with her – ever since he’d pushed her to the floor and she’d hit her head on the concrete yesterday lunchtime, things had been happening to her that had never happened before. She would make an appointment with the doctor and tell him that she’d fallen off her ladders whilst cleaning the windows. That should be enough to ward off any awkward questions. All she wanted was reassurance that she wasn’t losing her mind. Pots didn’t shake and televisions didn’t turn on of their own accord – well, they didn’t before he made her lose consciousness, and she wanted to know why they were now. The receptionist was surprisingly helpful which threw her off course; usually the woman had a brusque manner that made grown men quake in their shoes when they were speaking to her at the desk in the surgery. She couldn’t tell Heath she had a doctor’s appointment – he would go mad – so she would have to say she needed to nip into the village for some more coffee and milk. Opening the fridge door she poured some of the milk down the sink, leaving enough for his cereal but nothing more – at least now she had a good excuse to leave the house, even if she did have to wear sunglasses.
***
Mrs Bates turned to the rowdy group of teenagers, lifting her hands in the air.
‘Now I know you are all quite capable of walking through the woods without getting lost; at least I hope you are. I also know that you lot make more noise than a gaggle of geese so if you do get separated from each other we’re bound to hear you. But – and this is a big but – look out for each other. This is part of your exam so let’s do it right. I hate walking, and if you mess it up and we have to come back and do all this again I’m going to not be very happy with you all. Understood?’
They all nodded and chorused.
‘Yes, Miss Bates.’
‘Good, now let’s get going. The sooner we start the sooner it will be dinnertime. Scott, I’m watching you and Becky – if you think it’s a good idea to have a crafty fag behind a tree and I won’t know about it, you’re wrong. So don’t go sneaking off for one and setting the woods on fire with your dog ends.’
Scott, Becky and Jessica all giggled.
‘As if we would, Miss. You know we wouldn’t do anything like that.’
Miss Bates rolled her eyes at them but smiled. There was something about the bad kids that she liked. She always had done. Some of the kids in this class had had the worst upbringings imaginable. Most of their parents were addicts, criminals, dealers, or just plain useless and didn’t care for their kids. Left to fend for themselves from an early age, at least the kids had one thing going for them – they were self-sufficient and streetwise. She found it far more rewarding working with these teenagers than with the ones in the private school where she’d worked previously, where the kids were rude, arrogant and selfish. These kids might have been dragged up but most of them were honest, polite, looked out for each other and generally did as she told them.
The walk leader nodded and they all heaved their heavy backpacks on and set off walking. Becky – who had decided to wear her new trainers with a thick black heel, the ugliest shoes Miss Bates had ever seen – soon began to lag behind. The ground was soft and the heels kept sinking into the soil.
‘Trust you, Becky. Why didn’t you put your old skanky trainers on? You’re going to ruin them and we’re not going to get finished until teatime at the rate you’re walking.’
‘Fuck off with the others then, Scott. No one told you to wait for me. I didn’t think it would be like this, did I? I thought there would be a path like the one in our woods back home – not soil, mud and leaves for ever.’
Jessica began to giggle.
‘Listen to you both, arguing like some married couple. I think it’s really sweet.’
Scott gave her the finger and Becky grinned. They could see a house through the trees.
‘Do you think we should go there and ask if we can use the toilet?’
‘Are you serious, Becky? We’ve only just set off, and not only can you not walk, but you want to pee already.’
The rest of the group was already quite some way ahead of them.
‘When you got to go, you got to go.’
‘What’s wrong with squatting behind a tree?’
‘Eugh, what’s right with squatting behind a tree. It’s all right for you lot; men can just whip it out and piss anywhere.’
Scott stood shaking his head. As much as he fancied Becky she was a complete pain in the arse. Jessica, who thought the whole thing was hilarious, was still smiling.
‘Just go behind that big tree, Becky. I’ll stand guard and make sure Scott doesn’t try and perv on you. You don’t know who lives in that house; it might be some crazy cat lady or a creep.’
Becky knew her friend was right; she broke away from them and began heading towards the tree. Scott was shouting something after her and she turned to give him the finger; missing her footing she fell forwards, landed on the soft ground and dislodged a mound of leaves. She began cursing, as the sound of her friends’ laughter filled the air around her. There was something white sticking out of the ground in front of her. She looked at it, trying to get her mind to process exactly what it was. When it finally decided that what it was seeing was real, she opened her mouth to scream and didn’t stop until Miss Bates and the others were standing next to her.
‘What on earth is the matter, Becky. Have you hurt yourself?’
They were all too busy looking at her to notice the skeletal hand that was sticking up from the ground. She lifted her finger and pointed to it.
‘What is that?’
Miss Bates looked down at it and felt her blood run cold. She looked at Scott.
‘Is this some kind of joke, Scott? Because if it is it’s not very funny.’
He shook his head.
‘No miss, I swear down. She wanted a pee and was going behind that tree, I’ve been standing with Jessica the whole time.’
Jess nodded in agreement with what her friend had just said. The man who was leading the walk bent down to take a closer look, prodding at the bones with a stick.
‘It seems real, but how would someone’s hand get out here?’
Scott pulled Becky up from the floor and she grabbed onto him.
‘Miss, if there’s a hand – there might be an entire body under there.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Scott. There could well be. I think we need to move away now and I’ll phone the police. Before I do I’m asking you all one last time – do any of you know anything about this? I’m not angry, but if it’s some toy Halloween prop that you got at the pound shop then I need to know because I don’t want to look like an idiot and phone the police for nothing.’
Nobody spoke. They all shook their heads at her. Most of them were still staring down at the hand with morbid fascination.
‘Right, then I’m trusting you on this – I’ll phone the police. I think you should all go over there and sit down. I have a feeling we might be here for a while yet.’
