Remember Me: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller with a brilliant twist. D. White E.

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СКАЧАТЬ I understand. Apologies in advance for waking you up then.’ Ava notched her expression down to frosty politeness, resisting the temptation to say more, and marched up the narrow flight of wooden stairs to grab a thick jumper. Penny and Paul’s farm was a half-mile walk across the hill. She had expected hostility; she’d even thought that the Birtleys might refuse her booking when they realised who she was. Clearly their ‘principles’ allowed them to take her money though. They obviously needed it; she had noticed only one other guest at the little B&B – a nondescript, middle-aged man in hiking gear who was heading out as she arrived.

      * * *

      It took longer than she reckoned to get to the farm, partly because, despite the torch, she took a wrong turning. Memory failing, she had been mindlessly following the old sheep track, when it suddenly disappeared into a mass of dead weeds. The skeleton of a rusted lambing shelter lay sprawled in her path.

      The pale beam of torchlight picked out the disintegrating wood and corrugated iron. She jumped back, the light jerking upwards into the icy blackness at her involuntary reaction. A wave of sickness hit her like a punch in the belly. It wasn’t this one. It couldn’t be this one.

      The darkness had been warm then, and the heady scent of early summer clung to the hills as they carried the body along the track. Ellen’s first resting place had not been East Wood, near the old oak, but down a boarded-up hole in a lambing pen. It was Huw’s idea. He had said the strong smell of sheep would keep any official search dogs away.

      Not that there would be any trouble with the police because Ava must write a note to Ellen’s parents, Leo had said firmly, backing up his friend. She would write exactly what he said, and nobody would be any wiser. Ellen would be just another teenage runaway leaving the valleys for the diamond-strewn pavements of the city. Everyone left eventually.

      Ava bit her lip, tears drenching her cheeks, the knot of guilt and frustration yanking tight in her stomach. Despite herself, the whispering was louder, her mind flooded with unwelcome memories.

      * * *

      ‘She’s dead! She’s not breathing!’

      ‘Shit. Are you sure? I mean… Ellen!’

      The voices came and went, urgent, alarmed and angry. It was a while before Ava, only half-aware that something had happened, pushed herself onto her knees. The high-pitched voices continued, raw with panic. The crown of her head was throbbing and the pain beat insistent waves through her body, suggesting someone had hit her. She used a tree branch to haul herself to her feet, and staggered towards her friends, vision blurred with drugs and night. Ellen was sprawled on her back in the mud and the leaves, her dark hair fanning out across the path. The group around her parted, turning towards Ava, their faces pale blurs, watchful and defensive.

      Someone, it was hard to tell who in the darkness, the confusion, but she thought it might have been Rhodri, was pulling Ellen’s top down over her chest. The snapshot of memory stayed with her, niggling away like bugs scratching her stomach from the inside. Rhodri was looking for a heartbeat, trying to see if Ellen was breathing, that must have been what he was doing. The sick realisation that Ellen’s eyes were wide, but she wasn’t seeing, made Ava forget everything else, and scream in horror. She shoved the others away, fumbling for a pulse, allowing only Penny near the body.

      The other girl’s face was wet with tears. ‘She’s gone, Ava, I already checked. She’s not breathing.’

      ‘So we do that mouth-to-mouth thing. For fuck’s sake, Penny, come on!’ Ava bent down and tried to seal her own lips over Ellen’s cold mouth. She was shaking so much it was impossible to tell if any air went in. What else? Oh yes, tilt the head to open the airway. Her mind was unfogging. Penny, sniffing and sobbing, but taking her lead, was pushing her hands ineffectively on Ellen’s chest.

      And the boys? What were they doing? So much blackness. They were all a similar height and build, all wearing dark-coloured hoodies and jeans. Accusations were spinning around, and were two of the boys even coming to blows? Huw was shoving Paul, his voice low and threatening. She smelled cigarette smoke and screamed at them to call an ambulance several times. Did anyone move?

      Eventually it was obvious that Ellen was not going to breathe again, and Penny collapsed sobbing in Ava’s arms. The girls clung together, but Leo was talking low and hard to the others.

      ‘What happened? What the fuck happened to her?’ Ava finally gasped out the words, pain and terror ripping through her chest, making it hard to talk. ‘Did you call an ambulance?’

      It was Huw who detached himself from the shadowy group and explained. Ava had been ‘out of it’, he said, omitting any mention of a blow to her head, and Ellen had decided to do the zip line dare. She had washed down some pills with a couple of swigs of vodka, and seemed steady enough. But she had fallen from about halfway along and landed awkwardly. When they ran to her she wasn’t moving. There was nothing anyone could do, but now they needed to make sure they didn’t get blamed for her death. The police would say it was their fault, their game, and she was mixing alcohol and drugs! What would their families say? School? The paper would get hold of it too…

      If they hid the body, Leo added, nobody would ever know.

      * * *

      Ava stood doubled over, fighting away the voices that scolded her, breathing slowly and deeply. It was over. She couldn’t take it back, but she supposed, with her career choice, she had been doing her best to atone for her sins, as Mrs Birtley would have said. But if he discovered the truth, Stephen would never forgive her. Not just an appalling mother, but a coward who had helped bury her best friend too. It seemed an age before the sour taste of nausea and regret passed, and she was able to continue her journey. Her world narrowed to a line of yellow torch beam, whilst all around the hills were wrapped in suffocating blackness.

      Cursing the extra jumper now, she arrived on the front porch breathing heavily from the last climb. Someone must have been watching out for her, because the door was flung open even as she raised her hand to knock.

      The two women stared at one another, a whole world of shared history pulsing between them, before Penny gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Hallo, Ava.’

      ‘Penny.’ Ava smiled back, mechanically, awkwardly. This was going to be horrible and there was no way out. She was a coward not to have faced it long before this.

      ‘Come in and take your boots off then. We’ll go in there in a minute, but I wanted to talk to you first.’ She indicated an oak door leading off the wide, immaculate, stone-flagged hallway, before fixing Ava with a hard, curious stare. ‘I suppose you must have got some sleep this morning. Paul said your flight landed early. Did you manage to hire a car or did you get the bus?’

      ‘Oh, I hired a car, because the bus didn’t leave until the evening, and it was cheaper than a taxi. I need to drop it off in Cadrington tomorrow sometime. I remembered what the roads were like round here, and it only just made it up the hill to the Birtleys’.’ She was gabbling, words tumbling without meaning or thought, and she forced herself to shut up. The silence hung tense and sharp.

      Clumsily, avoiding Penny’s curious gaze, Ava tugged off her boots. She refrained from commenting on her movements of the day, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell this woman how long it had taken her to cross the bridge back into Wales. Jetlag or no, there had been plenty to deal with as soon as she landed into Heathrow. She’d actually had to pull over, before she managed to gather enough courage to cross the bridge. All too easily, the dark panic she associated with crossing in the opposite direction, all those years ago, had come stealing back into her mind. СКАЧАТЬ