‘No, it looked the same as ever. There were some marks on the tyres from parking, you know, kerb damage, but they’ve been there for ages.’
As soon as he’d left, I googled ‘Thornton Heath car accident’, adding the news filter. Here it was: an accident on Silver Road on Friday 16th at about 6 p.m. A dark-coloured VW or Audi had been seen close to the scene.
Remembering the officer’s name, I found he was indeed a detective sergeant in the Serious Collisions Investigations Unit, which handled cases throughout south-east London and its suburbs. They must be visiting the owners of every dark-coloured VW or Audi reported stolen in South London, even those taken after the incident, like ours. That struck me as an inefficient way to investigate, but what did I know?
Don’t answer that.
#VictimFi
@crime_addict Where’s the car then? Husband involved in this crash, maybe?
@rachelb72 @crime_addict Must’ve been, that’s why he’s done a Lord Lucan
@crime_addict @rachelb72 Why no damage then? He got it fixed?
@rachelb72 @crime_addict Maybe when they finally find it, they’ll discover his rotting body in the boot . . .
Bram, Word document
At that Friday’s handover, Fi said, ‘Did you know the police thought one of us might have been involved in some car crash down in Thornton Heath a few weeks ago?’
I concealed a split-second’s paralysis. ‘They did? When did they say that?’
‘A detective came round this morning. Obviously, I checked the diary and told him neither of us used the car that day, but I guess there’s a process of elimination they have to follow, isn’t there?’
‘Yes.’ I swallowed.
‘I wondered if it was possible someone stole the keys before they took the car,’ she went on, musing. ‘But the police said that was unlikely since there’ve been no signs of a burglary. Still, we should have been more careful, Bram.’
Though taken aback by this, I saw how fortunate it was that it had been she, genuinely in the dark, who had been the one to field the police’s enquiries. Would my own responses have sounded so natural, so guileless? How appalled she would be if I told her the truth about the Audi. That I’d thought seriously about finding a dark stretch of canal, or even the Thames, and taking the handbrake off to let it roll into the water, but then I’d decided it was better to hide it in plain sight.
Contrary to my respective reports to insurer, police and her, I’d last seen our car late on Sunday night, last driven it then too. Left it in a street in Streatham with no parking restrictions, key dropped down the nearest drain. With any luck, the battery would go flat and it would sit there for months.
‘I doubt we’ll ever know what happened.’ I sighed. ‘But I really don’t think we should beat ourselves up about it. We’re still getting used to a whole new way of living. How are we supposed to know where the car keys are at any given moment?’
‘You’re right.’ The way she was looking at me, thankful for the solidarity, the shared attention to this latest aggravation, it not only flattered me, but it calmed me too.
‘We’re pretty security-conscious generally,’ I said. ‘Especially after what happened to the Ropers. And poor old Carys.’
She looked pleased that I’d remembered Carys.
I considered the issue of my ban: if the officer she had spoken to had known about it then he obviously hadn’t seen fit to divulge it. She must have explained early on that we’d split up and he’d erred on the side of diplomacy. ‘Tell the police to phone me if they have any more questions,’ I said.
I was already formulating my responses for just such a follow-up. ‘The sixteenth? Oh, that was the away-day. It was at a hotel down near Gatwick, I’d have to look up the name.’ ‘Did you drive there?’ ‘No, I took the train. There was a delay, now I think about it. I only just made it to the first session.’ Surely they wouldn’t go so far as to check the station’s CCTV footage? If so, crowds had accumulated quickly that morning and it was possible I wouldn’t be easily identifiable on the platform, which was unfortunate. On the other hand, when I’d left I’d been part of a swarm too – hidden by it, with any luck.
But what if they checked at the other end? There’d be no pictures of me hurrying through any station on the Gatwick line. ‘Where did you get off the train, Mr Lawson?’ they’d ask. I needed to google the station, I thought, check the exits. Or was it more natural to be vague – who remembered this stuff? What about CCTV at the hotel? Had cameras clocked the Audi near the collision site? And the police had number plate recognition technology, didn’t they? – oh God, could it be applied retrospectively?
I became aware that I was blinking, over and over, a tic that was hard to control.
‘Are your eyes all right, Bram?’ Fi asked.
‘Fine, just a bit of grit.’ I recovered my cool. ‘You know . . . No, now might not be the right time . . .’
‘For what? Tell me.’
‘Just a suggestion, but I was reading a thing in the Guardian about families going car-free and I wondered if that might be something we could do. Get the boys involved, appeal to their inner eco warrior?’
She looked as surprised as any sentient human would to hear Bram Lawson, no stranger to Top Gear and hardly a soul-searcher regarding his carbon footprint, speaking in this way. ‘Are you serious?’ she said ‘You’ve always driven. I can’t imagine you without a car.’
‘We all have to try new things now and again,’ I said.
25
‘Fi’s Story’ > 01:36:31
Toby texted on the Saturday morning:
- Let me guess, you’ve googled me and discovered I don’t exist? You think I must be a serial killer with an assumed identity?
I smiled.
- Not quite.
- I’m just a social media refusenik. You’re lucky to get this text.
- You’re lucky I’m replying.
There was a companionable silence, during which I grew steadily more aware of the beat of my own pulse. It was no coincidence that he’d waited till the weekend to make contact. I’d explained my unusual living arrangements, that this was my time at the flat.
Free later? I asked, before he could.
At your command, he answered.
Bram, Word document
Hell-bent though I was on eliminating Mike from my consciousness, I found myself outmanoeuvred yet again when, the Monday after our meeting in the Swan, a replacement phone, this one a Sony, was delivered by hand to my office. There was a charger attached, but no packaging, no envelope, no note.
‘The guy said he saw you leave it charging in the pub just now,’ Nerina on reception told me. ‘He must have followed you back. Wasn’t that nice of him? I do like a good deed, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ I agreed. What I don’t like is a psychotic stalker, I thought. (A lesser gripe: it was good of him to give the impression I’d been in the pub at midday on a Monday rather than at the meeting with a local minor injuries clinic marked in my diary and duly attended.) I took the phone reluctantly and, as if in response to my touch, a message notification lit up the screen:
- Uh oh, looks like someone’s getting her memory back . . .
I read the news update right there, in reception, my bag of samples at my feet:
Road rage caused Silver Road crash, says victim
A victim of the Silver Road collision on 16 September has told police that the incident was caused by a reckless overtaking manoeuvre that may have been the result of road rage.
‘From what the victim remembers, a black hatchback was accelerating wildly past a third car, which was travelling well within the speed limit, and mistimed the manoeuvre, forcing her Fiat off the road and causing serious injury to her and her daughter,’ said Detective Sergeant Joanne McGowan.
Until now, the victim has been too unwell to give police her account of events. Her daughter is still being treated in intensive care at Croydon Hospital for life-threatening injuries and is believed to have undergone multiple surgeries.