LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER 1

       2.36 P.M., THURSDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2016

      Dying wasn’t on the to-do list I’d drafted earlier that afternoon. No doubt the 4x4 driver hadn’t planned on killing a cyclist either. But that’s what happened. Her giant black car swerved into my path. It hit me head on. There was no time to react. Just an awful screeching sound, a brief sensation of flying and a sudden agonizing pain. Then I blacked out.

      Next thing I knew, I was standing on the pavement watching two paramedics fight to revive my battered, bloody body. I desperately willed them to succeed, even moving closer in the hope I could jump back into my skin at the right moment, but it was futile. I was pronounced dead minutes later.

      But I’m still here, I told myself. What does that make me? And then my thoughts turned to Ella. What would happen to her if I was dead? She’d be all alone, abandoned by both of her parents: the very thing I’d sworn she’d never face.

      ‘Wait! Don’t give up,’ I shouted at the paramedics. ‘Don’t stop! I’m still here. You’ve got to keep trying. You don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t fucking give up on me! I’m not dead.’

      I screamed my lungs out, begging and pleading with them to try to revive me again, but they couldn’t hear me. I was invisible to them and, ironically, to the onlookers gathered at the police cordon – several waving camera phones – keen to catch a glimpse of the dead guy.

      In desperation, I tried to grab one of the paramedics. But as my hand touched his right shoulder, I was hurled backwards by an invisible force. It left me sprawling on the tarmac. I was stunned but, oddly, not in any physical pain. I picked myself up and tried again with the man’s colleague, only to find myself thrown to the floor again. What the hell was going on?

      Then I saw the driver who’d killed me. She was chain-smoking menthol cigarettes under the watchful eye of a young bobby. ‘It was an accident,’ she told him in between drags. ‘The sat nav. It fell on to the floor. By my feet. I was just trying to pick it up when – oh God, I can still see his face hitting my windscreen. What have I done? Is he going to be okay? Tell me he’s going to make it.’

      ‘Do I look okay?’ I ask, standing in front of her, staring her in the face and willing her to see me. ‘Does it seem like I’m going to make it? You’ve killed me. I’m dead. All because of a bloody sat nav. Look at me, for God’s sake. I’m right here.’

      She’d have looked glamorous without the vomit on her high-heeled shoes and in the ends of her straightened hair. She was deathly pale and shaking so much that I didn’t have the heart to continue. She knew what she’d done.

      ‘Why am I still here?’ I yelled at the sky.

      ‘Have you got the time?’ one police officer asked another.

      ‘Three o’clock.’

      Shit. Home time. Ella’s primary school was a good fifteen-minute walk away; instinct kicked in and I started to run.

      The last few stragglers were leaving the school gates by the time I arrived. The knock-on effect of my accident was already evident in the snake of cars – squashed noses and curious eyes at their rear windows – that filled one side of the suburban street. I rushed to the back of the building, where Ella would be waiting, and saw her standing there alone, a forlorn look on her face. ‘Over here, darling!’ I shouted, waving as I ran across the empty yard. ‘It’s okay. I’m here now.’

      I don’t know what I was thinking. Why would she see me when no one else had? Watching my six-year-old daughter stare straight through me was quite the reality check.

      ‘Ella, Daddy’s here,’ I said for the umpteenth time, kneeling in front of her so we were face to face, but not daring to touch her after what had happened with the paramedics. Her lips were chapped and her right hand, which was clenching her Hello Kitty lunchbox, was covered in red felt-tip ink. I gasped as I realized I wouldn’t be able to remind her to use her lip balm or to help her ‘scrub those mucky paws’. Oblivious to my presence, she stared expectantly towards the far end of the playground.

      Mrs Afzal emerged from the open door behind Ella. ‘Is he still not here, love? You’d better get inside now.’

      ‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ Ella told her teacher. ‘His watch might need a new battery again.’

      ‘Come on. We’ll get the office to give him a call.’

      Panic knifed through me as I pictured my mobile ringing in the back of the ambulance while they drove away my dead body. I imagined one of the paramedics, my blood still splattered across his green shirt, rooting through my pockets to find it. How long before Ella discovered what had happened?

      I was about to follow them inside when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Startled, I spun around.

      ‘Hello, William. Sorry to sneak up on you like that. I, um, I’m Lizzie.’

      A stumpy woman in a dowdy grey skirt suit and beige mac was standing before me, one arm outstretched for a handshake. Gingerly, fearing another run-in with the tarmac, I reached out towards her podgy hand. It felt cool despite the unseasonal late September sunshine.

      ‘How do you know my name?’ I asked. ‘And how come I can touch you?’

      ‘I was sent to meet you when you died. You’ve probably got a few questions.’

      ‘What

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