Massaging shampoo into my hair with my fingertips, I pictured the well and how it seemed to plummet deep into the earth. I imagined standing on the crest of that hill again and looking out towards the road and the farmhouse. Was there anything I was missing? After the deep night’s sleep I’d had, thanks to Vincent, my mind seemed less foggy. It was sharper than it had been since the accident. In my mind I saw the road, the blood, the dead bodies, broken windscreen, tyre marks, the crinkled-looking ECILOP...
“Tyre marks!” I breathed, sitting bolt upright in the water. “How come there were brake marks on the road by the accident? I never hit the brakes. I didn’t see the horse and the cart, so why would I have slammed on the brakes?”
I washed the remains of the shampoo from my hair and jumped from the bath. Throwing a towel about me, I raced to my bedroom, all the while the images of those thick, black tyre marks flashing before my mind.
“I didn’t make those tyre marks,” I whispered aloud, pulling a T-shirt over my head. I plucked a clean pair of panties from a drawer. With them halfway up my legs, I stopped. Almost like a blinding vision before me, all I could see were those dents and scratch marks at the front and down the side of Michael’s father’s 4X4.
My father had a knock the other day, I heard Michael say.
Had it been on the same day Jonathan Smith and his family been hit by a vehicle on the road which ran around the outskirts of Grayson Farm? I wondered.
With my hands shaking, I yanked on my jeans, and gasped, “What if...?”
What if the accident had already taken place? What if someone else had driven them off the road before I’d even got there? What if I’d just driven into the wreckage? But the other vehicle would’ve been a wreck, too, just like my patrol car had been after hitting that horse and cart.
“Not unless it had been a big car,” I whispered in shock. “Something like a four-by-four!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The sky was the colour of gunmetal when I left my apartment and headed off along the beach to the Grayson farm. With the realisation that I might not have actually been the person to drive the Smith family off the road to their deaths, I wanted to go back and have a look at where it had taken place. The wind whipped up a torrent of sand as I made my way along the shore towards the sand dunes. The waves crashed onto the beach, bringing with them lengths of black seaweed, which covered the sand like giant black cobwebs.
Reaching the sand dunes, I crossed them, found the coastal path, and headed for the crop of trees in the distance. It was just past 3 p.m. as I reached the old well. Hidden by the trees at the top of the hill, I spied on the Grayson farm. The 4X4 was no longer parked outside – did that mean that both Michael and his father were out? Or perhaps off somewhere working on their land? Then I saw Michael. He left the barn, rubbing tractor grease from his hands. I watched him approach the farmhouse, then go inside and shut the door. As I watched from my hiding place, I hoped that Michael wasn’t involved in what had happened to that family. He couldn’t have been. He had been with me. We had been on the kitchen table...I pushed the image from my mind. Not that I regretted what had happened between us, I wanted to try and keep my feelings neutral at this time. He might not have been involved in the accident, but he might be covering for his father. I hoped not, as Michael – although full on – did seem like a kind and honest man. I didn’t want him to be a bad guy. I didn’t want to find out that I had been deceived by him and he had joked with his father at how easy I had been. I turned my back on the farm.
The Buckmore Road couldn’t be seen from the house, only from this vantage point as it snaked its way back towards town. Stepping out from the trees, I made my way down the hill and towards the road.
Storm clouds lumbered across the sky, covering the pale sun, making the world look like an old black and white photograph. The wind was icy cold and it howled at me like an invisible beast as I cut across the bleak field towards the road. With my hands thrust into my coat pockets and chin resting on my chest, I stomped over the uneven and muddy ground. At the edge of the field, I looked back just to make sure I couldn’t be seen by Michael, should he have reason to look out of one of the farmhouse windows. From where I stood against the wall, the farmhouse was hidden from view on the other side of the grey craggy hill. With long, blond hair blowing about my face and shoulders, I felt secure in the fact that I couldn’t be seen from the farmhouse. All I had to worry about was if Michael’s father returned by road.
With my gloved hands, I pushed aside the thorn bushes and bracken which greedily covered the grey stone wall along this side of the field. Looking left, then right, I hoisted myself up onto the wall. The thorns snagged at my coat and the hems of my jeans. I yanked myself free, and dropped into the road on the other side.