Lauren knows there is something else that Diane is not telling her. She can smell the strange smoke strongly in her nostrils. She smiles without wanting to.
Diane says, ‘There is this show I watched, called The Dark Net, where some girl found this cult online and she just kept listening to these podcasts all the time, I’m serious, about like twenty times a day. Then she did this thing where she wrote her parents a letter saying that she was gone and if she ever felt like seeing them again, she’d get in touch.’ She laughs a high, infectious laugh. ‘How about that? Fuck. I mean, I’m never going to leave my fucking mum, no matter how bad things are. I mean …’ She pauses, sighing, breathing out smoke that is infusing the front seats. ‘Sorry, Lauren, sorry, but I sometimes think about it. I sometimes look at that long road there stretching out to wherever. But that’s the thing about here, where we live. Where do you go?’
‘Sometimes,’ says Lauren slowly, ‘I think the same thing.’ What about the man in the basement? she is thinking. Are we never going to talk about that?
‘Oh my God,’ Diane says, looking down at her phone. ‘Oh my God. I’m not reading this straight. That girl that you hate, whatshername. Who’s got the farm.’
‘Maisie.’
‘Aye. My friend just text me, saying that girl found Ann-Marie’s hat. The black one.’ She looks straight ahead of her, then reads another message that has flashed up on-screen. ‘Apparently she won’t stop crying about it. They say “she’s had a shock”. She tried to cross that frozen lake in the field and fell through? Lucky someone in the search team rescued her.’
Lauren tips her head back and laughs, a round, generous laugh, as she watches white balloons float across the sky beyond the sunroof.
24
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men.
They see her, a slight figure, stumble out into the road at the bottom of the hill. She is bent over, her arms tightly folded. The sun is low between the trees but strong and Niall squints, keeping his hands steady on the walnut patches of the wheel, slowing his speed. He brings the truck to a halt by the trees.
Lauren opens her mouth to speak in the quiet space the engine has left. She makes an ‘Aa’ sound. Most of the name is still lodged in her throat.
‘Yeah,’ he whispers.
She is still wearing the same black jeans and her padded blue anorak, a ragged blanket over her shoulders. He remembers the anorak as she walked up the side of the road and he called after her to come back. He breathes hard. ‘Don’t get out of the car.’
A twin memory overwhelms him. How he had held her. Christine.
As she walks unsteadily up the middle of the steep road, there is no mistaking Ann-Marie or the fact that under the blanket she is covered in dark stains, the colour of rust.
Lauren is already unbuckling her seatbelt and wrenching open the door.
‘Don’t leave the—’ Niall barks. He watches Lauren run down the edge of the road in her battered black Clarks.
Ann-Marie doesn’t quicken her pace, nor does she turn her head. He can see it is an effort for her to walk up the hill, her eyes trained on some spot in the distance. Lauren catches up with her and throws herself into a hug. Ann-Marie stiffens and tries gently to push her away. Then she seems to register the truck and she sinks towards the tarmac. Lauren tries to haul her up with her small body. Ann-Marie nods her head slowly, staring blankly. Lauren says something. Niall stays still in his seat as fear begins to knot around him like a creeping plant. There is a wide streak of blood on the girl’s forehead. Her hair is crusty and there are dark patches on her frail denim knees. A small, selfish part of him wants to grab Lauren, swivel the truck around and go. He can already see how the situation will look if they bring her back. Nobody trusts him. He peers through the gloomy trees on either side, checks his rear-view mirror and sees nothing. Ann-Marie doubles over and retches bile on to the road.
He watches Lauren run back towards him and his body wakes up.
‘Dad!’
He stumbles down from the truck and squeezes Lauren’s hot hand, before bundling her into the passenger seat. He hesitates, looking around one more time for any traffic. He yanks off his coat and puts it around the teenager’s shoulders. Ann-Marie flinches and wipes her mouth. She looks behind her with wild eyes and gestures Go towards the pickup; her other hand is tightly clenched. As she moves, Niall notices her baggy, bloodstained T-shirt is ripped open at one side. He tries to find the wound and then realizes he is looking at something dark and inky tattooed on her skin. She sways again and Niall lifts her up over his shoulder. Her limp body weighs almost the same as Lauren’s as he tucks her next to his daughter in the front. Lauren shifts half off the seat, one foot by the gear stick.
‘Dad.’
He sees she is terrified. ‘Do you want to sit on my knee again?’
‘Dad.’
He leaves her where she is and jogs over to his side of the truck, slamming himself into the seat and pushing back against the headrest, chin raised, eyes screwed shut. ‘I need to think.’
‘What? She’s bleeding.’
‘I need to think.’ He says this too loud and Lauren starts to cry. He tries to pull her over to sit on his lap, but she pushes him off.
‘Why can’t you do anything?’ She turns to Ann-Marie. ‘Where were you?’
Ann-Marie shakes her head in reply, her eyes on the messy truck floor.
Lauren reaches out to touch the blood on Ann-Marie’s T-shirt and Niall pulls her hand away.
‘Dad. We need to go.’ She looks up at the trees again. ‘There could be someone.’
‘Well, I’m not driving with you like that. Come over here.’ Lauren reluctantly scoots over on to his lap. She is getting too big for this now and it feels uncomfortable, bony. Her ponytail obscures his view as he starts the engine. ‘Move over further, I can’t see, come on.’
‘Fine. Ann-Marie, what’s wrong?’ Lauren says. ‘Speak to me. We need to know.’
Niall’s hands are shaking as he grabs the steering wheel. As he pulls back into the road he looks over and sees Ann-Marie’s hand is still clenched. There is a corner of something poking out of the side of her fist.
‘Right,’ he says and drives fast through the forest to where it breaks into ghost-white birches. Lauren sniffs with wet eyes.
‘Is she still bleeding?’ he asks.
‘I can’t see from here,’ Lauren replies.
He glances over and sees Ann-Marie sitting still, crusted blood on her face, in her hair, her hands, her skin. ‘Christ. Where the fuck were you?’
There is a long silence. Niall tries to watch the road.
‘I got lost, but I found an old shed to sleep in. There were strange fires. All around me. Burning in a circle. Like a dream.’
He sighs, glad she is alive, still breathing, still speaking, yet he isn’t sure where he is driving. Something like shame courses through him as he tries to picture Angela and Malcolm’s reaction. He left her by the woods that night. He drove away. She is alive, though, she is alive.
As they come to the fork in the road between the village and the town, he turns towards the Elms instinctively. They could call 999 from there, her house, with her parents. The shock begins to ebb a little. He starts to wonder what could have happened to her. He almost can’t bear to think. How injured is she? He glances over again and sees she is shivering. He turns up the heating. The windows start to mist, and Niall’s brain feels clouded. All of this is not happening. Not all of this is happening.
Niall stops the truck in the long driveway of the Elms. ‘Look,’ Niall says to Lauren. ‘I need some fresh air, just for a minute. You try and talk to her.’ He climbs out and rests his gloved palm on the frosty window. In the distance, at the top of the drive, dogs begin to bark.
He takes a deep breath and gets back into the pickup.
‘Well?’ says Lauren to Ann-Marie. The other girl looks do
wn at her feet and closes her eyes.
Niall leans over to touch her shoulder. ‘What? What happened? We need to know, c’mon.’
Ann-Marie’s face changes. ‘There was meant to be a plan. Diane was going to meet me after. We invited him to her house first. It all went wrong.’
Not knowing what else to say, he shakes his head and says, ‘I’m so sorry. C’mon now.’
She is quiet. Her fist tightens around what she is holding in her hand.
The two Irish wolfhounds stand at the top of the drive, looking down towards them.
‘Ann-Marie, if you can, tell me. Who is it? Be clear. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.’
Ann-Marie nods her head. ‘There was this story. About a dog with a leg in its mouth. I drove him away. It was … him. The guy I was looking for.’
‘Take your time,’ Niall says, trying to encourage her, sitting back in his seat to give her space.
‘Uh-huh,’ she says, still nodding her head. She swallows. ‘It’s hard to talk about.’
‘Look, I’m not following. You went to Diane’s after I left you that night and … Who did this to you? Tell me.’
‘He wasn’t like I thought. Diane knew him better, at the Black Horse. I had this idea that he would meet us for a drink and a smoke and we would record him talking. Secretly. Diane said he liked to talk. Show off. She thought he was arrogant, so I was nervous. But he was so nice. I was convinced we had something wrong. We started talking about his band; he wouldn’t stop talking about it. He said we should go and see him some time, at a ceilidh that was happening. He liked that we were interested in Christine and said he had his own theories, about his old PE teacher – you know, Alan Mackie. He told me how he really admired me. For caring about Christine. He said he thought Alan Mackie was guilty. And that he used to know her really well too, like I did. I felt sorry for him. And that – I’m sorry, Niall – that you were his friend and you didn’t know how well he and Christine knew each other. He got his friend to rent her a room, for her therapy.’
He slams the heels of his hands against the steering wheel, making the truck shudder. ‘Sandy Ross. Are you telling me it was him?’ It is too much to take in. ‘She didn’t know him.’ The few times they met flash through his mind. He remembers how he and Sandy became friends in the years after she went missing.
Her voice is low. ‘He said he could show me where he thought she was buried.’
For a few minutes he is paralysed, his brain working too fast and then too slowly. Violent thoughts crawl over him.
She carries on speaking, as if unable to stop. ‘There was something about the way he said it. He was so confident and he seemed kind too. I know this sounds like I’m crazy, but I thought it would be OK. Diane and I had a conversation when he was in the toilet and she tried to make me stay. The thing is, I thought I’d read him wrong. I was recording our conversation on my phone, that was the idea, but I began to feel safe. I thought we were going in his car, but he didn’t have his car. That was a bit strange, I admit. I asked why he didn’t have his car. I should have known something was up. He said he had cycled from the lochans, but his bike wasn’t outside. No fishing stuff. He said we could use Diane’s car. Looking back, he wasn’t taking any chances.’ She coughs, and Niall can see tears rolling down her face. ‘I was such an idiot. I left him outside and asked Diane again if she wanted to come too, but before I could mention the car, she dingied me. Told me she wanted to stay at home. I said I’d text her and if anything happened we could meet. This place in the woods we go to smoke. I nicked the keys from her coat pocket.
‘To be safe, I insisted on driving.’
Niall looks at her, surprised.
‘I learned from my dad out here. I remember, when we first got into the car, he put his gloves on. He had been standing around in the cold, waiting for me, with bare hands, but to get in the car, he put his gloves on. Inside the car, he then zipped up his jacket and put his hat on. I just thought he was warming himself up, or something. But the car was warm, so it didn’t really make sense. Then when I was driving up a track in the forest, several miles away from Diane’s, I didn’t really know where we were. It was then he told me he knew. Christine was killed in a hidden basement.’ She starts to shake but no more tears come. ‘Kept saying that Alan Mackie had done it. I went to check my phone was still recording, to get all this, but it wasn’t there … I looked over and he had tied a scarf tight over his face. It was just his eyes looking at me. I stopped the car. We were deep in the woods. I didn’t really know where. He took the car keys, then made me get out and walk. I must have walked for miles.’ She starts to cry again, holding herself tightly.
Niall feels almost scared to be near the girls. His body wants only to destroy something. Destroy as he is being destroyed, piece by piece. He thinks of Sandy, in his house, talking to his daughter. Catriona and the fishing trip.
Ann-Marie speaks again, in a low voice. ‘We got to this house and he made me go down into the basement. It was so dark. There was a Samurai sword on the wall. His. I wanted to take it when he was looking for something in one of the boxes, but it was too far away. I got so lost in the woods afterwards. I was so tired, I couldn’t think any more. Started to hear things. I thought someone was following me. A bird. I found a stone shed – too far in the other direction. I had seen small fires in the distance. The lights. I felt warm, when it was so cold. In the shed I could hear a fire crackling outside. The fires, I told you. I was scared they would burn the whole place down. The next morning, there was nothing, just the snow melting.’
Niall reaches over and yanks open the glove box. The girls flinch. He snatches his flask of vodka and gulps it. The burn feels soothing. He stays still until he can trust himself. Two thoughts swim to the surface. One is the axe in the boot. The other he speaks aloud. ‘You’ve been bleeding. You’ve been bleeding everywhere.’
The barking is getting closer. Niall sees the two black dogs bounding towards them at the top of the drive.
Ann-Marie’s closed eyes tighten. ‘I’m OK. I feel so dizzy in here,’ she whispers. ‘In the basement, he stopped rummaging about and came towards me. But as he came, the air screamed. Like a woman’s voice. Things in the room started to move. I thought I was seeing things. I didn’t know what to do.’
Niall turns to her again and puts a hand on her shoulder. He swallows. ‘You’ve been badly hurt.’
‘No. I’ve not.’ She is hunched, barely moving with exhaustion.
‘The blood. It’s all over you.’
She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. ‘It’s not my blood.’
Her fist is still tightly clenched, but he can see the end of something, a glint of metal.
Lauren says, ‘Is that my knife?’
He can hear the dogs panting outside the door, circling the truck, still barking.
Ann-Marie looks at Niall, a current of adrenaline running through her expression.
‘Can I have it?’ Lauren strokes Ann-Marie’s shoulder in a way that breaks Niall’s heart. ‘I lost it.’
‘It was in my pocket,’ Ann-Marie says, staring out of the window. ‘I don’t remember why it was there. I just remember I felt something made of antler. Then there was something soft, like fruit splitting open. I don’t know how it came to me.’
‘I lost it. And I think she found it. She took it,’ says Lauren.
‘I didn’t,’ says Ann-Marie.
‘No, I meant the other woman. My mum. Christine.’
A dog jumps up at the window, its paws on the glass, a hairy, sharp-toothed grin.
Ann-Marie starts and sinks her head in her hands. ‘If I didn’t. This. Wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t. Be here.’ She looks at Lauren and hugs her and cries. ‘Thank you.’
Niall can see the figures of Angela, Malcolm and a teenage boy at the top of the drive. At first, he thinks it must be Fraser, home from university, but as they walk closer he sees he has blond hair under his hat and looks completely different.
‘It’s not my blood,’ she says.
25
Some nights Lauren wakes as Oren, her new old name, and is called to the window by a silent language. She does not know when these nights will announce themselves but knows they are connected to the shape of the moon and the movements of the planets. She is learning the constellations she sees from her window and carving animals into wood.
When the blue-moon nights arrive, Lauren smells summer flowers. She might see a cast of hawks or a scattering of herons. A knot of toads or a richesse of pine martens. One night there is a destruction of wildcats. And when she sees them from her window she knows she goes out into the garden, because the next morning the soles of her feet are muddy. Yet she only remembers Christine, her mother, in her dreams and in the stories her father tells, now he is ready to talk. He tells her he wants to talk as much as he can, to her and other people, like Kirsty. He needs to practise for Sandy’s trial. With Diane’s help the police found him, stabbed in the face with a pocketknife. They had to treat Ann-Marie at a different facility to him, for her dehydration and hypothermia. There was a news story about it and one when Ann-Marie recovered, and was being taught at home by a tutor. The story showed a photo of her grinning with Diane, who sometimes joins her to study. The paper said Sandy will never get his sight back. His eyes are gone.
Lauren enjoys it when her father tells her about all the things her mum used to like. The colour lilac, red apples, sea anemones, blood oranges. This way, she has a sense of how she might have laughed or the tone of her voice. Lauren and her father have made a photo album together, from the box of old pictures in the living room. The room is always open now and catches the sun in the afternoon. Lauren lies on its yellow sofa after school, to read a book and let the light settle on her face. Her father goes to a group at the doctor’s every Wednesday. Sometimes he is very sad afterwards, but on the whole he is happier. Some nights Lauren wears her mother’s jewellery to bed: long necklaces made from moonstone and tiger’s eye. She turns the silver ring on her finger, snuffs out her candles and watches crystals wink in the moonlight.
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