Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (16 page)

‘Am I under arrest?’

Powell shakes his head, smiling. ‘Of course
not. Mr Taylor is mistaken. Like I said, we need a simple statement about your
discovery of the body today. To get the facts straight.’

‘Perhaps I should get a lawyer.’

‘That’s up to you, of course.’ DI Powell shrugs
as though it makes no difference to him whether I ask for a lawyer or not. But
I can hear the impatience in his voice. He leans back in his chair, his smile
forced. ‘No one’s saying you’ve done anything wrong though, Eleanor. And it’s a
Sunday. You would probably have to wait several hours for a lawyer to arrive,
and I suspect you’d rather just get this over with.’

I
can see the sense in that. ‘Okay,’ I agree, perhaps recklessly. But he is
right; I do want to get this over with. ‘What do you need to know?’

Powell looks relieved. ‘I’ll ask you a few
questions, and you must answer them as accurately as possible, and we’ll start
to piece together a statement from there. PC Flynn here will take notes to keep
us on the right track, and make sure nothing gets missed. Is that okay with you?’

I
shrug. ‘I guess.’

PC
Flynn gives me a cool look, then sits waiting, pen poised above the lined sheet
of paper. I begin to dislike her intensely.

He
smiles. ‘So let’s start at the beginning, Eleanor. Why were you in the woods
this morning?’

The table surface is tacky. I shift my palms,
unsticking them. ‘It was a nice day, and I felt like a relaxing run.’

‘With Tristan Taylor?’ When I nod, his eyes
narrow thoughtfully on my face. ‘Is Tristan your boyfriend? I know you said you
were “just friends” when we were in the woods. But maybe you didn’t want to be
too specific in front of him. I know how delicate these things can be.’ He
hesitates, his smile persuasive. Then gives me another nudge. ‘Especially if
you’ve only just started seeing each other.’

‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’

Not entirely accurate, but a strategic
response. If I say no, he will ask if I have a boyfriend. I will then be forced
to say yes, and he will then ask his name. Denzil is known to the police, and
if they should discover that we have history, they’d jump on that at once. He
would look like a golden ticket to the police. Once his name came up, they would
never believe Denzil has nothing to do with this.

Besides, I would not characterize Denzil Tremain
as a boyfriend. Especially after the way he treated me last night. And as for
Tris, it’s complicated. From my side, not his. Unfortunately.

‘No boyfriend,’ I insist when the inspector
stares, and draw my clammy hands out of sight under the table. ‘Like I said, Tris
is a friend. A good friend.’

‘So you went for a walk in the woods with your good
friend, for a spot of weekend relaxation?’

I nod, looking him in the eyes.

His face hardens. ‘And then you decided to head
off the main path and follow the stream instead. Near where you saw a dead body
last week. Doesn’t that strike you as rather odd behaviour for a peaceful
Sunday walk?’

‘I thought it might help me get over it. If I
could see the place again, get things straight in my head.’

Powell considers me for a moment. Then shrugs,
nodding. ‘Okay.’ He opens the notebook in front of him, and consults its
spidery writing with a frown. ‘Now, according to the officer who questioned you
at the scene, you walked along the stream from the bridge, and found a patch of
loose soil that looked like someone had been digging there recently.’

‘That’s about it, yes.’

‘Whose idea was it to go that way in the first
place?’

‘Tristan’s.’

‘And what did Tristan think about this “loose
soil”? Was he keen on digging it up? Was that his idea too?’

‘I don’t think so, no.’ I can still feel that
gritty soil under my nails from where I cleared her face, even though I washed
my hands thoroughly in the ladies when I got to the station, soap and hot
water. ‘It was mine. My idea.’

PC Flynn has been scribbling all this time, looking
at me occasionally while writing down what’s being said. DI Powell leans across
and whispers something in her ear, then sits upright again, his gaze returning
to my face.

‘So it was you who wanted to dig up the ground?
Is that what you’re saying?’

I nod, feeling uncooperative.

But he presses me, asking, ‘Why?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Indulge me, Eleanor. For the record.’

‘I don’t know exactly.’ I shrug, trying to
verbalize the thing. ‘It was a hunch. Like police work. Detectives get hunches
too, don’t they?’

‘When we’re lucky.’

‘I had that kind of feeling about it. A
suspicion. The soil looked freshly dug and I couldn’t see a reason for that. So
I decided we should dig there. We didn’t have spades, so we used what was to
hand.’

‘And what was Tristan doing during all this?
Did he dig too?’

‘Of course.’

‘I suppose he thought it was a good idea as
well.’

‘No, in fact he didn’t. He tried to stop me,
said we should wait for the police. He said we could be destroying evidence.’

I
see the note on Denzil’s windscreen again, the way he burnt it so aggressively and
drove away. I should tell the police about the note, it could be important. But
the inspector would not understand the delicate nature of things, how my sanity
is balanced on a knife edge, nor can I explain my uncertainty over that note,
or what happened to it. If I tell Powell about the note, he will want to
question Denzil, and I don’t want this man trampling all over my private life.

‘Tris
was the one who wanted to call you at once,’ I decide to add, ‘but I wouldn’t
let him. So if anyone’s to blame, it’s me. Not Tristan.’

His gaze flickers over my face, then drops
lower. It is as though he can see my hands through the table, twisting
restlessly out of sight. I try to keep still, to look calm and normal and sane.
But this whole business is hitting me on so many levels at once, I can feel it
triggering every defence mechanism I’ve ever had. I struggle to remember my mantras,
to control my breathing, and keep smiling.

‘You said in the woods that you’d never seen
that woman before.’ He is suspicious, his eyes narrowed. He knows I am
withholding information. ‘Which is strange, given the circumstances.’

‘That’s right, she was a completely different
woman.’ Carefully I describe what the first woman looked like, and compare it
to the one I saw in the shallow grave. ‘I know it sounds weird but that’s the
truth. I don’t understand it either.’

‘It is almost unconceivable that she is not the
same woman,’ Powell agrees calmly, and plays with the pencil on the table,
watching me. ‘Unless the woods are peppered with dead bodies. Any chance you
might have made a mistake in your initial description?’

‘No.’

‘You were in a state of shock, Eleanor. And the
woods were very misty that morning, you said so yourself. Perhaps you didn’t
look as closely as you thought.’

‘It was a different woman.’

The inspector smiles. ‘Okay, let’s put that
possibility aside for now and focus on the
facts
.’

He doesn’t believe me. DI Powell did not
believe me when I reported the first body. Now he accepts that I was not
imagining things, but does not believe that there could be two dead women out
there, neither of them yet identified. That’s one step too far for him.

I say, ‘It’s just as well they’ve proved beyond
a shadow of a doubt that the world isn’t flat, or we’d be in serious trouble.’

Powell
gives me an old-fashioned look.

Someone knocks on the interview room door and
Powell barks, ‘Come in,’ then listens impatiently as a young police officer enters
the room and bends to his ear, whispering urgently.

I catch the words, ‘woods’ and ‘body’ – but
nothing else.

When the door closes behind the police officer,
Powell gives me one of his unrevealing half-smiles, the kind that briefly plucks
his lips upwards for a second, then drops them again like smiling hurts him.

‘Right, we’ve made a useful start on your statement.’
He stands up, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair. ‘I’ll have to
leave you, I’m afraid. I’m needed urgently elsewhere. But PC Flynn will help
you draw up a full statement. Once you’re happy with it, you can sign it and
you’ll be free to go.’

There’s something about his flat expression
that leaves me cold after his departure, like there’s a sudden draught in the
room.

PC Flynn smiles at me, rearranges the various papers
in front of her, then clicks the top of her ballpoint pen a few times. I can
tell it’s an irritating habit of hers.

‘Don’t
worry,’ she says. ‘This won’t take much longer, I promise.’

Despite her promise,
it’s another hour before I get away from the police station. Too late to expect
Hannah to come out and pick me up. She’ll probably be on her way to work by
now. PC Flynn ushers me out into the brightly-lit lobby, says goodbye in a
consolatory way, presses a Victim Support leaflet into my hand, then disappears
back inside without another word. The heavy door locks automatically behind her
and it’s over.

The place is not empty. People are slumped in
plastic chairs or reading the noticeboard. A few turn to stare as I ask the
sergeant on the desk to call a taxi for me. I have no money and will have to
run into the cottage for my purse once we get there. But walking is out of the
question, it’s a good five miles to the village through treacherous country
lanes, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask the police to give me a lift
home.

I head for the exit, and stop dead in the doorway
as Connor appears from the direction of the visitor car park, coming in just as
I am leaving.

I stare. ‘Connor?’

Connor looks at me blankly, like I am the last
person he expected to see there. He’s looking tired and strained, and is
carrying a small plastic bag. ‘Hey, Ellie,’ he says, not meeting my gaze. ‘You
on your way home? What’s going on?’

‘I could ask you the same thing. The police
took ages taking a statement from me. I thought we’d never get away. Tris must
have finished hours ago, surely. Why are you back again?’

‘Tris is still here,’ he says grimly. ‘I had to
go home again for an hour. To check on the livestock and grab some things for
Tris.’ Connor holds up the plastic bag. His voice is uneven. ‘Toothbrush, toothpaste,
and so on.’

‘
Toothbrush
?’

‘Didn’t I say? They’ve arrested him on
suspicion of murder.’

I sleep badly that
night, waking several times with the old absurd fear that someone is standing
by the window, watching me sleep.
Shadow
man, shadow man.
Where will it all end?

I
cannot stand another day of inaction though, and ring Jenny first thing. ‘I’m
going insane here,’ I say, which is probably not the best to say under the circumstances.
But I trust Jenny not to take it the wrong way. ‘I need to come back to work.’

I
explain about the body we found, then about Tris’s arrest. I keep the details
to the bare minimum. Before I left the station, PC Flynn warned me not to talk
to anyone about the particulars of the case, even if the newspapers should get
in touch. Not that I need that warning. I have a long history of hating
reporters; I’m not about to feed them. But knowing what to say to close friends
like Jenny and Hannah is less clear-cut.

Jenny
is shocked and falls silent for a moment, then says, ‘Well, under the
circumstances, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t come back to work. But
it’s not my decision, of course. I’m only head of department. I can recommend
you come back, but for the official go-ahead, you’ll have to speak to
Patricia.’

‘She’s
my next call.’

Jenny
hesitates. ‘Poor Tris. He didn’t do it, of course.’

A
few days ago, I would have agreed without the need for thought. I would have
said, ‘No way in the universe did he do it.’ But today is different. Today I am
less sure of everything.

‘Yeah,
it took me by surprise too.’

‘Well,
keep in touch. I’m heading into work in a few minutes. I’ll hope to see you
there.’ She pauses. ‘It will be good to have you back.’

‘It
will be good to be back, believe me. Fingers crossed Patricia doesn’t find an
excuse to keep me at home. Like she’s worried I might start finding bodies
buried under the playing fields.’

She
laughs. ‘What, the skeletons of teachers past?’

‘Something
like that. Speak to you later.’

‘Good
luck.’

I
end the call, then dial the head teacher’s office. She’s not in yet,
unsurprisingly. It’s just her answering service. I leave a brief message on her
service, again avoiding any specifics, then put down the phone and fix myself a
healthy breakfast of oats and fresh, chopped apples with dates. It seems Hannah
has been shopping, which means I owe her money. She’s in bed though, recovering
from her night shift, so after I’ve eaten, I write a quick note of thanks on the
memo board in the kitchen. Then the phone rings.

It’s
the head teacher, Patricia, calling me back. ‘So you’re off the hook,’ she says
bluntly, her voice a hoarse bark like a sergeant-major’s.

‘No
more crazy lady,’ I agree, perhaps a little too flippantly. The sugar rush from
the fruit must have gone to my head. I force myself to sound more sober and
measured during the explanation that follows, avoiding all mention of the fact
that we could not agree on the provenance of the body. ‘To sum up, the police
have apologised. I no longer have the need for therapy hanging over my head. And
I’d very much like to come back to work.’

Patricia
thinks it over for a moment, then says slowly, ‘Very well, yes. But bear in
mind that this latest development may not be public knowledge yet. Until it is,
you will have to run the gauntlet of some hostility from the student body.’

‘Understood.’

‘Also,
if there are any more unfortunate incidents with the students, I may have to
reconsider this decision.’

‘Of
course. I’ll be extra careful. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.’

‘Don’t
make me regret this, Eleanor.’

I
end the call, and perform a little victory dance around the kitchen. I am going
back to work. And I did not even have to grovel.

The
shadow of Tris’s arrest still lies over me though, like a stain on my heart. I
do not know what to make of it. It has to be a mistake. Doesn’t it?

Sure enough, the
kids begin to stare and whisper again as soon as I park my scooter in the staff
car park. I check in with Patricia as agreed, change into my work gear, then stride
out across the playing fields in my grey tracksuit and trainers. I’m wearing the
Mizunos again, each training shoe conscientiously scraped clean of mud and back
in service. Rather like me. But I am better able to ignore the stares of the kids
this time, armed with the newfound confidence that I am not mad, and find
myself slipping back into the demands of school with ease. Though it’s hardly a
full timetable now. The weather is turning hot and sticky, a proper Cornish
summer, and I have more free periods than at the start of term.

Some
of the kids are at home, or in the library, revising for their exams. Others
have finished and left school for good. perhaps planning on an apprenticeship
or A Levels at one of the sixth form colleges. There are not too many options
in this part of Cornwall for education post-GCSE, but the kids seem to cope. I
suppose they don’t have much choice now higher education has been made
compulsory up to the age of eighteen. I can’t recall feeling restricted at that
age though, and I attended the same school, so perhaps it’s about perspective.
You can’t miss what you have never had.

Jenny
Crofter and I meet up in the PE equipment store room at the end of the school
day. To count balls, which is a more serious business than it might sound. Kids
love footballs and basketballs and cricket balls, any kind of ball really, and
will take every opportunity to steal them. So we have to do a stock take every
few weeks, to keep on top of the situation.

Jenny
is still shocked about the police arresting Tris. I can’t blame her. ‘But of
course Tristan didn’t kill that woman. How could he have done? And why? Hand me
that clipboard, would you?’

I reach for the clipboard. ‘Exactly. There’s no
motive.’

‘It sounds to me like the police are desperate
to arrest anyone, and as quickly as possible. To make tourists think the police
know what’s going on, that it’s still safe to walk in the woods. And for some
reason, they chose Tristan.’ She checks the clipboard. ‘How many basketballs?’

I
tell her, and she writes the number down. ‘Any loss since last time?’ I ask.

‘No,
all present and correct.’

‘I
can understand why they feel the need to arrest someone,’ I say. ‘A murder puts
people off visiting the woods. Locals too, not just tourists. It’s bad for the
pub and the woods’ café and the garden centre. Bad for business all round.’

‘Everyone
in the village is talking about it.’ Jenny stretches up to take down the large
cardboard box that contains cricket balls, only ever used during the summer
term. ‘When my mother saw the police cars arriving, she went along to have a look.
They’d taped off the area, and the police were keeping people back, but word
started going round the village almost immediately that they’d found a body
down there. She asked me not to go running anywhere near the woods until they
catch the killer.’

‘And
she’s right. It’s not safe.’

‘You
hear about this horrific stuff on the news. But you never imagine it happening
where you live. Practically right on our doorstep, for God’s sake. Here, hold
this.’

I accept the clipboard back again, and watch
her count the cricket balls with quick efficiency. ‘I wonder if they’ve brought
the body out yet.’

‘They brought her out late yesterday evening. Probably
waited for darkness so the reporters would have less of a look-in.’

‘Did
you see anything?’

She
nods, then shuts her eyes. ‘Shit, I lost count.’

‘Sorry,
my fault.’

‘No,
it’s okay. I think they’re all there anyway.’ She puts the lid back on the
cardboard box and returns it to the shelf. ‘I was taking a walk through the
village and saw the commotion, so I went back for a look. They’d put her in a
body bag, you couldn’t see anything. It was dark too. But there were still people
there, watching the whole thing.’

‘Reporters?’

‘Reporters,
yes. But other people as well. There was quite a crowd outside the vicarage,
some of them in slippers and sipping cocoa, it was crazy. Dick Laney was there,
sitting in his van with his son. They’re an odd pair, those two. Mr and Mrs
Parks from behind the village hall. Seth and Vi from the pub. And your friend
with the tattoos.’

What a circus this is turning into. And Tris is
the unlikely star act now. I think back, remembering his expression as he
looked down at that pale, dirty face protruding through the soil. Tris had been
shocked, horrified, appalled, all the same perfectly natural emotions I was
feeling. Yet there had been something else in his face too.

Recognition?

Belatedly, I realise what Jenny said. ‘My
friend with the tattoos? Do you mean Denzil Tremain?’

‘That’s the one. He turned up in his jeep just
as they were bringing her out. Didn’t park though, sat there like Dick Laney
with his engine running.’

‘Good God,’ I say blankly.

‘Could
you count the footballs? There should be twenty-five. I’ll count netballs, then
we’re done here.’

I
turn to count the footballs, my mind preoccupied. ‘Twenty-four. But we could
have missed one out on the field. I’ll check the perimeter fence before I go
home.’

‘That
would be great, thanks. The budget won’t stretch to all these replacements.’

‘Did
you speak to Denzil?’ I ask.

‘God, no. He’s not my sort, is he? Besides, he
didn’t stay long. As soon as the body was brought up from the woods, the police
went over and moved him on. I expect they didn’t like the look of his tatts. Clipboard,
please.’

‘He does have quite a few tattoos,’ I admit,
handing over the clipboard. ‘The one on his back is amazing. A phoenix,
spreading its wings.’

Suddenly,
I remember the tattoo-like mark on the dead woman’s hand. Like a night club
stamp. The kind of place where Denzil works when he’s deejaying along the
coastal resorts.

‘I
don’t suppose you saw which way he went?’

She notes down the final count, then signs the
sheet at the bottom as head of department. ‘Actually, yes. He did a
three-point-turn in the road outside my house, then headed back the way he
came. Though I only noticed because his jeep makes such a godawful noise. Why
do you ask?’

‘I thought he might have been coming to see
me.’

‘Maybe he changed his mind and went to the pub
instead. The Green Man was packed all evening. Everyone wanting to gossip about
the murder over a pint, I expect.’

‘Or was frightened off. He’s not keen on the
police.’

We leave the stock
room and I wait while she locks the door. A sudden violent crash behind my back
makes me jump. I turn, startled, my heart racing, ready for action. But it’s
nothing. Two Year 10 lads have burst out of the dressing rooms, both skinny-looking
boys with spots and dishevelled hair, shouting and shoving each other on their
way out to the field for after-school cricket practice.

‘Bloody
kids,’ I mutter, sagging against the wall of the corridor.

Jenny
frowns and calls after them, ‘Calm down, you two. How many times do you have to
be told? No running in the corridors.’

‘Yes,
Miss,’ both lads call back, slowing to an unrepentant trot. The other kids
trooped out to the field ten minutes ago, so these two are clearly late. ‘Sorry,
Miss.’

We
look at each other with tired resignation at the sound of the two boys belting
for the field as soon as they’re round the corner.

‘Children,’
Jenny says, rolling her eyes. ‘Can’t live with them, can’t kill them. Remind me
never to become a mother. I don’t know how all these parents do it. I swear, I
wouldn’t last an hour with a screaming baby.’

I
laugh. ‘You’ll change your mind one day.’

‘What,
when I meet the right person?’

I
tease her. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

‘Not
in Eastlyn.’

‘There’s
always Connor Taylor. He’s still unattached. And he’s very hard-working.’

‘Connor?
He’s too young for me. What is he? Twenty-six? Older? I’ve probably got at
least four years on him. Maybe five.’

‘Five
years isn’t so much. It’s not even a box set of Buffy. That show ran for seven
seasons.’

She
shakes her head. ‘And you think you’re not crazy.’

We
walk down towards the staff room where I’ve left my jacket and bag. The corridors
are deserted. This is the time I like best. End of the day, hardly any kids
about, only die-hard staff, the ones with no families to go home to, and all
the classrooms peaceful and empty.

Through
the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows in the bridge corridor I see Harry
Tenzer out on the field in his blue shorts and polo shirt, a short, athletic
man, blowing his whistle for all he’s worth as a pack of Year 9 and 10 kids
fight over the football. I try to calculate his age. Somewhere shy of forty, I guess.
And conveniently divorced.