In a Dark, Dark Wood

‘I haven’t smoked in years.’ She puts the end to her lips and takes a long drag. ‘God, I’ve missed it.’

‘Why?’ I say again. ‘Why are you here?’

I still can’t make my brain accept what’s happening. Clare is here – therefore she must be the killer. But why, how? There was no way she could have sent that first text – she was the one person in the house who could not have done it.

I should be running. I should be cowering behind the sofa, armed with a bread knife. But I can’t make myself understand this. It’s Clare, my brain keeps insisting. She’s your friend. When she holds out the cigarette to me, I take it, half in a dream, and suck in the smoke, holding it deep until the trembling in my limbs stills and I feel my head get light.

I go to hand it back, and Clare shrugs.

‘Keep it. I can roll another. God it’s cold. Want a tea?’

‘Thanks,’ I say, still in this strange, dreamlike state. Clare is the killer. But she can’t be. I can’t seem to think what to do – and so I take refuge in these strange, automatic social responses.

She gets painfully to her feet and hobbles out into the kitchen, and in a few minutes I hear the click of the kettle and the bubbling hum as it begins to boil.

What should I do?

The roll-up has burnt out, and I set it gently onto the coffee table. There’s no ash tray, but I no longer care.

I shut my eyes, rub my hands over my face, and as I do I get a flash, like a projection against the inside of my lids: James, the blood bright as paint under the lights.

The smell from my dream is still sharp in my nostrils, his hoarse voice is inside my head.

There’s a small sound from the doorway and I see Clare shuffling painfully across with two mugs in her hand. She sets them down and I take one, and she lowers herself to the sofa and pulls a packet of pills from her pocket, and breaks two capsules into the tea, her fingers a little clumsy in their woollen gloves.

‘Painkillers?’ I ask, more for something to say. She nods.

‘Yes. You’re supposed to swallow the capsules whole, but I can’t swallow pills.’ She takes a swig and shudders. ‘Oh God, that’s disgusting. I’m not sure if it’s the pills or if the milk’s gone off.’

I take a gulp of my own. It tastes vile – tea always tastes vile, but this is even more vile than normal. It tastes sour and bitter below the sugar Clare has added – but at least it’s hot.

We sip in silence for a moment, and then I can’t keep quiet any longer.

‘What are you doing here, Clare? How did you get here?’

‘I drove Flo’s car. She lent it to my folks, and they left the keys in my locker for Flo to collect. Only … she never did.’

No. She never did. Because …

Clare looks up. Her eyes over the top of her cup are dilated in the dimness, and they shine. She is so beautiful – even like this, huddled in an old coat, with her face cut and bruised and no make-up on.

‘As for what I’m doing here, I could ask the same about you. What are you doing here?’

‘I came back to try to remember,’ I say.

‘And did you?’ her voice is light, as though we’re talking about what happened in an old episode of Friends.

‘Yes.’ I meet her eyes in the darkness. The mug is hot between my numb hands. ‘I remembered about the shell.’

‘What shell?’ Her face is blank, but there is something in her eyes …

‘The shell in your jacket. I found it, in the pocket of your coat.’

She is shaking her head, and suddenly I find I am angry, very, very angry.

‘Don’t fuck with me, Clare! It was your coat. I know it was. Why would you come back here if not?’

‘Maybe …’ she looks down at the mug and then up at me. ‘Maybe, to protect you from yourself?’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘You don’t remember what happened, do you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The nurses. They talk. Especially when you’re asleep – or might be.’

‘So? So what?’

‘You don’t remember what happened in the forest, do you? In the car?’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘You grabbed the wheel,’ she says softly. ‘You told me you couldn’t live without James, that you’d been fucked-up over him for ten years. You told me that you dreamed about him – that you’d never got over what happened, what he said to you in that text. You drove us off the road, Lee.’

For a second it washes over me like a wave. I feel my cheeks tingle with the shock, as if she’s slapped me – and then it recedes, and I’m left gasping.

Because it’s the truth. As she says it, I get a sharp, agonising flash – hands on the wheel, Clare fighting me like a demon, my nails in her skin.

‘Are you sure you’re remembering this right?’ she says, her voice very gentle. ‘I saw you, Lee. You had your hand on the barrel of the gun. You nudged it towards James.’

For a minute I can’t say anything. I’m sitting here, gasping, my hands gripping the tea cup like it’s a weapon. Then I am shaking my head.

‘No. No, no, no! Why are you here, in that case? Why aren’t you denouncing me to the police?’

‘How do you know,’ she says quietly, ‘that I haven’t already done that?’

Oh my God. I feel weak with horror. I take a long gulp of tea, my teeth chattering at the edge of the mug, and I try to think, try to gather the strands of all this together.

This is not true. Clare is screwing with my head. No sane person would be sitting here drinking tea with a woman who murdered her fiancé and tried to drive their car off the road.

‘The shell,’ I say doggedly. ‘The shell was in your coat.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she says, and there’s a catch in her voice. ‘Please, Lee, I love you. I’m scared for you. Whatever you’ve done—’

I can’t think. My head hurts. I feel so strange, and there’s a vile taste in my mouth. I take another gulp of tea to try to swill it away, but the taste only intensifies.

I shut my eyes and the picture of James swims in front of my closed lids, dying in my arms. Is this the picture that I’m going to see when I close my eyes for the rest of my life?

‘Text …’ he gasps, ‘text, Leo,’ and there is blood in his lungs.

And then suddenly, amid the swimming haze of memories and tangled suspicion – something catches.

I know what James was saying. What he was trying to say.

I put down the mug.

I know what happened. And I know why James had to die.

32

OH MY GOD, I’ve been so stupid. I can’t believe how stupid – for ten years, I never even noticed. I sit there, stock still, running through all the what-ifs – how different everything could have been if I’d only realised what was sitting in front of my face, all those years ago.

‘Lee?’ Clare says. She is looking at me, her face the picture of concern. ‘Lee, are you OK? You look … you don’t look well.’

‘Nora. My name is Nora,’ I say hoarsely.

For ten years. For ten years that fucking text has been engraved on my heart, and I never even noticed.

‘Are you sure?’

‘“Lee”,’ I say to Clare. She takes a gulp of tea and stares at me over the mug, her beautiful, narrow brows drawn into a puzzled frown. ‘“Lee”,’ I repeat, ‘“I’m sorry but this is your problem, not mine. Deal with it. And don’t call me again. J.”’

‘What?’

‘“Lee.”’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘Lee. He never called me Lee. James never called me Lee.’

For a minute she stares at me in utter incomprehension – and I am reminded, all over again, what an amazing actress she was. Is. It shouldn’t have been James on the stage. It should have been Clare. She is amazing.

And then she sets down her tea and gives a rueful grimace. ‘Jesus. It was a long time ago, Lee.’