Wake Wood (22 page)

Louise watched in silence. She expected him to say something, but when he didn’t she couldn’t find the courage to prompt him. When Patrick had shovelled the last of the earth into the hole, he returned the spade to the shed. Avoiding meeting her eye, he left her and started walking towards the house.

‘Patrick?’ She followed him. ‘Please, tell me, what are you suggesting? If you don’t think Arthur and the others killed Howie, you must suspect someone else of doing it. Patrick, please, talk to me …’

Patrick went into the kitchen. Alice was standing by
the
cooker staring blankly into space. She didn’t turn around or look at Patrick and Louise but murmured, ‘I’m daydreaming.’

Patrick went to her. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Show me your hands, Alice.’

Louise moved close to them and took his arm. ‘Patrick, what are you doing? You can’t be suggesting … you can’t …’ She leaned against the worktop for support.

‘Why do you want to see my hands, Dad? Is it a game?’ Alice asked.

‘Yes, honey, it’s a game,’ Patrick answered.

Alice closed her eyes and held out her hands; then suddenly changed her mind before Patrick had a chance to look at them. She thrust them behind her back.

‘Alice, let me see your hands,’ Patrick reiterated irritably.

‘Dad, what exactly is this for?’ she demanded.

Patrick softened his voice. ‘Just do as I ask, honey.’ He continued to watch her.

The expression on Alice’s face became impassive, her eyes cold, but after only a moment’s hesitation she held out her hands to him and turned them over so her palms were uppermost.

Both Louise and Patrick had to brace themselves to look at them. They needn’t have concerned themselves. Alice’s hands were pink, shiny and spotlessly clean.

Alice cooked the sausages she’d taken from the freezer. Patrick made and buttered toast, Louise sliced tomatoes and laid the table. She wasn’t hungry and, after burying
the
dog, she doubted that Patrick would be, but they sat at the table alongside Alice and forced themselves to eat.

Alice piled sausages, toast and tomatoes on to her plate, reached for the bottle of ketchup, upended it and squeezed a blob next to the sausages. She cut up her toast, dipped it into the sauce, set down her knife and fork and announced, ‘I don’t want to eat now. I was hungry when I got up but I’m not any more.’

‘Try and eat something please, sweetie,’ Louise coaxed. It was one of the phrases she’d used before Alice had died: ‘Try and eat something, please’; ‘You have to keep up your strength’; ‘You need nourishment’; ‘You’re a growing girl’.

She saw Patrick looking at her and realised there was no earthly reason why Alice should eat. She had no need to keep up her strength and she wasn’t a growing girl. Not any more, nor would she be ever again.

‘You piled all that food on your plate, Alice,’ Patrick admonished. ‘The least you can do is eat one sausage.’

Alice sat back in her chair and looked at him from under her eyelids. ‘I don’t want to.’

Not wanting to witness an argument between father and daughter, Louise was glad when they were interrupted by a knock at the door.

‘I’ll go.’ She walked through the hall and opened the front door. Mary Brogan was standing on the doorstep.

Louise’s first thought was for Alice. Panic-stricken, she found herself dumbstruck.

‘It’s all right, Louise,’ Mary said softly. ‘I’m here to help, not take Alice,’ she added as though she’d read Louise’s thoughts.

‘Where are my manners? Please, come in, Mary.’ Louise stepped back to make room for Mary to enter. The last thing she wanted was to sit and talk to Mary or invite her into the strained atmosphere in the dining room. But she did want to avoid a visit like the one they’d had the night before. And she felt she had no choice but to be polite.

Patrick saw Mary through the open door to the dining room and rose to his feet. His first thought, like Louise’s, was to protect Alice. He decided the best way to do that would be to get her out of sight. ‘As you’re not hungry you can go and play in your room, Alice, while we talk to Mrs Brogan.’

‘Do I have to?’ Alice whined.

‘Yes, you do,’ Patrick answered firmly. ‘Go on. We won’t be long, and then we’ll go out for a walk or do whatever you want.’

‘Play football and hide-and-seek like we did the other day?’ Alice suggested.

‘If that’s what you really want, honey, then that’s what we’ll do,’ Patrick acquiesced.

Louise led Mary into the dining room. When Alice passed them in the hall, Mary smiled and greeted her.

‘Hello, Alice. I’m Mary Brogan.’

‘Hi,’ Alice replied unenthusiastically.

‘Nice to meet you. Are you excited about going back?’

Patrick answered for Alice. ‘Yes, I think she is.’

Alice looked confused for a moment, then climbed the stairs. When she reached the top she called down, ‘Have you seen Howie anywhere, Dad? I couldn’t find him this morning.’

Patrick fought to keep control of his emotions. ‘No, I haven’t seen him,’ he answered in a tense voice.

‘See you later, Alice,’ Mary called out.

The sound of Alice’s bedroom door slamming shut resounded down the stairs.

Mary took the chair Patrick offered her, sat down and looked at Louise. ‘I’m here for a reason.’

‘Like last night?’ Patrick couldn’t resist the gibe but Mary managed to ignore it.

‘As you know, this is Alice’s last day. Tonight there’ll be a procession, a “feather walk” as we call it, but just a short one because Alice is so young. You’ve already seen one, Louise,’ she reminded her. ‘You were in the street when Deirdre’s feather walk went through the town.’

‘You saw a procession?’ Patrick asked Louise in surprise. ‘You knew about these “feather walks”?’

‘Yes,’ Louise murmured.

‘You never said anything to me about them,’ he protested.

‘Only because I wasn’t sure what I’d seen at the time,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t understand the significance of the walk or the black feathers until I saw people wearing them again last night.’

‘On today’s walk you’ll both have to be strong for Alice,’ Mary said emphatically. ‘But she’ll want to go back herself. You won’t have to persuade her.’ She opened her bag and removed three sticks joined by woven roots. It was an identical contraption to the one she’d placed around Deirdre’s neck when Deirdre had succumbed to a fit in the pharmacy. ‘This is something
for
Alice to wear around her neck. We call it a clutch. If she becomes agitated, put it around her neck like a necklace and slip her wrists into these loops. You’ll find that it comforts her.’ She placed it on the table.

‘Thank you,’ Louise said politely.

‘You can fasten the loops about her wrists, in front or behind her back, it doesn’t matter which way you do it.’ Mary demonstrated how the sticks could be twisted into a crude form of handcuffs.

Louise took a deep breath and steeled herself. ‘Mary, if you don’t mind, I need to have a word with Patrick about all this. In private,’ she added.

‘Of course,’ Mary said. ‘I quite understand. This is not an easy time for either of you.’

‘Please, stay here, help yourself to coffee,’ Louise offered politely. ‘We won’t be long.’

Louise went into the hall. Patrick followed and closed the door behind him.

As soon as they were alone, Louise grabbed his hand. ‘Patrick, I’m not ready to give up Alice,’ she pleaded urgently. ‘Please, don’t ask me to because I can’t …’

Patrick wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

She thought rapidly. ‘We can run … we can go away … we can take your car … we have to …’

‘So Alice can scream in pain and collapse like she did yesterday when all her wounds opened up the moment she left the confines of the town?’ Patrick reminded her.

‘Maybe it will be different today,’ Louise gabbled. ‘Maybe that was just something that happened yesterday. Maybe it will work today …’ If willpower alone
could
get them out of Wake Wood, Louise felt she could summon enough for all three of them.

Patrick stepped back from her and leaned against the wall. ‘This isn’t easy for me to say or admit, Louise. But things aren’t right with Alice. You do know that, don’t you?’

She gazed at him wordlessly.

‘You do know that, don’t you?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, I know,’ she conceded miserably.

Patrick’s phone rang.

He ignored it. It eventually stopped ringing, only to start again almost immediately.

‘You know better than me what people are like when their animals are sick. It won’t stop ringing until you switch it off or answer it,’ Louise advised.

Patrick wrapped his arm around her shoulders, took the call and listened for a moment, then said, ‘I can come tomorrow … No, I can’t … How high did you say his temperature is? … OK … OK … All right, twenty minutes. I’ll be there.’

Louise broke free. ‘No! Please, Patrick, not today. You can’t leave Alice and me, not today of all days.’

‘I have to go,’ he declared reluctantly.

‘Please …’

‘I have to,’ he insisted. ‘If I don’t, they’ll be back here again with their black feathers and demands that we return Alice instantly to the woods and the earth, just like last night. Do you want that?’

Too overwrought to speak, she shook her head. Her tears fell to the floor.

‘Louise?’

She turned her back on him and opened the door to the dining room.

‘I won’t be long,’ he called after her.

‘You’ll be as long as it takes.’ She took a moment to wipe her eyes and pull herself together before returning to Mary.

Mary noticed Louise’s tears. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked sympathetically.

‘Patrick’s been called out,’ Louise informed her briefly.

‘I see. I’m sorry. Hopefully he won’t be too long.’ Mary rose from her chair. ‘It’s time I was going, but I’ll be back for you before midnight and we’ll all join the procession to the woods. The whole town will be there for you, Alice and Patrick.’

Louise didn’t trust herself to comment. ‘I’ll see you out.’

‘How are you really, Louise?’ Mary enquired earnestly. ‘Are you in good heart?’

‘I’m fine,’ Louise lied.

Mary hugged her and left. Louise watched her pick up her bicycle and wheel it down the drive.

Louise returned to the house and closed the door. When she looked up she saw Alice watching her from the top of the stairs. She forced a smile. ‘Want to play a game, Alice? Any game, your choice.’

Alice glared back at her. ‘When’s the baby coming?’

THE O’SHEAS’ FARMYARD
was dark and deserted. Black clouds had blown in suddenly and heavily, transforming midday to twilight. The shadowy outlines of farm machinery parked on the fringes of the yard had adopted strangely prehistoric dinosaur-like silhouettes. The chickens, ducks and geese were silent, safely locked away in the poultry houses secure from marauding foxes. Even the dogs were quiet and sleeping in the barn after a morning spent out in the fields with the sheep and the cattle.

A solitary light burned at the entrance to the cow house. Inside, the animals were restless, lowing noisily, flicking their tails and shuffling and stamping their hooves. Martin O’Shea leaned against a pillar at the entrance. Conscious of his animals’ disquiet, he was alert, watchful, eyeing the cows in between glancing apprehensively towards the gate of the bull pen.

Patrick was taking his time over examining the prize bull and Martin wasn’t sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. The beast had looked in bad shape to him but a good vet could work miracles, or so Arthur always said. And he and his late father had always believed everything Arthur said, with good cause. The vet had
looked
after all their animals and well, since Martin had been a small boy.

And Arthur had brought Patrick into Wake Wood and trusted him to carry on his good work.

When the gate swung open, Martin stepped forward, immediately preparing himself for what he suspected was going to be expensive news. A vet’s services didn’t come cheap, especially when an animal was in as bad a way as the bull appeared to be.

Patrick stood framed in the doorway, his gloved hands and overalls saturated with bright red blood.

‘He’s a mess, Martin,’ Patrick declared flatly. ‘I’ve never seen an animal as bad that’s still breathing. When and how did this happen to him?’

‘I have no idea. His fever was up when I last checked him, that’s when I went into the house to phone you. When I came back here I found him like he is now. And that’s all I know,’ Martin replied defensively. ‘What’s he got?’

Patrick met Martin’s eye. ‘It’s not an illness, Martin. Someone or something did this to him.’

‘Someone … you mean deliberately attacked and hurt him!’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Patrick confirmed.

‘Well, don’t look at me,’ Martin countered pre-emptively. ‘I think the world of that bull, even after what he did to my dad. He’s an animal and animals can’t think. Not like us. They don’t know what they’re doing and can’t be held responsible when they hurt people. Can they?’

‘No, they can’t.’ Patrick left the gate open, returned to
the
bull pen and gazed down at the bull. The creature lay on his side, gasping for breath. The pool of blood beneath and around the beast was inches deep and more was pumping from his wounds every second. Wide gashes on his head and neck exposed the white of the skull and spinal bones in places. But even worse than the head and neck injuries was the sight of one of the animal’s eyes lying on the floor beside his empty eye socket. It had been viciously and inexpertly gouged out.

Martin moved reluctantly into the doorway of the pen, nauseated by the sight that greeted him. He could barely bring himself to look at the wreckage of what had been his father’s prize animal.

Patrick crouched down beside the bull. He’d spotted something glittering on the ground, floating in the blood. He picked it out with his gloved fingers and held it up. It was a silver chain. He recognised it as Alice’s. The one Louise had given her on her birthday. The same one he’d taken from Alice’s grave, washed, disinfected and cleaned and hidden in Alice’s coat pocket, for her to find later, when they’d played football in the garden on the first day after her return to them.