سیمون

Chapter seven

Simon

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.’