If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 82 - 13.May.1967

Chapter 82

May 13, 1967

Julia Lennon was hit head-on by a Standard Vanguard car. She was thrown high in the air and killed instantly on the night of the fifteenth of July 1958. It had been almost nine years since her death, since she was so cruelly ripped from John's life, since he hardened a bit on the outside...since the worst summer of both of our lives.

Eric, my father's mentee on the police force, was driving the car, and Julia's death was his mistake, an accident. At least, that was what Eric told the police who arrived on the scene. But his confession was a lie. Eric wasn't behind the wheel of the car. My father admitted the truth, that he was behind the wheel, in his letter to me...a letter that had nearly ripped John and me apart.

I never reread my father's words, and now they sat as ash at the bottom of the fireplace in my childhood home in Liverpool. But the memory of reading them was clear—I could still see his handwriting as I sat on the floor of my parents' bedroom reading only the first two paragraphs of my father's horrifying confession, unable to make myself read any more.

But now, I wasn't even sure if my father's confession was the complete truth. And because he'd taken any remaining secrets to the grave, there was no way to know if he had still been manipulating things and lying even in his last communication with me before his death.

I'd spent countless hours pouring over the blackmail note, rereading each line, trying to understand how this person could know so much about that night. Whoever sent the note claimed that my father had forced Eric to take the blame. But my father wrote that Eric had volunteered to take the fall in the heat of the moment...that Eric knew my father would lose his job because my father was sloshed out of his damned mind, and Eric lied about who was driving to help my father.

So what was the truth about Eric's involvement? Had he been forced to take the fall, or did he volunteer?

Only a very small group of people should've known the truth about who was driving that night. It wasn't public knowledge about who had been behind the wheel of the car that struck and killed Julia Lennon. Eric's name was kept out of the papers, and he'd never once tried to contact John or Mimi following the accident. No one knew the truth about my father except John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mal, Nell, Catherine, me—

—and Eric.

After several nights of fitful sleep, contemplating every word, every option, my mind had settled on the only person who made any sense. It had to be Eric who was sending the notes because no one else who knew the truth about what my father did would have a reason to blackmail me.

So, a few days after the note arrived, I'd made my way to Liverpool and checked into a hotel with Maggie. On my first day of searching for Eric, I learned that after the accident he'd been reprimanded by his superiors and suspended from duty for a short period. But the guilt, it seemed, ate at him. And soon after, he left the police force altogether and eventually took a job as a postman.

It made sense that Eric might be in need of money after losing his job, or that he might hold a grudge against my father and my family, especially if he hadn't volunteered to take the fall that night like my father had written. It made so much sense, and I was desperate to find Eric, to speak with him, to better understand what happened that night and what he might want from me.

I was so sure I'd figured it all out...that was until I learned he died before the first note ever arrived. He left behind a wife and two children, and the cause of death wasn't written in the obituary I'd found.

With Eric gone, the list of people I could think of who knew about that night and had reason to blackmail me went back to zero.

So after less than twenty-four hours in Liverpool, I'd made my way back to Catherine's flat, not bothering to chase after Eric's widow for answers. The poor woman had likely been through enough after losing her husband and didn't need me to add to her pain.