The Judas Tree, page 1
Praise for The Judas Tree
‘Astonishingly good and utterly haunting’
Oxford Times
‘That rare thing – a gripping page-turner that’s also emotionally intelligent and very moving. I gulped it down’
Tammy Cohen, author of The Wedding Party
‘But it is. AMAZING. Real and disturbing and brilliant, and so beautifully written. The kind of book you want to TALK about’
Iona Grey, author of The Glittering Hour
‘I LOVED it’
Miranda Dickinson, bestselling author of The Start of Something
‘A beautiful, sharply written novel about how we carry the past with us’
Louise Beech, author of Nothing Else
‘A compelling, moving and captivating book that had me hooked from the first page … At the core of the book is the profound impact that trauma, experienced at a young age, can have on the rest of a person’s life, and the lives of those who love that person’
Louise Douglas, bestselling author of The Room in the Attic
‘A powerful story about the shadowlands that can connect people with long-held secrets. What I particularly loved when reading it was the constant interplay between menace and damage: the menace posed by others and the damage Jennings’s gritty and deftly drawn characters actually do to themselves. A really great read’
Claire Dyer, author of The Significant Others of Odie May
‘A beautifully crafted tale. Emotional, dark and so very compelling’
Cesca Major, author of Maybe Next Time
AMANDA JENNINGS has written six novels, and numerous short stories for anthologies and magazines, and is published both in the UK and abroad. She is a contributor to BBC Radio Berkshire and a long-standing judge for the Henley Youth Festival literary competition, has taught writing workshops, and enjoys appearing at literary festivals. Before becoming an author, Amanda worked at the BBC as a researcher, and studied History of Art at Cambridge University. She lives in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Oxfordshire with her family and a varied assortment of animals.
Also by Amanda Jennings
The Haven
The Storm
The Cliff House
In Her Wake
Sworn Secret
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2022
Copyright © Amanda Jennings 2014
Louise Jensen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © November 2022 ISBN: 9780008471613
Version 2022-11-07
Note to Readers
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008471606
For Sian, who brightens life.
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.
Arthur Miller
Contents
Cover
Praise
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Extract
Present Day
Chapter One
About the Publisher
Prologue
‘Do you remember what else you said that day?’
There was an eerie calm to the man’s voice that chilled the dead, stale air around them. He looked up at him, those eyes burning with hatred, mouth twisted into a bitter snarl. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he fought against the cords that bound him, a desperate rabbit tugging and twisting in its snare.
The man leant forward and whispered close to his ear. Breath hot. Words creamy with intent. ‘You don’t remember? Shall I remind you? You said, This will teach you. Remember now?’ Then a soft rumble of laughter as he dangled the penknife in front of his face like a hypnotist’s watch.
Later – how long had it been? An hour? Maybe two – he lay on the floor alone and bleeding. He craned his neck to see where the man was, if he was near, but there was no sign of him, no sound. The concrete beneath his cheek was cool and uneven, its musty dampness filling his nose with each breath. It was a smell he’d always liked. In his top three, in fact, along with petrol fumes on a garage forecourt and hot bitumen. His wife thought he was mad to like smells like these, but what did she know? She liked smells that made her fat: vanilla, freshly baked bread, and cake.
He listened to the hum of traffic outside, passing cars and vans, fewer now than earlier, the drivers unaware of him, hurrying home, minds focused on crawling into warm, safe beds. The gaffer tape wrapped around his head and covering his mouth pinched at his skin, and when he coughed there was a strange rattling inside his lungs that pushed phlegm and Christ-knew-what against his sealed lips, making him gag.
Fuck being tied up and left bleeding on the floor of some godforsaken shithole.
He made another futile attempt to pull his hands free. The ropes bit into his wrists and a sharp pain shot up his arm through his shoulder and into his neck.
A broken collarbone. The bastard’s broken my bloody collarbone.
One of his eyes had swollen closed; through the other he saw a pool of blood that bloomed on the concrete. What the hell was he doing there, shivering on the ground, beaten, kicked and cut, watching blood quietly seep from his body? Things like this, deaths like this – was he really going to die? – should only happen to two-dimensional characters in ten-a-penny thrillers and crappy TV dramas. But here he was, dying a fictional death, lying in his own blood and piss, pathetic, cold and broken. How long would they take to discover him? Would the police find his killer? Or would he be just another unsolved crime, the murder of a nobody cluttering up their files?
Footsteps approached. His body tensed as a surge of fresh panic jump-started him. His heart pounded as he turned his head towards the approaching noise. The man stopped walking. The knife glinted. He held his breath and waited for whatever was going to happen next. Every cell in his body screamed with pain. He kept as still as possible. Played dead. Would that send the psycho away? Sure enough, when the footsteps started up, they moved in the opposite direction, echoing lightly on the floor.
He lay there some time. He was aware of his body growing colder. He vaguely remembered reading that as an injured body lost blood its temperature dropped. His mind drifted in and out of consciousness, a listing ship on a gentle swell. He tried to listen for the cars, perhaps catch the sound of a police siren, but all he could hear was a faint ringing in his ears.
White noise.
His vision blurred to a hazy mirage and the effort of keeping his good eye open was too much so he allowed it to close. His breathing was steady now and at last his pain began to subside. Perhaps he’d make it after all? All he needed to do was rest, to regain his strength, sleep a bit. Then he would work out how to get help.
His last thought before he finally gave in was of the weather. How on earth could it be this bloody cold in July?
Chapter One
Harmony lay on the grass and searched the cornflower sky for clouds. There were none, not even the breath of one. The only thing that broke the blue was a fading streak of white from a long-passed plane. Th
‘He’s so good with the boys,’ said Sophie.
Harmony sat halfway up and propped herself on her forearms to watch Will and her nephews playing football. Her husband in knee-length khaki shorts and pink shirt, crumpled and rolled to the elbows, and the boys – Cal, Matt and George, aged fifteen, twelve and nine respectively – bare-chested, skin glistening with sweat, tearing about on a makeshift pitch marked out with T-shirts and trainers. Cal went in for a sliding tackle and knocked his youngest brother’s feet from beneath him. George scrambled up, indignant, appealing for a foul while glaring at his brother as he geared up for a fight. Will ran over to George and lifted him high before turning him upside down and diverting his attention from the injustice.
‘He enjoys their company.’ Harmony smiled as Will deposited George back on the ground and ruffled his hair, before hooking an arm around his neck and pulling him close. He whispered something conspiratorial and George’s face broke into a smile and he nodded, then the two of them jogged back to rejoin the game, the fight with Cal forgotten.
Sophie looked over at Roger, who sat a little away from them in the shade of a sycamore tree, eyes glued to his phone as his thumb scrolled. ‘Why don’t you join them?’ she called.
‘Got an email that needs to go before noon.’ He glanced up at Will and the boys. ‘They’re fine anyway. If I join it’ll be uneven.’
Sophie groaned and rolled her eyes. ‘He’s literally never off that thing,’ she said. ‘He’s worse than the kids.’ She reached into the cool-box for the bottle of wine and poured some into her plastic glass, then held the bottle out towards Harmony. ‘Want some?’
Harmony shook her head then turned back to watch Will with her nephews. Sophie was right, he was great with them. A phantom pain shot through her stomach.
‘He’d be a brilliant dad,’ Sophie said, reading her thoughts.
Harmony nodded. ‘He would.’
‘How are you feeling about things?’ Sophie’s voice was soft and gentle.
‘I’m fine.’ She smiled at her older sister. ‘It’s taken its time though. I’d no idea I’d be such a wreck for so long.’ Sophie reached for her hand and gave it a rub. ‘And Will?’
She didn’t answer immediately. ‘It’s hard to tell. I mean, I know he’s thinking about it, sometimes he seems distant and stuck in his thoughts, but you know what he’s like, buries his feelings, makes stupid jokes at the wrong times. He doesn’t seem to get it. The awfulness of this thing we’ve been through. It’s as if he’s scared of owning up to any emotion. As if doing that is somehow admitting a weakness.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘But what can I do? That’s Will. Always has been.’
‘That’s men.’ Her sister directed a pointed look towards Roger, still staring at his phone. ‘We’ve been married forever and he’s totally incapable of recognising the mood I’m in.’
Roger glanced over and smiled. ‘You’re always happy, aren’t you, my angel?’
‘See what I mean?’ She shook her head in mock despair. ‘Yes, my love. Always happy!’
He grinned and went back to his phone.
Sophie looked over at the game of football and burst out laughing as Will faked a fall and all three boys jumped on top of him. Harmony watched her husband fight to escape the pile-on, finally crawling out, blond hair sticking up like a scarecrow, cheeks red from exertion. George shrieked with glee and ran at him again. Will put out a hand and fended off the attack as George lunged in an attempt to bring him down.
‘Enough now, mate,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You’ve killed me. I need a stint on the bench.’
He jogged over to Harmony and Sophie and collapsed on the picnic rug. ‘They’re exhausting, Soph,’ he said, panting heavily. ‘How on earth do you guys do that every day?’
‘We don’t do it every day. In fact, we try never to do it. Why do you think we invited you to have lunch with us?’
Harmony smoothed Will’s hair. His brow was clammy with sweat. ‘It would be good for you to do this more,’ she said. ‘Looks like you could do with getting a bit fitter.’
He turned his head on the rug and lifted his eyebrows. ‘What are you talking about? I’m in peak physical condition.’ He patted his middle and laughed, then closed his eyes and tilted his face towards the sun.
Harmony heard a small child yell out. She turned to see a little girl in a denim dress with dimpled knees and dark hair in bunches. She was crying, red-faced and angry, as her steely mother fought to fasten her into her pushchair. There was a baby lying on a rug beside them, happily kicking its legs, oblivious to the battle of wills going on between its mother and sibling. The woman finally succeeded in strapping her daughter in and sat back with a weary sigh and a silent mutter. Then she scooped up her baby and kissed its cheek before standing to truss it into a sling on her front.
Harmony leant down to kiss Will. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
‘What was that for?’ he asked.
‘Just because.’
He turned on his side, shifting himself near enough to lay his head on her stomach. ‘This is nice,’ he murmured, draping an arm over her.
Harmony combed her fingers through his hair. ‘It is,’ she said.
She glanced up, conscious of being watched, and caught Sophie looking at them with a smile on her face. Harmony smiled back then lay down beside Will, linking her fingers through his. She stared up at the sky. A single cloud, a wispy white smudge, now drifted silently across the wide expanse of blue. She watched it as it moved, morphing imperceptibly from one nondescript shape to the next, and when it had passed she closed her eyes and listened once again to the noises of the people all around them.
Chapter Two
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, as they pulled up on the grass beside the long row of cars parked beneath the oak trees. ‘You seem quiet.’
‘Do I? I’m fine,’ she said. ‘A bit distracted perhaps.’
‘But you’re happy?’ There was a hopefulness in his voice that stung her.
‘I am.’
‘I’m glad; it suits you.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m not sure being sad suits many people, does it?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant it’s good to see your smile. Your smile suits you.’
Like a shirt or a new shade of lipstick, she thought, as she looked out of the window across the fields that rolled away from the smart estate fencing. The evening was beginning to thicken with dusk and two horses stood beside each other grazing in the last few hours of light, their tails flicking at the midges that hung suspended around them. An ungenerous part of her wanted to tell Will not to be so grateful she was happy, not to seem so bloody relieved, but she bit her tongue. ‘I’m certainly feeling more like myself.’ She bent to retrieve her bag from the footwell. ‘Come on, we should get in there. We’re late enough as it is. Emma will never forgive me.’
They got out of the car and Will went to the boot to get his camera bag. Their eleven-year-old Clio looked small and scruffy parked next to the shining army of Range Rovers, Porsches and BMWs. Harmony imagined the people who’d driven them here, high-powered men with glamorous wives dressed in designer clothes and judgemental sneers. ‘Do I look OK?’ she asked, straightening her dress and arranging a pale pink pashmina loosely over her shoulders.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘I should have told you earlier.’
‘You look good too. Except your tie’s on the wonk.’ She gestured for him to come to her.
He stepped closer and tipped back his head so she could reach up and straighten his bow tie.
‘There,’ she said. She brushed her fingers through his hair in a futile attempt to neaten him. His unruly hairstyle had remained unchanged forever, a foppish mess that in spite of the wrinkles which had folded themselves into his forehead and around his eyes managed to keep him looking young for his years. ‘That’s better.’ She brushed a few loose hairs from his shoulders. ‘You might have shaved though.’
He grinned and rubbed his chin which was covered in light blond stubble. ‘Beards are all the rage.’
