Читать книгу Life on the Edge - The true story of the hero who saved the lives of twenty-nine people at Beachy Head - Keith Lane - Страница 12

It was 2 March 2004. A beautiful day. The sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. The air was crisp and cold. I was on a window-cleaning job, feeling almost positive for a change – Maggie had set off from the house in the morning for a new temping job at a company called Marlow Ropes. Although I had the usual worries and fears about her, and the familiar butterflies in my stomach as I wondered how her day would go, the weather was lifting my spirits.

Before we had parted, I’d wished Maggie good luck and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, darling,’ I said, ‘I love you.’

‘Love you too,’ she replied as always.

My mobile rang around lunchtime. It was Maggie.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ I said, ‘how’s the job going?’

‘Oh, not my cup of tea,’ she replied, ‘though I need the money. I’m going to have lunch and then I’m going to go back.’

There was nothing odd in what Maggie said, but her tone of voice was strange. She sounded slightly slurred and I could tell something was not quite right. Here we go again, I thought, and prepared myself for another difficult episode. At the same time, I wondered if there was anything I could do to nip it in the bud.

‘Sweetheart,’ I said, ‘would you like me to come over? You don’t sound quite right.’

Maggie insisted she was fine. I persisted for a bit, offering to come and meet her for lunch. But she was adamant that all was well.

‘I’m fine,’ she repeated. ‘I’m going back to work in a minute. What I want you to do is put some jacket potatoes in the oven when you get home tonight. I’ll get the chilli ready when I get back.’

Her words were enough to reassure me. After all, if she was planning dinner in such a casual, normal way, perhaps everything was OK. Maybe I was just being over-anxious.

‘OK, darling,’ I replied, ‘I’ll see you later. Love you.’

‘I love you, sweetheart,’ she answered, and hung up.

Little did I know those were the last words Maggie would ever speak to me.

Once we’d hung up I became anxious again. I spoke to a friend and told her I wasn’t happy. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Maggie’ll be OK.’ So I went back to work.

Later, on my way home, I stopped off to buy a CD. At Christmas, my daughter had played an album by Evanescence and Maggie had loved it. I bought it thinking she would love the surprise when she got home. I was always trying to do things that would make her happy and perhaps reduce her need to drink.

I got home, put the potatoes on and placed the CD in the player. I was ready. There was nothing left to do but wait for Maggie to come home, so I sat down. I was excited at the thought of her walking in the door and being surprised by my little treat.

I waited for an hour, but there was no sign of her. The jackets were well on the way to being cooked, so I turned the oven down. I called her mobile but it rang out. Oh God, I thought with a familiar sense of dread, she’s gone off on one of her jaunts again. All the usual worries flooded my mind. Which pub is she in? Is she going to go to a hotel again? Am I going to get a phone call later?

Another hour went by. The jacket potatoes were more than done by now, so I turned the oven off. What a waste of time. I tried her phone again. Nothing. Butterflies filled my stomach, and I started to feel sick. It was obvious Maggie was drinking somewhere. All I could do was call her again and again in case she had passed out – I hoped the phone might eventually wake her. But there was no answer.

I turned the events of the day over in my head. Already I was kicking myself for not having come home to check on her at lunch. Why didn’t I go with my instincts? I thought. I’d been right – there must have been something wrong.

It was getting late. By 10 o’clock I was starting wonder what on earth to do – Should I go out looking for her? I wondered, but before I had a chance to take action, the doorbell rang.

For a second I thought it might be Maggie. It wasn’t. It was the police.

‘We saw your car on a patrol earlier today,’ they told me, ‘and it hasn’t moved since then.’

Well, I thought, if she’s been out drinking, then it would make sense that the car hasn’t moved.

‘So where’s the car?’ I asked them.

‘Beachy Head.’

‘No!’ I shot back, incredulously.

‘Yes, it’s up there,’ said one of the officers, ‘but don’t panic yet. We’ll find her.’

Although Beachy Head is a well-known suicide hotspot, at first I didn’t twig that the police were considering that she might be dead – I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t. Also, I’d always seen Maggie’s extreme acts, terrible though they were, as cries for help. She had always put herself in situations where she would be found alive. I simply didn’t think she was prepared to kill herself.

Then, the police informed me that they’d sent a helicopter up to search for her – and it was at that moment that I began to really worry. I knew that those helicopters cost £2,500 an hour to run and they don’t send them up unless there is real concern. They’re equipped with a heat-seeking device for finding people who are alive – or recently dead.

The police told me to remain at home in case Maggie returned or called the landline. I gave them the spare keys to her car and off they went. As I watched them get into the patrol car and drive off towards Beachy Head, my heart filled with dread. This was new territory. Maggie wasn’t in the pub. She wasn’t in a hotel. She wasn’t wandering the streets. She was at Beachy Head and had abandoned her car. By now I was absolutely shitting myself. Out of my mind with panic, I didn’t know what to do. I paced up and down the house and began to shake like a leaf. I’ve never shaken like that and I didn’t stop for two hours. Then, around 12.30 am, I looked out of the window and saw Maggie’s car coming down the road. Yes! I thought. They’ve found her and brought her back! Thank God.

I raced to the door, but Maggie was nowhere to be seen. All I could see were two police officers coming down the drive. As they came closer I could see that they had her handbag and her scarf with them. I waited for what they had to say with my heart in my mouth.

‘The car is damaged but driveable,’ one of them began. ‘Maggie must have hit something. We’re afraid there’s no sign of her yet. The heat-seeking helicopter can’t find anything up there.’

This offered me my first glimmer of hope – it was good news that she was nowhere to be seen around Beachy Head. Typical Maggie, I thought with a degree of relief. She’s buggered off again – probably to a hotel in town. But why, I thought, did she leave her handbag behind? And why hasn’t she called? Perhaps she was too out of it to think straight.

The officers informed me that the search would begin again in the morning. For the moment there was nothing else they could do. They told me to get some sleep. Yeah, right! I thought to myself.

I didn’t sleep a wink. I sat on the edge of the sofa all night, turning all the possibilities of what may have become of Maggie over and over in my head. As soon as first light broke, I jumped into my car and set off for Beachy Head.

Once there, I searched under bushes and behind trees – anywhere Maggie might have passed out. I didn’t look over the cliff edge at first, but after I’d tried everywhere else I began peering over. I covered almost all of the three-mile stretch of cliff edge.

Nothing.

There was nowhere else to look, so I decided to begin searching the local hotels. I called my daughter and she joined me. I went to the Hydro Hotel first and asked the receptionist if they had a Mrs Lane staying with them.

‘Yes, we do,’ came the reply.

Pure relief coursed through my veins. We’d got her! My precious Maggie was safe.

‘How old is Mrs Lane?’ asked the receptionist.

‘Fifty-four,’ I replied. ‘Why?’

‘The Mrs Lane we have here is 88,’ the receptionist replied.

That brought me crashing back down to earth. There was nothing for it but to carry on searching the other hotels. We searched for three more hours, but to no avail. I was knackered – I hadn’t slept for 36 hours – so I went home and lay on the sofa.

The next thing I knew I was being jolted awake by the doorbell.

And that’s when I found out that my wife was dead.

I couldn’t take any of it in, I just couldn’t. The rest of that day passed in a nightmarish blur. I can remember only fragments of it. I recall people – mostly family members – being in the lounge, and the atmosphere being one of total devastation. Everybody was crying hysterically, hugging and wailing. People wanted to hug me but I didn’t want to be hugged. I didn’t want anything but for this not to be happening. I felt like I was underwater – sounds and faces were a blur and I could barely register what was being said to me. People were trying to be supportive by trotting out lines such as ‘Everything’s going to be all right’, but when I heard that I thought to myself, What the fuck are they talking about? They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Nothing’s going to be all right, nothing, so stick your stupid comments up your arse! I knew people meant well, but I just wanted them all to leave – leave, for God’s sake! Eventually, they did.

At one point, a policeman broached the subject of identifying Maggie. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do it tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Unless someone else is able to do it for…’ he continued as he looked around the room. But I cut him short.

‘Nobody identifies my wife other than me,’ I said loudly, with utter conviction. I don’t remember much after that, apart from my younger daughter arriving. She came in and didn’t say a word. She simply took me in her arms and held me, which is all you can do for someone in such a grief-stricken, shocking situation. There are no words of comfort that can help in such times and acknowledging this in the way that my daughter did is the best thing a loved one can do. We just hugged and hugged. After everyone else had left we just sat there talking and crying, trying to begin to come to terms with what had happened – and not even getting close. Eventually my mind and body gave way and I nodded off to sleep.

The next thing I knew, my daughter was waking me.

‘Come on Dad,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve got to get washed and shaved. You’ve got to go and identify your Maggie.’

* * *

‘Are you all right, Mr Lane?’ asked the coroner as she approached me in the hospital foyer. Now, I realise that people have to go through the pleasantries, but I remember thinking what a bloody stupid question that was. I was anything but all right.

‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ she continued. ‘We’re going to walk to the mortuary, you’ll be asked to enter and in order to confirm your wife’s identity you must say the words, “That is my wife.”’

‘OK,’ I replied, as I rose to my feet shakily. I was about to do something I’d never even dreamed I would have to do. But now it had to be done.

I was so weak that I could hardly walk – my brother took me on one side and my daughter got hold of the other so that we could follow the coroner down the long hospital corridor. I remember a blur of people, but it was as if they were from another world and I was just a silent witness to what was going on. Perhaps they felt the same about me. Tears streaked down my face as my loved ones propped me up, and I knew that every person we passed was looking at me. It was as if I was an animal in a zoo.

All those gawping people made me want to strike out, to say, ‘What do you think you’re looking at?’ The moments of anger that hit you when you’re grieving come out of nowhere and are sometimes hard to suppress. But I didn’t strike out, I didn’t say a word, I just kept on walking. Then, all of a sudden we were at the mortuary waiting room. This was it.

‘Before you go in,’ said the coroner, ‘I must ask if you would like Maggie’s clothes?’

I said I would like them and was handed two brown bags. One contained her clothes, the other her jewellery, including her engagement ring and her wedding ring. They were her things, but still I had to officially identify her.

I was shown the entrance to the room where her body lay. Slowly I walked toward the curtains that were draped across the door. I swept them aside and walked into the room. Once inside, I looked up. The image I was met with will never leave me.

It was Maggie.

Her head was the only part of her that was exposed. The rest of her body was covered by a blanket. I was staring at the woman who, only yesterday morning, had kissed me goodbye before work. Now she was dead on a slab.

I collapsed, slumping towards the floor. My brother and daughter caught me, took me from the room and sat me down. I hadn’t said the words I needed to say. I still hadn’t identified her.

‘Are you ready to go back in again, Mr Lane?’ enquired the coroner gently.

I nodded. I was ready.

I walked back in stood at the edge of the room. I looked up and began to cry.

‘Yes, that’s my Maggie,’ I said, looking at her. Somehow, I couldn’t leave the room right away. I needed some time. ‘Could I have ten minutes on my own?’ I asked.

‘Of course you can,’ came the reply.

Slowly I walked towards her. Once I got close I could see that this wasn’t the Maggie I recognised. She was horribly battered and bruised. There was a gash across her left eyebrow, and a larger one down her side. The situation hardly felt real.

I put my hand under the blanket and took her hand. It was stone cold.

I stood there for ten minutes and cried my eyes out. I’ve never felt such a sense of confusion, such an overwhelming feeling of despair. As I cried, I spoke to Maggie’s body through my tears.

‘Why?’ I said, ‘Why did you do it? Why have you left me like this? You know how much I love you, you know how much I care for you, so why, why, why?’

Those moments of grief were a sort of hysteria and within that hysteria there were some selfish moments. ‘How am I going to cope without you,’ I said, half-shouting, half-crazed. ‘What am I going to do?’ They were awful things to say – my wife was dead and I was asking her how I was going to cope. At least I was alive!

Eventually I let go of Maggie’s hand and walked out – in pieces. My daughter and brother held me for quite a while and we did nothing but cry. But it couldn’t go on forever. Eventually, I picked up Maggie’s belongings, walked back down the corridor, out of the hospital and back to the car.

I put my seatbelt on and then let out a huge sigh. It felt like it came from somewhere deep within me. I’m not sure quite what it was – exhaustion from the last 48 nearly sleepless hours of worry, or maybe a strange sense of relief. All I knew was that I’d just spent my last moments with Maggie, and that it was time to go home.

Everyone experiences pain when they lose loved ones. Some people experience greater losses than I did – they lose their entire family in one go, they lose their children to war – and my experience was by no means unique or exceptional in the grand scheme of things. But it was special to me. Identifying my wife in that mortuary was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

As I sat in the car in that car park, it was almost impossible to believe that the only thing to do next was to drive back to the home that we had once shared.

* * *

The next few days passed in an unreal haze. There were things to be done, people to contact and legal procedures to go through. As if to add insult to injury, I was informed that I had to face an interview with the police just three days after Maggie’s death. She had gone over Beachy Head but had left no note, and there had been no witnesses.

‘Nobody saw her die,’ a policeman explained to me. ‘As part of our procedure we need to ask you some questions. I’m sorry, Mr Lane, but we don’t know whether you were the cause of your wife’s death.’ The police began to grill me as though I were a criminal. I was faced with a barrage of questions, some of them incredibly personal. I was gobsmacked and repulsed.

They asked me what our sex life was like. Had the sex gone off? Had we been fighting? Was I physical with her? Did I beat her? Was the relationship awful? Had I been driven to the point where I could have killed her?

Having to rake over everything in such a way, and so soon after Maggie had died, was almost too much to bear. Nevertheless, I answered all their questions. My distress must have been pretty obvious, because after some time the police cut it off suddenly.

‘Don’t worry, Mr Lane,’ they said. ‘We know you’re innocent, but we always have to push people until we’re sure one way or the other. We have to report back and be able to say, “That man did not kill his wife” to our superiors.’

It was obvious the police felt bad about what they had to put me through, and looking back I can completely understand it all. They were only doing their job.

Once the possibility of murder had been eliminated, they were left with the option of suicide or ‘open verdict’. It would be another six months, after Maggie’s case finally went to court, before an open verdict about her death was reached. Why? Because no one saw her go and there was no note.