Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (17 page)

‘You
could date someone here at the school,’ I suggest, nodding towards the football
field.

She
glances towards Henry, then smiles to herself like I’ve said something funny.

‘What?’
I ask, puzzled.

Jenny
hesitates, then says, ‘I’m gay.’

‘Oh.’

She
tucks the clipboard under her arm. A defensive gesture. ‘And I already have a
girlfriend, though it’s true we don’t see much of each other. Too bloody busy
all the time. So you don’t need to match-make.’

‘I’m
sorry, I had no idea.’

‘No
reason you should. I keep it very quiet. Schools, you know. A tough environment
if you’re even remotely different.’

I
smile drily. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘And
being head of department has brought even more pressure. More public scrutiny.’
She pauses a beat. ‘You won’t mention it to anyone else, will you? I’m not
entirely in the closet, of course. That is, my close family knows. But nobody
at work … Until today.’

‘I’m
honoured that you’ve told me,’ I say, ‘and I would never dream of breaking a
confidence.’

‘Thanks,
Eleanor.’

I
consider telling her about the shadow man, sharing my own secret burden. But
then stop myself in time. It’s one thing to share a few details of your
personal life with a trusted work colleague, and quite another to admit to
checking under the bed every time you go to sleep.

In
the staff room, there’s a tabloid newspaper left folded open on the table to
the centre spread. The lurid story of the body’s discovery has even made the
nationals. There’s a photograph of my mother again, and one of the woods,
looking idyllic. I wonder how long it will be before the press track me down at
the cottage. Or find my father.

The
thought makes me sick and angry.

Jenny
glances at it, then shuts the newspaper and drops it into the wastepaper bin. She
shudders. ‘That poor woman. Killed, then dumped in the woods. It feels so … casual.
So dismissive. Who would do such a terrible thing?’

‘A murderer.’

She misses my dry tone, perhaps still thinking
about what we discussed at lunch time. ‘But you think she isn’t the same woman
you saw before?’

‘According to the police she is.’

‘The police think you’re wrong about that?’
Jenny is annoyed for me. ‘I don’t think they’re doing enough, frankly. There
are so many empty properties out there. They should be searching them, doing a
proper sweep of the valley. This killer is obviously operating out of somewhere
remote.’

‘I’m sure they’ll get round to searching them
all eventually.’

Jenny
nods. ‘Well, I’m off now. I want to do some training tonight. I’m thinking of
entering a triathlon in September. First I need to bulk up muscle though, and
work on my stamina.’

‘I’m
sure you’ll be great.’

‘Thank
you.’ Her smile is self-conscious. ‘I can give you a lift home if you want.’

‘I’m
heading into town. Got a doctor’s appointment.’

 
‘Sure you don’t want a lift? I could drop
you at the doctor’s.’

‘Thanks,
but I came on my scooter today. See?’ I pick up my red helmet from the table. ‘And
if you ask me, the vicar did it.’

She
stares, astonished. ‘Reverend Clemo? What, with the length of lead piping in
the conservatory?’

‘Why
not?’ I shrug. ‘To my mind, he’s no more ludicrous a suspect than Tristan
Taylor.’

‘Eleanor, can you hear me?’

I nod.

‘That’s great.’

I let myself drift for a moment, enjoying the peace and quiet. But
the voice intrudes, brings me back to that shadowy place where I have to look
into the past.

‘And you’ve been doing really well at remembering, so well done. But
today will be a little different, so I need you to concentrate even harder.
Today I want you to remember what happened before you went into the woods with
your mum.’ The voice is familiar, but impersonal; I trust it implicitly but I
don’t like it. ‘So try to relax and think back to the day before. Can you
remember what you are doing?’

‘I’m at school.’

‘Okay. And what did you do after school finishes?’

I know that I need to remember but it’s difficult. The memories are
cloudy, that afternoon mingled now with a thousand other afternoons just like
it. We would have done whatever we always did, day after day, until the morning
she was taken from us …

I pick over the blurry memories, carefully peeling the days apart
until I reach the one I want. I am six years old again. I go to the village
school and play with my friends in the playground after school. Patter-cake
patter-cake baker’s man. Skipping games. I can manage five skips in with the
double rope. Most afternoons Mum comes to pick me up after school. Sometimes
it’s Dad in his van. When the weather is fine, we walk home together through
the lanes, holding hands, while I tell her about my day, the pictures I have
drawn, the new things I am learning. Sometimes it rains and Mum drives us back
in her car. I sit in the back, staring up at the trees and sky. She likes to
listen to the radio while she is driving.

‘She gets a phone call.’

‘At home?’

‘In the car. On her mobile.’

I cock my head to one side,
remembering that afternoon, the sound of the phone ringing. Mum frowns,
reaching for her phone on the passenger seat

 
‘She pulls in by the bridge to take the
call.’

‘Who’s on the phone?’

‘A man, I think.’ I try to listen into their conversation, but the
actual words escape me. It’s too long ago and I wasn’t really paying attention.
‘I can hear a deep voice.’

‘Does she say his name?’

‘No.’

‘What are they talking about?’

‘I don’t know.’ I am finding it hard to breathe. ‘But Mum’s upset.
She says … She says no. Keeps saying no. Forget it, and no.’

‘Then what?’

‘She finishes the call, throws the phone in her bag.’ I am worried.
I can sense that something is wrong. I watch my mum as she looks in the mirror,
glances back at me over her shoulder, says something reassuring, then signals
to pull back onto the road. ‘It’s muddy by the bridge. The wheels spin and she
gets angry. Says a rude word.’

‘Does your mum often swear?’

‘Never.’

Mum brushes back her hair. She is driving too fast. The trees whizz
past. Is she crying?

‘It’s okay, you’re safe here. Take a nice deep breath. That’s it.
And another.’ She pauses a beat. ‘Don’t forget, you’re only an observer of
these events. Nothing that happened in the past can hurt you now.’

I try to follow her instructions. I know she’s right but everything
feels so real, so powerful, it takes my breath away.

‘Listen to me, Eleanor,’ she says. ‘I need you to stay calm.’

My chest is hurting. I use her voice as an anchor, so cool and
steady, keeping part of myself in the present while my spirit is soaring in the
past.

‘What do you remember next?’

‘I’m at home in my bedroom. It’s late but Dad’s not there. He’s …
gone to a meeting in Truro.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes, but I can hear voices.’

‘Where?’

I describe how I creep to the top of the stairs to listen, crouching
down to peer through the banisters. There are voices in the kitchen. It’s Mum,
arguing with a man. She sounds upset again. My tummy hurts and I want to rush
down and protect her, but I’m scared. The man is so angry, raising his voice.

‘Tell me what happens next, Eleanor.’

I hear the sound of the back door slamming. Then silence. I run down
the stairs and push through the kitchen door. The lights are still on. There
are two coffee mugs on the table, and one chair lying on the floor like it was
just knocked over. The room is empty.

‘She’s outside with him, I can see them in the dark.’

Her voice is calm, but there’s something urgent there too. It
disturbs me. ‘What does the man look like? Describe him to us.’

I press my face against the glass of the back door. I can see Mum
clearly, her head is lit up by the light falling through the kitchen window.
But the man is further away.

I stare, trying to make him out. But his features slip away and
blur, and staring so hard through the past makes me feel sick. Small and sick
and empty.

‘He’s just a shadow,’ I whisper, shaking my head in denial. ‘A
shadow man in the dark.’

After my unsettling
session with Dr Quick, I ride slowly home on my scooter and try to push its new
information to the back of my head. My ‘memories’ in these sessions, if that is
what they truly are, and when I remember them at all, do not make any sense to
me. But the doctor thinks it may take several more hypnotherapy sessions before
the odd things I’m seeing and hearing begin to come together into a coherent
pattern.

I
take the road through the village on my way home, though it’s the long way
round. The roads are dry and the scooter is easy to handle, even on the tight
bends coming down the hill towards the church. It’s still warm, the late
afternoon sun on my back as I ride slowly past the vicarage.

There’s
a police car outside the vicarage, sun glare bouncing off its rear window. The
gate is open and so is the front door to the vicarage. It’s hard not to be
curious about what’s going on in there. Perhaps someone has been stealing the
vicar’s gnomes, I think. Or sneaking into his garden at night and moving the
little fellows into suggestive poses.

Just
after the vicarage, I glance along the back path into the woods. There are
several police cars still tucked onto the grass verge there, and the track past
the graveyard has been cordoned off with a Police Line Do Not Cross tape.

I
halt the scooter and let it idle, watching a young policeman in a white
short-sleeved shirt load equipment into the open boot of one of the police
cars. One of the items is a heavy-looking metallic case and he’s sweating; I
guess he must have carried it all the way up that steep slope.

The old green school bus is just leaving as I
carry on slowly down into the main part of the village. It takes almost an hour
for the bus to make the full round of stops, dawdling through all the tiny
villages and hamlets beneath the moors. A few local kids clamber down, blinking
at the sunshine, then the bus pulls away in a little puff of exhaust fumes,
heading up the hill to its next scheduled stop, the next village about three
miles on through winding lanes.

I turn and look back at the police car, still
parked at the side of the road near the vicarage.

The vicar has come out and is talking to the policeman
through the car window. He’s wearing his dog collar today. He looks formal and
untouchable, on official business. I expect he’s furious about all this. It
can’t be very good for the reputation of the church, having police permanently
stationed outside his vicarage. Though a murder always sends people to church,
they say. Guilty conscience, I guess. Or there but for the grace of God ...

As I watch, the Reverend Clemo straightens and
looks over in my direction. He’s still talking to the unseen police officer in
the car. He seems to lift his arm.

Is
he pointing at me?

A cloud passes across the sun. The top of the
village turns dark and sullen, lying in shadow, and suddenly it’s a different
place. It’s uncanny the way weather can change the look of this valley
 
in a matter of seconds. But that’s what
comes from being so close to the high moors; the weather systems are unpredictable
and fast-changing, winds sweeping in and shifting us from bright sunshine to
driving rain in the space of a few minutes.

I remember the early mist rising as I plunged
into the woods that day, sunshine falling dappled through the tree canopy. The
crack of twigs from somewhere above me, that creepy sensation of being watched.
And when I burst out of the bushes behind the church that morning, the Reverend
Clemo had been standing there, startled but not surprised, smoking his
cigarette.

Almost
as though he had been
waiting
for me.

There’s a note
pushed under the door when I get back to the cottage. I recognise the
handwriting before I even see the final initial.

Come and see me. We need to
talk. C.

Hannah’s
car is gone, so I assume she has either gone to work for the night or is out
with one of her other friends. She likes to take off occasionally without
saying anything, always a bit of a free spirit. And I expect she’s been shaken
by recent events and is probably in need of a break from this place. Beautiful
as our little cottage may be, it’s also very isolated. Not the most comfortable
place to be with a murderer creeping about the place.

I
leave Connor’s note on the kitchen table. Upstairs, I change into denim shorts and
a yellow sun top, smooth on some sun cream, and head out across the fields.

I’m
not in the mood to take the scooter out again, and besides, this weather is
fantastic. I need to feel the sun on my face and shoulders, and to get hot and
sweaty, to enjoy the fresh air and countryside before wet weather sets in
again. Because however sunny it becomes in Cornwall, I know the mist and rain
are never far away, waiting to sweep in from the sea or the high moors …

It’s
just over a mile cross-country from our cottage to the farm where Connor and
Tristan live, slightly further by road. I walk it comfortably in about fifteen
minutes, stopping several times to navigate the stream which passes the path at
various points in the valley bottom. I try to leap from stone to stone without
getting my feet wet, but it’s not easy and I dunk my foot in the cold water
more than once.

Eventually I find myself within sight of the
farmhouse. There are sheep grazing between me and the house who raise their
heads as
I follow the footpath round the
edge of the field, staring with slanted, demonic eyes. A few sheep bleat at me balefully,
others continue cropping the grasses without much interest. They belong to
Connor’s new herd, their woolly backsides spray-painted with a distinctive
green mark. Like the signature tag of a graffiti artist. Some of them have tiny
counterparts on wobbly legs. Ewes with newborn lambs to look after, I realise,
and keep as far from them as possible.

I check my phone in case Tris has been
released. I’ve been texting him all day.
Thinking
of you. Let me know when they let you out.
But there’s no reply to my
numerous texts yet. There’s no signal either though, so even if he has texted
me back, I won’t be able to pick up any messages until I get home.

I
look up suddenly, hearing a high song in the blue. There’s a tiny black dot
above me. I squint up into the sunlight for a moment, then smile. A skylark.
Too high to be anything else.

Hill Farm is a ramshackle collection of
buildings clustered around one central farmhouse. They have no money to keep up
with repairs, so there are gaps in the roof where slates blew off last winter
and were never replaced, and a few broken windows fixed up with black tape or
hardboard. When their father died a few months back, he left the farm jointly
to both brothers, treating Tris no differently just because he was adopted. But
of course sheep-farming is not easy, and he probably knew it would take two men
to keep the farm afloat. They’ve already lost sheep to bad weather and illness,
animals they haven’t been able to afford to replace.

Meanwhile
the bills keep coming in every month. So the farm barely makes enough to pay
off the remortgage their father took out on it a few years back, simply in
order to keep going.

I know Tristan was hoping he could get away
from the place after he finished school. Go to university and get a proper job,
one that did not involve getting up at dawn or struggling through rain and mud
every winter. But his father had made him feel too guilty to leave, and now the
old man was gone, his departure would probably mean selling the farm, because
Connor could not possibly run it on his own.

So
far they don’t seem to have argued about it, but I know that day can’t be far
off. Tris has become more and more restless since his father died, and though
he claims it has nothing to do with any wish to escape, I know something is
eating at him. Something that has left him pale and withdrawn, and with a
haunted look in his eyes.

I jump over the wall into the farmyard. The house
is standing silent and empty. The back door, usually left wide open during the
day for the dog to trot in and out, is shut and locked. There’s a shiny new
padlock on the garage door, but otherwise the place looks unbearably rundown. On
the far side of the farmyard are a few mangy-looking hens, pecking in a
depressed fashion at the dirt. But their sheepdog is nowhere in evidence, the
car is gone, and the mud-spattered quad bike is parked under a lean-to next to
an ancient dog kennel.

I knock at the back door, loudly, thumping with
my fist against the soil-flecked wood. Nothing is clean here, not even the door.

No
reply.

I
knock again. ‘Connor? It’s Ellie.’ I pause a beat, head down, thinking. ‘Tris?
Are you in there?’

I
go to one of the narrow kitchen windows, rub a small port-hole in the grime,
and stare inside. There’s no one moving inside. I take a few steps back,
staring about the place. I should have called Connor before setting out, of
course. His note seemed so urgent though, I assumed he would be here when I
arrived.

But
perhaps Tris has been released, and Connor has driven over to the police
station to collect him. That would explain his absence.

I
scramble up the rough bank of earth behind the house and look out over what
they call the Long Field. It’s a peaceful scene. Short grass and clumps of
young thistles ripple in the breeze, stretching gently uphill to a line of
trees in the distance. When their father was still alive, the land nearest to
the house was always dotted with white sheep. This field contains nothing but wild
rabbits, judging by the white tail-flashes as they scattered across the grass
at my approach.

I
wonder how many sheep they’ve lost this year. Too many, by the look of it.

It’s a lonely place, out on the fringe of the
village. Not another house in sight from where I’m standing. And so quiet. Only
barren moorland stretches beyond the next hillside, and there’s nothing much after
that until you reach the yard of grey brick and cobblestones that is Jamaica
Inn at the steep village of Bolventor. You can’t even hear the busy A30 from
here, a black ribbon winding over Bodmin Moor only a few miles to the north-east.

I stare out across the rippling fields again. Whenever
the wind drops, the air becomes oddly hushed, like in a church or library; a
voice might carry for miles out here on a still day. But there’s something just
on the edge of my hearing. A new sound above the rustle of trees, above the
soft baas of far-off sheep, and the distant barking of a dog in the wooded
valley below.

I scramble down from the bank of earth, ready
to admit defeat. Connor is not here and I have wasted my time coming out to the
farm.

Then
I realise what I’ve been hearing. The sound of an engine in the distance,
growing louder now as it negotiates the abrupt turns, dips and slopes of the
narrow lane between here and the village.

It could be anyone. Anyone with a diesel
engine, that is, who has business this far out on the edge of the moors. Not
Connor; his car runs on petrol. The postman, then? It’s too late for the post,
but maybe a special delivery?

But it’s not the postman. A familiar white delivery
van bumps into the yard less than a minute later, Woods Valley Garden Centre in
bold green lettering on the side.

Dick Laney is at the wheel, looking surprised
to see me. No sign of Jago. He’s probably back at the garden centre, playing
the boss while his dad’s out. I fold my arms, suddenly cold despite the
sunshine.
Like someone’s walking over my
grave.
Such an odd expression, I’ve always thought. Today it feels
unpleasantly apt.

I recall the framed school photograph I
saw in the office at the garden centre, Dick Laney’s arm round my mother’s
shoulders. That odd look in her eyes. I still can’t put my finger on what it
means. But why did Dick choose to put up that photo now? He must have had it
lying around for years, yet I’ve never seen it before.

I’m
abruptly aware of the remoteness of Hill Farm, and realise I left no word with
anyone where I was going. Though Connor’s note is still on the kitchen table.
Would that be enough of a clue for Hannah if I were to go missing?

Dick pulls up in the yard with his window open,
Radio Cornwall blaring. I recognise the jingle as he turns the engine off. He
leans a tanned and tattooed forearm on the window frame, shirt sleeves rolled
up, and stares out at me.

‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books.’ His
voice is level, but I can tell from his expression that he’s not in a good
mood. ‘What are you doing all the way out here?’