The Passengers(37)

‘She’s going to be okay, she’s just a little bruised,’ Libby replied. ‘What’s your name?’

The woman coughed and more blood, thicker this time, appeared in the corners of her mouth. ‘I need … to see them but I can’t move …’ she said anxiously.

‘You’ve probably fractured a few bones,’ Libby replied, but it was clear there was so much more to her injuries than that. ‘I’ll wait here with you until the ambulance arrives, then once you’re in hospital, you can see your family. How does that sound?’

‘Do you promise?’

Libby forced a smile, quietly willing herself not to cry and give away the truth.

With sirens announcing the impending arrival of emergency services vehicles, Libby watched helplessly as any remaining fight gradually drained from the woman. Her hand went limp.

‘Stay with me,’ Libby begged. ‘What’s your name? Tell me what your name is.’

Her reply was a dying breath as her head lolled to one side.

Libby remembered each second with clarity. Over the days that followed, she called a former colleague who now worked in ICU regarding the baby. The accident had left her with terrible injuries, including a desperate need for a new liver. But before a donor could be found, she lost her battle.

Libby had chosen not to attend the coroner’s court, but made a statement by video about what she had witnessed. Months later, when she learned the vehicle had been completely exonerated from blame, she was furious. She knew what she had seen. The car had had the opportunity to avoid those pedestrians but it had chosen to put its Passenger first.

Her phone calls, letters and emails to the courts were ignored and each time she posted about it on social media or message boards, they had been swiftly deleted. Eventually she had little choice but to give up. Then when it was announced that Level Five cars were to become mandatory on all British roads, she lent her support to petitions, marches and demonstrations. But they too had all been for nothing.

Watching the footage for the first time didn’t bring back any forgotten memories for Libby. Not a single one had left her in the intervening years.

Matthew reached into his briefcase and removed a packet of tissues, passing them to her. She nodded her thanks and dabbed at her eyes. She felt the warmth of his hand through her blouse as it momentarily rested on her shoulder.

‘I remember that case,’ said Muriel. ‘Terribly, terribly sad. Three members of the same family wiped out, just like that.’

‘And all because they were too busy gossiping to watch where they were going,’ said Jack.

‘That car had time to avoid them,’ Libby replied firmly.

‘That’s not what the evidence suggested,’ Jack replied.

‘I was there, you were not.’

‘Well, I think that explains your disrespect for our process, Miss Dixon. With your bias, you should never have been allowed on this jury. If it were up to me, you’d be out of here.’

The Hacker began to speak. ‘I think someone might disagree with you on that point.’

‘Who?’

‘Jude Harrison. Because in the next hour his life will depend on Libby’s inclusion in this process.’





Chapter 27





SHABANA KHARTRI


Shabana craned her neck to look out from the car’s window to get her bearings. But the roads were as unfamiliar to her now as the day she had first arrived in the country.

For almost half her life, her entire world had been limited to where she could walk. Even the hospital where she had given birth to her last child was within walking distance of her home. She knew this because when the maternity ward released them, her husband Vihaan had driven the baby home by car and ordered her to make her own way back on foot.

Now, all that Shabana knew for certain was that wherever this taxi was taking her, she was not going alone. But the longer everyone travelled, the more frightened they were becoming. Not long earlier, a loud noise inside the car distracted her. It was like a banging followed by screams. Her head turned to see where it was coming from before she realised it was happening on the television. The screen once filled by the woman wearing a hijab now contained a blazing object and other people in their cars were crying. They were making her anxious.

The last time Shabana had taken a journey into the unknown was when her plane left Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport and landed at London’s Heathrow just a week after her wedding. It was a day of firsts – the first time she had left her village, the first time she had been away from her family, the first time she had flown, and the first time her new husband had punched her.

Her first impression of Britain had been how grey it was. Everything was colourless and made of concrete, from the bridges over the motorways to the paving slabs that made up the driveway to Vihaan’s home. It also felt so much more orderly than India. The houses in the estate were of equal size, had the same proportioned gardens containing the same dull palette of flowers. And while it was less cramped, tidier and smelled fresh, it lacked complexion. So soon after her arrival, she was already craving colour and chaos. And when she expressed her homesickness to her new husband, he responded with his fist.

It was during the third day of her lavish Indian wedding to Vihaan when Shabana began to suspect he wasn’t all her family had assured her he was. She knew how it had felt to love and to be loved. And this was not it. She had fallen for Arjun, a waiter in a hotel restaurant in her hometown of Kailashahar a year earlier. Her family despised him – his only sin was to have been born into a different caste, thus rendering him unsuitable for her parents’ high expectations. Marrying him was out of the question, her father warned, but when his threats fell on deaf ears, her brothers beat the boy half to death and she never saw him again. Even now, she missed being loved by him.