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The following is an extract from the second chapter of “To Cause a Death” by Kelly Connor.

Sunday April 18th 1971

As is usual for an autumn morning in Perth, the sky was blue and the air had a hint of coolness to it, but the warmth was not far away. On this beautiful Sunday morning I was rostered to work the 8am to 12noon shift, which would normally mean that I’d take Dad’s car. However, Dad and Mum were planning to take Jayne out for a birthday treat later that morning, so the plan was for Dad to drive me to work. Yet when the morning arrived Dad decided was too tired so we arranged instead that I should take the car to work and then later, after a lie-in, my parents and sister would catch the train to my workplace and we would all go together to Jayne’s birthday outing.

It was an ordinary enough decision at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight it now seems as though fate had its hand on my shoulder from this very first innocent moment to the very last tragic moment.

After a quick breakfast I got into the car, reversed out of the driveway and found myself facing the opposite direction to where I intended to go! I was slightly bemused by this lapse of concentration but after a moments consideration I decided to go with the flow realising that I could take advantage of the quiet Sunday morning traffic to travel the main highway to work rather than my usual backstreet route. This added a few extra minutes to the journey but I wasn’t pressed for time because I had left a little earlier than usual. I cruised along enjoying the new experience of travelling a road that previously I had been somewhat unnerved by. But after 10 minutes or so, I found myself turning off the highway and back onto the route I usually travelled. Again, I was a bit bemused by this because I hadn’t consciously decided to change routes, it just happened, and uncharacteristically, I again just submitted and continued my journey, smiling at the weirdness of it.

I was now back on a very familiar road with almost no other traffic so was feeling very relaxed. I approached part of the road that had a fairly steep hill to climb, and had begun to press down the accelerator when I noticed a taxi pull up at the crossroad atop the hill. It occurred to me that he might pull out in front of me because up until that very morning he would have had right of way. The road rules gave right of way to any vehicle entering traffic from the right, so normally I would have had to stop to allow him to turn in front of me. However a new rule was now in place that gave me right of way because I was travelling on a designated priority road and he was entering from a side street.

I fixed my attention on him ready to take evasive action should it be needed. In truth though, my diligence was largely due to the sudden realisation that an accident would seriously interfere with my holiday plans so I poured all my attention into ensuring that I was not going to get into a tangle with the taxi. He didn’t pull out, but after passing him my attention was still so fixated on him that even as I passed beyond the intersection I continued watching him in my rear-view mirror. It was only when I saw him leave the corner and turn behind me that I became aware I hadn’t eased up on the accelerator even though I was now well over the crest of the hill.

When I looked forwards, directly in front of me was an elderly lady in a green suit who was two-thirds of the way across the road on a pedestrian crossing. I immediately hit the brakes, causing her to look up in terrified horror. With absolutely no hope of success, she tried to outrun me.

When she first stepped onto the crossing I would have been at the bottom of the hill completely out of her sight. Yet now, with her crossing almost complete I was barrelling towards her at high speed. Did our eyes meet? I don’t know. Sometimes I imagine that they did but I don’t usually allow myself to dwell on the moments immediately before impact. I remember slamming on the breaks, and I remember the sensation the squealing tyres made, but curiously I don’t recall the actual noise.

The noise of the impact is also lost to me. I only remember the intense silence that followed it. I sat in that silence for what seemed an eternity but which must only have been seconds. I sat wondering whether I had only imagined the woman on the crossing. I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t hear her. Maybe it hadn’t actually happened. I was on the brink of convincing myself that I should just leave when the taxi pulled up in front of me and the driver got out and ran over. He motioned at me to open the window but I just stared blankly unable to move. He shouted through the window that he had radioed for an ambulance. He also told me that he had a passenger and had to leave.

As he drove away his words about an ambulance filtered through my brain and I realised that I really must have hit the woman. At that I began to panic; my hands, arms, and legs became tingling and shaky. My breathing became short and erratic as I contemplated the scene that awaited me outside the car. Gruesome images of blood and gore pressed into my mind, but as terrible as they were, another part of myself was taking charge. I remembered hearing about the need to keep accident victims warm, and at the same instant I recalled that there was a blanket on the back seat from the drive-in movie I went to with my family the night before. I got the blanket and walked around the side of the car to cover her, she was lying on her stomach unmoving, not far from the front left tyre. Surprisingly there was no blood, or at least none that I allowed myself to see. I was relieved that I didn’t have to look at her face, or have her look at mine.

As I covered her, a van with surfboards on top pulled along side and stopped. One of the four young men inside got out, picked up the woman’s handbag and glasses from the road and placed them gently beside her. Without saying a word he then got back into the van and they left. “Please don’t leave me alone,” my mind wailed as they drove away. I slumped against the car near to where she was lying but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, not even to see whether she was breathing.

Just then, a young woman in a nurse’s uniform appeared, I presumed she was with the ambulance and was surprised that I hadn’t noticed their arrival, but it turned out that she was just driving past on her way to work. She quickly examined the woman, assured me that she only had a broken leg, explained that she was late for work, and left. For the third time I was abandoned to deal with this nightmare alone. Despite the assurances of the nurse, it seemed clear to me that something terrible was in the air. Why else did everybody keep leaving?

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