The Hitch Hiker by Tim Vicary. Part 4.
Watch on KineScope.
Outside the room, the nurse stopped us. ‘Could you both wait in here a moment, please?’ she said. ‘I think the doctor would like to speak to you.’
We heard the nurse talking to the doctor outside the room for two or three minutes, and then the doctor came in. She smiled at me.
‘Good morning, Sergeant Fraser,’ she said to me. ‘You’ve been talking to Mr Jackson, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Poor man – he’s not very happy, I’m afraid.’
‘No, of course not,’ said the doctor. ‘Well, it was a nasty accident, wasn’t it? And he’s hurt his neck quite badly. But the rest of him is OK. He should be out of hospital in a few days.’
‘Yes.’ I looked at the doctor carefully. ‘Doctor, are you sure that he hasn’t hurt anything else? His head, perhaps? You see, I don’t think he remembers the accident very well. He thinks he killed somebody who walked in front of the car, but he didn’t. Nobody was killed, nobody walked in front of the car. And he doesn’t remember the second car at all.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that. Of course, people do forget accidents. That’s normal. They often don’t remember anything about them. So I’m not surprised that he doesn’t remember the second car. But it’s very unusual to remember something that didn’t happen.’ She stopped for a moment, and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘So I thought… perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I thought you should know. Last night this man had a small problem with his heart, a very unusual problem. For a few minutes it beat very slowly, it nearly stopped, and then it started again. And people who have a heart problem like that aren’t usually allowed to drive, you know, because they might become ill for a couple of minutes, and then of course a car would stop suddenly.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘So you think that perhaps he had a small heart attack yesterday, too?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe he had the attack because of the accident. I haven’t seen his doctor’s records, so I don’t know if he has ever had this problem before.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, thank you, Doctor. That’s very helpful.’
’That explains it then,’ said Brian Jones, as we drove back to the police station. There wasn’t a man in front of his car, and he knows it. I mean, if the man did have this heart problem, then he couldn’t have a job as a salesman, could he? He wouldn’t have a driving license, and he’d lose his job. And he’s very afraid of losing his job, isn’t he? He told us that.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t explain his story, does it?’
‘Well, yes, maybe it does, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Look at it this way. Perhaps this man had a problem with his heart several years ago, and then he got better, so he got his driving license back. His job and his driving license are very important to him, so he always drives very, very carefully. He never drinks and drives or does anything silly. And why is he so very, very careful? Because he’s always afraid that one day his heart problem will come back, and then he’ll lose his license, his job, and everything. Then yesterday it did come back, and so he had this accident. But he wants us to believe that it wasn’t his fault, so he has invented a story about a man who ran in front of the car. Only it isn’t a very good story, that’s all, because there wasn’t a man, and there isn’t a body.’
Brian Jones smiled at me. He is a young, clever policeman, and he was very pleased with himself. It was a good explanation, too. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it.
Back at the police station, I checked everything carefully. But no one had found a body, no one had seen a man who ran across the road. I looked at the front of Mr Jackson’s car carefully with one of the police scientists. There were no marks on it at all. Only the back of his car was damaged, where the car behind had hit it. Either Mr Jackson was mad, or he was lying.
But I felt sad, and a little angry, too. The doctor at the hospital had been very helpful, but why had she told us about Mr Jackson’s heart problem? That was wrong. I wouldn’t want my doctor to tell people about me when I was ill. Mr Jackson’s story was crazy, but I really think that he believed it. In my job, you know when people are lying – and I thought Mr Jackson was telling the truth.
I talked about it with my boyfriend, Simon, at dinner that night. Simon is a reporter, so he has to be very careful. He must never write about anything I tell him in his newspaper. If he did, I would lose my job. But we still talk about things, and sometimes it is very useful.
I told him about the accident, and Mr Jackson’s story. He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s a strange place for an accident, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The road’s very straight there.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘No one ever stops there. I only stopped because I…’
For a moment I stopped talking, my fork in my hand. ‘Sue? Sue, what’s the matter?’ Simon said.
‘Simon, that’s it! I’ve remembered the thing that worries me about all this! The hitch-hiker!’
‘What?’
‘The hitch-hiker! The man Jackson described – pale face, suit, glasses, red tie. There was a man like that in my car!’
Quickly I told Simon about the man that I had picked up before I saw the accident.
‘Yes, but he wasn’t dead, Sue – he was in your car, quite safe. And you picked him up a long way away from the accident.’
‘Not very far away – about half a kilometre, perhaps. The traffic was moving very slowly – because of the accident. Maybe he walked there. It’s possible.’
‘You mean, perhaps the hitch-hiker was walking across the road, and Jackson saw him, stopped his car, and then the other car hit Jackson’s car?’
‘Yes, that’s right! And then the hitch-hiker ran on down the road, and then I picked him up! Simon, I have to find that man!’
Simon looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, but wait a minute, Sue. Why would the hitch-hiker cross the road there? There’s nothing there. And anyway, if he was walking towards you, he was walking away from town, not towards it!’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. But I want to find him. He said he lived in Lancaster. And another thing, Simon. One of the older police sergeants said there had once been an accident on that road before – something about a child, I think it was – about twenty years ago, maybe more. Can you check in your old newspapers and find out about it? I think it may help.’
Simon groaned. ‘You want me to check the records for a little thing like that? Do you know how long that takes?’
I smiled at him. ‘But you’ll do it for me, won’t you Simon?’ I said. ‘Please.’