The Bone Keeper

by Luca Veste

The waiter smiled at Caroline as he placed the condiments on the table, but then the smile deserted his face as his eyes narrowed in recognition. She turned away, dropping her hands into her lap, yet still returned the smile. Even as he turned his back and left her.

  ‘That happens a lot,’ Caroline said, shrugging towards her from the opposite side of the table. ‘Like I’d give him one anyway.’

  ‘People are weird,’ Louise replied, a small chuckle escaping her. ‘I bet you’d get loads of strange ones if you put it on a Tinder profile.’

  Caroline laughed, but it was empty. Louise picked up the salt shaker, twirling it in her hand. ‘And your mum’s okay?’

  ‘She will be,’ Caroline replied, placing her hands back on the table between them. ‘No more surgeries, which is a good thing. She’s loving the scars, reckons we should call ourselves the scar twins. Says it give her character. I told her no one will see them, given where they are. She just winked at me.’

  Louise laughed for real now, and felt relieved when Caroline joined in. It died down quickly though, as the weight of what they shared fell over them once more.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m okay, I guess,’ Louise replied, nodding her head slowly. ‘What about you?’

  ‘If he hadn’t turned up, I don’t know what would have happened. I can’t begin to thank you . . .’

  ‘He saved your lives,’ Louise said, talking over her and staring into her eyes. ‘You don’t need to thank me.’

  ‘He would never have known to come if you hadn’t thought quickly.’

  Louise nodded again, more surely this time. Bit down on her lower lip, enjoying the sharpness of the pain. She couldn’t tell Caroline that it should have been herself in that house instead of Shipley. If she hadn’t been elsewhere.

  ‘He’s a hero,’ Caroline said, her voice soft but firm with conviction. ‘As are you.’

  Louise didn’t say anything, knowing it wasn’t really true. Caroline didn’t know what had happened in those woods. No one did. She had told the police who arrived after Shipley at the bloody scene in her mother’s house as much as she did know. How Shipley had saved them, after she’d called Louise. It was no wonder they thought she was a hero. Given what had happened elsewhere in the city that night, they hadn’t been much interested in the veracity of her account when she had emerged hours later.

  They’d just been glad to see her alive.

  How did you know to go there?

  ‘How many did you find?’

  Louise thought for a moment, knowing the information was all over the media. She guessed Caroline had ignored it all, gone into a safe bubble and decided none of it mattered. ‘Three dead, two people arrested and charged. Two saved in Formby woods, where . . . where I was. Two dead suspects. All those alive claiming to be the real Bone Keeper. We think it had become something of a cult.’

  ‘You knew something, didn’t you?’

  Louise didn’t answer her, staring at the salt shaker in her hand. A flash of heat crossed her face. She changed the subject. ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘It took me twenty years, but I finally found someone. Nathan. He came into my work talking about the Bone Keeper, that he’d seen him in those woods. He had been spoken to, by Rhys, about what could happen in the darkness there. All I got was the location and the name the Bone Keeper. That was all. I watched him for weeks. I wanted answers.’

  ‘Did you get them?’

  ‘Not really. They still haven’t found him, but I’ll dig up that woodland myself if I have to. He’s there somewhere.’

  Louise nodded, knowing the discovery would be coming soon enough. More graves had been found already in the woods in Formby. Another circle of bodies they were guessing was an older site. The entire land was being searched now; a total of twelve bodies had been recovered from there, all told. All that death, no one ever knowing it was there.

  She thought of her dad, training those men, those boys, to become like him. Trying to replace the hole he felt should have been filled by someone else. Seeing in them something he recognised in himself.

  In her.

  That desire to kill. That anger and rage. She felt Matthew had resisted and had been killed because he didn’t want to become like them. Every body buried in the woods is a failure, she heard her dad’s voice say, and thought that was the closest to the truth she could get. All of them a possible replacement for her. Louise didn’t know how to approach that side of the story with Caroline. Whether she and her mother would ever talk about it. She knew they would have questions that could never be answered.

  ‘I really thought he was still alive,’ Caroline continued, looking towards the exit. ‘That’s why I kept going. I never gave up on him.’

  Louise would never know her whole story. What had happened all those years ago, why she had kept the lie from the detectives when they’d visited her at the hospital. She could hazard a guess, but didn’t feel the need to.

  Caroline had wanted to be someone else. That was the reason for turning her back on her mother and changing her name all those years before.

  ‘You knew something,’ Caroline said again, waiting for an answer.

  Part of Louise wanted to give it to her, but she kept silent. That was one part she wasn’t willing to discuss. ‘I’ve heard the stories since I was a kid. Went hunting for him myself, when I was a teenager and thought I was invincible. I think I saw something once. Then, obviously, when we were led his way by Nathan Coldfield’s mother. He wasn’t exactly hiding away.’

  The lie came easily. Louise wondered if the man in the woods – her father – would ever be identified. His DNA hadn’t been on file until now. His fingerprints had never been taken before he’d been destroyed in that fire. He was a stranger to all.

  And the fire had made him unrecognisable. A broken and burnt skeleton of a man.

  She felt she knew what had happened now. Everything in the past few days designed to drive her back into her past. To come home, to him. To finally become what he’d always wanted her to be.

  That had been his plan.

  ‘Well, he thought he was untouchable. Rhys . . . he was an animal in those woods when he had me.’

  ‘You’re remembering more now?’

  ‘Bits, here and there. I wasn’t lying when I said it felt like he was inhuman. That’s how it felt. Maybe I’d been expecting a monster and my mind somehow made sure that’s how he looked.’

  ‘How did you really get free?’

  Caroline shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. I just remember bits of the night. I tell you one thing, I don’t think he was the only one there. Maybe some of the others turned up. I just remember a face above me, all blurry. It was dark, as if it were covered with something. His hair was long, like Rhys’s, but he was smaller I think. Does that sound like any of the other ones you arrested?’

  Louise nodded calmly, but felt her heart quicken. She placed the salt shaker back down, moving her shaking hands down to her sides.

  Her father had been there that night and set Caroline free. She had no doubt now.

  She knew why.

  It was the beginning of her father trying to get her back. Just as she’d thought. He was tired of the replacements. He wanted the real thing. He wanted the monster he thought he’d created when she’d been born. Someone who would be just like him. Passing down the flame of death.

  ‘Mum thinks it was Matty,’ Caroline said, shaking her head at the thought, then raising her hands in front of her in a ‘maybe’ gesture. ‘I don’t know. I thought I heard his voice at one point, but it was old and full of anger. It couldn’t have been him. I know he’s gone. It would be nice to think he was looking down on me, even after all this time. Saving me from myself. I’d like to believe that.’

  ‘Then you believe that,’ Louise said, reaching out and laying her hand on top of Caroline’s. ‘There’s nothing wrong with thinking we have a guardian angel watching our backs when we do stupid things.’

  ‘Beli
eve me, I’m never going back to the woods. No forests, no trees, no large parks. Not for a long time.’

  Louise chuckled, removing her hand from Caroline’s. She believed the woman would be able to go back to some semblance of a normal life. That the events would fade, the way all memories eventually do. Soon, it wouldn’t be real to her.

  She hoped she was right.

  ‘So, you’re really going?’

  Louise looked over the table at Shipley. His eyes were boring into hers. Caroline had left an hour earlier, replaced quickly by him. ‘For now, yeah. I have to get away for a while.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t need you to,’ Louise replied, then slipped a hand over his. ‘This is just something I have to do.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you. When you come back.’

  Louise smiled, but she didn’t believe him. He was moving forward, away from the quiet life they had led alongside each other.

  ‘We never talked after . . .’

  Louise held up a hand and shook her head. ‘We didn’t need to. We both know what that was. Just two people under pressure, looking for some comfort.’

  She could still remember the feeling, as their lips had met in the car. The hunger and desire she had felt at that moment. The knowledge he returned those emotions as well. It could have been more, Louise thought, but she wasn’t sure they would have ever been truly happy. Normal. Maybe that was something she had to accept. That for her, there was no normal.

  There was so much she could never tell him.

  Could never tell anyone.

  ‘It was more than that for me,’ Shipley said, then went quiet for a moment, knowing her mind was already set. Protecting himself. ‘Keep in touch?’

  ‘Of course,’ Louise said, then lifted her hand. They both rose from the table and she allowed his arms to encircle her.

  ‘See you soon.’

  Louise left him there, walking outside into the winter sunlight and getting into her car. She sat there for a moment, holding the steering wheel, and breathed. Nothing felt heavy anymore. There was nothing holding her back. The guilt would never leave her, but she could live with that.

  Maybe the anger and hate would be there, like a dark passenger she couldn’t always control. Yet, for the first time, she felt she could see the possibility of light. Of learning to accept her past and move on.

  The scars would remain, but perhaps that was okay. Maybe she needed to remember what she’d lived through.

  A different kind of normal.

  She placed the keys in the ignition and turned the engine over. Glanced to her right – to see Shipley running over. He stopped next to the car. She pressed the button to slide down her window.

  ‘I have to know,’ Shipley said, a little breathless, one hand resting on top of the car. ‘What happened in those woods?’

  Louise looked towards the road, then back at him. ‘The end of the story, Paul.’

  Then, she drove away.

  Heading south, leaving the city’s woods behind her.

  Matthew

  He still remembered the tunnel. Hidden deep in those woods. The soft ground underneath his feet, the sounds coming from the darkness.

  The echoes.

  The rage.

  The smell of death.

  He remembered watching his sister go through first. The faint sound of her voice. He hadn’t known then what lay inside – that would come a few seconds later. At that moment, he had simply thought she had scared herself and that was what he could hear.

  A few seconds later, he met him.

  The Bone Keeper.

  Now, Matthew Edwards walked through the forest, the sounds of leaves crunching under his feet filling the air around him. Some lifted off the ground ahead, as the wind carried through the branches.

  This would be his new home.

  Back then, he had resisted at first. Tried to get away as strong arms lifted him into the air and carried him back out of the tunnel. The stench of the monster, filling his nostrils and clawing at his skin. Something going across his mouth, a hand or a paw. He didn’t know then.

  He didn’t know he had been watched for a long time.

  The Bone Keeper had forced him to be still, using his weight against him, even as his eyes screamed at the emerging figures of his sister and the two others. Then back into the tunnel, where his only shout was clamped down by a dirty hand.

  The words began then. The stories.

  His life.

  The Bone Keeper had shown him his true self. The one he had tried to hide away. His feelings – and lack of them. The anger he felt inside and couldn’t control.

  Matthew had killed his first victim a year later. Aged fifteen, but unaware any more of time as a concept.

  He remembered the tunnel.

  He remembered the way the man’s flesh had felt in his fingers, as he used the knife to slice into him.

  Matthew was his old name – one forced on him without his consent. Now, he was who he was supposed to be.

  He was the Bone Keeper.

  Still, some part of him thought of himself as Matthew. Matty, as his sister called him. He had wanted to watch her die in those woods. Screamed at Rhys to finish the job. He wouldn’t get the chance now. He was long gone. He imagined they would still be looking for him, still hoping he would come back.

  They never come back.

  Rhys had failed. He wished they were dead, so he wouldn’t have to think of them ever again.

  The woods were thick and dark, tree trunks at every turn, rising up into the sky and providing shelter. The expanse covered hundreds of acres, a distance he still couldn’t comprehend. Larger than any he had worked within before.

  He removed the knife from the sheath on his hip and began carving the symbols into the brown of a tree. Exposing the flesh beneath the bark and creating a new mark.

  The terrain was unfamiliar, yet he knew it wouldn’t be long until he knew every part of these woods.

  Soon, they would talk about a monster who hid in this forest.

  The Bone Keeper would live again.

  He would begin a new story.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, this book wouldn’t be in your hands right now without the support of so many people. Here are my heartfelt thanks to as many of them as I can fit into these pages.

  To the Chamber – Eva, Nick, and Jay. You three are what get me through the good and bad days in this thing of ours.

  To my PodBro, Steve Cavanagh – thanks for coming up with that amazing idea of how we should spend our Sunday nights talking for hours about nonsense. I don’t have much more fun than when we are giggling like fools. So, Steve, how have you been this week?

  My agent – Phil Patterson. Thank you for always listening to me drone on. After five years, I imagine you understand at least 40 per cent of what I say with this accent. Also to agents Sandra Sawicka and Luke Speed, for everything you do with foreign rights and TV/Film.

  My editor – Jo Dickinson. She made this book approximately 156 per cent better. Always a calm presence, which is great when I can’t see the wood for the trees (which in this book, full of woodland settings, was of great help). Jo is simply awesome. She makes me a better writer every single day.

  The team at Simon & Schuster – Emma Capron, for her fantastic editorial assistance. Jack Smyth, for his incredible cover and new look for my books (the man is a genius), and the bestest publicist ever, Jess Barratt. Jess is one of the most hardworking people I’ve ever met. A superb person.

  Sarah Hughes at Waterstones Liverpool One – for her general awesomeness and being one of my favourite friends. Thanks for letting me become the Scouse Parky.

  All the reviewers, both bloggers and print who have taken a chance on the books so far and supported them, you have my unending appreciation.

  Liz Barnsley and Kate Moloney – for reading early versions of the book and casting critical eyes over it. Thank you so much for the words of encouragement.<
br />
  Craig Sisterson – who won an auction to name a character for charity – he chose his dad, so I hope he enjoys who he became in the book. Your son’s a good bloke, Peter.

  My family – for always being my biggest champions.

  Finally, Emma, Abigail, and Megan. My world. All of this is for you three. I love you.

  Luca Veste is a writer of Italian and Scouse heritage, married with two young daughters. He studied psychology and criminology at university in Liverpool. He is the author of five novels, Dead Gone, The Dying Place, Bloodstream, Then She Was Gone and The Bone Keeper.

  Find out more at www.LucaVeste.com or follow @LucaVeste on Twitter and Facebook.

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2018

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Luca Veste, 2018

  Excerpt from Black Flowers by Steve Mosby, published by Orion Books, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd.

  Copyright © Steve Mosby 2011

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Luca Veste to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-4141-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-4142-3

  eAudio ISBN: 978-1-4711-7374-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.