watch as the car swerves to avoid her, skids, then smashes into the tree I am sitting in. The force of the impact almost knocks me from the branch, but someone in the distance tells me to hold on. Below me, time has slowed. The little girl laughs uncontrollably and I watch in horror as a woman’s body smashes out of the windscreen. She flies through the air in slow motion, wearing a cape of a thousand shards of glass. Her body lands hard on the street directly below. I look back at the little girl, she’s stopped laughing. She raises her index finger to where her lips should be: Shhh. I look back over at the body of the woman. I know that it’s me down there, but I don’t want to see any more. I close my eyes. Everything is silent, except the car radio, which is still playing Christmas songs from within the twisted metal shell. The music stops abruptly and I hear Madeline’s voice on the crackly airwaves. I sit on my branch and put my hands over my ears, but I can still hear her repeating the same words over and over.
Hello and welcome to Coffee Morning.
Nothing happens by accident.
I start to scream but Madeline’s voice just gets louder. I hear a door open and I fall straight from the tree, back into my hospital bed.
‘I’m back,’ says Paul.
‘I can see that,’ says Claire.
‘Which means you can go now. When I’m here, you’re not. That’s what we agreed.’
‘That’s what you agreed,’ she says. ‘I’m not leaving.’
Claire picks up her discarded book from the end of the bed and sits back down in her chair. Everything is silent for a while, then I hear Paul sit down on the other side of the room. It feels like we stay like this for a very long time. I’m not sure if I’m awake or asleep for all of it, I don’t know if there are moments that I missed. The hours are being stolen from me, episodes I wanted to see deleted before I’ve had a chance to watch.
I hear more voices, new ones. Everyone seems to be talking over each other at first, so that the words get tangled on their way to my ears. I have to concentrate very hard to straighten them out.
‘Mr Reynolds? I’m DCI Jim Handley and this is PC Healey. Could we speak with you outside?’ says a man’s voice from the doorway.
‘Of course,’ says Paul. ‘Is it to do with the accident?’
‘It might be best if we spoke alone,’ says the detective.
‘It’s fine, I’ll go,’ says Claire.
The knot in the pit of my stomach tightens as she exits the room. I hear the door click shut before someone clears their throat.
‘It was your car that your wife was driving night before last, is that right?’ the detective asks.
‘Yes,’ Paul answers.
‘Do you know where she was going?’
‘No.’
‘But you saw her leave?’
‘Yes.’
I hear a long, drawn-out intake of breath. ‘Shortly after your wife was brought to hospital by ambulance, two of our colleagues went to your home. You weren’t there.’
‘I was out looking for her.’
‘On foot?’
‘That’s right. I was at home the next morning when they came back.’
‘So you knew that police officers had been to your property the night before?’
‘Well, not at the time, no, but you just said they . . .’
‘The officers who came to your house yesterday morning were sent to inform you that your wife was at the hospital. The first set of police officers were sent the night before because someone had reported you and your wife arguing loudly in the street.’ Paul doesn’t say anything. ‘If you didn’t know where your wife was going, then where did you go to look for her?’
‘I was drunk, it was Christmas after all. I wasn’t thinking logically, I just wandered around for a while . . .’
‘I see that your hand is bandaged up. How did that happen?’
‘I don’t remember.’
He’s lying, I can tell, but I don’t know why.
‘We’ve spoken to some of the staff who were here when your wife was first brought in. They say that some of her injuries are older than those she sustained in the crash, do you have any idea how she might have got them?’
What injuries?
‘No,’ says Paul.
‘You didn’t notice the marks on her neck or the bruising on her face?’ asks the female police officer.
‘No,’ he says again.
‘I do think it’s best we speak to you somewhere more private, Mr Reynolds,’ says the detective. ‘We’d like to invite you to come to the station with us.’
The room is silent.
Tuesday, 20th December 2016 – Morning
‘Managed to get you a table at the Langham, pulled some strings,’ I say.
‘Marvellous. What for?’ says Matthew, without looking up from his computer screen. We’re on air in just under ten minutes and almost everyone, including Madeline, has already gone through to the studio.
‘Brunch,’ I say.
‘With who?’ He looks up at me, giving me his half-full attention. Then I see his expression change as he notices my new dress, my make-up, my hair, bullied into shape by brushes and hot air. He sits up a little straighter and his left eyebrow exerts itself into an appreciative arch. I find myself wondering whether he is actually gay or whether I had just presumed that he was.
‘Today’s panel. The women in their fifties guests. We talked about it last week,’ I say.
‘Did we?’
‘Yes. You said you’d take them out after the show, talk through some future ideas.’
‘What future ideas?’
‘You said we needed to be more innovative, shake things up a bit.’
‘That does sound like me.’
It doesn’t. When he hesitates, I bombard him with more well-rehearsed words. ‘They’re expecting to meet you straight after the show, but I can cancel it if you want me to, make up some excuse?’
‘No, no. I think I do remember now. Is Madeline joining us?’
‘No, it’s just you and the guests.’ He frowns. ‘So they can talk freely about what they think works and what doesn’t.’ I didn’t rehearse that part, but the words form themselves and do the trick.
‘OK, I suppose that makes sense. I’ve got a physio appointment at three, so I’ll need to head home straight after.’
‘Sure thing, boss.’
‘And joining us now on Coffee Morning are Jane Williams, the editor of Savoir-Faire, the UK’s biggest-selling women’s monthly magazine, and the writer and broadcaster Louise Ford, to talk about women working in the media in their fifties,’ says Madeline, before taking a sip of water. For once, she looks as uncomfortable as I feel in the studio. I dig my fingernails into my knees beneath the desk as hard as I can; the pain calms me enough to stop me from running out of the tiny, dark room.
I set up a fake Twitter account last night, took me five