screeching with fury, accusing him of something he’d never done, would never dream of doing. All eyes turning towards him. Why was this happening?
Ryan’s voice rose, filled with pain and naked rage. ‘She would never have cheated on me if you hadn’t come to her fucking rescue with your concern and your sympathy. Your dazzling fucking smile and broad shoulders that every deluded girl in college wanted to cry on.’
Girls. A few girls after Jemma had left him for Ryan. The ghosts of Josh’s youth blew through his mind like the cold wind forced ahead of the train that hurtled towards him. He’d never loved any of them. Only her.
‘Why did you have to be standing so close to the edge?’ Ryan’s voice was hoarse, desperate. ‘Why won’t you move? Get up, will you, for fuck’s—’
His mother’s voice, frantic, screaming over Ryan’s. ‘Ryan! Josh! Where is…? Oh my God! No!’
The tracks hissed and spat, white heat burning into him, blistering his skin.
‘Help him! He’s your brother!’ were the last confusing words he heard before the raucous metallic shriek of the brakes drowned his mother out. A blinding white light the last thing he saw before his vision exploded.
Epilogue
Twelve months later
Cassie had been relieved that Adam had allowed her to stay in their beautiful house. He’d been confused when she’d said she wanted to live in it with her memories. He’d probably imagined it was the last thing she wanted. They couldn’t continue as a couple, that was clear, although Adam hadn’t become involved with anyone else. He’d said he wouldn’t. Ever. Cassie couldn’t quite believe that. He was a good-looking man. A good man at the core. He’d been reluctant to report her. She’d felt his anguish as she’d watched him doing battle with his conflicting emotions. She’d taken the decision away from him. She’d hoped that going to the police herself might help assuage her guilty conscience. It hadn’t. They’d charged her with involuntary manslaughter, adjourned the hearing before sentencing for medical reports. It had helped that she’d sought counselling through her doctor. Adam had been there every day. She’d been glad he had, but part of her wished he hadn’t. That he could walk away. He seemed reluctant to do that too. He was relieved and surprised, as she was, when she received a suspended sentence, subject to meeting certain requirements, unpaid work being one of them, the other to seek mental health treatment with a psychologist. She was happy to do that, finally, though she could never tell all of it.
She was sure Adam suspected there was more to what happened at the station than she’d told him. She couldn’t confide in him either, though, not everything. Ryan had suffered enough. He would live with what had happened for the rest of his life. Jemma too had suffered enough. She needed Ryan in her life, a man who loved her, wanted to look after her. He was a good man too, fundamentally. It really had been an accident. Ryan had attempted to climb down on the tracks as the train approached. It was too close. There might have been two deaths that night.
There’d been no way to recount all the details to Adam or anyone else without implicating Ryan. Her stomach tightening, as it did every time she replayed the scene, Cassie recalled how, hurrying across the bridge, she’d seen Ryan walking towards Josh. Josh hadn’t been aware he was there. He’d been on his phone, oblivious, alive.
She squeezed her eyes closed. She’d known Ryan had found out about the baby. If only she’d managed to park her car more quickly, to reach Josh on his phone. She’d watched helplessly as the black cat had darted in front of Ryan, causing him to stumble. Her petrified scream when he’d lurched into Josh had been lost against the thunderous clatter of the train shaking the ground beneath her, blowing her world into a million pieces. How ironic was it that Josh had been speaking to Kim, a woman whose obsessive love, twisted need to protect him, and complete inability to accept that Josh didn’t love her had ultimately destroyed him?
She clamped down hard on the memory. She would revisit it later. It would creep back to haunt her in the bleak, lonely hours. It always did.
Breathing in the rich smell of the earth, she looked around her garden, grateful for this small oasis of tranquillity, where sometimes her memories were less painful. Adam had levelled the overgrown leylandii