“What?”
“That day, when they died—what do you remember of it? Not the crash. I mean, before you left home that day. Before you came to Hawes, what were you doing? Whose idea was it to go out?”
“Ed’s. Definitely. I was gardening. I wanted to stay here but he insisted.”
“Yeah, I bet he did. Read this.”
He passes the phone back to me. The string of texts is dated June seventeenth, the day they died. The first message is from Caroline to Ed:
What r u doing?
Messing with bike. U?
Hawes. Antiques fair
With him?
Yes
I miss u. How long is he here for this time?
Leaves day after tomorrow. Miss u too
What about if I come to meet u?
How?
Bring F for a ride, palm her off on your bloke and u come on bike. We’ll be home first… How much time will we have till they arrive?
Enough.
Text when u get to Hawes. I’ll let u know where we r
Here now
I see u. Across square. Coffee shop.
That’s the final text, obviously. I gaze at Ewan in amazement. I’m incredulous. Long moments pass in stunned silence as the truth of what happened that afternoon, the truth of how the sequence of events actually came about, drops into place.
“They planned it. They arranged to meet, and tricked the pair of us by making out like they didn’t even know each other. They intended all along for Caroline to come back on the bike.” My voice is a hushed whisper, as though this is some awful secret not to be overheard, as though saying it out loud will somehow make it more real, more final. As if it could ever be more final.
Ewan nods. “Looks like it. You complaining about rain and feeling cold must have seemed convenient. And that explains why he was riding like a bat out of hell in thoseconditions. He just wanted a quick fuck.”
“She did too.”
“Yeah. I must have been losing my touch.”
“You got it back, sir.” A little grim humour seems not out of place here.
He lets out a dry chuckle. “I guess I did.” He gives me a lopsided grin, but that fades as we both get our heads around the significance of this final twist.
Ewan reaches for my hand. “Are you okay?”
I nod, eyeing the card that started this final chapter. I open it, study Ed’s scrawl again. “He tells her he can’t wait until they can be together for good. I guess now they are. He got what he wanted. Maybe they both got what they deserved.”
Even as I say it, I know that’s not really what I think. Ed and I would have separated before much longer, I can see the inevitability of that now. Caroline might have turned out to be the love of his life, they might have made a go of it, or maybe not. But they didn’t deserve to die.
Our eyes meet across the table, both of us thinking back to that fateful day. Ewan’s wry smile is the only indication he appreciates the prophetic significance of Ed’s words. He takes the card from me, closes it, and lays it face down on the table.
