In A Dark, Dark Wood Part 12

'Am I OK?'

'Yes, nothing broken.' She has a pleasant Northumberland burr. 'But you've knocked your poor face something awful. You've got a couple of beautiful black eyes but no fractures. But that's why I had to wake you. We have to do observations every few hours, just to make sure you've not had a funny turn in the night.'

'I was asleep,' I say stupidly, and then rub my face. It hurts as if I've headb.u.t.ted a window.

'Careful now,' the nurse says. 'You've got a few cuts and bruises.'

I rub my feet, feeling the grime and grit and blood. I feel disgusting. I need a pee.

'Can I have a shower?' I ask. My head feels bleary.

There is an ensuite in the corner of the room, I can see. The nurse looks down at the chart at the foot of the bed. 'Let me ask the doctor. I'm not telling you no, but I'd like to just make sure.'

She turns to go, and I catch sight of the silhouette outside the door, and it comes back to me: the conversation I heard last night. It has a nightmarish quality. Was it really true? Did I really hear what I thought I heard, or did I dream it?

'Wait,' I say. 'Wait, last night I heard the people outside-'

But she's gone already, the door flapping back behind her with a gust of food smells and sounds from the corridor. As she walks out the policewoman outside catches at her arm and I hear a burst of conversation, and see the nurse shaking her head emphatically. 'Not yet,' I hear, '... permission from the doctor ... have to wait.'

'I don't think you appreciate,' the policewoman's voice is low but her tones are clipped and clear as a newsreader's, and her words filter through the gla.s.s much more distinctly than the nurse's northern burr. 'That this is now a homicide investigation.'

'Och, no!' The nurse is shocked. 'The poor love didn't make it, then?'

'No.'

So it's true. I didn't imagine it. It wasn't some product of too much morphine and my battered head.

It's true.

I struggle up against the pillows, my heart pounding in my throat, and on the monitor to my left I see the little green line leaping with panicked jerks against the flatline.

Someone is definitely dead.

Someone is dead.

But who?

16.

'WELCOME TO TUCKETT'S wood,' the man said in a slightly bored Australian accent. He was tanned and chiselled and reminded me slightly of Tom Cruise and from the way Flo was gazing at him, her green eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, I could tell that I wasn't the only one seeing the resemblance. 'My name's Grig, and I'll be your instructor here today.'

He stopped, seeming to count heads and then said, 'Hang about, I've got six here on my booking. Someone gone AWOL?'

'Yes,' Flo said tightly. 'Someone certainly has. No prizes for guessing who I'll be imagining when I open fire.'

'So we're five then today?' the instructor said easily, not seeming to notice Flo's tense annoyance. 'Fair dos. Right, first off I have to tell you about our safety precautions ...'

He began a long speech about ear defenders, alcohol, the responsibilities of gun owners.h.i.+p and so on.

Once we'd established that, yes, we were all complete beginners, no, none of us held a shotgun licence, and yes, we were all aged over eighteen and sober, we signed a long waiver form and trooped through into the back half of the outward-bound centre, where the instructor sized us up.

'All I can say is, thank G.o.d you're none of you wearing pink feather boas and all that malarky. You wouldn't believe the trouble we have with hen parties. You,' he pointed at Flo, 'Flo, was it? Your jacket's a bit thin. You probably want something a bit thicker against the recoil.' He dug around in a chest behind him and fished out a padded Barbour. Flo made a face but put it on.

'Sorry, I have to ask,' she said as she zipped it up. 'Is your name really Grig? Is that a nickname?'

'Nah, Grig. Short for Grigory.'

'Oh, Greg,' Flo said, and laughed a little too loudly. Greg gave her a slightly odd look.

'Yeah, Grig. That's what I said. Now the thing to remember,' he continued, getting out a broken shotgun and laying it on a trestle table, 'is that a gun is a wippon designed to kill. Never forget that. Treat it with respect, and it'll treat you with respect. Mess around with it, and like as not, you'll be the one that ends up messed up. And most important of all, never, never point a gun at anyone, loaded or unloaded. And if you get a misfire, don't go looking down the barrel to see what happened. All this sounds simple, but you'd be amazed how often people don't obey simple safety precautions.

'Right. Now we're gonna run through a few basics about loading, closing and breaking the gun, and then we'll head out into the wood and try a few clays. Any questions, just shout. Now the first cartridges we'll be shooting with today ...'

We all listened in silence as he talked through the technicalities, the silliness of the car journey quite gone. I was glad to have something to concentrate on, glad to stop thinking about Clare and James, and I got the impression that the others felt the same, or at least most of them. Nina and Clare had both changed the subject when Flo had tried to start discussing the honeymoon plans. Tom had said nothing, and had spent most of the remaining car journey tapping away on his Blackberry, but I saw his quick glance up at me and Clare, and I knew that he was filing all this away.

If you write about this, I thought, I will f.u.c.king kill you, but I said nothing, just nodded as Greg said something about automatic traps.

At last the talk was done and we all followed Greg and trooped out of the hut into the spa.r.s.e pine wood, our guns broken and hooked over our arms.

'Hey, if you enjoy this, maybe you should put a shotgun on the wedding list!' Flo said to Clare, and gave her loud braying laugh. 'Shotgun wedding in the most literal sense, huh?'

Clare laughed. 'I think James'd kill me if I started messing around with the gift list now. It took the best part of a day in John Lewis to get it whittled down to what we've got now. You wouldn't believe the arguments we had just choosing a coffee maker took about two hours. Is a Heston Blumenthal endors.e.m.e.nt a plus or a minus? Do we need a milk frother? Should we get bean-to-cup, or one of those pod machines-'

'Oh bean-to-cup, surely?' Tom interrupted. 'George Clooney can say what he likes, but pods are so Noughties. They're the soda stream de nos jours. Catchy, but fundamentally pointless and inconvenient.'

'You sound exactly like James!' Clare said. 'But then bean-to-cup is all very well, but what do you do if the grinder goes? That was my argument. You're stuck with a useless machine. Whereas if you get a separate grinder-'

'True, true,' Tom said nodding. 'So what did you decide?'

'Well, I'm a tea gal, as you know. James is the coffee fiend. So I gave him the casting vote and he went for the Sage by Heston Blumenthal bean-to-cup.'

'Bruce looked at one of those last year. Hefty beast. And best part of six hundred quid from what I remember?'

'About that,' Clare agreed.

Nina caught my eye and went cross-eyed. I tried to keep my face expressionless, but my heart was with her. Six hundred pounds for a coffee machine? I like coffee, but six hundred pounds? And on a gift list too. I knew she meant nothing by it, but there was something unintentionally offensive about Clare's casual a.s.sumption that people could spend that much on her. Or would want to.

Or maybe it was James's a.s.sumption.

The thought left a bad taste in my mouth.

'Right,' Greg called as the trees thinned out into a large gra.s.sy clearing. There was a little breeze-block wall over the far side. 'Everybody hold up here. Now the kind of cartridge that we'll be using today,' Greg said, with the air of someone reciting a well-worn spiel, 'is 7.5. This is a good mid-range type of shot, suitable for pretty much all types of clay shooting, whether that's sport, skeet or trap. This,' he held up a cartridge, 'is a live 7.5 round, with the shot itself packed into the tip-' he tapped the rounded end, '-the wad in the centre, and the gunpowder and primer at this metal end here. Now, before we get going, I'm gonna show you the effects of a cartridge full of 7.5 on a human body.'

'Don't be asking for volunteers next!' Flo hooted.

Greg turned a deadpan face onto her. 'Very kind of you to step forward, young lady.'

Flo gave a nervous laugh. She looked taken aback, but at the same time slightly thrilled. 'It should be the hen, really!' she protested, as Greg beckoned, but she went and stood beside him anyway, blus.h.i.+ng and covering her face in pantomime fear.

'Right. So Flo here has kindly volunteered to help demonstrate the effects of a barrel full of shot at close quarters.' He paused for a beat and then winked. 'But don't worry, she's not gonna be on the business end. What I have here,' he held up a large sheet of paper with a black outline on it, 'is a paper target, more usually used for handgun target practice.'

He fished in his pocket, pulled out some tacks and pinned the target sheet to a nearby tree. The bark was blistered and pock-marked with wounds, and it wasn't hard to guess what was about to happen next.

'Everybody stand back please. Ear defenders on, Flo.'

'I feel like a DJ!' Flo said, grinning as she pulled the neon headphones over her ears.

'Now, I'm loading the cartridge into the gun,' he slid it into place, 'and shutting the barrel as we demonstrated back at the centre. Flo, come up here, stand in front of me. Right, bring the gun up to your shoulder.' He held it against her, steadying it in place. Flo gave a slightly hysterical t.i.tter.

'Our Greg's quite dishy, isn't he?' Tom whispered into my ear. 'I wouldn't mind having him correct my stance. Flo certainly looks like she's not about to object.'

'Hold it firm,' Greg said. 'Now, finger on the trigger.' He held Flo's hand in place, steadying the stock and barrel against her. 'And gently squeeeeze the trigger. No sharp movements ...'

There was a deafening crack, Flo gave a little squeak and staggered back against Greg's chest, and the paper in front of us exploded into pieces.

'Jesus!' Tom said.

I'd seen target-shooting on American films nice neat little holes, close to the bull's-eye of the outlined figure. But this was something else. The shot had hit the paper full in the chest, and the whole middle section of the piece was virtually destroyed. As we watched, the legs fluttered free and drifted gently to the leafy ground.

'Quite.' Greg took the gun off Flo and walked across to stand close to us. Flo's face, as she trotted beside him, was a mixture of alarm and excitement, her cheeks pink. I wasn't sure if it was the thrill of the explosion or whether, as Tom had suggested, she had enjoyed Greg's one-to-one attention.

'As you can see,' Greg continued, 'this single shot at close quarters has done quite a bit of damage. If that was a person, it's doubtful they'd make it as far as the reception centre, let alone the local hospital. So the moral of this is, ladies and gentlemen, respect your weapon. OK. Any questions?'

We all shook our heads, mutely. Only Flo was beaming. Nina looked distinctly grim. I remembered the gunshot wounds she'd treated with MSF, and wondered what she was thinking.

Greg nodded, once, as if satisfied, and we all trooped silently after him to face the trap.

17.

'THAT WAS SO much fun!' Flo collapsed backwards onto the sofa and kicked off her boots. Her socks were pink and fluffy. She shook the snow out of her hair it had started again on the drive back. 'That was ace! Tom, you were a crack shot!'

Tom grinned and slumped back into an armchair. 'I used to do a lot of archery as a teen. I guess the skills are similar.'

'Archery?' Nina eyed him disbelievingly. 'As in, Robin Hood and his Merry Men? Did you have to wear tights?'

'As in, the stuff they do at the Olympics,' Tom said. He was obviously well used to teasing and it barely registered. 'No tights involved. I used to do compet.i.tive fencing too. It's very good for you. Very physical. I'm out of shape now.'

He flexed one bicep and looked at it with what was supposed to be a rueful expression, but the undertone of slight self-satisfaction rather showed through.

Nina made a sympathetic face. 'G.o.d, yeah, it must be awful having pecs the size of a teen girl's b.o.o.bs and a six pack to match. I don't know how Bruce puts up with it.'

'Stop it, you two!' Flo scolded.

Clare watched them from the far sofa, and I found myself watching her, remembering how she loved to observe, how she used to throw a remark out, like a pebble into a pond, and then back quietly away to watch the ripples as people sc.r.a.pped it out. It was not an endearing habit, but it was one I could not condemn. I understood it too well. I, too, am happier watching than being watched.

Clare turned her head and caught me watching her watching Tom and Nina squabbling, and she smiled a small conspiratorial smile that said, I see you.

I looked away.

What had she hoped to accomplish by inviting me here? Nina saw it as an attempt to salve her conscience at my expense the equivalent of an adulterous husband confessing to his wife.

I did not. I don't think Clare lost any sleep over hooking up with James. And in any case she didn't deserve my approbation. She owed me nothing. James and I broke up long ago.

No. I thought that perhaps ... perhaps she had merely wanted to watch. To see how I took it. Perhaps that was the same reason she outed Nina. Like a child who sees a teeming anthill and simply can't not poke it.

And then they step back ... and watch.

'How about you, Lee?' Flo said suddenly, and I looked away from Clare, jerked out of my thoughts.

'Sorry, what?'

'Did you enjoy that?'

'Ish.' I rubbed my shoulder, where I could feel a bruise already forming. 'My shoulder hurts though.'

'You got a right whack from the recoil on that first shot, didn't you?'

The kick of the gun had surprised me, whacking back against my shoulder bone with a whump that knocked the breath out of me.

'You have to hold it firm in the first place,' Tom said. 'You were like this, look.' He reached up and took down the shotgun over the mantelpiece and braced it against his shoulder, showing me the loose stance that had cost me a bruise.

The muzzle of the gun was pointing directly at me. I froze.

'Hey!' Nina said sharply.

'Tom!' Clare struggled up straighter against the sofa cus.h.i.+ons, looking from me to Tom and then back again. 'Put that down!'

Tom just grinned. I knew he was joking, but in spite of myself I felt every muscle in my body tense.

'G.o.d, I feel like Jason Bourne,' he said. 'I can literally feel the power going to my head as I speak. Hmm ... let's interrogate a few people. How about this for starters: Nora, why in all the years I've known Clare has she never mentioned your name?'

I tried to speak but my throat was suddenly so dry I could barely swallow.

'Tom!' Clare said more sharply. 'Call me paranoid but should you be waving that thing around after all Grig's wise words about guns f.u.c.king you up?'

'It's not loaded,' Flo said, and yawned. 'My aunt uses it for scaring rabbits.'