In a Dark, Dark Wood

Clare substituted the live round.

Therefore Clare killed James.

But it makes no sense. Clare has no motive – and she is the only person who could not have faked those texts.

I have to think.

The question I keep coming back to is why; why would Clare kill James on the eve of their own wedding?

And then suddenly, with a coldness that’s totally different to the chill in the air, I remember Matt’s words in the hospital. James and Clare were having problems.

I shake it off almost immediately. This is ridiculous. Yes, Clare’s life has to be perfect; yes she has incredibly high standards, but for God’s sake, she’s been dumped before. She held a massive grudge, I know that, because I sat by while she signed Rick’s email up to every porn site and Viagra newsletter she could find. But she sure as hell didn’t kill the bloke.

But there is one big difference.

When Rick dumped Clare, Flo wasn’t in the picture.

I think of Flo’s words, as she sobbed outside the bathroom on the first night: She’s my rock, and I’d do anything for her. Anything.

Anything?

I remember her reaction to me going to bed – the way she’d exploded, accusing me of sabotage. I’ll kill you if you ruin it, she’d promised. I hadn’t taken her seriously. But maybe I should have.

And that was just a hen. What would she do to the man who was planning to leave her best friend at the altar?

And who better to take the fall than the bad ex-friend who stole Clare’s rightful property and then walked away for ten long years.

But now it has all spiralled out of control.

And then I remember the matching clothes Flo was wearing on that last night – and suddenly I realise: what if it wasn’t Clare’s coat on the rail, but Flo’s, and Clare simply picked it up by mistake?

Flo. Flo was the one who picked up the gun.

Flo was the one who told us it wasn’t loaded.

Flo was the person who set this whole thing up, persuaded me to come, arranged the whole thing.

And Flo could have sent that text.

I feel like a web is closing round me, like the more I fight the more I will be tangled in it.

James is dead.

Clare is dying.

Flo is dying.

And somewhere, Nina is in her B&B at breaking point, and she and Tom are facing questions they cannot answer, suspicions they cannot shake.

Please let me wake from this.

I curl up on the sofa on my side, and draw my knees into my chest, the throw tucked around myself. I have to think, I have to decide what to do, but in this confused, exhausted state I find myself going round in circles.

I have a choice: wait here for the police, try to explain my presence, explain about the blank and Flo’s jacket and hope they believe me.

Or I can leave at the crack of dawn, and hope they don’t realise I was here.

But where do I go? To London? To Nina? How will I get away?

The police will find me of course, but it will look better than finding me here.

Almost against my will, I can feel my eyes closing, and my limbs, quivery with tiredness, slowly relaxing, the muscles twitching with exhaustion every few minutes as they loosen into sleep. I cannot think. I will try to work it out tomorrow.

A great yawn comes up from somewhere deep inside, and I realise I have stopped shivering. I let the flip-flops fall off my feet, and realise a thin line of tears is tracing down my cheek from the yawn, but I am too tired to wipe them away.

Oh God, I need to sleep.

I will think about this … tomorrow …

It’s night. It’s the night of the shooting. And I’m crouched in the blazing hallway, bathed in the golden, streaming light and in James’s blood.

The blood is in my nostrils, on my hands, beneath my nails.

He’s looking up at me, his eyes wide and dark, and shining wet.

‘The text …’ he says. His voice is hoarse. ‘Leo …’

I reach out to touch his face – and then suddenly he’s gone, the blood is gone, and the light is gone.

I wake, it’s dark, and my heart is racing in my chest.

For a minute I just lie there, feeling my heart thumping like a drum, trying to work out what has woken me. I can’t hear anything.

But then I turn my head and I notice two things.

The first is that outside the huge plate-glass window to the front of the house, is a dark shape that wasn’t there before. And I’m pretty certain it’s a car.

The second, is that I can hear a sound from the kitchen. It is a slow, juddering, scraping noise.

It’s the sound of a chair being pushed across the slate tiles as someone opens the door.

31

THERE IS SOMEONE in the house.

I sit bolt upright, the throw falling from my shoulders, my heart thumping so high in my throat I feel sick.

For a minute I think about calling out, challenging the intruder. Then I realise I’m insane.

Whoever is here, for whatever reason they’ve come, it’s not a good one. It’s not the police. They wouldn’t come like this in the dead of night, creeping in through the back door. No, there’s only two possibilities: some random burglar has got lucky and discovered the open back door. Or the murderer is here.

I would love for it to be a burglar. Which says something about how fucked-up my life has become – that a random stranger breaking in here in the middle of the night would be the best possible explanation. But I know in my heart of hearts it’s not. The murderer is here. For me.

Very, very carefully, I get up, holding the throw around myself like a shield, as if the soft red wool can protect me.

My one comfort is that the intruder won’t want to put the lights on any more than I do. Maybe in the dark I can evade them, hide, escape.

Fuck. Where do I go?

The windows in here open onto the garden, but I’m sure they’re locked – I tried them from the outside, and I remember Flo locking them that last night. She had a key. I have no idea where it is.

I can hear them in the kitchen. They are walking softly across the tiles.

Two very strong impulses fight within me. The first is to run – run out the door, up the stairs, lock myself in the bathroom – do whatever I can to get away.

The second is to stand and fight.

I am a runner. This is what I do – I run. But sometimes you can’t run any more.

I stand, my fists clenched by my side, my blood a roaring in my ears, my breath a tearing in my throat. Flight or fight. Flight or fight. Flight or—

Shoes crunch on the glass in the hallway. And then they stop.

I know the murderer is there, listening – listening for me. I hold my breath.

And then the living-room door swings wide.

Someone is standing in the frame, and I cannot see who it is. In the dimness all I can see is a shape, black against the reflecting steel of the front door.

It could be anyone – they’re huddled in a coat, and their face is hidden by the shadows. But then the figure moves, and I see the glint of blonde hair.

‘Hello Flo,’ I say, my throat so tight I can barely speak.

And then she laughs.

She laughs and laughs, and for a long moment I have no idea why.

She moves, still smiling, into a strip of moonlight, her feet crunching on glass.

And I understand.

Because it’s not Flo.

It’s Clare.

She’s holding herself up against the wall, and I realise that she’s as frail as me. Maybe she wasn’t as ill as she pretended when I saw her in the hospital, but she’s ill all right. She holds herself like someone twice her age, like she’s been beaten bloody and has only half healed.

‘Why did you come back,’ she manages at last. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave it?’

‘Clare?’ I croak. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

She feels her way slowly to the sofa and then sinks down with a groan. In the thin, cloud-muted moonlight she looks awful – worse than me. Her face is cut and there’s a huge swollen bruise on one side of her forehead, black in the pale light.

‘Clare – why?’

I can’t make sense of this.

She says nothing. Nina’s rolling tobacco is on the table, along with Rizlas, and she reaches for them, painfully, with a little gasp of relief as she sinks back into the cushions, and begins slowly, painstakingly, to roll up. She is wearing gloves, but in spite of that her hands are shaking, and she spills the tobacco twice before she lights up.