Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (11 page)

Her finger keeps moving back and forth, growing pink and blurry. Her
words become a vague murmuring in the background as I drift away into some
shadowy place.

They want me to fall asleep.

So I struggle to stay
awake, to defy them, to keep watching and listening, but I can’t. I can’t.

I meet Tris at
Eastlyn Church a few minutes after two o’clock. It’s clear from his expression
that he’s been there a while, waiting. But I wanted to take a run round the
village before we met up, make sure there are people about, people who could
hear me if I scream. Ridiculous, perhaps. But I’m very much aware that I’m on
my own now. Hannah is still fast asleep, my dad is having his own private
breakdown in the caravan, and Connor is probably out with the sheep on the edge
of the moor. Nobody will be coming to rescue me if all this goes wrong.

The
weekly church service is at eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning, so not many
people are about in the churchyard. There’s an old woman in a black hat, laying
flowers on an overgrown gravestone that looks almost as old as her. A man in
overalls is sweeping out the church porch; another is in the Victorian portion
of the graveyard, cutting the grass between graves with a strimmer. The whine
of the strimmer bounces off stone as I walk up to the church door from the
kissing-gate.

The
man with the broom glances at me oddly, then shuffles inside the church and
half-closes the door.

Tris
is waiting for me in the shade of an old yew hedge. He comes towards me,
staring. ‘What happened to your face?’

I
put a hand to my cheek, embarrassed. I haven’t had a chance to look in a
mirror. ‘Is it so bad?’

‘Did
Denzil do that?’

It’s
my turn to stare. ‘Of course not.’

‘I
wouldn’t put anything past Tremain.’ He touches my cheek with long, cool
fingers. ‘So who hit you?’

‘I
told you, nobody.’

I
don’t like having to lie to him. But then I have no idea if he’s been lying to
me. However angry I may feel about my father raising a hand to me, it’s family
business. Nothing to do with Tris. Besides, I hit him straight back. So as far
as I’m concerned, it’s finished.

‘Liar,’
he says softly.

I
start to walk away, uncomfortable now. ‘I slipped in the bath this morning.
Banged my face on the wall.’

He
shrugs, giving up and turns to follow me. We take the twisting path that leads
behind the church, past the vicarage, and eventually into the woods. ‘Okay, so
why did you ask me to meet you here? What are we doing?’

‘Going
for a run in the woods.’

He
stops, sounding shocked. ‘
What
?’

‘It’s
time I went back to where I saw the body. I need to figure out what happened.
How she disappeared.’

Tris
is shaking his head. He grabs at my arm when I keep walking. ‘No, no, that’s a
really bad idea. Seriously, Ellie, you don’t want to do that.’

‘Give
me a good reason not to.’

He
stares, then seems to gather his thoughts. ‘It could be the last straw for
you.’

I
raise my eyebrows. ‘Explain.’

‘Fuck.’
He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Okay, don’t get upset about this, but you’ve
been … well,
unstable
ever since it
happened. When I saw you in the club last night I was really worried, you
seemed so wired. Like you’re deliberately on the look-out for trouble now, aiming
to self-destruct.’

I
can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Why, because I went on a date with Denzil
Tremain?’

 
‘Because to go into those woods could
knock you back years in therapy terms.’ He meets my eyes. ‘I’m serious, Ellie.
I don’t think you’re ready for this, and I don’t want to see you in any more
pain.’

We’re
standing behind the red brick wall of the vicarage. The back gate into the
garden is closed today. I catch a brief movement out of the corner of my eye,
the twitch of a curtain, and glance upwards. It’s the Reverend Clemo, staring
down at us from an upper window. He looks intent, frowning from under heavy
brows. As soon as the vicar realises I’ve seen him, he drops the curtain.

Tris
follows my gaze. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

I
keep walking, heading for the entrance to the woods. I remember how I burst out
here that morning, covered in nettle stings and thorn cuts, and found the
Reverend Clemo smoking, his Jack Russell dancing about his feet. That strange
look on his face. It could have been guilt. Or am I just imagining things?

‘You
coming?’ I ask, looking back at Tris.

‘I
can’t talk you out of this?’

I
shake my head.

‘Then
I can hardly let you go down there alone,’ he says.

My
body has cooled down considerably since I met him at the church. I stretch out
my calves and hamstrings, using the same basic lunges and warm-up exercises I
teach the kids at school. Tris shrugs, then copies me, dragging his right foot
up behind and holding the stretch while he counts under his breath.

I
hate my brain. It keeps thinking even when I want to shut it out and concentrate
on my body. But something’s nagging at me and I can’t ignore it. Reverend Clemo
was at school with my mother. Like Dick Laney too. And it was clear from that
photograph in Laney’s office that he had resented anyone else getting close to
my mother.

She
must have been quite a catch for the local boys, I realise. But then my mother
was beautiful. And kind too. Too kind to push Dick Laney away when he put his
arm around her.

‘Sure
you want to do this, Ellie?’

Something about the way he uses my pet name
jerks at my heart. I finish stretching out my hamstrings and straighten up,
looking at him sideways.

Apart
from the mud-covered trainers, Tris Taylor looks exceptionally good in his
running gear. Strong and lithe. Damn him. All that hill-climbing and
fence-mending on the farm has given him muscular thighs, a narrow waist, and a
tight backside. No, not bad at all.

 
‘Absolutely,’
I say, lying again. The truth is not always useful, I am beginning to discover,
and on this particular occasion, a lie will serve me better. ‘How about you? Cold
feet?’

‘What?’

He’s been staring down the track into the
woods, but turns now to look at me, looking distracted. He’s pale, and his gaze
keeps wavering, sliding away from me to those dark spaces between trees. It’s
as though he’s looking for something in particular. Or someone.

‘Penny
for your thoughts?’

‘Sorry,’ he says, as though suddenly realising
what I said. ‘It’s not you. I had a row with Connor this morning.’

‘Seriously? I thought you two never argued.’

‘It was over something so stupid. Connor borrowed
my trainers to take the dog out early, and got them covered in mud. He does it
all the bloody time. I told him, why can’t you ruin your own shoes? Then I
asked him to clean them.’ He shakes his head, scraping at the dried mud on one
trainer with his other foot. ‘Connor threw them back at me, told me to clean
them myself.’

‘Brothers.’

He grins. ‘Oh, we love each other really. You
know what it’s like with families.’

I look at him speculatively. If his parents hadn’t
adopted Tris, Connor would have been an only child. And later, when their mum
left, he would have been an only child in a single parent family. Like me.

‘Not really. I’ve been protected from the
horror of siblings. It can get lonely though, being an only child.’

‘Poor kid.’ Tris puts an arm round my shoulders,
making a sad face. ‘Poor, lonely, no-mates Eleanor.’

‘That’s me.’

‘Well,
I still love you. Even if no one else does.’

I
look away, remembering the creepy note left tucked under the jeep’s windscreen
wipers last night.

You’re my
Number One.

I was insanely suspicious about Tris last
night. My head was muddled with drink, my nerves on edge. Looking at him in the
daylight, it feels impossible that Tristan Taylor could ever have written that
note. At least, that’s my gut instinct.

But
my gut instinct has been known to be wrong.

‘Look, Eleanor,’ he tells me quietly, ‘I have
no problem with doing this. But I am genuinely worried about what kind of
impact it could have on you.’

So
we’re back to Eleanor, I think. Not Ellie anymore. ‘You don’t need to be
worried.’

‘Really?
You were acting pretty weird last night. Now you want to go back into the woods
and risk falling apart again.’ He studies me, his expression brooding. ‘We’re
good friends, and I don’t want to be rude, but what if this sets you off
again?’

‘You make me sound like a dysfunctional siren.’

‘Not a bad description.’

I recall my father calling me a manipulative
little bitch only an hour ago, and find it hard to smile.

‘Thanks,’
I say lightly.

‘You’re welcome.’

We’re
good friends
.

I suddenly realise I’m supplying a silent
just
before that
good
, and hating it. I bend to fumble with my laces, needlessly
untying then relacing them in a loose double bow.

I glance round at him, my tone deliberately
offhand. ‘Shall we get going, then? If the obligatory lecture is over?’

His
mouth tightens but he shrugs. ‘Might as well. You lead.’

‘We
can run two abreast most of the way, actually.’

‘Sounds
fun.’

I
pull a face at his lewd expression. He and Connor both love the dirty puns, but
they never seem to push beyond that. Typical male banter, Hannah calls it, and
claims she’s heard far worse at the hospital, especially on the night shift.

We jog down the sunlit track into the woods. I
decided that reversing my route might be a good idea, help me see things in a
different light. So we’re entering the woods behind the church, on the narrow overgrown
track I used to reach the village after seeing the body. We slow to skirt the
nettle patch, then walk single file for a while because the dirt track is so
narrow and steep. That’s where I take the lead, and Tris falls in behind me.

‘Stay
close,’ I tell him.

I hear water
rushing and gurgling as we descend towards the stream. My body is warming up
now, but my palms feel cold and clammy. The horribly familiar sound of the stream
brings back memories of the day when I stood among these same trees, a scared
six-year-old, and closed my eyes, listening …

I slow as the path widens out, then come to a
halt fifty-odd feet shy of the stream, not entirely sure of my next move. Behind
me Tris stops too. I hear his light breathing, and it reminds me of the shadow
behind the hedgerow. The sound of a man breathing a few feet away in the
darkness. It could have been him. He’s the right height and build. But then so
is Connor, and so is my father, and the Reverend Clemo, and just about any male
of six foot and above.

I
stand, not speaking, listening to the sounds of the woods. Above us, an unseen bird
calls out a shrill warning:
Humans! Humans!
Humans in the woods!

Tris breaks the silence between us. ‘I have to
say, I was surprised to see you on your feet after last night, let alone
running.’

‘Four o’clock in the morning is a record even
for me,’ I admit.

‘Denzil needs a punch in the head.’

I look round in surprise at the barely
concealed tension in his voice. ‘Why? I told you, he got me home safe.’

I don’t mention my glimpse of the shadow man
outside the cottage. I’m unsure whether it was real or imagined, and am still
ashamed of the way I reacted last night. The primal fear that had me running
into Hannah’s arms like a terrified kid, waking up a few hours later after a
bad dream, sunlight in my eyes, exhausted but unable to sleep.

So
much for my expertise as a martial arts teacher. That had been my big selling
point when I first started interviewing for teaching jobs in Physical Education,
that I could teach the students anything from karate and judo through to elements
of aikido and Krav Maga. Yet faced with the possibility that my childhood
bogey-man was back, those much-vaunted defences had crumbled like they were
made of tinfoil.

‘Safe
is always a relative term with you though.’ Tris looks even paler down here in
the dim light of the woods; his skin is almost translucent under the tree
canopy. ‘There’s only one reason a couple stays out until four in the morning.
And it’s not so you can go stargazing on the moors.’

‘Oh my God, I wasn’t wrong last night. You
really are jealous.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Christ,
no. You can date anyone else you like, I don’t give a shit. But Denzil Tremain
is the wrong choice for you.’

‘Reasons?’

‘First
off, everyone knows he does drugs. Deals them too, Connor says. And he deliberately
got you drunk last night. I could see that as soon as I talked to you at the
club.’

‘Stop exaggerating. I only had three or four drinks,
for God’s sake.’

‘What was in them?’