Life on the Edge - The true story of the hero who saved the lives of twenty-nine people at Beachy Head. Keith Lane
and Maggie had loved it. I bought it thinking she would love the surprise when she got home. I was always trying to do things that would make her happy and perhaps reduce her need to drink.
I got home, put the potatoes on and placed the CD in the player. I was ready. There was nothing left to do but wait for Maggie to come home, so I sat down. I was excited at the thought of her walking in the door and being surprised by my little treat.
I waited for an hour, but there was no sign of her. The jackets were well on the way to being cooked, so I turned the oven down. I called her mobile but it rang out. Oh God, I thought with a familiar sense of dread, she’s gone off on one of her jaunts again. All the usual worries flooded my mind. Which pub is she in? Is she going to go to a hotel again? Am I going to get a phone call later?
Another hour went by. The jacket potatoes were more than done by now, so I turned the oven off. What a waste of time. I tried her phone again. Nothing. Butterflies filled my stomach, and I started to feel sick. It was obvious Maggie was drinking somewhere. All I could do was call her again and again in case she had passed out – I hoped the phone might eventually wake her. But there was no answer.
I turned the events of the day over in my head. Already I was kicking myself for not having come home to check on her at lunch. Why didn’t I go with my instincts? I thought. I’d been right – there must have been something wrong.
It was getting late. By 10 o’clock I was starting wonder what on earth to do – Should I go out looking for her? I wondered, but before I had a chance to take action, the doorbell rang.
For a second I thought it might be Maggie. It wasn’t. It was the police.
‘We saw your car on a patrol earlier today,’ they told me, ‘and it hasn’t moved since then.’
Well, I thought, if she’s been out drinking, then it would make sense that the car hasn’t moved.
‘So where’s the car?’ I asked them.
‘Beachy Head.’
‘No!’ I shot back, incredulously.
‘Yes, it’s up there,’ said one of the officers, ‘but don’t panic yet. We’ll find her.’
Although Beachy Head is a well-known suicide hotspot, at first I didn’t twig that the police were considering that she might be dead – I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t. Also, I’d always seen Maggie’s extreme acts, terrible though they were, as cries for help. She had always put herself in situations where she would be found alive. I simply didn’t think she was prepared to kill herself.
Then, the police informed me that they’d sent a helicopter up to search for her – and it was at that moment that I began to really worry. I knew that those helicopters cost £2,500 an hour to run and they don’t send them up unless there is real concern. They’re equipped with a heat-seeking device for finding people who are alive – or recently dead.
The police told me to remain at home in case Maggie returned or called the landline. I gave them the spare keys to her car and off they went. As I watched them get into the patrol car and drive off towards Beachy Head, my heart filled with dread. This was new territory. Maggie wasn’t in the pub. She wasn’t in a hotel. She wasn’t wandering the streets. She was at Beachy Head and had abandoned her car. By now I was absolutely shitting myself. Out of my mind with panic, I didn’t know what to do. I paced up and down the house and began to shake like a leaf. I’ve never shaken like that and I didn’t stop for two hours. Then, around 12.30 am, I looked out of the window and saw Maggie’s car coming down the road. Yes! I thought. They’ve found her and brought her back! Thank God.
I raced to the door, but Maggie was nowhere to be seen. All I could see were two police officers coming down the drive. As they came closer I could see that they had her handbag and her scarf with them. I waited for what they had to say with my heart in my mouth.
‘The car is damaged but driveable,’ one of them began. ‘Maggie must have hit something. We’re afraid there’s no sign of her yet. The heat-seeking helicopter can’t find anything up there.’
This offered me my first glimmer of hope – it was good news that she was nowhere to be seen around Beachy Head. Typical Maggie, I thought with a degree of relief. She’s buggered off again – probably to a hotel in town. But why, I thought, did she leave her handbag behind? And why hasn’t she called? Perhaps she was too out of it to think straight.
The officers informed me that the search would begin again in the morning. For the moment there was nothing else they could do. They told me to get some sleep. Yeah, right! I thought to myself.
I didn’t sleep a wink. I sat on the edge of the sofa all night, turning all the possibilities of what may have become of Maggie over and over in my head. As soon as first light broke, I jumped into my car and set off for Beachy Head.
Once there, I searched under bushes and behind trees – anywhere Maggie might have passed out. I didn’t look over the cliff edge at first, but after I’d tried everywhere else I began peering over. I covered almost all of the three-mile stretch of cliff edge.
Nothing.
There was nowhere else to look, so I decided to begin searching the local hotels. I called my daughter and she joined me. I went to the Hydro Hotel first and asked the receptionist if they had a Mrs Lane staying with them.
‘Yes, we do,’ came the reply.
Pure relief coursed through my veins. We’d got her! My precious Maggie was safe.
‘How old is Mrs Lane?’ asked the receptionist.
‘Fifty-four,’ I replied. ‘Why?’
‘The Mrs Lane we have here is 88,’ the receptionist replied.
That brought me crashing back down to earth. There was nothing for it but to carry on searching the other hotels. We searched for three more hours, but to no avail. I was knackered – I hadn’t slept for 36 hours – so I went home and lay on the sofa.
The next thing I knew I was being jolted awake by the doorbell.
And that’s when I found out that my wife was dead.
I couldn’t take any of it in, I just couldn’t. The rest of that day passed in a nightmarish blur. I can remember only fragments of it. I recall people – mostly family members – being in the lounge, and the atmosphere being one of total devastation. Everybody was crying hysterically, hugging and wailing. People wanted to hug me but I didn’t want to be hugged. I didn’t want anything but for this not to be happening. I felt like I was underwater – sounds and faces were a blur and I could barely register what was being said to me. People were trying to be supportive by trotting out lines such as ‘Everything’s going to be all right’, but when I heard that I thought to myself, What the fuck are they talking about? They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Nothing’s going to be all right, nothing, so stick your stupid comments up your arse! I knew people meant well, but I just wanted them all to leave – leave, for God’s sake! Eventually, they did.
At one point, a policeman broached the subject of identifying Maggie. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do it tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Unless someone else is able to do it for…’ he continued as he looked around the room. But I cut him short.
‘Nobody identifies my wife other than me,’ I said loudly, with utter conviction. I don’t remember much after that, apart from my younger daughter arriving. She came in and didn’t say a word. She simply took me in her arms and held me, which is all you can do for someone in such a grief-stricken, shocking situation. There are no words of comfort that can help in such times and acknowledging this in the way that my daughter did is the best thing a loved one can do. We just hugged and hugged. After everyone else had left we just sat there talking and crying, trying to begin to come to terms with what had happened – and not even getting close. Eventually my mind and body gave way and I nodded off to sleep.
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