Chapter 20 Carla
Carla
NOW
I’m about to knock on Iris’s bedroom door again when it opens from the inside.
I take one look at her tear-streaked face and it’s all I can do not to start crying again myself.
Without a word, she stands back, holding the door for me to enter, and closes it behind me.
We sit on her bed. Tentatively, I put my arm around her shoulders.
She doesn’t push me away. Instead, she huddles against me.
‘Iris, you know I love you, right? I always will, no matter what.’ Not a great opening gambit, but I haven’t rehearsed this.
Her head nods into my shoulder. ‘But I can’t help you unless you tell me the truth.
’ I don’t add what I’m thinking. That I’m not sure how much I can help her even if she does tell me the truth.
I wait until she stops sobbing, but when she still doesn’t offer an explanation, I say, ‘Why did you throw your shoes out, Iris? Can you tell me?’
She sits up straighter. ‘I heard what Ian said about the footprint,’ she says.
‘And did you have reason to believe the footprint was yours?’
‘There’s a … a chance it might be.’
‘Because you killed Josh?’
‘No! God, Mum, no! I didn’t kill him. You have to believe me.’
I’d like to believe Iris, but I’m not at all sure that I do. ‘I believe you,’ I say. It’s at least two beats too late, but I don’t think Iris notices. ‘So, why do you think the footprint was yours?’
‘I was there. I found him … his body. In the woods. The day before those blackberry pickers.’
I let this sink in. It’s plausible. Or clever. I turn slightly so I’m facing Iris and study her. Is she making this up? It’s hard to tell. ‘Were you looking for him?’
‘No. Yes. I mean, not really. We used to go running there together. Yvonne was worried. She kept calling me to ask if I knew where he could be. I told her to ask Sasha, but Sasha isn’t into cross-country running.
She wouldn’t know about the trails we used to run along in Buryknoll Wood.
It’s a great place to run, but since Josh …
since we broke up, I hadn’t been back there. ’
Iris’s account is hesitant and she won’t look me in the eye. ‘But you weren’t running the day you found him,’ I say. It’s not a question. She has thrown out her Vans, not her running trainers.
‘No. I thought I’d walk Cheddar. I carried him most of the way, in the end. It was too far for him.’
‘OK. Let me get this straight. You used to run in the woods with Josh. Since you split up, you hadn’t run there, but when he went missing you thought he might be there, so you went looking for him. Is that right?’
‘I wasn’t really looking for him. I wasn’t expecting to find him. I thought if … I told myself … Oh, it’s dumb.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You know how when you, like, fall off a horse, you have to get back on, or when you do a bad dive, you have to climb up onto the diving board and do it again?’
‘Yes.’ I have no idea where Iris is going with this.
‘So, there were things I didn’t do, places I didn’t go to.
After Josh. I didn’t dare. And when Yvonne rang, I sort of got the idea into my head that I had to return to Buryknoll Wood, to prove to myself I could do it.
’ Iris is shaking. Not just her hands, her whole body.
‘At first, I was a bit worried Josh might be there, hiding in the woods or something … maybe to avoid his dad. But then I thought there was no way … he wouldn’t be there, not with all the rain we’d had.
He’d been missing for, like, maybe a week or so at that point.
And I also thought, well, one day I might have to face him, too.
Or at least go somewhere he might be. Like the pub. ’
We used to go to The Grove as a family – Ash, me and the kids – for a meal now and then – it’s just up the road from Mayflower Farm – Ash’s place – but we haven’t been there since Josh started working there.
I think Ash and Ian continued to go there occasionally for a few pints, even though they risked running into him.
‘OK. So you went for a walk in the woods and you found Josh.’
‘Yes.’ Iris begins to cry again. I tighten my grip around her shoulders and put my other hand on her knee. ‘He was … dead. I think he had been dead for some time. He smelt really bad and looked really ugly, like, sort of bruised and swollen.’
I wince at the image Iris’s description has conjured up. ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ I ask. ‘You could have rung Ian. Or me. Or Dad.’
‘Because I thought everyone would think I’d killed him. I wanted him dead, Mum. I wished him dead so many times after what he did to me.’
I nod. ‘I know, sweetie,’ I say. I’ve wished him dead several times, too. ‘Iris, have you told anyone about this?’
‘No. No one. Only you.’
‘So you didn’t touch the body? You left it exactly as you found it?’ It’s only as this question leaves my mouth that I realize what’s going through my head. Am I seriously considering not going to the police with this? We can’t possibly keep this to ourselves.
‘Yeah. No. I mean, I took the necklace.’
‘What?’ My heart stops. Then stutters as it starts up again. Shit! I’d forgotten all about the necklace.
‘That pathetic his-and-her necklace. The wolf one. He was still wearing it. He had no right to wear it after we split up. I took it. I wanted to get rid of it.’
Did Iris leave a fingerprint on the body? Her DNA? If so, how will they find out it’s hers? Can the police swab suspects for DNA even if they’re minors? These questions streak through my mind. I can picture the words; I even visualize the question marks. My heart sinks.
‘Mum?’
‘So you did touch the body.’
‘No! No, I was careful not to. I was really careful not to … you know …’
Evidently, she wasn’t careful enough. She left a footprint at the crime scene.
Tears are coursing down Iris’s cheeks now and she hides her face behind her hands. ‘I used a tissue and pulled it. It came easily. I think the lace must have been a bit broken. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t think it through.’
It’s all credible. On the surface. It’s just that something doesn’t add up.
Iris has changed her story, but is this version any more truthful than the previous one?
What’s the matter with me? This is my daughter.
But that’s just it. I know my daughter. And I can tell when she’s not being honest. She avoids eye contact, has been known to turn on the waterworks – although I think her tears are genuine in this instance – and hesitates as she tries to work out what to say next.
But it’s more than that. Why don’t I believe her?
‘Mum?’ Her voice is small, scared. It reminds me of when she was a little girl and needed reassurance that everything was going to be OK – after a nightmare, or when she was ill, or when she’d fallen out with Millie, as best friends are prone to do from time to time as they grow up.
‘It will all be OK,’ I say, although I don’t believe that either. ‘I’ll talk to your dad, see what he thinks. In the meantime, don’t repeat any of this to anyone. All right?’
She nods. And gives me a hug, which is uncharacteristic for Iris. She grew out of cuddles long ago, much to my disappointment. She’s not as tactile as I am and she thinks I’m too ‘touchy-feely’.
I kiss the top of her head and get up. I feel an almost irrepressible urge to go to Ash, to talk all this through with the one person I can confide in and who loves Iris as much as I do.
He’s the one who brought up the footprint in the first place and an irrational spike of anger rises in me because of this, as if he’s the one who caused the problem.
But Daniel is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. ‘What was all that about?’
I try to tease my face into an innocent expression. ‘All what?’
‘I heard Iris slamming her door and crying. You’ve been crying, too.’ He reaches out with both hands and strokes my cheeks. I must have panda eyes. I put on make-up this morning, for once, before going to Ash’s for the – what would you call it? Interview? Meeting?
I want more than anything to go to Ash. But I can’t tell my partner I’m going round to my ex-husband’s.
For the second time today. And I should be able to confide in my partner.
I sigh, and taking one of his hands in mine, I lead him into the kitchen, where I make sure both doors are closed before I talk to him.
A watered-down version. But the truth. I owe him that much.
He’s my partner and Iris’s stepfather. And I could really use his support.
I sit at the table, but he remains standing.
‘This morning, Ian let something slip as he was leaving. Something about a footprint in the woods, near … um … Joshua Knoll’s body.’ I pause, trying to gauge Daniel’s reaction so far and also work out what to say next.
‘Go on.’
‘Ash told me what Ian had said. I didn’t know Iris had overheard our conversation until just now when I found her shoes in the bin.’
Daniel doesn’t speak for a few seconds, but I can see by his expression that he has joined the dots. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he says. ‘Iris was at the scene of the crime and she is covering up that fact up by getting rid of the evidence. Is that about the gist?’
Instantly, I regret telling him. I warned Iris not to say a word to anyone, and here I am, blatantly disregarding my own advice. His eyes bore into me and I feel like a naughty schoolgirl about to be reprimanded by a teacher. I try to stare him down.
‘I hope you’re going to go to the police with this, Carla.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’ It comes out as a whine.
‘Carla, you have to go to the police.’
That makes me prickly, Daniel telling me what to do. I want him to talk through my options with me. I need him to be on my side, no matter what I decide. ‘If I go to the police, they might think she killed Joshua,’ I point out.
‘Don’t you?’
My stomach nosedives at these words, barely audible as they leave Daniel’s mouth, as if he has tried to filter them, but couldn’t stop them slipping out. How can he think that, let alone say it out loud? I’m aware I’m being hypocritical.
‘Listen, Daniel. Iris found Josh’s body.
She arrived on the scene after he was killed.
Days afterwards. Her presence there might explain the footprint, but it doesn’t point to the murderer.
I don’t want my daughter to suffer any more because of that …
boy.’ I shout the last sentence. So much for closing the kitchen doors so no one would hear us.
Daniel puts his hands on my shoulders and, for a split second, I just want him to hold me. But then I catch the look in his eyes.
‘If you’re not going to report this,’ he says, ‘I can’t stay here.’ He matches me for volume.
‘What?’
‘I can’t allow Margo to be in the same house as someone who may have committed murder and someone else who is harbouring a criminal.’
He’s deadly serious and I can’t get my head round what he’s saying.
‘You don’t really believe …’ But I don’t finish that sentence. Deep down, I still think Iris probably did this. And that’s what Daniel believes too. ‘Don’t you think you’re overreacting?’ I try a different tack and lower my voice. ‘What would you do if it was your daughter, Daniel?’
‘She’s not my daughter, though, is she?’ he says, his face close to mine. I resist the urge to slap it. ‘And I am thinking about my daughter. I’m trying to do what’s right for her. Just like you are with Iris.’
And with those words, he stomps out of the room. I call after him, shout and cry, but then my anger and my voice abandon me, too. Defeated, I sink onto the chair and, my elbows on the table, I cradle my head in my hands.