Witch(8)

I glanced once more through the web of cracks in the windscreen, hoping that perhaps the dead and the horse and cart had somehow magically disappeared. They hadn’t, and in those cracks, which did little to mask the carnage spread across the road, I saw the flicker of luminous blue lights as my father’s patrol car arrived on scene. I could see the word ECILOP written in blue across the bonnet, and through the cracked windscreen it looked distorted out of shape. Over the sound of the squealing sirens, I could hear his boots pounding quickly over the gravelled road as he raced towards my upturned patrol car. Today his boots weren’t glistening with polish, but with flecks of blood. I closed my eyes against the pain in my head and chest. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes. I didn’t want to see the disappointment I knew would be in them.

“Sydney! Sydney!” I heard his deep voice thunder.

A hand grabbed my shoulder. Without having to open my eyes, I knew it was my father’s. I knew his touch.

“Sydney?” he barked, but his voice didn’t sound angry; it sounded confused – scared.

I opened my eyes and twisted my head to look at him.

“Sydney, what happened here? Are you okay?” he breathed beneath his thick, black moustache.

“I’m sorry, dad,” I whispered, trying to fill my lungs with enough air so as to speak.

My father’s face was just inches from mine as he kneeled, peering through the driver’s window at me. My breath covered his worried face and he recoiled as the stale whiskey fumes wafted beneath his nose. They were unmistakeable. Just as I knew it would – and could I have really expected anything different – that look of fear and concern left my father’s eyes and was replaced with something close to despair and disgust for me.

“What have you done?” he said, sounding as if he was going to choke. He looked back at the road, the bloody bodies, screeching horse and cart, then back at me.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, Sydney, what have you done?”

“I’m sorry...” I started to murmur, but the sound of his radio squawking garbled messages cut over me.

My father left me in the car, lying on its side in the road. I heard the crunch of his boots over gravel. Murmuring in pain, I twisted my head to the left as I followed the sound of his footsteps. Had he left me to sort out this mess on my own? I wondered. I heard him speaking, but even through the foggy haze of my pounding mind, I knew he was talking to someone on his mobile phone and not his radio. How did I know? His voice was hushed, and there was no garbled reply from whoever he was speaking to.

The world started to swim before me again like I had just stepped off a spinning roundabout. There was a scraping noise and I twisted my head again and could see my father yanking open the driver’s door of my squad car. The bottom portion of the door scraped across the gravel, leaving what looked like white claw marks on the road. I winced in pain as my father struggled to free me from the car. He released my seatbelt, and at once it felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from my chest. I gasped in a lungful of breath, and instantly, that hazy feeling left my mind. Slipping his arms beneath mine, my father levered me free of my wrecked vehicle. He held me by the shoulders, helping me stand. My legs felt rubbery and I gripped his strong arms. Blood dripped in a thick stream from my forehead, spattering my white police shirt crimson. I looked down at the ground and it was covered in a crisscross maze of tyre marks where a vehicle had braked suddenly.

“Are you okay?” he barked, his face so close to mine that the tips of our noses almost touched.

“Yes, I’m okay,” I whispered, dabbing at the cut on my head with my fingertips.

He looked into my blue eyes, like a doctor checking to see if I were truly conscious. When he had satisfied himself I wasn’t going to drop to the ground, he let go of me and roared, “Look what you’ve done, you stupid girl!”

I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t bear to see that disapproving glare of his. It hurt me, and always had for a long as I could remember. That’s why mum had left him – he had looked at her the same way if the house was messy, or his dinner hadn’t been cooked just right. She was gone now – lived in Spain with her hot rod of a guy, Julio. Good luck to her!

“Look!” my father barked, taking my face in one of his giant hands and snapping my head towards the carnage in the road. “Look what you’ve done!”

“I’m sorr...” I started.

“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you!” he almost screamed, his face growing white in anger. “Don’t you dare try and deny it. I can smell the booze on your breath.”