WPC Shaw also phoned a few times. She’d been assigned the role of family liaison officer and it was her job to keep me up to date with how the investigation was progressing. She’d been far more frank than Patel. “We’ve no doubt that the person driving at the time of the incident worked for the owner of the pick-up truck. We’ve interviewed him several times but he’s denying everything and claims the truck was stolen. Anyway, I’m sorry to say, with no forensic evidence or witnesses it’s going to be very difficult to bring charges.”
Perhaps surprisingly, I wasn’t particularly upset by the news; I was lost in my grief and basically of the opinion that finding who was responsible wouldn’t bring my family back.
In the immediate aftermath of the hit-and-run there had been massive interest from the media. Within forty-eight hours the local reporters had picked up the story, and a further twenty-four hours later the national papers were on my doorstep. One freelance journalist even pushed a business card through my door; on the back, written in red ink, “£5,000.” Needless to say, I didn’t call and the card went straight in the bin.
Perhaps ironically, arranging the funeral became the single focus on which I could concentrate my attentions. But prolonging my agony in a sense, the release of the bodies and consequently the funerals were delayed by the coroner’s request that post mortems be performed on all the bodies. This delay seemed like the final insult, particularly to my sons, as their already crumpled bodies had to be subjected to further dismemberment. With the bodies finally released, though, I could begin planning the funeral in earnest. I’d considered having two separate services, one for my parents and a second for Helen and the boys, but ultimately I opted for a single funeral as I didn’t think my fragile emotional state would tolerate more than one battering.
The service was held in the local church just a stone’s throw from the site of the hit-and-run. At first I’d had reservations about the venue, but in the end I decided that it was such a beautiful building that it seemed an appropriate place to mark the lives of my beautiful boys. The small church was packed with many of my parent’s friends as well as our neighbours, and also teachers from William’s school, attending to pay their respects. Even an old school friend, James Bosworth, attended, though I didn’t recognise him at first. He’d grown a ridiculous goatee beard and put on a good couple of stone since school days. I was shocked by his reaction: he cried through much of the service, which seemed a bit over the top given that he’d never even met Helen and the boys. I didn’t get the chance to speak to him: he disappeared before the end of the service. I was also aware of James Kentish shedding his crocodile tears. He’d been the headmaster at Helen’s last school before her maternity leave, and since I’d first met him at a school fundraising event several years earlier I’d never liked the slimy little man. There was just something about him, though nothing specific that I could put my finger on; and subsequent events were only to reinforce my intense dislike of him. Despite the numbness of my emotions, I was surprised by the intensity of my feelings at the sight of him, and I had the genuine desire to smash his face in.
With the funeral over I sank back into a trough of emptiness. I didn’t necessarily feel depressed, just completely flat and devoid of feeling. Rarely leaving the house, my only company was daytime TV and my elderly well-meaning neighbours, who occasionally brought round plates of food for my evening meal, though with no appetite, they often remained untouched. Occasionally I would go to the boys’ bedrooms and lie on their beds, attempting to drink in the sweet smell from their pillows. But even that simple act of reassurance became a source of anxiety as I irrationally began to worry that I would very soon wear away the scent and that another link with them would be lost forever.
It wasn’t until a week after the funeral that I opened the living room curtains for the first time, perhaps in recognition that I was ready to let the outside world into my existence. I was sick and frustrated with life but didn’t know how to climb from my emotional black hole and begin the rebuilding process. For thirty minutes I stood in the dining room looking through the French windows into the garden. It was a beautiful spring morning. The spiders’ webs in the grass were drenched in dew, and the daffodil bulbs my sons had planted were in full colour and doing their best to raise my spirits. For the first time in days I had the desire for a change of scenery. I needed fresh air and to be free of the confines of my isolation. Half fearing that I would change my mind or lose momentum, I ran upstairs and pulled on a sweatshirt, grabbed the car keys and got in the car.
I began driving, but with no particular destination in mind – I just needed to get away. Lost in my thoughts and memories, after a few minutes I found myself on the outskirts of the city and heading through Holmsfield towards the Peak District beyond. I drove on the largely empty roads for close to thirty minutes before pulling into the car park of the Fox House pub, a popular restaurant with walkers visiting the surrounding countryside. I turned the engine off and sat in the car watching the hikers, represented by little more than dots on the far horizon.
After an hour or so, on impulse, I left the car and began the walk up Burbidge Brook, a long shallow valley that climbs from the pub car park over a distance of two or three miles to a height of two hundred metres. Wearing just a lightweight sweatshirt, jeans and trainers, I barely noticed the freezing wind scything through to my skin and causing my eyes to stream. I passed numerous walkers but didn’t acknowledge them. I kept my head down, lost in my thoughts as I tried to work out how my life had gone so wrong. After an hour of hard walking I left the main path and waded through a short stretch of thick bracken to Burbage Rocks, a spectacular thirty-metre-high rocky ridge overlooking several miles of Hathersage Moor. Calmly I stood on the edge of the ridge, teetering on the edge, my toes hanging over the abyss, knowing that a single step forward, or even the slightest gust of wind, would gift me certain death. Normally far from comfortable of heights, for the first time in months I felt empowered by the ultimate luxury of having complete control over my life and my death. I stood almost motionless for probably close to thirty minutes, staring down at the rocky ground far below and contemplating whether to take that small step forward.
----
It was dusk and a light rain had started to fall by the time I got back to the car. Turning the key in the ignition, the dashboard display indicated 2oC and for the first time I began to feel the effects of the cold as I struggled to control my shivering body. With the car heater on full blast and gradually warming through me, I sat for several minutes trying to understand why I hadn’t taken that small step, knowing that it would have put an end to my misery.
Even now looking back, it is still no clearer. I’ve always had a certain ambivalence towards my own existence. It’s not that I don’t value life, but the prospect of a break from myself has always held more than a little appeal. But maybe even in those early days I knew that there was unfinished business and I needed a form of justice before I could move on. Whatever the reason, that afternoon represented a turning point, and as I drove back home I had the reassuring realisation that if I couldn’t find a purpose or a reason to go on, my life had a get-out clause in the form of that small step off the edge.