Second Chances at Samphire Bay (Samphire Bay Village #1)

Chapter 18

It hadn’t taken long for him to crack. Once under the spotlight, Adrian had sung like a canary and wept like a baby. The police had only needed to scratch the surface. When they’d presented the photographs of his damaged white van, he’d crumbled. Yes, it was his van. Yes, it had killed Tom Boyd. No, he hadn’t been driving it. That had been a man who had previously worked for him, but after the accident had disappeared.

‘Who is he? Where’s he gone?’ demanded one of the police officers interviewing him.

‘His name is Ian Dixon,’ cried Adrian. ‘I don’t know where he is now, honestly.’

‘Tell us exactly what happened that night,’ barked the other officer.

Adrian looked nervously towards the tape machine and swallowed.

‘It was a Friday night. Me and Ian had just finished a big job near Carston.’

‘What job?’ interrupted one of the officers.

‘Digging out a double driveway,’ Adrian replied, then continued. ‘I suggested we go for a pint, local like, so we ended up at The Mariners on the high street. Only, one pint led to another, and before we knew it, we… were over the limit.’

‘How much had you both drunk?’

‘Well… I’d say about six or seven pints,’ Adrian answered lamely.

‘Go on.’

‘So I says we’d better get a taxi like, then come back for the van the next day, but Ian said no, he would drive us home, that he’d be fine.’

‘What, after seven pints?’ asked the other officer incredulously.

‘Yes.’ Adrian looked down in shame.

‘Then what happened?’

‘I says are you sure, and Ian says yes, he’d be OK to drive, so… I handed him over the van keys.’

‘And are you quite sure this happened? That you didn’t get behind the wheel?’ the sceptical tone in the policeman’s voice was evident.

‘Yes! Definitely!’ Adrian shot back in alarm. ‘I swear, I gave him the keys, Ian drove.’

‘Then what?’

‘Well, we gets in the van, start it up and hadn’t got too far before this figure comes out of nowhere and the next thing, thud , it’s on the bloody bonnet of the van! Ian didn’t stop in time and the body’s then flung into the middle of the road. We panicked, we—’

‘Drove off and left a man for dead,’ cut in an officer with venom.

There was a charged silence. Adrian broke down in tears again.

‘Yes,’ he sobbed, ‘we left that poor bloke dead in the road… His poor wife…’ More crying followed.

‘Interview over.’ The police officer pressed a button on the tape machine.

Ian Dixon was easily located by the police. As his employer, Adrian was able to give plenty of information regarding bank account details, national insurance number and previous address, even his car registration number.

The hardest job for them would be speaking to Tom Boyd’s widow. With a heavy heart the officer in charge cancelled his next morning’s commitments. He wanted the full morning free to visit Jasmine Boyd in Samphire Bay.