Black Wood

by SJI Holliday

  As I got closer to the neck, the coat came apart naturally, exposing its grey stomach. I remembered the next bit from when I’d watched her before. I turned the rabbit round so its head was at my belly, and I carefully slid the knife all the way up through the thin grey skin. It was more like unzipping than unbuttoning now. Like sliding scissors up a sheet of wrapping paper.

  I tipped it onto its side and the pile of pink guts slid out effortlessly. Then I lifted it up by the legs and poked about in the cavity until I disconnected the blobs and strings from whatever they were attached to inside. The innards plopped onto the table and Gran scooped them up and dropped them into a plastic bag. The rabbit felt light and hollow in my hands. I flipped it onto its front.

  This was the bit I liked best. I made a small slit across its back, then held the two pieces of fur and pulled them apart. The coat opened wide across its back. Pulling it off the legs was a bit trickier. It reminded me of trying to pull off long socks that were sodden and stuck fast from playing outside in the snow. I pulled the fur over its head as if I was removing a woolly jumper.

  I stopped to survey my efforts and turned to face Gran. ‘Am I doing OK?’

  Gran smiled at me. ‘You’re a natural, hen. Want me to cut off its head?’ She was holding another knife now. Much bigger. I supposed you could use the small knife for that part too, but it’d take much longer and probably make a lot of mess. I stood back and she sliced through the neck with the carving knife, and there was a small crack as the knife sliced cleanly through. She tossed the head into the bag.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Can we bury it?’

  ‘Bury it?’ She laughed. It rumbled from somewhere deep in her chest. ‘You’re a daft one, sometimes.’

  ‘Please?’

  She frowned, then took the head back out of the bag. She pulled down the fur that was covering its face, like a jumper stuck on its head, and it was a rabbit again. My rabbit. Its lovely rabbit face, fully intact. Only the glassy eyes hid the fact that it wasn’t living. That and the fact that it didn’t have a body.

  ‘I’m calling her Jessie,’ I said. ‘I’m going to make her a cross for her grave.’

  In my head, I heard Jessie’s screams.

  I gave up on the rest of the rabbit’s body. Gran cut off the feet and the tail and sheared off the fat from around its belly. She put all four rabbits into a giant pot of cold water and salt, soaking them before she portioned them up for stew. I made a cross from two twigs, wound them together with string. We buried the rabbit’s head and Gran bowed her head and said a solemn little prayer.

  I wondered if the little cross was still there. I could picture it … but it was so long ago, it’d be weathered and broken from the years.

  But I knew now.

  If I found Jessie, I would find other remains too …

  50

  Claire knew she had to talk to Craig properly. Face to face. She checked her phone. It was 4.30 now. Almost twenty-four hours since she’d spoken to Jo. No phone calls. No texts. She couldn’t handle this on her own.

  She locked up the office, wheeled herself down the street and through to the High Street, which was deserted, most of the shops getting ready to close. There was little reason to hang about the High Street in the evenings; nothing stayed open late except that one pub down the bottom that she’d never dared go into.

  When she arrived at the bookshop, she glanced through the window and was pleased to find Craig on his own. She had no real issue with his assistant, Sharon, but she felt like the girl was a bit of a leech, trying to befriend them all. Then again, it’s not as if she had so many friends to choose from herself. She was feeling lonely. Anxious. Jake had texted her last night saying he was working late, which was pretty common during the summer months – so much stuff to be serviced and ready for the harvest. So many overworked industrial-sized grasscutters. Without him, she’d had another night on her own, too much time to dwell.

  ‘Hey,’ Craig said, pulling the door open and letting her wheel herself through. ‘I was just about to call you – ask if you’d heard anything?’

  ‘Nope. Nothing.’ She scanned the room. ‘Where’s your sidekick?’

  ‘Sharon? She just popped out to get something from next door. She’ll be back in a minute. I’m leaving her to close up tonight.’

  Claire turned back towards the street and peered out of the window. Bridie Goldstone was waddling her way down towards the newsagents too. If Sharon bumped into her, she’d be lucky to make it back before closing time.

  ‘Any idea where Jo might’ve gone then?’

  Craig shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t go back to Scott’s, I’m pretty sure about that. Something’s going on, though. I saw him outside the other day. Looked like a right state …’

  ‘Could she be up at Black Wood? I mean, does that place even have water, electrics, all that?’

  ‘I went up last night. No sign of her. Doesn’t mean she’s not there now, though. I think she’s been going up there for years, Claire. Think about it. All the times she’s gone missing before … plus, it’s where she went that time … after …’

  Claire squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the memory from resurfacing. She hadn’t been there. Hadn’t seen it. But the image had stuck with her regardless. The drip of a tap into a pool of pink water. Jo’s pale skin. The deep cuts on her wrists that she took pains to keep hidden.

  ‘Don’t. Don’t say it, Craig. I can’t bear to think of her up there alone like that. Spooked. Scared. She needs help. I think she might’ve stopped taking her medication … It was working too. She seemed so calm recently. Until she got this notion about Gareth Maloney … I mean, it can’t be him – how could it be? How can she be so sure now, when at the time she said she never saw their faces?’

  Craig sighed. ‘To be honest, Claire, I’m getting sick of the whole thing. We’ve carried her for years. You have, even after everything that’s happened … I know she feels like it’s all her fault, what happened to you in the woods that day … Maybe this focus on Maloney is to try and get rid of her own guilt? I don’t know …’

  The bell above the door chimed, giving them both a start.

  Claire spun round in her chair.

  ‘Hi …’

  Speak of the devil, Claire thought.

  ‘Oh hello! Gareth, isn’t it? What can I do for you?’ If Craig was surprised to see him, he was hiding it well.

  ‘I’m looking for Jo, actually,’ Gareth said. He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out a watch. Held it out towards them both. ‘Any idea where I can find her?’

  Craig’s eyes widened. Claire gasped. She’d recognised it straight away.

  ‘What’re you doing with Jo’s watch?’ she said.

  Gareth’s lip curled at the edge and Claire couldn’t decide if it was a nasty smirk or just confusion. ‘She dropped it in Tesco’s café …’

  Craig shot Claire a glance, and Claire shook her head, ever so slightly. No, she was saying to him, hoping he picked her up. Don’t do this.

  ‘I’m afraid Jo’s not here at the moment,’ Craig said. Trying to sound confident. Trying to act like nothing was wrong. Claire willed him to shut up. Gave him a hard stare. He looked away.

  ‘Maybe you could give me her number …’ Gareth said. ‘I can text her, tell her I found it …’

  No, Claire pleaded with her eyes. This would tip Jo over the edge. She knew that Jo was convinced that this was the man who’d done them both wrong, and despite not really believing her, she wasn’t about to put Jo’s theory to the test. If Maloney was one of the boys from the woods, then wasn’t he dangerous? Putting him in touch with Jo could be a recipe for disaster … On the other hand, maybe it was time for Jo to have it out with him, once and for all …

  ‘I could always call Sergeant Gray,’ Gareth continued, changing tack. ‘I mean, I think he already suspects that she was the one who broke into my house earlier, but …’

  Claire felt a scared fluttering in her chest. Jo had broken i
nto his house? What the hell was she playing at?

  ‘OK, OK,’ Craig said. He wouldn’t look at Claire. ‘Here.’ He scribbled numbers down onto a piece of paper, ripped it off the memo pad, handed it to him. ‘Be careful, though, please? She’s not well …’

  What the hell was Craig doing?

  Gareth looked down at the paper. Pulled his phone out of his pocket and started keying in the numbers.

  He shrugged. ‘I just want to give her the watch back.’

  Claire tried to catch his eye, but he kept his gaze fixed on the phone as he typed. I don’t like this, she thought. I don’t like this at all.

  51

  The pile of sketchbooks sat on the kitchen table, taunting me. I’d brought them down from the bedroom earlier, trying not to think too much about them. At some point, Gran had taken them from my bedroom and put them away in her wardrobe. Clearly she’d thought I didn’t want them any more, or maybe it was just because she was hoping she might find something in there that would help her … with what, I don’t know. I’d drawn inside those books for as long as I could remember. Only at the cottage, though; I never took them home. I don’t think my mum even knew they existed. They were like a diary of sorts. Snapshots in time: me trying to make sense of everything that had gone on in my life.

  I was scared of what I was going to find.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, I picked the one on the top of the pile, flipped it open.

  Me and my mum sitting under a tree covered with bright-green leaves and red, perfectly round apples. We’re grinning; Mum’s holding a book. In the background is a dark figure, mouth set in a straight line, eyebrows jagged like the sharp chevrons on a blind bend.

  I shuddered, snapping the book shut. I remembered drawing it. A fantasy image of a happy time with my mum … overshadowed by the dark, scowling face of my dad as he watched on. I opened the book again and flicked through. It was full of variations on the same theme. Me and Mum in the kitchen baking cakes, Dad throwing us daggers from by the fire; me and Mum in the car, singing – the sounds depicted by my little shaky scribbles of musical notes – Dad in the back seat, hands over his ears, eyes clamped shut, drowning us out. When I flicked to the final pages, all of the drawings had been scribbled over in thick black marker pen, obscuring what was once there: the thoughts I’d had as a child.

  I remembered doing that too, after it happened. Trying to hide the evidence of my bad thoughts that I was so sure had got my mum killed.

  It was the summer after Claire had finally come out of hospital. The police turned up while we were eating our tea – rabbit stew, freshly prepared from the day’s catch. I’d been allowed to shoot one of them myself, and my arm still ached from the recoil of the gun. I’d opened the door to the tall man in uniform and immediately been sent upstairs to my room. I hadn’t gone there, though – I sat at the top of the stairs, just out of sight, as the policeman spoke to my gran in a low, sad voice. Silent tears streamed down my face.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs Thompson, but your daughter and son-in-law have been fatally injured in an accident …’

  ‘How did it happen? Was he drunk?’ My gran’s voice sounded harsh and I imagined the policeman looking at his colleague, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘We don’t know that yet, I’m afraid. All we know is that your son-in-law appears to have lost control of the car on a sharp bend, colliding with a tree—’

  ‘Did she have her seatbelt on?’

  ‘Mrs Thompson …’

  ‘Did she? Just tell me, officer. I’m not a child. I’m not about to pass out from the shock. That man … I’ve been expecting something like this to happen …’ She slammed a fist on the table and I felt myself flinch. ‘That poor bloody child.’

  ‘We’ll send someone round to see you in the morning, Mrs Thompson. We’ll need a formal identification, but it can wait … Maybe you can tell us more about your son-in-law then, when it’s sunk in a bit …’

  She started crying once they’d gone, and I’d tiptoed along the hall to my room, trying hard not to make a sound. I heard my mum’s voice as I drifted off to sleep … I’ll always love you, Jo … Remember that … whatever happens.

  I only went back home once after that, to pack up the rest of my clothes and my paltry collection of books and games. Gran had arranged for someone to go in and sort out all of Mum and Dad’s stuff, which I was glad about. I didn’t want to see it. It hurt my chest when I thought about them too much. They were a lot of things, but they were still my parents.

  I took another book from the pile, opening it at a random page.

  Gran in a filthy dress, arms streaked with mud. In the background are dark trees, their branches seeming to reach for her. A bright yellow moon shines down on a small mound of earth behind her – and in the distance, a small stick-like figure of a boy.

  Fear trickled over me like ice, and suddenly it all made sense. The conversation with Maloney … The vision I’d had when I’d first come back to the cottage. The piece of paper I’d taken from Maloney’s bureau, full of seemingly random numbers and letters.

  They weren’t random at all. It was a set of directions to the grave.

  52

  Claire watched Gareth as he disappeared out onto the High Street. He was soon out of sight. She felt sick.

  ‘Why the hell did you give him Jo’s number?’

  The colour slid from Craig’s face, leaving just two angry pink spots on his cheeks. ‘We need to put an end to this, Claire. Sounds to me like he does know her. Maybe it’s about time she found a new friend.’

  ‘Why, though? Craig – it doesn’t make sense. She’s so sure it’s him. You only met him a few days ago. You don’t even know who he is. What if she’s right? What if he’s dangerous?’

  Craig started typing numbers into his phone. ‘Don’t be so dramatic, Claire. That’s Jo’s job. Anyway, I do know who he is. I recognised him when he came in the second time. It didn’t click at first, what with the name he uses now. It threw me … He lived here years ago. Moved away when we were barely teenagers. He’s that boy whose dad went missing. That bloke who worked up at the farm-machinery place …’

  ‘The place where Jake works?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it …’ Craig let the sentence trail off, scratched his head. ‘You know what, Claire? Jake knows him. Christ, it’s coming back to me now … You should ask him about—’

  Claire cut him off. ‘Oh God, Craig … Jo told me something awful about that man who went missing. I thought she was making it up. Michael Waters. That was his name. She said he had a son. Maybe two. You don’t think that this Maloney …’ She let her sentence tail off. Her head was spinning. She took her phone out of her bag. Her hands were shaking so much she could barely hit the keys. She hit Jake’s speed dial and it went straight to voicemail.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Craig muttered, as if trying not to react to her panic, ‘I’m going to call Gray. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him to go and find her. She might not have been there last night, but where else could she go? She needs help. She must be heading to Black Wood. I’ll get Gray to go up there and get her. Maybe by then she’ll have had a message from Maloney … He can give her the watch. Get her to explain what the fuck she was doing in his house … If it was her. Leave Gray to sort it all out, eh? He seemed OK. It’s not like he’s going to hurt her or anything …’

  Claire shook her head. She couldn’t believe what was happening. ‘Have you lost your bloody mind?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Claire. I am. I just wanted to get her out of my hair. But what you said about Michael Waters … I’m worried now.’

  He was about to hit ‘call’ when the door opened again. Neither of them had noticed Sharon passing the window.

  ‘Jeeesus. I had to duck up round the Back Street to avoid Bridie. She was waiting for me outside the paper shop. Did you know her granddaughter got attacked last night?’

  Claire and Craig exchanged glances. ‘Really?’ Claire said, trying to hi
de her panic. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Stupid cow decided to take a short cut on her way back from karate … he jumped her round the back of Tesco’s. She fought him off, but she’s in a bad way.’

  Claire thought back to the advert. If Gray hadn’t arranged that last-minute self-defence class, she wouldn’t have been out on her own … but then … wasn’t this nutter meant to be hanging out up at the Track? The previous two had been in broad daylight, and he hadn’t actually done anything …

  She made a decision. ‘Craig, can we go please? We can make that call on the way …’

  Craig nodded. ‘Is someone coming to meet you, Sharon? I don’t want you walking home on your own tonight. I can come back if you like? Or maybe we should just close now …’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Sharon said. ‘Another half an hour’s not going to make any difference. It’s still daylight. Besides, I’m not a stupid wee schoolgirl, am I? I’ll be fine. You two go wherever it is you’re going. Have fun.’

  ‘Right, OK. But if you change your mind, call me – OK?’

  ‘Bye,’ Claire muttered. She was worried sick about Jo. Have fun? How could Sharon be so oblivious to her and Craig’s distress?

  Craig pushed her out of the shop, and as soon as they were out of Sharon’s earshot, she said, ‘Please. Call Davie. Before it’s too late.’

  Craig took out his phone, called up the last number he’d typed in, hit the call button.

  It went straight to answerphone.

  ‘Sergeant Gray? It’s Craig. I’m here with Claire. Listen – we’re worried about Jo. We know she’s been up at Gareth Maloney’s house, and now …’ He paused, raised his eyebrows at Claire, who nodded back at him. ‘… we think she might be at Black Wood. She’s not answering her phone. I don’t know if you’re still at the station or what, but … we need to speak to you urgently, OK? If you get this, please call me back. Otherwise we’ll see you soon. We’re on our way to the station right now.’