Reading time a short story PART 2

He could not concentrate at the office. An hour before finishing time, he got his car from the staff car-park and drove to his semi in a leafy suburb on the outskirts of town. Margaret, his wife, was doing some work in the garden. 'Robert, is that you? You're early. Nothing wrong at the office, is there?'
'No, of course not.' Why did women always think the worst? 'I thought I'd finish off that lampstand in the shed while there's still some day-light.'
'Right-O! I'll call you when dinner's ready.'
He put the inside catch on the shed door and made sure his wife was still in the front garden. Then he got a metal box from behind his workbench.The key to the box was hidden under a bottle of weedkiller. Inside the box were two yellowing clippings from the Elmston Observer.One was headlined: GIRL, 10, KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN.For the umpteenth times he read how the girl had been knocked down on a pedestrian crossing while on her way home from a school friend's house.The details were embedded in his memory. He had driven over to Margaret's parents' house in the MG that evening. They had lived just outside Elmston then.Because of some road works, the traffic had been diverted.He had been exceeding the speed limit, too. It was an unfamiliar route and the crossing had taken him by surprise.The car's brakes were slack because he'd skipped a service to save money, and a shower had made the road surface slippery...Even though it was twenty years ago, he could still remember the sickening thud... the scream... the crumpled body on the side of the road.

Of course, he should have stopped, but he had panicked. He had been short-listed for a new job for which a clean driving licence was a condition of employment and it was only days away from his wedding. Reporting the accident would have ruined everything.
The second clipping, headed POLICE APPEAL FOR WITNESSES, said several people had heard the screech of brakes but none had seen the accident.A police spokesman was quoted as saying they were 'pursuing several lines of enquiry'.
He locked the clippings away again and returned the box to its hiding place. He had never fully understood why he had kept them all those years. What, he wondered, would the psychologists make of that? A guilt complex, perhaps? A subconscious desire to punish himself for his crime?
It was his favourite tuna-fish salad for dinner but the memory of the accident had dulled his appetite. He pecked away at it, nodding absently as Margaret related the events of her day. All through the meal the thought kept hammering in his brain: how long before the girl found out that he was the hit-and-run driver? More than likely she was a former schoolfriend wanting to see justice done. Or a relative... the dead girl's sister, even. 
The police enquiries had no doubt fizzled out years ago—they would have had far more pressing cases on their plate —but the little girl's family and friends would not have given up the search.That night he hardly slept.