The Woods, page 23
Jack comes slamming into my room, the door banging behind him. “Is it true?”
I step away from his anger and bump into the wall. “What? What are you on about?”
“Lena told me about your little gardening dates with my dad.”
It stings. I don’t think I really expected her to keep quiet about it, but still…
“I used to help out with weeding and stuff—so what?”
“So what? So my father has been murdered and you’ve been claiming you barely knew him. You’ve been lying—and not just to me and Sean.”
“I never mentioned it because it’s not important. It was a…an after-school job for a couple of months, that’s all.”
He steps closer, close enough that I can feel his breath on my face. “Do you know what? I’m beginning to think the whole fucking lot of you were in on it. You, your dad, your dead sister.”
“Really? Where’s your proof? What are you going to tell the police? That I helped your dad in the bloody garden?”
His hands clench into fists and for a moment I think he’s going to lunge at me. Then he seems to get himself under control, shaking his head and letting out a long breath. “Damn you and your family,” he says. “I swear, if I ever find out any of you had something to do with my father’s death…”
My heart’s pounding, but I don’t let myself look away from him. “Are you threatening me? Because I’ll tell you something, Jack, it’s not my gardening activities the police seem to be interested in, it’s the relationships your beloved father had with Bella and Nicole and God knows how many other teenage girls. Maybe you should ask yourself if the reason he ended up dead is anything to do with that.”
He goes pale and, in the absence of his usual big fake grin, I realize with a shock that he knows. He knows the stories about his dad and teenage girls. And if he knows, maybe Lena wasn’t making up stories and Julia did leave Greg because of it. And if Julia knew…
My heart thumps harder. If Greg killed Bella and those other girls and Julia and Jack knew about him…
“What the hell are you doing, Jack?” It’s Sean, standing in the doorway.
Jack steps away from me and looks at his brother. “Why don’t you ask little miss schoolteacher here? Turns out she knew Dad a lot better than we thought.”
“Is it true?” Sean asks quietly after Jack has left the room.
My heart is still thudding and my legs are shaky, so I sit on the bed. Sean—does Sean know as well? “Not like he’s insinuating. I helped him out in the garden for a while, that’s all.”
His eyelids flicker. He glances out onto the landing, then pushes my door closed. “I knew,” he said. “Dad let it slip once.”
“So you know all I was doing was gardening! You can tell Jack and—”
“Dad said you had a crush on him. That things were awkward and he didn’t know how to deal with it.”
My face floods with color. “That’s not true. I never…God, your dad was old. It was Max I…”
“Yeah, that’s what I said to him at the time. We all saw the way you were with Max, it was pretty obvious. I guess…my dad always liked to think women liked him. That’s probably what it was, right?” He pauses. “I mean, he never…”
He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” Then, as he turns to leave, he says, “Watch out for Jack. When he gets something in his head, he’s pretty relentless.”
Chapter 26
I’m back at the police station in front of Detective Levinson—a polite request to make a formal statement. Again, it’s been stated I’m here entirely voluntarily, but that casual call set off a thrum of fear that hasn’t gone. I was expecting it—of course I was, after Jack’s threat. There’s no way he wasn’t going to go straight to them about my…relationship with Greg. I was so stupid to lie to them about knowing him. How’s it going to look if I tell the truth now? But if I don’t…if I don’t, then I have to sit here and lie to the detective’s face, tell him Jack’s the liar, not me.
Sophie’s face is in my head, the worry and wariness when I tried to explain. Shit. I’ve made something so small, a lonely teenage girl helping out in a garden, into something huge and suspicious. And if it’s true—about Greg and teenage girls…
My throat is dry by the time I finish going through my statement and I’m ready to get up and go when Detective Levinson stops me.
“So, Tess…I wanted to ask again. How well did you know Greg Lewis?”
I sigh and lean back in the chair, clutching the bottom of it to stop myself from folding my arms and hunching over defensively. “Look—I know what this is about. Jack got the wrong end of the stick. I used to…way before he disappeared, I used to do some gardening at Dean House.”
“I see. You didn’t mention this before.”
“Because, like I said, it was way before he left. I’d stopped going over there a long time before the wedding.” I look down, remembering how I…omitted telling him about visiting Dean House the night before the wedding with Bella. It wasn’t relevant, was what I told myself then. But now…what was Bella trying to tell me that night?
There’s a long pause I can’t resist filling. “You’re wasting time, you know, talking to me and Dad—it’s Jack you should be talking to. Did you know he was in town when Nicole Wallace went missing?”
He still doesn’t say anything.
“And Greg…I think Jack did it.”
“You think he murdered his own father?”
“You’re the one who keeps asking about Greg and the murdered girls, Nicole and the other one.” I lean forward. “What if Greg killed the girls and Jack found out, so he…”
“You seem certain it was Jack.”
“He took us to where one of the girls was killed once, took us right to the murder site. You don’t know him—he can turn on the charm, but it’s all pretend, it’s all lies.”
“Mr. Lewis has a different story to tell, Tess. He told us you were violent as a teenager.”
“What?” I laugh. “Is he kidding?”
“He told us you gave his brother the scar on his face.”
I lean back in the chair. I can feel my face getting hotter and hotter. “No. That was an accident. A misunderstanding. Something he started.”
Detective Levinson glances down at the file in front of him. “Mr. Lewis says you attacked Sean Lewis with a pair of garden clippers, causing him to require eight stitches. His statement says, ‘If my father hadn’t turned up, she would have stabbed him.’” Detective Levinson looks up. “Is this true?”
I shake my head. “Of course not. Not the way he tells it. He wasn’t even there. He’s twisting things—it’s what he does.”
“But it’s not the only occasion you’ve lost your temper and got violent, is it?”
I fold my arms, hunched into a defensive position. I know what’s coming.
“You’ve recently been fired from your job for attacking a student. And the father of the student has put in another complaint—that you verbally attacked and threatened him in the school parking lot and that you were insisting his daughter was being abused by a pedophile.”
“That’s a lie,” I almost shout, standing up. “He attacked me. He was waiting for me. I never said anything about a pedophile. I was trying to warn him.”
“You were very…upset at the thought that a teenage girl might be having a relationship with an older man?”
“Of course—I’m…I mean, I was her teacher.”
“It’s not because it has bad memories for you of Greg Lewis? Or your sister?”
I shake my head and sit back down, fold my arms again. “I told you, I helped him out in the garden; he was a family friend, that’s all.”
There’s a long silence as Detective Levinson stares at me.
“Okay, Tess. Thanks for coming in—that’s all for now.”
Chapter 27
I’m on my way to Dean House when my phone rings. It’s Sophie.
“Tess—are you okay? I’m sorry, but I’ve only just seen your message.”
“Message?”
There’s a pause. “The text you sent. I was in class when it came through.”
“I didn’t send you a message.”
A longer pause. “Yes, you did. Scared me shitless, actually.”
I didn’t send her a message—I didn’t. Where was my phone this morning? I had it on charge, but I’m sure it was in my room with me. But what about when I showered? When I went downstairs to get coffee? Jack and Sean are still in the house. So are Max and Lena.
I squeeze my phone so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break. “What did the message say?”
“It…it barely made sense. You were rambling about the police and murder and the bones they found…Tess, I’m worried about you. The police came to the school and Rebecca’s parents came in.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. There’s…the police are asking all of us questions. But there’s nothing to worry about, is there? I didn’t do anything.”
“Are you sure?”
I gasp.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Sophie says. “But what you said to me about lying to the police. And your behavior—ever since your dad phoned about Julia and you knew you’d have to go back. The Rebecca thing, that message—everything’s wrong, Tess, everything.”
“Jesus, Soph. I can’t believe you’re even suggesting…”
“I’m not. Not really. But I don’t think you should stay there anymore. Remember when you asked me to come home with you? Meet your dad and Julia? You acted so strange. It was like you were scared. Not just reluctant to go back to a place full of bad memories, but actually scared of the woods and the village.” She stops. I can hear her breathing. “I think…the memories you’re suppressing. I think it’s more than what happened to your sister.”
I can smell mud and wet leaves and the copper tang of blood. I don’t dare turn my head in case I see Bella next to me, forced out of my dreams, a hallucination as horribly real as when she appeared in my flat, dripping blood. Or worse—what if it’s Greg? I don’t want to see that.
“I have to go,” I whisper to Sophie, and end the call before she can say anything else. I walk away fast, head down, focused on the screen of my phone as I scroll through my texts. There. There it is—the text to Sophie:
I’m scared, Sophie—the police are after me. The bones, the body, it’s murder and they know, they know. Should I tell them? Should I tell them the truth?
I didn’t write that. But it came from my phone. My heart beats faster. Did I send this? Half-asleep, am I doing more than sleepwalking? No. No. Someone else sent this. Any of them could have got hold of my phone—Jack or Sean or Lena—even Max. But why? Why would they do it? I can delete it—delete all my bloody messages. But it will still exist on Sophie’s phone. I heard the worry in her voice. She thinks I had something to do with Greg’s death. If my best friend thinks it’s me…Oh God. She’s so honest. If the police ever spoke to her, would she lie for me? I don’t think she could. I wouldn’t want her to have to do that. I put my phone in my pocket and shake my head. No. I didn’t do anything. I have nothing to worry about. I’ll keep my phone hidden and, once I get some proper sleep, I’ll be able to think more clearly. I need to hold on to the promise I made to Dad and to myself. I’m getting my life back on track.
The walled garden at the back of Dean House, my secret garden, has been left untouched so far by the demolition team, halted by the police investigation. The police have been here though, digging, looking for more bones. I saw it from the window when I broke in. It was as overgrown as the rest of the garden, untouched for years since I stopped coming here, but the stubbly apple trees and overgrown rosebushes pushing up through the weeds used to have their own kind of wild beauty. Even without my attention, even left alone, the apples still grew, the roses still bloomed.
But the police swarmed through, trampling plants as well as weeds, killing the beauty. After another night of no sleep, I left the house early, getting a spade and a trowel and gardening gloves from my dad’s shed, making my way down the lane in the half-light, a flask of tea and a roll of green plastic bags in the rucksack on my back.
I should leave it, abandon it, like everyone else has. I have Dad’s garden to concentrate on now, that’s going to be a project to heal both of us. But…I need to do this. Dean House and its inhabitants are so tied up in my lost memories—doesn’t it make sense that I’ll remember more if I go back to the gardens? Although…I think of Sophie’s words. Do I really want to remember? But there’s the class photo I found, Bella’s shoes. Those damned texts. Someone’s messing with me, planting things to make me paranoid and suspicious. To make me look suspicious. If I don’t remember, I have nothing to fight back with.
The gloves protect my hands from some of the brambles, but they’re soon smeared with blood from the sharpest thorns as they cut through the canvas, prick my palms with dozens of holes. I don’t stop, chopping at the thickest, most stubborn roots with Mum’s old clippers, clearing away the choking weeds from the roses that still climb the walls. Too early for them to flower, but there are a couple of buds.
I’ve been working for two hours and am taking a break and drinking tea when Sean climbs over the wall and joins me. He’s carrying a bag, which he puts down on the ground. He doesn’t say anything but takes the second plastic cup I offer him, drinking the tea I pour into it. As he stands next to me, I can see the faint scar on the side of his face. We never talked about it. I went off with Greg and didn’t see the boys again until just before the wedding. And even then we didn’t talk about it.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, as the silence gets too much.
He shrugs. “I saw you marching off, guessed you’d be coming here.”
I think of the texts. The light I saw flashing in Dean House before I found Bella’s shoes. Everything the police seem to suddenly know. How different Sean is to how I remember him. “Why would you assume that?”
He glances at me. “Because I can’t stop thinking about it either—Dad. Everything that happened back then. It all started and ended here, didn’t it?”
No. For me it ended in the woods with my sister dead next to me. But he’s right about it all starting here. I should want to run now—it could well be Sean sending texts, planting the shoes. But…I no longer feel that edge of fear round him, like I do with Jack. And the longer I think about those long-ago days, I wonder if I ever really did feel that about Sean, or if he was just tainted by the danger I felt emanating from Jack.
He likes you, Bella whispers in my head.
Sean was always quieter than Jack, a bit awkward. Stilted. A bit hostile and grumpy, yes, but no more than I used to be. Most of his hostility resulted in me attacking first. In the midst of the glamorous confidence of the others—Bella and Lena, Max and Jack—we stood out. Was I blinded by his status as one of the “insanely hot” boys? Did I always mistake shyness for arrogance, misery for hostility?
When I stand up to carry on gardening, he stands next to me, pulling up weeds, clearing brambles from the hidden roses. He doesn’t have gloves to protect him from the thorns and his hands are soon scratched and bloodier than mine, leaving smudges of dark red on the gray stone wall we’re slowly uncovering.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t speak, not even when the blood starts trickling down his hands and dripping onto the ground. I look at him and realize he’s crying, silent tears streaking his cheeks. I don’t know if his tears are for Greg or for Julia, but he works relentlessly, attacking the weeds like this is a battle, and maybe to him it is, pulling away the killing weeds to let the plants breathe and grow again.
It starts to rain, but we continue working side by side, working our way along the wall until it’s clear; no more weeds, no more brambles, just crumbling gray stone and climbing roses. Sean stops then, at the corner of the wall, breathing hard, his hands a bloody mess. He seems calmer and I am too, the coiled anxiety I hadn’t even realized I was carrying gone, the ache in my shoulders now from the exercise rather than tension.
I still have the sense that something is coming, something is going to happen. I know this is pointless, that there are only days until the bulldozers crush all this to dust, but it feels important. It feels right to be doing this.
“The doctor came again,” Sean says. “I knew, of course I knew, that there wasn’t going to be any happy-ever-after for her. God, I can see her deteriorating every time I step into the room. But still, I hoped…”
“Of course you did. We’re here tending a garden that’s about to be demolished. Aren’t we always hoping for a miracle?”
He laughs. “Miracles? I never had you down for someone who believed in miracles.”
“Not believed in—hoped for. Every night after Bella died, I went to bed wishing with all I had that I’d open my eyes and she’d be back, sleeping in her bed.”
“Yeah. I get that. I used to do the same after Ellie died.”
“Does Jack know about the doctor’s visit?”
“He was there when the doctor came down.” He sighs. “He’s only seen her twice since coming back.”
“Fucking Jack.”
Sean kicks at a stubborn weed pushing up through the ground. “That’s my brother. A one-man wrecking crew.”
“What is he so angry at? Still? Is it because she left?”
“Jack stores things up. He broods. And he doesn’t forgive.”
“But you do?”
His eyes are still red. “It made me bitter for too long, her leaving. I don’t want that bitterness to fester after she’s gone.”
“When you turned up, I thought nothing had changed. But you have, at least.”
“Jack did, as well, after your sister died.”
“Did he?”
“He and Bella…they had something. A connection. He met his wife soon after and it was odd, a bit creepy how like Bella she was.”
Sean must see something in my face, because his own shuts down, becomes expressionless. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t mean to bring back any bad memories.”
