There was an uncomfortable silence, filled only by the howl of the wind as its cut across the open fields and circled us. “Did you sleep okay?” Vincent finally asked.
“Great, thanks to you,” I said, looking at him.
“It was nothing...”
“Thanks,” I said.
“No...I didn’t mean it meant nothing,” he started to flounder to find the right words again. “It was nice...it was more than nice...it was wonderful...”
He did look kinda cute as he shifted from foot to foot in front of me, looking awkward and uncomfortable.
“I’m just teasing,” I said, taking one of his hands in mine. “You are cold,” I added. His fingers felt like brittle sticks of ice.
“Maybe you could warm me up later,” he said, then quickly added, “Want I meant to say was, perhaps you could buy me a cup of tea...”
“When are you gonna quit with this act?” I asked. “You and I both know exactly what you meant. Why don’t you just say what you mean?”
“Didn’t I do that last night?” he said, staring back at me, the collar of his police coat flapping against the wind.
“Yes, you did,” I smiled. “And was it so bad?”
“I guess not,” he said.
“You’re not like any guy I’ve met before,” I said, trying to figure him out.
“Is that a good thing?” he asked, his eyes still fixed on mine as if reading my thoughts.
“I’ll let you know,” I smiled.
“How?”
“If I let you hold me in your arms again tonight, that’s how you’ll know,” I said softly, dragging away my hair which the wind had blown across my face.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“Stop the nightmares, you mean?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“You kept them away,” I told him, squeezing his hand in mine. “Thank you.”
There was another short silence, which Vincent filled by saying, “So what are you doing all the way out here?”
“My head felt clear this morning,” I started to explain. I told Vincent how I was beginning to remember what really had taken place during the accident. “I don’t think it was me who drove the Smiths off the road and killed them.”
“What do you mean?” he frowned.
“Take a look at these,” I said, kneeling down in the road and pointing out the tyre tracks.
“What about them?” he said, propping his push bike against the wall and leaning over me.
“These were caused by someone braking hard, right?” I said, staring up at him.
“Right,” he nodded thoughtfully.
“I never applied the brake of my patrol car. I wasn’t even watching the road, I was searching through the glove compartment,” I confessed to him. “I didn’t even see the horse and cart and Jon...”
“So what you’re saying is that you collided with an accident which had already taken place,” Vincent breathed, straightening up.
“You’ve got it!” I said, jumping to my feet. “There was another car out on this road that day. It was that car which collided with the...”
“But those tyre marks could have been made at any time...” Vincent put in.
“They’re still fresh,” I came back at him. “And what are the odds of someone braking hard exactly in the same place where four people lost their lives?”
“Perhaps whoever left those tyre marks broke hard because of a cow in the road or something,” Vincent tried to reason with me.
“A cow!” I cried in disbelief. “What cow? There are no cows around here. Take a look. There are no cows in any of the nearby fields.”
“Some other kind of animal, then?” Vincent suggested.
“There wasn’t an animal out on this road,” I said, staring at him. “It was a horse and it was pulling a cart which was carrying Jonathan Smith and his family. And it wasn’t me who hit them!”
“Who then?” Vincent asked.
Turning in the road, I looked back in the direction of the farmhouse. “Farmer Grayson hit them, not me,” I breathed.
“That reminds me,” Vincent suddenly said.
I looked back at him. He was pulling something out of his coat pocket.
“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the folded sheet of paper he was now holding.
“You asked me to do some digging on Michael Grayson,” Vincent said, unfolding the piece of paper. Handing it to me, Vincent added, “That’s a copy of Michael Grayson’s criminal record.”
“Criminal record?” I whispered, staring down at the sheet of paper. It fluttered in the wind and I gripped it in my hands.