Black Wood (26 page)

‘Aren’t you meant to be resting?’

Her eyes flicked from side to side, checking the path that ran down the middle of the two houses. She took a step back, letting him into the house. ‘Did he see you?’ she hissed.

‘Who? Are you OK, Laura? What’s happened? Where’s your gran?’

‘She popped out to get something. I dunno. Listen … she sent me next door …’

Gray stepped fully into the hallway, pushed the door closed behind him.

‘Next door …?’

‘Yes! To Scott’s … she had a pile of washing. I said I’d take it in and get the next load. She’s clucking about over him like he’s some damaged wee bird, but …’

‘I thought you were in agony? How did you manage to do all that?

She backed in through the open door of the living room. Her eyes were wide, gleaming.

‘She gave me co-codamol … Think I took one too many … Gave me a bit of a buzz, but it’s wearing off now … Anyway …’

‘Laura, can you sit down? Tell me what’s happened?’

Her eyes were still darting about, and he couldn’t tell if it was an effect of the drugs or her heightened excitement. He felt his own heart rate begin to speed up.

She turned away from him, bent down to take something off the couch. Her blanket lay in a heap at the bottom. An empty bottle of Lucozade was on its side on the floor nearby.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘
Look
 …’

He reached out to take what she was offering him in her outstretched hand. Something black. He couldn’t work out what it was, at first. But then he unfurled the crumpled fabric and realised what it was he was holding.

A balaclava.

He reached into his pocket for one of his plastic ‘evidence’ bags.

‘Where did you get this, Laura?’

She had her hands on her hips now. The high colour in her cheeks seemed to be glowing. She radiated excitement … fear …

‘Laura?’

‘I found it in Scott’s laundry basket …’

Gray felt his mouth go dry.

‘… and there’s something else,’ she said, smirking now, despite her pain. ‘He’s got a black eye …’

I was nine when I first skinned a rabbit.

We’d come from a balmy summer’s evening, but the atmosphere in the kitchen was a different kind of warm. It hung. Heavy, like velvet curtains. I could taste metal in my mouth.

Gran’s shotgun stood propped up against the fireplace.

I stared at the kitchen table and felt my shopping bags dropping out of my arms. It was covered with newspaper, already soaked with dark, congealing blood.

They were laid out in a neat row along the centre of the table.

Four fresh rabbits.

Three skinned and ready for the pot; one left for me.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘What do you think? You ready?’

I walked over to the table and leant in for a closer look. The skinned rabbits were pink and smooth. Almost like skinny chickens.

‘Where are their heads?’

‘They’re outside in a bucket. Got the innards in there too. Need to take them into the woods later. Leave them out for the foxes.’

A feeling of nausea swept through me and I stepped away from the table. I didn’t like the idea of the rabbit heads lying out there in the woods. The foxes scavenging them.

Gran picked up my bags and I heard her footsteps clunk ing up the stairs. ‘There’s an apron there for you,’ she shouted down. ‘Gloves too. If you want them.’

I stared at my rabbit. Imagined the feel of its insides on my bare hands. I pulled the apron over my head and crossed the strings around my waist and back to the front, where I tied them in a neat bow.

Lying next to my rabbit was a small paring knife with a wooden handle. It was my gran’s special knife. The one that my granddad used to use. I’d seen her sharpening it on a stone. I picked it up and pressed the tip into my palm and a small bubble of blood squeezed out of my skin.

‘What’re you doing?’ I hadn’t heard her come back down. She’d taken her boots off.

I jumped and dropped the knife on the table. ‘Oh! I was just checking it was sharp.’

She frowned. ‘You know how sharp it is, JoJo. You’ve seen me sharpening it. You can’t muck around if you want to do this. You need to be careful.’

I looked up at her and felt my bottom lip start to tremble.

‘Oh, come on now, you silly sausage.’ She grabbed me and hugged me tight and I flung my arms around her, trying to make them reach each other at the back. She was a big woman, but she felt strong and safe. Eventually, she let me go. ‘Right. Are you wearing gloves?’

‘No. I don’t want to.’

‘OK, but you know you’ll be scraping blood out of your fingernails for a week.’ She handed me the knife. ‘You need to turn it onto its back, then spread the hind legs and hold them flat. See? Like this.’

She pressed the rabbit’s legs onto the table, her other hand resting gently on its stomach. She moved to the side to let me take over.

The fur felt soft but rough. When I pressed on the stomach it still felt slightly warm. She must’ve shot them not long before I arrived. The others would’ve been skinned and made ready in minutes. She was an expert at this.

She gently adjusted the position of my hand on the legs. ‘Now you need to make little nicks all the way up the middle of its belly. Imagine you’re unbuttoning a winter coat.’

As I got closer to the neck, the coat came apart naturally, exposing its grey stomach. I remembered the next bit from when I’d watched her before. I turned the rabbit round so its head was at my belly, and I carefully slid the knife all the way up through the thin grey skin. It was more like unzipping than unbuttoning now. Like sliding scissors up a sheet of wrapping paper.

I tipped it onto its side and the pile of pink guts slid out effortlessly. Then I lifted it up by the legs and poked about in the cavity until I disconnected the blobs and strings from whatever they were attached to inside. The innards plopped onto the table and Gran scooped them up and dropped them into a plastic bag. The rabbit felt light and hollow in my hands. I flipped it onto its front.

This was the bit I liked best. I made a small slit across its back, then held the two pieces of fur and pulled them apart. The coat opened wide across its back. Pulling it off the legs was a bit trickier. It reminded me of trying to pull off long socks that were sodden and stuck fast from playing outside in the snow. I pulled the fur over its head as if I was removing a woolly jumper.

I stopped to survey my efforts and turned to face Gran. ‘Am I doing OK?’

Gran smiled at me. ‘You’re a natural, hen. Want me to cut off its head?’ She was holding another knife now. Much bigger. I supposed you could use the small knife for that part too, but it’d take much longer and probably make a lot of mess. I stood back and she sliced through the neck with the carving knife, and there was a small crack as the knife sliced cleanly through. She tossed the head into the bag.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Can we bury it?’

‘Bury it?’ She laughed. It rumbled from somewhere deep in her chest. ‘You’re a daft one, sometimes.’

‘Please?’

She frowned, then took the head back out of the bag. She pulled down the fur that was covering its face, like a jumper stuck on its head, and it was a rabbit again. My rabbit. Its lovely rabbit face, fully intact. Only the glassy eyes hid the fact that it wasn’t living. That and the fact that it didn’t have a body.

‘I’m calling her Jessie,’ I said. ‘I’m going to make her a cross for her grave.’

In my head, I heard Jessie’s screams.

I gave up on the rest of the rabbit’s body. Gran cut off the feet and the tail and sheared off the fat from around its belly. She put all four rabbits into a giant pot of cold water and salt, soaking them before she portioned them up for stew. I made a cross from two twigs, wound them together with string. We buried the rabbit’s head and Gran bowed her head and said a solemn little prayer.

I wondered if the little cross was still there. I could picture it … but it was so long ago, it’d be weathered and broken from the years.

But I knew now.

If I found Jessie, I would find other remains too …

Claire knew she had to talk to Craig properly. Face to face. She checked her phone. It was 4.30 now. Almost twenty-four hours since she’d spoken to Jo. No phone calls. No texts. She couldn’t handle this on her own.

She locked up the office, wheeled herself down the street and through to the High Street, which was deserted, most of the shops getting ready to close. There was little reason to hang about the High Street in the evenings; nothing stayed open late except that one pub down the bottom that she’d never dared go into.

When she arrived at the bookshop, she glanced through the window and was pleased to find Craig on his own. She had no real issue with his assistant, Sharon, but she felt like the girl was a bit of a leech, trying to befriend them all. Then again, it’s not as if she had so many friends to choose from herself. She was feeling lonely. Anxious. Jake had texted her last night saying he was working late, which was pretty common during the summer months – so much stuff to be serviced and ready for the harvest. So many overworked industrial-sized grasscutters. Without him, she’d had another night on her own, too much time to dwell.

‘Hey,’ Craig said, pulling the door open and letting her wheel herself through. ‘I was just about to call you – ask if you’d heard anything?’

‘Nope. Nothing.’ She scanned the room. ‘Where’s your sidekick?’

‘Sharon? She just popped out to get something from next door. She’ll be back in a minute. I’m leaving her to close up tonight.’

Claire turned back towards the street and peered out of the window. Bridie Goldstone was waddling her way down towards the newsagents too. If Sharon bumped into her, she’d be lucky to make it back before closing time.

‘Any idea where Jo might’ve gone then?’

Craig shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t go back to Scott’s, I’m pretty sure about that. Something’s going on, though. I saw him outside the other day. Looked like a right state …’

‘Could she be up at Black Wood? I mean, does that place even have water, electrics, all that?’

‘I went up last night. No sign of her. Doesn’t mean she’s not there now, though. I think she’s been going up there for years, Claire. Think about it. All the times she’s gone missing before … plus, it’s where she went that time … after …’

Claire squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the memory from resurfacing. She hadn’t been there. Hadn’t seen it. But the image had stuck with her regardless. The drip of a tap into a pool of pink water. Jo’s pale skin. The deep cuts on her wrists that she took pains to keep hidden.

‘Don’t. Don’t say it, Craig. I can’t bear to think of her up there alone like that. Spooked. Scared. She needs help. I think she might’ve stopped taking her medication … It was working too. She seemed so calm recently. Until she got this notion about Gareth Maloney … I mean, it can’t be him – how could it be? How can she be so sure now, when at the time she said she never saw their faces?’

Craig sighed. ‘To be honest, Claire, I’m getting sick of the whole thing. We’ve carried her for years. You have, even after everything that’s happened … I know she feels like it’s all her fault, what happened to you in the woods that day … Maybe this focus on Maloney is to try and get rid of her own guilt? I don’t know …’

The bell above the door chimed, giving them both a start.

Claire spun round in her chair.

‘Hi …’

Speak of the devil,
Claire thought.

‘Oh hello! Gareth, isn’t it? What can I do for you?’ If Craig was surprised to see him, he was hiding it well.

‘I’m looking for Jo, actually,’ Gareth said. He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a watch. Held it out towards them both. ‘Any idea where I can find her?’

Craig’s eyes widened. Claire gasped. She’d recognised it straight away.

‘What’re you doing with Jo’s watch?’ she said.

Gareth’s lip curled at the edge and Claire couldn’t decide if it was a nasty smirk or just confusion. ‘She dropped it in Tesco’s café …’

Craig shot Claire a glance, and Claire shook her head, ever so slightly.
No
, she was saying to him, hoping he picked her up.
Don’t do this
.

‘I’m afraid Jo’s not here at the moment,’ Craig said. Trying to sound confident. Trying to act like nothing was wrong. Claire willed him to shut up. Gave him a hard stare. He looked away.

‘Maybe you could give me her number …’ Gareth said. ‘I can text her, tell her I found it …’

No
, Claire pleaded with her eyes. This would tip Jo over the edge. She knew that Jo was convinced that this was the man who’d done them both wrong, and despite not really believing her, she wasn’t about to put Jo’s theory to the test. If Maloney was one of the boys from the woods, then wasn’t he dangerous? Putting him in touch with Jo could be a recipe for disaster … On the other hand, maybe it was time for Jo to have it out with him, once and for all …

‘I could always call Sergeant Gray,’ Gareth continued, changing tack. ‘I mean, I think he already suspects that she was the one who broke into my house earlier, but …’

Claire felt a scared fluttering in her chest. Jo had broken into his house? What the hell was she playing at?

‘OK, OK,’ Craig said. He wouldn’t look at Claire. ‘Here.’ He scribbled numbers down onto a piece of paper, ripped it off the memo pad, handed it to him. ‘Be careful, though, please? She’s not well …’

What the hell was Craig doing?

Gareth looked down at the paper. Pulled his phone out of his pocket and started keying in the numbers.

He shrugged. ‘I just want to give her the watch back.’

Claire tried to catch his eye, but he kept his gaze fixed on the phone as he typed.
I don’t like this
, she thought.
I don’t like this at all
.

The pile of sketchbooks sat on the kitchen table, taunting me. I’d brought them down from the bedroom earlier, trying not to think too much about them. At some point, Gran had taken them from my bedroom and put them away in her wardrobe. Clearly she’d thought I didn’t want them any more, or maybe it was just because she was hoping she might find something in there that would help her … with what, I don’t know. I’d drawn inside those books for as long as I could remember. Only at the cottage, though; I never took them home. I don’t think my mum even knew they existed. They were like a diary of sorts. Snapshots in time: me trying to make sense of everything that had gone on in my life.