The Shadow Friend

by Alex North

  And then from somewhere just behind me, I heard a different sound. The man’s voice again, not words this time but a primal scream of frustration and pain.

  I started to run.

  ‘Paul!’

  The screams behind me faded. For some reason, he wasn’t following me. And the woman’s voice, whoever she was, grew louder, leading me out of there. I ran faster and faster, as hard as I could, back towards Gritten, towards her, towards the even more distant sound of approaching sirens, and out of the Shadows.

  43

  After

  Early morning.

  The day was bright and crisp as Amanda left her home and started off on the half-hour drive to Rosewood Gardens. The sky was clear and the roads were quiet. She left the radio off and drove slowly, appreciating the silence. As usual at this hour, she was the only visitor to the cemetery. When she arrived, she parked up on the gravel, and then made her way along the path she always took between the graves here.

  Perhaps it was just her imagination, but things felt different today. She passed the usual familiar plots: the ones adorned with flowers; the one with the old brandy bottle; the grave with the stuffed toys resting against the stone. On the surface, they looked the same as always, but it felt like she was seeing them with fresh eyes this morning. The bottle had been there for a long time, and whoever had left it – presumably an old drinking buddy – had not returned since. The vibrant flowers seemed less like gestures of grief than of gratitude and love. And as sad as the child’s toys were, there was at least a kind of acknowledgement in their presence. Better they were here, surely, than gathering dust in some small, untouched bedroom maintained like a museum.

  And all of that spoke a basic truth to her. In the past, she had thought of coming here as visiting her father, but she realized now that had never been the case. Her father was gone. Graveyards might have housed the dead below the ground, but what lay above was always for the living; they were the places where people came to deal with the break between what their lives had once been and what they now were. All the times she had come here, she had only really been visiting herself, and her relationship with the past.

  And how she did that was up to her to decide.

  She reached her father’s grave. That solid, dependable square of granite, with its careful lack of emotion.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said. ‘I know you said you didn’t want me to talk to you, or any of that nonsense, but I’m afraid that’s tough. Because I miss you.’

  There was no response from the stone, of course, and the cemetery around her remained silent. But the relief she felt was so overwhelming that she actually started to laugh. It turned into tears halfway through, and she put her hand to her nose.

  ‘Oh, fuck. But I do, you know. I miss you. And I’m sorry I didn’t turn out to be like you, but I guess that’s tough as well. Because the thing is, I think you’d be proud of me anyway.’

  She paused.

  ‘Yeah, I really think you would.’

  That was enough for now. She stood there for a time, crying. Following another of her father’s instructions, she had never allowed herself to do that here before. But as with everything else, she figured he would understand. Maybe he would even have quietly nodded his approval. Because he had raised his daughter to be strong, hadn’t he? To stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions rather than taking orders. If she wanted to cry, she fucking well would.

  Her choice.

  In the same way, the answer to what kind of police officer she had turned out to be did not need to be judged against the kind her father had been. She was the kind she was. And if that was sometimes too involved, too haunted, too unable to box things up and keep the work separate from her life – so be it.

  But it felt like even that had changed, at least a little. It was nearly a week since the events in Gritten, and she had had the nightmare only once, two days after helping Paul escape from the woods. The dream had been superficially the same as always, but it too had felt different. She had been standing in the darkness, knowing someone was lost nearby, but this time she had recognized the dream for what it was, and the realization had calmed her.

  Apparently, you could do anything you wanted in a lucid dream. But rather than attempting to create anything elaborate, Amanda had simply started walking in the blackness. She had never done that before. And while she had no idea if she was heading in the right direction, at least she was moving.

  The nightmare hadn’t returned since.

  She looked down at her father’s grave.

  ‘I’ll only do this once,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

  She balanced the flowers she’d brought with her against the headstone, then turned around and went to work.

  But not to Featherbank.

  Instead, close to midday, she drove through the idyllic countryside surrounding Gritten, and then into the grey, beaten-down heart of its centre. She passed the hotel she had stayed in last week, then pulled into the car park of the pub Paul had brought her to the first time they’d met. Inside, she found him sitting in the same seat as then. He looked different, though. His hair was cut neatly, and he was wearing a smart black suit. There was a half-finished beer on the table in front of him. She got herself a wine and joined him, making a show of checking her watch.

  ‘Should you really be drinking yet?’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely. I’m not a fan of public speaking.’

  ‘You’re a lecturer, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I know. For now, at least.’ He gestured at the beer. ‘And you didn’t even buy me a drink.’

  She smiled. It was strange, given the bare handful of times they’d met, that she felt as relaxed in his company as she did. Perhaps it was simply a case of being bonded by events, but she liked him. Or at least, she liked him well enough not to want to press him about everything that had really happened here in Gritten.

  On one level, that was simple enough – messy in its own way, but still relatively straightforward. Forensics had tied Dean Price to the murders of William Roberts and Eileen and James Dawson. Bereft at the killing of his son, it seemed that Price had set out to discover the truth about Charlie Crabtree’s disappearance. To solve the problem in his own way. Amanda knew a little more about Price’s history in the army now: the things he had done; the dishonourable discharge; the way he’d struggled to find a purpose once back in civilian life. His son, Michael, had helped to provide that. When he lost that, something inside him had snapped.

  Price’s body had been found deep in the woods the morning after he abducted Paul. While chasing him through the trees, Price had twisted an ankle. It appeared he had then attempted to move further away between the trees, before eventually giving up hope of escape. Amanda had seen photographs of the scene officers discovered after the sun rose that next morning. A man like Price was never going to allow himself to be captured. He had been found sitting on the ground, his back against the base of a tree, his wrists cut, and the undergrowth around him soaked with blood.

  Case closed.

  Except there were so many questions that still lingered. She still didn’t know why Carl Dawson had returned to Gritten, or what he and Paul had really spoken about in the old playground that day. And Dean Price’s methods certainly did not fit with the marks that had been left on Paul’s mother’s door, or the doll that had been delivered to the house. And while the CC666 account had been traced to James Dawson’s computer, she didn’t understand why he would have sent the messages he had, or how he’d had a photo of Charlie Crabtree’s dream diary.

  All of which meant she was quite sure there was something else going on here that she was missing. But neither Carl nor Paul were prepared to discuss it. They had kept their silences, leaving her with pieces of a mystery she couldn’t fit into place.

  But which, perhaps, she decided as she sipped her wine now, did not necessarily matter. After all, she had answers to the questions she needed. And while she was not her father, sh
e had a feeling that whatever was being hidden from her here was something it might be better – for everyone’s sake – to leave alone.

  ‘Why did you want to meet me today?’ Paul said.

  ‘Moral support,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know? Once you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them for ever.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I admit, that’s a level of responsibility I’m probably not up to. I actually had another reason too.’

  She reached down and took a thin file out of her bag.

  ‘The story you told Dean Price that night,’ she said. ‘About Hague’s brother being responsible for killing Charlie Crabtree.’

  ‘I made that up.’

  ‘Yeah, you said. And honestly, no offence intended, but we checked. His brother was called Liam, and he was still in prison at the time.’

  ‘I was just trying to think of anything I could.’

  ‘And I believe you.’

  Amanda put the file on the table between them and slid it across to him.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said.

  ‘I got it yesterday. Go on. Knock yourself out.’

  He looked at her for a moment, then down at the file. When he opened it, she saw the single photograph inside. It was upside down from her perspective, but she had already stared at it enough to make sense of it from any angle. The tattered clothes; the spread of old bones, half wrapped in undergrowth; the bare skull that had rolled to one side.

  The photograph had been taken on the same morning Dean Price’s body was found, only a short distance from where he was lying. The official identification had been confirmed late yesterday, and Dwyer had sent it to her as a courtesy. Amanda, in turn, had texted Paul to arrange to meet today for the exact same reason.

  He was still looking at the photo.

  ‘Is this …?’

  ‘Charlie Crabtree,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

  He continued staring down, and she wondered what he was thinking. How must it feel – to see that, after all this time? To know a nightmare that had lasted for a quarter of a century was finally over? It was difficult to imagine what must be going through his head.

  ‘I shouldn’t be showing you that, by the way,’ she said. ‘But I figured you might want to know. That you deserved to know.’

  Finally, he looked up at her, and she saw so many emotions on his face that it was impossible to untangle most of them.

  All except one.

  The relief she saw there reminded her of how she’d felt at the cemetery first thing that morning.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  44

  It was my mother who took me to the train station.

  It was actually my father who drove, but he had become little more than a distant presence in my life by then, and this last journey was undertaken on my behalf almost begrudgingly. He stayed in the car when we got there. It was supposedly because he wanted to watch for traffic wardens, but we both knew the real reason was that we had nothing to say to each other, and it was easier to forget a goodbye at a car than on a station platform. It was my mother who accompanied me inside and waited with me, and so I always think of her as taking me there that day.

  I had a crammed rucksack and a heavy suitcase. The latter was on wheels that made a tricking noise on the concourse as we made our way through the crowds of commuters. I remember the departures boards whirring and flickering as they updated overhead, and the tannoy blaring out intermittent garbled messages. Everywhere, the mingled thrum of conversation echoed off the tiled walls. At that point in my life, I had never been on a train before, and I found the sensations almost overwhelming. I remember being nervous. Scared, even.

  Which I didn’t say.

  My mother and I didn’t speak until we reached the platform. The train was due in a few minutes, and we found a place in the shade to wait.

  ‘Do you have your ticket?’ she said.

  I wanted to give her a look that conveyed I was eighteen years old now, and not an idiot. But in that moment, I found myself remembering a different journey we had made together, when I was starting at a new school and she had asked me something similar. The question had not been for my benefit back then, and a part of me understood it wasn’t now either – that she was asking the question to reassure herself.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you have,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She sounded genuinely apologetic, but I could tell she was also distracted: full of nervous energy. It was the way people get when they’re fretting about something important that’s outside their control.

  You don’t need to be sorry, I thought.

  And did not say.

  I remember being scared, yes, but the honest truth is that I was also excited. The last couple of years had been very difficult for me. It’s important not to overplay that, of course, and on the few occasions I’ve thought about Gritten over the years – in those brief moments when I forgot to forget – it’s always been in these very specific terms: what happened, never what happened to me. Because I knew then, and know better now, that other people suffered far worse than I did, and the tragedy belongs more appropriately to them. And most of all, of course, to Jenny Chambers.

  Nevertheless, like so many of us, I was part of that story, and I was haunted by the role I played, however unwittingly, in what happened. The knowledge of the things I had and had not done had overshadowed my life ever since. Waiting on the platform that day, I had no idea what lay in store for me in the future, only that I was leaving far more behind me than Gritten itself.

  ‘It will be Christmas before you know it,’ my mother said.

  ‘I know.’

  I had spent the last couple of years saving up. I worked in the bookshop, and took whatever odd jobs in the area I could fit in between my studies. My focus, barely acknowledged even to myself, had been laser-like. And while it would indeed be Christmas before I knew it, I also knew that I had no intention of coming home when it was.

  Which I did not say.

  I looked up to see the train arriving: two rickety carriages rolling slowly towards us, blue at the top, stained with black muck at the bottom, as though they had trudged here through muddy fields. Further up the platform, people were already shouldering their bags. I moved forward, feeling as though I needed to get on immediately or else I might miss my chance and the train would leave without me. But then my mother put her hand on my arm. When I looked at her, I could tell from the expression on her face she already knew what I hadn’t said out loud. That she wasn’t going to see me again for a long time. And that she had reconciled herself to that.

  ‘I love you, Paul,’ she said quietly. ‘Look after yourself.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And for God’s sake, give your mum a hug.’

  I shrugged my rucksack off. I don’t know how many years it had been since I had embraced my mother by that point, but I remember being surprised by how small and fragile she felt. When we separated again, she put both her hands on the sides of my arms and appraised me.

  ‘You’ve got so tall.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. Behind me, the train chuffed, and my mother patted my arms and then let go.

  ‘Just promise me you’ll take care,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’

  She smiled.

  ‘I know you will.’

  Once on the train, I found my seat, and she waited on the platform to wave me goodbye. I didn’t understand at the time what was going through her head, and obviously I still don’t know for certain, but at least now I have an idea.

  She was thinking that I was going to be a writer.

  Because there was a story of mine that I had never showed to her, but which she had found and read anyway. And while she was sad to see me leave, I think she was also happy that I was heading out into the world, escaping the past and moving forward into a different pr
esent without even glancing behind me. Because however painful it might be, that’s what all good parents have to do in the end. I think it was just that what happened had raised a curtain of silence between us that made it impossible to say certain things out loud.

  I like to think they didn’t need to be.

  I’m proud of you, she didn’t say. And I understand.

  Thank you, I didn’t reply. And I love you.

  I paused and looked up from my notes.

  With Sally’s help, I had managed to speak to many of my mother’s friends in the days since her death, and I had discovered that the casual religious belief she’d nurtured throughout her life had flourished in later years. So the decision had been made for me: it had to be a church funeral. The space before me now seemed cavernous, and yet every aisle was full. Rows and rows of people were crammed in, shoulder to shoulder, as though everyone within miles of Gritten had been summoned here by some sense of duty to gather together and say goodbye.

  When I had been sitting there earlier, waiting for the service to begin, every shuffle and cough behind me had echoed. The words I’d just spoken did the same now.

  Thank you. And I love you.

  I glanced around. It was dark in the church, the crowd before me illuminated by the sunlight streaming weakly in through the stained-glass windows above. But I caught sight of a few familiar faces among the strangers. Sally was sitting near the front, along with some of the friends I’d subsequently met. Carl was here. He was seated at the end of an aisle towards the front, and despite everything that had happened, he was formally dressed, the pain he was feeling held back for the moment, his focus on the struggle that lay before him right now. Saying farewell to someone I knew he had loved.

  Amanda was there, close to the back of the church.

  My gaze moved from her, back to Carl, as I thought about what she’d told me an hour earlier. Charlie had been found, and so that part of the story was over. Whether there would be questions still to answer on that score, I didn’t know yet. I would deal with them, if it came to it. But after the fire I’d finally lit two days ago, I knew there was nothing now to connect my mother to what had happened. And in the meantime, I thought I saw on Carl’s face the same conviction that I felt in my heart right now. There was no need to talk about such things unless we had to. Everyone had lost enough already.