The Accidental Witness

“Do you think she knows we are here?” That’s my identical twin, Jodie. She’s standing at the end of the bed where I lie strapped to machines. “Do you think she can hear us?”

“They always encourage people to talk to those in coma, but I don’t really know.” That’s Adam, my partner of five years and three months. “You would think that if she could hear us, there’d be some kind of reaction. Even a tiny one like a flutter of eyelashes.”

I want to tell them I can not only hear, but see everything, too as some essence of me floats above them.

But I can’t. Because the rest of me is trapped inside my body. I have the will, but not the way to escape the bonds holding me.

Now you might wonder why I'm here in a coma with my sister and partner by my bedside.

It all began the day I met Marge.

Sweet, innocent Marge who was new in town and knew nobody. We met in my art class. We bonded as we giggled at the nude male model who marched into the room and threw off his towel like he was God’s gift to women.

The door opens, and two people I haven’t seen before enter. One, a female dressed in a smart trouser suit and the other, a male, younger than the woman in a police uniform.

“I’m Detective Cresswell and this is PC Pickering. We’d like to talk to you about...” he consults her notebook. “About Judy.”

Yes, I know, our parents showed little imagination naming us.

“Yes, of course.” Jodie moves from the foot of the bed to my side where she stands facing Adam. She takes my hand in hers and strokes it with her thumb like she used to do when we were little.

“I know you have already spoken to my colleague.” She waves towards the young PC. “But I wanted to talk to you myself to clarify a couple of things.”

She is short and attractive, but her hair is in a tight bun that sharpens her features. Her voice is equally sharp.

Neither Adam nor Jodie say anything. He now has my other hand in both of his. I wish I could tell them both that it will be ok, but of course I can’t. First there is the little problem of the coma. Second, I have no way of knowing if things will be ok.

“You told my colleague you didn’t know where Judy was heading before she hit the bridge. Is that correct?” She looks from Adam to Jodie.

“You also told him you expected Judy to be home by five as usual. Is that correct, too?” She looks only at Adam now, and he confirms it. She nods towards the door and the young PC disappears out of the door. “Do you know anyone called Marge?”

If I could gasp with the oxygen tube stuffed in my windpipe, I would. Instead, my body shows no signs of the shock coursing through it.

But then, hearing her name shouldn’t surprise me. Of course the police were going to find the bag with the money and Marge’s notebook.

However, neither Adam nor Jodie know Marge. I don’t why I never told them about her. Maybe because I’d never had a friend of my own. All my friends were also Jodie’s friends, and it was nice to have someone who was just my friend.

Or perhaps it was that I felt Marge didn’t want me to. Not that she ever told me I couldn’t. But she was so private and once, when I suggested she’d come for dinner, she refused point blank.

Detective Cresswell might have caught me off guard mentioning Marge, but when the PC brings in a black bag, I know to expect it.

It is the holdall Marge gave me when I last saw her.

She called me asking to meet her in a cafe. It was strange as we only ever saw each other during and after our art lesson when we’d go for a coffee.

When she turned up at the cafe, her hair was dishevelled and she looked like she’d got dressed in the dark. She kept glancing at the door.

Without sitting down, she thrust a bag in my lap, said to follow the instructions inside, and left, leaving me with the bag and my mouth gaping open.

Forgetting about the slice of chocolate cake I'd ordered, I unfastened the zip. What else could I do?

“Do you recognise this bag?” Detective Creswell takes it from PC Pickering and holds it up for Adam and Jodie to see.

They shake their heads.

“Never seen it before. Judy prefers things with colour, not black,” Adam says.

“So then you wouldn’t know anything about the £20,000 in cash that was in the bag? Or this black notebook?”

The detective holds up the notebook. So they have it now. I’m pleased, as that was what Marge wanted.

“Where did she get that kind of money from?” Jodie’s eyes remind me of the twin satellites dad installed in the eighties hoping to gain access to international secrets.

“I was hoping you could answer that question for me.” Detective Cresswell hands the bag back to the PC, but keeps the notebook.

“I have no idea. We have about £1500 on our savings account, but that’s it. We have no assets or anything she could have sold to get that kind of money.” Adam’s eyebrows creep closer together as they always do when he is at a loss.

Poor Adam, I wish I could tell him.

When Marge rushed out and left me with the bag, I gasped as I saw the bundles of money and quickly zipped the bag up again. My heart raced.

What had I got myself involved in?

I hugged the bag to my body, fished out the money for my coffee chocolate cake and rushed out myself. There were no signs of Marge, but since she’d left in such a haste, I expected her to be far from the cafe already.

I got into my car, drew the bag onto the passenger’s seat and drove to a secluded spot on the seafront. It’s a miracle I got there in one piece as my whole body shook and my head spun.

I switched off the engine and rested my head on the steering wheel. Were there really bundles of money in the bag?

I sat up, pulled the bag onto my lap and unzipped it again. And there they were. Neat bundles of money each with a seal with $1,000 printed on it.

I started pulling them out, counting them as I emptied the bag onto the passenger’s seat. There were 20 of them in total.

Holy cow. That was £20,000. Why was Marge carrying that much money around with her? And why had she left it with me?

I spotted a notebook at the bottom of the bag. Inside it were notes written in something that looked like a code. There was also an envelope with my name scrawled on top. Before I could open the envelope, there was a flash of headlights in my rearview mirror.

I hastily threw the money back in the bag and restarted the engine. As I drove past the arriving car to get back to the main road, the two men inside it stared at me. Was it my imagination or did they look sinister?

I half expected them to follow me, but each time I checked the mirror, the narrow road behind me remained empty. Still, I felt vulnerable until I reached the main road again.

I needed a place where I could read the letter in private. I couldn’t go home since Adam had a day off, so opted for the library. It was a safe public place in case someone was following me.

At the library, I found a quiet corner and took out the letter. I read it so many times I knew the words off by heart.

Dear Judy,

I’m so sorry to involve you, but my life is in danger because I stole the black notebook from my drug-dealer ex-husband. It is a record of his businesses and bank accounts he uses to launder money.

I changed my name and moved to England thinking I’d be safe.

But somehow he has found me.

He’s desperate to get the notebook back because of its incriminating evidence. My only chance of surviving is to get it to the police.

Please, will you do that for me? I’d do it myself, but I know they will kill me before I get the chance.

Yours with eternal gratefulness,

Marge

P.S. The money in the bag is mine, not my ex-husband's. It is yours to keep.

I wish I hadn’t left the letter in the library. It would have provided the police and poor Adam and Jodie some answers.

But I dropped the letter when two men entered the library. I had positioned myself so I could see the front entrance and I recognised them from the car. Of course, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

They hadn’t seen me yet, so I picked up the money bag and slipped out behind the tall bookshelves. I didn’t have time to pick up the letter which had floated underneath the table.

I made it out and back into my car. Petrified, I wanted to scream and cry, but now was not the time. I simply didn’t have the time to allow my emotions to surface as the men were already out and after me.

My hands shook so much I lost valuable seconds trying to get the keys in the ignition.

At last I succeeded starting the car. I reversed out of the library carpark and sped onto the main road ignoring the irate hooting of the drivers forced to a sudden stop. I accelerated towards the police station on the other side of the town with the men in pursuit.

That was when I lost control and sped straight into a bridge. The next thing I knew I was in here, strapped to a bed.

“What have you got yourself involved in?” Jodie asks me. She squeezes my hand and I wince. She’s pressing the needle in deeper and it hurts.

“What was that?” Adam says. He looks at Jodie. “Do it again. Squeeze her hand again.”

Jodie does it and the needle hurts. I wince again.

“There. Did you hear it?” His voice rises.

Jodie nods, she heard it, too and I realise I must have winced out loud.

I realise I’m no longer floating above, but back in my body. And I can feel pain. I try to speak, but the oxygen tube obstructs my speech.

“She’s trying to say something. Look, her lips are moving,” Jodie shouts and PC Cresswell goes out to fetch the doctor. “Hang in there, sis. Whatever is going on, you are safe.”

***

“You are so bloody lucky,” Jodie says to me when we are sitting on a Hawaiian beach a month later.

My leg is still in a cast, but she is right. I was lucky to escape the crash without severe injuries.

When I came out of the coma, I told Detective Cresswell everything. How I’d met Marge and how we became friends up to the point she left me holding the bag, literally and figuratively, and fearing for my life.

The police deciphered the code in the black notebook and arrested Marge’s husband. I saw her once, briefly, before we went our separate ways in the witness protection scheme.

The police let me keep the money since Marge swore it was. That money is safely tucked away until Marge's husband is permanently behind bars and Jodie, Adam and I are free to leave witness protection.

Until that time, we might as well enjoy our secluded life in Hawaii.