‘And how am I going to deal with that? I can’t stop a murder investigation.’
‘I don’t give a shit,’ Colin says.
‘You’re an idiot, Murray. What kind of alibi are we going to get? I had to sneak out while my wife was asleep. It’s not like I can pop into a fucking party and show my face on the way home.’
While the two men are arguing, I cup my hands close to the wall on the side away from the men. ‘Get out,’ I tell Rosie. ‘Run as fast as you can. Don’t go to the Campbells. Either call Peter, or go to the pub in the village.’
‘Are you sure we can trust Peter?’
‘Yes,’ I say, hoping that I’m right. ‘But if you don’t want to, the Prince of Wales has a lock-in until two.’
She nods and puts her foot into my hands. She’s slight, but even so, there’s some weight to her.
‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she whispers.
‘If I go, they’ll kill you without any hesitation,’ I say. ‘But I haven’t got a part in this. I think Colin will hesitate to hurt me.’
Rosie opens her mouth as though to speak, but she thinks better of it and hauls herself up the dirt wall.
There’s a shout from the two men. The shotgun goes off, but I can’t tell whether it’s aimed in our direction or not. I shove Rosie up as far as I can, and she grabs hold of a root.
One of the men lets out a groan and a ragged scream. Rosie makes it over the top of the wall and scrabbles away out of sight.
I’m alone in the trap.
I force myself to face the light. Ian Dixon stares down at me from the top of the hole, blood dripping from the hand casually hanging over the edge. Colin stands over him.
‘Help me,’ Ian mumbles, his skin turning grey and his eyes rolling back in his head.
I can see that he’s been shot and is probably bleeding out, but there’s nothing I can do even if I wanted to. Colin walks into the light. His hands are empty. Where is the shotgun?
There’s no shotgun because it isn’t Colin.
The man standing over the hole is Buckthorpe Jack.
Thirty-Three
Rosie
Then
‘No one is calling anyone.’
I reached down to pick up my phone, but Ian Dixon got there first. He snatched it and held it out to me.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ I said numbly.
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Police officer,’ I said, a child stumbling over her words.
‘That’s right.’ He handed the phone back to me and moved to face the others. ‘I’m sorry, Colin, I truly am. But your boy came out of nowhere and I’m not going down for this.’
In the midst of his sobbing, Colin wiped away tears, pulled away from Dad and stood up straight. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m over the limit. You dared me to race down this road, remember? After spending two hours drinking whisky at Reg’s. I’m a police officer and I’ve got a good fucking career. I’m not going down for this.’
‘But …’ Colin stared down at his son, then back at Ian. ‘I can’t … We have to …’
‘It won’t bring him back, will it?’
I walked towards them, still avoiding the sight of Samuel’s body. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘And what about you?’ Ian jutted his chin towards me. ‘You accused the boy of sexual assault. It doesn’t look too good, does it? Him ending up dead after you met him at night. What if you pushed him into the road? How about that?’
‘But I didn’t!’
‘Don’t you dare threaten my family.’ A vein bulged from my dad’s temple. I went to stand by his side.
‘And you, John,’ Ian continued, unmoved by Dad’s anger. ‘What were you doing in the woods? Did you have a calm conversation with the boy who tried to rape your daughter?’
Dad’s face fell.
‘No, Dad,’ I said, twisting my body to see his face. ‘Don’t listen to him. This is wrong.’
But Dad turned away from me and shook his head. ‘Don’t talk to me about right and wrong.’
A slow, knowing smile spread across Ian’s face. He turned away from Dad and back to me. ‘So you did make it up after all. I thought you did, right from the start.’
‘What?’ Colin’s voice was small. Tentatively I met his gaze and saw hatred shining from his wet eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, shifting my gaze so that I didn’t have to see him.
A sense of cold dread spread over my skin and I fought off the urge to turn around and run. I didn’t want to be there with these men because I knew what they were about to do and I couldn’t stand it.
Colin’s attention returned to the police officer. ‘Ian, this is my son. My wife deserves to know. We need to hold a funeral.’
‘Are you forgetting your own problems?’ Ian said, voice low, dripping with a sly charm that added to the cold sensation running up and down my arms. ‘The assault charge. The suspended sentence. The domestic violence, too.’
‘What about it? Those offences have nothing to do with this. I wasn’t driving.’
‘What if I say you were?’
‘They … they’d figure out a way to prove you’re lying. There’d be an investigation.’ The shock registered in Colin’s voice. It was whiny, desperate.
‘I’m a copper. Who would they believe?’ The rain ran down Ian’s nose as he lowered his chin, and I thought I’d never seen such an ugly man in all my life.
Dad twisted slowly towards him. ‘If you’re planning on lying anyway, what difference does it make if we call the police or not?’
‘I don’t want this on my record, do I? Coppers involved in the accidental death of a teenage boy don’t tend to fly up the ranks!’ He flung his hands out of his pockets to gesture at Samuel’s body.
‘You’re doing this because you want a promotion?’ I say. ‘You’re disgusting.’
He took a step closer to me and I saw the spit fly from his mouth as he spoke. ‘And you’re a lying little bitch, so shut up.’
Dad flew for him then, but Colin yanked him back. The action had gravitas, seeing as he’d lost his son, and Dad calmed at once.
‘Okay,’ Dad said. ‘Say we do cover this up. How are we going to do it?’
Ian’s voice was soft as he began to explain. ‘John, you can come with me. We’ll take Samuel out to the moors, bury him there. We’ll do it respectfully, Colin. We’ll use a marker so you always know where he is. Some stones maybe.’
‘How are we going to dig a hole?’ Dad said. ‘You got a shovel?’
‘We’ll stop off at the allotments on the way there. I have a shed with all the tools we’ll need,’ Ian said.
Dad nodded, eyes cast down in grim acceptance.
Ian turned to Colin. ‘You and the girl need to clean up the scene. Get rid of every speck of glass. Every fleck of paint. The rain will do the rest.’
‘What are we going to say?’ It was Colin who spoke. ‘What am I going to tell Lynn and Peter?’ I had no pity left for him.
‘We’ll say that he ran away,’ Ian said. ‘The boy was about to be arrested for the sexual assault of half a dozen girls in the village. As far as he knew, anyway. And as far as anyone else knows, he’s guilty. Most of the village believe he’s guilty. People will be relieved. Never mind the fact that he was actually innocent.’ He turned to me. ‘I guess I have you to thank for that.’
I twisted the sleeve of my coat in my hands until the material dug painfully into my skin. It took every last bit of willpower not to throw up on the ground.
Thirty-Four
Heather
Now
‘Come on.’ Jack extends a hand down towards me, but I can’t reach, no matter how much I stretch myself.
Frustrated, Jack kicks the dead body of Ian Dixon into the hole. I watch it land with a disgusting thud, then stand on his chest for the extra height. With Jack on his front, reaching into the hole, I’m just tall enough for him to grip my forea
rms and heave me up.
‘That’s it.’ His gruff voice comes out even deeper with the exertion of lifting my weight.
I dig the toes of my shoes into the malleable soil and push myself up as hard as I can. Jack hooks one hand under my armpit and together we manage to get me over the mouth of the hole and onto the surface. I use the palms of my hands to push the rest of my body onto the grass.
My chest rises and falls as I inhale the cold night air. My hair is a tangle of sweat and dirt. Every part of me aches. I can’t even speak until I have a moment to collect myself.
‘You heard us,’ I say, still gasping slightly.
‘Aye.’
‘Thank you.’
This is the first time I’ve seen Jack close up, and the blinding light highlights every wizened wrinkle. He doesn’t meet my gaze; instead his eyes roam the woods. He climbs to his feet and helps me up.
‘Did you shoot Ian?’ I ask.
‘No, it was the farmer.’
Colin must have shot Ian and then gone running after Rosie. That means my sister is in grave danger and I need to find her.
‘Do you have a phone with you?’ I ask. ‘Colin took mine, but it was broken anyway.’
Jack shakes his head and I swear in frustration.
‘There’s one at the cabin,’ he says.
He leads the way as we step around the floodlight and the mouth of the hole. I never thought I’d feel safe with Buckthorpe Jack, but after seeing the face of a true monster, I’m ashamed of my younger self for being afraid of the lonely man in the woods.
‘Jack, do you know who was shooting at me the other day? I saw you in the window of your cabin.’
‘I heard the gunfire but I didn’t see anyone. I called the police for you, but I guess it went through to the fella in the hole.’
He’s probably right. Ian will have intercepted any calls relating to Buckthorpe and pretended to sort the investigation.
‘I was coming to see you that day.’
‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘Aye. It was about the night the lad went missing, wasn’t it?’
‘The night Samuel died, yes. Did you know? About the car accident? About Ian and Colin covering it up?’
‘This and that,’ Jack replies. ‘You’ll be wanting to know about your mother as well, won’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
A crack of gunfire prevents him from saying more. I drop to the ground and Jack drops with me. But he falls differently. Limply.
I grab him, feel for a pulse. My fingers come away bloody. It takes me a moment to realise that his chest is open with a gaping wound.
‘You need to run now, girl.’
I can’t leave him. He’ll die.
But if I stay, I’ll die.
‘Go on now,’ he says quietly.
If Colin Murray managed to shoot Jack in the chest, then he can’t be far away, and I don’t have an awful lot of coverage down here in the tangles of the thorn bush. Jack’s right. I need to go.
‘Thank you,’ I say softly, unsure whether he’s even still alive or not. But vowing I will try to get help for him as soon as I can.
I reposition my body into a half-crouch and propel myself forward as fast as my legs will carry me. Another gunshot goes off. I duck down and nearly run straight into a tree. When I swerve to avoid another one, I almost trip. But I don’t. By some miracle I stay upright.
The ground beneath my feet changes sharply, and I tumble down a steep slope, slithering on the loose soil. I hold my breath for a moment or two, standing straighter and stabilising my core to stop myself falling. I’m all too aware of the panic building within, but I can’t allow myself to lose control. Not now. I need to keep hold of my senses.
Crack.
He’s further away now and I’m not sure he knows where I am, because that didn’t sound as though it came in my direction at all. But then again, I don’t know where I am. I’m just flailing through the dark with no direction, no purpose, nothing but survival keeping me going. There are already two dead bodies in the woods. I could easily be a third.
‘Heather!’
Colin calling my name is a clear sign of desperation, but it doesn’t mean I can allow myself to become complacent. However, there is a possibility I can figure out from the sound of his voice how far away he is. He could be closer than I thought.
The thin branches of the beech trees slap my face as I run. The undergrowth is mostly ferns and thorns, slashing at my jeans, catching my ankles. It makes the ground uneven and unpredictable. The swishing of the plants mean that I can’t listen out for Colin any more.
Without warning, the ground changes again to a harder, beaten-down surface without grass or thorns or bracken. It feels as though I’m on a path, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on which path it is. There are many tracks in the woods, some flat and easy to navigate, others full of stones. They go up and down, winding through the trees, and take a lot of concentration to navigate even in daylight. I’m running almost completely blind, with my arms out, groping my way forward.
‘I have Rosie.’
I stop dead. Somewhere behind me I can hear Colin moving through the forest. If he really did have Rosie, she’d make a sound. She’d shout to me.
Listen.
Is that one person moving? Or is it two?
I think he’s lying.
‘I’m going to kill her, Heather,’ he taunts. His voice seems to swirl around me.
He’s getting into my head. I slip down a slope, find a rock and huddle there, still straining to listen. It forces me to control my breathing and quiet myself. Colin’s heavy footsteps tell me that he’s coming up behind me. I carefully twist my body around the rock for a better view. I can see torchlight bobbing up and down as he moves.
If he has a torch, that means he doesn’t have to worry about bumping into trees or tripping over roots. He has every advantage over me. He has a weapon, and he can see.
But he’s alone.
Rosie isn’t with him.
Thirty-Five
Rosie
Now
Don’t look back, Rosie. Don’t look back.
There’s nothing like the sound of a gun to sober up a person. The reverberation of the loud crack vibrates through my ribcage. It almost feels as though the bullet has hit me, but I know it hasn’t. I’m still on my feet and I’m still running. My heart still beats. My mind is sharp and I’m focused at last.
Behind me I hear shouting, along with the shuffling of feet. I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I think I hear Heather yell at me to keep running.
Heather.
I’m the big sister. I should stop and take care of her, but I’m more likely to die if I do. While I’m unhurt, I can get help. That’s our best chance.
Colin won’t kill Heather, no matter how hard he tries to make us think he will. She’s not his target. I am. There’s a chance he might hurt her to get to me, though. And for that reason, I have to move fast.
On the night Samuel disappeared, Ian and Dad bundled his body into the boot of Ian’s car while I crawled along the road collecting all the pieces of headlight. Colin sat on the grass verge with his head in his hands, moaning and muttering to himself. A man lost in sadness and guilt. Ian gave me a carrier bag from his car and I put the hard plastic into it, thinking how he had wrapped Samuel in the same carrier bags to try and stop the blood staining his car.
‘We can’t leave any trace of evidence behind,’ he’d said, and told Dad of his plan to find a mechanic out of town to fix the headlight before anyone noticed.
After I’d collected all the pieces, Colin walked with me through the woods in silence until we came across the stone formation. I’d wanted somewhere far from the path, to ensure that no nosy dogs would disturb the evidence, but with a unique marker so that I could come back if I needed to move it. I hadn’t realised that Colin was watching my every step with great care.
I think I memorised my
tracks and the formation of the stones to protect myself. To make sure that I had a hold over the others. Perhaps there’s a dark recess of the mind that goes into survival mode when threatened. No doubt the same dark recess that encouraged my father to go along with Ian’s disgusting plan.
I went along with the plan too. Let’s face it, I’m part of it. Ian gave me my phone back after he stopped me from calling the police, and I can only imagine that it was an oversight not to take it off me again before he left. I could have called 999. Whether Colin would have let me or not, I don’t know, but it wasn’t fear that stopped me from trying. At least, not fear of Colin. I’d watched my father lift a dead body into the boot of a car. When it came down to it, I didn’t want Dad to go to prison, and I didn’t want to get into trouble either. About the lie, about the cover-up, any of it.
Now that lie is coming back to punish me. There would be poetic justice in me dying in the woods just as Samuel died in the woods, and at his father’s hand, too. But if I die, Heather will stay Colin’s prisoner while he tries to figure out what he’s going to do with her, and I need to try and save her. She is innocent in all this.
While the adrenaline of the last few hours has banished any groggy feeling I had from the alcohol and the pills, my mouth is bone dry. But at least I can concentrate as I hurry through the trees. Everything around me is quiet except for my own footsteps. No one seems to be following me.
I was convinced that one of the two men would chase me after I climbed out of the hole. But there’s no one. Another gunshot sounds out, but it’s further away in the woods. I stop and consider returning in case Heather needs me, but by now I’m almost at the back road. And then I just need to sprint along it as fast as I can to the village.
Trying not to think about Samuel’s broken body, I drop to my knees when I see the wire fence and shuffle underneath as I did that night. A sense of relief washes over me. I’m out of the woods at last. My body is tired and some of the adrenaline is waning now that I’m no longer in immediate danger, but I push on, running as fast as my legs will allow.
The Liar's Sister (ARC) Page 21