What We Saw

Chapter Nine

I woke up with a weight deep in my tummy. I wanted to get out of bed and throw up. The sickness gnawed at my stomach. Even the thought of Coco Pops made my stomach turn. I tried to divert my thoughts but different images shot into my head. The embrace between Granddad and Donald. Warm and tight, but strange.

Granddad had already left again to search for Carla when we got up. He’d go deep into the woods, much further than my cousin and I would now dare. Granddad seemed immune to the horrors of what lurked inside that place. I wondered if Adam or I would be quite so confident one day. But then again, I wondered if Granddad had ever seen someone he trusted burying a body before.

Emily visited early again, much to our disappointment. We were still shell-shocked from the events of yesterday.

Adam rolled his eyes as she arrived at the door. I wanted to get outside. Being in the same place for too long made me cagey.

‘Do we have to deal with her?’ Adam asked.

I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Hey, she’s our friend, cuz. We need to remember that.’

Adam pulled away and walked towards the door. ‘Well, you can be the one to tell her,’ he said, as he turned the handle and greeted her with a cold stare.

We hung around outside. The sky looked even greyer today.

‘Good day yesterday?’ Emily asked, smiling and desperate for conversation.

Adam grunted as he slouched his head into his hands.

I intervened. ‘Yeah… yeah we’ve been alright, Emily. You?’

Emily looked at me, then turned to Adam. ‘Is he alright?’ she mouthed, as he rolled his head in his palms.

I nodded fast, dismissing Emily’s concern.

‘Well… I’ve been okay, thanks. Went into the village with my parents. Saw some old friends. They’ve got a really awesome trampoline. You should both come along some time. Would you be up for that, Adam?’

Adam grunted again. ‘Whatever.’

‘I’m starting to think you’ve gone off me, Adam,’ she said, sucking her fringe like a lolly.

Adam shrugged. His nose twitched at the sides.

‘We’ve been tired, Emily,’ I said. ‘Real tired.’

Emily stood up and kicked the football towards the hand-built wall at the back of the garden, robbing the ball of what little air it had left in its lungs. She curled her mouth to the side and let out a sigh. ‘I’ve been tired, too, but I still find time to come see you. I mean, you’ve not been to the den for days. I’m starting to think you’re fed up with me.’

The ball fell at Adam’s feet, and he smacked it towards the wall, where it bounced back and hit Emily on the leg.

‘Geez, what’s up with grumpy over here?’ she asked.

I tried to answer. ‘We, we’ve just had a tough few days, family things, you kno—’

‘Yeah, and seeing your ugly mug first thing every frigging morning doesn’t exactly help,’ Adam said.

Adam’s words stung me. My throat wanted to shout at him, but I held myself back. I didn’t like using family matters as an excuse, but I had the situation under control without him butting in. ‘Sorry Emily, he’s just…’

Emily’s eyes watered as she blinked her eyes and rubbed her arms. ‘No. It’s alright. I’ll go now.’ Her voice crackled, and she walked off, heavy-footed.

Adam perched against the wall, his arms folded. He gritted his teeth before spitting a green blob on the floor. It was a good job Gran hadn’t seen him because she’d go mad. Behind wearing his piercing, spitting was the one thing she hated the most.

I glanced up at Emily and noticed another bruise. On her arm again, but in a different place this time, like a tattoo wrapped around her wrist. It looked as if something had been wrapped around her, hard, which was strange, because it didn’t look like the sort of bruise you’d get if you’d fallen over. I remembered her dad grabbing her the other day, pulling her away from the den. Had he accidentally pulled a little hard or held too tight? Sometimes Granddad was too tight with his handshakes, so it was an easy enough mistake to make. Emily’s eyes met mine as she covered her left wrist with her right hand. She turned away and walked off down the road, back towards her caravan. I wanted to call for her or to walk after her and ask her if everything was okay, but I couldn’t.

Adam sat sour-faced against the wall.

‘Nice one, Ad, real nice one,’ I said.

He looked up at me as he perched against the wall. ‘We don’t need her right now. She’ll only slow us down. We’ve got to work out what to do about what we saw. About Donald and the body.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘But nothing,’ Adam said, rising from the wall. ‘Just because you fancy her doesn’t mean you have to drag her into everything. She can’t know about this. She’ll only go crying to her mum or her soft dad.’

I remembered the way Emily’s dad clutched at her arm. He seemed anything but soft in that moment.

The two of us kicked the ball around for a while, unable to muster up the courage to go and see Donald, just in case he had seen us. It was bizarre that we hadn’t seen him walk past over the last few days. He often patrolled the caravan site and waved as he wandered along outside our front window.

But all had gone quiet. I thought about Donald and the way he was with Carla.

‘You don’t think that Donald has something to do with Carla’s disappearance, do you?’ The words splurged out of my mouth without much consideration.

Adam bit hard into his lip, the pink flyaway football bouncing towards the wall and onto a family of woodlice. ‘Why would he?’

‘It’s just… I dunno. With him burying… y’know. Maybe he’s done something to her.’

More of Adam’s lip gave way to his teeth, digging into his flesh. He curled his eyebrows inwards.

‘Adam, I really think we should say something to someone.’

Adam tutted. ‘We’ve been through this,’ he said. ‘We can’t. It’s not worth the bother. It might get us into more trouble. It’s our mystery.’

The last words made my stomach sink. It was still just ‘our mystery’ to him. I wanted to solve this mystery too, but I understood the weight of the situation. I don’t know if Adam really did.

I was about to say something when Adam flicked his head in the direction of the caravan door behind me. I turned round to see Granddad stood on the steps, watching us kick the ball around.

‘I’ll be off for a walk at five-ish. Have another look for Carla, I think. You boys want to come along?’ he asked.

‘Sure, we’ll help,’ I said, smiling as Adam muttered something inaudible and booted the ball against the wall repeatedly. Going out to look for her at the time that she was used to eating her food was probably the most logical choice. If she was starving, she’d find her way back, my Gran said. I wasn’t sure whether she said this to try and keep us all smiling or whether she genuinely believed it. Although she did say once that she didn’t like rumours. Probably something to do with God.

I wasn’t sure I shared her optimism, and I’m not sure Granddad did either. But he kept on walking, every morning and every night, hoping to find her chewing a rabbit or running towards him with yet another golf ball in her mouth.

When Granddad headed back inside, Adam stopped booting the ball and turned back to face me. ‘We don’t mention things to anyone yet, cuz,’ he said. ‘Not Emily, not anyone.’

‘But—’

Adam interrupted. ‘No, bringing Emily in is unfair to her. It makes things more complicated.’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I guess you’re right,’ I said. I wasn’t sure whether Adam’s idea of ‘fair’ was the same as mine, though. I was more worried about how Emily would react to hearing what we’d seen than about things getting complicated or not. I decided not to ask Adam what he meant.

‘Course I’m right,’ Adam said. ‘It’s our mystery.’ He booted the ball into the hedge and flicked a smile in my direction.

After football we played some Nintendo for a while. It was a shooting game. I was the cop. While we played, I wondered how I could be so cool about the whole thing, so detached. If things got really bad, we could always tell the police. That was always an option. But right now it was our mystery.

‘Righto, lads, I’m heading off. If you’re not ready, tough,’ Granddad called from the living room.

‘Keep your voice down, Dean, unless you want everyone to hear you,’ Gran said.

Adam and I emerged from the bedroom. The familiar tang of Gran’s spicy microwave lasagne was thick in the air. I put my scruffy trainers on while Adam slipped on his Nikes—one of the last things his parents had ever bought for him. How could he wear them all the time, knowing that fact? I never said anything to him about it though. The last time Granddad mentioned something about his shoes to him, Adam flipped.

‘I don’t care—just let me wear what I want. They’re my feet, not yours.’

The bickering was a regular thing, but it was to be expected. Adam was young and had just lost his parents. The way they’d gone wasn’t nice. It was strange hearing about the incident on the news, and it must have been especially strange for Adam after being thrust into living with two grandparents he’d previously had no real chance to bond with. It was new territory for him, and as hard as my situation was, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for Adam. I still had the choice of seeing both my parents, for now. He’d never get that choice again.

We left Gran in the kitchen. As we walked across the grey stones of our driveway, I wondered how Gran kept herself entertained. Adam and I might have had to deal with witnessing a girl being buried, but at least we didn’t have to wash up all the time or do a crossword with loads of big words that didn’t really make much sense. It wasn’t like there was even a big prize or anything, not that Gran had ever won. She always sent off her finished crossword with the hope that she’d get a reward tumbling through the letterbox one day, but that never seemed to happen.

Adam stormed ahead down the road past Mrs. Stevens’ caravan. I jogged forward and caught up with him. ‘Slow down, Ad. We don’t want Granddad suspecting we’re up to anything.’

‘I’m just a fast walker.’

‘I know, but we need Granddad to think we’re just here to look for Carla with him. He can’t suspect anything. Not yet.’

Adam soon saw sense and staggered back towards Granddad, holding his head down.

‘I was worried you were gonna leave me trailing behind for a sec,’ Granddad said. Although he was well into his seventies, he was quite a fast walker, not like some of the other old people around the area. Kenny, whose caravan was on the road parallel to ours, used to be the one man we’d try our best to avoid, mainly because he slowed us all down. Even Granddad got a bit of a jog on at the sight of him stepping out of his drive. I remember once, when I was here without Adam, a walk that should’ve taken twenty minutes ended up lasting a whole hour because of Kenny. Even Carla got frustrated. Kenny was nice, though. He had a lot of garden features and cut hedges into weird shapes like dolphins. He took real good care of his garden.

The three of us soon reached the place where the road met the steps, spiralling down to the wasteground. We could see the road of Emily’s caravan, Donald’s caravan on the road parallel, and his cabin just inside the entrance of the woods. Goosebumps crept up my neck as I looked towards the woods. Seeing the woods and the cabin and being out here again—it made it all so real.

As we walked past Emily’s caravan, I noticed her mum outside, cigarette in mouth. She fidgeted with her hair and her hands. She had small eyes and big pointy cheekbones, and she didn’t spend much time outside the caravan. Although I’d met her a few times, I sometimes wondered if she even recognised either of us at all. She half-smiled at us before shuffling up the step, her weedy arms pulling the caravan door open. She threw her cigarette to the floor and shuddered in every direction, her eyes looking all around her.

She stamped out the cigarette and disappeared through the door.

I thought I saw the curtain at the back of the caravan move, but then again, that could’ve just been my eyes.

Donald’s cabin stared down at us like a cat watching a mouse from a distance. Perhaps something inside that cabin could lead us to the root of the secret.

Adam frowned towards the cabin and then in the general direction of Donald’s caravan. What exactly were we hoping to discover? We were so set on uncovering some big mystery that we hadn’t even taken the time to talk about what exactly it was we were looking to find out.

I took a mental note of the cabin, remembering to mention to Adam later that we should try to investigate it one way or another. Judging by the look on his face, totally focused and unbroken, I figured he probably had the same idea anyway.

Granddad didn’t say too much, which was probably for the best. Everything he did say seemed to get on Adam’s nerves.

‘So, do you boys not go play in that ‘play-den’ of yours anymore?’ he asked.

Adam turned his nose up. ‘It’s not a ‘play-den’ and we don’t play in it. It’s an office, where we work.’

Granddad rolled his eyes. ‘Oh I’m sorry, your office. Have you not done any work in there lately? You lads seem to always be around the van these days. And Emily too—you don’t see her as much. You haven’t fallen out have you?’

Neither me or Adam were in a mood for small talk, but I smiled at Granddad and shook my head. He did raise a good point though. We hadn’t been to our den in days. In fact, I’d managed to walk past it without even realising it.

There were more important things at hand right now. The only thing that mattered was the dead girl.

*

We spent a good half hour following Granddad through the woods, but there was no sign of Carla. I flinched at every movement in the woods, and Adam’s eyes scanned the trees reluctantly. We turned around and headed out from the trees when I saw Donald’s road up ahead. Hopefully we could get back to the caravan before we ran into him.

‘We’ll head this way, boys,’ Granddad said, gesturing towards the top path.

My chest tightened. Donald’s road.

‘But… can’t we just go the normal way?’ I asked. My throat itched. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to confront Donald anymore.

Granddad squished his eyebrows together and looked at me, smiling. ‘What’s got into you? We’ll head this way. See if anyone’s seen any sign of Carla.’

My heart began to pound again. I looked at Adam, whose eyes gaped. He nodded. Deep breath. I had to keep my cool. Calm it, Liam.

We turned the corner onto Donald’s road, and of course, there he was. He sat on his knees, squeezing a soapy sponge up against his car. His glasses balanced on his nose, and his head tilted downwards, hiding those eyes.

As we walked past, I begged Granddad not to say anything. Just keep walking. Just keep walking.

‘Evening, Mr. Stanton,’ Granddad said. My stomach sank, and Adam’s eyes shifted towards the ground.

Donald raised his head, his hand partially submerged in the bucket of soapy water in front of him, some of which had splashed onto his mould-green fleece. I realised Adam had stopped walking completely. I ground to a halt like a car running out of fuel.

I waited for his eyes to meet mine. I waited for that look. The look of understanding. That warning look to stay well away or we’d end up sleeping with the rotting animals and the ants and the dead girl. My hands twitched by my side.

The look never came.

Donald rose to his feet and paced towards us, his eyes dancing between the three of us with no real focus point. There was no malice and no venom on his face.

‘Hello, Dean. And hello, boys,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, soap dripping towards the ground. ‘I haven’t seen you in days. Where the devil have you been?’

I tried to look towards Adam, but my neck wouldn’t let me. I froze on the spot. I wanted to let it all out at him, right there. I wanted to stare in his eyes and tell him everything we had seen. The digging. The greying skin of her body. Her eyes. His eyes. I wanted so much to tell Granddad right there and for him to believe us and phone the police. It’d be like Scooby Doo, when the baddie always blasted the ‘meddling kids’ at the end. Scooby and Shaggy would just smirk. I wanted to be able to smirk.

‘We’re good, thanks. Been busy putting a few cases together at the caravan so haven’t been out much.’

I blinked as I turned to look at Adam. My mind raced. The words sounded foreign as they left Adam’s mouth. He stood with his shoulders out wide, looking directly into Donald’s eyes. How he could be so cool after what we’d seen?

‘Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you all out and about more often now you’ve cracked your case, eh?’ Donald said, looking in my direction with a half-smile on his face, hunting for approval.

‘Yeah, probably,’ I said. ‘Like Adam said. Just been—just been a bit busy. Y’know, solving things.’ Every word sounded croaky as it left my throat.

‘When they say solving things, they mean booting that old ball against the wall and conspiring,’ Granddad interrupted with a cynical grin.

‘We were all that age once I suppose, eh Dean?’ Donald sniggered.

‘This lot are so lucky with their Playboxes and GameStations. We had to go out and make a living right from the primary school days. Wasn’t any mystery solving for us on a Saturday afternoon.’

‘Speak for yourself, old man!’

Granddad laughed. ‘Cheeky so and so! Right, come on boys, we’ve got a runaway dog to find.’

‘Still no sign of her, eh?’ Donald asked.

‘Not even a trace. It’s almost as if she’s completely vanished. Anne holds out hopes that she’ll still turn up, but I’m not too sure myself.’

Adam punched Granddad in the top of his leg. ‘She will turn up, one way or another,’ he said, before looking intently in Donald’s direction. ‘We’ll find her, if it’s the last thing we do.’

*

Back at the caravan, I still couldn’t quite get my head round the exchange between Granddad and Donald. The two of them chatted, joked, and laughed like old friends. Adam had managed to keep his cool, manoeuvring his way out of a potentially sticky situation. And what had I done? Stood still, almost blowing our cover completely.

I sat on the edge of the sofa and looked up at my granddad. He had his huge reading glasses on; the ones that made my eyes go all blurry when I tried them on. Adam put them on once trying to do his best impression of his head teacher, but Granddad wasn’t pleased. Adam’s dad found it funny. I didn’t see his dad much but when I did he laughed at a lot of things that adults didn’t usually find funny. I wondered if he was odd and had some sort of condition, and maybe that’s why he’d killed himself. Otherwise, he seemed a pretty happy man. He had a nice wife and a kid. Plus, why would anyone want to be dead?

I thought about the girl.

Her skin stuck in my head like an eel that had lost its colour, specks of dirt scattered around like mouldy chewing gum on a pavement.

Her eyes. Big, beautiful, and dead.

I wondered if Adam’s parents’ eyes were the same when they let the water hit the bottom of their lungs or whether they’d closed them. I think if I knew I was going to die, I’d close my eyes. I wouldn’t want to leave a mark on anyone who saw me, like the girl had with us.