The Woods, page 31
The car slows and we pull up outside Dean House. Of course. Of course it would be here.
Max comes round and opens the car door. He looks hollowed out, as tired as me. What’s keeping him awake at night? Does he hear his own beating heart under the floorboards? It feels like months since I got the phone call from Dad to tell me Julia was dying, not weeks. Months since Max called, me still holding him in my heart then as some tender thing. What is he now? Now that we’ve slept together and I’ve seen his stranger’s face?
“What are we doing here?”
He grips my arm as I stumble getting out. My legs feel numb. “We need to talk. Away from your house.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” I say, as he half drags me into the house. “It was you in the house with Bella. You in the photograph.”
He looks puzzled, but the look is fake. I saw the skittering look of fear first. “What are you talking about?”
“You were at the house when Greg disappeared. When he died.”
“There was film in the camera, then,” he says flatly.
I nod.
“Where is it?”
“Safe. I don’t have it with me.”
“This is all Jack and Sean’s fault. Why did they have to sell the house?”
God, I thought I loved him when I was fourteen. “What did you do?” I say, and my voice breaks on the last word.
He turns to look at me. “Me? I didn’t do anything. It was you, Tess. It was you. We all…we all went along with your fake memory loss. We stuck together like friends should.”
“You were looking for the camera in my flat, weren’t you? I thought…”
“You thought what? That I was overcome with desire?” He smiles. “Poor Tess.”
“Shut up.”
“Your sister made us cover it up. Hide what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t me. It was…”
“Who? Me? Your sister? Your sister was the one who made us go there. Telling us stories. Telling us he was a sick old pedo, telling us what he did.”
“Does she have the photos?”
I turn as Lena steps out of the living room.
“I should have known.”
Lena laughs. “Should have known what?”
“Should have known you’d be involved.”
“Of course you assume the worst, don’t you? Still in denial. You with your superior sneer. It has to be Lena, doesn’t it? Lena the troublemaker. Of course I have to be a murderer as well.”
“I know you were at the house with Bella.”
“I told her about him watching you, you know,” Lena says. “The dirty bastard watching you digging about in his garden.”
I shake my head.
“Bella told us. She told us he’d groomed you. She told us he got you there in the house and—”
“No.”
“What did he do, Tess? Did he fuck you? Did he rape you in his dusty old torture chamber? Did he whisper what he did to those other girls as he slipped his hand under your shorts?”
My hand flies out to slap her and she grabs my wrist, squeezing it until I cry out.
“We were there to defend you, you little bitch. We were there to find evidence that he was a kiddy-fiddling serial killer.” She laughs. “You think it was just you? He tried it with me, he tried it with Bella. If he’d had the opportunity, all of us would have been dead, more of his victims. You did the right thing, killing him.”
“But I didn’t…” I step back, stumble over a chair.
“I told the police. I told them everything. You’ll be okay. Even with the phone they found, you can tell them it was self-defense.”
The whole world is spinning. Her words, her relentless words…did I? Was it me? Was it? I don’t understand…she won’t shut up. Keeps saying it over and over—it was you, Tess, you did it. But I didn’t, I wouldn’t…
Wait. How does she know about the phone?
No. It was Bella. It was my sister, with Max and Lena. I saw the look on her face when I told her my lies. That awful burning anger, the recoil of disgust. She told me he tried to kiss her and I was jealous. Not concerned, jealous. She came home that night, she got into my bed, and I knew something was wrong. I should have kept asking, should have made her tell me, but all I did was add fuel to the fire. Was it more than a kiss? Her clothes were torn and she was shaking and…He’d already tried something with her and I let her think he’d been abusing me. She went round there full of rage and I might as well have been there with her because it was me that sent her there.
Lena steps closer and my heart is pounding. We both freeze as car headlights brighten the room. I shove past her and run down the hallway. Jack and Sean are getting out of Jack’s car.
“Where’s Dad?” I say, stopping short and turning to look at Max and Lena.
“He’s fine. He’s at home, sleeping like a baby,” Max says. “We called Jack and Sean. They deserve to know the truth about what happened to their father. Isn’t that why you’ve asked us all to come here?”
I shake my head. “But I didn’t. You brought me here. I was sleeping and I woke up in your car.”
Max frowns. “No, you asked to come here, Tess. We thought you wanted to confess—to tell us the truth before you told the police.”
But…
“Come on,” Max says, his voice gentle. “Come with me. Just tell us what happened with Greg and we can make it all better. Everyone’s worried about you. You need help. Some time somewhere safe, with doctors to sort out your…problems.”
“No, you don’t understand. I know what you did. You…”
He reaches over and strokes my hair. I close my eyes and sway.
“Come on,” he whispers, leading me to the sofa. “It’ll all be fine.”
I sit down and my eyes drift shut. This is better. He’s right. I’ll rest my eyes for a moment before Jack and Sean come in. Rest my eyes and clear my head of all this confusion. Then I’ll go home and tell Dad everything and we can go to the police together.
Bella is next to me, shouting wake up wake up wake up, but I can’t. I’m drifting back into sleep, the taste of rotten leaves in my mouth and Max’s hand is warm on my head as he strokes my hair. I don’t know why he brought me to the house, but he’s rescuing me, whether from Jack or myself I don’t know and I don’t know what he and Lena were talking about trying to say it was me who killed Greg but…
I try to open my eyes. This isn’t right and Bella is still shouting.
“What are you doing?” The words come out slurred.
His hand moves away from my hair as he stands up. “I’m sorry, Tess.”
Wake up, Bella screams, but I can’t…
Chapter 39
“I’m sorry, Tess,” a voice whispers.
I open my eyes. I’m in bed—not my bed. The room is dark, smells musty and damp. It’s a smell both familiar and unfamiliar—dust and damp, old books, old wood. The smell of an old house. It doesn’t induce fear, it ignites a nostalgia deep in my gut. Max is sitting next to me, his head in his hands.
“I never wanted this,” he says. “It was all going to come out and Lena said…” He shakes his head. “She thinks this is one of our games, like when we’d manipulate our parents into undoing a punishment, or break up some couple so she could go out with the boy.”
My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see where they’ve put me—in one of the bedrooms at Dean House. My box of sleeping pills stands next to the bed, a glass of water beside it and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s just me and Max in the room. Where’s Lena? And Jack and Sean?
I blink, trying to think, trying to unscramble what’s going on. Why are we here? Why has Max brought me here?
“Dad,” I whisper. “What did you do to him? Where is he?”
“He’s fine, don’t worry. I left a note to tell him you’re with me,” Max says.
For a moment, I’m reassured by the soothing tone in his voice. It reminds me of the Max I fell in love with when I was fourteen, who always used to notice me and take the time to talk to me. I thought we had something so special, right up until the wedding. I thought we were destined to be together, the great happy-ever-after. Didn’t I tell Greg all about it? Didn’t I make him laugh, planning to use his garden for our wedding one day? Didn’t he smile and pat my hand and tell me I could grow my own wedding bouquet? Silly, fanciful dreams that bloomed and grew right alongside the roses. I stopped watering those dreams after the wedding, after Bella died. I let them die too.
How silly. Bella was telling me all along. Wake up, she kept saying, but I didn’t want to. I still don’t want to, not if this is what I’m waking up to.
“Why am I here?”
Max sighs. “It could have all been fine. Even after Jack and Sean sold the house and the land surrounding it and they found the body. There was no evidence, no proof any of us were involved. You didn’t even remember what you’d done. We worked so hard sowing the seeds about Greg and those murdered girls, to widen the circle of people who could have killed him. You kept muttering about remembering things, but you were easy to distract—the shoes, the texts. But it meant you were behaving so oddly, they couldn’t help but look at you with suspicion. Even then, though, there was no evidence against you. We all would have been fine. Then, before they dug up the body, Sean let slip, oh so casually, that you had the camera. He had no idea how freaked out me and Lena were.”
Bella’s camera, hidden in Dean House the whole time.
“I looked for it at your dad’s house and at your flat. I looked everywhere. I thought…if I found it before you developed the film, I could stop all this.”
I remember the things out of place in my flat after Max stayed. I remember the awkward sex and it stings as I realize it was more than a mistake, it was—what? Distraction? A way to get into my home, nothing more. Oh, how very silly I was.
“It was you, wasn’t it? On the camera?”
“We were all there. With you.”
No. Not right. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t.
“Bella went nuts as soon as Greg appeared. Lena was holding her back. She went berserk, she was screaming at him. Greg launched himself at her and I thought he was going to hit her…”
I hold my breath as he pauses. The chair next to me creaks. Max is white-faced.
“And then you jumped in front of her and you had your gardening clippers,” he says. “I know you didn’t mean to kill him, I know it was an accident.”
“No…”
“Bella made you go home. She made me and Lena leave. Do you really not remember any of this?” He shakes his head. “The next day I didn’t sleep. I wanted to tell the police but Bella begged us not to. She said she’d get rid of the film, said she’d sort it. She made us swear we’d all protect you. I waited for the police to come. But they didn’t. I knew you’d gotten away with it. I just wanted it to go away and it did. Bella died and no one even looked for Greg.”
“But he contacted Jack—after the wedding.”
“That was Lena. She kept his phone. Sent a few texts to Jack to stop anyone from looking or reporting him missing. It was easy—Jack was already worried his dad had something to do with the murders. He thought he’d run off to avoid getting caught and he wasn’t going to drop his own dad in it by reporting him missing right away, was he? So, quite unwittingly, Jack helped us cover it up. He pretended he’d had more calls and texts than we actually sent.”
“And then Jack and Sean sold the house…”
“Even when they found the bones, there was nothing to connect us to it. But you…your behavior. It was only a matter of time.
“We tried so hard to protect you,” he says. “We never knew if your memory loss was real or faked. But when you came back, saying you were starting to remember…” He shakes his head.
“But why am I here? Why haven’t you just told the police all this? Or why not carry on lying? Because I don’t remember. I swear to you I don’t remember.”
“Because of that fucking camera,” Max bursts out. “All we had to do was keep quiet, but I knew Bella was taking photos, gathering her evidence. I asked her at the wedding if she’d gotten rid of the film and she said not yet. She said she was going to, but then she died. We didn’t know what she’d captured on that damned film, if it was enough to implicate us. We didn’t do anything but we were there. I thought you had it. I knew you hadn’t seen the photos, but I thought you had the camera and it was only a matter of time before you tried developing the film. You were so desperate to remember what happened to your sister.”
“Max…Max, please…I don’t. I can’t have. I would never…Please. Think what it’ll do to my dad, he’s just lost Julia.”
“Max?” It’s Lena’s voice, raised sharply in warning. She steps into the room, followed by Jack and Sean.
“What the hell is going on?” Jack says. “Why is she here?”
“What’s wrong with her?” I hear Sean say as I struggle to wake up fully.
Someone pulls me up to a sitting position.
“She took too many of her bloody sleeping pills,” Lena says. “She told Max she wanted to tell us all the truth but by the time we got here, she was barely conscious.”
“She said she wanted to confess,” Max says.
“She said it was her,” Lena says. “Her that killed Greg. Max heard her say it, didn’t you, Max?”
No—this isn’t right.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sean says.
“She called us, I told you,” Lena says. “But she passed out from taking too many bloody sleeping pills.” She turns to me. “I’ve called the police, Tess—told them what you told me. I’m sorry, but they have to know the truth.”
“No—no, it’s not the truth. Max—tell them.” I’ve gone cold, ice through and through.
Max is crying. “I can’t,” he says.
“Your dad raped her,” Lena says to Jack and Sean. “It was him the whole time—Nic Wallace, the other girl. Then he took Tess. Three days before the wedding. She came here to help him in the garden. You know she’d been doing that for months? He was grooming her. I’m sorry, but he attacked her and she…it was self-defense, but she stabbed him with something and he died. Bella helped her bury him and cover it up.”
“How do you know all this?” Sean says quietly, stepping up and looking from me to Lena.
“She told Max. The guilt got too much and she confessed to him. We’ve been trying to convince her to go to the police by herself, trying to convince her it would be better for her.”
“I knew it,” Jack says, and he comes over and hauls me forward by my hair. “I fucking knew it.”
I scream, reaching up to try to get his hands out of my hair.
“Jack, stop. This is too far…too much,” Max says, pulling on his arm. But I see hesitation on his face. He’s not trying that hard to pull Jack away. He’s trying to convince himself that he’s not part of this. But it was him who brought me here.
Jack shakes Max’s hand off. “Why don’t you run on home, Maxie-boy? Pretend you weren’t even here.” He turns back to me, squeezing my jaw with one hand. “Everything is your fault. All down to you and your family fucking up my life. You killed him. You killed my father, you and your bitch sister. And all these years, you’ve known.”
“Get off her, Jack.”
Sean.
He doesn’t shout, but Jack freezes anyway, hand still squeezing my jaw, so hard that tears come to my eyes.
“Fuck off, Sean,” he says, voice breathless. “This little bitch murdered our father.”
“Do you believe that? Really?”
The hand relaxes slightly, the clenching pain becomes a deep ache, but he doesn’t let go.
“Three days before the wedding, we were all here. How was she acting? How did she behave? Like she’d been raped and then killed someone? Who was acting strangely, Jack? Think about it. Who was freaking out and drinking and huddled in a little group every time we turned round? Was it her? Was it?”
Jack lets go of me and shoves me away, standing upright and turning to Max and Lena, who are hovering, caught between Jack and Sean in the doorway.
Sean looks at me. “You kissed me at the wedding,” he says. “We talked. About my mum and dad, about your sister. Do you remember?”
Some. I remember some. I feel a surge of giddy relief. Sean doesn’t believe it’s me and that belief helps clear my head. Oh God—of course it wasn’t me. It’s not the memory of the days before the wedding that are lost, is it? There are holes, yes, but who remembers everything about a time ten years ago? Christ, I’d remember—if not the deed, then my emotions. I remember enough. I shake my head again. Everything’s so muddled. I didn’t take those pills, Max must have put them in my tea.
“It wasn’t me,” I say. As I say it out loud, I realize—if it wasn’t me, then…
Sean is pleading with his brother. “Jack, come on,” he says. “Remember what you were like after the accident when Ellie died. Do you think I didn’t know? Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out from your behavior, what it did to you?”
He steps away from the doorway, closer to his brother, and I see Lena tugging on Max’s arm, pulling him out of the room. I lurch toward them—if it wasn’t me, then it had to have been them.
“You were never the same,” Sean is saying in a softer voice. “Mum told me, but I already knew. She told me you were driving the day Ellie died.”
“She was fucking lying,” Jack roars, launching himself at his brother.
They both go down in a crash as I stagger toward the door, stumbling, falling, continuing at a crawl.
“Run, Tess,” Sean calls. “Run.”
I half fall down the stairs and I’m scrabbling for the front door when I hear the sirens. I run out as the first uniformed officer reaches the house. Max’s car is gone.
