One Night (7 page)

Till this moment I hadn’t uttered a
sound. And now, in the indifferent silence, there was no one to hear. I slid
slowly to my knees. The extraordinary stillness of death was almost incomprehensible.
There should have been a prick of light in the eyes, the vestige of a smile;
not this empty stare and undignified contortion of inert limbs.

The utter detachment of the utterly
dead.

Save for the clotted raw-red wire
at her neck which shouted:
This is what happened!

Misery, the colour of lead, began
to claw at me.

Jake had been right. Brent had made
his escape.

But he had made sure Mona would
never leave.

12PM

I don’t know how long I knelt there. Shock clenched like a fist in my
stomach and wouldn’t let go. My throat plugged with a painful dry-heave of
tears that wouldn’t come. Nausea came on a rollercoaster ride of wrenching pity
as much as disgust and grief.

Mona.

Her name swarmed in my head.

Mona who had always told me to take
care; who had bemoaned my wet hair in the rain; had helped me with just about
every school project; written my sick notes when I had bunked school. Mona. Always
Mona. Caring, kind Mona on the lookout for the wounded and the slow. Mona with her
useless bits of information on global warming, healthy eating, the bacterial
cities that live in your eyelashes; who could bore you stiff with arguments on
nuclear energy and paper waste, but capture your attention with the intensity
of her eyes and those slender, pale hands waving eloquently as she emphasized a
point.

A friend who, in a heartbeat, would
be at your side if you were in trouble.

A sound broke from me.

I should have told her he was no
good…I should have stopped her…I should have done more to save her…

Uncontrollable sobs finally
overwhelmed me.

A noise other than my own brought me out of my storm of weeping. The back door had
creaked shut. I stumbled to my feet, tottering into the dark chaos of the yard.
The light above the back door drew me like a moth but I was moving on auto. I
had to get my phone. I had to phone the police. Jake would understand.

I opened the back door. Shut it
behind me. My hands were trembling so much I could hardly clip the lock, shoot
the bolt. I crossed the room, closed, relocked the front door. Sticky was
standing on the couch. His look was understandably questioning.

‘You stay, boy. Stay, ok?’ My voice
issued thin as a wisp of smoke.

I picked up the key from the fruit
bowl, ran to the bedroom door, opened it.

The room was empty. Jake had gone.

I was stupefied. He must have heard the girl screaming. His clothes were missing
from the floor. I looked to the small open window and the leafy tangle of the
woods only a few feet away. Was he still there, hiding? I ran to the window and
peered out. On this side of the cottage he would have had to jump a few feet
into the foliage. Hoarsely, stupidly, I whispered, ‘Jake? Are you there?’ There
was a mocking stillness under the trees. What a fool. Of course he’d gone.
Neither Max nor Rod looked like the kind of people you’d want to run into.
Maybe I could understand Jake’s discretion under the circumstances, but he had
taken my phone!

I swung back to the rumpled bed,
swept a hand under the pillows. Nothing. He’d
promised
…

Despair overwhelmed me. I sat on
the bed, my heart racing, my hair soaked with sweat. I knew I had to get to the
police. My eye fell on a photograph in a silver stand frame beside the bed. A
shiver ran through me.
Mona.
Leaning on the bonnet of a car, smiling
into the camera, dark eyes direct, her pose provocative, one leg lifted, toes
pointing over the headlight. I stared at it with that terrible ache of loss
when you know you can never recapture a moment of connection with someone as
familiar as your own face in the mirror. I picked up the picture, clenching the
frame in my hands until my palms hurt. My gaze riveted.

The curve of her leg framed the
registration number. AA10TOP.

My heart seemed to stop. A silver
grey VW with the same registration as the one I had passed on the road earlier
this evening, its bonnet in the air. Brent’s car.

If he’d been stuck on the road and
never gotten away, then could it be…did that mean…

My chest squeezed shut.

Was he was still here?

I ran back to the living room, dithering. I grabbed my jacket off the back of a
chair, took a rather expensive-looking throw off the back of the couch and
threw it over Sticky, figuring warmth would keep him quiet.

‘You stay, boy, you hear? Stay.’

I looked for my car keys.

Then I remembered.

They were upstairs with my bag.

I ran. Slowed, one foot on the
first step.

From above came the distinctive
creak of old wood.

I strained to listen, blood
thrumming in my ears.

The stillness was acute. The waxy
cold imprint of the forest had entered the cottage. The lights still glowed,
the curtains were drawn, the doors locked – but the cold breath of night
pressed through every crack as though at any moment it would snuff out the
light and take clammy possession.

I couldn’t breathe.

The creak came again, surreptitious,
unmistakable.

Someone was upstairs.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to turn and race for the kitchen. I grabbed the
torch from the fruit bowl and ran for the front door. I had to get out. I
didn’t know who was upstairs, but whoever it was, had been keeping mighty quiet.
Didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know this wasn’t good. And Sticky was
unruffled – which meant he must know who it was…

I would have to find the nearest
house…other people. Would have to
run.

But my legs were rubber, my hands
fat-fingered. I could hardly turn the key, slack the bolt. Pain ricked up my
spine as muscles contracted with fear. I had to get out!

I fumbled at the door, felt it give,
didn’t dare look around to see who might be emerging from the room upstairs. I
pulled the door open, flung myself out, nearly falling spread-eagled onto the
bonnet of my car, cursing the fact I hadn’t kept my keys with me. I dragged
upright. Using the light from the front of the cottage as a guide, I stumbled
up the drive. At a safe distance, I turned on the torch.

Peering desperately into its funnel
of white light along the track, I ran.

Part 3

Small Hours

1
AM

The loudest sound was my breathing, it outplayed the crunch of my feet on
the gravel. It was like driving on a dark road with only the short space ahead
of you lit up by the headlights. Beyond that was a disorientating void of dark matter;
the ground could sway to vertical and I would still be running. The lonely dark
made its own terror. Should I have rather faced the intruder in the warm light
of the cottage? Out here, I was an isolated speck in the black night, vulnerable
and traceable as a firefly.

I pulled into the bank of trees to
the side of the road and switched off the torch. There was a dank silence. The smell
of damp soil and autumnal leaves was overlaid by the sharp tang of resin. In
daylight this would have been a green wood, patched by the skylight shafts of
sunlight. Now it exuded a deathly hush. Trees were defined in crooked black lines
in navy depths, branches stretched in spidery ambush; all the mystery of the
woods after dark: the legends of Sleepy Hollow, the werewolf and the vampire.

I fought to slow my breathing, eyes
adjusting.

Something was moving, a rustle, a
shadow.

I hung back.

Moonlight traced through a veil of
cloud and lent a metallic sheen to the road. But under the trees the darkness
was almost complete.

The sound came again, crackling
through the undergrowth. For a moment I lost my bearings because it wasn’t
coming from behind me, but ahead. Someone was making their way
towards
the cottage.

I slunk behind a tree and stared into
the dark.

A white blur moved above the foliage.
There was a heavy clunk sound as something knocked against a tree trunk. Someone
was keeping to the shadows but not keeping very quiet.

I pressed up against the tree, hardly
breathing.

There was a touch on my shoulder. My
skin seemed to shrink with fright. I fell forwards into the damp undergrowth,
black soil squeezing up between my fingers. As I twisted to face whoever was
behind me, a hand loomed out of the dark. Frantically, I rolled sideways, landing
on the edge of the gravel road. The moon had brightened in an empty patch of
sky. The road lay visible, flanked by the forest. I scrambled to my feet.

Brent Sedgeworth was standing a few
feet away, his blonde hair colourless in the monotone light, pale eyes intent.

‘Casey – ’ he said.

I was trembling from head to toe. My
voice when it came was like a scattering of gravel in my mouth. ‘You fuck off.’
It sounded like
yafugiff.

His eyes slid around me as though
he was looking for a patch of bare skin. ‘Where are you going?’

‘You bastard!’ I spat, powered by pure
terror. ‘You fucking bastard!’

His eyes remained steady as though
my reaction was entirely anticipated. ‘You running for the police?’

‘I just found Mona’s dead body!’

Quietly, as though he had to mark
this statement with utmost respect, he responded, ‘I know.’

‘You killed her!’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s the irony.
I didn’t kill her.’ He was watching me as though I was an unexploded bomb. He
eased forward. Gravel shifted in an ominous crunch under his shoe.

Fright and anger tore like double
blades in my heart. I blurted, ‘Mona found out about you, didn’t she? Confronted
you. Threatened to blow your can of worms right open.’

He cocked his head. I had let him
know I knew a little bit more about him than he would have liked. I wondered whether
I had made a mistake – whether I should thank Jake for his information or not.

Unnerved by his silence, I gabbled
on: ‘You had to give her that cock and bull story about being away for one
night. Where were you going? What were you planning? Then Sticky broke his leg
and you had to let her phone me. What happened? Did you have a row? Did she
refuse to go in the end? Did she leave you with no choice but to kill her here
and bury the body in the woods? You even wrote a note to let me think she’d
gone away happily with you. Where’ve you been all evening? Digging the grave?’

His intake of breath was sharp. ‘You
want the truth? I thought Mona had left and taken my car. I was about to leave
in hers when you rocked up. Nice parking, baby shoes.’

I felt disorientated. What was he
talking about? ‘You’ve been here all along? Since I arrived?’

‘No, I left. Shanks pony. I walked
away. You were the last person I needed in my life. Then I found my car on the
road. I thought that was poetic justice. Mona hadn’t gotten very far. So I went
to Wally Bunting and we managed to get the damn thing to his work yard. That’s
where I was. Then I came back to see if she – if Mona – had come back. And I
saw Max and Ron – ’ he paused. He effected an expression I couldn’t read. On a
gruff note, he went on, ‘I saw what you found in the shed. Mona never ran away.
Bunting’s bastard brother must have got her! That twisted piece of shit must
have attacked and killed her while I was with his brother this afternoon.’

There was a plausible note of
dismay in his voice. The Bunting name had been thrown in with casual assurance:
Wally, the nutcase who threw cricket balls at potential trespassers and his even
worse nutcase brother, Matthew, who had escaped from an
institution
. The
perfect duo to take the blame for murder.

I was silent, confused. This was
too clever, too slick. His play for innocence too easy. Had he seen Jake Adler?
Had he known his old friend was out for revenge? Did it matter? I was prime
witness, the only person who could connect the dots he’d hoped to erase. Fear
shook me. The ground seemed suddenly unsteady, a vertiginous sway in the dark.
I knew what he must be planning.

‘You thought – ’ I stabbed a finger
at him ‘ – you thought nobody would find the body for a very long time.’

He turned his head. ‘Is that what
you’re planning to tell the police? I
knew
you’d made up your mind that
I’d killed her.’

I knew then why he had come after
me. His face was a mask of moon-shadow, hardly definable. He could easily
commit one murder to hide another. Loathing seeped through me, sucking up fright.

‘So what do you do now, Brent? Two
dead bodies? Always better than one.’

He snickered unpleasantly. ‘You
know I actually preferred you to Mona. Always an argument. Those dark,
accusatory eyes. Oh, you were a turn-on, little Casey! Did you know? Did you
think about it?’

I felt sick. There was no point in
trying to run. That lithe, powerful body would overtake me in a few seconds. Did
he have a knife, a gun? I had to keep him talking. While he was talking, I
could think…

‘How did Mona find out, Brent? I
bet it was months before she started getting really difficult. And yesterday
morning, before she phoned me, you must have persuaded her one last time to
believe in you, to help you put something right. But it was too late. She was
unhappy, on a knife edge of rebelling. And you couldn’t let that happen. Because
now she knew too much about you.’

His eyes narrowed, watching me. I
eased back one step. Surprise would be my only advantage. And the dark woods…

‘What happened, Brent? After the
phone call? It was too late then. I was already on my way up here. I’m the real
loose thread in the plot, aren’t I?’