go on this wild goose chase in the first place. Was he losing his marbles? The red cabriolet wasn’t in the space; a nice friendly Mini stood there instead. Has Trevor imagined the whole episode? He really had to go home, talk to Sandra, get things off his chest. He had to stop ducking and diving. All it would take was to tell her he didn’t get the bloody promotion. She would be furious, but it would pass, and then life would get back into its old ruts.
An elderly couple were shuffling in front of Trevor, the woman was pushing a trolley, the man was holding on to the handle as if he were a toddler. He was dragging his feet, distinctly uncomfortable about the place and the situation he was in. The woman was tall (for a woman of that age), but not as tall as Sandra. Her hair was greying brown, cut in a bob. Her handbag hung across her back, from the shoulder to the opposite hip. She was manoeuvring the shopping trolley and the man attached to it with great skill and patience. The man was mumbling something to her or to himself – hard to tell as the woman wasn’t answering him. He was much older than her, at least he looked much older. She seemed in
charge; he seemed deeply disturbed by the fact but unable to do anything about it. His steps were tiny, dragged across the concrete surface of the car park. They stopped by a metallic blue car. The first thing the woman did, before packing the content of their shopping trolley into the boot, was to open the passenger door for the man. She said, ‘In you go, Vic. Remember the seat belt.’
Trevor watched the pair with horror. Was that him and Sandra in twenty years’ time? Is that where he would ultimately end up – on one side of a shopping trolley steered by Sandra? Was he there already?
*
Instead of going home, Trevor went to clear his head in his favourite spot in Silk Wood at the Botham House arboretum. He had an annual pass, something he didn’t share with his family. He liked to go there on his own whenever he had a moment, especially in school holidays when sitting at home with Sandra and the boys twenty-four-seven was driving him to insanity and back. He took his surreptitious breaks in the woods sparingly so as to not attract undue attention and the Holy Inquisition from his wife. It was like pinching raisins from the cake mixture – you couldn’t take too many or too often if you didn’t want to be found out.
Today was the last day of summer term, last day of school – Trevor deserved a breather. He had to brace himself for five weeks with Sandra and the kids. Round the clock. The week away in France didn’t seem like a holiday anymore considering it had been their annual routine for the past twenty years. It was more like a home away from home, except that Trevor had to drive for hours to get there and back, get sick on the ferry, sleep in a red-hot tin caravan, banging his head on precariously overhanging cupboards and shelves, and spend his days by the side of a pool infested with screaming kids. Trevor would much rather come to Silk Wood, stroll up and down its shady footpaths, listen to the tweeting birds, sit on his bench with a good book, or just sit and think of nothing in particular. ALONE.
