Black Wood (31 page)

They’d placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. The older bloke had stuck some huge dressing across his chest like a giant plaster. Placed his hands back on top and urged him to ‘press as hard as you can, son …’

Outside was the crackle and hum of radios, voices. Footsteps crunching on gravel. The sound of another car bouncing over the potholes. The air in the room seemed to have been sucked outside.

I closed my eyes again. Felt myself drift away. I felt calm, finally. The presence I’d felt since that day at Gran’s grave seemed to have left me alone at last. The house felt still, at peace. As if balance had been restored.

Gray took my elbow and helped me to stand, and I followed without protest. I wondered, vaguely, if I’d have to step over Maloney or if he’d already been taken away.

‘How is she?’

Gray looked up from his notes, and frowned. ‘She still hasn’t said a word. She’s refused water, tea, a sandwich and everything else she’s been offered. She won’t even wash the blood off her hands.’

‘Christ. Is she catatonic?’

‘Of course not!’ Gray snapped. ‘She’s in shock. I’ve had the on-call doctor take a look at her and he wants to give her something to relax her, but she won’t open her mouth. He’s checked her over and dressed the wound on her head. He said it’s better to leave her be. She’ll have to talk eventually.’

Rob laughed. ‘I’m not so sure. I had a client once who refused to speak for three months. She had to be sectioned for her own good. She lasted three days in the Royal Ed before she broke her own neck with a twisted bed sheet and the metal bars from the headboard …’

‘For Christ’s sake, man. What do you want me to do? I’ve pulled Lorna back in, got her on constant monitoring duty, peering in through that bloody hatch. She’s got nothing in there to harm herself with … She just needs some space. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but the powers that be vetoed that.’

Rob waved a hand dismissively. ‘Fine, fine. Look, there are things we need to put in place. I know you want her questioned as soon as possible, but until she’s been properly assessed, she’s no good to you … and she’s no good here. I can call in a Section 2 and get her taken to the hospital?’

‘Not yet. I want to try again first. Then you can have a go …’

‘I’m not even sure she’ll want me to help …’

‘How did you even know she was here?’

‘Craig phoned me after he left the station. He said you were heading up to Black Wood Cottage. He wanted to see for himself. I told him to leave it alone. I said we could call you later, find out what happened – if anything. But he wouldn’t back down. He had Claire and Sharon with him too. Practically hysterical, the lot of them. So I drove us up there. Saw the place surrounded by police and ambulance. I’ve never had much time for the girl, but she’s Craig’s friend and … and, well, she needs help.’

‘She does need help, Rob. But I’m not so sure it’s psychiatric help she needs.’

‘Are you kidding? She’s killed one man and put another one in a critical condition …’

‘We don’t know that yet. At the moment, she’s our only conscious witness, and until she speaks to me, I’m keeping her here under lock and key, OK?’

Rob rolled his eyes and sat down on one of the blue plastic chairs in the reception area.

Gray watched as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started texting rapidly. Half of him was glad that the man had shown up, but on the other hand, everyone had heard the rumours about Jo and Craig. He was worried that Rob had an ulterior motive. Getting Jo locked up in a psychiatric hospital would definitely keep her away from his boyfriend. It was a small town; things spread like a disease, no matter how hard you tried to prevent them.

He left the solicitor sitting in the reception and walked back through to the cells. ‘I’ll take over for a bit, Lorna. Go an’ see if there’s any update from the hospital, eh? I want to know if DS Reid has managed to talk to Jake yet.’

Lorna gave him a sad smile and stepped back from the door. ‘If there’s anything you need, give us a shout, eh, Davie?’ She handed him the keys. ‘Oh, and … go easy on her, Sarge. I’m not sure she’s ready to take it all in.’

Gray took the keys and unlocked the cell door. Jo was down the far end of the narrow bed, arms wrapped round her knees, just like at the cottage. Gray wanted to throw his arms round her. Tell her everything was going to be OK. It wasn’t going to be, though. No matter what happened next, none of their lives would be the same again.

‘Jo?’ he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you ready to talk yet?’

Jo lifted her head, stared into his eyes. He stared back, noticed the way the golden flecks shone in the light creeping in through the barred window. The irises were a deep brown, but the halos of amber speckles were what gave it away. She had her mother’s eyes, that was for sure.

He rubbed his hands over his chin, and the rough hair bristled beneath. He dropped his head towards his chest.

‘Did you love her?’

Gray’s head snapped up. He felt a chill run down his spine. ‘Who?’

‘You know who,’ Jo said. ‘She loved you, you know. My gran knew. She knew everything. She told me, just before she died …’

‘Told you what?’

‘About my dad. He saw you together, you know. That’s why he took her away. That’s why he … killed her …’

Gray had been barely sixteen. Already over six feet tall, shoulders as broad as those of the man he would become. They’d met in the Station Inn. She was sitting on a bar stool, all short skirt and long legs and dirty laughter echoing out from behind shining lip-glossed lips. She was holding a straight glass full of clear, fizzing liquid. Ice and lemon chinking as her hand shook – her whole body seemed to vibrate with laughter. The man she was talking to was old – too old – but, Gray knew, with very deep pockets.

How could he compete with that?

He’d seen her before, of course. Hundreds of times. She’d left school now, got a job in Cairn’s the bakers on the Back Street. He remembered her from school: always in a crowd, always laughing, swearing, smoking with the cool kids and hanging out in the park on Friday nights.

Gray had been too shy to approach her. What would a blossoming seventeen-year-old want with a scrawny kid like him? It was different now. She was what, twenty? Maybe twenty-one. Five years apart seemed like nothing now.

Now that he’d grown up.

He’d walked up to the bar with a confidence he hadn’t felt. Ordered a pint of lager, laid a fiver on the bar – right in the gap between her and the old man, who was trying his best to get a hand on her bare knee.

The man had taken a step back. ‘Oi, watch yourself there, son …’

Miranda had giggled. ‘Oh, leave him alone, Jim. The laddie’s just wanting a drink.’

‘A drink of you, mair like.’

They hadn’t been together then, but Jim still acted like she was one of his possessions, one of his shiny trinkets to be kept safe in a locked velvet box.

She laughed again, and the sound reminded him of small tinkling bells.

He took his pint and his change, sat on one of the padded bench seats facing the bar. His pint sat in front of him, untouched. Trickles of condensation running down the sides.

He watched her. Ignored the voices around him. The other punters jostling for space around the bar, laughing, backslapping. The heels of heavy pint tumblers thudding off the bar. The clanging bells on the bandit, coins spattering into the tray below.

Eventually, she joined him, leaving Jim at the bar with his cronies.

She stared into his eyes, and he felt his insides fluttering like sheets drying in the wind. ‘Aren’t you going to drink that? It’ll be warm by now …’

He kept his eyes locked on hers as he lifted the pint glass, knocking the contents back in one. The warm, bitter liquid hitting the back of his throat. Flowing deep inside him, pooling in his stomach. Hitting his veins. Firing inside his head. Fuzzy, soft. Ready.
What is she playing at?

She giggled again. Those tinkling bells.

In the background, the jukebox was playing ‘The Bitterest Pill’ by The Jam. Weller’s voice gruff and sensual. Full of regret and longing. Someone won the jackpot and the bandit emptied its contents with a never-ending clatter of metal.

‘Do you fancy coming back to mine?’ Gray said, eventually.

She leant down to pick up her handbag. Her eyes never left his. ‘You’ve got the most beautiful eyes,’ she said. ‘That blue’s so deep and dark I feel like I could swim in it …’

He chuckled. ‘That’s one hell of a line.’

They stood up together, eyes still locked. A moment in time.

He took her hand, and she let him. As it cupped round his, it felt small and delicate, like he was carrying a tiny bird.

‘Won’t your parents mind?’

‘They’re away. They won’t be back tonight. Don’t worry about it.’ He tried to sound confident, but he could hear the quivering in his own voice. The longing.

‘How old are you, anyway?’ she said.

Gray said nothing at first. They walked slowly. Him savouring the feel of her hand in his. Listening to the gentle clip-clop of her heels on the pavement.

‘Old enough,’ he said, as they reached the front door of the cream-fronted terraced cottage. He dropped her hand, fumbling with the keys in his pocket.

She ducked under his arm as his quaking hand fiddled with the lock, spun round until she was facing him, pressed herself up against his chest. Her head only came up to his shoulders, and she tipped her head back, exposing the soft pale skin of her neck, offering up lips plumped with blood.

He lifted her in his arms, carried her inside. Kicked the door closed behind him. The house was silent but for the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hallway and their breaths, mingling together in short, desperate puffs.

She pulled away. ‘Hang on a sec.’ She turned towards the clock, turned back to him with a frown. ‘I haven’t got long … Jim’ll be expecting me back before last orders. He likes to walk me home, he—’

‘I’m sorry, Miranda,’ he said. It took all of his strength to push her away. He wanted her so badly. But he knew she would never stay. What would she want with a kid like him? What was he supposed to offer her?

She looked confused, then angry. ‘You bloody tease. What am I meant to do now, eh?’

She wrapped her coat around herself, calling him more names under her breath. Banging the door hard as she left.

Gray always wondered if she’d started the paternity rumour herself, to try to get his attention. She’d come back to him several times over the years, fuelling the fire, then letting it go cold. But Gray knew she’d never leave Jim.

And, sadly, he knew that Jim was never going to let anyone have her but him.

One day he’d tell Jo how much he’d loved her mum, and how he’d had to let her be.

One day he’d tell her about the reports of the accident, where neither of them had been wearing a seatbelt, and Jim had wedged a triangle of wood under the brake pedal so that he couldn’t change his mind.

But not today.

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there, hunched up on the uncomfortable hard bed in the cell. The policewoman – Lorna – had tried to make me drink water, drink tea, eat a fucking ham sandwich. And she just kept talking … talking … 
yack yack yack
.

I couldn’t move. I felt like my muscles had fused into my bones. My flesh was stiff and inflexible, like the horrible plastic piss-cover on the too-thin mattress I was sitting on.

She’d told me about Scott – and the balaclava belonging to Jake. I had no idea what was going on there. Had Jake panicked? Had he really done that to Laura? I tried, but I couldn’t make myself believe it.

I sat there and watched Davie Gray torturing himself with the memories of my mother. The silly cow. I knew the rumours about him being my dad were a load of rubbish, but Polly and Claire’s goading that day had pushed a button. If only I’d kept my temper in check. Hadn’t made Claire go over the pipe that she was so scared of. If only, if only, if only.

*

Gray pushed the memories to the back of his mind. He turned to face Jo once again. This time, he wasn’t letting her away with saying nothing.

‘What happened, Jo? You need to tell me. The CID lads will be back soon, and they’ll want answers. You’ve a solicitor sitting outside, waiting to help you … will you talk to us? Please?’ He leant over and placed a hand on Jo’s bare foot. It was freezing.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll talk to you.’ She uncurled herself and slid off the bed.

As he walked her through to the interview room, he heard a commotion in the reception. Raised voices. Something making a clatter. Chairs being scraped across the floor.

‘Jo? Can you hear me? It’s me, Claire … I’m here. I need to talk to you …’

‘Please, Claire, you can’t see her at the moment, she’s—’ Lorna’s voice cut off by more yelling from Claire. The clattering, apparently her wheelchair, as she tried to manoeuvre too fast along the narrow corridor. Rob’s voice trying to calm her down. Lorna’s. Craig’s. Christ, they were all in there.

Where the hell was Beattie? He couldn’t still be at the hospital.

He shoved Jo gently into the interview room and closed the door. The lock clicked into place; it only opened from the outside.

He marched down the corridor and into the fray.

*

When I heard the door snick shut I knew it was locked, and I panicked. I started rattling the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Funny how I’d been in that cell for hours and hadn’t felt scared at all, yet in this small carpeted room with its cheap table and chairs, I felt trapped. Claustrophobic.

I stopped rattling the door. Stepped back, trying to get my breathing to return to normal. Let my heart rate slow back down. I could hear the raised voices coming from the front of the station.

I was still reeling about Jake … being Maloney’s foster brother, being the other boy in the woods … There was so much I needed to hear from him. Why? Why the hunting? Why the girls at the Track?

All I knew for sure was that Jake had been there the whole time.