“The girl has fallen into the well,” Constable Lee said.
Myself, Constable Woodland, and Constable MacDonald joined Constable Lee at the side of the well. I pointed my dragon light into it. At the bottom of the well, I could see Smith. She was lying on her back in a pool of water.
“Hey!” I shouted into the well, but Smith didn’t move or stir.
“I think she might be dead,” I heard Constable Lee say as he climbed up and onto the edge of the well.
“Get down from there,” Constable MacDonald said to Constable Lee.
“I’m going to go down. She could still be alive. Call for help,” Constable Lee said.
It was still raining at this time, and the edge of the well looked wet and slippery. I reached for my radio to call for help, when I heard Constable Lee shout. I looked up to see that he was no longer balanced on the edge of the well. I raced towards the well with Constables MacDonald and Woodland to discover that Constable Lee had fallen down into the well.
I heard Constable MacDonald shout into the well over and over again. He sounded panicked, as we all were. At this time, I contacted the control room by way of my personal radio and asked for immediate assistance. I felt powerless to help Constable Lee, who was now lying unconscious at the bottom of the well with Smith. Constable Woodland started to scream and kick the side of the well. Even though I had already contacted the control room, I heard Constable McDonald repeatedly shouting into the radio for help.
About 23:50 hours the same day, we were joined at the well by other members of the emergency services. I was taken to a nearby police vehicle and treated for shock. It was during this time I learnt that both Molly Smith and Constable Lee had died by falling into the well.
Police Constable Richard Hart.
Chapter Twenty-One
I handed my father’s ten year old statement back to Vincent, who sat silently beside me on the sofa. It had felt strange reading my father’s words – words that he had written so long ago. Again it felt as if I were spying on him somehow – as if I had found his private diary and sneaked a peek inside. I had never known he had witnessed the death of a friend and colleague, and in a way, it explained why he, Mac, and Woody had such a close bond.
“So Jonathan Smith was right in his suspicions that his daughter was involved with a local man,” I said, looking at Vincent.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Did they ever find out who he was?” I asked.
“Nope,” Vincent said, slipping my father’s statement back into the file and pulling out another.
“How come?”
“Because your father changed his statement,” Vincent said, looking at me. “All three of them did.”
“What do you mean my father changed his statement?” I breathed, eyeing the sheets of paper Vincent was now holding.
“I found this,” he said, passing a new statement to me. “At first glance it reads almost identically to the other, but there is a difference.”
“Like what?” I asked, looking down at what appeared to be an exact copy of the first statement I had read.
“Read the paragraph about how your father and the others first came across the girl, Molly Smith,” Vincent said, his voice barely a whisper.
With my hands gripping the edges of the paper, and my mouth turning dry, I scanned the statement until I found the part where my father and the other constables had been in the van on the road. To my horror, it had been changed. My father’s account now read like this:
I was sitting in the passenger seat next to Constable Lee and Constables MacDonald and Woodland were both seated in the back. Suddenly Constable Lee swerved the vehicle away from the curb and braked sharply.
“I nearly hit that girl,” I heard Constable Lee shout.
“What girl?” I said.
“There was a girl walking alongside the road. Didn’t you see her?” Constable Lee asked me.
Once the vehicle had stopped, all four of us climbed out. It was then I saw a young girl standing beside the road in the dark. I walked towards her. I now know this female to be called Molly Smith. I would describe Molly as being about eighteen years old, and about five foot and four inches in height. She was of slim build, with long black hair and wearing a thin black dress. I noticed her feet were bare, which struck me as being odd, as the night was cold and it was raining. I recognised this girl to be part of a small family who had recently moved to the town of Cliff View, who had been suspected of committing burglaries in the area. As I approached Smith, I said, “What are you doing all the way out here in the dark?”
“Fuck off, copper!” I heard Smith shout.
I then saw Smith turn and run into the wooded area beside the road. At this time, I lost sight of her. Constable Lee ran back to the police van and returned a short time later with two large dragon lights. He gave one of them to me and kept the other. The four of us then made our way into the thick crop of trees beside the road in search of Smith...