So I stay, undecided, watching a crisp packet being blown across the road. When my phone rings and I see that it’s Mum, I turn it off. Get the panics all over again, only ten times worse. It feels like they’re coming for me . . . the police, Emily, Mack, Mum . . . everyone’s closing in. It’s like I got to work out my story, and fast. It’s like I’ve only got one more chance.
39
Emily
Joe is pulling me down the stairs, and I’m shouting at him before we’re out of his house, trying to make him explain.
‘Not here,’ he’s hissing.
His mum’s waiting in the entrance to the kitchen, two cups of tea in her hands. ‘Where you two off to?’
‘Nowhere!’ Joe yells, still dragging me behind.
And already we’re out of the house, and this time I’m pushing past him.
‘Why were you sneaking about in my room anyway?’ he yells after me. ‘I would’ve shown you!’
‘But you didn’t!’
I’m marching on ahead, towards the park where Joe and I always used to talk.
‘It’s not what you think Em, honestly!’
I don’t even know what I think. I’m practically running to get to the end of our street and on to the main road, desperate to get somewhere we’re alone.
I look in front windows, see people watching telly. Would they close their curtains if they knew Jon Shepherd’s daughter was looking in? If they knew the boy behind me had taken photos of Ashlee Parker looking like that in Darkwood? The side gate squeaks as I enter the park. When I get to the swings, I turn on Joe.
‘I wasn’t doing anything!’ he says.
But he doesn’t look at me. He sits awkwardly in a swing, like a grasshopper folded into a thimble. ‘High as you can go?’ he says, pushing his feet against the ground to make the swing move. ‘Just one game?’
I hold the chains still, won’t let him move. Seeing who can swing highest before chickening out seems ridiculous right now – playing a stupid kids’ game! I kick the wood-chips viciously, making them fly up. ‘When did you take that photo of her? Why?’
He wiggles the swing back and forth, trying to get it out of my grasp, keeps avoiding my gaze. His eyes dart to the climbing frame as if he wants to be on that instead. I push him backwards, hard enough that he has to hold on to the swing chains to stop from tipping off.
‘Say something before I go to the police myself,’ I demand. ‘About you! About how you’re hiding something to do with Ashlee Parker! About how you did something with her you never told me about!’
Joe goes red at that.
‘Why did you follow her?’
There’s this angry feeling inside me, waiting to come out into a scream or a punch that’s directed right at Joe.
He opens his mouth, hesitates. ‘I . . . I thought I was following you.’ His fingers grip on the chains. ‘To begin with I did – that’s why I took the first photo in the trees. You – she – looked like . . . I dunno . . . part of the woods. It was a good shot.’
I let the swing chains go, remembering Joe’s other photos too. ‘Why would you even follow me? Why do you keep following me?’
Joe stands, shuffles from foot to foot as he towers over me.
‘And why didn’t you tell me any of this?’
Joe’s eyes flick to where a couple of children have come into the park. Immediately he starts walking, giving the roundabout a push as he passes and making it whirl. I get an image of leaning against Joe on that roundabout, sometime before the summer holidays, how his hand had pressed mine as we’d spun. We’d been with Kirsty and Beth and the rest of them, talking about what careers we’d have after school. Kirsty had said Joe fancied me and I’d laughed in her face. Maybe I’d been right to mock it. Maybe it was really Ashlee Parker he’d fancied all this time. Maybe he’d done more than just fancy her.
I jog to catch up with him. ‘Where you going?’
‘Somewhere private.’ He turns left out of the park gates like we’re going towards town. ‘Listen, Em,’ he says quietly. ‘I was taking photos for my project that day, I saw Ashlee, nothing dodgy. I was trying to catch the summer evening light on camera.’
‘Ashlee Parker’s not a summer evening,’ I hiss.
‘I know, but I had to take that first shot . . . and the second, well . . .’
He stops talking as we pass a group of men, stumbling from town and heading for the pub on the corner. One of them has a Scream mask pushed back on his head – a halfhearted attempt at Halloween. As we squeeze past on the pavement, I feel their stares sizzling into me; it’s obvious they know who I am, maybe they’re even army guys who knew Dad. If stares could physically hurt, there wouldn’t be much left of me by now – not with the way this lot’s looking. I get a sudden understanding of why Mum wants to move towns and get away from people who stare and hate without knowing the whole of us. Then I think of the photographs on Joe’s computer and realise that I don’t know the whole of him either. Maybe no one knows the whole of anyone. Even Darkwood’s got secrets.
Joe takes the next left on to the footpath that circles around the back of the park. It is more private here, but this path goes past the barracks too and that brings its own kind of memories. When we’re halfway along, with the park on one side and the barracks on the other, Joe stops. I watch the wind rattle the fence like it’s clawing at it and I think about when Dad and I had stood with our noses pressed against this wire, when Dad was trying to explain what he did inside.
‘I train,’ he’d said. ‘To go away and protect people.’
But what he really should have said was – To go away and kill people. To kill people who have families and stories. To kill innocent civilians too.
I shove Joe’s shoulder to get his attention. He starts hesitantly, telling me again how he’d thought he was following me that day.
‘Then you just disappeared,’ he says. ‘The next thing I know I’m getting jumped on from behind, hands around my neck and grabbing me.’ He stops and finds my eyes. ‘It was Ashlee Parker – she leapt on me and took my camera! Right off my neck!’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’
He leans in. ‘I’m serious. She crept up and stole it. Then she just stood there laughing.’
‘Bullshit.’ That anger inside me swells. Because this doesn’t sound like Ashlee Parker. And if Joe really fancied her, why doesn’t he just say it? Why is he spinning me lines? ‘Tell me the truth, Joe!’
‘I am!’ Joe rubs his knuckles across the side of his face. ‘OK, listen,’ he says. ‘So, Ashlee stood there with my camera, and she said she’d only give it back if I took a photo of her – one photo – that’s all.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘So . . . I didn’t have a choice, did I? It was my camera – she had it. I had to!’
I don’t believe him. ‘Why would she want a photo anyway?’
I turn my head and look through the wire that separates us from the barracks, press my fingers against it . . . Dad said he went off to protect people when really he went off to kill. Everyone lies. No one tells the whole truth. There are dark cracks in everything. Even Joe.
‘She wanted a good photo,’ Joe says quietly. ‘I guess for Damon, or, I dunno, . . . I think she was just having fun.’
I glance up at him. ‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I guess . . . I dunno! . . . I didn’t want you to . . .’ He struggles for words.
I shake my head, not understanding. I watch his neck flush.
‘You don’t know all of it,’ he adds. He squints at something behind me, thinking. ‘The photos aren’t the worst.’
‘So . . .?’ I cross my arms.
‘So . . .’ He sighs. ‘After I took that second photo, Ashlee came up close to me – like, right up close . . . and . . . well, she kept going on about how I was a good runner, and about how I should play some game with her or . . . or something like that. She was being really nice. Flirting, maybe.’
I’m frowning. Th
is doesn’t sound like the Ashlee Parker I knew from school. This sounds like someone made up. Like Joe’s fantasy.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Joe says, noticing my reaction. ‘I was confused too.’
‘What else?’
Joe’s cheeks turn beetroot. ‘Well, that’s what’s strange.’
‘Go on.’
‘So . . .’ He swallows.
‘So?’
‘So, Ashlee put one hand on my waist and she reached up towards me. She touched my skin, like, right here . . .’
Joe puts his cold fingertips to the side of my neck and I shiver. He strokes me there gently. ‘Like that,’ he says, softer, thinking. ‘I thought she was about to . . . you know . . .’
I jerk away from him. ‘What? Kiss you?’
I almost laugh, and Joe sees it. But I can see by how red he goes that this is what he meant. It’s ridiculous. Because Ashlee Parker was the prettiest girl in the school and there’s no way she’d kiss a boy in the year below her, no way she’d kiss Joe Wilder. And anyway, she had Damon Hilary.
Joe turns away, jaw clenched. ‘You think I’m a loser now, right?’
I try to imagine it. Ashlee close enough to Joe that he thought she liked him – that he thought she’d kiss him. I imagine Joe bending his head to Ashlee and being clumsy and unpractised and soft, his breath like Juicy Fruit. It makes me feel weird – uncomfortable – and like I know Joe even less.
‘Thing is,’ he continues. ‘I knew she was just teasing me, knew she wouldn’t have really done it . . . but still . . . I still stood there waiting . . . wanting her to . . . hoping.’
He puts his thumb in the side of his mouth and gnaws at the nail, rips bits off. He’s still not looking at me.
I remember how close my face was to Damon’s in the bunker, and on the bike trail, and how I’d wanted to kiss him. Me wanting to kiss Damon was worse than Joe wanting to kiss Ashlee. Wasn’t it? And I’d wanted to keep that secret too.
‘And Damon?’ I say. ‘You didn’t care about what he’d think?’
Joe takes a breath. ‘Damon was there.’
‘What?’
‘He might’ve even been watching the whole thing, I don’t know. Either way, he came out of the trees pretty quickly.’
‘Well, you were just kissing his . . .’
‘No! I wasn’t. Ashlee was standing really close, but nothing happened! Just that photograph!’ This time Joe holds my gaze fiercely.
I’m still thinking about how mixed up this all is, how tangled my emotions are, so I just look at him and wait.
‘Damon pushed me against a tree,’ he says. ‘Thumped me right into it! He said he was going to kill me!’ Joe’s eyes are boring into mine, urging me to understand. ‘And something else weird?’ he says. ‘Ashlee laughed. She pulled Damon off me, but she was laughing like it was a game. They were both kind of . . . weird, revved up.’
I drop his eye contact. ‘Where have you got this story from?’
He shuffles his feet. ‘It’s not a story.’
But would Damon really be like that? Would Ashlee? And has Joe really gone to the police about it?
‘Why are you doing this?’ I say.
Joe shakes off this question with an impatient twist of his head. ‘How closely did you look at that second photo, Em?’ he says. ‘Did you notice anything?’
‘Only that it didn’t look like Ashlee,’ I say fast. ‘Only that it looked like she was acting some part!’
Joe squints at the barracks. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But did you see the marks on her skin? They’re there, tiny ones, you can see them round the edges of her scarf.’
I stare at him. ‘What are you getting at?’ There’s an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
‘On her neck,’ he says again. ‘I mean, maybe they’re love bites or something, but they could be . . .’ He’s still looking across at the barracks. ‘I mean, maybe Damon could’ve been playing rough with her all this time.’
My eyebrows shoot up.
Joe shrugs. ‘He could’ve been.’
I start shaking my head, which makes Joe move nearer and grab my shoulders. ‘It was just a thought! But, well, as soon as I started thinking it, I had to go to the police then, didn’t I? I mean, photos like that could be evidence . . . thoughts like this . . .’
‘Evidence of . . .?’
‘Well . . . evidence of him hurting her . . . doing something . . . and then with Damon being in the woods again last night. It’s all adding up . . . it’s suspicious!’
My anger flares. ‘If you thought that, why didn’t you tell the police about it weeks ago? Why didn’t you say anything when they arrested Dad? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why do you think I was at the police station just now, Em?’ His anger matches mine, almost. I lean away from it, surprised.
He’s got no right to be angry. I’m not the one who’s been hiding pictures of Ashlee Parker. I’m not the one keeping secrets.
‘You told them everything then?’ I say. ‘About wanting to kiss Ashlee too? About following her through the woods like a stalker?’
Joe’s eyes narrow. I push him, try to shove him and his stories away. I don’t know if I’m angry because I believe him, or angry because I don’t. I stand on tiptoes and look him in the eyes, as close to as I can. I try to imagine Damon playing rough with Ashlee – I do! – I consider it for about a second before I remember his arm around me in the bunker and how he was trying to make me warm. I think about Ashlee teasing Joe like he’s said.
‘Ashlee wasn’t like that,’ I say. ‘Neither is Damon. You only have to talk to him to know.’
Joe rolls his eyes.
I’m thinking about my lips so close to Damon’s that I could have kissed him – twice now. I’m thinking about how he’d been gentle with me and kind.
‘You told the police something wrong.’ But my voice is quieter now, less certain.
And I’m also thinking of how angry Damon had been on the Leap, how he’d held out his hand and pointed it at me like a gun. I’m remembering the words he’d used when he’d talked about my dad. I want to look at Joe’s photo of Ashlee again – look for the marks, the teasing in her eyes. Could Joe be right about any of it?
Then I remember something else. ‘You didn’t listen to what I was trying to tell you earlier,’ I say. ‘You didn’t even look at that sketch I had. The one with Ashlee in it, Dad . . .’
I stumble on the words, feel my cheeks heating up. I can’t tell Joe that I’ve just given that sketch away – to Damon! Joe would be right back at the police station then, he’d be panicking even more.
Joe’s face changes as he watches me. He comes towards me. I step back into the fence rather than let him touch me again, though.
‘I did look at that sketch,’ he says quietly, nodding. ‘And I did see Ashlee in it. You’re right.’ He breathes in and looks at me steadily. ‘But your dad didn’t draw himself . . . not in that sketch. He drew Damon.’
40
Damon
The sky is bruising grey. I run through the car park and into Darkwood, go on the main path ’til I find where Ashlee’s shortcut veers to the left. But I don’t take this shortcut. I go right instead, on to the deer path I was on earlier, towards that huge oak where I found Ashlee’s collar. There’s something pumping through me, making me fast: frustration and confusion and just pure goddamn fear. I get this urge to shout, go hoarse with it. Though I don’t, because if the cops are after me, then these woods will be where they look next. I push my fist through bracken, shredding my skin. After the police’ve been at my flat, maybe they’ll go to Mack’s house next. And what’s Mack going to tell them? About the conversation we just had? That I lied about walking Ashlee to her track? That I made the boys lie too?
Or will he keep trying to protect me? Because this could be what he’s doing. This could be why he’s being weird. I saw the way his temples pulsed when he spoke to me, how he gripped his skinning knife hard to cover up his shaking fingers. How he
was freaking out like me. Is he trying to hide something? It would be just like him not to tell. Telling is against who he is, against all this stuff he believes in: loyalty and courage, soldiers trusting each other . . . all that. Mack don’t tell secrets.
But whose secret is he keeping? Mine? What has he seen me do? What does he know?
I go faster, run ’til my lungs are screeching for air. I need to put everything together; I need to do what the internet article said and relive these images. Properly this time – all the way. I know how.
I skid into the oak tree. My eyes go hot just looking at it again, the fact that I didn’t just imagine it. I pull Ashlee’s collar out of my pocket and hold it in my hand. I remember her lips on my ear, the cold shiver I got each time I’d felt her breath there. I’m remembering my arm around her, then my arm around Emily Shepherd too. And – there – for a second, is something else. I’m thinking about swaying down the high street, and it’s late, and my arm’s around someone else. Someone is growling at me to keep quiet. Where’s this thought come from? I bury my face into the tree’s scratchy surface. This isn’t the kind of thought I need. This is nothing!
But no other thought comes. So I keep walking down the deer path, towards where that hollow is. I take the joint from my pocket and put it back behind my ear.
At the hollow, I go to the spot I was at before, gather leaves into a pile and lay her collar on top. When I take out Mack’s joint I don’t let myself question it this time: just light and inhale. I suck ’til I cough, ’til I get those sweet grassy fumes inside me; I need to keep going ’til my mind goes to that hazy spun-out place. Ashlee would’ve called this Fairyland, this buzzed-out feeling . . . this mix of things real and dream. I don’t want to go here again, but this is the last thing I got – my last attempt to remember. It’s what the article said: as many factors as you can . . . put it all together. Well, I was out of it that night, wasn’t I? And I’ve tried everything else. And there should be no interruptions this time.
Eventually my mind does start to slide someplace. I squint at the pile of leaves and try to picture Ashlee here with me. She was teasing me that night, pressing at me. I try out conversations, things we could’ve said. She’d wanted something, she’d been asking. She’d told me something too.