The Witch Elm

by Tana French

  “What’s going to happen when they find out you’ve been asking questions? They’ll think you’re trying to find out who knows what because you’re nervous. And then they’ll go after you even harder, and that’ll undo all the good that—”

  “Jesus, Melissa!” I didn’t care about keeping my voice down any more, let Hugo wake up, fuck it all— “I thought you’d be pleased. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have given a damn if I got thrown in jail. I thought you’d be delighted that I’ve got my head together enough to want to fight this. Would you rather I was still sitting on my arse trying to work up enough motivation to make toast?”

  That got to her, just like I’d known it would. Her voice softening, the iron note gone out of it: “You feeling more like yourself, that’s wonderful. And yes, I’m delighted. But can’t you put that into something else? Ring Richard, see if you can do bits and pieces from here—or you always said you wanted to learn scuba diving—”

  “Or basket-weaving, or pottery? I’m not disabled. I’m not a mental patient.” I saw Melissa flinch at my tone, but I kept going. I had never been angry at her before, not once, and it made me even more furious at Rafferty and Kerr and at Leon and even obscurely at Dominic—three years of easy harmony through thick and thin, and now this— “I don’t need a hobby. I don’t need to keep busy. I need to find out why the fuck I just got accused of murder.”

  “I didn’t, Toby, I never said—” I’d picked my angle well: the air went out of her and she slumped back against the wardrobe door. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “I know. Me too. I want us to be happy. That’s exactly why I’m doing this.” The look of defeat on her face—I would have given anything to show her what I was seeing, how this could transform everything— “Baby, please, just trust me. I can do this. I’m not going to make a balls of it.”

  “I know you’re not. That’s not—” She shook her head, eyes squeezed tight. “Just don’t do things that’ll make everything worse. Please.”

  “I won’t,” I said, going to her. “I wasn’t planning on cornering gangsters in dark laneways with my Colt forty-five. I’m just going to talk to people, and see if they say anything interesting. That’s all.” And when she didn’t answer, or lean into me: “I promise. OK?”

  Melissa took a deep breath and put a hand up to my cheek. “I suppose,” she said. And, moving away when I bent to kiss her: “Let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Me too.” Which I should have been, after the day I had had. But long after Melissa’s breathing had slowed into the familiar rhythm of sleep, I was wide awake. Not twitching at random noises and adding up the hours since my last Xanax, this time; just watching the subtle gradations of darkness shift across the ceiling, and thinking, and planning.

  Nine

  And so, once Melissa was off to work the next morning, I rang Susanna and Leon and invited them over for dinner and a few drinks—stressed out by all this crap, need to blow off some steam, yada yada. None of us mentioned garrotes or hoodies or detectives, which strengthened all my suspicions another notch: Rafferty had made it clear that he’d talked to both of them about that fucking hoodie, and I felt like that was something they should have told me more or less the moment he left, if they were anything like on my side.

  Even over the phone their voices sounded different to me that day; they had a glittery, fractured quality that reminded me of the couple of times I’d tried acid. It took me a while to put my finger on what it was: danger. I had always thought of Leon and Susanna as fundamentally harmless. Not in a bad way—mostly it was out of love, we might bicker and bitch but deep down I knew they were good stuff; and also, if I was honest, it had always been hard to take them seriously enough for anything as weighty as danger. With what I knew now, every word and breath hummed with undercurrents and subtexts I couldn’t catch. They could be anything; they could be lethal, and I had never noticed.

  I had a good feeling about that night, though. It sparkled tantalizingly in front of me like a fourth date, a final interview, the big one with the prize waiting at the end and I was all pumped up and ready to ace it. It wasn’t that I was expecting Leon to break down and spill out some lurid confession—although never say never, I could get lucky, who was to say? But if he was holding some grudge against me, I couldn’t wait to hear all about it. A couple of drinks and a bit of needling, and I was positive I could get him there; maybe, if I played my cards just right, get him to the break-in.

  The big question, of course, was what I was going to do with all that if I got it. It was Leon, for God’s sake. One of my first memories was of the two of us sitting in a puddle in this garden, pouring mud on each other’s head. I couldn’t imagine doing anything that would get him thrown in jail, even if he had been trying to do exactly that to me.

  Unless: if he really had been behind the break-in, then all bets were off. I could give him a pass on murder, and on trying to frame me, but the thought of him deliberately or even semi-deliberately turning me into this hit me like a Taser every time. I knew that was probably some terrible indictment of my character, but—running up the stairs to tell Hugo the cousins were coming for dinner, mouthful of chocolate biscuit, spring in my step that almost got rid of the limp—I didn’t really care.

  When Melissa got home I had my clothes laid out on the bed—blue linen chinos and a really nice shirt, soft cream with a tiny blue geometric print, Melissa must have packed it for some reason and it had been months since I’d dressed up for anything and why not?—and I was singing some cheesy Robbie Williams song at the top of my lungs, in snatches, while I shaved. “Hello, you,” Melissa said, poking her head around the bathroom door. “How’s Hugo been?”

  “Fine. Nothing scary. He found out Haskins—the diary guy, Mrs. Wozniak’s cousins’ great-great-whatever?—he hates dogs and fired his maid because she smelled funny.”

  “I saw your clothes. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m in a good mood. Come here.”

  She tiptoed to kiss me around the shaving foam; I grabbed her and rubbed my foamy cheek on her nose, and she squealed and laughed—“Silly!”—and wiped her nose on my bare chest. “You’re going to be all gorgeous. I’d better dress up too.”

  “I seriously need a haircut,” I said, peering into the mirror. “I look like I should be hanging around a crappy pub in Galway trying to convince tourist chicks that I’m a surfer.”

  “Will I trim it for you? I don’t know how to do a proper cut, but I could tidy it up a bit, just to hold you till you get to the barber’s.”

  “Would you? That’d be great.”

  “Course. Let me find some scissors.”

  “Oh,” I said, when she was halfway out the door. “Su and Leon are coming for dinner. Do we have enough food? Or will we get takeaway?”

  Melissa turned quickly, but she said readily enough, “Let’s order from that Indian place. Hugo loves it, and it’s easy for his hand.”

  “Lovely. I’m starving; curry sounds great.” Tilting my head to get under the angle of my jaw, not looking at her: “Listen, about last night. I know it sounds like I’m obsessing over what happened to Dominic. But it’s not just that.”

  I could see her in the mirror, watching me from the doorway. “What, then?”

  I needed to be careful here. I actually needed a hand from Melissa to make the night go smoothly, and I knew she wasn’t going to be crazy about that idea. “It’s tough to explain,” I said. “I feel like a lot of things are a mess—OK, let’s face it, things have been a mess for months, but I was in too bad shape to do anything about it. Now, I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting better or what, but I feel like I need to clear things up. Dominic, yeah, but not only that.”

  She was listening carefully, one fingernail scraping at a stain on the door. “What else?”

  “All the stuff Sean and Dec said, about what Domi
nic did to Leon. You were right: that’s bothering me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”

  “Well. That’s the question. I honest-to-God don’t remember anything like that, but with my memory the way it is . . . yeah. Who knows what that’s worth.” I flashed her a crooked half smile, in the mirror. “I mean, I seriously don’t think I would’ve let Dominic beat the crap out of Leon, but it’d be nice to be sure.”

  Melissa said, “Does it make a difference now?”

  Taken aback, a little pained: “Well, yeah. Course it does. If I let Leon down, then that’s been hurting our relationship ever since, even if I was too thick to realize it. And I know I don’t see a lot of him, but him and Su . . . they’re the nearest I’ve got to a brother and sister. Maybe everything’s fine and I was the perfect cousin. I hope. But if I wasn’t, I need to know, so I can fix it.” With another wry grin, lifting my chin to get at the underside: “This is what people always say about murders, isn’t it? They drag up all kinds of other stuff, and everyone’s stuck dealing with it?”

  When she didn’t answer: “Look. Probably this doesn’t make sense, but . . . this whole getting-attacked thing: I need that to be something. A fresh start. A wake-up call, to get my life sorted out. Otherwise it’s just shit—let’s be honest, so far it has been just shit. If I can make something good out of it . . . you know?”

  And of course Melissa, bless her sunflower heart, couldn’t turn away from that. Her face lighting up: “Yes! Do. That would be wonderful. And tell Leon that. He’ll understand.”

  “I will.” That was a good idea, actually. “I need to know what I did to him, though. If I did anything. Could you help me?”

  That pulled her eyebrows together. “Me? How?”

  “Could you ask Leon and Susanna what I was like, back then? It’s a natural enough question; it’s the same as you wanting to look at Hugo’s old photos. Obviously they’re going to tell you I was a great guy, but could you keep pushing? I’ll help things along; I just need you to do the actual asking.”

  “Why can’t you? Like you said, if you did anything bad, they won’t want to tell me. You could ask when I’m not there. I’ll go to bed early.”

  The truth was, of course, that if I started poking around asking questions Leon was bound to turn wary, and probably Susanna too, depending. “The thing is,” I said, taking a breath and meeting Melissa’s eyes in the mirror, “I’d rather they didn’t know how badly my memory’s messed up. I know that’s stupid. Obviously they probably have some idea that I’m not a hundred percent, but I’ve been working really hard to act at least halfway normal around them, and I’m hoping I’ve done OK. If I go in there like, ‘Uhhh, guys, just wondering, any chance you could refresh my memory of, like, our entire teens?’ then that’s down the tubes. And I just . . . I can’t stand the idea of them feeling sorry for me.”

  She could hardly shoot that down. “I understand. I don’t think you’re badly messed up, Toby, I really don’t, but . . .” She saw my wince. “I’ll ask.”

  I blew out a breath of relief. “God, that’s a load off my mind. I’ve spent the whole day going round in circles trying to figure out a way to do it myself—I mean, I bet there is one, but my head . . . If you can do it, that’s brilliant. And could you ask about Dominic, too? What he was like? If they won’t rat me out, they might say enough about him to give me some idea what was going on. And that won’t seem weird, either: God knows he’s a big enough part of our lives right now, there’s every reason why you’d want to get some idea of him.” It occurred to me, for the first time, to wonder why Melissa hadn’t in fact asked anything about Dominic at all.

  She said, “Is this about what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said frankly, turning around to face her. “Let’s be honest, there’s a chance it could turn out to be connected—I can’t see how, but who knows, at this stage. But that’s not the main point.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to balk, but then she nodded. “OK. I can ask about him.”

  “Leave it till after Hugo’s gone to bed. If they do come out with anything awful that I did, he doesn’t need to hear about it.” And, of course, it would take me a couple of hours to get Leon good and drunk. I’d been down to the offie that morning for impressive quantities of gin and tonic, and I was going to be doing the pouring.

  “No, you’re right. I’ll do that.”

  “And just . . . keep in mind that everything you’re asking about, that was ten years ago. OK? I was a stupid arsehole kid. And remember, Su and Leon both exaggerate. If they say I did something really horrific, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Whatever comes up, could you give me the benefit of the doubt?”

  I meant this part, from the heart—there was, after all, a small but non-zero chance that Leon was going to try hinting that I was a murderer. It must have showed. Melissa came to me, put her hands on my arms and looked up into my face. “Of course I will,” she said, very seriously. “Always.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and pulled her close for a one-armed hug. “Thank you so much, baby. It’ll all be fine. We’re a good team, you and me. Yeah?”

  “We are,” Melissa said. “Now”—a quick breath, a small nod to herself—“let me go find those scissors.” She tiptoed to kiss me on the nose and left me to it, and I went back to my shaving and my Robbie Williams impression in an even better mood.

  * * *

  Tom tagged along with Susanna, which didn’t really fit into my plan, but I didn’t let it worry me: the night was young, I was pretty sure I could come up with a way to get rid of him. While we waited for the takeaway to arrive, I moved around handing out pre-dinner G and Ts (none of them poured too strong, not yet, no rush) and laughing at everyone’s jokes. My haircut had turned out pretty well and the shirt suited me—I had realized, putting it on, that I’d gained back some of the weight I’d lost; I looked better than I had since that night, and I felt it too. I made sure I stumbled just often enough, within earshot of Leon and Susanna (Tom can I get you a drink, oh that’s right you’re driving, sorry that’s the third time I’ve asked you, haha! . . . Yeah, Hugo’s work is going great, spent today going through the, you know, the thing, what’s it called, Jesus, the state of me, head like a sieve!)—cheerful idiot, harmless, no need to take him seriously. It was Melissa’s turn to pick the music, so her French bistro swing was bopping away in the background, all scarlet lips and saucy hip-sway, Oh that man! Melissa was dressed up to match, white dress with a swingy skirt and sprays of green flowers, and she was gamely listening as Tom explained some mind-numbing diorama project he had inflicted on his first-years—not going near Leon or Susanna, not yet, biding her time just like I was. The feeling of collusion gave me a delicious burst of triumphant mischief, the two of us on our secret mission, we should have had code words— I caught her eye and winked, behind Tom’s back, and after a fraction of a second she winked right back.

  Hugo sat in the middle of all this, smiling, drinking his G and T at a careful angle to make sure none of it spilled from the loose corner of his mouth. There was something absent about him, abstracted—laughing at jokes a few seconds too late, “Hm?” when I asked him what he wanted to eat—that made me edgy. Everything looked like the beginning of another seizure, and apart from the obvious, that would have pretty much put the kibosh on my plans for the evening.

  It wasn’t until dinner that I found out what was actually going on. All of us were talking a little too fast and too loud; I only noticed that Hugo was trying to get our attention when—as I launched myself into another goofy, stumbling childhood reminiscence—Melissa put a hand on my wrist and nodded at him. “Oops,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Hugo said, carefully spooning sauce onto his plate. “I just want to tell you this before I forget. You’ll all be relieved to know that I have a plan for the house. And about time too.�
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  All of us stopped eating. “It’s going to the whole lot of you,” he said. “The three of you and your fathers: equal shares. This may seem like I’m passing the buck, leaving you lot to make the big decisions—I probably am—but it’s the only way I can think of that allows for all the ways your lives might change. Who might get married or have children, or more children, or move out of the country or back again, or be a bit strapped for cash and need somewhere to live . . . I’d love to be able to picture all the possibilities, but I don’t have it in me; I just get muddled. A few days ago”—to Leon, with a wry, painful half grin—“I was completely convinced that you had a little girl. Just a baby, with curly dark hair.”

  “God forbid,” Leon said, with a shudder of mock horror, helping himself to naan bread. He didn’t look great—eyebags, his jumper had been washed too many times and he badly needed a shave, which gave his edgy-young-thing look a jaded, seedy tinge; he was managing perky banter, but the effort showed. “I’d rather have a rabid chimpanzee. No offense, Su and Tom, your kids are total angels, just saying.”

  “I was worried because I knew you weren’t with the mother any more,” Hugo explained, “and I was afraid you wouldn’t get time with the baby if you didn’t have a good place for her to stay, so I thought you might be the one who needed the house most.”

  “I’d pay good money to see Leon with a baby,” I said. I didn’t want to listen to this. “It’d be like some cheesy sitcom where the kid gets left on the wrong doorstep. Wacky adventures ensue.”

  “I was trying to think of the baby’s name,” Hugo said, refusing to be sidetracked, “to put her in the will, and of course I couldn’t. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember you ever actually mentioning the baby, and from there I managed to work out the rest. But you can see why I don’t think I’m the best person to make the long-term decisions.” His smile, flashing up at us, was too wide; telling that story had hurt. “So the house goes to all six of you. That should solve the main problem, anyway: it can’t be sold unless all of you agree. Beyond that, it’s up to you.”