Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘We need to ask you something, Mr Parnell,’ said the woman. ‘You been drinking, you and Ms Lang?’

Parnell wished they’d stop being politically correct or whatever it was, and pronouncing Ms as ‘Miz’, which sounded like a nickname. ‘We had just one pitcher of beer. I drank most of it, because she was driving. Rebecca wasn’t drunk.’

‘You didn’t stop, on the way back?’

‘At my apartment… we got dirty, eating the crabs. Washed up there

…’ Parnell was suddenly caught by Dwight Newton’s stillness. The man didn’t appear to have moved since he’d come into the office, the usual twitching hands clasped tightly in his lap.

‘You do… get dirty,’ said Johnson, as if there were a need for confirmation.

‘You have a drink back at your apartment?’ persisted Helen Montgomery.

‘No.’

‘So, the day ended early?’ questioned Bellamy. ‘How early would you say, Mr Parnell?’

‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Parnell, emptily. ‘Eight-ish, nine-ish. I don’t know.’

‘The car clock’s busted at eight fifty,’ said Bellamy.

‘Like I said, eight-ish, nine-ish,’ said Parnell, numbly

‘You have an argument, Mr Parnell?’ demanded the woman, hard-voiced.

‘No!’ protested Parnell. ‘Why ask me that?’

‘Where she crashed. It’s a bad spot. Lots of warnings to slow down. Be careful. To have gone through the barrier… over the barrier

… like she did, she was going a lot too fast…’

‘Speedo’s broke, too,’ came in Bellamy. ‘Stuck at sixty-five. That’s an illegal speed in Rock Creek Park.’

‘Rebecca didn’t drive fast,’ insisted Parnell, defensively. ‘She didn’t drive fast and she wasn’t drunk and we hadn’t had a fight.’ Hadn’t had a fight echoed in his mind. But it hadn’t been an easy day. The contradiction came at once. Yes, it had. Ended good, at least. They’d decided to live together, for Christ’s sake! She was happy, going home to pack. Could that have been it, the opposite of what they were thinking? Going home too quickly, to pack?

‘So, she was a good driver?’ persisted the woman.

‘Very good.’

‘What about seat belts?’

‘What about seat belts?’ echoed Parnell.

‘She wasn’t wearing hers,’ said Bellamy, flatly.

‘No!’ refused Parnell. ‘She always wore a seat belt. It was a routine. Always. That’s how her parents died, not wearing their seat belts.’

‘She wasn’t wearing one last night,’ said Bellamy, just as insistent. ‘It might have helped if she had been.’

‘You sure things were OK between you?’ asked Helen Montgomery.

‘Couldn’t have been better…’ Why not, he thought. ‘We decided yesterday to move in together.’

The admission deflated some of the woman’s belligerence but not by a lot. ‘I’m not trying to be offensive,’ she began.

‘Maybe not trying hard enough,’ said Parnell, angrily.

Helen Montgomery ignored the outburst. ‘Did Ms Lang have other friends?’

Ms cut into his head like a buzz saw. ‘What’s that question mean?’

‘Other men friends? Boyfriends?’

Parnell bit back the instinctive rejection. He didn’t know, he conceded. She’d never introduced him to anyone else, male or female. Or talked about anyone else, until yesterday, the walk-away lover who’d made her pregnant. And he didn’t know who he was. ‘What’s the point of that question?’

‘What car do you drive?’ avoided Bellamy, once more.

‘A Toyota. Why?’

‘What colour?’ demanded the woman.

‘You answer my question first,’ said Parnell, still angrily.

‘No,’ she refused. ‘You answer mine.’

‘Grey. Now, why?’

The two police officers looked at one another. The woman smiled. The man may have nodded, Parnell wasn’t sure. The man said: ‘The barrier Ms Lang went into… and over. It’s white. Fluorescent, to reflect light, like these things do. The offside of Ms Lang’s car is all stove in… we found a lot of another car’s paint. It’s grey…’

A cohesive thought wouldn’t form. The impressions, his reactions, were jumbled, one or two words at a time. ‘You think… you mean… there was another car…?’

‘We need to understand a lot of things, Mr Parnell. A lot – too much – we haven’t worked out at the moment.’

‘Wait!’ demanded Parnell, raising both hands towards the tightly packed group. ‘You believe Rebecca crashed into another car – got thrown over the edge of a ravine…?’

‘Maybe forced over the edge,’ said Helen Montgomery.

‘Or sideswiped,’ added Bellamy.

‘But didn’t stop?’ stumbled Parnell.

‘Why do you think she was going so fast?’ said the woman. ‘How about trying to get away from someone? In too much of a hurry even to fasten up her seat belt?’

‘Maybe,’ accepted Parnell, ‘But she would have definitely fastened her seat belt.’

‘You sure you didn’t have a fight?’ demanded the woman.

‘We decided yesterday to move in together!’ protested Parnell.

‘You said,’ nodded Bellamy.

‘You actually think I drove Rebecca off the road! I loved her, for Christ’s sake! We were…’

‘… going to live together,’ finished Helen Montgomery, flatly. ‘Tell us some more about last night. Rebecca left around eight-ish, nine-ish?’

Parnell was holding himself rigidly under control, hands and arms stiff beside him, exasperated and impotent. Tightly he said: ‘Rebecca left, like I said. I sat around, thinking. We’d already decided we didn’t want anything to eat. I didn’t want a drink, either. I went through some papers I’d taken home – work things. Research. Then I went to bed.’

‘You’d decided that day to live together?’ pressed the woman.

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t celebrate?’

‘We were going to, tonight. At her uncle’s restaurant. It was going to be a surprise.’

‘You didn’t call her, see she got home safely?’

‘No.’ Why not? Parnell thought, agonized.

‘You didn’t call anyone? Speak to anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Watch television? Remember a programme you saw?’

‘No.’

‘Listen to the radio?’

‘No.’

‘Your car outside in the lot?’ demanded Bellamy.

A sweep of sickening awareness engulfed Parnell. ‘It’s damaged.’

The two officers looked at each other again. The man said: ‘How did that happen, Mr Parnell?’

‘Hit in the car park. This car park.’

‘When was that?’

‘Last week.’

‘Guy who did it leave a note? Inform security?’

‘No.’ Parnell wished his voice hadn’t wavered.

‘Did you inform security?’ said Bellamy.

‘No.’

‘Get an estimate from a repair shop?’

‘No.’

‘Make an insurer’s report?’

‘No.’

Tell anyone?’

‘Rebecca.’

‘No one else?’

‘No. No one else.’

Helen Montgomery said: ‘I think we’d better take a look.’

Parnell was conscious of the attention of everyone in Rebecca’s unit as he emerged into it from Showcross’s office: aware, too, of the two officers forming up either side of him. They stayed that way even as they threaded their way through the lined-up cars. Parnell guessed there would be people watching from the windows behind him. As they approached the vehicle, he said: ‘There! There it is.’

Bellamy, to Parnell’s left, said: ‘Quite a lot of damage, Mr Parnell. Just the sort of damage that would have been caused by your driving Ms Lang off the road.’

‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Parnell, the cliche echoing in his head.

‘People tell us that all the time,’ said the woman.