Хилари Боннер - Death Comes First

Molly gasped through her sobs. Joyce rested her right hand lightly on her husband’s forearm.

‘We could just drop her off at A & E. We don’t even need to get out of the car,’ she said tentatively.

‘No!’ Charlie screamed at her. ‘I’m taking us home. Like you said.’

And he accelerated sharply so that they hurtled past the Exeter junction.

Joyce daren’t say more for fear of provoking him further. She was even more afraid now. All she could hope for was that he would have calmed down by the time they neared Bristol.

Eventually Charlie spoke again, reasonably calmly this time.

‘We’re going home, Joyce,’ he said. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You said let’s all go home and we can sort everything out there. Well, I’m doing what you wanted.’

‘Yes, but Monika does need to go to hospital, and soon,’ Joyce ventured.

Molly joined in from the back: ‘Monika seems worse, Mum,’ she said through her sobs. ‘She’s unconscious again. Her breathing’s shallow. I’m frightened, Mum.’

So am I, thought Joyce, but I mustn’t show it.

‘Can’t you hear your daughter, Charlie — your daughter who loves you so much,’ Joyce coaxed. ‘She’s frightened. Monika might be dying back there. And it was you who attacked her. She has to go to hospital. For your sake as much as hers.’

Charlie said nothing, just carried on driving as if he hadn’t heard. Joyce lapsed into silence, fearful of antagonizing him. They continued, no one saying a word, until they came to junction 22, the turn-off for Burnham-on-Sea, Weston-super-Mare, Bristol Airport and the A38 leading to Tarrant Park.

Charlie drove straight past it.

‘You’ve missed the turning, Charlie,’ Joyce said, hugely alarmed but trying to hide it.

He glanced at her sideways, then returned his eyes to the road.

‘You wanted us to take Monika straight to hospital, didn’t you?’

‘Well, yes,’ agreed Joyce.

‘And that’s what I’m going to do,’ said Charlie. ‘I know you’re right. I don’t want to be a murderer. We have to get Monika to hospital. Quickly. And I have to give myself up to the police. Then hope they will deal with me, with all of us, the way you seem to think they will.’

He touched her hand. Barely a touch. More of a brushing of flesh. But it seemed like a gesture both of affection and apology.

Relief washed over Joyce. Charlie appeared to be having a change of heart. Could it be that he was coming round to her way of thinking? She still felt uneasy, but she told herself that this was a good sign. He’d expressed some regret over what he had done. He retained at least some of the human decency she’d thought to be an integral part of him.

‘I’m so glad, Charlie,’ she told him. ‘I know you’re doing the right thing. The only thing.’

He smiled at her. Well nearly. It was more of a grimace.

At junction 18, the main Bristol turn-off, Charlie swung the Range Rover into the exit lane and on to the Portway towards the city centre.

So far so good.

Then, after a couple of miles, he drove straight past the turning for Southmead, the hospital Joyce had assumed he was heading for.

‘W-where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Bristol Royal Infirmary,’ he replied. ‘Why? Where did you think I was taking you?’

‘Southmead,’ she said. ‘The main A & E department is there now. It’s just moved from Frenchay.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Charlie. ‘I knew the move was about to happen, but I wasn’t sure which of those hospitals was operational. So I thought it safest to go to the Royal Infirmary.’

‘Right,’ said Joyce.

‘It won’t take long,’ Charlie reassured her.

He sounded so reasonable. As if he wanted to end this thing as much as she did.

She stole a quick look at him. His expression gave nothing away. And what he’d said did make sense. You had to drive pretty much through the city centre to get to the Royal Infirmary, but it was nearly nine thirty at night. The traffic shouldn’t be too bad. She hoped not, anyway.

‘Thank you, Charlie,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘We have a plan then. We will take Monika to A & E at the Bristol Infirmary and leave her there. We don’t have to go in. Nobody need see me. Then we’ll go home. To Tarrant Park. We’ll all be together. Like before. If I can’t have you and the kids with me in a new life, then I’ll settle for the old. Like you said, we can fix it. As long as I have you on my side, everything will be all right...’

Charlie had suddenly gone from morose silence to incessant talking. He was manic. Joyce felt she had no choice but to go along with him.

‘Yes, we’ll go home and be together, then we’ll be able to work things out,’ she said, praying she sounded more convincing than she felt.

Again Charlie lapsed into silence. He appeared to be deep in thought, as if weighing up his options.

To Joyce’s disappointment, even though it was late in the evening, there were still queues of traffic along the A4 Portway heading into the city centre. Possibly because of the terrible weather. She kept stealing glances at Charlie, who was sitting stiffly upright, grasping the steering wheel tightly, peering with considerable concentration through the windscreen in between the incessant swishing of the wipers.

By the time they reached the Floating Harbour, the city’s old dockland area, which in Victorian times had been formed by impounding 80 acres of the tidal River Avon so that visiting ships could remain afloat at all times, much of the traffic ahead had mysteriously cleared. Had it not been late on a wet and windy night, they might have had a view of the old wooden sailing vessel moored alongside Mardyke Wharf. But visibility was terrible in spite of the street lights, and in any case Joyce was too preoccupied with the nasty little drama which was taking place inside her own vehicle to enjoy the view.

She did notice that there were suddenly only a few vehicles ahead and that the traffic was now running smoothly. Charlie began to accelerate. Joyce was not unhappy about that. She wanted to get to the Royal Infirmary as quickly as possible. She still wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to make things pan out the way she wanted when they did get there. All she knew was that she had to get this nightmare to end. And the faster Charlie got them to the hospital, the faster that might be achieved.

She could see beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, even though the car’s climate control was working perfectly and the air con control panel monitor showed that the temperature inside the vehicle was a comfortable 20 degrees.

Charlie leaned forward in his seat, then looked across the road towards the harbour.

There was a gap ahead in the ornate iron railings along the roadside, one of several left to allow access to the quay by maintenance and port authority vehicles.

Charlie suddenly swung the steering wheel to the right and slammed his foot hard on to the accelerator.

The Range Rover was an automatic, requiring no gear change. The car hurtled towards the harbour, and shot through the gap.

A metre to either side and the railings might have halted or at least slowed the vehicle, which also only narrowly avoided collision with an oncoming taxi. There would still have been a crash, but nothing like what lay in store.

With a terrible lucid clarity, Joyce grasped at once what was happening: Charlie intended to drive them all straight into the harbour. He had spotted that gap and deliberately aimed at it. But she had no time to do anything to prevent the inevitable. There was a second set of railings at the waterside, which she hoped might provide a preventive barrier. However, the new Range Rover Sport boasts a 0 to 60 acceleration speed of under seven seconds. Charlie had been driving at around 35 miles per hour along the Hotwell Road when he’d suddenly accelerated. It took only three or four seconds for the vehicle to reach those railings, but by the time it did so the speed of the Range Rover had increased to over 60 mph.