“What did you do?”
“Well, I was annoyed at Billie for laughing, and she said she knew him…and I didn’t want to get in trouble with the police. I used to live at this other park. They came ’round all the time, telling us off. I was never doing anything, just hanging about. Once me and some of my friends climbed over a school gate and sat on the picnic benches drinking cans and talking at two in the morning. The police got called and we got in trouble for trespassing and they took us home in their squad car. Dad lashed the shit out of me for that.”
My eyes widen. Nathan notices and looks away. “Anyway. The man changed then. He smiled at me. He said it was okay to have urges, but I didn’t want to get into trouble, did I? So I said, ‘No.’ He said he wanted to talk to Billie. He said he knew her, that he had a secret to tell her, from some lady. Mrs. something. Adams?”
“Mrs. Adamson?” I frown. “She’s our teacher.”
“I dunno. Maybe he said her name then to get Billie on his side or something? She was fine with it. She said bye. She was still laughing when I crawled out the den. I walked a way through the wood, but then…I saw the car lights near the gate. The engine was running. I felt funny. I was a boy, and older, and I should have been watching out for her. I dunno. I went back and I crawled through the entrance to the den again, but when I got to the end I looked up and I saw him on top of her.” Nathan’s voice lowers to a whisper. “I just watched,” he says. “I froze. At first I didn’t know what was happening. It wasn’t for long. He was moving back and forth. I felt funny. Not quite like I did with you, but, like, interested or something. Felt…felt it stirring in my boxers. And then she started screaming. He’d taken his hand off her mouth. The sound was so horrible. I was scared he’d kill me too. He was big, like my old man. And my old man is horrible. He really hurts you when… he can really hurt people when he wants to. So I crawled out backward as quietly as I could. When I got out the thicket, I ran. I heard the screaming stop, so I guessed he killed her. Then I heard him running after me.”
“Did you go for help?”
“The man knew what I looked like. He could tell the police I did it or come after me and kill me. He still could. Besides, Mum hates the police. She’d be really angry at me if I got involved with them. And she was dead anyway, so…I didn’t think I could help,” he adds sadly.
“Was there anyone in the car? If the engine was running?” My mind was racing.
“Yeah it was weird. I think there was. I didn’t see them properly, but I could make out a shape.”
“Wait, Nathan,” I touch his shoulder. “You think there was definitely a second person in the car.”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so.”
I was right. The walker isn’t the killer. But if it isn’t Nathan…I have to make sure he’s telling the truth. I decide to ask him lots of questions, quickly and loudly, to see if he sticks to his story and make sure he’s not just making it all up. “Where did you go after?”
“I kept running.”
“How far did you run?”
“I got to the church before I realized he wasn’t chasing me any—”
“And then what did you do?”
“I waited for a while, then I went back. The car was gone, but she wasn’t.”
“She? Who?”
Nathan looks confused. “Billie. She was lying there, in the middle of the den, really still.”
“In the middle?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not where I found her. She was in a sheet in the ditch.”
“No, no—not when I was there.”
“Well, how did that happen to her, Nathan?”
“I—I don’t know. I mean, I brought the sheet from the trailer. I snuck in and took it while Mum was in her room, but I didn’t put it in the ditch. I just put it over her. So she wasn’t…cold.” He sobs once, and then pushes his fists against his eyes, almost violently.
“Cold? She was dead, Nathan. Of course she was cold,” I say impatiently. “So how did she get in the ditch? How did she get the DNA burnt off her?”
“I don’t know, I said! Someone must have come back and done that stuff to her.” He cries more. “I didn’t do anything to her, I swear!”
I stop interrogating him. I’ve broken him and he hasn’t confessed to anything, so he must be telling the truth. Then, somewhere in my mind, a little alarm is going off. “Someone?” I repeat. “Someone must have come back?”
“Yeah. When I found her…I touched her and she didn’t move, so I flipped out and ran away. I came back with the sheet. I was scared, though, that the killer would come back. I thought I heard a car door. It was really late. So I ran home through the back way of the den. I got all scratched up and fell in the ditch. I thought Mum would be mad when I got back home, but she was already asleep. So I just”—Nathan shrugs—“brushed my teeth and got into bed.”
“You brushed your teeth,” I repeat softly.
“Yeah,” he murmurs.
I walk over to him and sit down on the soil and leaves, the other side of him from where Billie sat.
Nathan hangs his head. “I could have saved her. She only came to the woods ’cause of me. I should have said something when I came back to check on her. I think about it every night and I can’t get to sleep. I imagine running in the den and jumping on him. You would have done. But instead I just…watched. I felt weird, like kind of…” There are tears in his eyelashes. “Kind of hot and bothered. You know. It made me feel funny like…because it was sex…I don’t know.” His cheeks are bloodred and he is crying. “All I know is I’m a bad person. I’m, like, perverted and sick, like him.”
I frown. “Like who? The man in the woods?”
“Like him…and like my dad. Like those fucking dicks, all my dad’s fucking friends. It’s my fault she’s dead.” Nathan sobs in his hands. “And that’s why I’m bad and how I know it’s not your fault. It’s my fault.”
“No, Nathan,” I say after a minute. “It’s mine. She was my best friend. I’m a month older than her. She was my responsibility.”
“It’s not your fault,” he moans, burying his head into his knees.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” I say, and put my hand on his shoulder. “And the thing is…I can’t live without her. Not really. But I might just be able to if I know her killer got what was coming to”—I frown—“him.” I sit up suddenly. “Nathan! That’s it!”
“What?”
“It all makes sense.”
“What does? What are you talking about? Thera?”
I turn to him, almost grinning. “I’ve figured it out.” I scramble to my feet and Nathan follows suit. “I’ve figured out who the killer is. Billie’s last message to me. I thought it was a mistake, but it wasn’t.”
“What did she say?” he asks.
“She said: ‘I thought she liked me but it wasn’t true.’”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not if the killer’s a man.” I dive into the tunnel and crawl out of the den, then pace toward the gate to the woods. I can vaguely hear Nathan behind me, but I’m almost unaware of him. I can feel in every bone in my body that I’m right; that I know who the real murderer is.
“Thera, wait up! Don’t you think the killer’s a man?”
I turn my head just a little, to talk behind me to Nathan as he catches up. “‘I know I couldn’t live without him.’”
“You couldn’t live without him who? What?”
“It’s what Mrs. Adamson said to me. That she couldn’t live without her husband. And she’s got all this crap in her car, Nathan, rope and matches and stuff. And the walker, I’ve met him. But when I talked to him, I didn’t feel like he was going to kill me. I could tell from his aura, from my instinctive reaction to him, that he wasn’t a real threat, that he was kind of wimpy, even. But Mrs. Adamson h
as always seemed off to me. Sometimes she’s mean, sometimes she says weird things. What if she was jealous of the walker’s affection for Billie? What if she thought she would lose him? What if she even saw him with Billie in the woods? Mrs. A can’t live without her husband. Could that drive someone to murder?” I stop pacing at the top of the hill after we’ve walked through a fallow field. I am panting, but I’m elated. I cast my eyes over the heavens. They are clear and blue. I nod. Everything feels right. “And then the walker has pictures of two of the dead girls, at least. I think not only was he a pervert with them all, but they also all have the same killer.”
“What dead girls? And who did you say Mrs. Adamson was?”
I whirl around and grab him by both arms. “You’re right, Nathan. The biggest fault isn’t ours.” He looks up at me all miserable, and to make him feel better I push my lips against his softly. When I take my lips away, he opens his mouth and looks all starry-eyed. “You’re not a bad person. Listen, the car—was it a big one, like a jeep?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever see it? Driving through the village or anything?”
He licks his lips and swallows.
“What?”
“I can recognize it,” he whispers. “The jeep. The number plate has an L in it. It has this scratch on the side. Sometimes I see it around the village.”
“Really?” I say, excited. “And who is driving it?”
“The walker, I guess.”
“You guess? Don’t you know?”
“Well…” He looks embarrassed. “I always run away. I don’t want him to see me.”
I nod. “Excellent. This is excellent.”
Nathan grimaces at me warily. “What are you gonna do?”
I feel the wind lift the wisps of hair around my face and I close my eyes and then open them again, looking around at my land, my village, my territory. “In some way I’ve known what I had to do ever since I found Billie.” I look back at his lovely face. How could I ever have thought he was the killer? “It’s time to put the blame where it belongs.”
“You don’t know who the blame belongs to,” Nathan says. “You don’t know who the killer is.”
“You’re wrong, Nathan,” I tell him. “I do.” I let go of his arms. “Come and get me the next time you see the jeep. Come as fast as you can. I have to get to it before it leaves.”
I turn away from him and set off for home, running down the hill, my hair streaming out behind me like the flag of a victor.
I don’t know where Mrs. A lives—only that she lives outside the village—so I have to wait for the signal from Nathan, but as it turns out it doesn’t take long. He’s been looking out for the jeep, and shortly after we meet, before we go on holiday even, it comes to the woods and he runs over to my house. I almost miss him, because he is a bit of a scaredy-cat about throwing rocks at my window, even after I convinced him it was okay. He throws pebbles instead, and I don’t hear them because I’m listening to an All Saints CD and doing automatic writing. Sam sees Nathan through the window downstairs and runs up to my room, yelling, “Nathan Nolan’s outside! He’s outside!”
“Shh!” I hiss. My hand is scrawling fast on the paper. I’m writing down everything that happened to Kerry. When I take my hand away I get a burning sensation. “Shit!” I say, and Sam gasps. “Sorry for swearing,” I tell him. “It’s hanging around with Nathan. Go—go and tell him I’m coming!”
I apologize to Kerry’s ghost quickly, grab the bag I have prepacked and hidden under my bed, and run downstairs. “He says to meet him behind the hedge on the top road in the fields,” Sam whispers loudly.
“Shh!” I tell him, then: “Nan! I’m just going out for a bit!”
“Young madam, why are you yelling? I’m in here!”
“Oh. Sorry, Nan.” I stick my head in the kitchen. Nan is making sandwiches. “I’m just going out for a walk.” I don’t say with Nathan, because if something bad happens I don’t want him to be blamed.
“Where are you walking?”
“Through the village.”
“You’re not allowed on the fields.”
“I know, I promised Mum I wouldn’t go there anymore.” Nan looks at me suspiciously. “I’m being good now, Nan,” I say. “What do I have to say to convince you?”
“Hmm,” she says. “Well, all right. Do you want some sandwiches?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“I’ve already made them. They’re tuna.”
“Okay, sure—eight, please.” Four for me and four for Nathan. Nan wraps them in tinfoil and I take them with me and run out the door, stuffing two in my mouth. As soon as I’m outside I pelt as fast as I can down the close and into the nearest field. (I lied—it’s called doing something bad for the greater good.) I run through the barley toward the top road. I can see Nathan at the hedge, near the entrance to Rawley Farm. When I reach him, I motion to him to crouch down.
“Stealth mode,” I say.
“What?”
“Get down and be quiet!”
We duck behind the hedge. I open my bag and start to change. Nathan stares at me as I take off my top. “Erm, what are you doing?”
“I’m bait, remember?” I say.
“No. I don’t remember you saying that,” Nathan replies, a little distressed.
I pull on a vest top that clings to me and makes my almost-boobs look the most like boobs they can. It’s white, the color of purity, which, as we have ascertained, is what perverts like. I pass Nathan my jeans and T-shirt and he holds them and watches me change with a confused expression. My hair is in pigtail braids, with purple hair bobbles and butterfly clips. On my bottom I pull on a blue tartan skirt and pink underwear. I’m wearing my sneakers with purple elastic laces and socks, for running fast. It all seems to work because when Nathan sees my underwear he says, “Wer-er-er, um, are you sure about this?”
“Totally,” I say. I look through the gap. The jeep is there, with the engine switched off.
“I think he’s down at the farm shop.” The farm shop is just inside the farm gates. Farmer Rawley sells vegetables, flowers, and eggs there. It’s just an honesty till: you put money in a cardboard box and take what you want. Before Billie was killed, sometimes Mum used to send us there to buy tomatoes and stuff. “Do you want me to call the police?” Nathan says. “From the phone booth?” About half a mile to our right is the red phone booth where I reported finding Billie.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare.” I look at him. “Promise me.”
“Okay.”
“I said promise.”
“Why, though? If you know it’s him, why?”
“Nathan. If you have to ask why…” I breathe. “You don’t love me.”
He bites his lip slowly and then he makes the sign across his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I beam. He loves me. “The police can’t handle this,” I say. “They haven’t even found him so far. Anyway, they won’t do what the dead girls want. He’s toast.”
Nathan gulps. “Okay, well, do whatever you’re going to do quickly. I can hear footsteps.”
“Okay. Perfect.”
“Perfect for what?”
“My purposes.” I hand Nathan his sandwiches. “Here, take these. For lunch.” I stand up and start to push through the hedge.
Nathan catches hold of my arm. “Thera…”
I look at his hand. “Don’t you dare stop me, Nathan Nolan.”
He lets go of me. “I wish I could.”
“I’m in charge of my own destiny. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I know.” He tenses his fingers around the tinfoil parcel.
“Don’t squash those,” I say. “My nan made them.”
“What are they?”
“Tuna.”
“Thanks very much,” he says wei
rdly, like he’s half grateful, half offended, and maybe a bit sarcastic.
I look over to the copse.
“Thera?” Nathan murmurs nervously. “What happens if, you know…if you don’t make it back?”
I look back to him. “Don’t you trust me?” I smile. “Goodbye, Nathan.”
He doesn’t reply, just breathes and blinks at me, so I leave, pushing through the hedge, keeping low and running over to the jeep. I imagine Nathan saying something romantic like, “Goodbye, Thera. I’ll never forget you,” or “I know you’ll make it, Thera, you’re a survivor,” or “I’ll wait for you forever, no matter what happens,” but then I’m near the jeep and I have to concentrate.
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