Chapters (85)
Robin shrugs. There is no other response.
‘What happened to the driver?’
‘He got a concussion and a broken arm. The judge sentenced him to three years in prison, disqualified from driving for one, post-release.’
Steph takes a quick breath in. ‘Why so short?’
‘He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of causing death by careless driving. CPS didn’t push for more. The judge’s remarks at sentencing were vague, although we believe he was sympathetic because the guy sought treatment for alcoholism afterwards. Both me and Liam – their father – spoke at the hearing about Georgia and the boys. But it didn’t make any difference.’
Robin feels a flash of guilt for the way he treated Liam at the police station this morning. He knows he needs to apologise, phone, go round, something, but so many words have been said over the past year, the weight of them seems insurmountable.
‘So, he’s out of prison? The guy?’ Steph asks.
Robin takes a long sip from his glass. The whisky is bitter on his tongue. Saying it all out loud hasn’t helped. If anything, he feels worse. ‘Can we not talk about it? I’m sorry, it’s just…’ He takes the last gulp from the glass, but continues to hang on to it, willing the ache in his chest to subside.
Steph leans up and kisses him lightly. ‘It’s fine. I understand,’ she says.
Later, when they’ve turned off the light and Steph is sleeping beside him, Robin thinks of that man, the alcoholic.
It was Neal Baker that told him, at the time a detective inspector. He appeared next to him in the incident room, his face serious, then pulled Robin away to an empty interview room. Robin couldn’t take it in at first. This beast of a man, standing in front of him, tears in his own eyes, telling Robin that his family was dead. He remembers Liam sobbing in the corridor of the hospital. Later, the two of them sat next to Alex’s bed, his tiny body covered in bandages and wires, evidence of the heroic efforts to keep him alive that ultimately failed.
Weeks later, once Robin had returned to work, he read the incident report. The man, pissed out of his mind, drove into Georgia and the twins. And then he’d reversed and driven away, leaving them dying, alone, in the road.
He could have saved them. He could have called 999 and the emergency services would have arrived five minutes, ten minutes sooner.
But he hadn’t. He’d driven away, and they’d died.
That man deserved everything that had come to him. And in that, Robin has no doubt.