‘Yeah. He shoved me in the chest.’ Again the heat of embarrassment crawled through him. ‘I fell. Landed on my backside. He leant over me.’ And Mo had thought that Harry, his friend since primary school, the person who’d stuck up for him with the inevitable, brainless dickheads who had an issue with Pakis, who he’d never seen raise his hand to anyone – even on a football pitch – was about to smack him in the face. Yes, Mo would have sworn that, in that moment, Harry was readying himself to punch his lights out.
‘And then what happened?’
‘That’s when Tish starting yelling at him.’
‘Yelling what?’
‘For him to stop. She said something about it not being my fault.’
Mo remembered seeing Jake doing his weird, spaced-out dancing around the bin, and Tish storming at Harry, shouting, her vest top shimmering in the street lights.
‘What did she mean by that?’
Mo took a breath. ‘I don’t know. Harry kinda stopped. He looked like he didn’t know what to do next.’ The option of thumping him had still been on the table, Mo was sure of that. ‘He suddenly seemed to remember that he had my phone in his hand. He lobbed it across the car park. Really launched it. I heard it hit the concrete and slide.’
‘And?’
And…Mo had still been braced for a punch. Harry still had a wild look in his eyes. ‘Harry turned round and ran back towards the car. I got up and went to look for my phone. He’d thrown it towards the containers on the far side of the car park. It must have gone under one of them, because I couldn’t find it.’
‘And while you were hunting for your phone?’ There was a hint of derision in the policewoman’s voice.
‘There was some more shouting, then the car drove off.’
‘And they left you there, in the car park?’
‘Yeah.’
There was a beat in which Mo felt certain they could hear the sweat dripping down his sides. Threatened by his mate – for doing something he didn’t have a clue about – defended by a girl, left stranded in a McDonald’s car park, miles from home, his phone gone: yeah, that was his Saturday night. But had it not been for that catalogue of disasters, he would have been in the car when it crashed, and he could be dead.
Chapter 21
HARRY WAS hiding. He knew it and was ashamed, but it seemed the only sensible thing to do. He hadn’t slept well. On the occasions that he had managed to nod off, he’d fallen headlong into horrible dreams that soon woke him – nightmares full of screaming, and an overwhelming sense of Jess and Tish and Martha being near, but too far away to reach. By 6 a.m. he’d given up on sleep and switched on his PS4; the mindless distraction was comforting in a way that nothing else was. As he machine-gunned his way through enemy combatants, he heard Martha getting ready for school, but he didn’t get up to say goodbye. Another fail. His phone was still blowing up with messages, but they weren’t from the people he wanted to hear from.
The solicitor was scheduled to arrive at 10 a.m. Time for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If only he could.
He paused the game and threw down the controller. He studied the scrapes and cuts on his arms, seeing how close they came to the veins. Only the gash on his right hand had come anywhere near an artery. It made no sense that he’d escaped so lightly. He started picking at the corner of the dressing, lifting it with his nail. Once he had a firm grip, he ripped it off. He welcomed the sudden, intense burning sensation. The stitches were already beginning to scab over. His hand looked ugly, but his injuries were nothing really, not in comparison to the others. As he lay back on the bed, tracing his fingers over the stitches, he remembered a day in college when they’d been messing about predicting each other’s futures. Jess had got him to curl up his hand, so that she could count the folds of skin near his little finger. She claimed it was a sure-fire way to predict the number of children you were going to have. Based on this foolproof method, the prediction had been: Jake – three, or at least three he’d know about; Tish – none, she’d been pissed off about that; Jess – two; and for him – four. He’d laughed and discounted it as nonsense, but deep down the thought of four kids had made him happy.
The memory of feeling happy made Harry feel worse, which made him feel guilty, which…et cetera, et cetera. Self-pity. He was drowning in it.
It was only his dad coming into his room and telling him to get up, showered and dressed that hauled him back up to the surface.
The solicitor was already sitting at the dining-room table when Harry got downstairs. He stood up as Harry entered and extended his hand. The only time Harry ever shook hands with anyone was at cricket or football dos, usually when he was collecting a cup or a plate: ‘Players’ Player’, ‘Best Innings by an Opening Batsman’. This was not that. The man controlled the handshake, a firm grip. ‘Ross Glover. Nice to meet you, Harry. Sorry it’s in such difficult circumstances. How are you holding up?’
Harry shrugged. He could sense his dad already gearing up for a comment, but the solicitor got in first, ‘Take a seat.’
Dom chose the chair next to the solicitor, leaving Harry alone on the other side of the table. Was that deliberate? Harry was too tired to know. The man sounded ‘expensive’.
‘Now, as I’m sure your dad’s explained, my role in this situation is to protect your best interests, with regard to the police investigation. And to do that, we need to get to the bottom of what contributed to, and ultimately caused, the crash that resulted in the injuries to yourself and your friends. We obviously don’t know, and we probably won’t for a while, whether there will be any charges in relation to the incident, but we have to be prepared. It’s always better to be over- than under-prepared. Any accident of this magnitude is subject to a lot of scrutiny and, sadly, a lot of speculation, so until all the facts are established, my first piece of advice to you – and this is important, Harry – is that you are very careful about who you talk to, and what you say. The best policy, really, is to say nothing. Of course I’m not including your dad in this…’ they had obviously had a conversation about Harry’s unwillingness to ‘share’ with Dom, ‘but with anyone else – and I do mean anyone, even people you might class as close friends – it’s best to keep your own counsel.’ He pinned Harry with his stare.
Harry watched his lips moving. What a pretentious arse!
His dad was the one to provide the requested reassurance. ‘I’m sure Harry knows that he’s got to be very careful what he says, and to who. Don’t you?’ Dom could never just leave it at one instruction; he always had to hammer it home.
Harry gave the lawyer the nod his father was demanding.
The posh guy went on, ‘That includes – in fact, it’s even more important in this day and age – social media. Post nothing. Comment on nothing. “Like” nothing to do with the case,’ he paused, ‘or anything else really.’
What did he think Harry was? A fucking idiot? A fucking insensitive, heartless zombie? And what the hell did he mean by anything else?
The solicitor opened his briefcase and pulled out a yellow notepad and a pen. ‘What we need to do this morning is prepare for the interview this afternoon. So what I want is for you to talk me through exactly what happened. All of it. Warts and all. In your own words.’