Black Wood (4 page)

However, it
was
a perfect day for a walk, so I headed down towards the river. I always felt better down there, watching the swans glide effortlessly under the old stone bridge, excited dogs chasing after sticks. It was idyllic. I almost forgot why I’d walked out of the shop.

But then it came back to me. Gareth Maloney.

The name swam around my skull like a circling shark.

He was taller now, of course, with wide shoulders that said rugby rather than football; the lack of mangled nose or cauliflower ears implied he was lucky, or hadn’t played for a while. His hair was muddy brown, styled with gel to look like he hadn’t made an effort. He was wearing a pale-blue hoodie with swirly white writing on the front. In that brief encounter, I had taken all this in.

But had he recognised me?

I looked different now too. Taller, but still skinny. Jeans and a T-shirt in place of the little skirts I used to wear when I was a kid. I’d lost the attitude too. Or I’d tried to, at least.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept my head down as I walked the length of the pedestrianised street, trying to avoid any opportunity for anyone to speak to me. There was someone I had to talk to, but right now I needed space.

‘Hello, Jo.’

I almost walked smack into him, stopping just in time as his shiny black boots came into view. I looked up and automatically smoothed my fringe over my ruined eyebrow. I wished I’d worn a hat. He pretended he hadn’t noticed, but I knew he had. He didn’t miss a thing.

‘Sergeant Gray,’ I said. ‘Lovely morning, isn’t it?’

‘What’s with the formalities? Feeling guilty about something?’ He winked and I felt my cheeks burn. I looked up at him and smiled.

Davie Gray had the knack of making girls blush. I put him in his late forties, fifty at the most, with a full head of thick, sandy hair, feathered at the sides into as much of a Mod style as he could get away with for work. Somehow he carried it off. His eyes shone like buttons. When he wasn’t busy breaking up fights between school kids, he ran the local karate club. I’d heard the teenage girls in the shop talking about his ‘perfect fit body’. Not that I’d seen any of it, although he’d tried to recruit me to the club plenty of times. The first time was right after Claire’s accident. He’d seemed so much older than me back then, but over the years the gap had shrunk. I definitely felt something for him, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

I remembered his kind face in my parents’ living room. His follow-up visit after the initial questioning. Trying to cajole me into remembering something else about what happened, when I’d told him I was scared that the boys were going to come back.

‘It’s not about fighting, Jo,’ he’d said. ‘It’s about making sure you’re prepared. Even if you never lay a finger on someone out on the street, or in the woods, or whatever … You’ll scare them off because you’ll know that you can.’ He’d turned to my mum then, who’d been sitting on the couch looking bored. I’m sure she was convinced I’d made the whole thing up.

That the boys didn’t exist. Because if they did, then why had no one seen hide nor hair of them since? It wasn’t that big a town. How could I
not
know who they were? I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.

‘What do you think, Mir—’ He stopped himself from saying her name, flipped back to formality. ‘Mrs Barker? It’d be great for her confidence too. It’s given her a real shake. This thing …’

Miranda Barker gave him a girly little laugh. ‘It’s up to her, PC Gray,’ she said. ‘I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to.’

He turned back to face me. His annoyance at my mum’s flippancy was quickly replaced by concern for me. ‘Think about it, Jo. Come down for a trial. Just watch.’ He stood up and smoothed the fronts of his trousers, picked up his hat. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mrs Barker,’ he said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’

‘Oh no! Let me see you to the door.’ She’d jumped up and scurried out after him. I heard them whispering in the hallway, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I stayed still until the front door had snicked shut. She walked calmly back into the room and sat back down on the couch. ‘C’mere, JoJo. Come and give me a cuddle.’ She offered her arms to me and I couldn’t resist. ‘Be careful, Jo,’ she continued. ‘You don’t want to be making a nuisance of yourself with all this silly talk.’

I felt a tear pop out of my eye and slide down my face.

Why can’t you just believe me, Mum?

Gray was staring at me now and I snapped back into the present.

I blurted it out. ‘I’ve seen him, Davie. He’s back.’

He rubbed a hand over his chin and cocked his head. ‘Who’s back, Jo?’

I felt bile rising up my gullet, burning my throat. I could picture him that day. I could picture all of us.

‘The boy from the woods, Davie. His name is Gareth Maloney. It’s definitely him. He’s older, obviously. But his face is just the same. His eyes. I’ll never forget his eyes—’

Gray stepped closer and put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Are you talking about one of the boys from the woods? Christ, Jo. That was what, twenty years ago?’

‘Twenty-three! Twenty-three years ago this month. Did you think I was ever going to forget? I told you. I told you what he did. If it wasn’t for him—’

His phone rang in his pocket and he silenced me with a finger to his lips.

‘Gray. What is it? He’s what? Right. OK. No, I walked. Yes, I’ll come back and get the car. Right. Aye. See you in a minute.’

I was fidgeting, pulling at my fringe. ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

‘I’ll need to run, Jo. Something’s happened up at the Track …’ He let the sentence trail off. I could see he was torn. But he had a job to do. And I needed to calm down.

I took a deep breath. ‘It’s OK. I’ll talk to you later maybe.’

He patted my shoulder and took off at a pace.

‘Wait!’

He spun back round. ‘What? Jo, I need to go …’

‘I’m scared, Davie …’ I didn’t know where I was going with this, so I just stopped. This wasn’t a conversation for the middle of the High Street.

He paused, opened his mouth and closed it again. I’d rendered him speechless, for once. Then he turned away and headed off in the direction of the station.

I watched him for a bit, then I turned back to where I was going. I hurried over the crossroads and down the cobbled lane that led to the river path. I slowed, and lifted my head, and breathed in lungfuls of cool, crisp air. That fresh tang of green leaves. I was going to sort this. With or without his help.

The river was Banktoun’s main attraction. On one side, the hard-packed mud path snaked its way around the edge of the imposing church of St Christopher and the ancient graveyard where huge, tall oaks swayed gently in the breeze, their leaves whispering like ghosts. On the other bank lay acres of green-grey fields with the occasional block of sharp yellow rape in the distance. More than one developer had attempted to buy the land for housing, despite the river’s tendency to burst its banks and flood the ends of the fields. But the landowner wasn’t selling.

Past the church, the path grew narrower: narrower still as you headed away from the town centre and past the bubbling foam of the weir, where finally the river shrank away into the trickling burn that flanked the houses of Riverview Gardens, where Claire had lived all her life, moving into the house next door to her parents when it came up for sale. Wanting to leave them, but needing them close.

But I wasn’t going there.

I cut back through the graveyard, where a trickle of bowed mourners were heading away from the section of new graves over by the far wall. A fresh mound of earth sat quietly, surrounded by wreaths of ivy and cyclamen, bunches of yellow gerberas, pink roses. A fluorescent-leaved plant in a pot.

Backed up against the other wall, my grandmother’s grave lay quieter still. I crouched down to wipe dirt off the cold marble base, pulled up a few weeds that stuck out of the holes in the metal vase. A breeze rippled through the trees and for a moment the sunlight faded as a small dark cloud passed overhead. I traced the outline of the words on the headstone with one finger.

‘He’s back, Gran,’ I said. ‘The bad one. The one who hurt Claire.’

Wind whistled through the leaves, swirling past me. Soft fingers brushed the back of my neck. I whirled round, but there was nothing there. The breeze seemed to stutter and fade, until it was still and quiet again. Nothing but the slight sound of the river burbling in the background.

‘Are you there, Gran? Can you hear me?’

There was a sudden squawk as a startled crow launched itself off the top of a nearby gravestone, wings fluttering as it made its way skyward. I flinched, fear trickling down my back like ice.

‘Jo,’ it croaked. ‘Jo … Jo … Jo.’

The wind picked up again, catching my hair and whipping it around my face. I could hear the sound of my heart thumping hard in my chest, blood fizzing in my ears. A swirl of mist seemed to hover above the headstone for a brief moment and I shut my eyes tight, blocking it out.

‘Jo … Jo … Jo.’

I clamped my hands over my ears, willing it all to stop. Then, as quickly as it started, it became quiet once more, as if nothing had happened.

Then a small voice whispered in my ear.

‘
Please
,’ it begged, ‘we’ll go away.’

My voice, from a long time ago.

Something snapped inside me then.

That’s when it all started.

Jenny Brownlee’s head felt broken. As if someone had sneaked into her room in the middle of the night and split it open with an axe. She tiptoed down the stairs, trying to block out the racket of the TV blaring out
Saturday Kitchen
in the living room, where clearly no one was watching it, mixed with the raised voices of her dad and Ryan arguing in the kitchen. Ryan had just passed his driving test and he wanted a car.

‘It’s a classic, Dad,’ Ryan was saying. A copy of
Auto Trader
was spread out on the kitchen table, a photo of a red, boxylooking car taking up half of one page as a featured ad.

Her dad shook his head. ‘Son, it’s thirty years old! What on earth do you think you know about looking after a car that age? You’ve never even done an oil change. This thing’ll cause you nothing but problems.’

‘I thought you’d be interested, Dad. Didn’t you have a Ford Escort back in the day? Don’t you know how hard it is to get them now?’

Her dad sighed. ‘I told you, I’ll help you with the money. I’d rather pay for something that’s not going to cost us a fortune in mechanic’s fees. There’s a reason you can’t get hold of these things now. Either they’re with collectors who know what they’re doing, or they’re falling-apart heaps that break down every second day. Most of them have probably been scrapped. It’s not as if it’s an old Jag or something that was built to last. Now, if you wanted one of them—’

‘Oh, just forget it.’ Ryan slammed the magazine shut and it slid across the table and onto the floor.

Jenny made the mistake of bending down to pick it up, and a wave of dizziness almost knocked her off her feet. The noise of the chair scraping on the wooden floor as her dad stood up made her wince.

‘Jen? You OK? You look a bit pale, love.’

Ryan looked at her and snorted. ‘Hangover, Jenny-Wren? Tut tut.’ He shoved her gently on the shoulder and walked out of the kitchen, leaving her to face the wrath of her dad.

His expression had gone from concerned to fuming in nought to sixty seconds.

‘Have you been drinking? What did I say last time, Jennifer? You’re only bloody fifteen!’

She slumped onto a chair and tried to hold back the acid tang of vomit that was slowly making its way up from her churning stomach. ‘No, Dad,’ she said weakly. ‘I must have a bug or something.’

Her dad bent down and gripped her chin with one of his big hands. ‘You better sort yourself out before your mother gets back,’ he said. He slammed the kitchen door, making her head rattle.

Jenny considered tea and toast but knew she’d never keep it down. It was all Karen Brown’s fault. That bottle of gin she’d nicked from her mum and dad’s drinks cabinet had seemed like a good idea at the time. It was typical of Karen to drink a quarter of a bottle and fall asleep. OK, so no one had forced Jenny to drink the rest of it, but compared with their usual cheap wine and alcopops, she’d quite liked the taste. Apparently it was made with juniper berries. Something you wouldn’t expect to mix well with Red Kola but, strangely, it did.
At least I didn’t do anything stupid
, she thought.
Apart from getting drunk, obviously
. Jenny knew that was pretty stupid, but it wasn’t like she did it all the time, and Kenny Long from the fourth year had been there, so she was hardly going to sit there like a stupid little girl. She remembered the feeling of Kenny’s lips when he kissed her. Cold and wet and tasting of lager. She wondered if he might like her a bit, after all.

Realising that she was still dressed in last night’s clothes, she scanned the pile of shoes at the back door and spotted her trainers. They lay upside down on top of each other from where she’d kicked them off the night before. Then she took a cold can of Coke from the fridge and let herself out. The sun was warm on her face, and after a few gulps of air, her nausea settled. Carefully lifting the latch on the gate, she sneaked out of the back garden before anyone had a chance to notice she was gone.

Jenny’s garden was one of several that backed onto Alder’s Lane, a cut-through between the rows of houses that bordered the Track.

Jenny spent most Friday nights at the Track with her mates. This morning, it seemed as good a place as any to try to clear her head. She had an essay on
Macbeth
to finish before Monday and there was no way she could write that kind of shit with a fuzzy head.

She hugged in to the side to avoid a sweaty, panting jogger, before passing an old man walking a chocolate Lab that looked almost as old as him. As was usual along the Track, the old man nodded and said ‘Morning’ and she smiled back. By the time she’d walked under the second bridge, she was starting to feel a bit brighter.