Lost Summer. Stuart Harrison
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there is a logical explanation. They were both found some distance from the car. My guess is that neither of them was wearing a seatbelt. The first time the car rolled the doors probably popped open like the ends of a can and they were thrown out. It happens all the time. That partly accounts for their more obvious injuries. Both were killed almost instantly by the way, and both from a massive trauma to the head.’
‘You said partly,’ Adam said. ‘Partly accounts for their injuries.’
‘Yes. Some of these injuries occurred prior to the accident. About two or three days earlier I’d say. Mostly bruising and abrasions, some minor facial cuts, though one of them had a cracked rib.’
‘Any idea how they might have happened?’
She pursed her lips. ‘If I had to guess? I’d say they were probably in a fight. Quite a violent one.’ She paused for a moment, her brow furrowed in a puzzled frown.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s probably nothing. But I did wonder at the time why one of these two young men hadn’t been driving. Perhaps then we wouldn’t be sitting here now.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, neither of them showed any trace of alcohol in his blood,’ she said, and then saw his expression. ‘I thought you knew that. I suppose these injuries could be the explanation. Perhaps neither of them was up to it.’
He pondered her theory, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. It looked as if Frost and Davies had taken some punishment, but hardly enough that they’d allow someone high on a cocktail of drugs and booze to get behind the wheel. Especially if that person didn’t know how to drive.
‘You look sceptical,’ Dr Keller observed.
‘It’s my nature. But you said yourself that these older injuries on the other two were mostly cuts and abrasions.’
‘Yes.’ She looked again at the pictures. ‘As I said, it did strike me as unusual at the time. An anomaly shall we say.’
‘But not enough to raise in your report?’
‘No. The facts are inescapable. Ben Pierce was found in the driver’s seat. Both of the others were thrown clear before the car came to rest. The evidence at the site, and the injuries I recorded during my examination of the bodies both there and here confirm that.’
‘There’s no chance any of them were moved?’
Dr Keller frowned. ‘Moved?’
‘Perhaps they were switched. Perhaps one of the others was driving.’
‘Why would anyone do that? Besides, it isn’t possible. As I said, the evidence is clear. Both of these young men were in the back seat before they were thrown clear. I found fragments of tissue and clothing away from the wreck that clearly showed where each of them had fallen. I’m afraid there’s no mistake.’
Nevertheless, Adam thought, he had come looking for answers and instead had found one more thing that didn’t make sense. He thanked Dr Keller for her help, but as he left the hospital he was beginning to think that perhaps Helen’s misgivings were justified. Something about this didn’t feel right.
The police station in Castleton occupied a plain, purpose-built building behind the town’s only supermarket. On one side a metal gate opened to a small area where a police Range Rover with the Cumbrian police insignia on the door was parked. Adam went inside and pressed a buzzer on the counter and a few moments later a young police constable appeared.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘My name’s Adam Turner, I’m a journalist and I’m looking into an accident that happened near here in September. Three university students were killed.’
‘Yes. I remember that.’
‘I was hoping I could speak to the officer who attended the scene.’
‘Just a moment.’
The constable disappeared and a few minutes later a man wearing the uniform of a sergeant appeared. He wore a curious, uncertain expression and there was something familiar about him, which it took Adam a moment to place. He was heavier than when Adam had last seen him, more solid, and his once rosy cheeks were more ruddy and weathered now, but it was unmistakeably Graham. For a moment he gaped in surprise. It was Graham who spoke first, extending his hand across the counter.
‘Hello, Adam.’
They shook hands. Of course Adam had expected to run into them all sooner or later. Graham and Nick, and of course David. Somehow he’d known they wouldn’t have moved away. But he hadn’t been prepared for this. ‘Sorry,’ he said, realizing how he must look. ‘It’s the uniform that threw me there for a minute.’
‘I joined when I was eighteen,’ Graham said. ‘I didn’t know what else I wanted to do really. It was either this or an apprenticeship.’
‘Looks like you did the right thing,’ Adam said, gesturing to the stripes on Graham’s sleeve.
‘I got these a year or two ago when they moved me back here from Brampton. It’s not exactly Scotland Yard, but it’s not a bad life. We don’t get the sort of problems they have in the city, thank God. Not yet anyway.’ He looked around, perhaps pondering the surroundings where he could probably expect the rest of his career to be played out. ‘What about you, Adam, where are you living now?’
‘London.’
‘And you’re a journalist. When I heard the name I wondered if it was you. You always knew what you wanted to do. How long have you been back?’
‘I arrived last night.’
‘I don’t suppose it’s changed much.’
‘No, not really.’
‘So, what brings you back here anyway? Gordon said something about you wanting to know about the lads that were killed in that accident last month?’
‘I’m looking into it for the sister of one of them. She has some questions about what happened.’
‘Helen Pierce,’ Graham said, frowning.
‘You spoke to her?’
‘A few times. Ben, wasn’t it, her brother’s name? He was driving but she said he couldn’t have been. Something to do with his illness. He was epileptic.’
‘According to Helen her brother never learned to drive because of it. She said he didn’t drink either.’
‘Because of the medicine he was taking. Yes, she told me that too.’ Graham opened a flap in the counter. ‘Look, why don’t you come inside where we can talk properly?’
They went through to a small inner office and Graham gestured to a chair at his desk. ‘Have a seat, Adam.’ He went around the desk and settled himself in his own chair. ‘Is Helen Pierce a friend of yours, or is your interest in this professional?’
‘A bit of both, I suppose you could say.’
‘You know there’s been an inquest already? There’s really no doubt that Ben Pierce was driving the car when it crashed, and the autopsy results proved he’d been drinking.’
‘I know. I talked to the pathologist this morning.’
‘So, how can I help?’
‘I don’t know exactly. I’d like to find out more about how the accident happened,’ Adam said.
‘Hang on.’ Graham got up and went to a row of filing cabinets where he dug out a copy of the accident report. ‘It was the fifth of September. A woman reported seeing the wreck from the Geltsdale road when she was taking her kids to school. I went up there straight away.’
The Geltsdale road crossed the fells and wound down to the valley in a series of curves, passing through the forest for a good part of