The Girl Who Came Back

by Kerry Wilkinson

  ‘A deer,’ he says. ‘There are all sorts of beasts in these woods – now get on.’

  He jabs the torch into my back and there is no other sound as I scuff my feet towards the gap in the trees. The light from Max’s torch shines out ahead of me, illuminating the way. When I risk a glance backwards, he hisses for me to turn around – and he’s a good couple of lengths away. Swinging the spade is not an option. I have to keep going for now.

  There’s a sign for ‘Riversway Country Park’ – which I’ve never heard of, but the setting makes sense for this sort of thing. Aside from family visits on a weekend, country parks are surely there for dogging in the car park and the odd bit of body burying.

  The path is largely made of dirt, with intermittent small stones to help with footing when it’s wet. I keep an eye out for anything large, even though the chances of scooping it up and somehow hitting Max in one swoop would be lower than using the spade.

  The enveloping trees quickly swallow the moonlight and the only light of note is the flickering pillar from Max’s torch. I can hear him walking behind, keeping at my pace. He never seems to get any closer but his presence is always there.

  It’s a few minutes until we reach a fork. There are no signs but Max calls ‘right’ and I do as I’m told, still scuffing my feet. The spade is starting to feel even heavier in my hands and I wonder if I could turn, throw it at Max and make a run for it. I’m already a few strides ahead and might get a couple of seconds more. The obvious problem is that I have no idea where I am. If I follow the path, he has the advantage; if I don’t, then the forest bed is a series of traps. Even in the light of Max’s torch, I can see the twigs and branches strewn across either side of the path. There are bushes, too, plus tufty plants and other things to fall over. In daylight, there would be a multitude of leg-breakers hidden from view; at night, I’d be lucky not to end up flat on my face within seconds.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  I try to sound as vulnerable as I can, nineteen years young; weak and defenceless.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Do you think Mum would want this?’

  ‘Shut up and keep walking.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone if you let me go. We’ll pretend it never happened.’

  There’s a pause and a fraction of a second where I think, perhaps, he’s considering it. Then a weary: ‘Do I really have to do this here or can you just shut up?’

  I stop talking but, even though I’m quiet, the forest is a hive of noise. There is endless rustling from both sides of the path; the scurry of night-time critters shuffling around looking for food. Max mentioned a deer and, who knows, perhaps a miracle will happen and one will appear from nowhere, shocking Max and giving me a chance to run.

  Snap!

  I freeze, twisting towards the sound which has come from behind. Max heard it as well. He’s staring along the path but quickly spins back to me, holding out the knife and then edging a step or two back the way we’ve come. It sounded like the crack of a twig, or the collapse of a tree branch. Something wooden.

  The moment I think about lunging with the spade, Max turns back, sending the arc of light directly into my eyes and dazzling me once more. I squeeze my eyes closed, gasping and staggering before I feel him pushing me along the path with the torch.

  ‘Get going,’ he says. ‘It’s only a deer.’

  ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘I don’t care. Walk.’

  He shoves me once more and I have no option other than to stagger along the path. It’s only a few seconds until the stars have cleared but the moment of brightness has left me feeling more disorientated than before.

  It’s my mind playing tricks, I know it is, but I try to convince myself the snap of wood wasn’t a deer. It was help – a saviour who happened to be out in the middle of nowhere and is now following at a distance. The rustling continues intermittently from either side and then there’s another crack of wood – this time from far in front of us.

  Help. It has to be help.

  I clasp the spade tight with one hand and untie my hair with the other, looping the tie around my wrist.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Max asks.

  ‘Nothing. I had an itch. I’m walking.’

  ‘Get on with it then.’

  We reach a spot with two dog waste bins next to a bench. There’s a metal plaque on the back rest of the bench and the light of Max’s torch glimmers bright against it.

  ‘Right,’ Max says.

  I stop but don’t turn. ‘Right, where?’

  ‘Into the woods.’

  He flashes the light in the direction he means but, even with that, it seems eerily dark.

  ‘Get on with it,’ he says.

  I do, scratching a foot against the verge and continuing. It’s only then that it dawns on me we must really be in the middle of nowhere. If Max was worried about being seen, he wouldn’t be using the torch. I don’t know where Riversway Country Park is to have any idea what the nearest town or village might be, let alone in which direction. The sky is clear enough to be able to see the stars but things like constellations are a mystery to me. I’m far too used to using my phone to navigate.

  My phone.

  It’s hard to hold onto the spade with one hand and I almost drop it – but I do manage to establish it’s no longer in my pocket. Max must’ve poached it when he knocked me out. Not a surprise, I guess. The time to fully panic is getting near.

  ‘Missing something?’

  Max sounds like his brother when he gloats.

  There’s another crack from behind but neither of us turn this time. It’s one noise among hundreds of others. Deer, squirrels, rats or those giant leopard-like cats people always see but never get a good photo of.

  Max keeps the light a little ahead of me but all it really shows is that tearing off without a torch is madness. Every other step has something to trip over and, even with the spotlight, I still stumble on a number of occasions.

  I’ve lost all track of time, not simply from when I was in the alley but since the car stopped. I could’ve been walking for five minutes or thirty. Neither would surprise me.

  We walk for a while longer but it’s slower going over the rough carpet of plants and weeds. Out of nowhere, Max says ‘stop’ and I do. The light hovers on my back and flickers from side to side. It’s hard to know for sure, but it feels like we’re in some sort of clearing. The moss is thicker and the whole area is covered with a peppering of clover leaves.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  The torchlight shines away from me, sweeping through my peripheral vision and then, presumably, off behind me until it reappears on my other side.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ I ask.

  ‘Shush.’

  The light makes another arcing sweep from side to side and then stops on an outcrop off to my left. The ground dips down into a shallow bowl and the moss is slightly lighter than the rest of the surrounding area.

  ‘There,’ Max says.

  I risk turning but he’s further back than I thought, a good half-dozen strides away. His features are largely hidden by the night, though I can still make out his outline.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘There are bones buried there.’

  I turn to focus on the outcrop, wondering if he’ll add anything else. Bones.

  ‘Is that why you gave me a spade?’ I try to sound confident and assured but my voice wavers. I can’t help it.

  ‘You really are the smart one, aren’t you?’ he says.

  ‘Why do you want me to dig up some bones?’

  There’s a pause and the light flickers slightly as he breathes in. ‘I don’t, not really. I nearly came out here myself just to check.’

  ‘Check what?’

  Another silence. Longer this time. ‘I know you’re not Olivia Adams.’

  I can feel him watching me through the darkness – and then it’s obvious. He knew all along. We’ve been playing this game back and forth, but the
re are only two people on the planet who know I can’t be Olivia.

  Me… and the person who killed her.

  Thirty-Four

  ‘How’d you do it?’

  Max is quieter when he next speaks and it’s almost funny what’s happened over the past week. He’d have known I was an imposter the whole time but was unable to say anything about it. Then I agreed to the DNA test and he must have thought I’d be exposing myself. It’s no wonder he seemed so spaced out when Mum read the letter to say it was a match.

  ‘Do what?’ I reply.

  Anything I can do to delay the inevitable.

  ‘You know. How did you fake the test?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  He laughs but there’s menace there. ‘Get digging and we’ll see you’re lying.’

  I really don’t want to do it. I know I’ll be digging my own grave. It won’t be one Olivia in there any longer, it’ll be two. But digging up those bones will take time and that’s one thing I am running short on. I move over to the spot and Max trails behind, holding the light steady.

  ‘There,’ he says when I’m standing over the hollow.

  ‘How far down?’

  ‘Get digging and we’ll find out. We’ve got all night.’

  It only takes one shunt of spade into ground to tell me this isn’t going to work. The ground is hard from weeks without any sort of rain. It takes so much effort to get even one spadeful of dirt out that I know it’s going to take hours. We have hours, but that’s not the point.

  ‘I thought you were your brother,’ I say. Talking is my only hope.

  ‘Get on and dig.’

  ‘I am digging.’

  And I am. Slowly.

  ‘When I was in the car,’ I add, ‘I woke up and I thought it was Ashley who’d taken me.’

  Max scoffs. He’s standing a short distance away, keeping the light steady on the curved pit. ‘My brother is many things – but the major thing is a big mouth. He does a lot of talking but he doesn’t know half of what’s going on around him.’

  I crunch the spade into the soil again, twisting and wriggling it until another square full of dirt, dust and plant roots come up.

  ‘Does that mean he doesn’t know what happened to Olivia?’ I ask.

  A pause and the light flickers. ‘I thought you were Olivia…?’

  I don’t reply to that, instead shovelling out two more mounds of earth. My shoulders and biceps are burning.

  ‘That little cow was a trap,’ Max says.

  ‘Olivia?’

  It feels odd to be using the name to talk about someone else. I’d spent so long getting used to the name being mine. Olivia Elizabeth Adams. It’s my name and yet it isn’t.

  Max growls his reply: ‘Sarah would have stayed with him forever because of that girl. Didn’t matter how unhappy she was or how much she wanted to be with me. I wouldn’t have had a chance.’

  That explains one thing. It’s not entirely a surprise, I suppose. Whatever the media might have thought, Stoneridge is far too inward-looking for villagers not to have noticed a strange car or van in the vicinity. If the idea of a stranger staging an abduction is discounted, then Olivia had to have been taken by someone who knew her. Who had more to gain than Max? On the back of what happened, he’s had a thirteen-year relationship with his childhood sweetheart. Georgie said he followed Mum around like a puppy and this is why – pure infatuation.

  ‘Mum told me she slept with you while she was married to Dad.’

  The light darts up from the ground to my face, temporarily blinding me before flickering down once more.

  ‘She what?’

  ‘She said you were together a few weeks before Olivia went missing.’

  The light wavers from side to side.

  ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘That the marriage was in trouble whether or not Olivia disappeared.’

  There’s silence for a while, followed by a softer: ‘Dig.’

  I shovel out a couple more piles of dirt but I’ve barely made an impact on the overall space.

  ‘Did she love him?’ Max sounds as if he genuinely doesn’t know. That he’s spent thirteen years asking himself this but has never been brave enough to ask his wife.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Three more mounds of dirt come out. It’s getting easier now the top level has gone. The earth underneath is mushier and the spade carves through it comfortably. Depending on how deep Olivia’s bones are, this might not take so long. All I can do in that case is try to drag things out.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ I ask.

  ‘Olivia?’

  ‘Who else?’

  There is no reply for a moment and then a crisp, unemotional: ‘Her neck was snapped before I pulled her over the back gate. She wouldn’t have felt much.’

  That’s it. He speaks without remorse and could be talking about driving along the motorway or making a salad.

  I indicated and moved into the outside lane before switching back.

  I chopped up some tomatoes to go with that lettuce. I think there’s some French dressing in the cupboard.

  Olivia means nothing to him.

  I dig out a couple more spadefuls and then stop for a moment, leaning on the nearest tree.

  ‘I didn’t tell you to stop.’

  ‘My arms are hurting. I need a minute.’

  Max seems to think this over – though it’s hard to know because I can’t see him, I can only see the light.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asks, the question echoing through the dark.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No one gets one over on me or my family.’

  ‘It’s not like that’s what I was trying to do.’

  The light darts up to my face and down again. It’s definitely not an accident this time – if it ever was – it’s a deliberate ploy to dazzle me.

  ‘The only reason you’re still around is because I’ve got a dodgy shoulder,’ Max says. ‘That won’t stop me digging the hole myself if I have to. Your choice.’

  The torchlight glints to the blade of Max’s knife and it looks larger than before. The tip is razor sharp. If there was any question that talking is delaying the inevitable, then he’s confirmed it.

  ‘You a gippo?’ he asks.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Gippo. Gypsy. Pikey. Traveller. Didicoi. Whatever you call ’em.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That was some story you spun Sarah. She believed every word. I figured you must be something to do with the gippos.’

  ‘I made all that up. Took me months.’

  I shovel out another heap of dirt and have cleared the surface of a good square metre or so. Everything below will be easier.

  ‘Credit to ya,’ he says. ‘It sounded good.’

  That was the point, I suppose. It had to sound good, to be conceivable. People want to believe there are demons on the other side of the garden gate. That’s the fear upon which newspapers and horror movies both prey. They’re two sides of the same coin.

  Travellers roll into town and people are trying to move them on before the handbrake’s been lifted. Mine was a story that was easy to believe and hard to disprove. By their very name, they’re travellers. They travel. They could be anywhere. As soon as I thought of it, I knew it would sound plausible.

  Max isn’t done. ‘Ashley believed it,’ he adds.

  ‘I thought he was the one who didn’t believe me?’

  ‘Oh, aye. You had him hook, line and sinker. His problem was he thought you were after his money. Not that he has much.’

  Another pile of soil. It’s crumbly now.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Max asks. ‘Your real name?’

  It feels wrong to say it now, as if it belongs to someone else. In many ways it does, of course. It’s not mine to use any longer.

  He takes a step towards me and sounds firmer this time: ‘Come on. I’m not messing around.
’

  ‘It’s Lily.’

  He stops and the light holds firm on the ground. It’s my only way of knowing where he is.

  ‘Lily what?’

  ‘Armitage.’

  He repeats the name and it sounds foul in his voice. ‘Lily Armitage,’ he says again. ‘Should I know that name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you fake the test?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  He steps forward again and the light flashes from side to side.

  ‘You’re going to tell me, Lily Armitage. Was it the lab? You knew someone there?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You paid someone, then?’

  ‘I didn’t pay anyone and I don’t know anyone at the lab. Mum fixed that up, remember. Not me.’

  ‘Don’t call her that. She’s not your mother.’

  He spits the final sentence and the controlled anger is now closer to outright fury.

  ‘I’m only going to ask you one more time,’ he says. ‘You will tell me: how did you cheat the test?’

  2016: Lily, 19

  Call Me Jimmy invites me to sit and I do. He rounds the desk and locks the door to his office. It clicks ominously and then he’s fussing at the back of the room.

  ‘Fancy a tea?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really.’

  He clicks the kettle on anyway and then rests against the table at the back of the room. The tea table is a new addition to the office. Nothing special, of course – that’s not Jimmy’s style. He’s got a cheap side table, a cheaper plastic kettle, a box of teabags and a small carton of long-life milk. God forbid he gets a fridge.

  I sit and he slouches against the wall as we wait in silence. What is there to say to each other? He’s forty years older than me and we have nothing in common other than that I need something from him and he craves something from me.

  When the kettle clicks off, he swills a teabag around a grimy mug with a grimier spoon and then swirls a splash of milk before taking his seat back on the other side of the desk. It’s all for show and I’ve learnt that if I try to make him hurry, he only takes longer. He knows where the power lies because, in the end, I need him more than he wants me.