Chapter 41 Carla
Carla
NOW
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, neck-deep in work, when my mobile rings.
I hate being interrupted when I’m working and I occasionally switch off my phone altogether when I need to concentrate, but I don’t like to do that if the kids are out, which is the case today.
Margo’s at her friend Ellie’s Hallowe’en party – I’ve done a great job with the face paint to go with her witch’s costume, though I say it myself.
Iris has gone for a swim with a friend – not Mille, who comes up in a rash whenever she comes into contact with chlorine, but a boy in her English class called Tom Fischer whom Iris has mentioned a few times lately. And Olly has gone to Barnstaple.
I glance at the caller ID. It’s Jo. It won’t be urgent, so I decide to call her back later – I don’t want to lose my train of thought – and I let the phone ring out.
I went for a walk earlier with Cheddar – it did us both a lot of good – but I need to get on with my work now.
But my mobile immediately starts ringing again.
I look at the screen a second time. It’s Jo once more.
Maybe it is urgent, after all. Or maybe she just really wants a chat.
Leaning back in my office chair, which I’ve wheeled into the kitchen from my study, I swipe to take the call. ‘Hey, Jo,’ I say, careful not to let any exasperation seep into my voice. ‘How are you?’
‘Carla, oh my God, I don’t know how to say this. I think … unless I’m mistaken …’ Jo sounds distraught. I hear her take a deep breath. ‘Do you know where Iris is?’ she asks.
‘Iris? Why?’ I look at the clock on the kitchen wall. It stopped long ago. I pull my mobile away from my ear and check the time. Half five. ‘She’s probably on her way back from the pool in Barnstaple right now. What on earth’s the matter, Jo?’
‘Would she take the link road?’
‘Probably. Why? What’s going on?’ I’m getting impatient now and my sense of unease is growing.
‘There’s a car … overturned … on the link road. And I saw … I saw a car … the car looked a lot like Yvonne’s. I mean, I don’t know what Yvonne’s car looks like, but I’m almost certain she was at the wheel.’
‘Who was at the wheel? Yvonne?’ My voice comes out high-pitched. ‘Jo, what are you talking about?’
‘Listen, I don’t want to cause you alarm unnecessarily—’
‘It’s a bit late for that!’
‘—so I’ll ring Ian and see what he can find out and then ring you back.’
‘No! No! Don’t hang up on me! Jo! Jo, just tell me—’
‘I’ll ring you straight back. I promise.’
I’m torn between keeping the phone line clear and ringing Iris. I get up and pace up and down, phone in hand, and then I call Iris. But it goes straight to voicemail.
It seems like an eternity before Jo rings me back. I answer without registering the caller ID.
‘Hi, Mum.’ It’s not Jo. It’s Iris. For a few seconds, I’m so stunned I can’t say anything. ‘Mum, you rang. I’m returning your call?’ she says. Her intonation rises, as if she’s asking me a question.
‘Iris! Where are you?’
‘We’re on our way home.’
‘You’re not—’
‘I’m not driving, no, Mum,’ she says. ‘Tom is.’ I imagine her rolling her eyes at Tom Fischer.
That’s not what I was going to ask, although I do warn Iris all the time not to touch her phone while she’s driving.
I was going to ask if she was hurt. The aborted conversation with Jo, if you can even call it a conversation, has caused all sorts of wild ideas to streak through my head.
Jo said something about an overturned car and she mentioned Yvonne, but it wasn’t clear to me if she meant that Yvonne had flipped her car. If so, why did she ask where Iris was?
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Go slowly.’
‘I’m not the one driving, Mum,’ she reminds me. ‘And we are going slowly, like really slowly. We’re stuck behind a tractor.’ She giggles.
‘Are you on the link road?’
‘No. There was a sign up to say it’s closed.’
‘Why’s the link road closed?’
‘How should I know?’ she says. I need to get Iris off the phone and get hold of Jo, find out what’s going on. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Her tone has softened.
‘Yes, sweetie.’ I force myself to sound normal. ‘I’ll see you when you get home.’
I end the call with my daughter and try Jo once, but it goes to voicemail.
I resume my pacing, but some of the tension has left my shoulders.
Whatever spooked Jo, it was a false alarm.
Iris is fine. I try to piece together the snippets Jo gave me.
An overturned car. Yvonne at the wheel. Where does Iris fit in?
It doesn’t make sense. What’s taking Jo so long?
The ringtone doesn’t even sound on my mobile when Jo finally gets back to me – I answer the phone as soon as I see her name flash up on the screen.
‘I’ve just spoken to Iris,’ I say. ‘She’s on her way home after a swim with a friend. They’re not on the link road.’ It all comes out in a gush. ‘What’s going on, Jo?’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she says. I hear her sigh with relief and a wave of relief breaks over me, too. ‘Well, I am on the link road and there has been an accident.’
‘A car accident?’
‘Yes. The traffic is completely stationary in front of me and behind me. But seconds after we came to a standstill, this car came racing through on the other side of the road, swerving all over the place and I could have sworn it was Yvonne Knoll. It was the last car to come through from the other direction. It’s all blocked in both directions now. ’
‘That’s strange.’
‘I know!’
‘But I don’t get it. Why did you ask about Iris?’
‘Oh, well, it looked like her car, you see.’
I really don’t see. ‘Hang on, Jo. I’m missing an episode. So, you’re saying that a driver that looked like Yvonne was driving a car that looked like Iris’s?’
‘No. Yvonne was driving her SUV. When I realized we weren’t going anywhere any time soon, I got out of my car – loads of us did – and went to see what the problem was.
There are only about ten cars in front of me and then there’s the one that crashed.
It has somehow ended up right in the middle of the road, upside down, with bits of it – metal and glass and rubber – all over both sides of the road.
It’s a really bad crash. The car has folded like an omelette.
And, oh God, I thought it was Iris. There were people everywhere, trying to help, I think, and I couldn’t get any closer.
I was a bit scared to see any more, to be honest, so I came back to my own car to …
’ I can hear sirens through the phone and the last part of what Jo says is drowned out by the din.
‘The police and ambulance have arrived,’ Jo says then, a little unnecessarily, if you ask me.
The noise quietens, but doesn’t disappear completely. ‘What made you think it was Iris’s car?’ I ask Jo.
‘It just looked like her car, that’s all. A light-blue Twingo, the same car and the same colour.’
‘Powder blue,’ I say. ‘There’s quite a few of them on the road.’ I’ve realized this since Ash bought the car for Iris.
‘And it had that green “P” plate on the back.’
‘What?’ My legs buckle under me and I grab the worktop to stop myself from falling to the floor.
‘You know, that magnetic sticker with the green “P” for drivers who have just passed their test. There was one stuck on the boot of the car.’
Blood rushes through my ears and I can hardly make out a word Jo’s saying. The same make, model and colour. That could be a coincidence. But the probationary plates, too? I drop my phone to the floor as fear paralyses my whole body. It’s Iris’s car. It has to be.
But Olly was the one driving it. He was taking it to the garage in Barnstaple.