The Woods, page 24
I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. I guessed there was something between them, even though Bella never said. I tried to talk her out of it. I never saw anything in…Jack worthy of my big sister’s affections.”
He smiles. “You were going to say my name then as well, weren’t you? I think you saw what you wanted to see. Until I surprised you at the wedding. Then you saw.”
Saw what? My memories of the wedding are hazy, disjointed because of the amount of champagne I drank. I have flashes of trying to be happy for Dad and Julia because they were so obviously in love. I don’t remember if I succeeded in pretending to be happy for them—everything got overshadowed by what happened in the woods that night and no one was happy—real or pretend—after that.
Jack and Sean didn’t come to Bella’s funeral, I do remember that. So much for the connection Sean just told me about.
“I was wondering,” he says suddenly. “About the camera. And what might be on the film. Have you had it developed yet?”
I shake my head. “I’ve sent it off, but haven’t had the photos back yet.” I pause. “Shit—I should have told the police about it, shouldn’t I? As soon as they found the body. I didn’t think.”
“I think you should wait to see what’s on the film before you mention it.”
“Why would I wait…?” I stop. “You’re worried, aren’t you? The police have been asking questions about Greg and the murdered girls. You’re worried that what’s on that film could implicate your dad in some way…or Jack.”
“A photo came through on Dad’s phone once. Of Nic Wallace. Smiling in her underwear. Jack deleted it before Dad saw it—said it was a mistake. That she meant to send it to him.” He pauses. “But I always wondered. Especially after Mum left and then Nic went missing.”
“Have you told the police?”
His silence gives me my answer.
“You have to. You have to tell them—”
He interrupts me. “Tess—what if…?”
“What?”
“What if Bella was involved in Dad’s death?”
“What do you mean, ‘involved’?”
“Perhaps Dad was what I’m scared he was. Bella and Nic Wallace were friends, weren’t they? She could have found out and…”
“And what? Murdered him and buried his body? She was eighteen, she was…she was good.” I put the memory of the night before the wedding out of my head. Her tears, her weird behavior as she made me go with her to Dean House.
“Come on, we all know she was more of a rebel than the good girl you’re suggesting. We were strangers to the village but even when we first moved here, we heard stuff about her and her friends—that they were the ones to go to if we needed booze or to find the parties.”
“What—so because she drank and went to parties, that makes her a murderer? Who the hell are you to say anything about my sister? What—you were Mother Teresa, Mr. bloody perfect?”
“Of course not, but…”
“But nothing.”
“You’ve put her on a pedestal, acting like she was perfect. Oh no, there can’t have been anything going on with her and Jack, oh no, she can’t possibly have been involved in anything bad.”
“Shut up.”
I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to remember the times when I didn’t put her on a pedestal, when all my feelings for her were jealousy and resentment and anger.
“You were always misguided—especially when it came to her. You wouldn’t listen. There could be something on that film, something important.”
The camera that holds the last photos Bella took looms in my mind and I’m remembering Max asking oh so casually about it, all this interest surrounding decade-old things that should have been forgotten by everyone but me. The woods surrounding us seem to creep closer and I think of Sean following me here, where there’s no one else for miles around.
“Stop it, go away. Get the fuck away from me,” I hiss. “I was right. You and your brother are bad news, here to stir things up. Leave me alone, Sean. Leave my memories of my sister alone.”
Chapter 28
“Tess—wait up!”
I glance back. Max is jogging toward me.
“Where are you going?”
“Only into the village. The tension in the house is getting a bit much.”
He slows to a walk next to me. “Tell me about it. Understandable, I guess. First Julia, now Greg…”
“I just wanted to get away for a bit. Not talk about Julia or Greg or the police investigation.”
“Suits me. Mind if I tag along? It seems like forever since we’ve talked.”
I do mind, really. Max is as much a part of the tension as any of the others. More so, really, with the elephant in the room that is our night in my flat. We walk in silence for a while.
“Look—I’m just going to say it, okay?” Max says, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry I was such a dick after the night we—”
“Oh, please don’t. Let’s agree to not talk about that as well, shall we? I think we both know it was a big mistake.”
“Wait,” he says, touching my arm. “Was it? I guess the timing was a disaster, but it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. Haven’t you? And it was good, right? Maybe, after all this…we could go out, try again.”
I’m floored by his words. He’s been thinking about it, about me? That’s not how I remember it. I remember him treating me like a kid sister. I remember him mooning after Bella, definitely not me. And good? That night was awkward, weird—and by no stretch of the imagination good sex.
It throws me, this reversal. My crush on him was so all-encompassing and now, ten years later, he’s looking for—what, a relationship? And I’m scrabbling for excuses. A way to let him down gently, because it’s Max, who I used to think I loved when I was sixteen and he was eighteen.
But when I look over at him, his self-conscious half-smile, the awkward arm on mine, I think again that it’s like he’s playing a part. I don’t believe what he’s saying—I don’t think he believes what he’s saying. So why is he doing this?
“Shit,” he says, stopping dead as we turn the corner near Dean House.
There’s a camera crew and a TV news van outside the walls.
“I think we should go back,” he mutters.
My chest feels tight. It’s like I’m being forced to stay trapped in my old house with everyone. A week, two weeks ago, I thought I wanted that. Because I wanted to remember all the things that are lost. But I’m no longer sure that’s what I want. What I do remember is already so awful; how bad are the memories my mind is suppressing?
Only two hours’ sleep last night. I’ve started making a note, part fear, part fascination. What happens when it’s no sleep at all? How long can a person live without any sleep at all? I’ve forgotten what I look like without the dark shadows, without the red-rimmed eyes and the pale skin. I take the unopened box of sleeping pills out of my bag. Why am I so afraid of taking them? A medicated sleep could take away the dreams, stop the sleepwalking—but what if it doesn’t? What if I end up trapped in sleep and the nightmares get stronger, pulling me out of my bed, wandering the woods…
I think Sophie was right. Being back here is not good for me. But what can I do? Not only would it look bad to the police if I suddenly leave, but how could I explain it to Dad? I see him looking at me as I make tea, worry on his face. I don’t want to add to it; he has enough to worry about watching his wife die, while the police hover with their questions and insinuations. I don’t talk about it, but it’s obvious—my insomnia makes itself known in my outward appearance during daylight hours as well as in the dead of night.
“Are you okay?” Dad asks for the hundredth time.
“It’s the quiet,” I say. “I’m not used to it anymore. I’m used to falling asleep to the sound of cars, and music and voices. Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m fine.”
There’s a knock at the door and we look at each other. Dad gets up and goes to answer it. I hear voices, male, but not voices I immediately recognize. Dad’s frowning as he comes back in, the look of worry still on his face. He’s followed by two men in suits. Detective Levinson is one; the other is younger, shorter, with the same light brown hair as Max.
“Tess? The detectives—they want to talk to you.”
I put my teacup down and stand up. “To me? What about?”
Detective Levinson steps forward to talk. “Nothing to worry about—just a couple of things we want to clear up.” He looks at me and Dad, standing in front of him.
“Please,” he says. “Sit back down, have your tea. I know this is a difficult time and I’m sorry for disturbing you.” They both glance up as he speaks, Julia’s dying presence making itself known.
“Would you like tea or coffee?” Dad asks, and makes himself busy when they accept. I stare down into my own cup. I know why they’re here. So does Bella, existing only in my head, my dreams, but hovering unseen over there next to Dad anyway, face solemn, in her death clothes.
“Have you found something out?” I ask. “About Mr. Lewis?”
“That’s not why we’re here,” Detective Levinson says. “We wanted to talk to you—to you both—about Arabella.” There’s a pause. “We know your memory of your sister’s accident is still incomplete…”
It wasn’t an accident, Bella whispers, and I wince. How can no one else hear it? It’s in my head but it’s so loud. How can they not read her words on my face? The walls are closing in, the air is getting heavier.
“Excuse me a moment,” I say, scraping my chair back. I barely make it to the bathroom before bringing up everything I’ve eaten in the last twenty-four hours, retching up stinging strings of bile. Bella has followed me. I can hear her breath in my ear, smell the perfume she used to wear. Tell them, Tess, she whispers, fast, urgent. Remember what happened, remember that night…
I wash my face with shaking hands. What are they saying downstairs? Is Dad telling them more about my insomnia, is he telling them I’m fragile, is he telling them the strain I’m under? I think of my hands on Rebecca Martin, dragging her toward me by her tie, my threat to throw her through the window.
I make myself go back downstairs, force myself to sit back down at the table. “I’m sorry,” I say. “But what does Bella’s death have to do with Greg Lewis?”
“The initial time frame, as far as we can establish—it looks as though Greg Lewis died around the same time as your sister.”
I lean forward. “But he left. Jack got a text from him. He left the country, didn’t he? Took his passport, his phone…”
“There’s actually no evidence he went anywhere. No travel records, no further contact. It’s possible the text did not come from him.”
“What? But it was his phone, it…” Oh. My voice trails off. They think the murderer might have sent Jack that text, to stop anyone from looking for Greg.
“Wait,” I say. “Jack’s always insisted his dad sent him a text, but did anyone else ever see it? He could have been making it up, couldn’t he? If it was him who…”
“We’re speaking to everyone who knew Greg Lewis. But today we wanted to talk to you about your sister.”
I suck in a breath and hold it. I hadn’t realized, for a moment, what they were getting at. Greg had gone abroad by the time Bella died, so I never thought…But if he never sent the text, then he might never have been abroad. He could have been lurking in the woods the night of the wedding.
“Can you take us through what you remember after the wedding? The night your sister died?” Detective Levinson asks. There’s sympathy on his face, caution too. He’s gained an impression of me from whatever Dad and Max and Rebecca Martin have told him, from his memory of me at the hospital, coming to him raving about Bella’s shoes. One I’m not going to be able to undo.
“It was the night of the wedding. I’d gone upstairs—I had a bit too much champagne and…I don’t know if I fell asleep or not, but it was late and everything was quiet downstairs but Bella’s bed was empty. She was…she had insomnia sometimes. There were weeks where she couldn’t sleep.” My face is hot. I clutch my cold cup of tea so they won’t see my hands shaking. “On warm nights, when she couldn’t sleep, she would sometimes go into the woods.”
“Alone?” This is from the younger officer. I don’t like what I hear in his voice. I remember the questions after Bella died, about her drinking, about drugs and boyfriends. They tried to paint such an ugly picture of her and it wasn’t true.
“Yes, alone,” I say. “She didn’t go calling for her friends in the middle of the night.”
“But you went into the woods with her that night.”
“I saw her empty bed. I went down and saw her leave the house. I knew where she’d be heading.”
That’s not entirely true. I was worried she was going back to Dean House. That was why I followed her.
“And then?”
“I remember going into the woods. It was hot, we were in the middle of a heatwave, and I remember the relief of going into the trees. It was so much cooler; that’s why Bella went there. I told you all this back then.”
“Please—tell us again.”
“I got spooked. I heard a noise, a twig breaking or something behind me. I called for Bella but she didn’t answer. I got scared, I started running and…I don’t know. I must have hit something, or fallen. I don’t remember anything else.”
Detective Levinson leans forward. “Can you remember where you entered the woods?”
“From the lane.”
“You were both found a long way from your house. Not far behind Dean House. It’s at least two miles from here.”
“I know, but I don’t remember going there. I don’t remember anything after those first few minutes of entering the woods.”
He leans back. “How well did you know Mr. Lewis?”
I freeze. “You’ve asked me all this. I told you before—I barely knew him.” I glance at Dad. “I used to…help him out in the garden a bit when I was younger, that’s all.”
I can see Dad’s startled look.
“And your sister? Did she know him?”
I hesitate. Our secret, Bella said to me once. Don’t tell. Bella’s death and Greg’s death, so close together. I don’t want it to have been Greg who killed Bella, but I also don’t want them thinking Bella could have had something to do with Greg’s death, not when she’s not here to defend herself. “No,” I say. “She didn’t know him. Other than as Jack and Sean’s father.
“What about the other deaths?” I say as they get up to leave. “The murdered girls.”
“There was never any evidence linking him or anyone in this area to those murders.” But he pauses before he says it.
When Bella died, when the two of us were found in the woods, the stories appeared all over again, speculation that Bella was the third victim, that I was the survivor. We became front-page news, until the inquest ruled Bella’s death an accident. A drunken mishap, the press then said. Teenagers out of control. It was like they were angry that we weren’t victims of a serial killer, like we’d tried to fool them. So they printed their horrible stories about Bella, and people came forward and whispered lies to them, making Bella and Lena and their friends sound like hell-raisers, making Bella sound like she deserved what happened to her.
All my denials and questions back then, when I refused to accept the Bella painted in the press, when I begged the police to keep investigating, were greeted with sympathy, pity in their eyes as they patiently restated the inquest findings, the amount of alcohol in Bella’s system.
Today, though, it’s not pity I see in their eyes as I ask the same questions. It’s speculation.
I sit in the rotting wooden chair in the middle of the walled garden at Dean House. I’ve been working for two hours and I’ve managed to clear all the weeds.
I’m not free of ghosts. Bella appears and disappears. Greg stands behind me giving instructions. I close my eyes and lift my face to the sun and the world tilts so I have to clutch the splintered arms of the chair to stop myself from falling sideways. But it’s still more peaceful than Dad’s house, too full of Sean and Jack and Dad’s grief, while Julia fades upstairs. I can’t breathe there. Sean was right about the air. It’s been sucked out of the house and what’s left is dry and dead. I have a permanent bad taste in my mouth that only dissipates when I’m here, with my hands deep in damp earth, feeling life begin to grow again.
“Tess?”
I jump and the chair tips. For a moment, I tilt, ready to fall with the chair on top of me, then a hand steadies the chair, steadies me. My intruder steps out of the sun and I see it’s Lena. I get up and brush the dirt off my jeans.
“I guessed you’d be here when I couldn’t find you at your place.” She looks around. “Um—why are you gardening in a place that’s about to be demolished?”
My face warms. I’m surrounded by garden bags and tools and I don’t know how to explain what I’m doing here.
“I used to look over the wall sometimes when me and Bella went to the woods,” I say. “Before the Lewises moved in. It reminded me of the secret garden from the book. I wanted to make it beautiful again.”
There’s a pause. We’re surrounded by diggers and police tape and and DANGER—KEEP OUT signs—and nothing I say will explain why I’m here weeding.
Lena raises her eyebrows. “So you really only used to come to help Greg…um…pull up his weeds?”
“Oh, fuck off, Lena. The man is dead. Stop with the dirty insinuations.”
“But they’re not insinuations, are they? Greg Lewis was weird. The stories about him…they weren’t just stories. Bella knew. Jesus—even Jack and Sean knew, though they might deny it. And you? You know, don’t you?” She’s looking at me so intently.
I shake my head. “Whatever Bella told you, it wasn’t true. I swear it.”
She tilts her head. “Yeah? You might want to work on sounding more convincing when you spin it to the police.”
