The Unmaking of Ellie Rook

by Sandra Ireland

  He flicks ash from his cigarette into the hedge. His mother doesn’t let him smoke in the house, because of her chest. ‘Is everything . . . Are you okay? Your Dad was a bit weird when we called. I told Mum not to interfere, but—’

  ‘It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘You got time for a coffee? Mum’s away to the hairdressers.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I grip the steering wheel and stare straight ahead. ‘It’s like going back in time.’

  ‘What?’

  I glare at him through the open window. ‘Us two, creeping around. Waiting for the grown-ups to disappear.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that!’ Liam looks genuinely aggrieved, and I experience a flash of guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know you didn’t, but I . . . I’m dealing with a very grown-up situation here.’

  He lifts the latch and opens the gate a fraction. ‘Come in and tell me about it.’

  He’s too close. Too close to the old me and too close to home. I need to keep driving, keep running, so that nothing can stick. I rev the engine a little. ‘Not now. I can’t.’

  The window glides to a close and I jam down the accelerator. His injured expression fills my wing mirror; I watch his familiar slouch grow small and disappear. The vague sense of guilt is harder to shake off.

  I start speaking the moment Piotr opens his dilapidated door. I’d only realised I was heading for him when I parked my car on the clifftop. It seemed to make sense.

  ‘I need to know – Dad’s Range Rover, does it have a tracking device? Shelby’s done a runner and he’s taken Dad’s car instead of his own.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. Why would he track his own vehicle? Come in.’

  I’m sure he could do without me and my drama, but, polite as ever, he keeps his face neutral and steps aside to let me pass. I’m wobbling inside, like my organs are coming loose and will never work properly again. Especially my heart. I want my heart to be kind and generous, to trust, to fall in love. First Mum, then Shelby and now River. My heart is a mangled mess and I don’t think I can hurt any more than I do now.

  Instinctively I head for the fire, sloughing off my jacket, but the chair is festooned with washing. There’s a pleasant laundry fug in the air, and I note Piotr’s freshly washed socks are draped over the log pile. One of them has a hole in the toe, and it tugs at me in a way I don’t understand. The single red glove is sitting beside them, and I pick it up and squeeze my hand inside.

  ‘How can one man fuck up so many people?’ I flex blood-red fingers at the fire.

  Piotr comes up behind me and pulls off the glove. He wraps his fingers around mine.

  ‘He’s got River,’ I whisper. ‘He’s taken that poor boy to do his dirty work.’

  Piotr drops my hand and puts his arms around me. I bury my cheek against his jumper and we stand, swaying slightly, as if we’re on a boat. The soft swell and swoosh of the sea whispers in the chimney. It’s a comfort, a bit like I’d experienced with Shelby, but not quite. Piotr is still an unknown quantity. From here I can see his bed, and something nudges through all the bad feelings, takes me back to that one time I let him in. Suddenly I notice an open rucksack, all his clothes piled on the sleeping bag. Boom.

  I jerk my head upright. ‘What’s this? Not you as well?’

  He’s still holding me. He sees where I’m looking but his eyes are fixed on my face. He won’t let go. ‘I’m going back to Poland. I’m done with Lawler Rook. Come with me. You can’t stay here. Not now.’

  I’m thinking of the trashed kitchen and the broken china and the mustard, but I guess he’s thinking of my mother. Nothing to stay for, that’s what he’s saying.

  ‘There are things I have to do,’ I say carefully. ‘Loose ends. I need to tie them up before I can begin again.’

  ‘Begin again with me. I mean it.’

  I pull myself gently from his arms. ‘I know you do. But not yet. Not yet.’

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  I’m still not sure how far I can trust him. I jerk my head towards the socks. ‘Don’t pack them damp,’ I say. ‘They’ll be stinking by the time you get where you’re going.’

  It’s all I can give him for now. It makes him smile, but then he turns deadly serious.

  ‘Ellie, wait – did Shelby take the caravan?’

  ‘Yeah. Just upped sticks and left. But they’ll not find him, will they? Shelby knows the wild places. He’ll hide the caravan and—’

  ‘Ellie, the caravan has a tracking sensor on it.’

  30

  The sign on the cafe door is flipped to ‘Closed’ even though it’s still early afternoon. I’d texted River using Piotr’s mobile and we’d arranged to meet me here. Now alarm twists through me. I try the door, but it’s locked. Shading my eyes, I peer through the glass. The place is empty, but I can make out Ned, rummaging through a box on one of the tables. The interior of the cafe is gloomy, but two things hit me: the box is a first aid kit; and there is River, sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

  ‘Oh Jesus.’ I rattle the door. Ned reacts quickly, crossing the space in a few strides to let me in. I race to my brother’s side, and grip his wrists. ‘Show me. What has he done?’

  Ned is ripping the wrapper from a gauze swab. ‘It’s not pretty. They got back twenty minutes ago, and River insisted they drop him off in the village.’

  River raises his head slowly. All I can see is dried blood – crusting under his nose, around his lips. One cheek is shiny and swollen, and his eye is half closed. He looks like he’s been crying. I fight down rising nausea.

  River whispers something. I have to lean in to catch it. ‘I don’t want to go home.’

  I swallow. ‘That’s why I said to come here. I don’t know where else to go.’

  ‘Your father is an animal.’ Ned glares at me, as if it’s my fault, and douses the swab with wound spray. ‘I’m just going to look after that lip.’

  I take a step back, listening to Ned’s sing-song words of comfort and the occasional ‘ouch’ from River. It was always me who looked after him. Now Ned is between us, blocking my view with his broad back, and I try to quell a sudden burst of resentment. I tell myself to stop. Maybe Ned will protect him in a way I cannot. I failed him. I attacked the house when I should have been attacking that monster. I should have done that long ago.

  Should have. I should have. Should. Should . . .

  The words pulse in my brain like song lyrics. Ned steps back to admire his ministrations. ‘All done. You’ll have to put your film career on hold for a while, but you’ll live.’

  I push past him to wrap my arms around River and hug him awkwardly, making him wince. ‘What did he do to you? What happened?’

  ‘He needs locking up,’ Ned growls. ‘Seriously. We need to call the police.’

  River and I exchange a look. We’re Rooks. No police.

  ‘Dad was able to track the caravan. They drove to the exact spot.’ River forms the words gingerly, wincing on the ‘s’ sound. His bottom lip is split and swollen. ‘Shelby had taken a forestry track, up in the hills. The caravan was hidden in the trees.’ Images of fists and snarling dogs crowd my head, and I squeeze his shoulder. He recoils. I’m not sure if he’s hurting on the outside or the inside.

  ‘I can’t get it out of my head – Offshore banging on the caravan door. When Shel opened up, he grabbed him by the shirt, hauled him out. His hat fell off. I can still see him in the dirt, with Dave kicking him down every time he got up.’

  No. Oh no. I might have said it out loud. As River’s voice breaks, Ned pulls up a chair and takes hold of his hand. I notice the redness and bruising around my brother’s knuckles.

  ‘Go on.’ My voice sounds broken too. I’m not sure I want to hear this.

  River sniffs noisily. ‘I tried to get to him, to make it stop, but Dad held me back. When I shook him off, he did this.’ He touches his face gingerly. ‘I ended up grappling with Dad, and when I looked again, Shel was lying on the ground �
�� totally still.’

  ‘Oh my God. Is he— Was he breathing?’ My hands fly to my throat.

  ‘I don’t know. Dad decided to drive the Range Rover back, but while Dave was loading the dogs in the back of the van, I was able to call 999. I thought that, even if I didn’t speak, the ambulance people would be able to trace my call, but Dave heard the operator on the other end and threatened to tell Dad. I stuck the phone in my pocket, but I didn’t disconnect the call.’

  ‘Good. That’s good,’ says Ned. ‘They’ll have traced the call, sent help.’

  ‘Where will they take him?’ I jump up. ‘Where will they take Shelby? We need to go to him.’

  ‘The hospital in Aberdeen.’

  ‘I’ll phone. Can I use your phone?’

  ‘What happened to yours?’ River says.

  ‘It drowned. I tried some rice-based therapy, but . . .’ I shrug.

  They both look at me like I’ve taken leave of my senses, and then Ned whips out his iPhone. ‘Here. And phone the police while you’re at it. Report your father. For all we know, he’s wanted for fucking murder.’

  I go outside to make the call – to the hospital, not the police. I’m still a Rook, after all. The woman I speak to puts me on hold for a very long time, until she eventually returns with zero information. She suggests I call the police. I disconnect her in mid sentence and begin to pace rapidly up and down, pressing the phone to my mouth, until Ned comes out and takes it from me. He surreptitiously checks it for teeth marks before slipping it into his back pocket.

  ‘No news then?’

  I don’t answer. Thoughts are whirring around in my head. Why there, Shelby? Why didn’t you get the hell away from here, take off down south? Why did you let yourself be cornered at the end of a mountain track?

  Ignoring Ned, I barge back into the cafe and confront River, who is still slumped over the table.

  ‘Did you contact the hospital?’ he says. ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Was Shelby alone, River?’

  He scowls at me, tries to shake the question away with a painful movement of his head. ‘Of course he was alone.’

  ‘Did you look? Did you see anything . . . strange?’

  ‘What are you talking about? There wasn’t exactly time for a tour.’

  ‘River, can you take me to the caravan? Do you remember where you went?’

  He nods. I glance at Ned, who is pretending to rearrange the menus on a neighbouring table. I have a moment of sympathy for him. He doesn’t know what to do, caught up in the middle of all this family drama. He gives a shrug and disappears into the kitchen to give us some privacy.

  ‘Of course I can find it,’ River says. ‘It’s the place we used to go as kids. Mum used to take us to the hills, remember?’

  I remember. ‘Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.’

  Sitting in the car, we manage to pinpoint the location of the caravan on Google Maps.

  ‘It was right up on the top of a hill,’ River says. ‘A real climb. Offshore was cursing the bends. He said . . .’ His face sags as he remembers what happened when they got to the top. He’s grown up with both Offshore Dave and Shelby in his life. We both know there’s no coming back from this.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continues. ‘Here’s the forest, woods, whatever. It’s pretty dense, and we ended up on that track we used to call the Road to Nowhere.’

  I take the phone from him, zoom in on the spot.

  ‘I remember. Where the forestry stops, the hills begin. You can see in every direction from the top. An entire kingdom, Mum used to say. A whole lot cleaner than Lawler Rook’s kingdom. There are some weird ridges up there – piles of stones under the grass. It’s said to be the site of Finella’s castle. Mum certainly thought it was. Said she had a connection with the place.’ I hand back the phone and our eyes meet. ‘River, Shelby took that money.’

  ‘What? The stash in the soup tub? Was it his?’

  I shake my head and start the ignition. ‘It wasn’t his. Come on, I have a hunch.’

  ‘But the hospital . . . We need to find out how he is.’

  ‘We need to go to the woods first. Trust me.’

  River gives me the sort of look that makes him resemble Dad, but I ignore it and put the car into gear. I have a hunch. I hope I’m right.

  We climb out of the car like sailors going up on deck: getting our bearings, trying to fix ourselves in this alien landscape. It’s cooler up here, the light crowded out by the trees. The scent of pine makes me think of Christmas. A crow starts cawing somewhere high up and out of sight, and I feel myself relax a little. The caravan, so familiar, looks smaller than it did in the yard. River points to something on the ground, just under the van. Shelby’s fedora, lying in the dirt, like a stunned bird.

  ‘Did Dad go into the caravan?’

  River shrugs. ‘He kind of glanced in it after Shel came out.’

  ‘Check the caravan,’ I say to him. He looks at me oddly but slopes off, and as he’s opening the door, I stoop to retrieve the hat. There’s a patch of dried mud on the crown and a sprinkling of pine needles sticking to the dusty felt. Poked into the hatband are a row of blue-black feathers that I’ve never noticed before.

  River steps out of the caravan. ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’ He spots me hugging the hat to my chest. ‘I saw Dad pick that up, but he chucked it away like he was disgusted with it.’

  I turn to face the dimness of the trees, try to slow my breathing. My stomach is churning like a washing machine. ‘Maybe I’m totally wrong.’

  But I know. I just do. As soon as I realised that Shelby had taken off in the night with that money – Mum’s money – I knew.

  A twig cracks in the woods. I find it hard to pull away, to look in the direction of the noise, because I’m scared it’s just the soft, silly fluttering of a pheasant. But River is shaking my arm and he’s gazing into the trees, and he’s smiling.

  ‘So that’s why he came here! Look!’

  I look. A figure is stepping briskly towards us, coat flapping and boots kicking up leaves and twigs as she breaks into a run. Best of all, her arms are open and I’m flying into them. Run, Finella, run! My mother catches me in her arms and holds me like she’ll never let me go again.

  ‘So, Plan A isn’t fucking working,’ she says. ‘We might need to come up with a Plan B.’

  31

  ‘But he didn’t see you? No one saw you?’

  Mum shakes her head. There’s dirt on her face and she looks like she’s been sleeping rough. We’ve taken shelter in the caravan, but without Shelby there it feels all wrong. The familiar smell of bacon and cigarettes still lingers, but his absence is a physical pain. We sit round the table in our coats, like uninvited guests. I’ve placed Shelby’s hat in the centre, but the thought of his head on some hospital pillow makes me want to weep. I reach for my mother’s hands across the Formica.

  ‘Jesus, this is the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep!’ I say, squeezing her cold fingers.

  River gives a half laugh. ‘What about me? Try keeping a secret like that in the yard! No wonder I’m so fucked up in the head.’

  ‘I had to go along with Liam Duthie’s bloody search party – and speak to that policewoman!’

  ‘I lied to her too!’ River butts in. ‘I told everyone I was there at the end. The end that wasn’t the fucking end.’

  ‘Hey!’ Mum flashes her dark eyes at us, the way she always does when we argue. I hadn’t realised we were arguing. It doesn’t feel like the right time, although all sorts of things are bubbling to the surface now that we can see her in the flesh. I’m shocked by the resentment I feel, because I’ve missed her. More than once, I’ve found myself shedding real tears when Sharon or Julie go all sympathetic and gooey. I have almost believed the lie. But now, face to face . . . What the hell has she gotten us into? I look down at her hands. The skin is rough and there’s dirt under her nails. I want to take her home and make everything go back to normal, but then I remember our
normal was all wrong.

  Her grip on my fingers is painful. ‘I was out in the woods when they came. They didn’t see me, but I saw them. Doing nothing was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.’ Her voice breaks. I release her hands so she can poke around in her coat pockets for a miserable bit of tissue.

  ‘I tried to stop them,’ River says. ‘Dad smacked me in the mouth.’

  His fingers creep to his lips and Mum makes a face. A tear shivers on her eyelashes.

  ‘I saw that too. I don’t know how I could let it happen . . . I was so close to getting away with it. I was almost there.’

  ‘You’re still there,’ I tell her. ‘As far as they know, you’re still dead.’

  We pause for a moment to digest this. Gently, I shake her hands. ‘Go on. What happened, after they’d gone?’

  She continues, in a voice thick with tears. ‘I ran over to him – my poor Shel, all beaten up and limp – and I thought, what the fuck am I going to do now? I don’t have a phone. Lawler took his bloody Range Rover back, so I’ve no transport. What the hell was I supposed to do?’

  ‘I phoned the ambulance,’ River puts in quickly. I know he’s ashamed that he couldn’t do more.

  She smiles weakly, showing off the gap between her front teeth that always seemed a bit sassy. Now she just looks sad. ‘I tried to bring him round. I thought if I could just get him on his feet, I could get him into the caravan, patch him up, but then I heard the sirens. I had just enough time to tidy him up a bit and take his wallet.’ When I narrow my eyes at her, she goes all defensive. ‘I had to! He wouldn’t want the rozzers poking their noses in, and I couldn’t risk the authorities getting in touch with your father. I had to protect him from Lawler. It was the cops first, and then the air ambulance landed on the hill. Poor Shelby was mumbling, so he was kind of conscious, but he wasn’t making any sense. I had to leave him . . . It was awful, but I couldn’t let myself be found. I hid in the bushes behind the caravan.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I bury my head in my hands.

  The enormity of what we’ve done is beginning to sink in. We’re digging a hole that’s getting deeper by the minute, and we need to keep up this charade for life. FOR LIFE. I look up suddenly. Shelby had been in on the deception from the beginning, of course, but I never guessed the two of them had been keeping a secret all of their own. Only when Piotr told me about my father’s suspicions did I begin to go through the options.