Skypoint by Phil Ford Page A

he confided, taking a step closer to Toshiko and Owen. ‘It’s happened twice, apparently. All very mysterious.’
    ‘They probably realised they couldn’t afford it and did a moonlight,’ Simon offered. ‘But Columbo here reckons there’s more to it.’
    ‘Oh?’ asked Owen, trying to make his interest sound casual.
    ‘It’s fiction writers’ dementia,’ Simon explained. ‘They always have to see a story in the simplest of situations.’
    Andrew waved his partner’s dismissal away with an extravagant motion of his hand. ‘And some people are all too happy to swallow what they’re given.’
    Simon raised an eyebrow and shook his head. ‘Sorry, did you just mistake me for Frankie Howerd then, or what?’
    Owen saw Wendy having trouble pulling a wine cork and left Toshiko to find out if Andrew actually knew anything useful he could tell them (which he doubted).
    ‘Can I help?’ he asked her.
    ‘Oh. Thank you,’ she said and passed him the bottle. Owen suddenly realised he hadn’t actually tried to open a bottle of wine since snapping his finger, but he decided he was too deep in now to pull out. Luckily, he managed it OK.
    ‘Alison in bed?’ he asked.
    Wendy nodded. ‘She’s not keen on crowds.’
    ‘So, you moved to SkyPoint because of the accident?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    He could sense already that she didn’t want to talk about it.
    ‘Was it really bad?’ he asked.
    Wendy put the bottle down on the work surface and looked at him. ‘Why are you so interested?’
    ‘I’m a doctor,’ he said.
    ‘I see. Well, Alison’s fine now.’
    Owen leaned against the counter and folded his arms as best he could with his busted hand; he was trying to make this look informal. ‘It’s not Alison I’m so worried about.’
    Wendy shook her head, genuinely didn’t get it. ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Look, Wendy, I just moved in over the hall today. I don’t want to walk in and start telling you how to live your life, or how to run your family.’
    ‘Then don’t.’
    Trouble was, that was exactly what he was going to do.
    ‘Why don’t you talk about Alison’s accident?’
    Wendy closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, and he wasn’t sure if she was reliving the horror of what had happened that day or counting numbers as she tried to control her rage.
    When she opened her eyes again she spoke quietly and quickly, like the faster she said it and the less noise she made with the words, the less chance there was of damaging the new life they were trying to make for themselves up here.
    ‘We don’t talk about it because two years ago some bastard got into his car after knocking back six pints of lager and ploughed into the side of my car as I picked my daughter up from playschool. I got scratched, but I watched my daughter, covered in blood, die in my arms.’
    ‘But the medics brought her back, Wendy. They saved her life. You’ve still got her.’
    ‘And I thanked God for that. I got down on my knees in the road, in the middle of the carnage, the twisted metal and the blood, and I cried out to God, and thanked him. I’d been a Christian all my life, Owen. That was how my parents brought me up and I Believed. With a Capital B. But I never prayed to God the way I did that day – while the paramedics worked on my little girl to bring her back; then to thank Him for sparing her.’
    Owen looked at her. He didn’t speak, he didn’t need to ask anything, now he knew what had happened. He just waited for her to tell him.
    ‘But, do you know what, Owen? My life had been a lie. My parents’ lives were a lie. They died last year – my mum had cancer, my dad died exactly two weeks later of a broken heart – they died still believing the lie. But I don’t know where they went because there is no heaven, and there is no God. Do you know how I know that?’
    Wendy tipped the opened wine bottle up into a glass and drank down a couple of gulps.
    ‘Because my daughter told me,’ she said.
    Owen