by Luca Veste
There was an uneasy silence as Michelle curled her legs underneath herself and then turned slowly towards me. I grimaced and shook my head. ‘You okay?’
She rolled her eyes at the question. ‘You know.’
‘I went to his house after we saw each other,’ I said, sitting back on the sofa. I laid my jacket next to me and ran a hand through my hair. I realised I didn’t want to mention the candle straight away. Maybe to pretend things were a little more normal than they were, or to see if she was going to mention it herself. I knew she’d been to the house, but she hadn’t mentioned what I’d seen there. ‘It was more difficult than I thought it would be. Everything looked so . . . normal.’
‘That was Stuart. He was a different person to what most people thought.’
‘Why didn’t you two ever settle down?’
‘We were never in the same place as the other,’ she replied after a few seconds of thought. She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. ‘I suppose we were always just expected to and that kind of made us resist it. That’s not to say we didn’t come close to on loads of occasions. We had plans; whenever we were in a good place, we would talk about making a go of it properly. I guess I just thought it would happen eventually. We both saw other people, sometimes for a while, but always drifted back into each other’s lives somehow. You know what I mean.’
‘I do. Even when we weren’t together, I knew it was just a matter of time with Alexandra. We spent ten years apart, but I think we needed that. Not that it worked out in the end anyway.’
‘What happened? Why did you break up?’
That was one of the things that kept me awake at night. Why we hadn’t made it work in the end. Not being able to answer the question sufficiently. ‘After that night last year, it was different. It changed us both. I knew something was wrong within a few hours, but I tried to ignore it. When me and Stuart came out of the woods after going to look for my wallet, I knew that instant we wouldn’t last. We wouldn’t be able to get through it. When we told you all that the lad’s body had disappeared, I could see it in her eyes.’
‘What did you see?’
I knew Michelle would have Alexandra’s version of events, but I didn’t think it would differ that much to mine. Still, I treaded carefully when I spoke. ‘I could see that it was never going to go away. That there would be this thing that would hang over us forever. And sometimes that’s okay and you can get past it. Look at Chris and Nicola – they seem stronger than ever. With me and Alexandra, we didn’t have that history of facing challenges and then suddenly we’re struck with something bigger than either of us could handle. When we got back home it was like we didn’t know what to say to each other. I thought all she could see when she looked at me was what I’d done. It ruined us.’
‘Stuart and I were never together again after that night,’ Michelle said, wrapping her arms around her legs as she drew them up to her chest. ‘It wasn’t even spoken about. We just both knew we were done. That it was over. Didn’t mean we didn’t still speak to each other though. You and Alexandra don’t speak . . . ’
I hesitated, trying to work out what to say. She was right – we didn’t speak. And I desperately wished at that moment we still did. Then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in Michelle’s matchbox living room feeling like I had no way out. Maybe I would have someone to help me through whatever this turned out to be. ‘I don’t think we could talk to each other after all this time. Not the way we used to. It still hurts that it had to be over. I can’t speak to her because it hurts too much to think about what we lost and can’t get back.’
‘I think of the young guy a lot, you know?’
I frowned at the sudden shift in conversation, but thankfully didn’t answer with my first thought.
Why?
The face came to mind instantly, but another part of me wondered if I had it right. Whether I’d remembered it correctly, or whether I had managed to ignore that as well. I stayed silent and looked at the soundless images on the television screen instead.
‘Mark Welsh,’ Michelle said, in a tone that faltered on the last syllable. ‘I’ve learned more about him than I know about people in my own family.’
‘Yeah, I try not to think about him too much.’
‘You know there’s going to be a lot of interest in him, with it coming to a year since he “went missing”. His mum and sisters are all over social media talking about it. They’ll be on TV and stuff. They’re out there looking for answers and there’s only us who can give them. Does that sit right with you?’
‘No, of course not,’ I replied, leaning forward, elbows on my knees and hands clasped almost as if I were about to pray. ‘But we can’t say anything now. It would be bad for all of us. I know they’ll never get the answers about what happened to their son, but what will it help?’
‘It’ll give them closure,’ Michelle said, staring at me as if she were daring me to argue against her. ‘They’ve been sitting there for almost a year, wondering what happened to their son and they haven’t a clue. How can we sit back and not do anything about that?’
‘Calm down, Michelle,’ I replied, looking around us. I wondered how thin the walls were in these ridiculous houses. Whether they could hear what Michelle was saying. ‘I understand, but there’s not much we can do. If one of us confesses, that’s all of us going down . . . ’
‘I can’t live like this anymore. Not now.’
I shook my head in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s not you who’s next,’ Michelle continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You don’t have to worry about it. You will though. We all will.’
‘You’re not making any sense,’ I said, but Michelle was on her feet and leaving the room. I followed her into the back room, a tiny dining room, with a smaller kitchen leading off it. She was standing next to her dining table – another flat-pack special that could barely sit two people round it. I saw what was sitting on top of it and forgot everything else.
‘You see?’ Michelle said, turning to me now, her eyes wide and burning into me. ‘This isn’t over. Not for any of us.’
Sitting on the table was a red candle in a storm lantern.
Burning slowly.
Dull red, the colour of blood.
I was back in those woods again. Standing over that body.
Twenty-One
I took a step back and found myself with my back against the doorframe.
‘Where did this come from?’ I asked, feeling the room get smaller around us. The walls closing in, as I stared at the flame. The candle was housed in the same contraption as the one we’d seen in the woods. And the one I’d seen in Stuart’s house. ‘Michelle, tell me what’s going on.’
‘It turned up this morning,’ Michelle replied, her voice quiet and scared. She had wrapped her arms around her body and was looking at me and then the candle in turn. ‘I thought maybe I’d bought it when I wasn’t thinking straight. I got a bit wasted after the funeral. But I was lying to myself. I wouldn’t have one of those things in my house. It was left there – in the middle of the table. And it was burning.’
‘This makes no sense . . . ’
‘Don’t you get it?’ Michelle said, almost pleading with me to understand. ‘We’ve always known someone saw us that night. Someone moved Mark Welsh and now they’ve come back to finish the job. They couldn’t get us all that night, but now they’ve found out who we were and are going to pick us off one by one.’
‘Who?’
‘Well, obviously someone who doesn’t feel the need to tell the Welsh family where their son and brother is.’
‘Someone connected to . . . him?’
Michelle nodded, but there was no triumph in her expression. Only resignation. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a shaking hand.
‘We should tell someone,’ I said, feeling defeated. ‘It’s over. We don’t even know who he was.’
‘Weren’t you just telling me we had to keep quiet still?’
‘Yes, but this changes things,’ I said, yet I wondered if I really believed that. Part of me still wondered if this was all a trick – a way of Michelle convincing me that we had to tell people what happened so she could be relieved of her guilt. Yet, we both knew there was nothing that would alleviate that – we would carry it forever. ‘We need to do something. If someone has broken into your house and left this here, it’s a threat.’
‘I know that. Do you think I’m stupid?’
‘No, of course not—’
‘Do you think I don’t understand exactly what this means? It means there’s a person out there who not only knows what we’ve done, but who also killed Stuart and is going to try and kill me next. Did you see what was in Stuart’s house?’
I hesitated and thought about lying. Then I decided to answer. ‘A red candle.’
Michelle smiled but it was entirely devoid of humour. ‘Exactly.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it before?’
‘I wanted you to see it on your own,’ Michelle said, looking away from me. ‘Then you could make your own mind up about it.’
‘How did you even know I would go there?’
‘Because I know you, Matt,’ Michelle replied, turning back to me and staring into my eyes. ‘I know what you’re like. I knew after seeing me, hearing what I had to say, that you wouldn’t be able to let things lie.’
‘What does it mean?’
Michelle sighed and leaned her head back, closing her eyes briefly. ‘He came to me, about four days before he died. Totally wired, in shock, and he told me about it. I told him he was mistaken, that he probably bought it and forgot, or he wasn’t thinking straight. All the things I’ve been telling myself for the past three days. I didn’t listen to him and look what happened.’
‘Michelle . . . ’
‘Don’t, okay?’ Michelle said, pushing me away as I crossed the room towards her and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘This is no less than we deserve. We left that boy there. We were going to walk away, like nothing happened. We killed someone, then as soon as we realised it was a bad person, thought we could just hide his body and it was all going to be okay. Truth is, it hasn’t been. Not for any of us. And now we’re having to face up to that.’
‘Not by being killed for it,’ I replied, leaning across the table and pausing with hands near the candle. I suddenly didn’t want to touch it. I shook away the feeling and picked it up. ‘It’s just a candle. You should get away for a few days and make sure no one is coming after you – someone might just be trying to mess with our heads, that’s all. We should throw this away. Where did you find it?’
‘Exactly where it is now.’
‘So they got into the house?’
Michelle nodded and then turned away. She wiped a sleeve over her cheek, then the other one. ‘He’s come back.’
‘But we . . . we killed him.’
‘Again, didn’t you ever wonder what happened to that lad’s body?’
‘Of course I did,’ I said, even though I wanted it to be a lie. I tried not to think about it because I wanted to pretend it didn’t happen that way. I never wanted to think about going back to that part of the woods and seeing that bare patch of land where we’d set down an eighteen-year-old kid’s body. All I remember after that is my heart beating against my chest and almost twelve months of waiting for a knock on the door. Not being able to sleep at night, thinking that at any moment, that visit would finally come.
‘It’s just . . . ’ I tried to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. I took a deep breath and made another attempt. ‘I just thought there was some explanation for it. That’s all. That’s what I’ve told myself because the alternative is too much to live with. There were hours between us leaving him there and him disappearing. I thought it was an animal or . . . or something like that.’
‘A person took him. Put him somewhere else. Made sure no one could ever find him, knowing that we were the only ones who knew the truth and there was no way we were ever going to say a thing about it.’
‘But the man who killed him is dead. We did that.’
‘Which is why we know now that he wasn’t working alone.’
It was almost as if I was hearing it for the first time, thinking of someone else in those woods, watching as six people descended on that man and took his life. Knowing they couldn’t do anything. Waiting almost a year for his revenge.
My throat became wet, my stomach churned and the world span a little around me. I stumbled backwards a little, into the living room where I slumped on the sofa and put my head to my knees. Cradled the back of my head.
I didn’t want this.
I just wanted to be normal again.
‘Here,’ Michelle said from above me. I looked up and she handed me a glass of water. I took a few sips and closed my eyes as I leaned back towards the ceiling.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she continued, crossing the room and looking out onto the dark street outside through the blinds. When she continued, she sounded exhausted. ‘Do I wait to see if I’m right? I haven’t slept properly since Stuart died. Now someone has been in here and I didn’t even know it.’
‘You can’t stay here,’ I said, wondering why she hadn’t left. How had she stayed there, knowing that at any moment there could be a stranger in her house? ‘You have to get out of this house.’
‘And go where? I’ve got nowhere to go.’
‘You could stay at mine,’ I replied, quickly and confidently, while another part of me wanted to be as far away from her as possible. ‘You’d be safer there.’
‘How long can that go on for though?’ Michelle said, shaking her head, turning back away from me. ‘How long do I keep running?’
I understood it now. Why she was talking in riddles and not running as fast and as far as possible.
She wanted this.
‘Michelle, you can’t let this happen . . . ’
She looked at me through eyes that were no longer alive. The light that had always shined in them was now gone. ‘Why not? Don’t you think we deserve it?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, getting to my feet and feeling the room spin a little again. ‘We screwed up. I’m not saying we haven’t. It doesn’t mean we have to give in. He was evil. If he’d been given the chance, he would have killed us all. He was going to kill Stuart. We did what we had to. That’s it. Yes, we have to live with that and it will mess us up for the rest of our lives, but that doesn’t mean we deserve . . . this. I don’t care if someone is out there now, looking for revenge or whatever. We did the right thing.’
‘I keep having the same nightmare,’ Michelle said, her voice quieter now as she moved back across the room and sat down. ‘Ever since it happened. I’m in the woods and there’s a banging coming from somewhere. I’m running, trying to find where it’s coming from. Every time I feel like I’m getting closer, the noise moves to somewhere else. I can’t find it and I just keep going and going until I can’t breathe anymore. That’s what life feels like all the time now. Like I’m just waiting for that noise to get closer, while we all pretend it’s not coming. I can’t handle it anymore. I either have to tell someone what we did, or just wait for whatever noise is coming to arrive.’
‘We can get through this . . . ’
‘No, I can’t,’ Michelle said, cutting me off as I started to speak. She got to her feet and opened the living-room door. ‘I shouldn’t have told you what was going on. I should have kept it to myself.’
‘It’s okay, I can help you,’ I replied, standing up but not moving closer to her. ‘It’s just a blip, okay? There’s no reason to let whoever this is win. We all need to just get together and work this out, that’s all. All of us. If we can make some sort of plan, it’ll all be okay.’
‘Because the last time we made a plan it worked out so well? There’s nothing we can do now. Just . . . just leave me alone. I’ll think about it, okay? That’s all I’ll say.’
‘Michelle, come back
with me to mine. You can stay a few days until we sort all of this out.’
She smiled at me, but I knew there was no changing her mind.
‘I’ll be okay here,’ Michelle said finally, stepping aside so I knew it was time to leave. ‘I’m probably worked up over nothing. Maybe I did buy that candle and just forgot about it. I’ve not exactly been in the right frame of mind recently. I just need a good night’s sleep.’
I knew she didn’t believe that. Someone had been in her house – had left her the same candle as the one I had seen earlier in Stuart’s house. The idea of it shook me again – the unreality of it making me want to laugh.
This couldn’t be happening.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to convince her that this wasn’t the place she should be right then. That there was another way out of the mess we had created. It would be pointless, I could see, but I should have tried harder.
Instead, I left her there and went back home.
I left her to make myself safe again.
1997
‘Alexandra.’
She looked up at me and her face was blank. I couldn’t read it at all. Even as an inexperienced sixteen-year-old boy, I still felt like I could work out some things in life. This wasn’t one of those things. We had become girlfriend and boyfriend only a month or so earlier. I was still learning.
Alexandra.
‘Why do you call me that?’ she said, brushing a finger through her fringe to take it away from her eyes, then not flinching as it settled back in the same place. ‘Everyone else calls me Alex, but you don’t. Why?’
I opened my mouth to give an answer, but my brain didn’t seem to want to cooperate. I closed it again, waited a few seconds for it to catch up, then made another attempt. ‘I like your name.’
‘I love my name, but that doesn’t answer my question.’ Truth was, I didn’t really have an answer. I just enjoyed saying it. Everyone else called her Alex, which was fine, but I felt like I wanted to be different. Maybe that was a good enough answer, but at that moment I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be.