Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Jane Holland

  This would be a bad moment to throw up again.

  ‘Dad, were you looking for me?’ My palms are sweating; I wipe them on the back pockets of my jeans, trying for a calm tone. ‘You should have come straight in. I was in the shower, but Hannah’s around somewhere.’

  Asleep, most probably. But I’m not thinking straight.

  My father does not answer.

  DI Powell steps away from the group. His gaze is cool but sympathetic as he assesses my face, my hair, my appearance. No doubt he remembers me as an hysterical six-year-old, sobbing her heart out and barely coherent enough to give a description of the man who had attacked her mummy. We had met a few times since that investigation, but the events of today seem to have left my head stranded in the past.

  ‘Hello again, Ellie,’ he says, holding out his hand.

  The voice tugs at me. I remember the strong West Country twang to his accent, a slow drawl that makes him sound like he’s only one or two generations away from ancestors who were farmers and tin miners. Far from parochial though, he had always seemed open to new approaches, especially the idea of hypnotherapy.

  There is a faint smile on his face. A senior policeman attempting to be friendly, but vaguely regretful at the same time, aware of an unbridgeable gap between us. There’s no warmth there. Only a hint of the same suspicion I saw on my father’s face. It leaves me uncomfortable.

  We shake hands. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he remarks calmly. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Okay up until today.’

  ‘So your dad has been telling me. It sounds like you’ve had a tough morning.’ He hesitates. ‘Do you mind if I call you Ellie? Or would you prefer Eleanor?’

  My throat is clogged up. ‘I’m Eleanor now. Ellie was … a long time ago.’

  Except for my close friends. This man is not a friend.

  ‘Of course.’

  My head is buzzing, but I force myself to smile and behave normally. It’s what they expect. ‘Come into the kitchen, please. I’ll make coffee.’

  ‘Not for me, thanks. But feel free to make one for yourself.’

  We walk through to the kitchen, my father following behind the police officers without a word.

  I can’t wait any longer, impatient to hear their news. ‘So, did you find the body?’ I ask Carrick straight out. ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘No,’ Carrick says bluntly.

  I stare. ‘What?’

  DI Powell is shaking his head. There’s that regretful smile again. The smile I remember. The smile that used to leave me feeling sick.

  ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, Eleanor. We looked where you told us to look. We looked everywhere. We scoured the woods, in fact, from the stream right up to the top car park. We even had the dogs out,’ he says. ‘But we didn’t find a body.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I think about my dead mother. The long investigation, the false leads, the unsolved murder. The newspaper cuttings I managed to salvage after the house fire and still keep in a box under my bed. There’s a powerful sense of déja-vu. I look from the white-haired policeman to my father, who is still saying nothing, and then back again.

  ‘But did you look exactly where I told DS Carrick?’ I ask. ‘Down near the stream, next to the little footbridge?’

  ‘We looked beside the stream like you told us,’ Carrick jumps in before Powell can reply. ‘We didn’t find anything.’

  There is no sympathy in Carrick’s face. His voice is sharp. I can tell what he thinks about all this. He thinks he has spent the morning on a fool’s errand.

  ‘As I was just telling your father, we searched the whole wood,’ he continues coldly. ‘Combed the undergrowth, searched up and down the banks. There was nothing there. Just your footprints in the mud on both sides of the stream. It was a bit of a mess down there, animal tracks and so on, but the tread of your trainers matched the prints we found exactly.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ I say, staring at Carrick. ‘There must have been other footprints on that path. How else – ?’

  ‘We checked and double-checked, Miss Blackwood.’

  Hannah slips quietly into the kitchen, still in her pyjamas, and takes up a position near the fridge, watching me with raised eyebrows through the pack of dark, uniformed shoulders.

  I shake my head, looking from Carrick to Powell. Neither of the two detectives appear to be joking.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There was no Path Closed sign either,’ Carrick adds, getting out his police notebook and flicking through it. ‘You mentioned a diversion sign in your statement this morning. We got a council worker down there, and someone from the Forestry Commission. There have been no paths closed in the woods today. No paths closed for weeks, was what they said.’

  This makes no sense to me.

  ‘But there was a diversion sign,’ I tell them, trying to stay patient, not to lose my temper. ‘It was standing on the bend where the lower and upper paths divide. If it’s not still there, someone must have moved it. Perhaps deliberately.’

  Carrick shakes his head. ‘Not according to the man from the Forestry Commission. And he’s got no reason to lie.’

  Powell folds his arms across his chest, watching me. One of the other police officers is looking away, smirking behind my father’s back.

  They think I’m mad. Or a liar.

  ‘I tell you, I saw a body down by the stream,’ I say doggedly. ‘You can’t give up. You have to go back to the woods and look again. She can’t just have vanished.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Eleanor, stop it,’ my father bursts out, glaring at me like he hates me. ‘It’s nearly two decades since your mother died. When are you going to let it go?’

  I turn, staring at him. ‘Dad?’

  ‘No, this needs to be said. I thought you were over it, I really did. You spent all those years in therapy, got through university, found a good job. But to have sent the police down there again in search of a non-existent body … ’ He makes a convulsive noise in his throat. ‘This is beyond attention-grabbing. This is sick.’

  I don’t know what to say in reply to that accusation. But I go through each word of his speech again in my head, weighing it carefully against what I know and what I saw.

  When I glance around the room, I realise that nobody is looking at me anymore. They’ve moved on, discussing what should happen next. Powell starts flicking through a notebook. Carrick is talking about a visit to the police station. There’s an edge of contempt in the sergeant’s voice. He’s suggesting to my father that I should make an admission of guilt at once, agreeing that it was a lie. Though ‘mistaken’ is the diplomatic word he uses after a stern look from DI Powell. A formal statement with a signature, withdrawing my previous claim. So the police can all go home and cross ‘mad woman sees dead body’ off their list of things to investigate.

  Hannah tries to defend me – she’s fantastic, I owe her for that – and my father snaps round at her, tells my friend to mind her own business.

  Sick.

  My rage clears for a moment. I force myself to say the words I’ve been trying to repress. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, but I need you to leave.’

  He stares. ‘What?’

  ‘This isn’t your house, Dad, and I want to speak to the police alone. Could you leave, please?’

  My father slicks back his hair in a nervous gesture, but does not move. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re saying, Ellie.’

  DI Powell looks sympathetic. His eyes meet mine frankly. ‘No one is saying you’ve lied, Eleanor. But maybe you thought you saw a dead body. The light in those woods can play funny tricks on your eyes, especially ... Well, you must admit you’re in a heightened emotional state right now.’ When I protest, he raises a hand to stop me. ‘Listen, we’ve had six officers down there this morning, hunting through the woods, checking everywhere. We found nothing. Nothing at all.’

  I think of the woman’s body. Her finger, pointing. The bubbling gurgle of the
stream, so noisy I can barely hear myself think.

  ‘So, this was all some kind of hallucination?’ The sense of betrayal is so strong, it tastes like blood in my mouth.

  DI Powell remains calm, but his expression is intent. ‘I think your mother’s death hit you hard, Eleanor. And your father tells me you haven’t seen your psychiatrist for some years. Perhaps now would be a good idea to go back into therapy. Just until you’re over this bump.’

  ‘What bump?’

  ‘Your father tells me you recently started work at your old school.’ DI Powell looks at me with that vague smile again. Trying to appear understanding. Hands in his trouser pockets. ‘A new job can be very stressful, and perhaps going back to the school has kicked up some old memories. Emotions you thought you’d got past. I remember when I first joined the force, it wasn’t easy to adapt to the demands of the job. And I had nothing like your excuse.’

  The inspector pauses, and his brow creases uneasily. ‘Obviously we’re not going to charge you with wasting police time. But we do need some assurances that you’ll visit your doctor, get yourself sorted out with some therapy sessions.’

  My gaze swings round the circle of concerned faces. ‘You don’t believe a word of my story. You think I’ve lost it.’

  Even Hannah is looking uncertain now. ‘It’s not like that, Ellie. But perhaps you should sit down for a few minutes. Think things through properly.’

  Et tu, Brute?

  My head is buzzing and I can’t seem to catch my breath. I feel like I’m going mad, which would suit their theory.

  ‘Look, I saw a dead woman in the woods this morning,’ I tell them flatly. ‘I don’t know what happened to her body afterwards, but I didn’t imagine seeing her. And whoever she was, I owe it to that woman to keep telling you the truth. Shouting it from the rooftops, if necessary.’

  PC Helen Flynn raises her eyebrows. ‘Even if nobody ever believes you?’

  ‘Especially then.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I ignore Hannah’s advice as well as the head teacher’s, and am back at work two days after the anniversary of my mother’s death. It would probably feel too soon to another person, but to me it feels about right. I hate kicking my heels at home anyway. Pressure like this makes me want to be active, to do things, make stuff happen. I can’t bear sitting about an empty house and staring at the television screen with nothing to do but fret and remember.

  ‘You should be taking longer at home after what you’ve been through,’ Jenny tells me as we pull up in the car park, not bothering to hide her disapproval.

  ‘Better here than at the cottage.’

  ‘I suppose it’s less lonely.’

  ‘Especially when Hannah spends the greater part of every day asleep.’

  ‘She’s still on nights?’

  I nod, averting my gaze as a swarm of noisy kids rush past from the bus bays and towards the side entrance. The school building in front of us is long and low, facing due east, a dozen large windows right in my eye line reflecting the sun.

  Putting on a pair of sunglasses, I instantly feel safer, more anonymous. Which is a complete illusion, of course. But it helps.

  ‘So what did the police say?’ she asks, negotiating into a narrow parking place near the playing fields.

  ‘That I need psychiatric help.’

  Jenny looks round at me, surprised. ‘And do you agree with them?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ She turns off the engine, then checks the mirror in her sun visor, quickly tidying her hair. ‘I’m glad you accepted a lift from me this time, you know. I’m sure that scooter can’t be very safe. And I’m sorry I didn’t have time to come round yesterday evening. Family nonsense, you know. I’ve got a free period this afternoon if you still want a chat over coffee.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’ I rummage in my bag and study my timetable. ‘I’m in the gym until the end of fourth period. That any good?’

  ‘Sounds perfect. I’ll come and find you after the bell.’

  We walk into the school together, heading for the gym and changing rooms. Our territory, for what it’s worth. In the corridors, it’s obvious who has been reading the daily regional newspaper. A journalist rang yesterday to ask for my side of the story; I put the phone down on her. But I guess they went ahead and printed whatever they had from the police anyway. Some of the teachers glance at me in passing, their eyes curious. The younger kids stare openly, fascinated. Some of them point, then whisper behind my back. I start to wonder whether I should have taken the head’s advice to stay home and ‘keep a low profile’ for a few days.

  But why the hell should I? I have done nothing wrong. I told them the truth. I have no idea what happened after I left the woods, and no way of proving what I saw, but my dead woman was real. Too real and solid to have melted away, that’s for certain.

  We part company at the changing rooms.

  ‘Told you it wouldn’t be easy.’ Jenny frowns at two Year 10 girls who are talking about me in loud, excitable squeaks; they giggle and run past as the bell rings. ‘You ought to have stayed at the cottage until the excitement had died down. This kind of attention would drive me crazy.’

  ‘Didn’t you get the memo? I already am crazy.’

  ‘Right, you should all know what you’re meant to be doing. Has everyone got a partner and a mat?’

  The kids shuffle about in crumpled shorts and polo shirts, some arguing over mats, others eyeing their opponents from crouched positions like they’re about to reenact some martial arts movie.

  ‘I don’t have a partner, Miss,’ one lad says plaintively, sticking his arm straight up in the air.

  ‘You can partner me, Paul,’ I say, then immediately wish I hadn’t when I see his grin and the quick glance over his shoulder. I’m a target for these kids at the moment. One sniff of weakness and they will close in, thirsty for blood. But it’s done now; I’ll only look afraid if I back off now. And I don’t do afraid.

  ‘Find a mat, then,’ I tell him curtly. ‘Come on, hurry up. Everyone’s waiting.’

  I blow the whistle hanging round my neck, and Paul immediately grabs me by the sleeve. He may only be fifteen, a Year 10, but he’s strong, just taller than me at about five foot nine, and well-built with it. On top of that, I know he doesn’t like me. Actually, to be fair to Paul, he doesn’t like any woman who can knock him to the floor and make him look like an idiot in front of his mates.

  Normally, I show these kids how to put an attacker on the ground in about thirty seconds. But maybe what I saw in the woods has knocked me off balance, because either Paul is stronger than I expected or my usual grapple-and-throw needs some rehab work.

  I struggle with him for a moment, trying and failing to ‘locate my core’ as Jenny likes to put it during staff training sessions. I’m a hair’s breadth from losing control of the situation.

  Then I see him smile. The lad’s grip slackens almost imperceptibly. He’s over-confident; thinks he’s got me, that it’s all over.

  As he hesitates, hoping his mates are watching his moment of triumph, I hook my foot round his ankle, press my knee up under his left leg, then jerk him off balance.

  Paul falls backwards, a look of comical dismay on his face. He lands heavily on his back in the middle of the blue mat. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Language, Paul.’ I step back, breathing hard. ‘Keep it clean or you’ll be out of my class.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss.’ He drags himself up off the floor, tidies his rumpled shirt, then shoots me a look that promises revenge. His next words are muttered, for my ears only. ‘Freak.’

  I stiffen, staring at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I didn’t say nothing, Miss.’ Surly now, Paul slicks back his hair and shuffles away, a pair of pink-striped underpants showing above the loose waistband of his shorts.

  Chrissy, his girlfriend, is two or three mats behind us. The other kids are making a racket, laughing and struggling to throw each other to
the floor. All the same I hear the whine of her voice cutting through the chaos in the gym. ‘Why did you let her do that to you, Paul? Everyone knows she’s mental.’

  My temper is up near the top of the red line. I want to send them both out of class, slap a detention on them. But our time’s nearly up, and besides, I’m on probation; the head teacher made that clear in her phone call last night. Patricia was blunt. ‘First sign that you can’t handle being back at work, and I’ll insist you take a full week off. Is that clear?’

  I blow the whistle to signal the end of the bout.

  Nobody stops.

  I blow the whistle twice again, then clap my hands, trying to get the kids’ attention above the noise. ‘That’s enough for today, everyone,’ I shout. ‘Start packing it up.’

  I hear someone mutter an expletive behind me, and turn, looking at Chrissy. She’s a tall blonde, skinny with angular hips and waist-length hair always gathered up in a high ponytail that swings violently from side to side when she’s walking. She’s standing still now, with her hands low on her hips, pink hipster joggers loose on her narrow frame.

  ‘What was that?’ I ask her coldly.

  ‘Nothing, Miss.’ Chrissy is enjoying herself, raising her voice as she repeats her boyfriend’s denial. Some of the other kids nearby have stopped messing about and are staring at us, fascinated. ‘Maybe you’re hearing things as well as seeing them.’

  Paul is grinning now. He nods at his girlfriend in approval. Some of their cronies have gathered round as though hoping for a fight. It’s like being surrounded by a pack of growling hyenas.

  Chrissy ignores them, looking back at me with a cold smile. She turns fully towards me now, and I watch her hands come away from her hips, swing loose, curling into fists.

  The girl’s sizing me up for a punch, I realise. She thinks she can take me, teacher or not.

  ‘Everyone knows, Miss,’ she says. ‘The whole school. Paul’s uncle is in the police, remember? He told Paul the only reason they didn’t charge you with wasting police time is because you’re obviously mental. Wrong in the head.’