The Killing Woods Read online

  I dreamt she was touching me. I felt her bitten-down fingernails across my stomach. She tasted of sugar, and her tongue darted around my teeth like a fish. Then she was putting me inside her mouth and she was making me warm. I was having her . . . almost. Then I was almost letting go. I dreamt ’til the sunlight heated me up again and a text message beeped beside my ear. I smiled. I was hard from the dream, ripe, ready for her cute words. Perhaps I’d call her and she’d talk low and dirty in my ear. Perhaps she’d remind me what we did last night.

  But it was from Mack.

  I read it anyway. Leaning on to my elbows, I stared at the words for ages. The longer I read them, the more I started to wake up.

  You heard what’s happened? You OK? Come round mate.

  What was he on about?

  Did I do something stupid? Was I that drunk and high? I checked through my other messages, nothing from Ashlee since last night. No reply to the message I just sent her either. Was she in a mood? It wasn’t like her to ignore me for long.

  I frowned. Because there was a word in my brain, coming at me out of nowhere.

  Useless.

  Why?

  Had she called me that last night? Is that how I’d been when we’d been doing it? Too fucked on the drugs to get it up? Too fucked to care?

  In the end I typed to Mack: What you mean? I’m OK. Headache.

  Mack called. His voice was husky and lacking sleep, had an edge. ‘You don’t know anything? No one’s been round to you or . . . nothing like that? The police?’

  ‘Know what? What d’you mean?’

  I heard him breathe in. ‘You don’t know about Ashlee?’

  I was silent. So fucking confused!

  ‘Come round, mate,’ he said. ‘Just come round. We need to work something out.’

  NOW

  3

  Tuesday. October.

  Emily

  Kirsty has today’s paper in her hands. Beth, Jonah and Luke are all crowded around, forming a tight huddle in the schoolyard, shutting me out. And even though Mina is tugging on my arm, trying to pull me on, I don’t let her pull me anywhere.

  ‘C’mon,’ she says. ‘Joe’s saved us a spot in the canteen.’

  But in front of me are my friends, my supposed best friends. They’re not like Mina, who’s just been friendly with me since all this stuff happened with Dad, and they’re not like Joe. I’ve only been tight with Kirsty’s group for about a year, and things have changed for me in school since then: I’ve got popular. Until Dad got arrested, that is, until these last few weeks.

  Now they’re whispering about me. Or about Dad. I can tell this by the way they are standing so close to each other, throwing glances over their shoulders towards me. I can’t just ignore it. They’ll be reading about Dad’s plea and case management hearing, yesterday in the Crown Court. Maybe they’re reading about how the public gallery was almost full, about how everyone expected Dad to plead guilty to the charge of the murder of Ashlee Parker; about how he didn’t. Maybe they’re reading about how Dad entered a plea for manslaughter by reasons of diminished responsibility instead.

  I still remember how Dad’s defence lawyers talked us through all that. ‘He’ll plead manslaughter because of his flashbacks,’ they’d said. ‘Because he doesn’t remember the events of that night, because of his post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  But what do my friends believe? That Dad stalked Ashlee Parker and he meant to kill her? That it was an accident that happened because of a flashback? I want to shake them, tell them that Dad only thinks he killed Ashlee Parker because he can’t remember what really happened. Tell them that if he can’t remember, then maybe he didn’t do it at all.

  Dad’s body was curled from the shoulders as he stood in the dock, head down, eyes not looking at me or Mum or anyone.

  ‘Not guilty of murder,’ he’d said. ‘But guilty of manslaughter by reasons of diminished responsibility.’

  His words had slammed into me like a punch. The first words I’d heard him say for weeks.

  ‘Guilty.’ Mum had whispered the word too.

  There was a film of tears wrapping her eyes. But if Mum felt so awful, why didn’t she tell the judge that she knew Dad couldn’t have done anything? Why didn’t she stop arguing with Dad so much over this past year too, always telling him he had something wrong with his mind and making him believe it? Why did she tell Dad’s lawyers about all the flashbacks he’d had?

  The prosecution barrister had said she needed more time before she could accept whether Dad was mentally unstable enough to commit manslaughter. She said she needed to get her own psychological assessments done. So the case isn’t closed yet. And Dad isn’t sentenced. That gives me some hope. Maybe it shouldn’t.

  I walk forward, shrugging Mina off.

  There’s a way people look when they talk about Dad – their eyes widen, their voices go high-pitched and kind of whispery. I’ve heard this in shops I go into, with the teachers at school. But this is the first time I’ve seen my friends doing it. I focus on the back of Luke’s neck, still tanned from the summer, waiting for someone to look over. I can imagine the headlines: War Damaged Soldier . . . PTSD As Defence . . . Murder Or Manslaughter For Shepherd? Maybe my friends can imagine Dad being a murderer, or a soldier who wanted to keep killing.

  Mina is still trailing after me. ‘Come on, Emily, just ignore them. They’re not worth it!’

  But I thought friends were meant to stick by you whatever happened; I thought Kirsty would.

  I shake my head at Mina. ‘I need to speak to them.’

  A part of me just wants to read the paper they’ve got, but another part has finally had enough of how these friends are being. I want to tell them.

  The whispers start again when I get near. My friends draw away as if I’m a dangerous animal, or a disease they could catch . . . as if they think I’m Dad. I get how people might be wary of me now; I’m not so stupid to ignore how people look at me like I’m a killer’s daughter. But these four people know me, we used to speak all the time. Now they look nervous I’m even approaching. Only Kirsty meets my eyes.

  ‘All right?’ I say.

  It’s the first time I’ve spoken to her since last week, since before Dad’s plea; I hear my voice shake. Her eyes widen like she’s surprised I’ve spoken to her at all. Beth tries to hide the newspaper.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I know what you’re looking at.’

  ‘Why’d you come over, then?’ Kirsty snaps the words back so fast it’s as if she’s slapped me with them.

  I point at the paper in Beth’s hands, not knowing how to explain all these feelings inside me. ‘Do you want to show me too?’

  Do you want to at least talk to me? – This is what I want to add. Do you want to at least pretend I’m your friend?

  Kirsty pushes the front page at my face, but it’s too close to read properly. I catch the words: soldier . . . court adjourned . . . psychological profiling . . . stress disorder . . . combat. It’s all I get before Kirsty snatches it away again.

  ‘Happy?’ she says.

  My breath catches. Happy is about as far from me as it’s possible to be right now. Kirsty doesn’t care. So I just do it – I say the words that have been screaming inside me for weeks now.

  ‘I thought we were friends.’

  I risk glances at the others, wait for them to react and, maybe, to apologise. I’m expecting Beth to go all smiley and sweet like how she used to be with me. I’m waiting for Kirsty, or even Jonah, to flash a grin. And I’m waiting for Luke to hug me again. When I look at him, he flicks his eyes towards mine and his cheeks redden. Only Kirsty keeps holding my gaze, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘Yeah, we were friends, Emily,’ she says slowly, ‘. . . friends until your creepy Dad went and killed Ashlee Parker.’

  I feel the anger rise like it does every time someone says something bad about Dad. Only now it’s worse because it’s Kirsty who’s saying it.

  ‘You weren’t there,’ I s
ay. ‘You don’t know what happened.’

  It’s my stock response and it sounds ridiculous, I know, but I won’t do it . . . I won’t admit my dad’s a killer. I can’t.

  Kirsty’s eyebrows rise. ‘Thank God I wasn’t there . . . to be murdered!’

  ‘His plea is for manslaughter,’ I correct. I can’t believe she’s being so mean. It’s like she’s never been friends with me at all.

  ‘Whatever. Still means he killed someone. They don’t hand out life imprisonment for nothing, do they?’

  I shove Jonah aside so I can get to the paper. Life imprisonment? Jail? Our Family Liaison Officer told us that pleading guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility would mean Dad would end up in a secure psychiatric hospital instead, somewhere he’d be treated for his disorder, where he could get better. I try to grab the paper from Kirsty’s hands, only she holds on to it and it rips, straight through a pencil-line drawing of Dad: an artist’s impression. Kirsty laughs a little and that makes me hate her suddenly.

  ‘Oops,’ she says, ‘. . . torn in two. You’ll have to put the pieces back together.’

  She pushes the bits of paper into my hands and I can see the picture as well as the whole article. I scan for the words life imprisonment, then keep looking at that pencil-line drawing. It’s a mock up of that night – an artist’s representation of Dad carrying Ashlee Parker from the woods. The artist has got it all wrong though, drawn Ashlee with her shirt unbuttoned and her shoes gone, and has made Dad’s pale blue-grey eyes black. No wonder my friends believe Dad’s a murderer. In this picture Dad looks like an angry psychopath.

  ‘Ashlee shouldn’t have been anywhere near that bunker.’ Kirsty’s voice is low, her finger jabbing at the paper. ‘It was nowhere near her route home. Even if she was drunk she wouldn’t have gone that far off track!’

  I bite the inside of my lip, look away. I know all this.

  ‘They’re saying he stalked her,’ she continues, ‘. . . lured her there . . . they say his screwed-up mind isn’t any excuse for what happened.’ Kirsty is jabbing so hard at the paper she’s making it rip more.

  ‘He didn’t do those things.’ I stare at the drawing, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘It’s just the reporters jumping to conclusions . . . making a story.’ I’m repeating Mum’s words now, what she says when I start raising questions. ‘They don’t have any evidence for him stalking Ashlee.’

  Newspaper headlines are screaming in my mind though: Darkwood Hunter . . . Soldier’s Killing Woods . . .Woodland Murder.

  I sense Luke crowding in beside me, looking over my shoulder to the drawing. ‘He’s sick,’ he hisses. ‘Your dad’s sick and twisted.’

  Kirsty chucks the rest of the paper at my feet. I want to pick it up so I can read it all later, slowly, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I want something from her. I don’t want to give this so-called group of friends anything at all.

  ‘Dad’s not convicted,’ I say.

  ‘So, he’s innocent?’ Kirsty raises an eyebrow. ‘He still did it! The number of years in prison – or wherever – won’t change that.’

  I look to Beth for support, but even she is looking at Kirsty. It’s like Kirsty is some sort of gladiator about to whack me in the skull: she’s even enjoying the attention.

  ‘You’re all weirdoes,’ she tells me. ‘I see it now: your freaky dad, your mum, you . . . all hiding out in that creepy bunker in the woods. Just another weird army family.’

  Why aren’t any of the others talking her down? Why isn’t Beth? I want to run, escape somewhere quiet and alone.

  ‘You know, Emily,’ Kirsty adds. ‘They say it runs in families. I’ve heard there’s a murder gene – that once someone in the family has killed a person . . .’

  My face goes hot and I push into her chest, wanting her to shut up. Before I know it she’s falling back towards the grass and her fingers are in my hair taking me with her. She makes an oomph sound as she hits the ground.

  ‘It’s not true!’ I shout. ‘Take that back!’

  But she won’t. She tries to roll on top, maybe to hit me, but I’m suddenly strong – mad with it. I won’t let her.

  She scratches her nails against my cheek instead. ‘Get away from me!’

  I slam her shoulders against the ground. ‘Shut up, then!’

  I force her head back. With her neck tilted like this, she can’t move. I could curl my fingers around her; I could hurt her in the same way she thinks my dad hurt Ashlee. I start breathing harder.

  ‘Get off!’ she shouts.

  I make myself blink, pause. This is Kirsty. One of my best friends. Or was. My heart is beating so hard I’m surprised I’m not shaking. Perhaps I am.

  ‘Freak!’ Kirsty spits the word in my face, punches me like this. ‘Scum family!’

  My fingers tighten in her hair.

  There’s yelling behind me, jolting me back to where we are. I hear Jonah and Luke shouting, but there’s a crowd around us too, people jostling for a view and screaming for a fight. One voice cuts through it all, getting closer. Then someone is grabbing my shoulders, pulling me off Kirsty as easy as if I were a piece of rubbish. That person is dumping me on the ground and, before I can roll away, he’s pinning my arms still, leaning his head right up close to mine.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he growls, his eyes widening as he sees who I am.

  I search for air, gasp. Close up his features are blurred, but I can still make out his copper-coloured eyes, the downward curve of his lips. It’s not because he’s on top of me that the words won’t come. It’s because of who he is.

  Leaning down into me, stopping my fight, is Damon Hilary. Sports prefect. The most beautiful boy in the school.

  Also, Ashlee Parker’s boyfriend.

  4

  Damon

  It’s not this girl’s eyes that are staring back at me, it’s his: Jon Shepherd’s eyes, stuck in this girl’s face. They’re the same blue-grey eyes I saw in court yesterday: the last eyes Ashlee would have ever seen. And they’re waiting, calmly. I want to slam them shut. Make them cry.

  I force myself to look at her properly. Shepherd’s daughter. Knowing what happened in court yesterday, I can guess what she’s been fighting about. Everyone in this school’s got to hate her now. My fingers grip tighter on her jumper. I could shout a million things at her; I could do more than this too. I could make her pay for what happened to Ashlee: an eye for an eye and all that. These eyes for those eyes. That’s fair, isn’t it? But this girl is still staring, still waiting.

  Then I get why.

  I stopped this fight; it’s the first prefect job I’ve done for weeks. It means it’s up to me what happens next, what punishment I give her. For a second I feel so insanely happy about this that I want to laugh. I could do anything to this girl: his girl. And I want to make her feel what Ashlee felt. Hurt her. Punish her. But for a good long moment I can’t do nothing ’cept stare. Her eyes are bigger than his, nicer somehow. Thinking that makes me want to hit them more.

  5

  Emily

  He should hate me. My first thought. Damon Hilary should want to throw his own punches, continue what Kirsty started. No wonder he was the one that stopped this.

  I go limp and watch him, wait. His eyes are very serious on mine. He hasn’t talked to me for a long time, not even yesterday when we’d sat only a few rows apart in the public gallery.

  ‘What’s this about?’ he says, but not in his usual confident prefect voice. ‘Why were you fighting?’

  I can’t answer. He moves off me, goes about as far away as possible while still keeping a hand on my shoulder. Maybe he thinks I’ll go for him, push him like I pushed Kirsty. I wait for him to give me a detention or refer me to the Head with a recommendation for suspension. As prefect, he could do this. I don’t care: suspension is what I want, anyway. At least then I won’t have to listen to people talking about me and Dad. Or perhaps he wants to do something nastier to me and he’s trying
to work out what. It’s me after all, it’s him.

  He takes his eyes off me to glare at everyone else still milling around. Kirsty is standing close, red-faced, she’s trying to tell Damon that I was going to kill her just now. I don’t think he’s really listening, his eyes are drifting around the crowd.

  Freak. Kirsty’s word still hurts.

  Suspension will be good. That way I won’t have to see any of these so-called friends. Perhaps I can get a suspension so I’m away from school when Dad’s next hearing comes up, when the prosecution decide what kind of killer he is. I shiver and Damon’s hand darts away from me.

  He turns to the people standing around. ‘Clear off! Haven’t you got something better to do?’

  His usual strong voice is back, but still no one moves. I know why: Damon Hilary is about to punish the daughter of Jon Shepherd, someone could sell tickets for this. I see Mina then, pushing through the crowd and pulling Joe after her. Joe’s eyes are like an owl’s as he clocks who’s sitting next to me. He doesn’t give me a goofy smile like he normally might, doesn’t move closer to check if I’m OK either. When Damon spots him and glares he even backs off. The crowd gets bigger when Damon’s mates saunter in too – Mack Jenkins, Charlie Jones and Ed Wilkes – the cool, tough boys of the Upper Year. They swagger about so confidently it’s as if Damon’s radioed them in for backup. I feel like I’m in a car crash that everyone’s stopped to gawp at.

  ‘You right, mate?’ Mack calls across.

  Damon tilts his head in the direction of the crowd, makes a face. ‘Help me get rid of these clowns?’

  ‘On it.’

  They go to work, pushing everyone back and saying there’s nothing to see. These boys seem huge compared to everyone else in the lower years, their final-year jumpers making them important. Only Joe stands as tall, but even he hunches down when they get close. No one looks like they want to leave.