Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (33 page)

‘Done
nothing?’ Connor swings violently back towards him, tightening his grip on the
shotgun. I can see the last shreds of reason slipping away as he glares down at
his brother. ‘You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said. It was because
of that whore Angela Blackwood that Mum had to die. It was because of Ellie
that you and I started drifting apart. All our lives, she got the love, the
attention, the pity. What did we get for losing our mother? Nothing, bloody
nothing. She has to be made to suffer. Can’t you see that?’ His face twists in
anguish. ‘If you’re not on my side, Tris, then you’re against me.’

I
remember the shelf across the alcove near the metal bed frame. The tools I saw
there. A workman’s tools.

‘I’m
your brother. Have you forgotten that?’

‘You
were never my brother. You don’t have the same tainted blood. That’s obvious to
me now.’

‘Connor,
for pity’s sake … ’

‘Sorry,
Tristan.’

Connor
takes deliberate aim at his brother’s head. He’s planning to blow his brains
out, I realise. Destroy the last thing in his life that’s still good. And then
he’ll turn the gun on me.

‘You
had your chance. You chose Eleanor Blackwood over me.’ His voice cracks.
‘You’ve broken my heart. This is the hardest thing I’ll ever …’

He
has no chance to finish.

I
hoist the long-handled hammer above my head in a two-handed grasp, and smash it
down across the base of Connor’s skull as hard as I can.

There’s
a nauseating crack as metal meets bone, and metal wins.

Connor
crumples without a sound, the shotgun clattering across the stone floor. I drop
the hammer, which is stained with blood, and crouch down, fumbling for the
pulse at his neck.

There
isn’t one.

Cars are
approaching along the road from the village. Two or three vehicles, by my
guess, coming as fast as it’s possible to drive on these narrow Cornish lanes.
I hear sirens too, that eerie wail bouncing through the trees.

I
look down at Tris, but his eyes have closed.

‘Hang
on, Tris,’ I tell him urgently, and then kneel, lifting his head into my lap.

I
remember how he ran for a coat to wrap around me after I nearly drowned at
Widemouth. Connor’s coat, as it turns out, not his as I thought. Now it’s my
turn to keep him alive until help arrives.

‘You
need to hang on. The police have arrived. You’ll be in hospital soon. We’re
going to get you fixed up, do you hear me?’

The
cars screech to a halt a short distance away, probably outside the front of the
old mill. I hear car doors slam, the sound of voices.

The
police, at last.

‘I’m
sorry I thought it was you,’ I whisper.

Tris
does not stir. His head falls back into my lap, his mouth slack, one hand
trailing in his own blood.

The church service
is quiet and subdued, only a few locals turning out for the funeral. I asked DI
Powell to discourage journalists from attending, promising them a press
statement tomorrow if they stay clear. And it seems they have listened to his
warning, because I don’t see a single photographer at the church. After the
simple ceremony, the coffin is driven slowly up the hill in the undertaker’s
black hearse, followed by the congregation on foot, with the Reverend Clemo at
their head in his black robe.

It’s
a windy morning after several days of rain and heavy cloud over the moors, but
at least the sun is shining now. Up ahead, the wind whips at the vicar’s robes,
flapping them about his ankles; I catch flashes of the green wellington boots
he’s wearing underneath.

DI
Powell is there to pay his respects. He shakes hands with me at the gate, and
we talk for a few minutes before walking up to the grave. The inspector is
wearing a black suit with black tie, very smart, very sombre.

‘I
pushed you too hard during the investigation,’ he admits. ‘I should have been
more understanding. Listened to your instincts more.’

‘You
wanted a result.’

‘I’m
just sorry about the outcome. Not our finest hour, I’m afraid.’

I
know he’s talking about the first investigation too, when the police failed to
find my mother’s killer. But there was never any evidence to link Connor’s dad
to her murder. And I had been programmed never to mention his name, so deeply
and traumatically that it took me eighteen years even to remember the details
of that day.

DI
Powell sees my father coming, nods to me again, then continues on ahead.

‘Here,
you’ll want these.’ Dad hands me the bouquet of long-stemmed white lilies we’ve
brought to lay on the headstone. He studies my face, then bends to kiss me on
the forehead. ‘You okay, love? You look pale. You don’t have to do this if you
don’t want to.’

‘I’m
fine.’

‘I
still wish they hadn’t agreed to let Connor Taylor’s service take place up at
the crematorium. His ashes shouldn’t be buried locally. Not after what he did.’

‘He’s
dead. What does it matter?’

‘It
matters because he strangled two women and shot his brother. Kidnapped Jenny Crofter,
did God knows what to the poor woman. He nearly killed you too.’

‘I
know.’ I pat his arm.

I
am feeling quite emotional, I realise. The lilies are all open, the perfume
from their white throats so sweet and intense, it makes me almost light-headed.

Jenny
appears from behind us in a floral dress and pumps for once instead of her
tracksuit. The long sleeves carefully hide any marks still lingering from her
imprisonment. I am surprised to see her, considering what she went through. But
I guess she is trying to be supportive.

She
kisses me on the cheek. ‘Come on, everyone’s waiting for us. You first,
Eleanor.’

Reverend
Clemo actually smiles at me as I walk up to the burial plot, flanked by Jenny
and my dad, a bouquet of lilies fragrant in my arms. Unlikely as it seems, he
appears to have forgiven me for bringing so much unrest to his parish.

But
then, so much has happened since that day at the mill. Soon after the police
arrived and set up camp there, a fluttering crisscross of Police Do Not Cross
tapes were wound between the tree trunks, sealing off the whole area from the
public. The buildings were thoroughly searched and items tagged and removed as
evidence. Then, with the vicar in solemn attendance, Mrs Beverley Taylor’s body
was exhumed from the overgrown rose garden.

Acknowledged
at last as a murder victim, just like my own mother, Mrs Taylor was given a
full postmortem, kept at the morgue while the investigation was still ongoing,
and finally released for burial once the police had closed the case.

We
buried Hannah last week. It was traumatic. I don’t think I will ever get over
the loss of my best friend, nor the guilt I feel over the manner of her death.
Her absence in my life is an aching space that no one else can never fill.

Tris is waiting for
us at the graveside, leaning on crutches, his leg still bandaged. He only
recently left hospital; thankfully the lead shot that grazed his thigh was not
as serious as the loss of blood he had suffered. An emergency transfusion saved
his life.

There’s
a sheet of handwritten paper, much creased, clenched in his fist. He wants to
say a few words as his mother’s coffin is lowered into the grave.

Wordlessly,
I reach out and touch his hand. I know what it’s like to stand at a grave and
mourn a mother.

Hill
Farm will be sold, he has told me. And the old mill too. ‘Too many bad
memories,’ Tris told me when I showed surprise at this decision. ‘I’ll use the
proceeds to pay my way through university. Better late than never. Then I’ll
get a job somewhere far away from here. London, perhaps.’

I
hope he won’t go away forever.

Reverend
Clemo begins to speak. Tris turns his gaze towards the vicar, straining to hear
every word. There’s desolation in his face. We watch in silence as his mother’s
coffin is lowered slowly and solemnly into the grave.

Everyone
falls silent, listening as Tris reads from his sheet of paper. His voice is
strong, carrying right across the village cemetery in the sunshine.

He
stumbles over his brother’s name, but ends more firmly, ‘If you can hear me,
Mum, I’m sorry you lay undiscovered for so long. I love you and I wish I’d
known you better. God bless.’

Afterwards, as the
mourners slowly depart down the slope, I tell Dad I’ll meet him at The Green
Man, where a few of us are gathering for drinks and a buffet lunch. Tris is
still at the graveside on his crutches, hunched over, staring down at the
earth.

‘Tris.’

When
he turns, I lean forward and kiss him on the lips, taking my time. He tastes
great. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to go to university,’ I tell him. ‘But I’ll
miss you, you know.’

‘Come
with me, then.’

‘I
like my job too much. And I’m still settling into it.’ I meet his intense gaze.
‘Maybe later.’

‘I
love you,’ he says. ‘Going away won’t make any difference to that.’

‘You
say that now, but – ’

‘Tell
me not to go, and I won’t. I could get a job here.’ His gaze holds mine, and I
see no bitterness in it. We’ve never spoken about Connor’s death, and we probably
never will. What is there to say, after all? ‘Haunt your every move.’

‘I
want you to be free, Tris, and to get out from under the shadow of this place.’
I turn my face into the sun, enjoying its warmth. It reminds me that I am
alive, that I survived. ‘Besides, we’re both still coming to terms with what’s
happened. It’s like any kind of shock. We need plenty of space around us or
we’ll end up doing things wrong, suffocating each other.’

Tristan
nods.

‘We
can stay in touch.’ I hold up my mobile. ‘Being apart doesn’t have to mean we
never speak to each other again.’

He
looks at me through long lashes. ‘True.’

‘We
really should get to the pub. They’ll be waiting for you.’ I hesitate, my voice
becoming husky. ‘Though you could always come back to my place afterwards.
Would you like that?’

Tris
smiles slowly. ‘I would.’

Thank you for reading GIRL NUMBER ONE

Please read on

for an extract from
MIRANDA
, also by Jane Holland

Jane Holland is also the author of
MIRANDA
,
an historical novel set in the Isle of Man in 1978.

In the summer of 1978, Lawrence takes Juliet to visit his
father in the beautiful and unspoilt Isle of Man. He finds Gil has built
himself a haven on the island where the past can be relived rather than
forgotten. Relived as it should have been, not as it was. Under the spell of
the island, Lawrence believes he can rebuild the magic with Juliet.
But everything changes when the child Miranda goes missing.

MIRANDA
on Amazon com

MIRANDA
on Amazon UK

Extract
from
MIRANDA

Chapter One

Summer 1978, off the Isle of Man

Lawrence put his
shoulder against the large metal door and pushed. Reluctantly it yielded, and
he felt the wind blast at him as it opened slowly outwards.

‘Juliet?’

His shout was ripped away into the night as the
ferry plunged sickeningly. He lurched through the doorway, and saw a vast wave
crash over the ship’s railings and across the deck, the wooden boards left
swimming with water. The reflected floodlights gleamed in its pools,
illuminating the deck but no further, the sea beyond still dark and oily.
Lawrence shook each foot, then waited for the water to drain away before
venturing out of the doorway. His shoes were new, and salt water would soon
perish the expensive leather.

His wife was standing in the shadow of a huge
orange funnel, her hands cupped to light a cigarette. The wind made it an
almost impossible task.

He staggered along the deck towards her,
supporting himself on the slick, white-painted walls of the ferry. Juliet had
told him she wanted to catch the view as they approached the island. But when
he looked out over the railing, the Irish Sea was nothing but a rolling black
swell alongside the ship.

He shouted, ‘We’re nearly there.’

Juliet leant into his jacket for shelter. She
managed to light her cigarette at last, saying something incomprehensible as
the wind tore across the open deck.

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch a
word you said.’

Smiling, she gestured at his watch.

‘Ten to midnight,’ Lawrence yelled back. ‘Bang
on schedule. My father’s expecting us for about one o’clock.’

‘What?’

Lawrence gave up the struggle, pointing back over
his shoulder. His throat was hoarse. ‘Come on, let’s get back inside. This wind
is appalling.’

Juliet showed him her half-smoked cigarette.

‘Five minutes,’ he insisted, spreading his
fingers out to make sure she got the message, then dragged himself back along
the wall towards the door.

The ferry dipped violently and another wild
deluge came flooding over the side, sending a group of kids in plastic macs and
trainers squealing for cover. The ship ploughed on through the waves as though
struggling to leave the storm behind.

Lawrence turned to look back, unsteady on his
feet, but his wife had climbed onto one of the benches against the railings and
was staring into the blackness with her hair flying back, one hand on the rail,
the other still holding her cigarette. She looked like the ship’s figurehead,
forcing them ever onwards through the waves. There was something decidedly
witchy about her these days, he thought. Perhaps there always had been but she
was only now allowing it to show. As though she had grown tired of the old
veneer, and this was her new, less civilised face. Whatever had caused this
latest crisis between them, he could feel the tension in her, hidden just under
the surface. Like a rock under the water.

He began to wish he had never agreed to visit
his father. This summer storm had blown up out of nowhere, Juliet was in one of
her moods, and they had not even arrived on the island yet.

Yet how could he have refused his summons? It
had been years since his last visit, and his father had sounded so urgent on
the phone. Through the hissing rain of spray across the deck, he watched
another group of kids run past with mischievous faces, shrieking and clutching
at each other before vanishing round the corner into darkness.

One
minute they were there, the next they were gone, like water sprites.

And
where were their bloody parents? Snug in the downstairs bar, he suspected, or
asleep in one of the cabins. Lawrence knew that’s where he would be if he was
crossing the Irish Sea on a night like this with a parcel of brats in tow.

God, only just into his forties, and already he
sounded like an old man.

Had
he been like that as a child? Tearing about with his friends, making a racket,
not caring what anyone thought? He recalled himself as a strange, diffident
boy, quiet and with his nose in a book much of the time, but then suddenly,
inexplicably rage-filled, striking out at the world without any clear idea why.
Some fleeting awareness of failures to come, perhaps, along with a futile
desire to escape them. He still harboured that desire, of course. But at least
he was rarely angry these days, though he had his moments when Juliet was at
her most imperious and impossible. His father had always mildly irritated him
too, he realised, wryly conscious of a desire to take the next boat back to
England rather than face going home. Probably because his duty as a son irked
him now that he was older.

Besides, he had found his father hard to talk
to since his mother’s death. When he had come to stay with them in England, the
old man had been forever staring at nothing, or disappearing to his room for
hours. Sometimes he had been heard whispering to himself. Other times he had
gone striding out on a long walk without telling anyone and even without a
coat, whatever the weather.

‘His second childhood,’ Juliet had called it,
shrugging off his father’s behaviour as quaint and amusing. But then, she had
not known Gil in his prime, so could not appreciate the ever-quickening rate of
decline that had occurred these past few years.

Whatever lay ahead, they could not hope to
escape it now. Less than a mile away, he could see the first lights of the
island waiting for him, strung out like ghostly pearls round the dark neck of a
bay.

‘Lawrence?’ It was
his father’s voice, echoing through the temporary tunnel they had erected to
protect foot passengers on their way in and out of the terminal building.

Lawrence could not see him at first. Rain was
still falling hard, thundering on the tin roof above their heads, making conversation
impractical. There was some barely audible announcement going on over the
loudspeaker system inside the main building, reduced to a kind of whisper out
here in the tunnel, its sibilant crackle permeating everything. Kids with
sodden anoraks, hoods up, trudged past them, followed by sullen, bleary-eyed
parents. The sea slapped up against the grey stone quay, then rushed back to
prepare for another assault. What had happened to summer?

Beside him, Juliet was looking wild, trying to
light a cigarette while struggling with her luggage. He could hear the
click-click-click of her lighter in the draughty tunnel, and her impatient
breathing.

‘Here, let me.’ Lawrence grappled with her
trolley case, though he was already laden down with two suitcases. ‘Over here,
Dad!’

His father was waiting to one side of the
steady file of foot passengers. He looked old, Lawrence thought suddenly.
Stooped shoulders, narrowed chest, his trousers hanging looser than he
remembered, held up with a sturdy belt. But his eyes were as fierce as ever,
his embrace fumbling and impatient.

‘Sorry to hurry you,’ his father said by way of
welcome, ‘but I’m double-parked. Hello, Juliet, good to see you again. Can I
help carry something?’

Reluctantly, Lawrence parted with his wife’s
trolley case. ‘What the hell is this weather about? Who cancelled summer?’

‘Blame Manannán.’

Juliet kissed his father on the cheek. ‘Hello,
Gil. You’re looking well,’ she lied, glancing at Lawrence as she did so.
Unsubtle code for
he’s not looking well
at all
that was not missed by his father. ‘Man who?’

‘Manannán mac Lir,’ his father explained
briefly, waving his hand towards the sea. ‘Irish God of the sea. Much
associated with the Isle of Man. When danger threatens, they say he spreads his
cloak of mist and rain across the isle to protect it.’

‘He doesn’t sound much fun,’ Juliet remarked
flippantly, then caught Lawrence’s eye and added, ‘You must tell us all about
him though. So we can make votive offerings to his misty Godliness. Maybe get a
few sunny days during our stay.’

‘Tomorrow should be better weather,’ his father
promised her, his tone distracted. ‘Now, where did I park the Land Rover?’

 
They were outside in the dark terminal
car park, all concrete blocks and swaying lamp posts. The storm seemed to gain
in intensity, lashing them with rain, the wind howling and tearing at their
coats. ‘You should never have come out in this,’ Lawrence told his father as
they forced the cases into the back of his Land Rover. ‘We could have got a
taxi.’

‘Nonsense.’

Eventually they were on their way, following
the rear lights of other cars disappearing into the rain-mist. Then came the
hour-long drive south, their car buffeted by gusting winds, his father rambling
on about arrangements for the week, gloved hands gripping the wheel. And
Manannán and his rain clouds doing their best to prevent Lawrence from hearing
a word anyone said.

Crossing
the narrow Fairy Bridge on their way south, Juliet sat forward to stare at the
sign. ‘They have fairies here?’

‘The
Mooinjer Veggey
,’ his father agreed.
‘The Little People. If you believe in such things.’

Lawrence
grinned, remembering an old superstition. ‘You have to say hello to the fairies
as you cross the bridge,’ he told his wife. ‘Or it’s considered unlucky.’

Juliet
hesitated. ‘Hello, fairies!’

‘Good
evening, fairies,’ Lawrence said dutifully, though he noticed his father said
nothing.

They reached Port
St Mary in the early hours of the morning. The small seaside town, more of a
village really, lay asleep under the rain. There were no windows lit in the
houses they passed, only the glow of streetlights along the quiet curve of the
Promenade, each lamp surrounded by a thousand blades of rain.

Gil’s
house stood on the hill above the village, overlooking the bay, nothing out there
tonight but whipped darkness, the air itself trembling.

‘Here we are.’ His father swung in through the
green-barred entrance gate and juddered to a halt outside the arched front
door. The wipers stopped their furious to-and-fro, reducing the world outside
to a rain-streaked blur. ‘You two go inside, the door’s always open. I’ll bring
the luggage.’

Now it was Lawrence’s turn to say, ‘Nonsense.’
He nodded to Juliet in the back of the Land Rover, who was tidying her hair.
‘You and Dad put the kettle on while I bring in the bags. No, I insist. Leave
me the keys, I’ll lock the car.’

‘No need,’ his father said, though he headed
for the front door without any argument. ‘No one steals cars here,’ he called
back. ‘This is the Isle of Man.’

Juliet looked at Lawrence through narrowed
eyes, as though blaming him for the weather, then turned and followed his
father into the house without a word.

So this was to be his fault too, he thought,
bending to retrieve the suitcases. She had not wanted to come, hating the idea
of a long sea journey. But he had worn her down. ‘You’re always at work these
days. Take some time off, look on it as a holiday. You love the beach, don’t
you?’ He had hoped they could find some peace here in the island, just the two
of them. But then it had started raining …

At first, in that sodden darkness, he thought
the big house unchanged since the day of his mother’s funeral, still a mess of
white-washed wings and annexes added long after the original build and now
linked by archways and steps. But then Lawrence noticed new flower beds where
lawn used to be, and a swing hanging from the old sycamore tree, its wooden
seat twisting in the wind. Feminine touches to a very masculine house.

He thought of Cathy, his father’s housekeeper,
prosaic and unsmiling, and could not imagine her on a swing. Someone else,
then? Had his father fallen in love again? It was a disturbing idea, although
he could not articulate why.

Lawrence wrestled with the slippery luggage in
the rain. Not an easy thing to do on his own but he did not want his father
getting soaked too. Then a diffuse light came on in the house, illuminating a
small rectangular patch of grass to his left.

He glanced up, surprised, and a face appeared
at one of the top windows, staring down at him, back-lit.

 
Lawrence wiped his face, near-horizontal
rain dashing into his eyes, then peered up again. But already the window was in
darkness again. Who on earth … ?

Cathy
and her mother had a small place down in the village, or used to. He recalled a
narrow room with pale green walls, and an uncomfortable sofa that served as a
bed sometimes. An old fisherman’s cottage, strange objects decorating the
mantel and walls, carved driftwood and feathers.

It
could not have been her at the window.

Dumping the bags in
the hall at the foot of the stairs, Lawrence stooped to unlock one of the
cases, deciding to liberate the book he had brought his father as a present: a leather-bound
edition of Frazer’s
The Golden Bough
.
But when he turned round with it in his hand, his father was nowhere in sight.