It was on the outskirts of Southampton when Charlie felt queasy. Broken air conditioning, the heat from seven men’s bodies in a confined space combined with the alcohol he’d consumed meant that seconds after Charlie pressed a button to open the window, he pushed his head out and vomited. And once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. The others playfully cheered his misfortune as Stelfox ordered the car to pull over and Charlie sprinted along the grass verge next to the dual carriageway and allowed himself to be sick again.
He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he heard the sound of the minivan’s hydraulics closing the car door. ‘Very funny,’ he moaned and approached the taxi. ‘Lads,’ he shouted as it began pulling away. His walk became a jog and he chased it along the slip road to the amusement of those inside. Stelfox shrugged his shoulders as if to say that while he wasn’t responsible, it was funny nonetheless.
Tonight, as the bright lights of Manchester’s city centre grew ever closer, Charlie felt almost detached from his memory of what happened next. He wondered how many of his old friends had been distracted by him not to noticethe articulated lorry travelling along the wrong side of the road before it ploughed into them.
The force of the collision sent plastics, polymers and metal flying in all directions and he’d dived to the ground and covered his head to avoid being hit. It was as if someone had transported him on to the set of a Hollywood film. It was hard to differentiate between either vehicle, mangled and melded together like a macabre sculpture.
Charlie ran towards the debris as another car lost control and hit the central reservation. In the distance more vehicles careered down banks or collided with one another.
But nothing could have prepared him for the view inside the wreckage of the people carrier. At first, he could only make out blood and limbs ripped from torsos. There was Bailey’s tattooed arm severed from its shoulder and Mark’s face, missing from the mouth down. Stelfox was still breathing but unconscious and separated from both legs.
‘Hang on,’ Charlie pleaded. ‘Please, just hang on.’
Hands trembling, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled 999 but to his disbelief, the line was engaged. Many times more he hit redial until he understood that nobody was coming to help. That was the moment his legs gave way and he dropped to his knees. He waited for almost four hours until a fire engine and ambulances finally reached that road.
Over the following months, it didn’t matter how many appointments Charlie kept with his counsellor, how much positive enforcement she imparted or the dose of medication he used to numb his post-traumatic stress disorder. The only voice he believed was that of Stelfox’s widow, Julia. She spotted him when she turned to watch her husband’s coffin being carried along the aisle of the crematorium.
‘This is your fault!’ she yelled across the hushed room. ‘You couldn’t accept they’d outgrown you. You had to keeppushing and pushing to see them. They were only going out because they pitied you. It should be you inside that box, not him, not any of them.’
Before the programme, Charlie kept their memories alive by saving their voicemail messages and booking their usual table at the pub to watch England’s games. But Julia’s hatred became his truth. Her words haunted him as much as the blood-soaked bodies inside the taxi did.
And it wasn’t until he underwent the procedure to implant the country’s secrets inside him that he discovered how right she was. Many of the autonomous vehicles that collided had been selected by the Hacking Collective based upon who had been involved in their promotion. Charlie’s involvement hadn’t been hiring the vehicle but his freelance graphic design work in which he’d helped to deliver a government advertising campaign to promote the benefits of autonomous cars.
However, a covert inquiry had suppressed that information from the public, ruling that it would benefit no one if they learned of the inadvertent role they might have played in the deaths of so many.
Charlie returned to the present and estimated that the pub where he was to meet his new friends was now five minutes away. He wasn’t ready for their company just yet. Instead, he took a detour along the Rochdale canal towpath and paused to settle on a bench and make the most of the quiet before the noisy night ahead. He spotted at least a dozen illuminated cranes dotted about the skyline, each standing above buildings in various stages of completion. Advertisements made up many of the moving images across the sides of offices, but it was a television inside a canal boat moored in front of him that grabbed his attention.
The screen was filled with an image of Edward Karczewski. Charlie hesitated as if he was imagining it.Then he moved towards the window and peered through it to take a closer look at the caption underneath:Government adviser dead in boating accident. He didn’t need to hear what the newscaster was saying to know that his life was about to shift gear once again.
Chapter 45
SINÉAD, EDZELL, SCOTLAND
‘I’ve done something really stupid,’ Sinéad began as Doon opened her front door. It was mid-morning but Sinéad didn’t question why Doon was still wearing her pyjamas.
‘Come in,’ she invited, her expression impassive. The two made their way into the lounge where Sinéad attended Doon’s weekly wine-and-rom-com-movie nights. ‘What’s happened?’
Sinéad paced the room, trying to put her thoughts in order before she explained the domestic violence she had heard at Gail’s house and how her friend had reacted when offered help.
‘Perhaps give her space for a few days and then approach her again?’ Doon suggested. ‘Apologise for pushing her into a corner but assure her that if and when she is ready to talk to you, you will be there to listen.’
‘But I’ve been where she is now,’ Sinéad protested. ‘I know that sometimes all it takes is one sentence from a friend to make you completely re-evaluate your life.’
‘As you say,sometimesthat’s all it takes, but not always,’ said Doon, her tone clipped. ‘It might have been like that for you, hen, but it’s not the same for everyone. You were ready to listen, but Gail isn’t there yet.’
Sinéad sighed and glanced around the room, only now noticing the curtains were still closed. ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked and took in Doon’s appearance more closely. Her cheeks were drawn and her eyes were pinkish red as if she and sleep were estranged. ‘Have you been poorly?’
Doon hesitated before clearing her throat. ‘Today’s the anniversary of my daughter’s death,’ she began. ‘I always struggle at this time of the year.’
‘Oh, Doon, I’m so sorry,’ Sinéad replied. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult it must be.’
‘The hardest part is knowing how much pain Isla must have been in before she took her own life. Her dad and I had seen her a couple of weeks earlier and we should have picked up that something was wrong. I’m her mother, it’s my job to notice.’
Sinéad felt something tug inside her head, like the pulling of a loose stitch. Her memory flicked through its Rolodex until it settled on Isla’s case file. What she knew about Isla’s death was forcing her two worlds to collide, and she didn’t know if it was making her anxious or providing her with a unique opportunity to bring comfort to someone she was close to. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty for,’ she said.
Doon swallowed hard. ‘You couldn’t possibly know how it feels when the child you love believes death is a better option than the life you’ve given her. I tell you, it hurts like nothing else, Sinéad. I should have been there for her.’
Sinéad opened her mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again.
