Girl A Dan Scottow (reading women .TXT) 📖

the cracks, as the stranger stood with the torch down to one side. Thin splinters of light caught the edges of the plastic to Beth’s side. She turned her head to avoid more dust.

As her vision adjusted, she gasped silently in horror.

Two bulging, dead eyes peered at her, frozen in a look of pure terror. A tongue protruded from pale lips.

Tangled red curls tumbled from behind the plastic.

Beth stifled a scream, placing her fist over her open mouth. The person above her strode to the barn door, opening it, and stepped outside.

Beth remained hidden.

After a few minutes she heard the distant roar of a motorcycle engine starting and then grow quieter as it rode away. She turned on the light from her phone, shining it through the plastic, illuminating the body. An emerald-green scarf knotted tightly around the neck.

Beth pushed the hatch up above her, escaping her hiding place. She ran. As fast as she could. She sprinted to the house, grabbing her car key from the hall table. With the front door wide open behind her, she rushed to her Range Rover, climbing into the driver’s seat, phone still in hand. She tossed it into the passenger side. She didn’t care that she was drunk. She needed to get away.

Away from the house. Away from the stables, and the body wrapped in plastic.

Starting the engine, she screeched away from the house, tyres spinning on gravel as she escaped. She drove until she reached the safety of warm amber street lights, far away from her home. Grabbing her phone, she punched a number into it and held it to her ear. It took a few rings, but eventually he answered.

‘Charlie!’ Beth screamed through sobs. ‘Please, you’ve got to come now. It’s Zoe. She… she’s dead!’

36

Charlie stood scratching his head, while Beth lingered in the doorway, afraid to step inside the stable building.

‘Whereabouts?’ Charlie shouted over his shoulder, making little effort to hide the scepticism in his voice.

‘Under the hatch in the crawl space. Wrapped in plastic.’

Charlie stepped forward, lifting the panel. He shone his phone down below him. He crouched, and Beth heard him rummaging.

‘Careful, fingerprints!’ Beth hissed.

He stood up.

‘I think I’ll be all right.’ A grim expression on his face, somewhere between sorrow and anger.

‘Come on in.’

‘I don’t want to, Charlie, I’ve seen enough.’

‘Beth, come here.’ His voice was firm, commanding.

Beth crossed the dusty floor, joining Charlie by his side. She looked down.

‘I… I don’t understand. She was there, I swear…’

‘I’m honestly shocked that you stooped this low to get me over here. Meanwhile, the kids are alone in the flat, so you’d better hope that nothing bad happens to them while I’m here with you.’

Beth crouched, lifting the plastic. But that’s all that was there.

The body was gone.

‘I’m not making this up! I promise you, it was Zoe, wrapped up in that sheeting, right there!’ Beth pointed down towards the ground. ‘I think she’d been strangled. It was… horrible!’

‘So where is she now?’

Beth stood, scanning the barn.

‘I don’t know. He must have… moved her.’

Charlie exhaled loudly.

‘Beth, stop, please. This is… pathetic, quite frankly. I don’t recognise you.’

‘Charlie… I–’

Charlie grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers dug into her flesh painfully.

‘ENOUGH!’ he shouted, shaking her violently. ‘Do you hear me? I’ve had enough.’

He let go, his shoulders slumped.

‘Charlie, please…’

‘You’re drunk. I could smell it off you a mile away. And you’re slurring your speech. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you’re not totally crazy, and that you didn’t make this all up just to get me over here. You’ve had too much to drink and thought you saw something… clearly, you were mistaken.’

‘I’m not mad, Charlie, I know what I saw. It was a body. Zoe’s body! I swear it, I swear on–’

Charlie didn’t let her finish.

‘Like you swore to me that you’re not Kitty Briscoe?’

Silence.

‘Beth, don’t you see what you’ve done? I’ll never be able to believe anything you say anymore. There will always be a niggling doubt. Everything you’ve ever told me is bullshit.’

Beth looked down at the floor. The truth in Charlie’s words stung.

‘Where were you tonight?’

The question caught Beth off guard.

‘What?’

‘You’re pissed as a fart. Dressed up like you’ve been to a club. Where have you been?’

Beth hesitated.

‘I… I went for a drink in town… with Margot.’

‘So you weren’t at a gig down on the seafront?’

Beth’s eyes widened.

‘No. I was with Margot at the Hilton.’

‘More lies, Beth. You see? You seem incapable of telling me the truth. James from work saw you. He was there with his girlfriend, and he texted me to say he’d seen you in the queue and was I there.’

Beth’s face flushed as pictures of Mikey with his hands on her hips, his tongue in her mouth, flashed into her mind.

‘I–’

‘Don’t even bother, Beth. You need help… I’m not sure who you are anymore. You’re not the woman I fell in love with.’

Charlie turned and walked towards the barn door. Beth rushed after him, grabbing his arm.

‘Wait, I’m not making this up and I’m not mistaken. Ask Peter. Ask him if Zoe’s parents have heard from her. She’s supposed to be on a school trip.’

Charlie spun around to face Beth.

‘No, Beth, I won’t. I’m not going to mention this to Peter, and you won’t either. He’s stressed out enough as it is, without putting ideas into his head about his girlfriend.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’

‘He thinks we’re getting divorced. He’s totally freaking out.’

‘And are we?’

Charlie looked at Beth, the sadness in his eyes broke her heart. He didn’t reply. As he walked away, he glanced over his shoulder.

‘Talk to someone, Beth. You need help. I don’t think you’re well. I think your secrets have finally caught up with you.’

Beth watched him go. She heard him walk across the gravel and slam his car door as he climbed in. The engine started, and he drove away. Leaving her alone, afraid.

She collapsed to her knees. The rush of anger and sorrow that filled her was unbearable.