Cruel Minds (24 page)

Emily squirmed against her bindings, sending the boat into a rocking motion. Marcia leaned forwards.

“Stay still,” she said.

Emily did as she was told. “What happened then, after Sam left you alone?”

“Pamela came. She helped me to the house. We came in the back way. The guests had returned to their rooms. Pamela bathed me. She cleaned up the bruises, the bite marks. I fell into a dream. The next thing I knew, I was in bed. I could hear Sam. He was crying. Pamela told him to be quiet. I got up. Everything hurt. I went into the living room. Sam was covered with blood. It was on his face, his shirt. His hands. He looked at me and I knew instantly what he’d done.”

“Sam killed Franklyn?” Of course he had, Emily thought. He’d just witnessed the woman he loved being beaten and raped.

Marcia nodded. “Sam chased Franklyn through the forest. He saw him run for the tool shed and duck inside. He followed him in, he took a sickle from the wall, and... Sam said he didn’t know what he was doing. That it was as if somebody else had control of his body and was making him do all these terrible things. He didn’t mean to hurt anybody. He was upset. He was trying to protect me.”

“That’s why you couldn’t go to the police,” Emily said. She had managed to shift the rope binding her wrists a few centimetres upwards. Now, her fingers scrabbled with the knot.

In the darkness, Marcia let out a shuddering breath. “Pamela said if we called the police that Sam would be charged with murder. There was no way he could plead self-defense. He’d hacked Franklyn to pieces. Pamela said if Sam went to prison it would be because he’d been trying to protect me. Sam started crying again. Pamela begged me. She said we would lose everything that we’d built up as mother and daughter. Meadow Pines would be no more. We would face bankruptcy and ruin. It was the only time I’d seen her so helpless. I could see she was conflicted. She wanted to help me. To do the right thing. But doing the right thing doesn’t always get you where you need to go, does it?”

Emily ceased fumbling with the knot. “Your mother manipulated you.”

Marcia shook her head. “At first, I thought my mother the most uncaring, selfish human being on the planet. All those teachings she’d taken to heart, all gone in the instant her livelihood was threatened. The more she pleaded with me and the more Sam lost it, the more I felt that by calling the police it would be me taking Meadow Pines away from Pamela. It would be me throwing Sam into a prison cell and destroying his life. But do you know what I realised? In her own messed up way, Pamela wasn’t just looking out for herself. She was looking out for all of us. We’d built that house together. We’d put blood, sweat, and tears into Meadow Pines. Sam too. It stood for everything we held dear. In a way, we were Meadow Pines and it was us.”

“But what Franklyn did to you ... and your mother wanted you to pretend it never happened. To ignore the fact that Sam murdered someone, no matter how deserving it may have seemed—how could you go along with that?”

“I had no choice,” Marcia said, her voice suddenly as cold as the surrounding water. “I could call the police and destroy all of our lives, or I could let that bastard get what he deserved. Any resentment I had towards Pamela, towards Sam, I decided I’d have to keep locked inside. Eventually, it would go away. It would disappear into the ether, just like Franklyn Hobbes.”

“Those kinds of feelings don’t just disappear,” Emily said, fingers back to working at the knot. “Believe me, I know. If they did, we wouldn’t be here, right now, in this boat.”

Marcia shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But back then, there was only one choice. We decided we would make it look like Franklyn had left the retreat early. We would bury his body in the woods. Sam would take his car from the deer sanctuary, then drive it far away somewhere and abandon it. It was simple, really. The other guests had witnessed his meltdown so they could easily corroborate our story if the police became involved. It would have all gone smoothly. Until Melody showed up.”

The knot was too tight. Cramp stabbed at Emily’s muscles. She tried to relax her body but the bottom of the boat was hard and uncomfortable, the ropes rough and cruel.

“We decided to bury him in that clearing, underneath the big old oak.” Marcia continued. “I don’t remember why we chose there. I always thought it was a pretty spot. The light falls so pleasantly and the foxgloves are always so colourful. Perhaps burying Franklyn there was a way of bringing him some peace. Anyway, they carried him there, Sam and Pamela. I followed behind like a lost sheep. They laid him down. I held the torch while they both dug a hole. We were almost ready to put him in the ground when we heard a noise. Melody was standing there in her night dress, watching us.

“My heart stopped. Everything ran away from me. Melody had seen Franklyn’s body. She’d seen what we were doing. It was all in ruins. Meadow Pines. Our futures. Our lives. At first, I thought Melody was going to run. But she just stood there, afraid and confused.”

“What happened?” Emily’s fingers pinched at the knot.

“Pamela wasted no time. She told Melody everything. About what Franklyn had done to me, about Sam losing control when all he’d been trying to do was protect us all. She left nothing out. She knew we were the only friends Melody had. If she could get her to understand what we were about to lose—what
she
would lose in the process—then perhaps she would help us.”

“She manipulated Melody, just like she manipulated you.” Emily was unable to hide her disgust.

Marcia shook her head. The boat rocked slightly. “Melody Jackson is the girl at school that no one knows exists. She’s not the smelly kid or the one from the wrong part of town. She’s the invisible one. The one that, when people reminisce about their school days, they don’t even remember. Imagine being an invisible child growing into an adult. If she were in a film, Hollywood would have her going on a journey of self-discovery. Perhaps she would have a secret talent—like singing or dancing—that would win her acceptance. Or perhaps a makeover would reveal the ugly duckling to be a swan. Melody would suddenly be noticed. She would have friends. The local heartthrob would sweep her off her feet. Everyone would rally around her, congratulating themselves for a job well done. But of course, real life isn’t a film.

“Perhaps Melody had imagined adulthood would change things, that grownups were more mature. But Melody is still invisible. She has no friends. No family that cares about her. No social life. At work, she is a quiet voice on the telephone, a name signed at the bottom of an email. She has no face. No identity. Poor Melody Jackson. The girl nobody knows exists.” Marcia paused, letting out a sad sigh. “Apart from her cat, Meadow Pines is all she has. At Meadow Pines, she’s doesn’t feel invisible.

“She understood what we all risked losing. She knew what had to be done. Instead of running away, instead of calling the police, Melody took the shovel from Pamela’s hand and she began to dig. Do you understand what she did? She incriminated herself without a moment’s thought. She gave herself freely, willingly, to help protect the people she cared about.”

“You all manipulated her into helping you cover up a murder,” Emily said, anger rising in her throat. “Your mother took advantage, playing on her deepest fears.”

“Pamela was protecting everyone, including Melody.”

“So Melody was supposed to be grateful?”

“Why not? Without us she had nothing.” Any trace of remorse in Marcia’s voice was gone, replaced by a cool iciness.

The skin on Emily’s wrists was bleeding but she continued to tug at the rope. She had loosened the knot perhaps just a couple of centimetres, the change barely noticeable to the human eye. Marcia sat in the darkness, her body gently rocking in time with the boat. The sound of the water lapping on the hull reminded Emily why Marcia had rowed her out to the middle of the lake. She pulled at the knot with renewed fervour, wincing as the threads lacerated her skin.

A muffled whimper echoed over the lake. Emily thought about what Marcia had just told her. If only Melody had called someone. If only she had stayed in her room and not followed them out into the forest. But Melody’s loneliness was painfully evident. Emily understood what loneliness could do. She knew exactly what it was like to spend every night alone in an empty house, the silence crushing the breath from your lungs. But that was before she had moved to London, and regardless of all the terrible things that had happened since, her life no longer felt as lonely—because she had people in it now. People she cared about and who cared about her in equal measures.

As she worked on the rope, she tried to imagine herself in Melody’s position. The only people in Melody’s life were going to be taken away from her—and all because they had tried to protect each other from harm. They were going to be taken away, which meant Melody’s life would become empty again, riddled with anguish and despair.

The knot loosened another centimetre. Emily wondered whether she would have taken the same course of action if Jerome or Harriet had been in trouble. It was possible, she thought. In desperate times, people could go to extreme lengths. But there was an innate difference—were Marcia, Pamela, and Sam really Melody’s friends? In Melody’s eyes, perhaps they were. But what was she to them? Another paying guest? Someone who they tolerated out of pity? Someone who, since that night, had burrowed into their lives like a parasitic worm.

Releasing her fingers from the knot, Emily tried to push herself up. She could just see over the edge of the boat. Melody remained at the end of the jetty, bound and gagged, whimpering and squirming on the planks.

“Tell me about Oscar,” Emily said.

Marcia leaned forwards. Moonlight bounced off her face. She had been crying in the shadows.

“When Oscar arrived yesterday, as far as we knew he was just another guest, the same as the rest of you. It wasn’t until Melody came to us later last night that we learned the real reason he’d come to Meadow Pines. Naturally, we all panicked. Pamela told us everything was going to be all right. She sent Melody back to her room, then told me and Sam to spend the night at his place in town. She said she would tell Oscar to leave. He was there under false pretences, so she had a right to do so.”

“That was the argument I heard,” Emily breathed.

“Sam and I took the Land Rover and we drove to Lyndhurst. I started to panic. I was scared. Sam didn’t want to hear it. He’d always smoked a lot of weed but since that night, since what he did to Franklyn, he did nothing
but
smoke. We got to his place and he immediately started getting stoned. He kept telling me to forget about it, that come the morning Oscar would be gone and we could all carry on as normal.” Marcia laughed but there was no trace of humour in her voice. “As if our lives had been normal before. Ever since the night that ... ever since we buried Franklyn...” Marcia stared across the water towards the jetty. “If you have an idea of what it’s like to hold onto a secret, then you know how every day it becomes harder and harder. That it eats away at you like a disease. That night at Sam’s, I felt as if my mind was imploding. It wasn’t just the guilt getting to me. It was anger. I hated them all: Franklyn for what he did to me; Sam for causing this entire mess; Pamela... I know she was trying to protect us. I know there was no choice, but there are times when I catch myself thinking she chose her precious retreat over the well-being of her own daughter.”

Emily sensed the conflict in Marcia’s voice. Perhaps she could use it to change her mind. “Your mother left you to suffer for months by pretending none of it ever happened. It’s difficult to believe it was
your
future she was trying to protect.”

“That night, with Oscar showing up, something in me snapped,” Marcia continued, ignoring Emily’s comment. “I was sick of the guilt. I was pissed off. Mostly, I was just tired of it all. Sam smoked until he knocked himself out. I made sure he was asleep, left his flat, and drove back to Meadow Pines. I told Oscar everything. I told him I’d show him where we’d buried Franklyn. He followed me to the clearing. We were about to go to the shed, to fetch a shovel, when suddenly Oscar fell to the floor.” Marcia wrapped her arms across her chest and stared up at the night sky. “Pamela had heard us coming down the stairs. She’d followed us into the woods, and when she saw what was happening, she hit him over the head with a branch.”

“Pamela?” Emily gasped. Her mind spun, trying to process Marcia’s words.

“She was furious with me. She said after everything she’d done for me I was behaving like a spoiled brat who was going to get everyone thrown into prison. Oscar was unconscious. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the shed. She took a length of rope and we went back to the clearing. Oscar was sat up. He was dazed, out of it. But he was awake.”

The knot binding Emily’s wrist loosened another few centimetres. Strands of hemp sliced through her flesh. She bit down on her lip, attempting to mask the pain.

“Pamela said to me, ‘This is all your doing. This is all your fault.’ She made a rough noose, slipped it over Oscar’s neck, and threw the rope over the branch. Then, she pulled. I watched Oscar’s hands fly to his throat, his legs kick out. He was heavy. Pamela couldn’t get him fully off the ground. But it was just enough.” Tears slipped down Marcia’s face. She let them fall without wiping them away. “It took him forever to die. But I stood and watched. When it was over, Pamela started crying. Suddenly, it hit me—she was right. This was all my doing. This was all my fault. I ran to her, took the rope, and together, we pulled. We lifted him off the ground and tied off the rope. His wallet had slipped from his pocket. We took it to the lake and threw it in.”

“It didn’t sink,” Emily said. The knot loosened another centimetre.

“It had all been so panicked, so spontaneous, that neither of us stopped to think about the photograph until much later. Pamela told me to drive back to Sam’s. The next morning, we would act like it was just an ordinary day. Then, on my morning run, I would find Oscar’s body. Everyone would assume he’d hanged himself. A telephone call to Sergeant Wells would take care of the rest.”