Iris nodded again. She wished they could get out of here and go far away. Not just up the road to Dad’s place. She wanted to leave this place, leave this country and start over. Some place new where no one knew her. Somewhere she could feel normal. Invisible.
Chapter 20
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?’
