Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (4 page)

Connor leans against the white-washed wall
opposite, looking at me. His hair is damp; it looks like he jumped out of the
shower to come over here with Tris. I feel guilty to be upsetting everyone’s
day, which is ludicrous, given what has happened.

‘Talk to us, Ellie,’ Connor urges me. ‘We’re
all friends here. What did you see in the woods?’

‘I
thought Hannah told you?’

‘She
wasn’t very clear.’

Hannah
makes a face at him. ‘I was half-asleep. Sorry.’

Frankly I would rather gnaw my own arm off than
go through it again. But endless repetition is part of the game. ‘I saw a woman’s
body.’

‘Where?’
Connor asks, staring.

‘Down
by the stream.’ I watch steam begin to rise from the kettle. ‘She was naked.’

Hannah looks horrified, as if being dead is not
that appalling on its own, but being naked too is somehow unacceptable. ‘Oh my
God, she was
naked
? You didn’t say
that before.’

I stiffen, hearing the sound of a car out the
front. The engine is quiet, ticking over as it idles outside the cottage.

No
putting it off now.

Tris
has heard the car too. He looks round. ‘The police.’ His dark gaze meets mine.
‘What are you going to tell them?’

‘The
truth.’

‘Connor?’ Tristan nods
at the door.

‘Right,
yes, I’m on it.’ Connor shoots me a reassuring look, then disappears through
the hall and out the front door. I hear deep male voices in the lane. The
police, trying to get in to talk to me, have come up against one of the Taylor
brothers.

My
protectors, I think drily.

Tris starts to make the tea, pouring hot water
straight into the mugs, not bothering with the teapot.

‘I
wish I’d listened to you,’ I tell him.

‘Hmm?’

‘Your
text last night. Advising me not to go through the woods on my run.’ I shake my
head. ‘I’m my own worst enemy sometimes.’

‘I
just thought it would upset you,’ he says. ‘Not that you’d find … ’

‘I
know, it’s okay.’ I manage a wry smile. ‘Who knew, right?’

Hannah
looks at me sideways. ‘Somebody knew.’

‘That’s
for sure,’ Tris agrees, his face solemn for once. He glances round at Hannah,
nodding. ‘It’s one hell of a coincidence.’

I
shiver. ‘God, don’t.’

‘Sorry,
just putting it out there.’

I
nod, watching him work. It’s odd that Tris is so big and broad, built like a
rugby player, yet seems perfectly at home in a kitchen, his movements assured
as he makes the tea. But like me, Tris got used to doing jobs round the house
from an early age, helping out his brother Connor. Their mum left when they
were still young, walked out after a family row and never came back. And their
dad died of cancer three months ago, so now it’s just them.

It must be lonely at Hill Farm, I think
suddenly. Or an endless house party, depending on your point of view. Two
good-looking men muddling by on their own.

You wouldn’t know that they weren’t related,
not at first glance. But up close, you can see that their eyes are different
– Connor’s are much lighter, more like hazel – and Tristan is
broader, more muscular.

Tris puts a mug of tea in front of me. ‘So,’ he
asks quietly, ‘this dead woman you saw, did you know her?’

I shake my head. ‘Why?’

‘No reason,’ Tris says, and runs his thumb
reassuringly across the top of my knuckles.

‘You think I
should
have known her?’

His gaze comes back to mine, startled. ‘No. Why
would I?’

I decide not to answer that.

Connor returns with
two police officers in tow, who shuffle in after him with no apparent sense of
urgency. The narrow kitchen feels suddenly crowded. I study the two newcomers,
but don’t know either of them from the investigation into my mother’s murder. The
greying policeman looks to be in his fifties. The police woman is younger, smiling
warmly, too busy checking out Tris to bother with me. She’s in her late twenties
and very blonde, her fringe straight and even.

‘Detective Sergeant John Carrick,’ the
policeman is introducing himself, taking out a black notebook and pen with an
easy air, as though all this is going to be routine. Which maybe it is. ‘And this
is PC Helen Flynn. We’re here to talk to Miss Eleanor Blackwood about a
reported sighting of a body.’

‘That’s me,’ I say, standing up.

‘Pleased to meet you. No, don’t get up. This
won’t take long.’

Detective
Sergeant Carrick draws up a chair opposite me and Tris, making himself
comfortable with the air of a man who has been at work for hours and has not
had a break yet. I don’t believe his smile.

‘So you’re Eleanor,’ he says, studying me closely
before glancing at the other three. ‘And these are … friends? Family?’

‘Friends.’

Connor bends forward to shake the sergeant’s
hand. ‘Connor Taylor,’ he says coolly, ‘and this is my brother Tristan.’

Hannah
introduces herself shyly.

I
may not know DS Carrick or the other police officer, but from the way he said,
So you’re Eleanor
, I’m guessing they know
about me.

Bloody marvellous.

DS Carrick looks at me from under heavy grey
brows. ‘I’m told you found something in the woods this morning, Eleanor. A woman’s
body.’ He waits for me to nod before continuing, ‘And it’s eighteen years to
the day since your mother was murdered in those woods.’ Again, Carrick pauses,
his eyes on my face. ‘Is that right?’

Connor has been leaning against the wall again,
arms folded as he listens. Now he straightens up, angry and protective. ‘Excuse
me, but how is that relevant?’

‘I’m just verifying the date of Mrs Blackwood’s
murder.’

‘Connor, it’s fine,’ I say, not wanting him to
interfere. He means well but it will only make things worse. I meet the
detective’s gaze. ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s the anniversary of her death today.’

‘You were a witness to that murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what age were you at the time?’

‘Six.’ I stare at the wall above the kettle.
The white gloss paint is still slightly damp from the steam. ‘I was six years
old.’

‘Thank you. That’s very helpful.’

Carrick takes another minute to scribble a few
crabbed lines in his little black notepad. I wait for his next question,
watching him. Tris is staring down over his shoulder at the open notepad. I
wonder if he can see what the detective is writing.

Friends
defensive. Hiding something? Witness a complete fruitcake with a compulsive
need for attention.

The police sergeant frowns over his notepad,
then looks up at me again. ‘Perhaps you could talk us through everything that
happened this morning. In particular, we need you to pinpoint the exact location
of your find for us.’

‘My
find
?’

‘The
body,’ he says gently. ‘Two of our officers are already down in the woods but
the area is quite large, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. We have to know where
to start looking.’

Hannah
sits beside me, which is when I realise that I have not answered the police
officer’s question and everyone is looking at me. ‘Do you need anything, Ellie?
Some painkillers, maybe?’

My
hands and legs are stinging, but I shake my head. The pain is useful. It gives
me something to focus on. To distract me from the questions.

DS Carrick hesitates. ‘I know it’s difficult to
get your thoughts together when you’ve had a shock. But perhaps if you were to describe
exactly what you think you saw, and where you think you saw it.’

What you
think you saw, and where you think you saw it.

He does not believe me either.

I’m feeling a bit chilly now in my running
gear, bare-armed, bare-legged, everyone watching me like I’m an insect under a
microscope.

The kitchen falls silent.

I cup my hands round the hot tea, and wearily
launch into my story again. ‘I went out for my run at about seven – ’

‘Wait, can I just check this? You went running
in the woods?’ DS Carrick asks, his eyes narrowed. ‘Deliberately? On the anniversary
of your mother’s death?’

I glare at him resentfully. ‘Yes.’

Connor seems to get it immediately. Or perhaps
his brother told him on the way here. ‘Like an act of defiance,’ he explains to
the sergeant. ‘Two fingers to the past, and all that.’

I
shoot him a grateful smile.

Tris
is shaking his head disapprovingly. I remember his terse reply to my text.
Don’t.
Not a good idea.

‘Very well.’ But Carrick sounds dubious. More
scribbling in his black notepad. ‘Go on.’

 
‘It
was still misty in places, but I could see it was going to be a sunny day. I
took the lane down to the village, then cut across the fields into the back of
the woods. There was nobody about, but I felt like someone was watching me.’

I
take a sip of my tea. It tastes horrible. Tristan must have put half a cup of
sugar in there.
For the shock
. ‘I
know that probably sounds stupid. But it was like one of my nightmares.’

DS
Carrick looks at me sharply. ‘Nightmares?’

‘I
suffer from bad dreams. Mostly about what happened to my mother.’

‘Still?
After all these years?’

I
shrug, not bothering to reply to that. I could have said,
I’ll never get over it
. But what would be the point?

‘Can you try to describe what you saw in the
woods, Eleanor?’ PC Flynn asks gently, coming to stand behind Tristan.

I stare into my mug of tea, considering that
request. A flurry of images, some blurred, some horribly clear.

‘I
can try.’

I’ve stopped running now. It had to happen sometime. I take another
few steps on the woodland path, then come to an abrupt halt. I can see it
clearly now, the obstacle lying still under the rustle of leaves in the dappled
sunshine. Only it’s not a fallen tree trunk stripped of its bark, as I thought
at first.

It’s a woman.

A naked woman, lying across the woodland path as though she stripped
off there and lay down for a nap. Except she’s not asleep.

I creep forward, expecting at any moment to see the woman jump up
and laugh at me for having fallen for her trick. But then I see how still and
pale she is. Like a woman made of polished wood.

Her hair is tousled, with what appears to be grass caught in it, her
right arm lying stiffly above her head at an angle, face turned away so I can’t
be sure how old she is nor even if I know her. Her skin is like white marble
except for her throat, which is bruised. Dark and livid. That shocks me more
than her nudity.

‘Hello?’

I’m hit again with that terrifying sense of familiarity, of déja-vu.
I stare at the woman, both of us motionless now, me holding my breath, her daring
me to go further. We’re statues in one of those playground games where if you
move, you’re out. Grandma’s Footsteps. Not that she has much chance of losing
this round; she has too great an advantage over the living.

She’s slender, almost flat-chested. Her nipples look discoloured.
Her legs are bent at the knee, slightly drawn up. She’s twisted at the hips
too, one of her bare feet smudged with dirt. The index finger on her
outstretched hand is slightly crooked, pointing at the sky or maybe the stream,
like that portrait of God’s bulbous finger outstretched towards Man on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti. The Creation of
Adam. I remember the first time I saw that painting, thinking how bored Adam looked,
as if he would much rather be somewhere else. Like I would now.

She is younger than I
thought. Early-to-mid twenties, my own age. Gently upturned nose, parted lips
– bare, no lipstick – and her eyes closed, lashes startlingly dark
against the paper-pale skin. Chestnut hair, worn long. Probably
shoulder-length, though it’s hard to tell, because it looks damp and slightly
matted.

What I can see of her throat is horrific: blocks of mottled
bruising, the marks almost overlapping at times, running like a rope-burn all
the way from one side of her throat to the other. Two distinct shapes stand out
on either side.

Thumb marks?

I take another step, and suddenly I see what had been hidden from me
up until that moment.

A digit, marked in thick black pen on her forehead.

The number three.

The bottom curve of the 3
is flatter than the top curve and slightly wonky, as though the writer started
too big and nearly ran into the woman’s eyebrows. It looks like permanent
marker.

There’s another crack of twigs.

I hear a rustling high up on the wooded slopes above me. Like
someone moving through the trees.

I glance up, my breath catching.

Out of the corner of my eye
a dark figure shifts behind a trunk as my head turns. But when I stare, I see
nothing but the haphazard trunks of trees, an empty slope, sunlight on the
leaves.

I plunge through the shallow stream without bothering with the
bridge and head away from the path, charging through the trees, making a hell
of a noise. There’s an old track somewhere ahead through all this undergrowth. Nature
is trying to reclaim it, a strip of deteriorating tarmac seeded with grass and
vast clumps of cow parsley, tinged white for May. But it’s still there.

I find the track, struggle over the locked metal gate that bars the
way, collapse on the other side in the long grass and weeds. I can smell dog
shit somewhere nearby.

I lurch onto hands and knees, head hanging, then crawl to my feet.
Stumble through weeds, sunlight and flies in my face. Somehow I keep running.

‘That’s the one I was telling you about,’ they used to say behind my
back. ‘The one whose mum was murdered in front of her. When she was a little
kid.’