I straddled her and got to work. And watched her skin slowly, slowly changing colour.
When it was done, I threw my head back, elated. Above me the huge moon hung red in the sky. Even the heavens had arranged themselves to acknowledge my greatness. The blood moon was mine for the world to see.
All those years of longing and planning, patience and cunning had been worth it. I was a god.
I laughed and wiped the sweat off my face. Grabbed the kid’s phone and tossed it into some bushes. In her hand she clutched a bright pink notebook. I took it from her and, on a whim, pocketed it. My treasure. Each time I wrote in it, I felt again the rush I had experienced at that moment.
Ninety-Four
By the time I got home, it was 3 p.m. Outside the primary school, children streamed out towards their parents, who were eager and harried in equal measure. I wanted to scream at them to cherish every second, tell them how lucky they were to have their children.
Instead I parked the car and ran inside. Jacob snoozed on the sofa, still clutching Jesus and now also Wiggins. Only the dog stirred, tail wagging in greeting, then slowly settled again as I backed out of the house.
Perfect. I pulled my phone out and sent a text to Glenn.
Where are you? Fancy a drink?
Always, came the reply. Already in pub. Join me.
My heart thumped in time with my steps as I crossed the short distance over the road and into The Poacher. It was virtually empty, but the conversation stuttered when the handful of people saw me. Many moved towards me, murmuring their condolences, saying what a terrible business it was with the Clarkes. Hypocrites. But I nodded, unable to respond, scared one of the waves of grief would sweep me away again.
Not now. Not when I had to do this first.
Eventually I broke free and made my way over to Glenn, who sat at his favourite table, tucked in a corner.
So he could watch people coming and going, like a hunter. See, without being seen himself.
The thought flashed through me like lightning. I shuddered, told myself I had been in this paranoid place before, with James Harvey. I had felt a burning conviction that he was responsible for killing you, when all along he had been innocent.
‘How you doing?’ Glenn asked me, not bothering to stand up to greet me. Instead he kicked out a chair towards me, smiling that cherubic smile of his. ‘You okay? Bloody stupid question. I got you a drink.’
I forced a smile, which felt more like a rictus. That was okay, though; I could get away with acting strangely, given the circumstances. You were my cloak, Beth. I hid behind you.
Glenn leaned towards me, eyes earnest. ‘So, how are you doing? How are you feeling?’
This was ridiculous. Glenn was always so concerned with how I felt. He allowed me to share with him my deepest, darkest, most hurtful thoughts. Without him letting me offload, I’d have gone mad the last few weeks. He knew just when to stay quiet and let me speak, and when to probe, asking me incredible questions that got right down to the horrifying pain in me.
I was suddenly so weary.
‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about me. Not right now,’ I deflected. ‘Tell me about your day instead. I need to take my mind off things. I want to hear something stupid and mundane. Please.’
‘All right,’ he smiled. That boyish grin. ‘Well, I’ve mostly been helping Dale out with his bloody crossword. Not very exciting! Silly sod didn’t know that baby eels were called elvers.’
The minutes slipped by, and Glenn talked nonsense. I took the tiniest sip of my wine, encouraged by him.
‘It’ll help you forget about things,’ he said.
That wasn’t possible. Besides, he hadn’t got me my usual brand, and this had a strange taste to it. Everything did now. I blinked back tears. Now was not the time to lose it.
‘You be all right if I leave you for a minute? Need the loo,’ Glenn announced, setting down his half-empty pint glass.
I watched him walk away. And knew what had to be done to halt the confusion tearing at me.
Feverish, I ran my hands over his jacket, which was slung over the back of his chair. The notebook was in his inside pocket, as always. I flicked it open.
The handwriting looked similar to Tiffany’s. Rounded. Neat. A high bar above the lower case ‘t’, which almost missed the top sometimes. But it wasn’t enough to make me certain.
The doodle did that. A stack of books, a flower sprouting from it. The same lines; the same confidence; the same way of going over the petals again and again.
The wine came rushing into my mouth. I had to swallow down the acrid taste of it mixed with bile.
Oh my God, Glenn had Tiffany’s notebook.
Perhaps he knew who had killed her.
Perhaps he had done it himself.
Or perhaps he had simply found the notebook, and this was all a coincidence.
I needed more than just this notebook. I looked around. No one so much as glanced in my direction. For once I was glad people couldn’t bring themselves to look at me, thanks to my grief-induced invisibility. Still, I only had seconds more to find out all I could. I’d check Glenn’s phone, see if there were any incriminating texts to the killer, or something.
There it was, in his outer pocket. Pulling it out, I quickly scrutinised the contacts and messages. There was nothing suspicious at all. Feeling like an idiot, I put it back in his pocket – and felt a buzz. It wasn’t coming from that phone. Dread froze me for a heartbeat. Then I tugged again at the pockets and found the second phone. Cheaper, simpler, not even a touchscreen. The kind people have and chuck away. A burner phone.
Did I have time to check it? Glenn would be back any moment. My fingers were at sixes and sevens in my haste.
Come on! Come on!
There were loads of contacts. I flashed through them, and realised with growing horror that I recognised almost every single name. They were the names of children in the village.
The wine churned in my stomach. A rushing pounded through my head as if I were being enclosed by a tsunami wave. But I forced my shaking fingers to move over the plastic buttons. Find the messages, open them.
Hey, seen u about. My name’s Justin. Want 2 chat?
The message had been sent last night to a little girl called Sally-Mae. You know, Susan and Colin Winston’s youngest. She was only seven, the same age as Roza. She hadn’t replied, thank God.
She hadn’t replied yet.
Yet.
I shoved the phone back into its hiding place. Jumped from my seat and ran to the ladies’ toilets just as Glenn came out of the gents’.
‘Hey, are you… ?’
But he didn’t have time to finish. I slammed the door in his face and vomited into the sink, no time to make it to a cubicle. I heaved and heaved and heaved, bringing up every last thing I’d eaten and drunk that day.
Ninety-Five
For a moment I didn’t know what to do as I stood in the door of the gents and watched Mel go through my pockets. It seemed she had finally figured out that I couldn’t be trusted. Which was both disappointing, that she had seen through me, and also made me think, what took you so long, you stupid bitch?
I was going to have to do something about her. The faster, the better. Luckily I was good at thinking on my feet. I’d get her drunk. Everyone was used to her getting paralytic, then being walked home by me. Good old reliable Glenn. Only instead of our going home, I’d take her to the marsh and dump her corpse far out in one of the deep, hidden creeks. Even if the body were found, people would assume she was so grief-stricken that she had done something stupid. No one would ask questions. And I’d play the grieving friend, berating myself for not looking after her properly. I could just imagine it…
‘If only I’d watched her go inside her house. I walked her right up to the door, but sh… she insisted she was fine and I left her. I should have known better,’ I’d tell people.
I would cry, too, if I could manage it. Sometimes I could. Villagers would rush to reassu
re me that it wasn’t my fault, that I had done all I could.
But what if she refused to have a drink with me? Became hysterical and told everyone in the pub what she had found?
No one would take any notice. She had been accusing people of all sorts for weeks now. People were sick of listening to her, even though they felt sorry for her. She was pathetic. And I could still play the gent and insist on walking her home; my poor, sad friend who was clearly having a breakdown… Then I’d punch her once we were outside, and carry her to the van. Similar plan as before, same outcome. Anyone who saw me would simply assume she was off her face, as usual.
Perfect. Melanie Oak was good and vulnerable and ripe for the plucking. No matter what she did, I would win.
Ninety-Six
It took me a good five minutes to pull myself together, Beth. To wash my face, rinse my mouth clean and gather my courage. I had no idea how to face Glenn again now that I knew what a monster he was.
In the mirror, my eyes stared from my ashen face. I visibly quaked with convulsive shivers. Hopefully it would be excused as grief.
Eventually I took a deep breath, forced my shoulders back and walked out of the loo and back into the cheery, gentle chatter of the pub. Glenn sat at the table, smiling that cherubic smile of his. Lolling back in the chair, relaxed, no tension in his body at all as he looked at me.
He didn’t suspect a thing.
I walked over to my chair on legs as wobbly as a toddler’s and gathered up my things.
‘I’m not feeling very well,’ I chuntered, forcing myself to look at him but aware that my eyes kept sliding away.
‘Oh, no! That’s awful – but not surprising after everything you’ve been through.’ He stood, concerned, solicitous, extending an arm towards me as if afraid I would fall. ‘Here, let me walk you home.’
‘I’ll… I’ll… honestly, I’ll be fine.’ The blood whooshed in my head again, and I started to feel weak at the knees.
‘Mel, you look dreadful. I insist. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t see you were safe.’
‘You’re all right, Glenn, I’ve got this.’
I had never been so glad to hear Jacob’s voice. I turned and gave him a dazzling smile that must have seemed totally out of place. Grabbed onto his hand as if he could pull me from my nightmare.
‘You got my text, then?’
‘Yeah. I’m glad you asked me to come and get you – you don’t look well at all. Okay, hon, let’s go home.’
Your dad let go of my hand, but only to put his arm around me.
I saw Glenn’s jaw tighten for a second, but only because I was looking for it. Then the mask slid back into place. He nodded, patting my arm with a concerned frown.
‘You’re in safe hands now, Mel. Feel better soon.’
‘See you, Glenn,’ replied Jacob.
But I remained silent. I clung to my husband and allowed myself to be walked home.
With each step, a killer’s eyes bored into my back.
Ninety-Seven
Befriending Melanie had been a master stroke. Without her, I have to admit, I couldn’t have coped. My need to murder might have overwhelmed me during the past couple of weeks, as the flush of thinking about my first kill wore off.
I had needed a fresh hit of pain and despair, and the only way I could see of getting that was to take another life. There was nothing like that power to give me the ultimate rush. But instinct had warned me not to hurry into another kill. After all, I wanted this next one to be perfect. I wanted to be able to take more time and have more fun – there was so much I had learned from that first time. So, sadly, an immediate murder could not be the solution to my problem.
Then I had read about that idiot, Jacob Oak, smoking marijuana while his daughter was being put in a coma. I remembered him from school. The good-looking, popular newcomer who everyone seemed to adore. Lads wanted to be his friend; girls wanted to date him. I never could stand him. Wanker.
Then I’d remembered he was married to Melanie. I had always had a soft spot for her, had often thought what it would be like to have a bit of sport with her. There was something so sweet and innocent about her that it would be a laugh to despoil. Even as a kid of eight, I’d picked her to play football because she smelled good enough to take a bite out of. Watching her made me think of the delicate birds I would trap and whose skulls I loved to smash.
I hadn’t been back to Fenmere in years. Why the hell would I? But reading about Jacob Oak had given me an idea. I could return to my childhood home and live vicariously on Melanie Oak’s pain.
Leaving Marcie had been no hardship. She was a whiny, pathetic woman I never should have saddled myself with. But it was easier for a married man to befriend people with kids than a single bloke; that’s why I’d been married three times. I had stayed around long enough after Tiffany’s murder to avert suspicion, and had sold the car – putting its real number plates back on first, of course – and bought the van straight after the attack. There was no longer a reason to stick around, and when I left Nottingham it was with a clear conscience.
It had been so easy to become Melanie’s friend. She had been desperate for someone to understand her. All I needed to do was listen – and I’d been more than happy to do that. What a rich seam of pain I had struck! Melanie was full of rage, and so articulate that it was a joy to listen to her. When I probed, she gave up her secrets willingly, spilling her deepest, darkest, most raw feelings to me. Looking into her eyes, brimming with horror, had been wonderful. When she had imagined herself in the place of her child… my God, it had almost been as good as being there.
She was clearly cracking up, though. All that talk of being able to feel Beth when she was on the marsh was nuts.
I didn’t particularly care who had hurt her kid, of course, I was just bloody grateful they had. But it hadn’t taken a genius to ask the right questions, watch the body language and put two and two together. After years of studying people in order to manipulate them, it was easy to see the whole village was covering something up, but that Chloe was clearly guilty as hell. I could have told Melanie that, but why bother? It was so much more entertaining to wind her up and point her in the wrong direction – and hell, sometimes the right one, just to see how she would muck it up.
Making her into a pitiful laughing stock had been easy, as I encouraged her to drink more and more. Sometimes I slipped a little top-up into her glass from my hip flask, when no one was looking. It had never required much effort to get her to have a go at people, point the finger or even call the police with her suspicions.
She had been my little lab rat, trapped in a maze of my creation. Thinking about it, sometimes, in the privacy of my own home, I’d laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.
Ninety-Eight
I saw Glenn through fresh eyes. Like a glass in a pub that looked clean until the sunlight hit it, and abruptly the smears were in plain view. He was something grubby that needed to be scrubbed off the face of the earth.
A moan escaped my lips as my stomach clenched again, trying to eject the disgust I felt at this man. I held the rim of the loo a little tighter, and spat bile into the white bowl.
‘Mel, are you okay? Should I call a doctor?’ asked Jacob.
‘I’ll be fine in a minute. Honestly.’ My voice sounded weak, but I stood on wobbly feet and ushered your dad from the room. Some things required privacy.
After shooting the bolt across, I grabbed my handbag and rifled through it. What I searched for lay at the bottom. The pregnancy test that I had bought earlier, after leaving Marcie’s house.
Since you had been found a month earlier, I had been nauseous every day, which I had written off as stress. Marcie’s talk of wanting children had made me realise, though, how late my period was – about five weeks. Everything tasted strange to me; I was tired all the time, and my emotions were all over the place. Grief was one explanation. But there was another.
Sitting on the loo, I did what had to be done. A
nd waited for the answers to come. There was so much to think about, Beth. Too much. Jumbled and disjointed thoughts twisted and clashed in my mind. You. Chloe. Pregnancy. Glenn. Tiffany. Roza. Fenmere’s lying residents. Everything created a whirlwind in my mind.
Glenn was the person who had lured Tiffany from her home by posing as a boy through a series of texts. He had brutally murdered a twelve-year-old child. Now he was looking to do the same with a girl from Fenmere. His next target was either Roza or Sally-Mae. Time was running out for them.
The look on his face when he’d been talking to Roza while I spied through the hedge haunted me. He’d looked so happy, so triumphant. He’d positively glowed. Then when he’d seen me his expression, for a second, had been one of fury. I had had a glimpse into the abyss.
My heart thumped like a rabbit’s caught in a fox’s gaze. I could not let him kill again. Poor Tiffany. Her body touched and mucked about with after death. I heaved but nothing came up. Nothing was left any more.
Little Chloe Clarke may have smashed the life out of you, Beth, but she was in a different league to Glenn. He was pure evil.
I’d let him get close to me. I’d told him my deepest, darkest feelings; told him things I would never even admit to Jacob. Why had he befriended me?
The answer made me clutch the pregnancy testing stick so tight that it almost snapped. He was like one of those murderers who insert themselves into an investigation of a crime they themselves have committed, so they could relive the thrill. Only he had been living off the thrill of my pain. My investigation.
Beth, I knew now that Glenn had sullied your memory by using your attack for his own twisted purposes.
I could go to the police and tell them what I suspected he had done to Tiffany. Chances were they wouldn’t believe me, though, not after all the calls I had made about you, Beth. They would think I was going crazy, seeing crimes where none existed. If he got wind that they were investigating him, he might throw away the notebook and his burner phone, destroying what little evidence there was. Evidence was everything, and without it, he would get off scot-free.
The Darkest Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist Page 31