“I’d say the weekend was over, wouldn’t you?”
Emily backed away then headed for the stairs. Something wasn’t right. After Helen had cajoled the group into searching the rooms, it made no sense that she would be sat downstairs missing out. Then there was the small fact that Helen wasn’t downstairs. Emily had passed by all the rooms that guests had access to and they had all been empty. It could only mean one thing—Helen was somewhere outside.
***
Reaching the foyer, Emily marched out into the garden. A gentle breeze teased the petals of the roses. What was Helen up to? Had she arranged the room search so that she could slip away unnoticed? Emily walked through the garden and pushed open the gate. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she turned her head, scanning the vegetable field and the meadow. She backed up, then headed right, stopping to peer through the kitchen windows at the back of the house. Sam was missing too.
Suspicion mounting, Emily walked to the edge of the forest. She thought back over the last couple of hours, to finding Helen in Oscar’s room. She’d been looking for evidence, she’d said. Evidence that would help boost her story and get her into the national newspapers. But Helen hadn’t found anything useful. She hadn’t—
Emily spun around. Of course, she thought. Returning to the front of the house, she slipped through the garden gate and headed across the meadow. Helen had been looking for a suicide note and Emily had suggested that it could be somewhere on Oscar’s body.
She began to run, clearing the meadow in under a minute, then dashing into the cool shade of the forest. It took a few minutes to find the right path, but then Emily was hurrying along it, ducking under branches and weaving through the undergrowth. As she reached the clearing, breathless and with her clothes stuck to her skin, she came to an abrupt stop.
Oscar’s body was no longer hanging from the tree, but was laid out on a sheet of tarpaulin, the rope still trailing from his distended neck. Helen was leant over him, her face twisted with revulsion. Sam stood to one side, an axe slung over his shoulder.
Emily stepped into the clearing. “What have you done?”
Her voice startled them both. Helen immediately straightened up, while Sam dropped the axe to his side. They both stared at each other.
“I was talking to Sam while everyone was upstairs, about how awful it was that poor Oscar was still hanging out here with no sign of the police.” Helen’s eyes were round and doe-like as she glanced at Sam for acknowledgement.
“It wasn’t right to leave him up there like that,” he said.
“Which is why Sam cut him down,” Helen quickly added.
Emily moved nearer. This was not the first body she’d seen up close. She had witnessed her mother’s last breath snatched away by cancer. She had seen Phillip Gerard’s crumpled form in the playground. She had seen the dead and dying victims of Doctor Williams, hidden away in the attic of the Ever After Care Foundation. After seeing so much death, she’d presumed being this close to another lifeless body would be easier to stomach, but the same familiar surge of nausea churned her insides.
Oscar barely looked human. His body was bloated, his skin horribly discoloured. His ears and nostrils were caked in dried blood. His fat, black tongue sat on his chin like an overfed leech.
Emily looked away, instead focusing her attention on Helen. “You didn’t find anything of worth in Oscar’s room, so you thought you’d just cut him down and go through his pockets?”
Helen’s smile was wide and innocent. “As I said, I didn’t cut Oscar down. Sam did. And I haven’t touched him.”
“But you were about to.”
Helen instinctively glanced down at Oscar’s body. As did Emily. Something was poking out of his shirt pocket.
“You were right,” Helen breathed as she crouched down.
Sam took a step forward. “What is it?”
“You do realise that you’re now tampering with police evidence?” Emily said. Part of her wanted to turn around and head back to the house and have nothing more to do with Helen’s underhand, manipulative ways. Sam was an idiot. How easy had it been to dupe him with fluttering eyelashes and sympathetic words? Emily flashed him an angry look.
Helen reached towards Oscar’s pocket, then drew back. Something passed over her face. Was it uncertainty? Perhaps there was an essence of conscience in there after all, Emily thought.
“We’ll just say it fell out.” Helen shrugged, then plucked the object from Oscar’s pocket. She stood up, turning it over her in her hands.
“What is it?” Sam repeated.
Shaking her head, Helen said, “It’s not a suicide note. It’s a picture.”
It was a passport-style photograph, the kind taken in a photo booth at a shopping mall. The man in the picture was Caucasian and looked in his early twenties. He was clean shaven, with dark, wiry hair and deep brown eyes. A small but visible scar was etched into his skin, just above his left eyebrow. His expression was blank, as if any trace of emotion had been erased by the camera flash; as if, like Oscar, he’d already expelled his final breath.
Helen held the picture towards Emily, who refused to take it. “I wonder who he is. His son perhaps?”
“Oscar doesn’t look old enough to have a child that age.” Emily glanced down at the body on the tarpaulin. Flies were already gathering on his face.
“You should put that back where you found it,” Sam said. “Then let’s cover him up. The insects are getting to him.”
“You seen him before?” Helen asked him.
Sam shook his head.
Helen flipped the photograph over. There was nothing written there, no clue as to who the man was. “Maybe we should take it back, show it to the others.”
Emily stared at the man’s empty face, memorising every detail.
“Your fingerprints are on it,” she said. “Sam’s right, you should put it back before you get anyone else into trouble.”
Wiping the photograph against her vest, Helen crouched down, then slipped it back inside Oscar’s pocket. She backed away. Sam came forward and pulled the edges of the tarpaulin up and over the body. A collective sigh of relief moved through the clearing. Now, it was just like staring at a roll of carpet.
“I guess we should go back to the house and face the music,” Helen said, rubbing her palms against her stomach. “No doubt Nancy Drew here will be first in line to tell Pamela what we’ve done.”
Emily wasn’t listening. She stared up at the old oak tree. Oscar had hanged himself from its lowest branch, but the lowest branch was at least fifteen feet from the ground. He would have had to stand on something, then kick it away. Emily scanned the clearing. There was nothing. She moved closer, examining the trunk for easy footholds, places to grab.
Helen followed her out of the clearing and watched as she rubbed fingers along the back of the oak tree.
“What are you doing?”
Emily examined the carving she’d discovered earlier that day. It was old; at least, old enough for its edges to have been worn smooth by the weather.
“Is that a compass?” Helen asked.
“I thought it was a star.” She looked up at the tree branches and dense canopy, then down to the ground. A posy of dead flowers, their petals withered and brown, lay rotting at her feet.
Sam appeared by the side of the tree.
“We should get back,” he said.
As they left the clearing and returned to the house, Emily couldn’t shake the feeling that the circumstances surrounding Oscar’s death were not as they seemed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jerome and Daniel were waiting on the front step when Emily returned to the house with Helen and Sam trailing just behind. By the look on Jerome’s face, Emily already knew she had some explaining to do. She met the men halfway in the garden.
“Marcia?” she asked.
Jerome shook his head. “Pamela’s playing it cool but I think she’s starting to worry.”
“Where is she now?”
“I’m not sure. Somewhere inside.”
“And the others?”
“Ben and Sylvia are sulking in their rooms. Janelle’s with Melody. That girl can certainly cry. Where’ve you been? I turned around and saw you sneaking off downstairs.”
Emily took in a breath. “Helen and Sam cut Oscar down.”
Jerome’s eyes looked as if they were about to burst out of his head.
“What did you just say to me? Emily Swanson, you better tell me straight you had nothing to do with that!”
“I didn’t,” she said, turning around to see Helen and Sam enter the garden. Sam still had the axe in his hand. “I realised what she was up to and I went after her to try and stop it from happening. I was too late.”
“You know you can play the innocent in front of your friend there, but I didn’t see you running away when we found that photo.” Helen moved up until she was by Emily’s side. “And come to think of it, you didn’t run away when we were in Oscar’s room.”
Shaking his head in confusion, Jerome stared at Helen, then Emily.
“Oh, she didn’t mention that?”
Anger ignited Emily’s insides. What was it with journalists?
“I heard noises through the wall, I went to see what it was,” she said, her jaw clenching. “Helen was searching through Oscar’s things, apparently looking for leads for her story.”
“Well, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose,” Helen shrugged. “But the fact remains, things aren’t what they seem here and I intend to find out exactly what’s going on, with or without any of your help.”
“Is that so?”
Heads turned towards the house. Pamela stood in the doorway, hands clasped behind her back.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Emily and Jerome were sat on the back porch, facing away from each other as they stared into the trees. When Pamela had learned what Sam had done, she’d taken him to her living quarters for what Emily imagined would be a serious talking to, perhaps even instant dismissal. Helen had quickly made her excuses and slipped off to her room, but Emily was sure Pamela would have something to say to her as well, just as soon as she’d finished with Sam.
As the minutes ticked by, the air grew thick and hot, until Emily felt as though she was inhaling molasses. Restless and irritable, she moved over to the railings, glared at the forest for a moment more, then spun on her feet.
“So you’re just going to continue to ignore me?”
Jerome pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow.
“I don’t believe you,” he said. “After the conversation we had. After everything you’ve been through, you still had to go and get yourself involved.”
“You’re not my keeper, Jerome. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“You’re right, I’m not your keeper. I’m your friend. I care about what happens to you. I’ve watched you go through hell this year and come out the other side. A little screwed up, yes. But you came out alive. I just don’t understand why you would put yourself in the firing line for more trouble. Are you a masochist? Is that it? Or are you still punishing yourself for what happened with Phillip?”
A flare of anger burst inside Emily’s head. She marched towards him. “This has nothing to do with Phillip! I heard someone moving around in Oscar’s room, I went to see who it was. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t get involved. When I realised what she was going to do with Oscar—or should I say, what she manipulated Sam into doing to Oscar—my first instinct was to try and stop her.” She stabbed a finger in Jerome’s direction. “I don’t need to explain my actions to you or to anyone.”
“You know what, Emily Swanson? Sometimes you’re a real asshat!” Jerome stood up and headed for the back door. He stopped, his back turned to her. When he turned around again, his steely gaze had become swamped with hurt. “Maybe you should try letting people give a shit about you sometimes. Maybe you wouldn’t feel so alone. God knows, you might even start giving a shit about them too!”
“I tried that already,” said Emily, the words shooting from her mouth. “Look where it got me.”
They stood in silence, anger and hurt clashing in the space between them. Guilt pressed down on Emily’s chest. Jerome stood with his head bowed, hands hanging by his sides, looking like a scolded child.
“Something’s not right here, Jerome,” Emily said. The guilt spread from her chest up to her throat. “You saw the tree Oscar hanged himself from. That branch was too high for him to have reached it without standing on something.”
Jerome scuffed the floor with his shoe. He looked up, then back down at his feet.
“So he climbed the tree, then jumped.”
“How do you climb fifteen feet up a tree trunk with nothing to hold on to?” Emily paused, the fight already being pushed to the recesses of her mind. “Last night, I hear him arguing with a woman in his room. This morning he’s dead. When they cut him down, there was a photograph of a man in his shirt pocket. White, dark-haired. A few years younger than us. It has to mean something.”
Jerome was quiet for a long time, staring past Emily, towards the trees. Then, he said, “I just want to go home.”
“We can’t do that. Not until we’ve been given the all clear by the police.”
“It’s been hours. Where are they? Where’s Marcia?”
“That’s the million dollar question.”
Emily moved towards him, her feet testing the ground like a soldier in a minefield.
“We’re stuck here for the time being, Jerome. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“So, you’re going into detective mode just to kill some time?”
“I’m not going into any sort of mode. But I am going to go and check on Pamela. Just to see if she’s all right. She must be worried about Marcia. Plus, her business is going to take a hit when this gets into the papers. I’m sure our journalist friend will see to that.”
Jerome folded his arms across his chest. “And while you’re in there playing Good Samaritan, I don’t suppose you’ll be casually dropping the odd inquisitive question about a certain photograph you’ve just uncovered?”
Emily reached a hand towards him, then drew it back. “I’ll be five minutes.”
“Speaking of our journalist friend,” said Jerome, holding the door open. “I’d be very careful to avoid answering any of her questions. She clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about who she hurts to get her story.”
Emily nodded. “Let her ask. As Martha Graham once said, what people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
The words felt strange on her tongue. A few hours ago, she’d been worried about how the others would react if they found out about her past. But in comparison to Oscar’s death, what she had or had not done now felt inconsequential.
“I thought RuPaul said that,” Jerome said.
“Philistine.” Emily stopped in the doorway. “And you’re wrong about something else too.”
“What’s that?”
“I do care. I care very much.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leaving Jerome on the porch, Emily ducked into the dimly-lit corridor and took a second to adjust to the coolness of the house. The Hardys’ living quarters were up ahead. Emily hovered outside, wondering if Sam was still inside. It was quiet, so she knocked on the door. Pamela answered a few seconds later, looking weary and lost.
“I just wanted to check in, see how you were doing,” Emily said.
Pamela tried to smile as she invited her inside. The door opened directly into the living room. Colourful woven mats covered the floorboards. Abstract paintings hung on burnt orange walls. A trace of sandalwood hung in the air like a memory.
Sam stood hunched up in the corner. Emily turned and their eyes briefly met.
“Thank you, Sam. That will be all,” Pamela said, her tone clipped. It was clear the reprimand she’d just delivered had been severe.
Head bowed, Sam gave Emily one final look, then strode
across the floor, brushing past Pamela as if she were invisible.
When they were alone, Pamela ushered Emily towards a small couch before sinking into a comfortable-looking armchair next to a bookcase filled with spiritual teachings and theology studies. On the other side of the room, a fat Chinese-style Buddha with a round belly and wide smile sat on an altar. Sculptures of Hindu gods and goddesses dominated a shelf above—Ganesh, the Deva of Intellect and Wisdom, whose father, Shiva, lopped off his head and replaced it with an elephant’s; Parvati, mother of Ganesh and goddess of love, fertility, and devotion; Kali, the dark mother, four-armed goddess of creation, preservation, and destruction.
“In answer to your question,” Pamela said, leaning back on the chair, “this hasn’t been one of my better days. But for the sake of maintaining some sort of order within the group, let’s just pretend that I’m fine. How are you? I’m sure this isn’t the weekend you had in mind when you signed up.”
“I’m sure it’s not the weekend you had in mind either,” Emily said. “Still no word from Marcia?”
“No. She’s always so reliable. I don’t understand it.”
“There could be any number of reasons why she isn’t back. Perhaps she’s had car trouble. Perhaps, like you said, the police are slow at getting their act together. It must be difficult not to worry though, especially in light of everything that’s happened.”
Pamela took a moment to adjust her position, then smooth out the creases in her trousers. “Marcia and I, we don’t always see eye to eye. When she was a teenager, she was very wilful. To be honest, I often wonder if I did the right thing moving her out here at such an impressionable age. She was cut off from society, home-schooled, with no real friends to speak of ... but ten years on, she’s still here. I suppose that has to mean something; that she didn’t hate it as much as she used to say she did. Or at least, that she warmed to its merits.”
“Perhaps we should send someone else to Lyndhurst, even if it means walking,” Emily said. She looked for a clock but there was none. There was also no television, no stereo equipment, no indication that they were living in the twenty-first century.
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