Across the Bridge by Morag Joss Page B

on the car, and all I had to do
was get back to Netherloch and pretend I had just discovered that
it had been stolen from the car park behind the school. But would
anyone care, now? A bridge had collapsed and people were dead and
missing; it was impossible to believe that the lies I was going to
tell about the car could be of any real importance. Yet I had to
go. Stefan was relying on me.
    But Netherloch was only about seven miles inland from the
estuary bridge, and the narrow stone bridge in the town was the
next crossing place over the river. There was bound to be
disruption on the roads. For the next hour I kept the television on
for traffic news. The video of the catastrophe was replayed
endlessly. At a quarter to six I had another text message:
In nothr bar! Going for curry. Eat without me ok
sorry
    I lay back on the bed in the dark room. Reflections from the
screen danced in muzzy patterns over my hands, folded across my
stomach. In the next half-hour the video was run another four
times, with slight variations in the commentary as a range of
people gathered in the studio to give their viewpoints. Then live
footage appeared. Rescue teams with boats and helicopters and
ambulances were scrambled under emergency lighting. A reporter in
an overcoat stood on a roadside with a microphone and said that the
number of vehicles believed lost in the water continued to rise. It
was feared that it might never be known for certain how many, for
in such strong tides and deep water, cars and bodies could be swept
out to sea and never found. But, on a more optimistic note, nobody
was giving up hope, the reporter said. Some people had made it out
of their cars and swum through the freezing water to the
riverbanks, where they were being treated on the spot for shock,
exposure and injuries. There was severe road congestion, and police
were urging people to keep away. Anyone concerned for a loved one
should stay by the telephone and not attempt to come to the
bridge.
    Then the screen filled with different images, dark and grainy. I
was looking at more video footage which, said the news anchor
(relieved to have something new to show) had just been made
available. Another, more solemn voice said that what was about to
be shown captured the moments before the collapse. It might provide
evidence as to the cause and help with identification of
fatalities. Some viewers might find the images disturbing, and at
this stage police were not confirming the identities of any of the
vehicles shown. In silence the new pictures rolled, blurred and
grey like old newspaper photographs suddenly animated, but lit by a
kind of innocuous afternoon light. The vantage point was a fixed,
bird’s-eye view of a road whose broken white line stretched away in
the tarmac through the centre of the image. This was the vital
footage, said the voice, from the traffic camera at the top of one
of the arches of the approach on the southern side, only a hundred
metres from the start of the bridge. The back view of a blue car
swelled into the picture and receded, leaving the road empty again.
The commentator remarked that the time, mid-afternoon and midweek
in low season, meant that traffic on the bridge had been relatively
light. A van and another car appeared, slowed, moved beyond the
reach of the camera. For a few moments there was silence again, and
the empty road. Softly, the voice said that viewers were witnessing
the procession of the last vehicles known to have passed under the
arch when the bridge was still standing. The timing of the footage
and the recorded moment of the collapse meant that these cars could
not have made it all the way across; seconds after these images
were caught they would have been on the bridge. Moments later, they
must have been plunged into the river. Two more cars emerged into
the picture, paused, and drove on. Then speckles of grey and white
invaded the screen, it turned black, and the video wound back to
the start, with the bird’s-eye view