the high
squealing and tearing of tons of breaking masonry and steel. The
uprights supporting the bridge spans tottered stiffly towards and
away from one another. With awful slowness they, too, crashed into
the river, one by one, and the road, tipping and sagging some more,
in a slow, rolling twist disappeared under the water.
Then the image froze. From the bridge’s severed ends, girders
hung suspended in space and in time, not yet lethally collapsed. A
car arrested in a nosedive towards the water hovered in mid-air,
its occupants not yet trapped and drowned. There was a digital
whirring.
For a second or two, the video ran backwards and speeded up like
some ludicrously cruel comic caper; the car reeled back from
disaster and jumped up onto the road. Then the screen went blank
except for numbers racing in one corner. There was a flicker, and
there again was the man larking about with the fishing rod, his
face untouched by what was about to happen. Again he twice cast his
line, started, turned, dropped the rod, shouted, ran. Again the
stumbling camera followed until it broke through the undergrowth
and fixed on the collapsing giant of the bridge, the breaking
concrete, the buckled spans, ripped lengths of roadway, and falling
cars, the river boiling with debris.
And again. Unable to move, I stood and watched with the kettle
in my hand. There he was, a man about to cast a line on a riverbank
in early spring. And again, what happened instead. What happened
next. This time the footage came with commentary from a news anchor
in the studio, but of course it didn’t alter anything; the
fisherman started, turned, dropped the rod, shouted, ran. The
juddering camera followed. Voices cried out, the wind howled,
cables snapped, concrete and steel tore, and the bridge went down.
But I was finding out what I suddenly realized I needed to know,
because this time the commentary gave a chronology, minute by
minute, of what happened. I put down the kettle, scrabbled in my
bag for a scrap of paper, and wrote down all the figures I could.
When the pictures stopped, suddenly the strength went out of my
legs and I sank onto the bed. With my hand shaking, I checked the
timings and worked out the arithmetic.
Right up until a quarter to three that afternoon, traffic had
been flowing as normal in both directions over the bridge. I had
left Stefan and Anna at the service station before one o’clock.
Stefan hadn’t said so, but the man changing the licence plates
would be sure to be in Inverness. There was no reason for Stefan to
have crossed the bridge. They would have been driving into the city
within minutes of my leaving them. There was no cause for them to
have been near the bridge at all.
I kept watching. The amateur cameraman was in the studio now.
The young man and his father-in-law, after a pub lunch in
Inverness, had crossed the bridge themselves soon after two
o’clock. They had parked and gone down to the riverbank on the
north side to record the first try-out with the new rod, a birthday
present. The bridge began to creak and lurch at two forty-six, as
his father-in-law watched in terror, turned, dropped the fishing
rod, shouted and ran. The young man followed and his camera was on
it within thirty seconds. By two forty-eight, three of the central
bridge spans and the stretch of road between them, measuring two
hundred and seventy feet and bearing, the young man estimated,
about twenty vehicles, had collapsed into the water. He contacted
the news channel straight away, and his video, “probably the only
eyewitness record of the disaster”, was broadcast for the first
time at ten minutes past four. Then they asked him what he had felt
as he watched it all happen, and the young man broke down in
tears.
I found myself crying, too, with a strange sorrow that was both
impersonal and personal. I cried for the strangers who were lost,
but also with relief for Stefan and Anna. They would be safe. By
now the new licence plates would be
squealing and tearing of tons of breaking masonry and steel. The
uprights supporting the bridge spans tottered stiffly towards and
away from one another. With awful slowness they, too, crashed into
the river, one by one, and the road, tipping and sagging some more,
in a slow, rolling twist disappeared under the water.
Then the image froze. From the bridge’s severed ends, girders
hung suspended in space and in time, not yet lethally collapsed. A
car arrested in a nosedive towards the water hovered in mid-air,
its occupants not yet trapped and drowned. There was a digital
whirring.
For a second or two, the video ran backwards and speeded up like
some ludicrously cruel comic caper; the car reeled back from
disaster and jumped up onto the road. Then the screen went blank
except for numbers racing in one corner. There was a flicker, and
there again was the man larking about with the fishing rod, his
face untouched by what was about to happen. Again he twice cast his
line, started, turned, dropped the rod, shouted, ran. Again the
stumbling camera followed until it broke through the undergrowth
and fixed on the collapsing giant of the bridge, the breaking
concrete, the buckled spans, ripped lengths of roadway, and falling
cars, the river boiling with debris.
And again. Unable to move, I stood and watched with the kettle
in my hand. There he was, a man about to cast a line on a riverbank
in early spring. And again, what happened instead. What happened
next. This time the footage came with commentary from a news anchor
in the studio, but of course it didn’t alter anything; the
fisherman started, turned, dropped the rod, shouted, ran. The
juddering camera followed. Voices cried out, the wind howled,
cables snapped, concrete and steel tore, and the bridge went down.
But I was finding out what I suddenly realized I needed to know,
because this time the commentary gave a chronology, minute by
minute, of what happened. I put down the kettle, scrabbled in my
bag for a scrap of paper, and wrote down all the figures I could.
When the pictures stopped, suddenly the strength went out of my
legs and I sank onto the bed. With my hand shaking, I checked the
timings and worked out the arithmetic.
Right up until a quarter to three that afternoon, traffic had
been flowing as normal in both directions over the bridge. I had
left Stefan and Anna at the service station before one o’clock.
Stefan hadn’t said so, but the man changing the licence plates
would be sure to be in Inverness. There was no reason for Stefan to
have crossed the bridge. They would have been driving into the city
within minutes of my leaving them. There was no cause for them to
have been near the bridge at all.
I kept watching. The amateur cameraman was in the studio now.
The young man and his father-in-law, after a pub lunch in
Inverness, had crossed the bridge themselves soon after two
o’clock. They had parked and gone down to the riverbank on the
north side to record the first try-out with the new rod, a birthday
present. The bridge began to creak and lurch at two forty-six, as
his father-in-law watched in terror, turned, dropped the fishing
rod, shouted and ran. The young man followed and his camera was on
it within thirty seconds. By two forty-eight, three of the central
bridge spans and the stretch of road between them, measuring two
hundred and seventy feet and bearing, the young man estimated,
about twenty vehicles, had collapsed into the water. He contacted
the news channel straight away, and his video, “probably the only
eyewitness record of the disaster”, was broadcast for the first
time at ten minutes past four. Then they asked him what he had felt
as he watched it all happen, and the young man broke down in
tears.
I found myself crying, too, with a strange sorrow that was both
impersonal and personal. I cried for the strangers who were lost,
but also with relief for Stefan and Anna. They would be safe. By
now the new licence plates would be
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