The Hawk Is Dead

74

Monday 27 November 2023

Rose heard a massive bang. It sounded like a clap of thunder inside her head. Simultaneously she felt an agonizing jolt to her neck and a jarring thump in every bone in her body, like she’d belly-flopped from a great height onto concrete.

Dazed and winded, she lay still, with the smell of wet tarmac in her nostrils. She was dimly aware of vehicles all around, slithering tyres, brakes. An angry horn. Another. Aware she might be run over herself now — but beyond caring.

She heard the sound of a car door opening. Then another. Another.

Footsteps. Running. Splashing through water.

A female voice. Elderly. ‘My dear, my dear, oh God I’m so sorry — I didn’t see you. I just didn’t see you.’

Another voice. Male. ‘She’s moving.’

Another. Female. Younger. ‘I’m a nurse, let me check her. Can someone call for an ambulance?’

Another voice. Male. ‘Yes, I have done it, just this second, an ambulance is coming.’

‘I’m — I’m OK, I think,’ Rose gasped.

‘Don’t move,’ the nurse’s voice said. ‘I saw it, you landed on your head. Your helmet has split open. Let me check you.’

Rose struggled to get up onto her knees, the weight of her backpack making it even harder. ‘I’ve got to — I’ve got—’ she gasped, a sharp pain searing through the left side of her chest. A rib, she knew, bruised or busted — she’d done that before.

‘Please don’t move, wait for the ambulance. The traffic’s stopped, you are safe here.’

Rose heard the faint doppler wail of a siren. Then another from a different direction. Both getting louder.

‘Can you move your toes?’ a voice asked, female, the nurse?

‘I’ve... I’ve got... go to... get—’

Where was Lorraine? Rose knelt, shaking, pressing her right hand against her left rib cage. She was swaying. Giddy. The rucksack was pulling her over. She fought against it. The sirens were getting louder. There were people standing all around her. Concerned, chiaroscuro faces in the torrential rain and the glare of lights and the darkness. All looking down at her. Like she was some fucking Tracey Emin artwork. Or Damien Hirst, perhaps. Roadkill!

‘I’m a doctor!’ a woman said, pushing through. ‘Are you OK?’

Do I look OK?

‘I’m OK.’

‘There’s an ambulance coming.’

Anger was roiling inside her now. Fuelled by her failure. Lorraine McKnight had gone, pedalled on, oblivious, towards her home, her kids — and her threat to call the police tomorrow.

She pushed herself up onto her feet and stood unsteadily, wobbling, and almost fell over. Someone grabbed her shoulder, steadying her. ‘Here, let me get this rucksack off you.’

She spun. Face to face with a man in his sixties, well-spoken, well-dressed, well-meaning, grey hair matted to his head by the rain. ‘Don’t touch my rucksack.’

She turned, looking for her bike. Saw it just a few feet away. It looked fine. She took a few, staggering steps towards it, still in shock. She knelt and lifted up the bike.

‘Lady!’ a male American voice called out. ‘There’s a paramedic just here...’

She rounded on the voice — on the sea of faces and semicircle of people — and retorted, ‘I was a soldier. I survived three tours in Afghanistan. I just fell off my bike, it’s no big deal.’

Then she wheeled the machine through a space in the stopped traffic and mounted it. She turned the power to maximum, found a gap in the traffic streaming in from Knightsbridge and raced over towards the slip road. Seconds later she winced, as she jolted over the incline, then headed on into the darkness of Hyde Park, cursing the fact that she should have perhaps got Smoke to deal with McKnight but had thought she had it under control.

Now there was just darkness and the relentless rain. The occasional torch or bicycle headlamp. Hurting her more than the accident was her sense of failure.