Black Wood (20 page)

He lasted three years in the next house.

An elderly couple whose real children had all flown the nest.

He imagined the old man to be like the old toymaker in
Pinocchio
, looking for a little companion to while away his boredom.

The woman sat glued to the TV all day. Black and white films. Bottle of gin by her side as she stared at the screen with wet eyes.

The old man told him they were building something to make the old woman happy. A wooden cabinet with a tray. Something to lay her books on, her drinks, her plate of Ritz crackers, which he was never allowed to eat.

At first he let the old man cuddle him. It felt nice, the strong, warm arms wrapped around his back. Feeling the old man’s heartbeat pressing into his chest, synching with his own.

He didn’t even mind when they did it with tops off. It was hot in the workshop. Their clothes stuck to both of their wiry bodies with sweat built up from the wood turning, the planing, the sanding of the wood.

The smell of wood shavings and sticky bodies. The old man’s hairy chest tickling his own smooth skin.

It was when the man took off his trousers that he realised it was all wrong.

Sharp, skinny erection pressing hard against baggy white pants.

The boy sliced the man’s stomach open with the corner of a chisel before running away. He didn’t mean to be bad. But he’d had no choice.

He was lucky in the next house. With the man and the woman and the boy.

But it was already too late for him; his heart had shut down.

His mind only focussed on survival.

If only someone could want him. If only someone could love him.

In the final house, after the woods – the last one before he was on his own – he had hoped to stay quiet, anonymous. Out of the way. But then he heard about the girl across the street, and everything changed.

Claire stared at me, her eyes glassy. Could she hear me? When she went like this it reminded me of when she was in hospital. The
bleep bleep
of that machine. I talked to her then, all the time. I told her about anything. I told her everything. But either she didn’t hear me or she chose to forget what I’d said. When she disappeared now, I sometimes wondered if she did it on purpose. To escape. There was nothing I could do except keep talking. I’d started now. I had to finish.

‘I put a pillow over her face,’ I said. ‘Barely had to put any pressure on it at all, she was so weak by then. She begged me to do it. Pleaded with me …’

Please, Jo … kill me now …

‘She wasn’t in pain: the morphine was seeing to that, but it was also loosening her tongue. She couldn’t live with the guilt any more, and neither could I, Claire. In that bath in that dump of a flat in Leith, I just couldn’t see any way out of it. You were gone, off to your new life … Craig was losing interest in me … It wasn’t her fault … I don’t think she meant to do it …’

Claire’s head bobbed slightly, and I was sure that despite her not being able to speak, she could hear me all right. So I continued to blurt it all out.

‘She killed someone, Claire. She killed a man who was poaching rabbits on her land. Rabbits, for fuck’s sake. As if they were in short supply …’

Claire blinked. Swallowed. Licked her lips. She was back.

‘She was so ill, Jo. She was going to die anyway. You didn’t have to do that … You could’ve talked to me. I would’ve listened …’

I glared at her. ‘We’re both murderers, Claire. Don’t you see? Other people in her situation – they would’ve called the police. Got someone to come and get him off her land. As for me … Well, what excuse do I have? She begged me, but I didn’t have to do it. I think on some level I wanted to …’

‘She was so ill, Jo,’ she repeated, as if that somehow made it all right. That was typical of Claire, standing up for me when I didn’t deserve it. ‘Who do you think she killed, Jo?’

I sighed. I felt calmer now. After my confession, the rest didn’t seem so difficult. ‘His name was Michael Waters. He had a son. Or maybe it was two. The wife was distraught – thought he’d gone missing. Do you remember? It was big news back then … I remember hearing about it at the time. I don’t know what happened to the family. There’s no one around here with that name now, is there?’

‘I’m not sure … the surname does ring a bell …’

‘They never found a body, Claire. No one knows what happened to him. But I do. I know where he is.’

‘You’re being ridiculous now, Jo—’

‘He’s buried in an unmarked grave at Black Wood … Well, I think it’s him anyway. I haven’t actually looked. I haven’t started digging the place up. I just remember my gran one night, covered in dirt. Her clothes were stuck to her with sweat. I heard her crying in the kitchen. I sat on the top stair and listened to her crying all night …’

‘Who’s Michael Waters, Jo?’

I stood up, opened the door. Suddenly I felt like I was suffocating. ‘I don’t know, Claire. I’ve no idea. But I’m scared … What if I’m right? What if there’s a body buried at Black Wood?’

Claire’s mouth dropped open. ‘Jo …’ she started. I didn’t hear the rest. I had to get away from her now, away from everyone. I ran out of the shop and kept running. I passed through crowds gathered on the street like pigs hanging round a trough. I wanted to be like Richard Ashcroft in that music video where he just barges on. Bats people out of the way like swatting flies. Ignores the shouts of protest. The swearing.

I wanted to do that, but I didn’t have the nerve. So I swerved round hand-clasped couples, past fat women with buggies, old men with sticks. I ran past the bakers where Katie Williams’mum worked. I wondered if Katie had already told her what I’d said. OK, maybe I’d been harsh. But those girls had to learn.

Men are not worth it. What good had they ever done me? Barry … Craig … Scott … and all the others in between. They used me, and I used them. It was the only way.

I ran through the alleyway between the hardware shop and the butchers. The sun was like an electric blanket strapped to my back. Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes, the salt making them sting.

I slowed down when I’d skirted past the pub at the end of the Back Street – the one we never went in because apparently it was too rough. I’d been in, though. On my own. Meeting … people.

Slowing down was a grave mistake. I gulped in air and it felt like I was swallowing grit. My thighs were on fire.

When was the last time I’d run? Done any exercise at all, in fact?

I had no idea.

Something had snapped inside me in the shop. Craig yelling at me – he had every right to – had tipped me over the edge.

I should’ve called him. Said I needed some time off.

But I didn’t. I just did my usual.

I ran away.

Finally, I slowed to a walk, and finally I stopped. I found myself standing outside the brand new glass-fronted library, staring in. A familiar figure sat hunched over a laptop at one of the workstations near the window. He had his back to me, but I knew it was him.

The urge came to me then. Time to act. Time to set my plan into motion. What was I even waiting for? I had to find something I could use. Something I could give to Gray. Evidence. Proof. There had to be something … I was so sure Maloney was one of the boys from the woods. No, not just
one
of the boys – the ringleader. The one that hurt Claire. The other one had just hung around, half-heartedly trying to be menacing. Pathetic … Surely Maloney must’ve thought about it since. Was he tormenting those girls up at the Track too, trying to relive his youth? I wondered what else he’d done over the years. I found it hard to believe he hadn’t done anything else. He probably had the newspaper cuttings pinned up like some sort of sick trophy …

I unzipped the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out the key I’d stolen on Sunday. The single rusty key that was going to find me what it was I needed to put an end to all the crap that was bobbing like a sewer rat in my mind.

I hoped he wasn’t planning on leaving the library any time soon. Because I needed enough time to ransack his house.

With the adrenalin buzz still feeding my muscles, I ran up the street onto the main road. I don’t know where the energy was coming from, but I knew that when I stopped and let it flood out of me that I’d ache. My jeans felt loose around my waist as my legs propelled me forwards and I realised I’d barely eaten for days. Snatches of things here and there. Caffeine and alcohol feeding my body with empty energy. I knew that when it was all over I would be a wreck.

But I had to unleash the truth. I was sick of being the one that no one believed. The one no one trusted.

I just needed something to prove it.

By the time I reached Rose Cottage, after a twenty-minute run uphill in the baking afternoon heat, my T-shirt was stuck to my body, stretched and translucent over the flatness of my belly. I stopped, bent over with hands on knees, sucking in lungfuls of air.

What I really needed was a drink. My tongue felt like it had been sandpapered.

As I walked round the side of the house I noted the absence of the car, which was good. If he came back early at least the sound of the engine would give me a bit of a warning, buy me a bit of time. I wasn’t really sure how I’d get out of the house, if that were to happen, but I’d work something out if I had to. Anyway, I didn’t expect to be in there very long.

I was at the back door. The small hedgehog was where I’d left it. I stuck the key into the lock. Then I froze. Something stopped me. I felt a wave of nausea wash up through my stomach and into my throat. I swallowed, and tasted the bitter tang of bile. I pulled the key back out of the lock and ran into the corner of the garden to throw up. I was wiping my mouth on the back of my hand when I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel.

Shit
.

I shrunk back against the wall, pulled my knees up to my chest and hoped that the bushes would be enough to keep me hidden. I closed my eyes when I heard the squeak of the gate, his footsteps on the path.

They stopped.

Silence for a moment. Then the footsteps continued. I heard the sounds of the key turning in the lock, then the door being closed behind him. I hugged my knees in tight, and waited.

Claire wiped tears from her eyes and tried to work out what to do about Jo.

She’d been increasingly worried since the night in the pub, when Jo had told her about Maloney, saying he was one of the boys from the wood. Claire had felt her stomach lurch then as it did now. She didn’t want it all dredged up again.

Her life was hell as it was, without having to relive the past. But no matter what she did, her mind flitted back to it all, now and again. To the people around her back then.

When she’d come out of the coma, the first person she’d seen was Jake, sitting by her bedside.

‘Who are you?’ She wasn’t even sure she’d said it out loud, just in her head – like all the conversations she’d been having for, what, weeks? Months? She had no idea. She’d been able to hear them all talking about her, trying not to lift hopes and in the process killing hers.

‘I can hear you,’ she yelled, every single day. But the words were only inside.

‘I hope you don’t mind me being here. I’m Jake. I just moved in across the road from you … I heard what had happened and, well, I thought I’d come and visit you. They said they needed as many people as possible to talk to you. Try to bring you round.’

She’d tried to nod, but her head felt too heavy. ‘I heard you chatting …’ She paused, ran a dry tongue around her mouth. Her throat was on fire. He was pressing a paper cup to her mouth, and she let the warm, slightly chemical liquid leak into her mouth. It tasted like heaven. ‘I heard you chatting to Jo …’

Jake put a hand on her arm, ran his fingers across the plastic tube that was buried in her hand. ‘She’s been so worried about you, Claire. She thought you might never wake up. We all did—’

She cut him off with another raspy question. ‘Are my parents here?’

He patted her hand. ‘They’ve just gone for a coffee. I told them I’d look after you. It’s been a long night. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for over a day now … Can you remember waking up? Do you … do you remember what happened to you?’

She blinked. Once. Twice. Remembering the soothing voice from before she could open her eyes. One of the nurses, presumably.

Once for yes, twice for no.

She closed her eyes again after that. Enough for one day. She felt a soft hand stroke the side of her face, wiping away a tear that had tried its hardest not to escape.

Claire blinked again now, back in the present. Back in the office.

She picked up her phone and scrolled down. Her first thought was to call Jake, but after the way that Jo had flatly refused to join them for lunch, she decided against it.

So she called Craig.

‘Hey, it’s me … Listen, I’ve just seen Jo. What’s going on with her – has she spoken to you?’

‘I don’t know what to do, Claire. I think she’s losing it … It’s like before, when she—’

‘Don’t talk about that,’ Claire interrupted. ‘There are things you need to know, Craig. I thought things were going OK at long last … but then … bloody Scott! I could kill him for this. She’s all over the place. She’s told me some weird stuff … Did she tell you anything about the bloke that came into the shop?’

‘I know, I know. Gareth Maloney. I even called Rob, tried to get him to talk to her … He came back from his weekend thing specially …’

‘That was brave of you.’

‘I didn’t know what else to do. Anyway, she didn’t tell him anything.’

‘She ran out of here, Craig. I mean, properly
ran
 … since when does Jo run anywhere …’

‘She left early today. Again. We had words. She’s a nightmare right now, Claire. I’m pissed off, but I’m worried about her too … Listen, have you tried calling her?’

‘Not yet. She just left. I’m worried about what she’s planning on doing …’

‘Right, well hang up. Call her, then call me back, OK? And try not to worry … we’ll sort this … I was thinking about calling Davie Gray. He’s managed to talk to her in the past …’