Chapter 33
HEATHER
The rain falls in sheets from a steel grey sky when Brianna indicates to leave the main road.
‘What are we doing here?’ Heather asks as she reads the signs stating they’ve just arrived at His Majesty’s Prison, Birmingham.
Brianna pulls the compact car she’d bought in secret into a parking space.
It lollops to the side due to the severity with which she tugs at the handbrake.
The windscreen wipers continue to screech against the glass.
Heather looks up at the ominous sky through the car’s small sunroof, wishing for about the tenth time today that Scott had picked up his messages earlier or, preferably, was here to handle this situation on his own.
‘It’s a mediation visit,’ Brianna says. ‘Turns out, not letting me learn to drive isn’t the only thing Dad’s been keeping from me.
It seems the guy who killed my mum has been trying to get in touch for months because he wants to meet me.
Dad’s been saying no for himself, which is fair enough.
But he’s been saying no for me too. And I don’t think that’s on. Do you?’
There’s a ferocity in Brianna’s glance that Heather’s never encountered before. She reaches over and places her hand atop Brianna’s, which is still gripping the handbrake.
‘I’m sure he had his reasons, honey,’ she says whilst her mind whirs with all the mixed messages she’s had from Scott recently.
‘So, he gave me Aunt Lorraine’s number in case of emergencies when he was away, and it turns out she’s been calling him practically every day asking him to visit or at least allow me to decide if I want to.
And all he’s done is reject her calls or say he’ll decide later.
Well, the time is now, because Leon – that’s his name - is getting out in a couple of days. ’
There’s so much to process from Brianna’s small outburst, but Heather can’t help but fixate on one thing: the familiar name.
‘Lorraine?’
Heather thinks back to all the rejected calls and stilted discussions she’s heard Scott take part in over the last few months.
‘Aunt Lorraine. My mum’s sister. Dad moved us away right after the accident and hasn't let me see her for years.’
‘Your aunt Lorraine’s been calling your dad?’ Heather replies stupidly.
‘Every day for about three months, apparently. Ever since she did mediation herself. She says it’s really helpful and something I should consider.
For closure.’ Brianna flips the switch to cancel the windscreen wipers, and the view is quickly obscured by the rain.
‘Closure seems like a good thing, wouldn’t you say? ’
Heather takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before replying. So this is what Scott was trying to talk to her about when she left him in Edinburgh to check up on Georgia.
‘Yes. Yes. Closure. It does sound good.’
Heather glances down at the phone on her lap and the message that came in from Scott at two o’clock this morning when she and Brianna were fast asleep in a local hotel.
“DO NOT LET HER GO. GETTING ON THE PLANE. DO NOT LET HER GO.”
‘Your dad’s replied to my text,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t want you to go.’
Brianna’s lips thin, and her eyes are blazing when she looks across at Heather.
‘My dad, who says he trusts me to make my own decisions in life, doesn’t want me to make this decision for myself? Figures.’
Heather unclips her seatbelt and swivels so she can look Brianna face on. The girl’s face is a mask of determination.
‘Is this something you’re sure about, Brianna? Really, really sure?’
‘Positively. Definitely.’ Brianna thumps the dashboard to emphasise this point. ‘I’ve thought it through for days. I’ve contacted the family support officer and I’ve arranged this appointment. I’m going.’
‘Even though you’ve got important exams coming up?’
She nods defiantly. ‘Even though I’ve got exams.’
‘Well, in that case. I don’t suppose I can stop you, can I? Do you want me to come in with you?’ Heather rummages in her handbag to locate the umbrella she put in there last minute as they left Edinburgh.
Brianna unclips her own seatbelt, throws the car keys in Heather’s direction and zips up her raincoat.
‘This is something I need to do on my own. I’ll see you back here at two o’clock.’
‘Good luck,’ Heather shouts as a pale faced Brianna opens the door, clenches her fists and disappears under her hood.
‘I’ve got this,’ she says as she closes the door.
***
Brianna returns at two o’clock, her eyes hooded, and her cheeks wet with tears. The rain has stopped.
‘I’m going to see my auntie,’ she says.
Heather is immediately on high alert.
‘Honey, what went on in there?’
‘Nothing. I need to see my auntie. Ask her something.’
‘Okay. But …’ Heather observes the shake in Brianna’s hands as she inputs her aunt’s address – somewhere outside Stratford Upon Avon, an hour and a half's drive away via A roads – into her sat nav. ‘Can I drive? It might give you a bit of space to unwind and think things through?’
‘I’m driving,’ Brianna says, her lips pulled into a thin white line.
‘Are you okay, sweetheart?’ Heather asks tentatively, observing the cackhanded way Brianna thrusts the key into the ignition, and the scream of the engine when it finally fires.
‘I’m fine.’
Brianna looks straight ahead and takes an angry swipe at her swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
‘Are you sure?’
Brianna reacts by shoving the car into gear and reversing out of the space.
For the first mile or two, Brianna focuses on the traffic, but once they enter the city outskirts, her driving becomes increasingly erratic.
She appears to get angrier as she drives.
When an accident outside Redditch reroutes them onto small B roads, she thumps at the wheel in frustration.
Any delay in getting to her aunt Lorraine’s house is clearly a delay too long for her.
Tears stream down her face in frustration.
She compensates by accelerating around tight corners and taking routes through built-up areas too quickly.
‘Brianna. Can you pull over, please?’ Heather says, her voice insistent. ‘I think it’s time for me to drive.’
Brianna rams the gear stick into first as she pulls away from the traffic lights.
‘I’m driving.’ Her voice is tight with suppressed rage.
‘Brianna. Honey, you need to slow down,’ Heather says as the road narrows and their small car swerves to avoid an oncoming motorbike.
Brianna overcompensates by driving too close to the grass verge, then adjusts their path jerkily into the middle of the road.
‘Brianna—’
‘He was meant to drive me!’ she shouts into the windscreen.
‘Honey. I don’t know what you mean,’ Heather says, watching as the road winds alarmingly ahead of them.
‘Dad! Dad was meant to drive that night. Mum had a migraine and asked Dad to pick me up from ballet, but he got tied up at work and said she had to go. And that’s why she crashed.
She felt like shit and she was probably drugged up and she didn’t even feel safe to drive, but she didn’t have a choice.
Because of him. And he never, ever told me that! ’
Brianna accelerates round a tight bend.
‘My mum died, and she didn’t need to. He always told me it was Leon’s fault. But it wasn’t. Not entirely. Because if Dad had come home when he said he would, he’d have picked me up and he’d probably have managed to avoid Leon’s car when it went into that skid.’
‘You can’t know that for sure, Brianna,’ Heather says, willing the girl to slow down.
‘No. You’re right, no one can know for sure.
But Leon told me it was discussed at the court hearing.
It’s obviously the reason Dad refused the mediation, because somehow, somewhere deep inside, he believes the blame lies with him.
That’s what I want to talk to my aunt about. See what she remembers.’
Brianna glances at Heather at a critical moment when a lorry, also travelling too fast for the road conditions, comes around the corner in the opposite direction. Brianna screams and swerves into the ditch.
And the world goes black.
SCOTT
It’s like watching the re-run of a horrific film.
A phone call from his sister-in-law: ‘There’s been an accident.
Just outside Stratford. Come as soon as you can.
’ An accident involving the woman he loves and his baby girl.
But he’s stuck on an airplane during the slowest disembarkation exercise on the entire planet.
And there’s nothing he can do. Nowhere he can go.
His only choice is to sit tight. Wait. And use his phone to hire a car so it’s waiting for him at the airport when he does, finally, get off the sodding plane.
Once off the plane, he arranges for Luca to pick up his bag and bike from the baggage drop off area, picks up the car (thank God he has his driver’s licence with him), and loads the pinned location Lorraine sent into his sat nav.
Every traffic light is agony. Every roundabout torturous.
Every slight delay, every speed bump, every traffic calming measure feels like it’s been sent to taunt him.
Who does he think he is, expecting to have it all – again?
Fool. Every speed reducing measure builds the tension in his chest cavity and makes him scream at the roadway to hurry the fuck up.
Within ninety minutes, he arrives at the tailback of traffic caused by the accident.
The yellow and blue flashing lights in the horizon are reminiscent of seven years ago.
Scott has no option other than to ditch his car at the side of the road, ignoring the protestations of other drivers as they realise his car will be yet another one blocking the road.
He filters out the screams of dissent, and runs.
“That’s my kid in there,” he wants to shout at them.
But he doesn’t. He needs his energy for the sprint.
There are crowds of hi-vis vest wearers and local onlookers swarming around the periphery of the crash site which is now cordoned off with police cones and plastic tape which flaps disconsolately in the wind.