Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Jane Holland

  ‘So give him the slip,’ she says, shrugging. ‘You can always go out the back door.’

  I laugh, but go back downstairs more slowly than I went up, thinking hard. That is not such a bad idea.

  I hit Connor’s number on my favourites list. He answers on the second ring, like he’s been waiting for me to call. ‘You’re late,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I overslept.’ I stand in the narrow hallway, looking out at the police car still parked in the turning area of the cottage. ‘Look, can we skip lunch at the Green Man? Maybe go somewhere else instead?’

  ‘But I’ve reserved a table.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, trying to placate him. He sounds annoyed, and small wonder. I hate it when people switch plans on me last minute. ‘The place will be packed with locals for Sunday lunch, and I’m not in the mood for meeting villagers. Everyone will want to ask me about the body in the cemetery, and what the police think … I just can’t face all the questions, I’m really sorry.’

  He pauses a beat. ‘Of course you can’t. Stupid of me not to think of that before. I’ll come and pick you up. We can drive over to Blisland. They do good Sunday lunches there. Or up to Jamaica Inn. It’ll do you good to get away from the village for a few hours, anyway.’

  ‘Don’t come to the house.’ I grin, a little self-conscious. ‘I have a shadow I’m trying to shake.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘You’re quick. Yes, the police are staking out the cottage. It’s driving me mad. I feel like a beetle in a jar.’

  ‘Tris told me. And about Jenny too. I’m very sorry, I know she’s a close friend of yours. But I’m sure she’ll turn up safe and sound. You shouldn’t worry.’

  ‘I’m trying not to,’ I agree, watching as the police officer gets out of his car. What is he doing? ‘Hang on a tick.’

  But the policeman merely performs some stretching exercises, linking his hands behind his back and yawning copiously, before climbing back into the car.

  ‘Trouble?’ Connor asks in my ear.

  ‘No, false alarm.’

  I try not to consider what, ‘Tris told me,’ means, but it nags at me. Told him what, exactly? That we slept together last night? Part of me is worried that it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Sleeping with the enemy. Or a potential killer. And I already know that Connor will not approve of that development. I’m not right in the head, he said so himself, and will only cause trouble for his little brother.

  Which is no doubt what he wants to talk to me about.

  ‘Can you pick me up on the lane to the village? I’ll be waiting where the path comes out between the ford and the sharp right-hand bend.’

  ‘No problem. How long?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes?’

  ‘I’ll be there in ten.’ Connor sounds amused by the subterfuge. ‘Don’t get caught.’

  I enjoy my hurried jog across the back fields to avoid having to explain my outing to the police officer, and find Connor’s clapped-out old car waiting for me when I drop down from the fields onto the lane.

  Connor leans over to open the door for me. I climb in, and glance at his face. I’m not sure what I expected. Tension, perhaps. Hostility. But his easy smile reassures me.

  ‘I take it the cops aren’t five minutes behind you?’

  ‘I doubt my guardian even knows I’ve left.’

  Connor looks at me sideways, his expression curious. ‘Not worried to be out on your own and unprotected? From what Tris told me, you seem to be his main target.’

  ‘Whoever the killer is, if he had wanted to kill me, he would have done it that first day in the woods. Right where he killed my mother. Besides, I can’t stand being watched twenty-four seven. It’s like being in prison.’

  He stares. ‘You think it’s the same man who killed your mother? But that was years ago. He would be an old man by now.’

  ‘Or he could have been a young man when he killed my mother, and middle-aged now.’

  Connor nods slowly. ‘Yes. I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘So where are you taking me?’

  He laughs, and starts the engine. We splash through the ford at the bottom of the hill, then climb steeply up the other side towards the A30. It’s another warm day, but rain is never far away on the moors and I can already see dark clouds moving in from the east. Everything looks damp after yesterday’s rain, the hedgerows washed clean and sparkling, the lane damp with puddles and tyre tracks.

  ‘I thought Jamaica Inn,’ he says comfortably.

  ‘Okay.’

  He glances at me. ‘You don’t sound keen.’

  ‘Bad memories of a childhood visit, that’s all. It won’t stop me enjoying their steak and kidney pudding and chips. I’m starving.’

  ‘My dad used to take us there all the time when we were lads,’ Connor admits, looking ahead as the road narrows towards the summit. ‘My mum hated it too, funnily enough. They had a museum of curiosities. We would go in to look at the exhibits while she sat outside in the courtyard and had a coffee.’

  I think of the hidden room in the farmhouse. The stuffed animals I saw. The weasel with its bared teeth.

  ‘Yeah, I remember that place. I never liked it either.’

  Connor makes a face. ‘Each to their own, I guess.’ He hesitates, and his hands tighten on the wheel. ‘The police came round early this morning to speak to us. They took Tris to the police station.’

  I’m stunned, and do not know what to say at first. Then I manage, ‘But why?’

  ‘The woman whose body you found in the cemetery,’ he tells me, ‘it turns out she was a dental assistant in town. Tris knew her. In fact, he’d been to that dentist’s surgery a few times and spoken to her.’

  ‘Spoken to her?’

  ‘Chatted her up. You know what he’s like.’

  No, I don’t.

  I fold my hands in my lap and digest this information. Dawn Trevian: that was what the inspector had called her. And Tristan knew her. I think back to the moment he saw her, remember his stiffness, the appalled shock on his face. Had it been more than shock, though? Had it been recognition?

  So why had he not said something?

  Because he killed her, a little voice whispers in my head, and it’s hard to dismiss it as nonsense. But what other reason could there be to lie?

  I don’t know what I feel inside at this revelation. Numb. Disappointed. But not surprised.

  Connor studies my fraught expression, then says reassuringly, ‘Look, I had a call from DS Carrick while I was waiting for you at the pub. He told me Tris isn’t under arrest. They’re just waiting for DI Powell to get a chance to question him. Apparently the inspector was over at the mortuary in Truro most of this morning.’

  I shudder, but am relieved to know Tris is not under arrest. The police cannot have any evidence against him, or I feel sure they would have charged him by now. I know how much pressure the inspector must be under to get a quick result on these killings at Eastlyn.

  ‘And Sarah McGellan?’ I ask abruptly. ‘The other victim. The one buried in the woods.’

  He stares. ‘You think Tris knew her too?’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  The A30 is not too busy, considering that the summer season is nearly here. Connor glances automatically in his mirror before overtaking the car ahead of us. Rain is starting to fall now, drenching the hedgerows, pattering loudly on the car roof and the broken side window covered in plastic.

  ‘Strictly between friends, yes, it is possible,’ he admits, reluctance in his voice. ‘I didn’t tell the police this, so please don’t repeat it or you’ll get me into trouble. But we went surfing up at Widemouth Bay a few times the week Sarah McGellan disappeared, to catch the last big tides of the spring. I wasn’t with him the whole time. How could I be? You know how Tris likes to go clubbing after a day on the beach. I dropped him off at Newquay several times, and once at least he didn’t come home until late the next morning. Maybe more than once, I can’t recall.
’

  What is Connor suggesting? That his brother spent that night in someone’s bed? Maybe even the dead woman’s bed?

  It doesn’t sound like Tris. But then, how well do I really know him?

  I went out clubbing with Tris and Connor when I came back from university last summer, and with Hannah too. I remember Tris liked to dance with the holidaymakers as well as the local girls, and even scored a few times at the end of the night. Connor tended to hang back more those nights, talk to me and Hannah, dance with us. It was always Tris who was on the prowl, never his brother.

  And I recall how annoyed he was that Connor wanted to go home that night I met up with them in the club in Newquay. Furious, actually.

  ‘Tris could have met Sarah McGellan when he was surfing. The woman was a surf instructor, she was always on the beaches. Or at Newquay, in one of the night clubs there.’ He glances at me as though he can read my mind. ‘Hey, I know what you’re thinking because I’ve thought it myself, many times since this started. But Tris claims he didn’t know Sarah and I’d rather believe that. He’s my kid brother.’

  I know what you’re thinking because I’ve thought it myself.

  I feel cold. My brain is working slowly, struggling to keep up with what he’s saying about the man who made love to me last night.

  ‘But whoever killed those women has access to a car or a van. They must have done.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So it couldn’t be Tris. He doesn’t drive. He doesn’t even have a licence.’

  ‘Also true. Though that’s never stopped him.’ Connor grins. ‘He rides that bloody quad bike all over the farm, and up and down lanes like a maniac. You know that as well as anyone. And of course he’s taken the van out without permission a few times.’

  ‘The van?’

  ‘My dad’s van. It’s untaxed, and a rusting old heap, frankly. But I’ve not had the heart to get it scrapped yet.’ He stares out at the dark clouds. ‘It’s as though, while the van’s still here, so is Dad.’

  I remember his dad’s ancient van. But when I visited Connor’s farm, there was no sign of a van in the yard, and the only mechanical thing in that cobweb-festooned garage was a lawnmower.

  ‘I’ve not seen that van in over a year.’

  ‘I keep it parked down at the mill. You don’t have to tax a vehicle that’s not kept on a public road.’

  ‘Dick Laney mentioned that place to me. He says you’re thinking of renovating it?’

  ‘Oh, the house is totally derelict. Most of it is boarded up. But I’m hoping to make a start on the renovations, at least, then maybe sell it to some rich Londoner looking for a second home in Cornwall. Make my fortune.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea.’

  Connor glances at me. ‘Perhaps you could come down and see it one day, help out with the renovations. There used to be a rose garden at the back. It could do with a make-over.’

  ‘I’m not very green-fingered.’

  ‘Well, you could just visit. Watch me work.’

  I hear something behind his words, some kind of emotional resonance that lingers in the silence like the after-echo of a guitar string vibrating. I realise he means more than just a quick visit from a friend. Alarm bells ring. He’s already asked me out a few times, and I know he’s hoping for more than a kiss at the end of the night.

  I like Connor. He’s attractive and charming, and he reminds me of Tris. We have history too. There are no secrets between us. But …

  ‘Yeah, maybe. When this term ends,’ I agree, hoping he will not read too much into my acceptance, ‘I’ll bring some gardening gloves and a trowel, dig up your weeds.’

  ‘That would be great.’ Connor smiles across at me, and I can see he’s really happy with that. His fingers tap on the top of the wheel. ‘And you’re right. It’s ridiculous to think Tris might have anything to do with these dead women. He gets upset when the lambs are taken to the abattoir, for God’s sake. No, if you ask me, the police are looking in completely the wrong place.’

  ‘So who do you think killed them?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ‘I’m not a detective,’ Connor says sharply, seeming surprised by my question. ‘I don’t have a clue who killed them. Do you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You see? It could be anyone.’

  I think of Reverend Clemo watching me and Tris out of the vicarage window, and his strange looks whenever he sees me lately. ‘Even the vicar?’

  He laughs humourlessly. ‘Why not? Yes, it could be the vicar for all we know. Though I suppose we can’t blame the poor sod for having a dead body in his cemetery. More’s the pity.’

  He signals to turn off the road and up the hill towards the remote, grey stone village of Bolventor and Jamaica Inn. The rain lets up long enough for us to cross the cobbled yard from the car park into the quaint, old-fashioned bar area.

  The place is busy but not packed. The clouds have kept most people on the A30 perhaps, in hope of better weather further into Cornwall. After we have each enjoyed a plate of roast beef in gravy and all the trimmings from the Sunday carvery, Connor goes to the bar to order two coffees and I wander about the old inn, studying the pictures and posters on the wall. It’s an eighteen century coaching inn, made famous by the novelist Daphne du Maurier, who set her story about Cornish smugglers here and named the novel after the inn.

  I stop, staring down at the brass plaque set into the floor of the bar. On this spot Joss Merlyn was murdered. One of the fictional characters from du Maurier’s novel. I think of my mother, strangled in Eastlyn Woods, and walk back to our table.

  ‘Your coffee, my lady.’ Connor puts my cup and saucer down, then slides into the seat opposite. He checks his phone, and frowns. ‘Still nothing from Tris. Those bastards. They can’t have finished talking to him yet.’

  ‘Taking their time,’ I agree.

  ‘Hey, don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right,’ he insists, laying his hand briefly over mine, and his smile almost convinces me.

  I taste the coffee. It’s delicious, just the right blend of the smooth with the rich. ‘So,’ I say, setting the cup back into the saucer, ‘what did you want to talk to me about? Something about Tris, I presume, since you wanted to see me alone.’

  ‘Yes, I can’t dodge the bullet any longer, can I?’ He laughs uneasily. ‘Here’s the thing. I want you to back off from Tris.’

  I stare. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I know you two spent the night together. But even before that, I could see him getting close to you. I mean, he and you have always been best friends, even when we were at school. But now, it’s becoming something else. Something deeper.’ He shrugs, looking up at me from his coffee. ‘I don’t want to see him hurt, Ellie.’

  ‘And I’m going to hurt him how?’

  ‘By losing interest. By dropping him after a few dates. By going away.’ He holds my astonished gaze. ‘That’s what you do, Ellie. You hook people in, you make them care, and then you just … fuck off.’

  ‘I’ve never fucked off,’ I repeat angrily.

  ‘Keep it down.’ He glances round at the other people in the bar, but no one is looking our way. He lowers his own voice. ‘You went to university.’

  ‘Don’t most people?’

  ‘Not me. I didn’t go to university. Neither did Tris. I know he wanted to go, yes, but it was you who put that idea in his head. Before you went away to get a degree, he was happy to be a farmer his whole life, like our dad. But after you went away, it was always, I could go to college too, I could get a degree.’ He shakes his head. ‘But of course it was impossible. There was always the farm to think about, and then Dad got sick. We couldn’t spare the money, and I certainly couldn’t spare Tris. In the end, we had to have a serious talk about it, and I showed him our accounts. Then he stopped talking about university. But I could see that it was eating away at him. The resentment of having to stay behind. Of losing you.’

  ‘Tris hasn’t lost me,’ I
say, bewildered. ‘I’ve come back to Eastlyn, haven’t I?’

  ‘But for how long?’

  ‘Maybe forever, I don’t know. My dad’s here – ’

  ‘And when he dies?’

  I shake my head in disbelief. ‘Seriously, what kind of question is that? This is out of order, Connor.’ I stand up. ‘I think you should drive me back home.’

  ‘Sit down, I haven’t finished.’

  I hate the tension in his voice. But people are staring openly now, and that makes me uncomfortable. I’ve had people stare at me most of my life, and it never gets easier.

  Besides, I don’t think he’s said what he came here to say yet.

  I sit down again. But I’m not happy, and I don’t care if he knows it. My tone is aggressive. ‘So you want me to stop seeing Tris?’

  Connor nods, leaning back in his seat, his gaze steady on my face. ‘I know you probably think me a monster for asking this, but that’s only because you don’t know Tris like I do. He’s not the man you think he is.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You think he’s strong. Hardy. Like one of these plants that will grow anywhere, however cold the wind blows.’ He shakes his head. ‘He’s not. He’s fragile. He’s damaged goods, Ellie, and this game you’re playing is going to break him. I know the signs, I can see where this is leading.’

  ‘I’m not playing any game.’

  ‘He told me about the photograph.’ He leans forward abruptly. ‘About you breaking into our house.’

  Fuck.

  I can feel heat in my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry about that. I can explain.’

  ‘You don’t need to. You fancy yourself as a detective. Looking for clues, the girl in the deerstalker, one step ahead of the police. They searched the farm this morning, did I mention that? The whole house, attic to cellar, and all the outbuildings and fields. Yes, you may well stare. But that’s the price of being friends with Eleanor Blackwood.’

  ‘That’s hardly fair,’ I exclaim, shocked by what I’m hearing, but he is no longer listening.

  ‘They didn’t find anything, of course, because there is nothing to find there. But you are going to back off now. No more lying and trying to get close to Tris. Because I know what your agenda is with him. And it’s not a relationship.’ He pushes his coffee cup away, his voice sinking to a whisper. ‘When he was in the hospice, dying of cancer, I promised my dad that I would look after Tris when he had gone. And I plan on keeping that promise, whatever it takes.’