‘So, umm, sorry about last night…’
He held his hands up. ‘Don’t worry about it. Enough said.’
My mouth quirked up at the ends into a small smile. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said last night.’
‘Surprised you can remember.’
‘Yes… Did you mean it? About helping me find out what happened to Beth?’
He took a long sip of orange juice. Clearly buying time, trying to think of a way of letting me down that wouldn’t turn me into the gibbering, tearful loony I had been the night before. I picked at the skin on the side of my thumb, bracing myself for the inevitable.
‘Of course I’ll help you. Not sure how, though.’
The relief!
‘Just listen to me as I work through my mad theories,’ I gushed. ‘Two heads are better than one, and all that.’
Finally I’d found myself a purpose. After weeks of drifting helplessly, I grabbed onto the idea like a drowning woman clinging to flotsam. The tide was turning.
Even better, I had an ally in my plan to turn detective. Someone to listen to me, who I didn’t have to be fearful of hurting, like I did with Jacob. Besides, Jacob had far too much to juggle with work and worrying about you. Glenn wasn’t a stranger from out of the blue who had offered to help; he was a villager, someone I’d grown up with, but who, crucially, hadn’t been around when you were attacked, so I could absolutely trust him.
‘Where do we start?’ he asked.
I studied him, trying to find doubt, or worse, amusement. He leaned forward, elbows on the small round wooden table, clearly keen to get on with the task. His pale blue eyes searched mine, as if testing my own resolve, and his strong, surprisingly dark eyebrows drew together in concentration.
‘Umm, I don’t know.’ I blinked, trying to gather my thoughts.
‘Did you find any clues in her room?’
‘Oh, well, umm, I haven’t. I can’t face going in there for longer than a couple of seconds. And searching through her things feels like a huge betrayal of trust.’
‘But it’s the most obvious place to start,’ Glenn said slowly. He looked stunned.
‘I just can’t, okay?’ The room felt dead, like you looked dead when I visited you in hospital.
We stared at our glasses of orange juice as if somehow they would provide divine inspiration. This wasn’t the most auspicious start to our detective work.
Suddenly Glenn sat upright, clicked his fingers. ‘Got it! Scene of the crime.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, it’s perfect. We’ll go to the scene of the crime. We don’t know where to start or who to investigate, so let’s look at where it happened.’
Downing our drinks, we hurried outside. Jumped into his white van, covered in mud splashes, and we were off. I felt hope for the first time in a while.
Twenty-Nine
Glenn glanced at me as he took the turning for the marsh. Through the driver’s side window, a flock of redwing could be seen taking flight from the field. Their russet flashes showed clearly as they banked.
‘Are you definitely all right with going there? Only it’s suddenly occurred to me it’s probably not a great idea… bit upsetting for you, and all that.’
I shook my head. No need for thought or doubt. ‘I go there all the time. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the only place I feel close to Beth.’
He changed gear while nodding as though he understood. ‘I s’pose so, but wouldn’t you feel closer talking to her at the hospital? Or being at the house, surrounded by her things?’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? But it’s…’ I tried to choose the right words to explain. ‘When I look at her, in the hospital bed, all I feel is bitterness. I want to shake her awake. I feel furious with her and everyone and everything. She just lies there! I’m terrified I’ll never hear her voice again.
‘When I’m in her bedroom it’s like it’s frozen in time, like her. It’s not full of life, it’s full of dust. Full of the slowly fading scent of her perfume. There’s no life there. No meaning to it. That is not where she is.
‘But I go to the marsh and, I don’t know, it’s quite an eerie, atmospheric place. I go there and can feel her. Yeah, it’s where something dreadful happened to her, but it’s also where she’s been really happy. We used to go down there and spend hours together watching the birds, and she’d bang on about identifying an animal from a dropping we’d found. And you know, she’d be able to tell all sorts about it, how fresh it was, what the animal had eaten… just from a bit of poo.’
Glenn didn’t say a word, but he listened intently. Encouraged, my words tumbled out.
‘Half the time I didn’t take it in, to be honest, but it was lovely to see her face. She glowed with enthusiasm, you know? She lit up from the inside. She was so passionate about nature that her whole body language changed when she spoke about it. It filled her up; she’d stand straighter and her head was lifted and her hands would gesticulate with larger movements, you know? To see that, to see what nature could do for her was incredible. So that’s partly it.’
The words all came out in a rush, Beth. It was so lovely to talk about you as a girl full of life, rather than lying in a hospital bed. I couldn’t speak to Jacob or anyone else in the family this way; they’d get too upset. Besides, we were always too busy talking about medical care, prognosis, medication…
Glenn nodded. ‘Yeah, I kind of know what you mean about the marsh. I used to come with my dad sometimes. We loved the wildlife here. It’s a place that’s kind of empty but full of life, isn’t it?’
‘That’s exactly it. Exactly!’ Just like Beth, I sat up straighter, hands gesticulating. ‘It’s a place of bonding. And it feels isolated, but actually it’s really, really full of life.’
Someone else got it the way we did, Beth! Time to take a chance. Before speaking, I studied him, keen to gauge his reaction to my confession.
‘Thing is, Glenn, it’s like I said, in hospital and at home everything feels devoid of life and I don’t feel close to Beth at all. But out on the marsh, she’s truly alive, still. She’s on the wind; she’s in the blades of grass; she’s speeding through that great big sky with the birds, free. Sometimes I can almost feel her, almost hear her. If I can only concentrate hard enough I’ll connect with her again; we’ll find each other. That’s where I’ll find my Beth. That’s where I’ll get her back.’
Instead of answering, he shuffled forward in his seat to hunch over the steering wheel and beeped his horn twice, because we were about to go over the sudden rise in the lane. Everyone always honked their horn there, to let anyone on the other side know they were coming and avoid a crash on the single lane. As we crested the rise, the air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror swung crazily from side to side, filling the van cab with faux pine freshness. I stared at Glenn. The slightest frown played on his face as he considered what I’d said.
He thought I was nuts, Beth. I’d taken a leap of faith sharing such a ridiculously intimate thought with him and fallen flat on my face.
‘I think I know what you mean,’ he said, finally, eyes still ahead. ‘My mum used to be into all this spiritual stuff; you know, mediums and all that. Ghosts. Before she died.’
He pulled over, switched off the engine and turned to me. ‘You know the sort I mean?’
I told him I did.
‘Well, I’m not sure I believe in ghosts and stuff, but I think I sort of believe in energy, you know? When something happens, a lot of energy, maybe positive or negative, goes out into the world. And maybe stays there. What you’re picking up is not so much Beth’s spirit but more the force of what happened to her, all that good and bad energy, and that’s why you feel closer to her here.’
‘Maybe. Makes as much sense as anything.’
We both gave sad laughs. Sighed. Glenn rubbed his hands together and gestured across the windscreen. Before us lay the marsh, currently half-covered by the high tide, the calm, shallow sea scintillating every t
ime the sun broke through the clouds. Faced with that, I understood perfectly why you loved it there so much.
‘Ready?’
‘Definitely.’
As I got out and turned to close the door, I realised I’d been sitting on his coat the entire time. ‘Sorry,’ I winced. ‘Didn’t notice it. It’s all crumpled now.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I barely wear it anyway.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m tough,’ he joked.
True to his word, he carried the parka despite there being no warmth to the weak February sun. Personally, I was glad of my hat and gloves, let alone my thermal coat. Once again I was struck by how cold you must have been, Beth. Your coat had never been discovered, or your rucksack.
* * *
After twenty minutes we had walked to the place where you were found.
‘Beth was dressed up, like she was going to meet someone,’ I said, explaining how the police had shown us an outfit totally unlike the one you had left the house in. ‘Police believe she was attacked here, then dragged into the mere and thrown in. As if she was nothing,’ I explained. My stomach twisted like a rag being wrung out.
Despite everything, despite the fact that I thought I’d been over this so many times in my head that there were no feelings left; despite the fact that I thought I was hardened to everything now, a couple of tears escaped. I sniffed, but couldn’t be bothered to wipe them away. But as I carried on talking I forced myself to stick to the facts and be businesslike.
‘Whoever did it must have thought she would sink. They didn’t weigh her down or anything. So she floated in the pond, face up, in her little outfit. I thought hypothermia would have killed her, but it was the freezing temperatures that saved her. Which is ironic, really, because she’s always hated being cold.’
‘The cold saved her?’
‘Mmm. Apparently it’s best to keep head injuries very cold as it lessens the damage done. Even in hospital, after her operation, Beth was kept under a special blanket that looked like a Li-lo on top of her – it had freezing air blown into it to keep her temperature down. Not that it seems to have helped.’
I turned away, unable to look any more, only to be confronted with the little shrine by the sycamore. The blue and white crime scene tape had been removed, and there were ribbons tied to the tree. They waved in the wind, defiantly bright against the muted tones of the land. Looking at them, hope replaced my despair: they were a symbol that you would overcome your injuries.
My little girl would get better. You are a fighter, I thought.
Glenn read the messages from friends and neighbours. Like the amateur sleuths we were, we searched around for dropped clues the police might have missed.
‘I thought there might be some footprints we could follow,’ Glenn shrugged apologetically, looking down at the mired trail of tracks from well-wishers, police and goodness knows who else. It was completely futile. I’d been kidding myself, thinking I could do a better job than the official investigation.
The cold made the pair of us sniff, our noses bright red. We turned and made our way back, while I filled Glenn in on the terrible moment I had first realised you were missing. The cold almost took my breath away, though, and Glenn even put his coat on. It was a blessed relief to jump back into the van.
* * *
Immediately, Glenn turned the ignition key and put the heater on full blast. The warmth made my fingers tingle almost painfully.
He began rooting through the door’s side pocket.
‘I’ve a pen and notebook in here. We should write everything down.’
I gave him a grim smile. ‘You actually, genuinely want to do this? Find my daughter’s attacker?’
‘Well, yeah.’ He looked down, embarrassed. ‘If you don’t want to, it’s fine. I only want to help. It’s awful – obviously – what’s happened. There’s not much I can do, but I’m quite good at solving puzzles.’
‘Yeah, I remember you with that Rubik’s Cube,’ I said, taking the mickey. He had pulled off all the stickers in frustration and stuck them back on, insisting to anyone who would listen at school that he had solved it.
He pulled a face. ‘I can certainly give this my best shot.’
Reaching out, he touched my hand. Squeezed it. I muttered a ‘thank you’, then pulled my hand away to crack open the steamed-up windows.
Finding a pen, Glenn opened a bright pink Moleskine notebook. Not the sort of thing I’d have thought he’d buy at all, given he lived in scruffy workmen’s clothes, but each to their own.
The inside of the van was neater than expected too. No discarded food wrappers, very little mud – unlike the outside. The dashboard sparkled because it had recently been cleaned. It was clearly an old van, but well-loved; the gearstick so worn the numbers on it could barely be made out, and the steering wheel smoothed from hands constantly running over it.
‘What have we learned from visiting the scene?’ Glenn asked.
‘Nothing?’
‘No, come on, we’ve got to have learned something.’ As he thought, his mouth formed a half-smile. ‘Why was she on the marsh, dressed up? It’s cold, it’s muddy, it’s bloody windy.’
As he spoke, he wrote those exact words in his little book.
‘Well, right after the attack I spoke with Chloe. She said Aleksy had a crush on her.’
Glenn noted down the name, after I’d spelled Jachowski for him.
‘So he fancies her… How well does Beth know this Aleksy?’
I shrugged. ‘They get the same school bus. He’s in his final year at Wapentake Secondary, doing his A levels, so they don’t have much opportunity to socialise apart from the bus. Chloe told me they had been chatting on there sometimes, but that seems to be the full extent of his flirtation.’
‘To have lured Beth to the marsh, it’s got to have been somebody she knew, and knew well. Unless she was abducted and driven here from somewhere else.’
‘I think her being picked up in the village and driven here is likeliest. Our FLO – Family Liaison Officer the police have given us – has told me there’s no evidence of her getting the bus into Wapentake. No CCTV of her in the town, either.’
We went over the same ground I’d quizzed Chloe about. I couldn’t think of anyone you fancied. But then, you clearly hadn’t told me everything about your life, judging from the fact you had lied to me about where you were going the night you were attacked.
‘What about hobbies? Could she have met someone through anything she did?’
‘Beth didn’t have much spare time. She was always busy with homework, or with Chloe, or with us as a family. She was into nature, so she and I would often come to the marsh – Jacob too. That was it. Oh, apart from guitar lessons with Mr Harvey.’ A wave of despair crashed over me. ‘Aleksy is looking like a stronger and stronger contender, isn’t he? He’s only a kid himself, though; surely he couldn’t have done it?’
‘What about the guitar tutor?’
‘James Harvey? He’s a nice bloke. In his early twenties. Twenty-four, I think.’
‘Not that much of an age difference, then,’ observed Glenn. There was excitement in his voice.
‘Ten years! The police looked into him, anyway. He has a watertight alibi – he was with Alison Daughtrey-Drew on a date.’
‘Blimey, the Daughtrey-Drews. There’s a name I haven’t heard for a good few years.’
Everyone knew the family. The Daughtrey-Drews were the area’s equivalent of landed gentry.
‘So, that James Harvey and the Daughtrey-Drew girl were on a date?’
‘Think it was more of a one-off than a date, from what I hear.’
Glenn grunted in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘Alison isn’t much like her parents – but not many twenty-year-olds are.’ I smiled, despite myself. ‘She’s a bit of a tearaway. Last year she got pulled over by the police for speeding, and I heard that her parents had a word with some pal in the police force. As a result, she got off. T
hey’re always having to get her out of one scrape or another. But rumour has it she got chucked out of university a few months ago, and her parents are so furious that they’re refusing to give her any money until she’s got a job.’
Glenn gave a rich, deep chuckle. ‘Bet they’re embarrassed by that.’
‘Just a bit. I think sleeping around is the least of Alison’s troubles. Though I’ve always found her decent enough when I’ve spoken with her, even if she is a bit of a spoiled only child.’
‘And that means James Harvey has an alibi.’ Glenn crossed the name out on the page.
‘Everyone has an alibi,’ I said. ‘Everyone in the entire village, according to our Family Liaison Officer.’
He frowned, clearly wanting me to explain further, but there was nothing else to say. ‘Anyway, what about other men?’
‘Beth’s fourteen, Glenn. She doesn’t have much to do with men.’
The silence became uncomfortable as it stretched out. He scratched his fingers through his blond curls. Cleared his throat, shifting in his seat.
‘Okay, who found Beth? Was it the police, or someone else? Because that can be suspicious, can’t it? There have been murders where the person who discovers the body is the one who did the deed.’
‘It was Davy Young. He’s not capable of harming a fly. And besides, he was with his mum the night Beth was injured.’ The indomitable Jill Young would never lie to the police. Even the way she stood was trustworthy; it reminded me of that famous painting of Henry VIII, legs akimbo. She was solid, reliable, unmovable.
Still, Glenn was right – it was worth having a chat with Davy. Although I’d heard from my brother and Dad about the scene when you were found, it would be good to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
I always felt a bit sorry for Davy. He wasn’t necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer, but all his life he had tried to play catch-up with his older brothers, who loved nothing better than telling embarrassing tales of him as a kid. He was dismissed by everyone as being a bit dim. It must have been particularly awful proving people right when his farm had failed and he’d ended up having to move back in with his mum again at the grand old age of thirty-nine. He was a lovely bloke, though, and I’d no doubt he’d be keen to help me get to the bottom of who had hurt you.
The Darkest Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist Page 10