The lorry came out of nowhere. I don’t remember the impact, only waking up, dazed, bandaged, and unable to move. That’s when injustice became personal
I felt disorientated, my throat drier than I thought possible.. I was in bed, in a room with bare white walls. My mother was sitting in a chair. For a moment, I thought we were in Italy again, with my Italian mother’s family.
She became agitated. I don’t know why. I only asked for a drink. Then I noticed the bandages on my hands, strapping my thumbs so tight, I couldn’t move them.
Something was wrong.
A nurse rushed in and started to examine me, asking lots of questions. She checked my pulse, shone a bright light into my eyes. I yawned, feeling tired. Not a drowsy feeling, but a deep sense of complete exhaustion.
It seemed wrong as I’d only woken up a few moments ago.
The Accident
Later, I discovered I’d been involved in a road accident. A lorry had struck my bicycle while I was doing my paper round.
Yet the driver claimed I’d ridden into the side of his lorry.
I didn’t know or care. I was 14 and the bike I’d built from second hand and begged parts was damaged. I wanted to get back home to fix it. Only I couldn’t, as the police had the bike.
To make matters worse, the headphones that allowed me to listen to hospital radio were faulty. The earpiece on the left-hand side anyway. I swapped them over to see if this would resolve the problem, but it didn’t.
I couldn’t hear anything in my left ear.
The nurse said it was quite normal for hearing to be affected after a serious head injury. My hearing would soon return to normal in a few days, or weeks.
But ‘normal’ didn’t return. Not for my hearing, and not for how I saw the world.
My thoughts turned to the serious head injury.
Is that why my hair was matted and sticky? Apart from the patch where my hair was shaved back to my skull?
“You needed 9 stitches in your head wound,” the nurse said. “It looks like the collision sent you over the top of your handlebars. You put out your hands to break the fall, but ended up breaking your thumbs.”
That explained the strapping. “My head hit the road?”
She nodded. “You were in a coma for 4 days.”
That was the moment the world stopped feeling safe.
It took me a while to take it all in. It took months and numerous hospital visits and tests, to learn my hearing was permanently damaged.
But I found my voice as a writer.
There were also advantages.
I couldn’t hear people talking if they were stood to my left. If I wasn’t keen on someone, I made sure they stood to my left.
The physical damage healed. The injustice didn’t.
A Taste of Injustice
The police couldn’t prosecute the driver of the lorry, even though they knew he’d cut the corner and struck me. An elderly lady saw the whole incident, but she refused to give a written statement or get involved.
My mother took this badly, heading round to plead with the woman, but she refused to help.
I felt angry, powerless and betrayed.
Sometimes the truth wasn't enough.
It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced unfairness.
My father died when I was 8.
But this was the first time I’d suffered injustice.
The driver had not only lied to the police, but he didn’t care about injuring me. Or damaging my bike, which was beyond repair.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that collision, and what followed, would echo through my life, and into every novel I wrote.
The sense of injustice influenced my choice of career. While I didn’t join the police, I became and environmental health officer, which involved law enforcement.
I became passionate about protecting the public from harm, like unfit food, unsafe workplaces, environmental hazards. I treated everyone fairly, without favour or grace.
When necessary, those who broke the law were prosecuted.
When I could, I made sure justice prevailed.
The Making of a Writer
Without my career in environmental health, I would never have created my sleuth Kent Fisher, an ordinary person who solves the most complex murders I can create.
He’s an environmental health officer like me, but he gets away with far more than I ever could.
Unfairness and injustice feature in all the Downland Murder Mysteries. The killers are often the victims of injustice – or that’s what they believe. They seek revenge on those who have mistreated them.
Sometimes, murder is the only way to even a score.
I often have sympathy with the killers I create, understanding their frustration and anger with a system that lets them down. Hopefully, this brings something extra to the novels.
The unfairness and injustice I felt after nearly being killed, and losing some of my hearing, could have broken me. But it gave me a voice — and a reason to write.
In real life, justice isn’t guaranteed.
In my fiction, I make sure it is.
If you enjoy crime fiction rooted in real-world experience, you may enjoy the Downland Murder Mysteries.
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