by Luca Veste
How could we have ignored it? How could we have believed it wasn’t going to eventually come back on us?
Mark Welsh. The young lad. Dead. We had seen his body. We had moved his body…and then, it was gone.
And we did nothing but run away. Pretend that it didn’t happen. Pretend that it didn’t mean someone knew what we had done and could reappear at any moment.
I was driving in the dark—something I didn’t really like to do—but that didn’t stop me from taking my hands from the ten and two position on the steering wheel and smacking the side of the driver’s door in frustration.
Was Stuart the first?
We were next. One by one. That’s what I was scared of at that moment. That someone had been there that night and now wanted… What? Revenge? Why wait this long?
Questions appeared and disappeared from my head, swirling around and around with no cohesion. I wasn’t sure if this was just a manifestation of grief and guilt. The lack of sleep and Stuart’s death creating an issue that didn’t really exist.
Then I thought about that red candle.
I had to keep going. I knew if I went back home, I’d never leave again.
So I drove on.
Michelle lived on the Wirral Peninsula now, over the water and outside of Liverpool for the first time since I’d known her. She was right when she’d said we had never really been that close—I knew she worked for a lawyer’s office, but I had no real idea what that entailed. She hadn’t studied law at university, so I doubted she had become an actual lawyer, but I wasn’t sure of anything further than that.
I didn’t think I’d ask at this point.
I didn’t know much of the Wirral, but with Google Maps on my phone, it didn’t take me long to find the place. It didn’t look much different from Liverpool—not that it should have, being only a mile or so away. I remembered when I was a kid, being brought over to New Brighton by my parents. It was on its last legs as a family day outing back then. Early nineties. A fair, with bumper cars, coin-pusher machines, and cotton candy. I imagine it looked tired and on the verge of closing down back then, but I only remembered it being fun and sunny every day. The long promenade and beaches that ran for miles, it seemed.
It had been rejuvenated since then, but the funfair remained. It had just been joined by a supermarket, hotel, and a few chain restaurants. I hadn’t bothered visiting. I preferred to keep the memories of my childhood in mind instead.
Michelle lived a few miles away in a place called Moreton. A newly built estate, where every house looked like it had just been delivered flat-packed from Ikea. I almost got lost, even with the aid of the GPS, as the rabbit-run of small roads and tiny road signs only brought confusion.
I parked outside and called Michelle from my cell phone. She answered after a couple of rings.
“We need to talk,” I said once she’d said hello. I could hear tension and strain in her voice from a single word. “Do you have time?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” she replied, then I could see the blinds in her living room part slightly. “You’ve not really given me much time to tidy up.”
I waved from the car. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll be two minutes.”
The street was small and didn’t really give much space to park the car and also leave without turning around in someone’s driveway. The houses were all small, weirdly identical, and looked like a strong wind could knock them over. It was quiet though, and I could imagine a fair few first-time buyers were seduced by the seclusion and status. Gravel stones crunched underfoot as I made my way to the front door. It opened as I reached it, and Michelle stood in the entrance. For a brief moment, I saw the teenager I’d known years earlier. Then, she was gone. Replaced by the shell that now stood in her place. There was a hint of the person she had been under the unkempt hair and darkened eyes, but only because I’d known it before, I guessed. She turned and walked back inside without a word. I followed her in and realized I’d never actually been there before. I wasn’t sure anyone had.
“If you want a drink, help yourself,” Michelle said as I took off my jacket and entered the living room. “I’ve just made myself one.”
I decided against it and sat on the leather sofa that was on one wall, at a right angle to the one Michelle was sitting on. A television was muted in the corner, the wall bracket it was attached to wobbling with every movement I made on the floor.
There was an uneasy silence as Michelle curled her legs underneath herself and then turned slowly toward me.
I grimaced and shook my head. “You okay?”
She rolled her eyes at the question. “You know.”
“I went to his house after we saw each other,” I said, sitting back on the sofa. I laid my jacket next to me and ran a hand through my hair. I realized I didn’t want to mention the candle straightaway. Maybe to pretend things were a little more normal than they were or to see if she was going to mention it herself. I knew she’d been to the house, but she hadn’t mentioned what I’d seen there. “It was more difficult than I thought it would be. Everything looked so…normal.”
“That was Stuart. He was a different person than most people thought.”
“Why didn’t you two ever settle down?”
“We were never in the same place as the other,” she replied after a few seconds of thought. She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I suppose we were always just expected to and that kind of made us resist it. That’s not to say we didn’t come close on loads of occasions. We had plans; whenever we were in a good place, we would talk about making a go of it properly. I guess I just thought it would happen eventually. We both saw other people, sometimes for a while, but always drifted back into each other’s lives somehow. You know what I mean.”
“I do. Even when we weren’t together, I knew it was just a matter of time with Alexandra. We spent ten years apart, but I think we needed that. Not that it worked out in the end anyway.”
“What happened? Why did you break up?”
That was one of the things that kept me awake at night. Why we hadn’t made it work in the end. Not being able to answer the question sufficiently. “After that night last year, it was different. It changed us both. I knew something was wrong within a few hours, but I tried to ignore it. When me and Stuart came out of the woods after going to look for my wallet, I knew that instant we wouldn’t last. We wouldn’t be able to get through it. When we told you all that the lad’s body had disappeared, I could see it in her eyes.”
“What did you see?”
I knew Michelle would have Alexandra’s version of events, but I didn’t think it would differ that much to mine. Still, I treaded carefully when I spoke. “I could see that it was never going to go away. That there would be this thing that would hang over us forever. And sometimes that’s okay and you can get past it. Look at Chris and Nicola—they seem stronger than ever. With me and Alexandra, we didn’t have that history of facing challenges and then suddenly we’re struck with something bigger than either of us could handle. When we got back home, it was like we didn’t know what to say to each other. I thought all she could see when she looked at me was what I’d done. It ruined us.”
“Stuart and I were never together again after that night,” Michelle said, wrapping her arms around her legs as she drew them up to her chest. “It wasn’t even spoken about. We just both knew we were done. That it was over. Didn’t mean we didn’t still speak to each other though. You and Alexandra don’t speak.”
I hesitated, trying to work out what to say. She was right—we didn’t speak. And I desperately wished at that moment we still did. Then, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in Michelle’s matchbox living room feeling like I had no way out. Maybe I would have someone to help me through whatever this turned out to be. “I don’t think we could talk to each other after all this time. Not the way we used to. It still hurts that it had to be over. I can�
�t speak to her because it hurts too much to think about what we lost and can’t get back.”
“I think of the young guy a lot, you know?”
I frowned at the sudden shift in conversation, but thankfully didn’t answer with my first thought.
Why?
The face came to mind instantly, but another part of me wondered if I had it right. Whether I’d remembered it correctly, or whether I had managed to ignore that as well. I stayed silent and looked at the soundless images on the television screen instead.
“Mark Welsh,” Michelle said in a tone that faltered on the last syllable. “I’ve learned more about him than I know about people in my own family.”
“Yeah, I try not to think about him too much.”
“You know there’s going to be a lot of interest in him, with it coming to a year since he ‘went missing.’ His mum and sisters are all over social media talking about it. They’ll be on TV and stuff. They’re out there looking for answers, and there’s only us who can give them. Does that sit right with you?”
“No, of course not,” I replied, leaning forward, elbows on my knees and hands clasped almost as if I were about to pray. “But we can’t say anything now. It would be bad for all of us. I know they’ll never get the answers about what happened to their son, but what will it help?”
“It’ll give them closure,” Michelle said, staring at me as if she were daring me to argue against her. “They’ve been sitting there for almost a year, wondering what happened to their son, and they haven’t a clue. How can we sit back and not do anything about that?”
“Calm down, Michelle,” I replied, looking around us. I wondered how thin the walls were in these ridiculous houses. Whether the neighbors could hear what Michelle was saying. “I understand, but there’s not much we can do. If one of us confesses, that’s all of us going down.”
“I can’t live like this anymore. Not now.”
I shook my head in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s not you who’s next,” Michelle continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “You don’t have to worry about it. You will though. We all will.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I said, but Michelle was on her feet and leaving the room. I followed her into the back room, a tiny dining room, with a smaller kitchen leading off it. She was standing next to her dining table—another flat-pack special that could barely sit two people around it. I saw what was sitting on top of it and forgot everything else.
“You see?” Michelle said, turning to me now, her eyes wide and burning into me. “This isn’t over. Not for any of us.”
Sitting on the table was a red candle in a storm lantern.
Burning slowly.
Dull red, the color of blood.
I was back in those woods again. Standing over that body.
Twenty-One
I took a step back and found myself with my back against the door frame.
“Where did this come from?” I said, feeling the room get smaller around us. The walls closing in as I stared at the flame. The candle was housed in the same contraption as the one we’d seen in the woods. And the one I’d seen in Stuart’s house. “Michelle, tell me what’s going on.”
“It turned up this morning,” Michelle replied, her voice quiet and scared. She had wrapped her arms around her body and was looking at me and then the candle in turn. “I thought maybe I’d bought it when I wasn’t thinking straight. I got a bit wasted after the funeral. But I was lying to myself. I wouldn’t have one of those things in my house. It was left there—in the middle of the table. And it was burning.”
“This makes no sense…”
“Don’t you get it?” Michelle said, almost pleading with me to understand. “We’ve always known someone saw us that night. Someone moved Mark Welsh and now they’ve come back to finish the job. They couldn’t get us all that night, but now they’ve found out who we were and are going to pick us off one by one.”
“Who?”
“Well, obviously someone who doesn’t feel the need to tell the Welsh family where their son and brother is.”
“Someone connected to…him?”
Michelle nodded, but there was no triumph in her expression. Only resignation. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a shaking hand.
“We should tell someone,” I said, feeling defeated. “It’s over. We don’t even know who he was.”
“Weren’t you just telling me we had to keep quiet still?”
“Yes, but this changes things,” I said, yet I wondered if I really believed that. Part of me still wondered if this was all a trick—a way of Michelle convincing me that we had to tell people what happened, so she could be relieved of her guilt. Thing was nothing that would alleviate it though. We would carry that forever. “We need to do something. If someone has broken into your house and left this here, it’s a threat.”
“I know that. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, of course not—”
“Do you think I don’t understand exactly what this means? It means there’s a person out there who not only knows what we’ve done, but who also killed Stuart and is going to try to kill me next. Did you not see it?”
I hesitated and thought about lying. Then, I decided to answer. “A red candle.”
Michelle smiled, but it was entirely devoid of humor. “Exactly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?”
“I wanted you to see it on your own,” Michelle said, looking away from me. “Then you could make your own mind up about it.”
“How did you even know I would go there?”
“Because I know you, Matt,” Michelle replied, turning back to me and staring into my eyes. “I know what you’re like. I knew after seeing me, hearing what I had to say, that you wouldn’t be able to let things lie.”
“What does it mean?”
Michelle sighed and leaned her head back, closing her eyes briefly. “He came to me, about four days before he died. Totally wired, in shock, and he told me about it. I told him he was mistaken, that he probably bought it and forgot, or he wasn’t thinking straight. All the things I’ve been telling myself for the past three days. I didn’t listen to him and look what happened.”
“Michelle…”
“Don’t, okay?” Michelle said, pushing me away as I crossed the room toward her and put a hand on her shoulder. “This is no less than we deserve. We left that boy there. We were going to walk away, like nothing happened. We killed someone, then as soon as we realized it was a bad person, thought we could just hide his body and it was all going to be okay. Truth is, it hasn’t been. Not for any of us. And now we’re having to face up to that.”
“Not by being killed for it,” I replied, leaning across the table and pausing with hands near the candle. I suddenly didn’t want to touch it. I shook away the feeling and picked it up. “It’s just a candle. You should get away for a few days and make sure no one is coming after you, but someone might just be trying to mess with our heads, that’s all. We should throw this away. Where did you find it?”
“Exactly where it was just now.”
“So they got into the house?”
Michelle nodded and then turned away. She wiped a sleeve over her cheek, then the other one. “He’s come back.”
“But we…we killed him.”
“Again, didn’t you ever wonder what happened to that lad’s body?”
“Of course I did,” I said, even though I wanted it to be a lie. I tried not to think about it because I wanted to pretend it didn’t happen that way. I never wanted to think about going back to that part of the woods and seeing that bare patch of land where, a few hours earlier, we’d set down an eighteen-year-old kid’s body. All I remember after that is my heart beating against my chest and almost twelve months of waiting for the knock on the door. N
ot being able to sleep at night, thinking that at any moment, that visit would finally come.
“It’s just…” I tried to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. I took a deep breath and made another attempt. “I just thought there was some explanation for it. That’s all. That’s what I’ve told myself, because the alternative is too much to live with. There were hours between us leaving him there and him disappearing. I thought it was an animal or…or something like that.”
“A person took him. Put him somewhere else. Made sure no one could ever find him, knowing that we were the only ones who knew the truth and there was no way we were ever going to say a thing about it.”
“But the man who killed him is dead. We did that.”
“Which is why we know now that he wasn’t working alone.”
It was almost as if I were hearing it for the first time, thinking of someone else in those woods, watching as six people descended on that man and took his life. Knowing they couldn’t do anything. Waiting almost a year for his revenge.
My throat became wet as my stomach churned and the world spun a little around me. I stumbled backward a little, into the living room where I slumped on the sofa and put my head to my knees. Cradled the back of my head.
I didn’t want this.
I just wanted to be normal again.
“Here,” Michelle said from above me. I looked up, and she handed me a glass of water. I took a few sips and closed my eyes as I leaned back and turned my head toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know what to do,” she continued. I heard her crossing the room, then opened my eyes and watched her look through the blinds, gazing out onto the dark street. When she continued, she sounded exhausted. “Do I wait to see if I’m right? I haven’t slept properly since. Someone has been in here and I didn’t even know it.”
“You can’t stay here,” I said, wondering how she hadn’t left sooner. How she had stayed there, knowing that at any moment there could be a stranger in her house. “You have to get out of here.”
“And go where? I’ve got nowhere to go.”