Dead Man's Grip

pack of Marlboro Lights and shook out a cigarette. Then she gave Carly a crushing glare.

Carly stood awkwardly, eyes darting between the two of them, thinking, trying desperately to remember her script.

‘Know who this bitch is?’ Fernanda said to her husband.

Lou Revere grabbed the remote and unmuted the sound.

‘No. Listen, I need some quiet here.’ Then he added, ‘Get this lady a drink.’ He glanced disinterestedly at Carly. ‘You wanna drink?’

Carly felt in desperate need of a drink. And the sweet rich smell of the smoke was tantalizing. She craved a cigarette.

‘I’ll die before I give this fucking bitch anything,’ Fernanda Revere said, staggering over to an antique drinks cabinet, the doors of which were already open, and clumsily refilling her glass from a silver cocktail shaker, slopping the contents over the side. Then she drank some, put the glass down, tottered back over to her husband, grabbed the remote and switched the television completely off.

‘Hey!’ he said.

She dropped the remote on to the rug and stamped hard on it. There was the sound of splintering plastic.

Carly’s fear deepened. This woman was crazy and totally unpredictable. She looked at the man again, then back at the woman, before sneaking a glance at her watch. Three minutes had passed. What the hell was the woman going to do next? Somehow she had to bring her out of her anger.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Her husband put down his beer and ejected himself from his chair. Turning to his wife, he said, ‘Do you know how important this goddamn game is? Do you? Do you care?’

He strode towards the door. Grabbing him by the arm and dropping her glass, which broke on the floor, Fernanda screamed at him, ‘Do you fucking know or care who this bitch is?’

‘Right now, I care about the New York Yankees winning this game. You know how bad it would be if they even just tied?’

‘And you fucking think they care that you’re watching? You want to just focus a second? This is the bitch who killed our son. You hear what I’m saying?’

Carly watched him, her eyes swinging between them. She was trying to keep calm, but her nerves were in meltdown. The man stopped in his tracks and turned towards her. He glanced for a moment back at his wife and said, ‘What do you mean, hon?’ Then he turned back to Carly, his whole demeanour changing.

‘This is the bitch who was arrested at the scene for drunk driving. She killed our son, now she’s fucking standing here in front of us.’

Fernanda Revere made her way over to the bar, taking measured steps across the floor as if it were an obstacle course. There was sudden menace in Lou Revere’s voice as he spoke now. Gone was the mildly angry guy of a few seconds ago.

‘Just what the hell do you think you are doing? Turning up at our home like this? Not satisfied you’ve caused us enough pain, is that what it is?’

‘It’s not that at all, Mr Revere,’ Carly replied, her voice quavering. ‘I’d just appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and Mrs Revere and explain what happened.’

‘We know what happened,’ he said.

‘You were drunk and our son died,’ his wife added bitterly. Then she staggered back over towards them, slopping more of her drink over the rim of her fresh glass.

Carly drew on all her reserves. ‘I’m desperately sorry for you both. I’m desperately sorry for your loss. But there are things about this accident that you need to know, that I would want to know if it was my child. Could we please sit down, the three of us, and talk this through? I’ll leave when you want me to, but please let me tell you how it actually happened.’

‘We know how it happened,’ Fernanda Revere said. Then she turned to her husband. ‘Get rid of this bitch. She’s killed Tony and now she’s polluting our home.’

‘Hon, let’s just hear her out,’ he said, without taking his glare off Carly.

‘I can’t believe I married someone who fell out of a fucking tree!’ she shouted. ‘If you don’t tell her to go, I’m leaving. I’m not staying in this building with her. So tell her!’

‘Hon, let’s talk to her.’

‘GET HER THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!’

With that Fernanda stormed out of the room and some moments later a door slammed.

Carly found herself facing Lou Revere, feeling very awkward. ‘Mr Revere, maybe I should go… I’ll come back… I can come back in the morning if that’s-’

He jabbed a finger at her. ‘You came to talk, so talk.’

Carly stared at him in silence, trying to think of the best way to calm him down.

‘What’s the matter? You gone dumb or something?’ he said.

‘No, I… look, I – I can’t begin to understand how you must be feeling.’

‘Can’t you?’ he said, with a bitterness that startled her.

‘I have a young son,’ she replied.

‘ Have? ’ he replied. ‘Well you’re a lucky lady, then, aren’t you? My wife and I had a young son, too, before a drunk driver killed him.’

‘It didn’t happen like that.’

Outside, through the window, Carly heard a faint clunk, like a car door.

‘Oh, it didn’t happen like that?’ Lou Revere looked, at this moment, as if he was about to strangle her with his bare hands. He raised them in the air, clenching and then opening them.

And suddenly Carly realized what it was that the two detectives in Brighton had meant when they’d tried to explain the nature of these people to her. That they were different. Their whole culture was different. She wavered for an instant about hitting the Send button on her phone, but she had to stand her ground. Had to find a way through to this man.

He was, she realized, her only chance.

80

Pat Lanigan, standing by his car and smoking his cigar, heard an automobile engine fire up, then saw the gates opening. Was the crazy English woman coming out already? She’d only been there five minutes. He glanced at his watch again, double-checking.

It was a positive, he thought, that at least she was coming out. Although if she had only lasted in there for five minutes, then for sure it had not gone well. Maybe she’d had some sense knocked into her reckless little head.

Then, to his surprise, instead of seeing the limousine, he saw a Porsche Cayenne, with the silhouette of a woman at the wheel, come at a reckless speed through the gates, then accelerate past him like a bat out of hell.

He turned, clocked the licence plate and watched the tail lights disappear round a bend in the lane. This did not feel good. He glanced down at the display of his phone. There was no text, no missed call. He didn’t like this at all.

He flicked through his stored numbers and dialled the Suffolk County Police duty office, explained who he was and asked them to put an alert out for the Cayenne. He wanted to know where it was headed.

Fernanda Revere braked to a halt at the T-junction by the gas station, pulled a cigarette pack out of her purse, shook out a Marlboro Light and jammed it between her lips. Then she stabbed the cigar lighter, made a left and accelerated down the highway. Everything was a blur in her drunken fury. She overtook a slow-moving cab, her speed increasing: 70… 80… 90. She flashed past a whole line of tail lights, lit her cigarette and tried to replace the lighter, but it fell into the footwell.

She was shaking with rage. The road snaked away into the distance. Steering with one hand, smoke from the cigarette curling into her eyes, she rummaged in her purse and pulled out her diamante-encrusted Vertu phone, then squinted through the smoke at the display. It was a blur. She brought it closer to her face, scrolled to her