by D. E. White
Baby, babe, sweetheart, he used to call her all of those things when they were dating. Back in the wild days. It grated on her nerves, ‘I’m not a baby, Leo, but I am more than pissed off that one of you lot would do this. Because it was obviously one of my so-called friends. This is assault, and I will be speaking to the police. Somebody has hacked my social media accounts too, and my work email account was used to send the link to this site.’ She would keep the rest to herself and see what happened. Somehow she didn’t want to tell Leo about Ellen’s bracelet just yet. Let him wonder…
‘So how did you find out?’
‘I got sent a link from my boss. Somebody sent these to my boss, for fuck’s sake, so if you are warning me off talking about Ellen, then message received loud and clear – okay? I also got another weird text message, from another new number. Huw just made a big thing out of how he thought I was here to tell the truth about Ellen, so maybe I should put out an announcement. I have no intention of dragging up the past, beyond paying my respects to Ellen’s parents. Are you lot so fucking stupid that you think I don’t have anything to lose?’
He touched her then, but gently, just a brief hand on her arm, and his eyes met hers. ‘Ava, I would never do this to you. When I heard you were coming back, I hoped we could be friends. You know, tidy up the past in a way we couldn’t back then. Sure, I couldn’t resist teasing you a bit, and you are more gorgeous than ever, so don’t blame me for trying my luck the other night. But you turned me down.’
‘What about the others? Anyone particularly upset I was coming back?’ she probed. ‘The thing is, Leo, I will go to the police about this, although I haven’t worked out what the hell I’m going to tell them yet. Whoever did this, if they are trying to stop me bringing up Ellen, has totally screwed up. So, who really hates me at the moment?’
‘Nobody hates you… I mean Huw and Rhodri were a bit wary that you might stir up trouble, but they wouldn’t do something like this. They’re good blokes, and since we lost Jesse they’ve become closer. You know Jesse was always Rhodri’s best mate, wasn’t he? It hit Rhodri really hard when Jesse died, and I don’t think he’s ever come out of it. But Huw has been great with him.’
Quite. All the boys sticking together. But there was something in Leo’s tone, and the way the words were framed, that made her take note. ‘What are you not telling me?’
He shook his head. ‘It isn’t important, and it doesn’t have anything to do with this.’
‘Don’t you think I should be the judge of that?’ Ava clicked off the website, but the pictures danced around her brain, blurring the edges of her hard-won sanity. She stood up, leaning down to adjust the jeans around her walking boots. Her nails raked skin and she winced, leaning down.
‘What are you doing?’
She carefully rolled up her jeans, exposing her calves. ‘The night I was drugged, I also picked up this scratch. I thought maybe I went through some brambles next to the Birtleys’ gate, perhaps I had been drunker than I thought. But now…’
He looked bewildered. ‘So? I mean, how would you do that in your bedroom?’
‘Exactly. Someone must have cut me deliberately.’ Sighing, Ava dragged the site up again and examined the photographs. It was slightly easier this time. She forced herself to look at them as a detective viewing a crime scene, and reminded herself that Ava Cole was a bloody good detective.
Leo looked, then glanced away. His phone rang, but he ignored it. ‘Why though?’
‘Look, it’s my left leg, and in the photos I don’t have a cut. This was done after they were taken.’
‘Who would do that?’
‘I don’t know, Leo. I’ve only just arrived back, remember, and I’ve been assaulted in my room. Now suddenly, instead of catching up with my son, I’m trying to work out who attacked me while I slept. Not only broke my skin, but touched me, took photographs of me and put them up on some revenge porn site. Nice welcome back, don’t you think?’
She glanced at him, but his face was shuttered, eyes sombre. Who the hell knew what went on in Leo’s head? According to the media, whatever it was had made him a millionaire. What else had it made him?
There were no other clues from the pictures. No shadows, just enough light from the lamp to get goodish photos from what must have been a fairly top-of-the-range smartphone. No reflections in the mirror or window. One last thing, she moved her fingers and zoomed into the bedside table. Nothing. The cut and the bracelet had been left after the photos had been taken. The question was, why? To warn her off still seemed to be the most likely, and it seemed fair to assume the same person or people was also responsible for the text messages, and they had started before she even got to Wales. Huw and Rhodri?
Huw had certainly seemed very angry, but he hadn’t been in the pub that night. Leo had been at the pub that night, and with their tangled history he was definitely capable. Paul obviously hated her, but that was understandable, he had his own problems to worry about. Her ex-husband had a massive ego though, and always had done. Perhaps this wasn’t about Ellen, but about getting revenge on a wife who ran away? Rhodri had been genuinely moved by the objects, and sad and regretful about Ellen. Jesse was dead. Jesse, who according to Ellen’s parents, had been about to tell them what really happened to their daughter…
‘Did you think that private investigator was any good?’ Leo asked suddenly, breaking into her thoughts.
‘Yes. I hope you’re not going to suggest the photos were down to him.’
Leo’s lips curved, dimples showing. ‘No. I’m just saying a few people might have wondered what you were saying to him. I’ve spoken to him myself, and I would say he’s not stupid, and quite capable of working it out for himself, even without our help.’
‘You would? I’d probably agree with you, but from what he said he seems to be leaving it as an unsolved missing person. I won’t just ignore this bullying, Leo. This is extreme, and I feel totally sick just thinking about what happened that night.’
Leo came closer, his hands on her arms. ‘Ava, darling, I love that you are still a crusader, and hell, you do it for a job now, and I agree someone has gone way too far but this is one battle you need to leave behind.’
‘What do you mean?’ She didn’t move away.
He frowned. ‘I’m worried about you. Now I’ve seen those pictures and you’ve told me about the messages, I’ll do some digging of my own. Nobody will hurt you, Ava, but what are you going to tell the police about all this? Somehow, you need to think of a way to report the photographs while leaving Ellen out of it.’
‘I honestly don’t know if I can!’ Ava pulled away from him and ran her hands through her hair, pulling her fingers through the strands as though she could yank away memories. ‘It’s the perfect motive. You think I’m going to, what, lie to the police like I did back then? I am the bloody police now. What’s the worst that will happen if I do tell the truth? Yes, it will devastate the Smiths, but they have pretty much already decided that Ellen is dead. They’re right – if she was alive, she would have called them, so they’ve been mourning for years anyway. Will it kill our careers? Especially yours, being in the public eye, and mine being in law enforcement… Stephen hates me now, and if he finds out the truth about Ellen, I’m quite sure he’ll hate me even more.’
Leo leaned against the wall of the office, watching her rant. ‘But you are going to do it?’ It was hardly a question.
‘The alternative is not going to the police, letting this sick perp have it all their own way. My boss has seen the photographs, and there’s no way he’s going to let it go. At the end of the day, it was an accident for fuck’s sake, Leo, and we were stupid kids. It was just an accident, and her parents want to move on.’ As she said the words, arguing against herself, there was hot panic, fear of ruining her life again, but also a twinge of something that could have been relief. It might ruin her, but now she was backed into a corner and the choice wasn’t hers to make anymore. If whoever had done this was warning
her off, they had achieved the exact opposite. She looked back at Leo.
He was too close. His breath was warm on her cheek, and he hesitated for a bare second. ‘It wasn’t an accident.’
For the second time in an hour the little office spun, and Ava wondered how many more shocks she could take today, but somewhere at the back of her mind was a thought. Was this what she had suspected all along?
Leo pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and without thinking she grabbed one herself, her hand shaking. His voice seemed to come from miles away, tinny and faint, and she forced herself to concentrate. Everything had slowed, was muffled – her heartbeat, the hum of the heater, the double ping of her phone as a message arrived.
‘You were never supposed to know, but you need to understand why this can never come out, and why you can’t tell the police. Ellen was murdered. This was never an accident. That night in the woods, someone killed Ellen and, I’m fairly sure, sexually assaulted her.’
‘What?’ She took a drag of her cigarette and nearly threw up as the smoke hit the back of her throat.
‘Sit down. It isn’t cut and dried, and before you start hitting me, it wasn’t me. I would say that anyway, but you’ll have to trust me on this. I didn’t kill Ellen, or hurt her, and I don’t know who did.’
‘But then… how do you know she was murdered? She fell from the zip line after I got the answer wrong in that stupid “True Lies” game. That was her punishment for me not being able to tell if you were lying.’ It had haunted her forever. But that was their insane game. There was a series of physical dares that the loser had to complete, from the zip line high in the oak trees, to the box in the ground you were shut in for five long minutes. It was stupid, but it was kid stuff. Kids testing their strengths and exploring each other’s weaknesses. Shame they were all high on drugs at the time, but that gave it an extra edge.
‘Leo? Fucking talk to me!’
He sighed, tapping ash into a plate on the desk. ‘When you passed out, I laid you on the ground. You always were a lightweight with those pills. We all had dark hoodies on, didn’t we, so there was nothing distinctive about anyone once it got late. I don’t expect you really remember properly, do you? She checked you, had a couple of pills, and some booze, then she did the zip line. She… came back and sat with us. We had the music, the fire and the vodka. I went back to check on you next…’
‘How kind.’ The sarcasm was automatic. Her memory of the pain in her head faltered. She had assumed someone had hit her, knocking her unconscious, but what if it had just been the drugs taking effect?
‘We were just sitting around talking, zoning out. I think Ellen had a row with Rhodri at one point, but then she was off snogging Huw, and Paul was watching. You remember how it used to turn him on, watching someone else?’
Ava did, and she had discussed it with Penny and Ellen, but the two other girls seemed to enjoy the attention. Uneasily, she remembered how, off their heads with booze, her two best friends had often been persuaded to put on a show for the boys, snogging and touching each other. The first time it happened, she had felt sick, shouted at the boys to stop encouraging them, and at the girls for doing it. But Pen had called her a prude, and Paul told her to get lost unless she wanted to join in. Furious, she had gone home early. She wasn’t a prude in any way, but the sight of the boys watching, like a pack of wolves lusting after prey, freaked her out. After that, when they started she either left, or turned her back.
Leo was still talking. ‘… That night, it was easy to lose track of everyone, in the dark. I dozed off a bit too, even though the music was pretty loud.’
‘I’m sure you did, Leo. How convenient. So what happened then?’ Ava was struggling to adjust her mental picture of the night. All these years… ‘How did she…?’ She couldn’t say it, and was still breathing fast, heart pounding.
‘I could hear them all laughing before I went to sleep. Ellen too, I think, and I swear I didn’t think anything of it. I must have been out for a good half an hour, we reckoned later. She never screamed, or someone would have heard her.’
‘But the music was loud,’ Ava commented. ‘And the fire pit was always full of dried leaves and that made a noise if you were sat near it.’
‘I shouted that I needed a piss, but they didn’t hear. Don’t forget I’d taken a lot of drugs too. Everything was a bit like a dream world, you know how it was, Ava. I was there, peeing in the woods, you were asleep under the tree, and then I sort of noticed that something was happening behind me.’ Leo paused, as though dragging the painful memory back.
‘Get on with it.’ Ava clenched sweaty fists, biting her lip.
‘Someone was yelling that Ellen was dead. I thought they were still laughing and, you know, joking around. Rhodri and Jesse brought her to the space near the fire and laid her on the ground. They were holding her between them, like some broken ragdoll, and Paul made some joke about her having had a threesome with them and said what had they done to her.’
‘Rhodri and Jesse were carrying her?’
‘Yeah… but they said they thought they heard her call out a bit further up the wood, and went to see if she was all right.’
‘They didn’t see anyone with her?’ Ava snapped. Shit, this changed everything, and made it about a hundred times worse that they had never called the police. If Ellen was assaulted and murdered it didn’t necessarily mean it was one of her friends involved. They could have covered up for some random sicko wandering the hills… But the police had interviewed everyone, she remembered. Had they missed something, all those years ago? It might have been just another teenage mispo case to them, but there had been uniformed officers in the village for weeks. She had been terrified they would uncover something, unable to sleep or eat because of her guilt at Ellen’s death, and unable to grieve properly because she had a role to act out. ‘Go on, Leo. Are you sure nobody saw anyone else in the woods that night?’
‘No, but they said she was lying on the ground, and they could tell she was dead. Huw came back then. He said he’d just been having a piss too.’
‘The weak bladder thing must have been catching. Christ, I can’t take this in. What else, Leo? What else do you know?’
He was fidgeting with his phone, turning it over and over in his hands. ‘There is something else. She had definitely been assaulted. Her knickers were missing and her clothes were all undone, and pulled around. She had bruising around her neck, and it was all purple and black in the firelight. We panicked afterwards, and made a pact not to tell you. Huw… well, Huw got really mad, violent, and he threatened all of us. You know what he was like when he got scared… Don’t you see? We were all there, but not together. Who would have believed that I didn’t do it? In a way we were all responsible. It got totally out of control that night. I mean we quite often had sex, didn’t we?’
‘You didn’t think maybe Huw did it, and that’s why he was so keen on keeping everyone quiet? And having consensual sex is one thing, rape is another, and you know it. That’s what you are trying to say, isn’t it? That one of you raped Ellen and then killed her. Who was it, Leo?’ Her voice was hard now. Another thought occurred to her. ‘Penny must have known what happened. All these years and she never said anything. What the hell was she doing whilst Ellen was dying?’
‘I don’t remember. She was off in the trees with Paul to start with. Wait, no, she was crying and hugging Ellen’s body afterwards. She was yelling at Paul and Huw, hitting them in the chest with her fists.’
‘Big of her.’ Penny’s betrayal was worse, far worse than any of the others, even Leo. She had known, but she’d never said a word. Why? Ava supposed she knew the answer to that one. If the boys had threatened her, she would have gone along with it, and then secrets like that were impossible to tell after a certain time. Especially if you were married to someone who just might have committed rape and murder. Hell, she thought she was sitting on a few big secrets herself, but this… God, this was nuclear. ‘You bloody stupid idiots. So
meone committed a violent crime and you covered it up, to what… protect each other? It doesn’t make sense. Who raped Ellen?’
His eyes dropped, and he flashed a look from under his lashes. ‘Jesse?’
‘Bloody convenient that, isn’t it, seeing as Jesse is dead. Why would it be Jesse anyway? Ellen was already his girlfriend. I know, remember, I was her best friend.’ Tears were starting. ‘I was her best friend, and I was out cold when she needed me. Who was it really?’
‘I told you. I think it was Jesse.’
‘And Jesse had an attack of conscience and decided to tell Jackie and Peter? Then he crashed his motorbike. How very convenient.’
‘Ava! You can’t think… If you really want to know, Jesse had been weird for a while. He never got over Ellen, and he split up with some girlfriend in Cardiff, came home to Aberdyth to lick his wounds. He was so down, and drinking a lot, but he seemed to get better when he met Kelly. Then Kai was born and they were going to move out of Aberdyth. He nearly did it, Ava. He nearly got away.’
‘I’m not being self-righteous, because I accept I am just as much to blame for covering up Ellen’s death as the rest of you, but if I had known the truth, nothing would have stopped me from going to the police. Nothing.’
Leo stood up, stretching, glancing at his watch. ‘That’s why we agreed not to tell you. We just wanted it to go away, and for a good few years, it has. Whoever did it, isn’t exactly a serial killer, are they? I think one of the boys probably just got a bit heavy-handed. Perhaps she had a fight with Jesse, and he wanted to make it up… She always was a drama queen, and she used to push his buttons.’
Ava shook her head slowly, unable to believe what she was hearing. She was tempted to hit him now, right on his perfect jawbone. That would make a fun bruise for his make-up artist to cover up. ‘I can’t believe Penny would go along with it. Did you threaten her?’