Black Wood

by SJI Holliday

  He turned to me, a confused look on his face, took a few steps towards me. ‘I banged into a beam at work. Please, Jo, I’ve done something really stupid. Something bad … but I swear, I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to watch them. See their faces …’

  ‘What are you talking about, Jake? Hurt who? What have you done?’

  He closed the gap between us, placed his hands on my shoulders. He smelled of sweat and fags and the Dove soap that he always used. I closed my eyes, breathing it in.

  This was all wrong. I couldn’t deal with this. ‘Maybe you should talk to Claire … Maybe it’s time we stopped all this …’

  ‘No, Jo … You don’t understand …’

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I blurted. ‘They’ll be here in a minute. You should go.’

  He shook his head slowly. He didn’t believe me. ‘Who’s coming, Jo?’

  I stared at him.

  I was about to tell him when I heard the familiar sound of a car coming up the drive, crunching and popping over the potholes.

  He turned round to face the open door and I took the opportunity to reach into my pocket. I held the knife tight in my hand.

  He turned back towards me, eyes wide with fear. His hand reached up to my throat before I could react. He squeezed. Tight. ‘You stupid bitch,’ he spat, ‘what have you done?’

  Then, just as quickly, his hand was off me again, and I dropped to my knees, gulping in air.

  He was gone.

  Outside, I could just make out the corner of a silver car.

  Footsteps.

  ‘Knock knock,’ a voice said into the open doorway. ‘Is everything all right?’

  57

  I stood up slowly, trying to let my breathing return to normal.

  ‘Hi. Sorry, yeah. Come in.’

  Gareth Maloney walked into the cottage. He looked calm. Relaxed. I was still shaking, cold suddenly, wishing I’d worn something warmer. His eyes took me in. Flitted downwards. Realising that my nipples were probably visible though the thin fabric of my dress, I crossed my arms across my chest.

  He smiled, then gently pushed the door shut behind him. He turned back to me and his hand reached into the front pocket of his jeans as if he was about to take something out. Then he seemed to change his mind. Crossed his arms across his chest.

  Mirroring me.

  ‘Who was that?’ He cocked his head towards the front of the house, where he must’ve seen Jake only moments earlier. I wondered where he’d gone. Felt scared about what he was going to do.

  Wished he would come back.

  ‘No one. Nothing. Don’t worry.’ I’d regained my composure, but I felt the fluttering of nerves in my stomach. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea …’ I let the sentence trail off. I wasn’t sure there was any tea. The last food and drink I’d had was from the other night, and that was already in the bin outside. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d drunk tea in the cottage.

  He shook his head. Glanced around the kitchen. ‘Nice place. Yours?’

  ‘My grandmother’s. I lived here for a bit. Not recently, though. I’m trying to decide whether I should move back in properly …’

  He nodded, his eyes still flitting around the room. Distracted. ‘I, um …’ He put his hand in his pocket again. He had something clutched in his fist.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve got something that belongs to you …’ He held the hand out, still a fist.

  I took a step towards him. Felt my heart start to speed up again. I held out my hand. He took my wrist, turned my hand palm up. Dropped something into it. I knew what it was. I knew the weight of it. The cold feel of the metal.

  ‘You should think about getting that clasp fixed.’

  I closed my hand over Gran’s watch, slipped it into the left-hand pocket of my dress. Stared into his eyes, but couldn’t read him.

  ‘Why didn’t you give it to the police? I assume you did call them.’

  He nodded, pulled out a chair from under the kitchen table.

  I took his cue and pulled out another. My eyes flicked to the chair at the back. The one where the shotgun sat. Waiting. Just in case. I slid my hand into the pocket of my dress and squeezed the knife.

  My phone sat on the far side of the table, just out of reach.

  The tension hung heavy, like a dark fog.

  ‘I spoke to your Sergeant Gray, yes.’ His eyes kept darting about the room. What was he looking for? ‘He wasn’t very helpful, to be honest. Anyway, I only did it to scare you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw you in the garden.’

  I clutched the knife tighter. I was clutching the blade. I could feel it cutting into my skin.

  It’s sharp, JoJo … be careful.

  I fiddled with it. Tried to flip it upside down so I had a hold of the handle.

  ‘Why didn’t you come for me? Drag me out?’

  He shrugged. ‘I knew what you were doing … luring me here …’

  A hard lump formed in my throat. ‘How did you know where to come? How to find the cottage? Have you been here before?’

  He blinked twice, rubbed a hand across his face.

  ‘Of course not. What makes you say that?’

  He was lying. Why?

  ‘Let’s cut the bullshit, Jo. What do you say?’

  My head started to spin.

  ‘We need to talk about what you did to Claire …’

  He smirked, a small burst of laughter escaping his lips. ‘You sure you want to do that, Jo? It was a long time ago.’

  I felt a sudden rush of anger. Blood gushed through my veins.

  ‘Twenty-three years,’ I spat. ‘Have you fucking seen Claire? Have you seen what you did to her?’

  The smile slid off his face. ‘Not me, Jo. I didn’t do anything. Anyway – I’ve been away, haven’t I? Been up north. Me and Mum. She never got over us losing Dad. Dragged us off to stay with her sister. We left before the new school term started. I never even got a chance to say goodbye to any of my mates. She knew, Mum did. She knew he wasn’t coming back …’

  I stood up, my thighs colliding with the table. It slid across the floor slightly, knocked into him where he sat. He pulled his chair back and stood to face me.

  I shook my head. What the fuck was he talking about? ‘I fucking saw you,’ I was shouting now. Acidic sparks flew out of my mouth. ‘Your fucking mask slipped … I saw you …’

  He took a step towards me. ‘But what did you see, Jo? You saw my face, yes. Clearly you’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never forgotten yours either. How could I? I saw—’

  ‘I SAW THE ROCK IN YOUR HAND! I SAW YOU!’

  He took a step away from me just as the door flew open, banging hard against the sink behind. An angry figure burst inside, stopping abruptly at the scene before him.

  ‘I saw you too, Gar.’

  58

  Gareth spun round towards the door and I shrank back against the wall. What the hell was he talking about? My eyes flicked to my phone. Could I make a grab for it while they were distracted?

  ‘Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in …’ Gareth said. ‘Hello, Jake.’

  Jake stepped into the room. He turned to face me, his eyes dark, wild, then he turned back towards Gareth.

  My mouth fell open. They knew each other? How could they know each other? What did Jake mean when he said he’d seen Gareth too? I inched towards the shotgun as I tried to process this information.

  The two men stared at each other.

  ‘Jesus Christ. I feel like I’ve seen a ghost. I thought it was you earlier …’ Gareth continued. ‘What were you doing running off into the woods, eh? Up to your old tricks again?’

  Jake smiled sadly. ‘How come you never came to see me, Gar? You’ve been back for a week now …’

  I heard the hurt in Jake’s voice. I was missing something, but I couldn’t work out what.

  Gareth laughed. ‘What the fuck would I come and see you for? You ruined everything. You and you
r bloody hunting …’

  ‘You liked it too, I seem to recall. You had your eye on something bigger than the odd rabbit, though, didn’t you, Gareth? Why don’t you tell Jo all about it, eh? About that day in the woods … about what you wanted to do to her …’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Jake.’

  ‘She was only a kid, you sick bastard.’

  ‘I said, shut the fuck up …’

  I could barely breathe. Jake had been in the woods. Jake had seen what had happened. He’d known all along, but he never said a thing …

  ‘I tried to make it right, Jo,’ Jake said, as if reading my mind. ‘I tried to look after both of you. I tried to give you both what you needed. But I had to keep it separate … I was too scared … scared you’d work it out and you’d both hate me …’

  ‘Boo fucking hoo, Jakey. You always were pathetic …’

  They were close to each other now, and I felt myself trying to back away, putting as much distance between me and them as I could.

  ‘I loved you, Gar. I loved all of you. I wanted to be your brother. Why couldn’t you just let me? They wanted both of us, not just you …’

  ‘Bloody do-gooders, fostering a brat like you. I never understood why. I never understood why I wasn’t enough … Why the fuck did he take you out hunting with him, eh?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘He said you didn’t like it …’

  Gareth laughed. ‘He was scared of me, more like. I made some crack once about shooting someone … It was just a joke … Prick! It was all his own fault …’

  ‘What was his own fault?’

  ‘Getting himself shot, you fuckwit. What do you think I meant?’

  Jake took a step back, his mouth open wide. He turned to face me, his eyes searching for answers.

  I cleared my throat, tried to stop my voice wavering as I spoke. ‘How did you know he got shot, Gareth?’

  I’d never told anyone about my suspicions – not until I’d told Claire earlier yesterday, and I was absolutely certain that she wouldn’t have breathed a word.

  Gareth let out another angry burst of laughter. ‘The two of you are as thick as each other, aren’t you?’ He turned to me, said, ‘Haven’t you worked it out yet?’ Then back to Jake: ‘I followed him that night. That night when you decided not to go … He waited for you, didn’t he? Then you didn’t bother to turn up. I knew where he kept the gun bag. He had three in there, you know. Not two. I sneaked one out of the bag when he was in the bath. Hid it under that fat magnolia bush at the bottom of the garden. He never checked the bag before he left. Why would he?’

  I watched Jake watching Gareth. His face never left his. His hands by his sides slowly clenching and unclenching as he listened to the story. I was as rapt as he was – I’d thought I had it all worked out … Gran had killed the man after she’d caught him poaching one too many times … buried him in the woods and tried to forget all about it. The only thing that surprised me was that the police hadn’t dug the place up and found him.

  Gareth continued: ‘I waited until he’d had his first kill. A fox. I watched his grinning face under the moonlight, happy with himself … happy to have a new thing for your creepy collection. I knew he was thinking about you then, not me. Not his real son. So I decided – if I couldn’t have him, no one could …’

  ‘What did you do, Gareth?’ Jake’s voice was wary.

  ‘I shot him, of course. Lifted him clean off his feet. I was crouching over him, listening to his ragged, pleading breaths, when she came out …’

  He turned to face me and I felt my blood turn to ice in my veins.

  ‘Jo?’ Jake said, his face a picture of confusion.

  Gareth sneered. ‘No, fuck’s sake. Not her. Her gran. She’d seen the whole thing. I’d started to panic by then, but she calmed me down. He was dead then. Heart must’ve given out from the shock. “I’ll fix this, son,” she said to me. Stupid old cow … She thought she was protecting me from ruining my life. She even wrote a note and told me to leave it with his things, make it look like he’d run away … Cops bought it, too. A grown man can do whatever he likes, they said. They had a quick scout around the woods, but they didn’t find anything. Bit lax they were back then. Sounds like they haven’t changed much, either …’

  I was crying now, trying to make sense of what Gareth had said. My gran had helped him cover it all up … she hadn’t killed him herself. Somehow that didn’t make me feel much better.

  There was an awful noise then, like a tortured animal. Jake lunged at Gareth and the two of them fell to the floor. Jake tried to pin Gareth down while he punched and kicked at him, while Gareth tried to grab hold of his arms, wrestling him away.

  I used the commotion as a diversion, sliding across the back wall towards the other end of the table, where my phone lay. My hand reached for it, and just as I tried to pick it up, the two men crashed into the leg of the table, sending my phone skittering off the other end, followed by a loud crash as something heavy fell to the floor from a height.

  No …

  Gareth had managed to slide away from beneath Jake, and the two of us dived beneath the table at the same time. The shotgun lay on the floor, spinning gently before coming to an eventual stop.

  We stared at each other, and time seemed to freeze as we both worked out what we were going to do next. I hesitated too long, and we both moved at the same time, grabbing for the gun, but Gareth somehow managed to spin round and kick out at me, knocking the gun away from my grasping fingers just as he managed to grip it with his own.

  I heard shuffling as Jake tried to get up and away before Gareth reappeared, and I slid myself away and upwards, fast, cracking my head on the underside of the table.

  Lights flashed in front of my eyes.

  My body lurched, and I watched the cold stone tiles as the floor came up to meet me. I was only vaguely aware of a deafening bang before everything went black.

  59

  Craig shouldered open the door of the police station and wheeled Claire in, bumping her up the ramp and into the waiting area.

  ‘Is Sergeant Gray here?’ he said. Claire could hear the panic in his voice, and she forced herself to take a few deep breaths, trying to stay calm.

  ‘He’s in an interview. Can I help?’

  Claire noticed that the woman behind the desk already had her jacket on, ready to make a sharp exit. No surprise that her nickname was ‘Lazy Lorna’. It had just gone five, and Claire was surprised there was an interview going on at this time of day. She wondered who it was, and felt prickle of something run down her spine.

  Jo? Had Gray already found out about her breaking into Maloney’s house? No … he couldn’t have.

  ‘Right. Well. We’ll wait then.’

  Craig turned her chair around and flicked the wheel brake with one foot, then he sat down on one of the plastic chairs and put his head in his hands.

  ‘You OK there?’ Lorna said. ‘Can I get you a tea or something? I’m sure it won’t be long. Him and PC Beattie are just having a quick chat with Scott—’

  ‘Scott Philips? Jo’s boyfriend?’ Claire cut in. Craig’s head snapped up. Lorna’s face went beetroot.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I can’t tell you anything else. I’ll get that tea, OK?’

  She disappeared into an office somewhere behind the desk, and Claire turned her head to look at Craig.

  ‘What the—’ he started.

  ‘Oh my God …’

  They both spoke at the same time.

  ‘What’s Scott doing here?’ Claire said, leaning down to flick off the wheel brake and spin herself back around to face Craig.

  Craig stood. ‘Where’s the interview room? Do you know?’

  He didn’t wait for an answer and disappeared down the corridor. Claire went after him. ‘Craig …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Just go back through.’ He’d walked to the end and was on his way back up. The station was small. There were only a couple of rooms off either side of the cor
ridor, and one down the bottom with a triple set of locks – which Claire assumed led to their holding cells. Evidently, Craig had decided not to make a complete fool of himself by hammering on any of the doors.

  Claire took a deep breath and spun back round.

  At the desk, Lorna was waiting for them, silently. Two plain white mugs with steam billowing from them were sitting on the counter.

  Craig took one, handed the other to Claire.

  No one spoke.

  After what seemed like an age, Claire heard the sound of a door opening. Voices she recognised as Gray’s and Scott’s.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Scott. We’ll be in touch. Beattie, sign Scott out, will you, please?’

  As the voices drew nearer, Claire moved back until she was close to where Craig sat on the chairs beside the counter. She saw Scott first, and avoided his gaze.

  ‘Scott,’ Craig said. It was a statement. Scott nodded back an acknowledgement, then passed behind Claire’s chair. She couldn’t help wrinkling her nose at his scent.

  Sergeant Gray paused, taking them in.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. His eyes flitted from Craig to Claire and back again. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  His smile dropped as soon as he heard Craig’s tone.

  ‘Did you get my message? I left you a message. It’s Jo—’

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ Gray said, a frown settling on his face. ‘What’s happened? Where is she?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Claire said, her voice thick. ‘We don’t know, Davie …’

  Claire caught a glimpse of a cloud passing over Gray’s face. ‘You better come through.’ He nodded towards Lorna, who was fidgeting behind the counter as if she would rather be anywhere but there. ‘You get off now, Lorna. See you tomorrow. Beattie can mind the desk for the last wee while.’

  Beattie looked annoyed, but Gray ignored him. Lorna bolted from behind the desk as if she’d been released from a trap. Scott skulked out behind her and the door swung shut. Gray gestured for them to enter the room on the left, the door still open. Clearly this was where they’d just interviewed Scott.