In the Bag (13 page)

Eventually we pick our way through to the Old House. Ash shines his torch on the front of the building. It looks even more rundown than it did last time I was here. There’s so much ivy and stuff growing on the outside, it almost looks like part of the forest rather than a building. The windows and door are still boarded up, but the chipboard looks like it’s rotting and about to fall off. Ash shines the beam of the torch on the grey chipboard rectangle that covers the front door. He goes on ahead, pulls the board off the front of the doorway and in we go.

Inside it’s pitch black except for the beam of Ash’s torch. He shines it around, lighting up one corner at a time. He leads us off to the left, into the room where we used to hang out back when we were in Year Seven or something. I shuffle along behind, disorientated by the dark, feeling like I’m gonna crash into something any second.

‘Where shall we hide it?’ Ash says, shining the torch slowly from side to side.

I follow the torch with my eyes, looking for a hiding place. But there isn’t anywhere obvious. There’s hardly any furniture – no cupboards or anything like that, just a couple of wooden chairs, a table and some old crates. But then the beam of light hits the side of the room, and I have it.

‘What about the chimney?’ I say.

We both rush over to it. Ash bends down, shines the torch upwards and looks. ‘There’s a ledge up there,’ he says. He steps out of the way so that I can look as well.

I take a look too. The ledge is just big enough. ‘Do it,’ I say.

Ash shoves the bag up the chimney until it rests on the ledge. He turns and shines the torch right in my face so I can’t see. I put my hands in front of my eyes.

‘There. It’s done,’ he says. ‘No one’s gonna find it there.’

I smile at him. I feel relieved.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he says.

Ash leads the way out of the house. We rush along through the undergrowth, among the trees, the beam from his torch bouncing around as he moves. We get back to our bikes and pick them up. Ash switches the torch off, sticks it back in his pocket and then we wheel our bikes back to the path. We jump on to them and start pedalling back through the forest as quick as we can manage, despite the fact that it’s too dark to see the ground in front of us. And pretty soon, we’re well away from the Old House.

But then, as we bomb along the path with pine trees towering either side of us, Ash skids to a halt and says, ‘Did you hear that?’

I didn’t hear anything, just the sound of my tyres. But I stop as well. And as soon as I do I can hear what he means. An engine. Tyres crushing small stones. There’s a car somewhere near. I keep still and listen. It sounds like it’s coming from the track up ahead of us. We both stare ahead, looking for any sign of a car. Nothing. Then I see the flash of headlights between the trees way up ahead of us, round a bend in the track.

‘This way,’ I say, running off to the right of the track with my bike. ‘Quickly!’

We both run, carrying our bikes, in among the trees, until we’re twenty metres or so in. We drop to the ground and hide down behind some ferns.

Up on the track the car moves slowly forward, its headlights on full beam. And I realise how exposed we are, that even hidden behind the ferns they might be able to see us.

As the car gets closer, I recognise it as a BMW. It’s difficult to tell the colour, but it’s definitely dark. Maybe black. Maybe dark blue or green. But what the hell is it doing in the forest at this time of night?

The wheels crunch along the path painfully slowly. Then they stop. And it feels for a second like my heart has stopped beating. The car is literally right in front of us, just twenty metres away up on the track. And I feel vulnerable, like whoever is in the car can see me, like they’re looking right at me. Cos for all I know, they could be. Why else would they choose that exact place in the whole of the woods to stop? A shiver runs down my spine. I try and get as low as I can in the undergrowth, hide myself away. If I could tunnel downwards into the earth, I would. My eyes stay locked on the car, wondering who is in there and why they’ve stopped right in front of us, whether they’ve spotted us.

And then there’s an electrical buzzing noise. The passenger side window opens slightly. I try to look inside, but it’s too dark and too far away to make anything out. I close my eyes for a second, hoping that when I open them again this won’t be happening any more. But when I do open them, the car’s still there. As I stare at it, a glowing cigarette butt flies out of the window and on to the track. The window buzzes back up again. The engine roars, the wheels spin for a second and the car speeds off along the track. I let out a long breath. I can feel my pulse pounding through my temples.

Me and Ash stay silent and still after the car has gone. It must be a minute or more before it finally feels safe and we get to our feet, brush the leaves and soil off our clothes.

‘Who was that?’ Ash says.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t see their faces.’

Ash stares over at the track where the car was. ‘Do you think they saw us?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe. Why else would they have stopped right in front of us?’

Ash doesn’t say a word. He just stares after the car, down the track. And then suddenly he grabs his bike and starts wheeling it back towards the path. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ he says.

I grab my bike and follow. ‘Let’s stick to the smaller paths,’ I say. ‘Just in case they come back.’

Ash nods and then bombs off along the track.

WEDNESDAY

Joe

I couldn’t sleep last night. I got back home at about three in the morning. My heart was still beating at a million miles an hour and my head was rushing. I changed and got into bed, but there was no way I could sleep. So I just lay there and thought things through.

I was panicking about the BMW in the forest. I thought about who it could have been in the car. And there were three options that I managed to get it down to:

1. It was undercover police, patrolling the forest because of the abandoned car or something.

2. It was whoever the bag belongs to, looking for their money.

3. It was just some random person who happened to be driving through the forest.

I’d feel most comfortable if it was number 3, the random stranger, obviously. But let’s be honest, that one is the least likely cos for a start why would they be driving around the forest? And secondly, why would they be there at two in the morning?

So realistically, I guess it had to be either the police or the owner of the bag. Which is bad news either way.

And then I started thinking about whether they saw us or not. When I first got back, I had convinced myself that they must have done. I was paranoid. But when I thought about it more, I realised that they couldn’t have seen us. If they had, they would have done something, wouldn’t they? If it was the police and they saw two teenagers hiding in the woods, they would have come and asked us what we were doing. And if it was the owner of the bag and they’d seen us, they wouldn’t just drive on, would they?

I got some sleep in the end, when I’d tired myself out with thinking and worry, but I don’t know what time it was.

All I know is that right now it’s the morning, it’s a school day and I feel tired. And I also feel weird about what happened last night, like I’m keeping a guilty secret. Which I guess I am.

I go downstairs and eat breakfast, though I don’t manage to eat much. And when I’m done, I go into the lounge to watch TV for a bit and take my mind off everything before I get ready for school. I want to check the sports news cos the cricket starts tomorrow. First Test. Except Kate’s already beaten me to it and she’s watching some crappy R & B video on a music channel.

‘Do you have to watch this?’ I ask her.

She turns and fixes me with a stare, right eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I do. First one into the lounge gets control of the remote. That’s the rule.’

I think about getting hold of the remote control and changing channels anyway. Kate’s not strong enough to get it back off me. But it’s too early for that. So I go upstairs. I’ll check on the internet instead.

In my room, I switch my computer on as I get dressed for school. Trousers, shirt, tie, jumper. And by the time I’m finished, the computer has played its little warm-up jingle. I go straight to the sports page to check the cricket news, but before I can read it, I notice the news box at the top of the page. My stomach turns as soon as I see it.
MAN KILLED IN DORSET FIRE LINKED TO ABANDONED CAR
, with a picture of a policeman standing in front of the taped-off flats. I click straight on the link.

Detectives investigating the death of a man in a fire at an unfinished block of flats in Fayrewood have released CCTV footage of the man and made a link to a car abandoned in nearby woodland. The body has been identified as that of Martin Garrard, who Hampshire police believe was involved in a shooting in Southampton on Friday night. CCTV footage released by Hampshire Police appears to show Mr Garrard emerging from the address where a Southampton drug dealer was shot dead. He is seen in the footage carrying a holdall and getting into a silver Vauxhall Astra. Dorset police have now confirmed that the silver Vauxhall, a stolen vehicle, was found crashed in woodland on Saturday morning and recovered by police. Forensic detectives are now examining the vehicle.

Earlier this week, detectives confirmed that Mr Garrard had been shot before the fire at the flats in the early hours of Saturday morning. Det Insp Michael McDermott said: ‘We are treating this death as murder, and encourage anyone who may have seen anything suspicious on Friday night in Southampton or Fayrewood to contact us.’

Police are urging anyone with information to call Crimestoppers.

As soon as I’ve finished, I get up from my computer. I don’t know what to do. I’m in shock. I run it through my brain, over and over, trying to work out what this means. Oh God. This can’t be happening.

I go back to the computer and reread the story. At the bottom of the page there’s a picture, a freeze-frame from CCTV. In the centre of the picture there’s a Play button. I click on it and the CCTV clip starts. It’s black and white and really grainy. It starts off with a view of a street, with front doors and parked cars on the road. It moves along jerkily for a couple of seconds, before a door opens and a man comes running out. And sure enough, he’s carrying a holdall. It’s so small, so blurry and jerky that I can’t really make out whether it’s the same bag that we found, that we hid last night. The man crosses the road and gets into a silver car. The same kind of silver car that we found in the woods. An Astra. The car zooms off and then the clip finishes.

I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. I can’t take this. This is too much.

I scroll back up the page, scan through it again. And I focus on the number. I pick my mobile up and stare at it, thinking. My thumb hovers over the numbers. But something stops me from pressing the buttons. My head is a blur of thoughts and feelings that don’t make sense. I don’t know what to do. Without thinking too much about what I’m doing, I punch the number into my phone. I take another deep breath, close my eyes and press the Call button. I put the phone to my ear. It rings. Once. Twice. Then there’s a click on the other end of the line.

‘Hello, you are through to Crimestoppers. Please hold and your call will be answered shortly.’

The line goes quiet for a few seconds and my heart starts to thump in my chest. Then there’s another click on the line and another voice. ‘Hello. Crimestoppers. How can I help?’

I gulp. I try and work out what I’m going to say. I open my mouth. I want to say something. But the words don’t get as far as my mouth; they catch in my throat. And all the time I can feel my heart beating like mad in my chest, in my neck, in my temples.

‘Is there anybody there? Are you in immediate danger?’

I breathe deeply, try and compose myself.

‘Your call is in the strictest confidence. We won’t ask you for a name. Your call will not be recorded or traced.’

I take the phone away from my ear. I can’t do it. I press the button on my phone to end the call. I close my eyes and put my head in my hands.

You know what I’d really like to do right now? I’d like to go straight downstairs and tell Mum and Dad what’s happened, just so they know. So they can help me. So that this is out of my hands. So someone else can make the decision for me. Except I know that I can’t do that. Mum and Dad can never know what’s happened. They would go spare. Whose parents wouldn’t? Imagine it. ‘
Um, Mum, Dad, you know the dead body that was found in Fayrewood? Well, I found twenty grand and a big bag of drugs in the woods, and I didn’t tell the police about it. Oh, and by the way, I think it probably belonged to the man who died in the flats
.’ It wouldn’t go down well.

I open my eyes and look around my room. There is only one thing I can do right now. I have to go and see Ash. We have to sort this out together. I get up and grab my school bag and coat off the floor. I go straight downstairs and out of the house.

Thirty seconds later, I’m banging on Ash’s front door. I take a step back and wait for an answer. After a bit, the door opens.