Joe was a nice man, softly spoken. She’d expected someone with more bluster or drive, someone sharper round the edges. He put her at her ease and set up his laptop to take notes. She liked the way he listened to her, really listened, instead of simply waiting for her to stop talking so he could start, which is how many of her male colleagues in senior positions behaved. And he thought carefully when she asked him questions rather than jumping straight in with a response.
He had a sketch of the area – the main road and the recreation ground. The houses and their back yards all marked off exactly like the diagrams on house deeds. He took it a stage at a time, asking her to show him where she was when she left the house, after she crossed the road, when she reached Danny – and what else she saw, who else she remembered each time. She was back there, blink, the sun hot on the nape of her neck and her hands on Danny’s chest, blink, his blood still warm on his T-shirt. She felt sick, felt her gullet spasm and her ears buzz. She made a noise and he saw. He knew.
‘Breathe out,’ he said, ‘slowly. Good, that’s good. Wait, shallow now.’ It was ironic – exactly the sort of coaching she would use with one of her mums in labour.
He repeated the words until she’d calmed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘something like this, it’s a terrible thing.’
‘I have a son,’ she said. A sudden urge to confide. Wiping at her face with her fingers.
He nodded. He knew of course, that was one of her background details.
Joe explained there were two areas he wanted to focus on more closely, to see if she could add anything further: one was the car that had almost run her over and the other was the man behind the wheel. She’d already described a silver BMW. He asked if she could recall any details.
‘I didn’t see the number plate.’
‘What about the windscreen, the tax disc?’
She shook her head. ‘It was so fast.’
‘Any decals, decorations, anything dangling from the rear-view mirror?’
It was a blank. All she could see was the sheen of the glass and the glimpse of the man.
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was white, a slim face, a wide mouth.’ She had practised this, gone over it again and again in her mind’s eye, determined not to let the snapshot fade. ‘Very short hair, pretty really, like a male model. Good cheekbones. I’m sorry.’ She laughed at herself and Joe gave an easy grin. ‘A bit like Johnny Depp,’ she added. ‘That sounds so stupid. But that’s who he reminded me of.’
‘That’s very good. Anything else? Clothes, hands?’