chapter forty-eight
Rachel watched the man with the kite step off the kerb. Look out for traffic, matey. That’s not a pedestrian crossing.
He turned his head in her direction.
It was Connor Whitby.
He was looking right at her, but it was as though Rachel’s car was invisible, as if she didn’t exist, as if she was completely irrelevant to him, as if he could choose to inconvenience her by making her slow down if it suited him. He stepped briskly across the road, with every confidence that she would stop. His kite caught a gust of wind and spun in lazy circles.
Rachel’s foot lifted from the accelerator and hovered over the brake.
Then it slammed like a brick on the accelerator.
It didn’t happen in slow motion. It happened in an instant.
There was no car. The street was empty. And then, just like that, there was a car. A small blue car. John-Paul would say afterwards that he knew there was a car coming from behind them, but to Cecilia, it just materialised out of nowhere.
No car. Car.
The little blue car was like a bullet. Not so much because of its speed but because it seemed as if it were on some unstoppable trajectory, as if it had been shot from something.
Cecilia saw Connor Whitby run. Like a man in a movie chase scene leaping from one building to another.
A second later, Polly rode her bike directly in front of the car and vanished beneath it.
The sounds were small. A thump. A crunch. The long thin squeal of brakes.
And then silence. Ordinariness. The sound of a bird.
Cecilia didn’t feel anything except confusion. What just happened?
She heard heavy footsteps and turned to see John-Paul running. He ran straight past her. Esther was screaming. Over and over. A shocking, ugly sound. Cecilia thought, Stop it Esther.
Isabel grabbed Cecilia’s arm. ‘The car hit her!’
A chasm cracked open in her chest.
She shook Isabel’s hand free and ran.
A little girl. A little girl on a bike.
Rachel’s hands were still on the steering wheel. Her foot was still pressed hard on the brake pedal. It was compressed all the way to the floor of the car.
Slowly, painstakingly, she lifted her trembling hand from the steering wheel and wrenched on the handbrake. She placed her left hand back on the steering wheel and used her right hand to turn off the ignition. Then she cautiously lifted her foot from the brake pedal.
She looked in the rear-vision mirror. Maybe the little girl was all right.
(Except she’d felt it. The soft speed-hump beneath her wheels. She knew with perfect sick certainty what she’d done. What she’d deliberately done.)
She could see a woman running, her arms dangling oddly from her body, as if they were paralysed. It was Cecilia Fitzpatrick.
Little girl. Pink sparkly helmet. Black ponytail. Brake. Brake. Brake. Her face in profile. The girl was Polly Fitzpatrick. Gorgeous little Polly Fitzpatrick.
Rachel whimpered like a dog. Somewhere in the distance, someone was screaming over and over.
‘Hello?’
‘Will?’
Liam had kept asking when his dad was arriving and Tess had felt all at once infuriated by her impassive role, waiting for Felicity and Will to make their scheduled appearances. She’d called Will on his mobile. She was going to be icy and controlled and give him his first inkling of the almighty task that lay ahead of him.
‘Tess,’ said Will. He sounded distracted and strange.
‘According to Felicity, you’re on your way over here –’
‘I am,’ interrupted Will. ‘I was. In a taxi. We had to stop. There was an accident just around the corner from your mum’s place. I saw it happen. We’re waiting for an ambulance.’ His voice broke, then became muffled. ‘It’s terrible, Tess. Little girl on a bike. About the same age as Liam. I think she’s dead.’