Chapter 7 Carla
Carla
NOW
Crooked Oak Cottage. No wonky trees in the garden, as you might expect if you’re not from around here.
It’s named after the river, although Crooked Oak River does indeed take its name from a gnarled tree that has been leaning precariously for centuries.
Ash and I did up this place when we moved back to North Devon from London.
We were going back to our roots, but it was meant to be a new start.
It was supposed to be a good move, in more ways than one.
But we must have been mad taking on a major DIY project at a time when our marriage was shaky and our kids were so young.
Things capsized fairly quickly between us.
Final nail in the coffin and all that. We put Crooked Oak Cottage on the market, but to say it wasn’t quite finished would be a massive understatement.
It was barely inhabitable and completely unsellable.
So, Ash left; the kids and I stayed. Ash and I got divorced, stopped arguing and, after a while, I continued renovating the cottage.
Even though he no longer lived in it, Ash often gave me a hand.
As well as fixing up the house, we were fixing our relationship, laying the foundations for a solid friendship.
Crooked Oak Cottage is my haven. I love being at home; I love working from home; I’m a homebody.
I used to have a hectic job in London, working as a commissioning editor for one of the big five publishers.
I had a long commute, worked long hours.
I was a workaholic and I was good at my job, but I found it increasingly difficult to juggle my career with motherhood.
I’m still an editor, but I work freelance. I make a decent living. Although I miss my colleagues, I’ve never regretted moving away from London; I’ve never looked back. But today I feel lonely. Threatened. As if my world is slowly but irreversibly falling apart. I can’t wait for Daniel to come home.
I decide to make headway on the edit I’ve been assigned.
I’ve worked with this author before and I usually love her work.
But the words make no sense to me and I can’t get into it.
The manuscript might as well have been written in Chinese.
Or the font switched to Wingdings. After a while, I give up and make myself a bite to eat – a cheese and ham toastie with coleslaw, which I take through to the living room to eat in front of the lunchtime news.
Bloody Joshua. He’s the main story on the regional news. I should have known. My fork, loaded with slaw, stops halfway to my mouth and I lower it to my plate, my appetite washed away, leaving nausea in its wake.
It’s only a short news bulletin. They don’t seem to know much. Either that or they’re not revealing anything at this stage. Even so, I lean forwards on the sofa and hang on to the newscaster’s every word.
‘The death of a man whose body was found in woodland is being treated as suspicious, according to the police,’ he says.
‘The body was discovered by a couple who were picking blackberries in the woods. The man has been formally identified as eighteen-year-old Joshua Knoll, who was first reported missing more than a week ago. He is described as tall, blond and athletic, and he was wearing a navy-blue hoodie, jeans and trainers at the time of his death. Police would like to ask anyone who has any information to come forward.’
A photo of Josh appears on the screen, showing him from the waist up.
It’s at least a few months old because he’s wearing his school blazer but finished his A levels in June.
I stare at his handsome face, into his hazel eyes.
He has been here, to Crooked Oak Cottage – inside my home – countless times.
Always charming, ever polite, with a white, toothy grin affixed to his face, the same one he’s wearing in the picture.
Daniel adored him. They’d bonded over a shared love of football, both fervent Arsenal fans.
They’d drunk lager together as they watched matches on TV, sitting here on this very sofa.
But although initially I’d been delighted to see Iris so happy and radiant, I soon became mistrustful of Josh.
There was something about him that seemed off-kilter.
I became convinced his courteousness was a veneer, and occasionally I caught a glimpse of what hid behind it.
An expression that flashed across his face – blink, and you’d miss it.
A throwaway remark that could have a disturbing undercurrent, depending on how you interpreted it.
Or how he held his chin, tilted slightly upwards, in a way that hinted at a sense of entitlement.
I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about him that bothered me, but I couldn’t muzzle the voice in my head warning me he was bad news.
‘It’s because you think he’s not good enough for your daughter,’ Daniel had said. ‘No one will ever be good enough for our kids. I’ll be the same when Margo starts dating.’ He’d pulled a face. ‘Oh God, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
But it wasn’t that. Olly had had one girlfriend who lasted much longer than the others. Liv. I became very fond of her and I was genuinely gutted when they split up. I thought she was good for him. They went well together, Oliver and Olivia.
I never voiced my doubts about Josh to Iris. Perhaps I should have done.
*
Daniel has barely stepped into the house and closed the front door when it all spews out of my mouth. I don’t even greet him properly – no hello, no kiss, nothing.
‘Joshua Knoll has been found dead in the woods. The police seem to think he may have been murdered.’
‘I know.’ He sighs and gives me a peck on the lips.
He walks past me, pulling his cabin-sized suitcase, and then picks it up and heads up the stairs.
At first, I think he’s being dismissive.
A little spark of irritation flickers inside me, but it fails to catch.
His reaction should probably reassure me.
If Daniel isn’t worried, then perhaps I’ve been overthinking this.
Maybe I’m being paranoid. Why would anyone suspect Iris?
She and Josh split up nearly a year ago.
And she’s had nothing to do with him since he … well, for several months.
‘Can we talk about this later?’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘Give me a chance to get unpacked?’
I see the look he throws me. It’s not dismissiveness. It’s evasiveness.
‘What?’ I demand. I race upstairs after him and follow him into our bedroom.
He swings his case onto our bed. ‘What, Daniel?’ I’m standing with my hands on my hips and I suddenly see myself through his eyes.
I drop my arms to my sides and dial my voice down a notch.
‘How did you know? Did you hear it on the news?’
‘No.’ He plops down on the bed. ‘I spoke to Richard Knoll a few minutes ago.’
I raise my eyebrows. ‘I see,’ I say, although I don’t. Josh’s father and Daniel used to be mates, but their friendship went south alongside Josh and Iris’s relationship, or shortly afterwards. ‘Did you … you didn’t call him, did you?’
‘No. I bumped into him. At the petrol station. Rich … er … Richard … well, he told me. About Josh.’
‘OK.’ I draw out the two syllables. Things are far from OK. It annoys me that Daniel has just called Josh’s father by an abbreviation of his first name. It’s too familiar, too friendly. Richard Knoll is not a friend anymore. Quite the opposite, in fact.
‘Did he … how was he?’
‘How do you think, Carla?’ he barks. ‘He looked like a man whose life has just been turned upside down. He’s lost his son, for Christ’s sake.’
Daniel doesn’t often snap at me. I must look taken aback because he reaches for my hand and pulls me closer to him.
‘Sorry,’ he says when I sit on the bed next to him. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘S’OK. That’s not what I meant, though. I meant, how did he behave towards you?’
A wry smile. ‘He was … irate, shouting. Actually, I thought he was going to deck me.’
That’s not good. The Knolls must already suspect Iris if Richard wanted to punch Daniel. I taste blood in my mouth and realize I’ve been biting my lip.
‘What did he say?’
Daniel doesn’t answer straightaway. I look at him, silently urging him to spit it out. At the same time, I want to take back my question or clap my hand over his mouth. I don’t want to hear his answer.
‘He demanded to know where Iris was on Wednesday the twenty-eighth and Thursday the twenty-ninth of August.’
Presumably Joshua was murdered on one of those days. My heart skips a beat or two, then starts up again, too fast. This confirms what I thought – the Knolls do suspect Iris – but it still hits me.
‘What else did he say?’
‘That Josh was stabbed—’
‘Yes. Jo told me.’
‘—several times.’
‘Richard said Josh had been stabbed several times?’
‘His exact words were “multiple stab wounds”,’ Daniel says.
Another blow, and this time it winds me. Josh was stabbed several times. I repeat Daniel’s words in my head, over and over. And Richard’s: multiple stab wounds.
I turn to look at Daniel, trying to work out what he’s thinking.
But his expression is impassive. I didn’t know Josh had been stabbed more than once.
Somehow, this makes it worse. More violent, if that’s possible.
It can’t be self-defence; it can’t be an accident.
It suggests a frenzy. It smacks of pent-up hatred, vengeance.
I hear Iris’s voice in my head. I hate him, Mum. I wish he was dead. How many times did she repeat those to sentences to me? After every nightmare, after every failed attempt to get her life back on track. I shut out her words.
The Knolls obviously believe Iris killed their son. How long before the police suspect her, too? Iris had every reason to get even with Josh. But I know my daughter. She’s not capable of stabbing anyone. Not several times. Not at all.