The Woods, page 13
I take a step toward the house and he sidesteps with me. “Oh, stop being so bloody juvenile.”
“You thought no one saw, didn’t you? Thought everyone bought the mouse act. But I don’t need to see the scar on my brother’s face to remind me who you really are.”
He’s talking crap. He hasn’t changed a bit, despite the wife and child. This is another wild chase through the woods. But he’s right about one thing—I’m not a scared little mouse, not now. I could do to Jack what I did to Rebecca Martin—grab him by the throat. My hand curls into a fist and I want to do it, grab him and punch him.
“I wish we’d never moved to that damned house,” he says.
“Me too.”
He laughs softly. “Poor Tess—does it keep you awake at night, thinking of the lives you could all have had if we’d never come to town?” He sighs and looks around. “I swore I’d never come back to this shithole.” He falls into silence and I hover, wanting to walk away but unable to move. I’m undone by the momentary vulnerability I see in Jack’s hunched shoulders and defeated expression.
“Who do you think it is? The body they found?”
His face goes blank. “I have no idea. I haven’t been here in a decade.”
“But it’s bones they’ve found, that’s what Dad said, not a body. So it could have been there that long.” I shiver. “What if it’s another girl? There was another one, wasn’t there? Who went missing and no one ever found.”
He pulls a face, back to the Jack I remember. “Jeez, I came out here to wind you up for some light relief. I think I’ll go back inside, watch Max freaking out some more. It’s more entertaining.”
“Max is freaking out?”
“Bodies in gardens don’t exactly fit in with his plans for the week.”
We both turn as the front door opens and Lena steps out, a cigarette in her hand, flanked by Max and Sean. It goes unspoken that we’re out here so that anything we say about the discovery in Dean House doesn’t drift up to Julia, but now that we’re gathered here, no one has anything to say. Max won’t look at me. Is it because of the car accident or the disaster of our night in my flat?
The others look like strangers and the gap where Bella should be is like a gaping wound only I can see and feel. I think about the murdered girls, the summer of death, the killings that stopped and never got solved. Max is white-faced, a shaking mess, the bruise on his forehead an accusation I look away from. Lena’s pacing up and down and Jack and Sean…their faces are inscrutable. What’s going on in their heads? It was their house, their dad’s house. Very soon, the police are going to be here to ask questions.
“They might not be human,” Max says. “It could just be animal bones.”
But none of us believes that. Jack actually laughs. “Seriously, Max? I hope that forensic team can tell the difference—I don’t think the police want to talk to us about the bones of some dead dog.”
“Sorry,” Max says. “I’m not…it’s just…Jesus. A body? In your garden? What the hell is going on?”
“Not quite in the garden,” Jack says. “But close enough. Technically, the land they found it on belongs—belonged—to us.”
I find I’m shaking, trembling from head to foot. It’s too close to where Bella died. It’s too close to where Julia lies dying. It’s too much damned death.
“It’s our house,” Sean says, looking at his brother. “Or it was. The police are going to want to speak to us. Can you stay? Will it be okay with Dani?”
Dani. Jack’s wife. It’s disorienting, looking at him and seeing this grown man, married with a child. He keeps doubling in my mind, replaced with the Jack I remember from ten years ago.
Jack shrugs. “It’s fine. She’ll understand.”
“But the bones could have been there for decades,” I burst out. “They could have been there before any of us ever came to this village.”
Sean shrugs. “But until they work that out, they’re going to want to talk to anyone who has a connection to the house.”
“Well, shit—that’s all of us,” Lena says. “How the hell am I meant to explain that to my boss if I have to take more time off?”
“Well,” Jack says. “I, for one, hope they hurry up and get it over with.” He glances back at the house, up at Julia’s window. “Julia too. I hope she hurries up and dies, puts us all out of our misery so we can get on with our lives.”
I drop my bag on the ground and turn to walk away. I don’t think I can do this, not without punching him in the face. It’s like I’m sixteen again, Jack’s mocking laugh chasing me into the woods. But I don’t even have that sanctuary anymore, do I?
I walk fast, but don’t get very far before I have to stop. I’m still wobbly from the accident. My ribs ache when I take a deep breath and my legs are shaking. I wrap my arms around my tender ribs and lean against the wall.
“Are you okay?” It’s Sean who’s followed me. Am I hurt it’s not Max? No. I don’t want the awkwardness of that conversation right now. It’s laughable—hilarious in fact—that of all the people now gathered in my house, Sean is actually the easiest one to speak to.
“You told me your brother had changed.”
“He has. He’s just winding you up, Tess. You were always so sulky and tongue-tied around him, he liked it when he managed to pull your strings and you went off. He liked you when you got mad.”
I shake my head. “I think it’s you who’s kidding yourself that he’s changed. He was a shit then and he’s a shit now. Five minutes in his company is enough to tell me that.”
“I think he’s having problems with Dani.” Sean sighs and leans against the wall next to me. “If I’m honest, they’ve been having problems since Charlie was born. Then Julia dying and now this. It’s all an act, Tess. What he says and how he acts—it’s not real. It’s a defense mechanism, that’s all.”
“Who do you think is buried there?” I ask, half dreading his answer. “Do you think it’s that other missing girl?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it.”
I shiver as I think of him staying at the house, on his own with a sleeping bag and a flashlight and a body buried in the woods.
“Did you see anything? Or sense anything when you were there?”
“What are you talking about?”
My face floods with color. “Nothing. It’s just—it’s odd, that’s all. That this happened now, right as you come back, that it’s on your property. I—”
He laughs. “Oh please! You don’t think I was there burying bodies, do you? Did you not listen before? They found bones, not a freshly buried corpse. God, you are priceless.”
“Oh shut up, Sean, I didn’t for one second suggest that. I am not stupid. But do you think the police won’t be asking those questions? About what you were doing there alone? And what if the bones are really old? Didn’t they speak to you all when those girls died before?”
“They spoke to bloody everyone. They spoke to your dad, didn’t they? And Bella?”
“Bella was Nicole’s best friend. Of course they talked to her.” I swallow. “And Jack went out with Nicole.”
“Jack went out with everyone.”
We’re facing each other now, almost shouting, my sore ribs forgotten. I hear my words repeated in my head and it sounds awful. Am I really suggesting that Jack or Sean…?
I step away from Sean, confused, anger fading. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to imply anything, honestly.”
He frowns at me and shakes his head. “I don’t understand you. I don’t get you at all.”
That. There. His words. Like an echo. Like a conversation we’ve had before.
I smile as I complete the echo. “Well, I don’t get me, either.”
He looks confused for a moment, then his frown fades and he almost smiles back. “You shouted that at me once, didn’t you? It made no bloody sense.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, I rarely do make sense.”
A police car drives slowly past us.
“They’re going to drag it all back up, aren’t they? Even if the bones they’ve found have nothing to do with those murdered girls. It’s going to be the summer of death all over again.”
THEN
Chapter 14
January 2007
Dad’s late. It’s dark outside and the Bolognese that Bella and I have cobbled together is going gloopy in the pan. He’s always home by six. And he’s meant to be going out tonight for his regular pub quiz with Julia and Greg. I’ve already got the box of toys out for Ellie, ready to welcome the new dolls she got for Christmas. I grin. Bella’s staying in tonight—it’ll be her first experience of an epic Barbie marathon. I think she’s kind of looking forward to it. Yes, she rolled her eyes and played sulky, but she also went rummaging in the attic for the last remaining Barbie from our own doll days—a sad, shorn-haired thing, its head colored purple with felt-tip pen.
“Where is he?” Bella’s frowning and looking out of the window. The clock is creeping toward seven. “Do you think he went straight to the pub?”
I shake my head. “No, Ellie’s coming here. He always waits for Julia and Greg to drop her off and they go out together.”
She turns to look at me. “Why do they bring her here? Isn’t that a bit weird? Most babysitters go to the kid’s house, don’t they?”
I shrug. I don’t tell Bella I think it’s because Julia knows how uncomfortable I am around her sons. I think Julia knows I might say no to babysitting if she asked me to go to their house.
Bella rings Dad’s office and they tell her he left at five thirty like he always does, but it’s past seven now and as usual he doesn’t have his mobile phone on. Bella’s worried, too. She doesn’t say anything but I can see her glancing at the clock and it tightens the knot in my stomach even more. It’s freezing outside, the roads lethal with black ice. When I hear his car door slam, my whole body floods with relief and I flop down onto a chair and laugh.
“Where were you?” we shout in unison as he comes through the door.
He’s white-faced and shaky and the look on his face terrifies me because it’s the same look he had when he came home from the hospital with Mum and they sat us down and told us about the cancer.
“Something awful has happened,” he says, and there’s a break in his voice. Bella rushes over and hugs him but I’m frozen in place, wanting nothing more than to put my hands over my ears and not hear whatever he’s going to say.
“Julia was driving…she had Jack and Ellie with her. And the roads were so icy…”
Stop.
“She hit a patch of ice and the car crashed.”
Stop.
“And Ellie…Ellie’s side took the impact. She died. Oh God—Ellie’s dead.”
Bella starts crying, hysterical sobs that hurt my ears. And I…I can’t breathe.
Ellie. Little Ellie with the blond hair and the Barbie she named Tessie after me, that she declared was her favorite ever ever doll. Ellie, who I’ve babysat for so many times she has a box of toys here in the house.
Ellie, my secret baby sister.
Shh, I want to say to Dad. Stop. Don’t say any more. Don’t say any more and it won’t be real.
April 2007
I hear crying and freeze halfway through taking my coat off. I walk as quietly as I can to the kitchen and peek through the half-open door. Julia is in there with Dad and the pitiful sound of her sobbing makes my own chest ache. I press my hand to it and swallow past the lump in my throat. Julia has been round a few times since Ellie died, but the gap next to her is so huge, neither Bella nor I have been able to bear being around her. It’s probably awful of us to avoid her like that, but it’s like she’s been ripped in half—I can practically see the raw, bleeding seam where Ellie used to be attached.
We haven’t seen so much of Greg and nothing of the boys. Jack dropped out of school and he’s got a job working for a builder friend of Greg’s and he’s living away. Sean went back to boarding school after the funeral and hasn’t been seen since. And Greg…Bella says he’s taken it really hard, but has kept himself and his grief locked away.
Even though it was me who knew Ellie best from all the babysitting, it was Bella who went over there with Dad afterward. Bella who kept going round, helping out. I haven’t been able to.
I’m sorry, I want to burst in there and say. I’m sorry I’ve been so crap at showing sympathy and I miss her too. I do, I really do. I cried so much over that box of stupid toys the day after we heard. Hugging Ellie’s beloved Tessie Barbie, eyes swollen, chest aching, and nose streaming. She was four. Only four bloody years old. I can’t…I can’t even…I can’t bear it, even now, three months on. I reach out to push the door open but then I see Dad put his hand over hers and the moment seems too intimate to interrupt. The ache of sympathy turns into something else and I creep farther away instead of closer.
“I don’t understand how he could do that,” I hear Julia say, and it stops me in my tracks.
He? Who is she talking about? I thought she was crying over Ellie.
“What’s going on?” Bella’s walking downstairs.
I put a finger to my lips and nod toward the kitchen. I go up the stairs and meet her halfway. “Dad’s in there with Julia. She’s upset.”
Bella frowns. “Is Greg with her?”
I shake my head and she sighs, making as if to go into the kitchen. I grab her arm. “Don’t—Julia’s crying.”
“She should be crying with her husband, not our dad. He’s over there alone.”
“Since when do you care so much about Greg Lewis? I thought it was Jack or Sean you cared about.”
“Oh, stop it, Tess, stop being such a juvenile. He’s falling apart over there. Dad’s supposed to be his friend, not hers.”
“Come on, Bella, she lost her little girl. She lost Ellie.” My voice breaks but Bella’s still scowling.
“Well, she should have been more careful, shouldn’t she? She should never have been driving when it was so icy.”
I gasp and recoil.
Bella is white-faced, her lips pressed together. “It’s what Greg thinks, too. And the boys. Even Max and Lena. Why do you think none of them are here? That’s why she should be at home, trying to sort things out with him, with Greg.”
I can’t believe she’s saying such awful, awful things. God—if Julia heard what she was saying…
“You…you bitch.”
Bella’s shoulders stiffen. “Grow up, Tess. Stop fucking hiding.”
Bella comes into my room that night. I’m half-asleep but sit up as she climbs onto the bed next to me.
“I didn’t mean it,” she says, and I know she’s talking about what she said about Julia earlier.
“I know you didn’t, big sis.”
She leans her head against mine. “It’s so fucking awful. I hate going over there and seeing them in such a state in that empty dump of a house, but I feel bad if I don’t because they—especially Greg—seem so alone. No one else even bothers.”
I bite my lip. She sounds so sad. I should be going with her. I’m being so selfish letting her go on her own.
“And I don’t like the way she’s latched on to Dad.”
I think of Dad putting his hand on Julia’s. “Don’t be daft. They’re friends, that’s all.”
“Wasn’t Dad supposed to be Greg’s friend? Greg doesn’t know about her little visits to Dad. He doesn’t have a clue. That’s not right, is it?”
No, it’s not right. But nothing about this is right.
I walk through the woods, humming a song I heard on the radio that got stuck in my head. We’re into the second week of the Easter holidays and the sun is out. It’s not warm enough for the beach yet, so I’ve pulled on a sweater and come adventuring in the woods, a bag full of snacks and a book on my back. Dad had Julia over again, but after Bella’s comments before, I feel a bit awkward round her now, guilty that they seem to be getting closer while Greg’s over at Dean House on his own.
I slow when I hear voices coming from the clearing and as I step into sight, I immediately wish I’d turned tail as soon as I heard them. It’s Bella, but she’s with Jack and Sean and Lena. I almost do turn around, but then Max steps into view from behind a tree and hunches down next to them. He’s the one who looks up and sees me, calling my name with that delicious smile on his face.
I didn’t know they were here. Bella never mentioned a word.
“Well, great,” Lena says, “the gang’s all here. Come join us, Tess. We’re going all Scooby-Doo, trying to solve a mystery.”
I go over and try not to look all disapproving when I see that Lena’s holding a cigarette and that Jack has a bottle of something that’s definitely not Coke balanced between his knees.
“Mystery?” I say, hovering self-consciously, not wanting to commit to staying by sitting down.
“You know that girl who went missing?” Lena offers me the cigarette packet as she speaks and I shake my head. Bella takes one though.
I do, vaguely. Some girl, Annie something, a couple of years older than us, from a town not far from here, had been reported missing a few days ago. “She ran away, didn’t she?”
“Well,” said Lena, “that’s what everyone thought.”
“So I take it you have another theory?”
“It’s not a theory,” Jack drawls, a funny smile on his face. “They found a body.”
“Her body?”
He shrugs. “It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it wasn’t far from where she lived, so…”
I shiver and plonk myself down on a log next to Bella. “God. That’s…horrible. What happened? Was it an accident?”
Jack leans in toward me. “She was strangled—it was murder.”
I jerk away from him and Bella sighs. “Stop it, Jack, you’re scaring her.”
“No, he’s not,” I snap. “God, Bella, I’m fifteen, not five.”
