The Pull of the Moon

by Diane Janes

  ‘I don’t know.’ Danny’s voice was taut. ‘Did you scream, Katy? Was it you who screamed?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘It must have been Trudie,’ said Simon. ‘Where the hell is she?’ He raised his voice and shouted again: ‘Trudie – Trudie.’

  A gust of wind shivered through the canopy above us.

  ‘Shit,’ hissed Danny. ‘What’s happened to her?’

  ‘She was heading for the playground,’ I reminded them.

  ‘That can’t be very far from here,’ said Simon. ‘Why can’t she hear us? Trudie – Trudie.’

  ‘She may be playing some stupid game,’ said Danny – but he didn’t sound at all convinced.

  ‘We’d better try the playground,’ said Simon.

  ‘Link arms,’ suggested Danny. ‘Make sure we don’t get separated again.’

  We did as he suggested; me in the centre, Danny on my left lighting the way with his torch and Simon on my right – just like Dorothy setting off to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz, flanked by the Tin Man and the Scarecrow.

  It took barely a minute to reach the place we called the playground. For some reason we all stopped dead as soon as the improvised see-saw appeared in the light of Danny’s torch. Danny played the beam away from us across the clearing, picking out the familiar shapes of sawn-off tree stumps and the rope swing.

  Then his torch fell across Trudie’s skirt. That was the thing we saw first – her skirt billowing on to the ground as if she was poised half-way between standing and sitting. When Danny ran the beam upwards we saw the rest of her. She had her back towards us and her hands hung limply at her sides. From the shoulders downwards her body sagged unnaturally within her clothing. Her head lolled forward, where it was entangled in the cat’s cradle of string and wire and old washing lines which had been suspended between the two trees, where the kids had tried to make their scramble net. Each of us made a sound of some kind – not proper words – no language was capable of articulating the moment.

  Danny was swiftest off the mark. ‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘Katy – you hold the torch.’ He thrust it into my hand and ran across the clearing with Simon at his side. I followed them, with the light wavering in my hand as they began to investigate the tangle from which Trudie was suspended.

  ‘I think she’s dead,’ Simon said.

  ‘No!’ The way Trudie was hanging there left little room for doubt, but it was nevertheless unbelievable.

  ‘She can’t be,’ said Danny. ‘Try to hold her up. Let’s get her out of this.’ He set about the string and wire, managing to dislodge a couple of strands. Trudie’s body slumped towards him, the sudden transfer of weight breaking something else with an audible snap, so that the only thing left suspending her was her scarf, twisted around a single piece of wire. Simon disengaged it and Danny lowered Trudie gently to the ground, stepping back on to something as he did so. He automatically bent to pick the object up and found it was the small torch. It was still switched on, but the casing and bulb were broken.

  In the meantime Simon had knelt beside Trudie and placed his ear next to her chest. ‘She’s not breathing,’ he said. He grabbed one of her hands and massaged it frantically, before dropping it again.

  ‘What about artificial respiration?’ It was all too obvious that Danny was clutching at straws. ‘Try loosening her scarf.’

  Simon straightened up. ‘She’s dead,’ he repeated, not entirely as though he believed it.

  ‘She can’t be.’

  ‘She is, man.’ Simon briefly rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘We have to go for someone. I’ll have to take the car.’

  ‘Right.’ Danny nodded. ‘Right,’ he repeated. ‘A doctor – no – the police – but we can’t leave her here – alone.’

  I stood dumbly between them, gripping our one remaining torch as if my life depended on it. Not looking at Trudie. Not looking at Trudie. Not seeing her crumpled skirt, her pale hands. Not looking at her contorted face.

  We stood for about a minute in silence. We had reached an unspoken impasse. Which of us would want to walk back alone through the woods – or stay alone with Trudie? But our party was no longer divisible into two pairs and we had only one light between us.

  ‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘Please can we cover her face?’

  Without a word Danny dragged his sweater over his head and complied with my request.

  ‘The police,’ said Simon, as if he had never heard of such an organization and was just trying out the word to see how it sounded. A new thought struck him. ‘We shouldn’t have moved her. Everything should have been left exactly as we found it.’

  ‘We couldn’t just leave her hanging there,’ Danny exclaimed angrily.

  ‘But they’ll want to try to work out what happened.’

  ‘I should have thought it was bloody obvious,’ said Danny. ‘She dropped her torch and got tangled in these wires in the dark – maybe she lost it as she tripped and fell into them. It was an accident. A fucking accident waiting to happen.’ He smashed his fist into what remained of the mess of wire and string. It seemed to take hold of his hand, momentarily refusing to let it go – an impromptu reenactment of Trudie’s fate. I imagined her struggling desperately in the dark, like an insect caught in a spider’s web, pulling the wrong way and thereby tightening the noose around her own neck. I shuddered. Danny worked his hand free and sucked his knuckles where a hank of wire had broken the skin.

  ‘Shit,’ Simon all but shouted. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ He turned away from us and took a couple of strides into the darkness before returning to stand in the same spot as before. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, mocking our predicament.

  ‘Okay,’ Simon spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘Suppose the police don’t believe it was an accident. What then?’

  ‘Meaning?’ asked Danny.

  ‘How are we going to explain what we were doing out here in the first place? How are we going to explain how we all got separated and Trudie ended up on her own? And do you think this looks like an accident? Would Trudie really have walked slap bang into this lot with enough force to hang herself?’

  I was starting to feel light-headed, positively giddy. In the half-light cast by the torch everything seemed unreal. I finally found my voice. ‘Trudie screamed. We all heard her. Maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe someone attacked her.’

  ‘You mean there was someone else here?’

  ‘There’s never anyone else here,’ said Danny.

  ‘Well, maybe there was tonight.’ Simon’s words instantly conjured up a host of possibilities, peopling the deserted woods with half a dozen homicidal maniacs and a thousand pairs of watching eyes.

  ‘Someone might be watching us now,’ I said. ‘We mustn’t split up again, whatever happens.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Danny. ‘We won’t.’ He placed a protective arm around my shoulder, but it did little to comfort me. Above our heads the trees whispered among themselves, sibilant and conspiratorial.

  Simon swore again under his breath. He crouched down and took Trudie’s hand briefly between his own. ‘She’s still warm,’ he said.

  Well, of course she is, I wanted to shout. She was alive and walking through the woods with us not half an hour ago.

  ‘Suppose it wasn’t an accident,’ Simon said again.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Danny suddenly. ‘We can’t involve the police.’

  ‘I’m not saying don’t involve them,’ said Simon. ‘I’m just saying let’s think this through.’

  ‘We can’t report this to the police,’ said Danny. ‘Because if we do, they’ll want to know our names and all about us and they’ll make a connection between us and Rachel Hewitt. She was strangled. We both lived on the same campus and our names will be on file. They’ll think there’s a link.’

  And in all the ensuing fuss, I thought, my parents will find out that I haven’t been in France at all. I pulled myself back in time to hear Simon agreeing that things could g
et very awkward if the police became involved.

  ‘Wait,’ I protested. ‘What are you saying? We have to report it.’

  ‘And have the police thinking one of us did it? Anyway, I’m surprised you’re so keen to run off and dial 999,’ said Simon. ‘Seeing that you would be prime suspect.’

  ‘What do you mean? I wasn’t at uni with Rachel Hewitt.’

  ‘No, but you never really liked Trudie being around. You’ve always been jealous of her.’

  ‘That’s rubbish! Trudie was my friend.’

  ‘Oh really? Then how come you were always bitching about her? How come you were always picking fights with her?’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ Danny protested. ‘Katy would never hurt anyone – you know that, Si.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. Maybe Katy just lost it. They were always rowing. What was it about this morning – some strawberries?’

  I thought my head was going to burst. Trudie was lying dead at our feet and Simon was dragging up a spat about who had eaten the last of the strawberries.

  ‘If we’re going to start making accusations,’ I said, ‘how about you? Where did you get to, after you abandoned me in the dark?’

  ‘I went to find Danny.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Danny said. ‘I thought I’d creep up on Trudie and give her a fright, but I missed the fork in the path. I got to that place where the plank bridge crosses the stream and I realized I’d gone too far. I was coming back when I heard her scream. If only we’d all stayed together none of this would have happened.’

  ‘Neither of us knows our way around in here as well as you do,’ Simon sniped at me.

  ‘I hadn’t got a torch,’ I said.

  ‘No – but you’ve got scratches all over your face,’ he snapped back. ‘Did she put up a fight?’

  ‘Stop it, Si,’ Danny rounded on him angrily. ‘This is mad. None of us killed Trudie. It was a freak accident – it must have been.’

  ‘I’m just saying how it looks. Suppose the police accuse Katy of killing Trudie.’

  ‘I’ll tell them I didn’t.’ I was all but hysterical. ‘Why are you trying to put the blame on me?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you did it or not – what matters is whether the police think you did. We can’t give you an alibi.’

  ‘And I can’t give you one either.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Danny cut in. ‘Which floats us right up Shit Creek if they try to make a connection with Rachel Hewitt. So let’s all calm down, shall we, and stop bandying ridiculous accusations about.’

  ‘You don’t think . . .’ I hesitated. ‘You don’t think she would have hanged herself on purpose?’

  ‘That,’ said Simon disparagingly, ‘is the most stupid thing you’ve said so far.’

  ‘We have to call the police,’ I said – but my voice carried little conviction.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Danny.

  ‘We can’t just leave the body here for someone else to find,’ I said.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Simon. ‘They’d be up at the house, asking first thing.’

  ‘Who knows Trudie’s been living here?’ Danny broke in abruptly. ‘No one. Her folks don’t know and her friends don’t – when anyone misses her, they won’t come looking here.’

  ‘They’re already looking for her,’ said Simon. ‘She ran away from home a couple of months ago.’

  I was startled. I thought I was the only one who knew.

  ‘Well, they haven’t come looking for her here, have they?’ said Danny.

  Simon spoke slowly: ‘If we try to cover this up and someone finds out, everyone will think we killed her.’

  ‘Then we have to make sure no one finds out,’ said Danny.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I asked. ‘You don’t seem to understand what you’re saying. This is Trudie we’re talking about – our friend, Trudie.’

  I staggered slightly and had to grab Danny’s arm for support. Somewhere in my head, fireworks began to explode, blue and silver. All the time we stood there, my eyes kept straying down to look at the heap of clothing inches from my feet. I knew she was dead, but I couldn’t take it in. I kept expecting her to move – sit up, whip Danny’s sweater from her face and shout, ‘Surprise!’

  ‘We’d have to carry her all the way back.’ Simon’s tone was thoughtful. He was actually weighing up the pros and cons: working it all out. The blues and silvers became blinding.

  ‘We’ve got all day tomorrow,’ said Danny, ‘before the guy comes with the concrete.’

  I was reeling. ‘You can’t,’ I whispered. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘The alternative could be one of us spending a long time in prison for something they didn’t do.’ Danny took the torch from me and shone it around on the ground, as if he was looking for something. ‘It’s for the best, Katy.’ He was talking to me softly, the way you’d explain things to a distraught child. ‘Whatever we do now, it can’t bring Trudie back. This is really the best way. We both think so.’

  Two against one. Democracy in action. Grenades fizzed and banged in my ears. My knees crumpled and I sank to the ground beside Trudie, sobbing wildly, burying my face in the icy folds of her skirt.

  TWENTY-TWO

  A body is an awkward, heavy burden. Simon and Danny needed both hands to carry Trudie, so I was pressed into service as torch bearer. I led the way, trying to banish from my mind the vision of what was following me. There was no talking, but every so often one of them swore softly as they missed their footing, or their burden caught on something. It seemed to take us forever to get clear of the trees, then stagger uphill along the path through the fields. Trudie’s hair and clothing brushed the grass, setting up a constant rustling in accompaniment to the pall bearers’ heavy breathing. I felt as if we were making enough noise to be heard in Kington, and that every kind of night creature had come out to watch our grim procession go by, their eyes boring into us as we passed. When we were about two-thirds of the way back up the field, a pair of headlights swept along the road, but they were on the other side of the hedge, too far away to see us. I could hardly breathe as we approached the most vulnerable part of the route – the few yards along the road between the footpath and the front gate, where we would be in full view of any passing vehicle – but the road was deserted.

  I led the way around the side of the house without a word. Neither of them had needed to explain where they intended to conceal Trudie’s body. I thought of all those cups of tea she had carried outside, all the hours she had watched the hole deepen, never guessing that she was observing the excavation of her own grave.

  They laid her down next to the pond. Simon said he needed to fetch the spades from the tool shed, so I accompanied him, lighting the way with the big torch, while Danny walked beside me. ‘Why don’t you go inside?’ he suggested. His voice was all compassion – our quarrel put aside.

  I didn’t know which prospect was worse – to enter that dark brooding house alone, or stay and witness the gruesome task ahead.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ I said.

  ‘Sure?’ he asked. ‘Good girl. We can work faster if you hold the torch for us.’

  As we returned across the lawn, me holding the torch, them carrying a spade each, I experienced that sense of unreality again. I half expected to find that Trudie had tired of her part in the charade, had got up and walked away – but she was lying where we had left her.

  ‘This is wrong,’ I blurted out. ‘I can’t do it. We have to tell.’

  ‘If we take out some of the loose stuff we put back in to get it level—’ Simon began talking as if he hadn’t heard me.

  ‘We can’t just bury her . . .’ I wailed.

  ‘We have to,’ Danny said.

  ‘We can’t turn back now. We’ve got to go through with it, whether you like it or not,’ Simon said.

  ‘No,’ I protested. My tears had begun to flow freely now. ‘There must be some other way.’

  ‘Why don’t you go inside?’
Danny suggested again.

  I shook my head and clung to the torch. They began to discuss the mechanics of it: deciding to remove as much loose earth as they could, put Trudie in the depression this created, then do their best to achieve a smooth surface again, raising the height by a few inches if necessary. Except for the tension in their voices, they might have been working as normal – planning then executing the task, as if this dreadful act was no more than a bit of standard landscape gardening.

  When they began to dig I stood above them, my feet occasionally slipping on the pile of loose earth, doing my best to keep the work area floodlit. No one spoke. The light from the big lamp had gradually faded, dimming by degrees until it was little more than a yellowish glow.

  ‘I think the batteries are running low,’ I said eventually, stating the obvious.

  ‘We won’t be needing the torch for much longer now,’ said Danny. ‘This is it, Si – we’ve hit virgin ground.’

  Now that it had come to it, neither of them could quite bring themselves to lift her down into the hole. For a moment I thought they were going to funk it, then Simon said, ‘Come on’ – and they set about the task. It ought to have been reverent and dignified but it was not. Trudie’s body was recalcitrant, almost actively resistant. Her arms, legs and voluminous skirt seemed determined to hamper them. She was bundled ignominiously into the hole. As they shovelled earth on top of her, the light wavered madly while I shook with sobs. She was all but covered when the torch gave a threatening flicker.

  ‘It’s going out,’ I said, panic writ loud in my voice.

  ‘Come on,’ said Danny, tossing down another couple of spadefuls in double quick time. ‘Let’s get inside. We don’t want to be stuck out here in the dark.’

  Simon needed no second bidding. They threw down their spades and we all but ran for the house, with Simon feeling in his pocket for the door keys as we went. The torch gave up altogether as we reached the front door: leaving us to stand in the darkness while Simon fumbled for the keyhole.