Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (14 page)

I don’t know the
two police officers who are first to arrive in the woods. They descend the
track from the church heavily, trying to avoid slipping on loose soil and
stones, then stand a moment, glancing up and down through the dappled shade.

Tris cups both hands to his mouth and calls,
‘Over here,’ then waves. Like we’re meeting them for a barbecue or something.

They approach without any sense of urgency, barely
looking at us. One is swatting away flies on the back of his neck. They
introduce themselves briefly. Both constables, Cornish accents, unsmiling. I
sense some low-level irritation too. Have we disturbed a quiet Sunday afternoon
in some sunny layby off the A30?

One of the constables takes a quick look in the
grave, prods the exposed hand with the toe of one boot, then turns to stare at
us. Perhaps he had assumed it was a hoax.

‘Bloody
hell,’ his colleague says, looking over his shoulder. He walks back up the
slope a little way, probably for better reception, then gets on his radio.

The
other officer asks us a few more questions, conscientiously writing everything
down in his notebook. Including my name. Which he does not appear to recognise.

When he has finished taking notes, the
constable nods at us calmly, as though people find dead bodies in the woods
every day. He says, ‘Best to stay here until the detective inspector arrives.
Either of you hurt or in shock?’

‘We’re fine, thanks,’ I say for both of us.

He
takes a long, thoughtful look at my face. I suppose there is still a mark there
where my father hit me. ‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

Tris
has fallen silent. He is staring at the shallow grave a few feet away. Despite
the exercise of running up to the village and back, his face is still pale.

I
ask, ‘Do you mind if we move a bit further away from the body?’

The constable looks at me dubiously, but agrees.
‘Don’t stray too far though. The DI will probably want to speak to you in
person.’

‘I’m
sure he will,’ I say drily.

But
the officer has turned away, and is writing in his notebook again.
Something suspicious about these two …

We wander slowly along the damp bank until
we’re roughly a hundred feet upstream of the two police officers. Tris finds a
mossy old stump to sit on, staring down into the stream. I look back, watching
as the two constables confer. After a lengthy conversation, the one who spoke
to us disappears back up the track towards the village, leaving the other one
to stand guard over our find. Like buried treasure.
Mouldering
buried treasure.

‘Macabre,’ I mutter.

‘Sorry?’

‘The way my mind works.’ I shrug. ‘Never mind,
I was talking to myself. But one thing about this certainly surprises me.’

‘And
what’s that?’

‘I
expected all this to feel different. For me to feel different. After all, I’ve
been proved right. There
was
a body
in the woods.’

‘But not the same body,’ Tris interrupts me.

‘No, but at least we can be sure I’m not going
mad. Well, probably not. Or no madder than I was before all this started. But whoever
she is, that poor bloody woman’s existence – or lack of it – proves
that s
omebody
killed
somebody else
. None of this has been my
imagination.’

‘I wish it was, though.’

‘What’s the matter?’

I
look at him searchingly. He’s one of the few friends I have left, and I need to
look out for him.

I
also feel bad for suspecting him of being the killer. Having seen the way he
reacted to unearthing that dead body, I can’t believe him capable of having put
her there. Unless he’s a Jekyll and Hyde killer, the sort who can block off one
entire half of their personality in order to commit atrocious crimes, while the
other half is blissfully aware that they are a total psycho.

‘Is
the shock catching up on you?’ I ask. ‘Don’t feel bad if it is. I felt a bit sick
too, looking down at her lying there.’

‘It’s not that. The problem is … ’ He stops.

‘What?’

Tris glances across at the lone police
constable, hands clasped behind his back, no doubt waiting for the forensics
team to descend. But the man’s too far away to hear what we’re saying, and anyway
we’re both speaking quietly. Too quietly to be heard above the rushing noise of
the stream beside us.

‘I’m
worried about you, actually,’ he says frankly. ‘You’re too calm. After
everything you’ve been through, to find a body like this … I’m no expert in
psychology, but shouldn’t you be running about screaming, or having a nervous
breakdown?’

I meet his open gaze. He’s lying, I’m sure of
it. He was going to say something completely different, but then thought better
of it.

There’s
no point demanding the truth. He would simply deny it. I wonder if he’s suspicious
about my find. It’s true that we found her grave rather easily, almost as
though the killer had done a poor job of concealing it on purpose. Perhaps Tris
thinks I already knew where the dead woman was buried, and he’s protecting me
by keeping his suspicions to himself.

Neither
of those possibilities make me feel very good.

‘Maybe
I’m saving that up until later.’

He
manages a half-grin. ‘I look forward to it. Especially the screaming and
running about.’

‘I do a good impersonation of a chicken with
its head cut off. It’s all good though.’ I glance back at the grave, and
abruptly change my mind. ‘Or it was until now. Shit.’

Tris turns to follow my stare, then gets up and
fumbles for my hand. He squeezes it hard. ‘All good, remember?’ he says, for my
ears only. ‘Don’t let him wind you up.’

My old nemesis is trudging through the trees
towards us, kicking aside brambles and leaf detritus as he walks. Detective Inspector
Powell. Like the two constables, he too does not look amused by this interruption
to his Sunday afternoon. To my surprise, he’s in faded jeans and what looks
like a yellow tee-shirt with a sun design under a light blue jacket. Almost
hippyish. The large black wellington boots look totally mismatched with the
rest of his outfit, like he’s been dragged away from a relaxing day off with his
family to come and dig up a corpse. Which I’m guessing is precisely what has
happened.

Behind him I see several other police men and
women coming down the slope, and what look like plain clothes officers
following slowly, some carrying metal boxes and other heavy equipment.

Forensics.

Powell comes to a halt in front of us. He nods
at Tris, then looks at me broodingly. ‘So you couldn’t leave it alone.’

‘I told you there was a body.’

‘So I understand. I’ll take a look at that in a
minute.’ He glances across at the shady patch of soil by the stream, the one
uniformed police officer standing guard over it. ‘You just stumbled across it,
I’m told. While out on a Sunday walk.’

I nod, mutely.

‘Which is an idea I find hard to believe. Not
exactly a relaxing spot for you, these woods.’

I shrug.

‘Hurt
yourself?’ DI Powell is looking at my cheek.

I
shrug again.

Clearly frustrated by my silence, his gaze
interrogates Tris. ‘I don’t think I know you. Boyfriend?’

‘Friend,’ I say sharply, not letting Tris speak
for himself. ‘His name is Tristan Taylor.’

The
inspector looks back at me, eyebrows raised. ‘You still have friends, then?’

‘I
have hidden qualities.’

‘I’m
sure you do, Eleanor.’

‘So
what’s next?’

‘Nothing
too demanding. You’ll need to give a formal statement, of course. Back at the
station.’ He looks at Tris. ‘You too.’

Tris says nothing, merely looks back at the
inspector. The two of them lock gazes and say nothing. Like two male stags
locking horns in the woods.

First
the inspector thought I was a liar. Then he thought I was mad and needed
psychiatric help. Now he seems to suspect me of having planted a dead body in
the woods just so I can be proved right. Which is precisely what I thought Tris
was trying to suggest, but coming from the inspector it feels a thousand times
more offensive.

Perhaps it’s an urge to make him give me
respect that makes me blurt out, ‘It’s not the same woman, you know.’

‘
What
?’

 
‘She’s someone completely different. I
never saw that woman before in my life.’

A shout interrupts us. ‘Inspector?’

Reluctantly, Powell tears his bewildered gaze
from me. ‘What is it?’ he demands, his voice deep and impatient. One of his
team is signalling him from the graveside, a woman in white forensic overalls
and hood. ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll be right over.’

Most of the other police have reached the
shallow grave and are setting up their equipment around its narrow perimeter. One
man in a leather jacket and jeans is kneeling in the dirt, pushing back the lid
on a large case of expensive photographic equipment. The photographer,
presumably. Two of the others are already erecting a white tent above the
half-dug grave, as if to shield her from onlookers.

Powell
summons one of the police constables who were first there. ‘This your call-in,
Timms?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘These two make any calls since you arrived?
Speak to anyone?’

‘No sir,’ the policeman says, looking
perplexed. ‘Only to each other. There’s no signal in these woods, anyway. We
even had a job getting the radio to work.’

‘Look after them, would you? I want a full
statement from both of these witnesses, to be taken
separately
,’ he says, emphasising that last point. ‘And at the
station. Not here.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

Powell looks back at me, still frowning. ‘I’ll
talk to you later, Eleanor. At the station.’

‘I can’t wait.’

I look up at a familiar cry: there’s the black
hunched figure of a crow perched on a high branch above us. It caws again,
glossy throat convulsing, then swoops away through the leafy canopy of trees.

In the old days, some Cornish witches kept a
crow as a familiar, others a midnight-black cat. I’ve been to the Museum of
Witchcraft at Boscastle on the north coast, seen all their spooky exhibits, the
weird mandrake roots and feather totems. I enjoy reading about that time too, sixteenth
and seventeenth century England and the witch hunts. But until now I never
found any of those superstitions particularly frightening. They’re not real,
just strange old stories. Folk tales and legends strung together to scare
people in the dark.

Sitting in a wood though, a few feet away from
the half-buried body of a murdered woman, it’s difficult not to wonder if there
is such a thing as true evil.

‘Arrange
for a car to take them to the station,’ Powell tells the constable. ‘As soon as
possible.’

‘Right
you are, sir.’

‘And
no reporters, you understand? Cordon this whole area off. I don’t want anyone
in this part of the woods who isn’t directly related to this inquiry.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

I watch the detective inspector head over to
the grave, sidestepping the team already working there in order to get a proper
look at the victim. Powell stops, staring down at the loose patch of soil
without speaking while the plain clothes police officer talks to him rapidly.

I remember what the inspector is looking at,
and shudder. That could be me in that shallow grave. Or Hannah. I don’t know
the dead woman, but that’s how personal this feels.

PC
Timms glances at us, then fumbles with his radio. All we hear is static. ‘Bloody
signal.’ He hesitates. ‘Wait here. Don’t talk to anyone. You understand?’

Tris
looks furious. ‘So, are we suspects? Are we being charged with finding a dead
body? Because last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.’

‘Calm
down,’ the constable says wearily. ‘Nobody’s accusing either of you of
anything. The inspector wants a statement from you both, that’s all, and it’s
better if you don’t talk to anyone else until you’ve given that. Now stay here.
I’ll be back in a jiffy.’

He hurries away towards the base of the slope,
where it seems the signal on his police radio is stronger. He speaks into the
radio, head bent, presumably arranging a car for us to the station. Powell is
talking to the woman in white overalls. Both of them look very serious, as they
should. Perhaps if they had not assumed I was round the bend when I first saw a
dead body here in the woods, this new victim would have been found sooner. Or
might not have been here at all. Because it feels like the killer is playing
games with us. With me, more specifically.

When
the white forensics tent closes round the grave, shutting the team out of sight,
I pretend to throw stones into the stream, but actually I’m covertly studying Tris,
which surprises me. It seems I’m monitoring his response as much as my own. Do
I still think one of my own friends is guilty, that Tris of all people is
somehow connected to this?