The List

by Carys Jones

Genres: Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

Beth Belmont runs every day, hard and fast on the trail near home. She knows every turn, every bump in the road. So when she spots something out of place—a slip of white paper at the base of a tree—she's drawn to it. On the paper are five names. The third is her own. Beth can't shake off the unease the list brings. Why is she on it? And what ties her to the other four strangers? Then she discovers that the first two are dead. Is she next? Delving into the past of the two dead strangers, Beth is led headlong into her darkest, deadliest, and most dangerous nightmares...

Release date: July 1, 2020

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

The nightmare started the same as all the others. Screaming, terrible and tormenting, pitched like an animal caught in a trap desperately squealing for its life. It rattled through Beth Belmont’s bones, causing sweat to prickle on her skin. In the early hours, she awoke gasping, the screams still ringing in her ears.

‘Hey, it’s okay, just calm down.’ Her boyfriend, Josh, rolled over and folded his arms around her, holding her close, waiting until the shaking subsided and her breathing levelled out. Beth lay wide-eyed and staring into the darkness of their bedroom at the swollen shadows in every corner. ‘It was just a nightmare,’ he calmly assured her as he ran his work-hardened hands in circles over her lower back.

Just a nightmare.

Drawing in ragged breaths from this latest twilight terror, Beth focused on that.

It was just a nightmare.

The Green Day T-shirt she slept in was soaked through, her long dark hair damp and matted. How long had she tossed and turned while the phantom in her mind shrieked like a banshee?

‘Let’s try and get back to sleep.’

Josh was always keen to return to his slumber. He had to be up at dawn, with the birds, for another day labouring on the new super school that was being built on the edge of town.

Beth wanted to sleep too, but the screams lingered. Each nightmare stayed by her side like an unwanted bedfellow. Even though she could no longer hear them, she could feel them, scraping down her spine like sharpened claws, picking her apart at her very core.

‘What are you even dreaming about?’ Josh had asked early on in their relationship, his tired blue eyes holding her in a concerned stare.

‘Nothing.’ Beth knew that the answer came a little too easily. ‘I mean, I can’t remember.’

‘Your nightmares, they seem … intense.’ He tilted his thick neck to watch her. Josh – who slept like the dead – never so much as whimpered in his sleep.

‘Really, it’s nothing,’ her voice was strained, so she forced a smile, ‘lots of people have nightmares. Like night terrors. Honestly, I can’t even remember what they’re about.’

‘Well, okay then. As long as you’re all right, babe.’ He’d kissed her forehead and Beth wished that his touch had healing properties, like the kisses bestowed on her as a child when she scraped a knee or an elbow.

‘Let Mummy kiss it better,’ her mother would say, leaning in close, smelling of musky Dior perfume and cigarettes, scents that she shrouded herself in. A cloak for the senses.

But there was no kissing her nightmares better, no willing them away. Each night as Beth tucked herself in beside her boyfriend of three years, she knew what was coming – at some point, she’d wake in a pool of her own sweat, gulping deep, frantic breaths as though she’d been drowning. And the screams would continue to linger on the periphery of her mind, even when her eyes were bloodshot and wide open, a reminder that no one was ever truly free.

Neat. It has to be neat.

I remind myself of this as I lift the fountain pen in my hand and begin to guide it slowly and gracefully over the paper. I need silence. Stillness.

The bare bulb above me shakes. The tremble spreads across the ceiling like a stain.

‘Fuck.’

The pen is down and my blood pressure is up. Fucking Mrs Norris in number five is hoovering. Again. And the old crone will labour over it as she usually does, thanks to her arthritic knee.

‘It’s bad again,’ she always says through those wrinkled lips of hers each time I pass her in the stairwell. What does she expect me to do? Carry her? Cure her?

Now my whole flat is whirring along to the guttural groan of Mrs Norris’s cheap hoover. I glance at the clock hanging above my electric fire, forgetting that for the past week it’s been stuck at eight fifteen.

Batteries.

I grind my teeth, already knowing that I’ll forget this addition to my shopping list, thanks to the noise which is now reaching down from above and scratching against my bones. My focus has weakened these last months, along with my body. But I’m not done yet. There’s still a fire in the pit of my belly, one that takes all my energy to keep stoking. My hands tighten into fists. I could shout. I could grab the baseball bat by the front door and smack it against the ceiling until my arms begin to ache. But Mrs Norris would just go on hoovering, because she’s as deaf as she is lame.

No. I need to finish this.

The radio, or the television. I could turn one of them on, try to drown out the drone from upstairs. But I’m not quite sure if I paid the meter. And if I didn’t …

Squeezing my eyes closed, I force the darkness to find me. One breath in, one breath out. Slow. And steady. Just as Roger taught me.

Silver-haired Roger with all his suggestions.

Something flutters in my core. It could be regret, or it could be a delayed response to the tin of baked beans I’d eaten at lunch which were four months out of date. But my mum always said up to six months was fine, especially for a tin.

It’s nerves. It has to be.

I look down at the paper on the table. So neat. So crisp. The bulb above me swings back and forth. I begin to hum, growing louder so that the pressure builds in my head, in my ears. Eventually all I can hear is my own internal melody, Mrs Norris and her hoover overpowered. I close my fingers around my fountain pen, gripping tight. I write down the first name. Then the second. And then I deliberate over the third, as this is the one that matters. This is the one that needs to stick, that needs to work.

Satisfied, I lean back and admire my handiwork. I’ve stopped humming. And Mrs Norris has stopped hoovering. My skin prickles in the silence. Now it’s working against me, needling up close and lingering on the back of my neck. When I was writing I needed it, but now …

I close my eyes, surrendering myself again to the darkness, and open my mouth wide. The scream I release is piercing, burning my throat. But no one will come running. No one ever does.

When I open my eyes again, I don’t know how much time has passed, only that my throat is raw and my palms are clammy. I imagine you running, sprinting through the sunlight. All of this hard work. For you. For us. For all of us.

I’ve never liked the woods. But you do. So this is where it needs to be. Where I need to be. Two trains and one bus, that’s what it’s taken to get me here. It’s late. And dark. The trees are still, not stirred even in a gentle rustling. The silence is suffocating. I should turn back. But I’ve come too far now.

I shake out my hands, fingers stiff. Cold – why is it so damn cold? With only moonlight to guide me, I scurry down a twisting path. Something stirs in the undergrowth. Instinctively, I crouch down low. Not that I need to. I’m surrounded only by shadows. No one else is here so late. But it’s not always that way. Some nights as I’ve wandered these woods, I’ve caught laughter on the breeze, laced with the scent of weed. I’ve let it fill my lungs and draw me back in time. But the spell never lasted long enough. The hoot of an owl, the rustle of leaves, I’m always snapped back into the moment far too soon.

But tonight I won’t let anything distract me. I feel buoyant with purpose. Tonight, finally, I get to act. If I could see myself, I know I’d be smiling. Too long have I waited, have I dwelt on how to proceed.

I make a sharp right as the path forks and glance around at the clearing I find myself in. The trees which border me are stoic guards. I study the area, squinting against the lack of light. It feels secluded. Hidden away. But still on the main path. My hand slips into my pocket, fingers the piece of paper concealed inside. Am I taking too much of a gamble? What if someone else finds it first?

A breeze strokes through my loose hair and my teeth chatter together, the cold of the evening beginning to gnaw at me. I look to the trees, trace the line of the path.

There. A log. I hurry to it, rest my hand on its back, imagining the tree it had once been. Perhaps birds would perch in its branches, even nest there. Would squirrels twist their way up its trunk in a helter-skelter motion?

But now it’s laid low and perfect for what I need. Taking the paper from my pocket, I admire the way it glows in the moonlight like a star. Carefully, I place it on the ground amidst the carpet of moss and twigs, jutting out just enough to be visible, to catch the eye of a passer-by.

Stepping back, I rub my hands together, stomach churning. What if I’m wrong? What if they’re not the first person to find it? But if I’m right …

A charge of excitement shoots up my spine, causing me to tingle. I wish I could see it, wish I could be there in the dawn light as my little offering is discovered.

A knife twists in my stomach. Staying is impossible, my nerves already starting to devour me. But I’ll be back.

I take one last look at the paper beneath the log. Then I leave. I just need you to find it. To see it. To remember.

Sunlight mottled the ground, filtered through the canopy of green leaves overhead. Blades of grass were still tipped with dew and many flowers had yet to unfurl their petals. It was early. Less than an hour had passed since the dawn chorus concluded their performance.

Beth was running. She slowed as she reached a turn in the path, dirt crunching beneath her neon green Skechers trainers. Back on the straight, she built up speed again, arms powering at her sides. Effortlessly, she leapt over a fallen tree which sprawled across the path, pre-empting the obstacle before it even came into view. She knew this route – this trail that snaked through the woodlands near her little terraced house.

‘It’ll be nice, being so close to the woods,’ Josh had said when they went for their first viewing, a smile spreading across his face. Beth had seen the trees, the shadows beneath their canopy, and shivered in the sunlight.

‘Nice, yeah,’ she’d found the strength to mirror his smile. And now she had bested the woods. Found comfort in their darkness, in the stirring of leaves.

So, each morning, she followed Josh out of bed and as he showered, she pulled on her jogging bottoms and trainers. For an hour, she would run wild and free, like an untamed horse. Round and round she’d go, until her legs ached and her chest burned.

‘You training for a marathon or something?’ Josh had asked on one of the rare occasions he was still home when she burst through the front door, sweating and panting.

‘What? No. I just like to run.’

At fifteen, Beth had discovered the liberating properties of running, of pushing her muscles to their limits. It was intoxicating thinking only about the route, her speed, the distance. Not a morning went by when she wasn’t out in the woods powering around the trail.

Mr Woodson who lived at number thirteen in their little cul-de-sac was out that morning walking his Irish setter, Beau. He paused to raise a hand and offer a smile as Beth thundered past him. Beau’s tail wagged furiously, but the bundle of ruby fur didn’t try to chase after her, not this time.

‘Morning,’ she greeted him breathily as she sped by.

At this time, the woods were relatively quiet and undisturbed. Smoke hung on the air, an echo of teenage revelry around campfires the previous night. Beth passed by a lady with a trio of poodles and then reached the densest part of the woods. Here, the trees had grown thick and fast, causing a dip in the temperature as even the brightest rays of sunlight struggled to penetrate the overgrown mass of leaves above.

Birds were singing, chirping sweetly to one another. Beth felt her thigh muscles constrict and, with an anguished sigh, conceded that she had to slow down. Letting her arms fall lower against her sides, she drank in the crisp morning air, filling her lungs. Dark patches gathered beneath her armpits and down her back.

‘Right … okay.’ Raising her arms, Beth tightened the band holding her hair in a high ponytail and jogged idly through the maze of trees. She’d sprint again once she’d recovered some of her energy. Now that she’d slowed down she could more clearly take in her surroundings. Amidst the base of the trees sprouted little flowers, shyly concealing their purple petals. Spring was about to turn into summer, which meant that the snowdrops Beth so loved to see had long since disappeared for another year. As she pondered this, something white lying on the ground caught her eye. The brightness of it against the hues of browns and greens of the woodland carpet made it stand out starkly.

Beth came to a complete halt and peered down at the sliver of pristine whiteness. It was so utterly out of place and, as she moved closer, Beth realised that was because the object was unnatural. A piece of human debris, usually plucked up and disposed of by the group of volunteers who pruned and preened the woods on a weekly basis. Now crouching, Beth reached forward and grazed the item with the tips of her fingers. A slip of paper. It wasn’t scrunched up, like a piece of discarded rubbish. Slightly bigger than a receipt, tucked just beyond the fringes of the jogging trail and wedged beneath an old upturned log, sticking out just enough to be noticed.

Seemingly begging to be noticed.

Curious, Beth plucked the piece of paper out from beneath the tree trunk. It was crisp in her hands. And surprisingly clean. It couldn’t have been out in the elements for long at all. Straightening and turning back, she glanced at the trail behind her, then strained to look ahead. There was no one else around, no one within sight who could have dropped the slip of paper.

‘Hmm.’ It was folded over. Beth opened it up, expecting a shopping list hastily scrawled upon it or perhaps a discarded note. But, instead, she was looking not at a list of items, but of names.

The penmanship was immaculate. Each entry written in exquisite cursive text. Clearly great care had been taken.

Beth scanned the list. There were five names, each on their own line.

She gasped, as though someone had just sucker-punched her in the gut, doubling forwards. The third name on the list was all too familiar. Because it was her own.

Slowly, carefully, she read back over it, wondering if her eyes were deceiving her.

Joanne Rowles

Trevor Hoskins

Beth Belmont

Harry Jensen

Rebecca Terry

Her own name stared out at her, pretty and challenging in its neat cursive appearance.

‘What the hell?’ Beth anxiously glanced back over both shoulders, along the length of the jogging trail. There were so many trees, so many places for someone to hide. The shadows that gathered amongst the numerous trunks suddenly seemed pregnant with danger.

‘Is anyone there?’ Beth asked of the emptiness. Only the birds chirped back in response. She was alone. ‘What … what is this?’ She swept her gaze over the note one final time before shoving it into the front pocket of her hooded jumper. None of the other four names meant anything to her. Yet there had to be some connection, didn’t there?

Beth no longer felt like running. She stalked back through the woods, shoulders hunched and brow furrowed as she mentally worked through the list again and again. When she crossed the threshold to her home, she was no closer to finding a link between the names, and the weight of the list in her pocket now felt unbearably heavy.

The house was empty. Josh, reliable as the tide, had already left for work while she was on her run. After discarding the note on the kitchen table, Beth dragged her weary legs upstairs, keen to shower off the feeling of unease that coated her skin like a thick oil.

‘Ruby, do you know why you’re here?’

She lifted her head to peer at the bespectacled woman on the nearby armchair but said nothing. The fibres of the sofa she was perched on were chafing against her bare legs. She wished she’d pulled on jeans rather than her pink shorts. But it was warm for April and today they might let her go outside, might let her feel the sun on her skin. Yet here she was again, in the office that smelt like old books and stale coffee. A large window showed the green grounds, glowing and lustrous in the early-morning light.

Tired of being taunted by the view, Ruby lowered her head again.

‘I felt like we made real progress during our last session.’ The woman regarded her notes and then lowered her glasses with a plump hand, letting them hang around her neck on the ornate chain she always wore. ‘Maybe we could continue from where we left off?’ It sounded like there was genuine hope in her voice.

Ruby grunted and leant forward to pick at a scab on her knee. ‘I want to go home.’ The words were mumbled, almost incoherent. Yet the woman in the armchair was attuned to her juvenile dialect.

‘You know that’s not an option.’

‘But I want to go home.’ Her words were a plea. Abandoning her scab, Ruby folded her arms against her chest, which had begun to swell. She wanted to see her friends, to feel the sun warm the back of her legs as she ran through a field. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in school like everyone else.

‘Ruby, there is no going home. You understand that, don’t you?’ There was a gentleness to the woman’s words which Ruby wasn’t accustomed to hearing.

‘I do but …’ She squeezed tight against her chest, against the unfairness of it all. ‘I still want to go home.’

‘I understand that, truly.’ The woman leant forward. She had kind eyes and a treble chin. Every day she wore the same uniform of a long flowing skirt and an ill-fitting blouse that strained against her ample bosom. And she always smelt of coffee and lavender. Her curves made her seem kind, like her body was built to give cuddles. Not like Ruby’s mother, who was made of sticks, every slim bone in her body piercing and sharp. When she embraced her daughter, it felt like being pressed into a bag of needles. But already Ruby was starting to forget what it was like to be in her mother’s arms. How much time had passed since Linda Renton had held her – really held her?

‘Let’s talk about that day, about what happened,’ the woman prompted, a smile of hopeful eagerness pulling on her thin lips.

Ruby swallowed. Talking about that day was like turning the screw in a broken hinge: pointless. It never did anything, never improved her circumstances.

‘No,’ she told the woman sternly. ‘I’m done talking about it.’

‘Okay,’ came the breezy reply. There was no resistance, no hand surging forward to strike her across the face. At home, any resistance always earned her a smarting cheek. Perhaps this place wasn’t that bad after all … ‘Then let’s talk about something else. About your family. Can we talk about that?’

A shadow passed over Ruby’s young features as her hazel eyes gazed up sadly at the woman. ‘I’d really rather not.’

‘Well, we have to talk about something. It’s important that we make the most of our time here.’

‘Can we talk about something nice?’

‘Sure, Ruby. Like what?’

‘Like …’ Ruby looked up and allowed her gaze to fix upon the window and the sunlit vista beyond. ‘Like the weather. It’s so sunny today. Perhaps later I can––’

‘We can talk about the weather all you want.’ The woman was writing while she talked, scribbling notes in her thick A4 leather-bound pad. ‘But eventually we have to talk about things that are not so nice.’

‘I know. I mean, eventually, right?’

‘Right.’

‘So not today.’ Ruby continued to gaze wistfully out of the window, hoping that today could be a good day, that today she could at least pretend she was free.

‘Okay, Ruby,’ the woman conceded with a soft smile, ‘not today. But another day. And know that there will be other days, lots of them.’

Hair still damp, Beth trudged back downstairs, skin flushed from the heat of the shower. Stepping into the kitchen, her eyes immediately locked on to the slip of paper on the table, left there in haste as she’d headed for the shower, needing to feel the pressure of hot water against her back. It looked innocuous in the morning sunlight.

‘Weird.’ Tentatively, Beth approached the note, drumming the blunt ends of her nails against the table as she moved round it.

Five names. Alien to her. Strangers. Except for the third name, which was her own.

Dragging a chair out, Beth sat down heavily and grabbed the note.

‘Joanne Rowles.’ She read the first name aloud, hoping that it might bring forth some distant memory from the recesses of her mind. It didn’t.

Carefully, she folded the paper along its crease and then opened it again, running her fingertips against its surface. Its material wasn’t flimsy, it was the kind of thick, sturdy paper she used to feed into the printer back at school. And the writing on it. So ornate, so carefully executed. It chilled Beth to imagine someone bent over a different table, pen in hand, taking the time to write out her name so artistically, so elaborately. The list was not scrawled in haste.

‘But why?’ Beth stared at it hard and bit her lip. What was the point of the list? What connected her to the other names?

The brightness outside drew her attention, reminding her of the litany of chores she had to do that morning, of her shift at the cinema that commenced at six. She didn’t have time to idle over the list. But still the names lodged themselves in her mind, prickly as a thorn.

After pinning a freshly washed load of clothes onto the rotary line in the small back garden and cleaning away what remained of last night’s dinner, Beth once again found herself drifting towards the kitchen table and the folded slip of paper upon it.

‘Why am I on there?’ she asked aloud, knowing no answer would present itself. ‘Could it be another Beth Belmont?’ she wondered. In the woods? Her woods? Where she ran each morning? Her fingers twitched with the impulse to go into the lounge and fire up her laptop. A quick Google search might shed some more light on matters.

Beth’s bare feet took her out of the kitchen, across the grey tiled floor towards the lounge at the back of the small terrace. The computer was in her sights when she heard gravel crunching beneath the weight of thick tyres. Turning, she saw through the kitchen window that Josh’s van had just pulled into the driveway. Her chest constricted as her gaze flew back towards the list.

Beth was struck by a sudden urge to hide it. Should she? Like anyone in a relationship, Beth yearned for hers to be open and honest, built on a foundation of trust. But what would she say to him at this point? She at least needed more information, more context, before she presented the list to him. Lest he think she was being crazy. Josh saw the world in such certain terms. The list would either be an issue in his eyes or something to completely disregard. Beth couldn’t risk being influenced by his steadfastness until she knew more. He wouldn’t entertain her questions, that wasn’t his style.

She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, stomach swirling with indecision. Could she just discard it? Throw it in the bin, forget all about it? Her mind was a machine gun, launching rapid-fire questions. She drew a breath and the door to the house creaked open.

Josh strode into the kitchen, looking harassed.

‘Bloody typical,’ he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

‘Hey,’ Beth straightened in the doorway and pulled her lips into a welcoming smile. ‘What are you doing back home again?’ Her voice pitched higher, ‘Everything okay?’

‘Forgot my lunch, didn’t I?’ Josh replied with a grunt as he thrust open the silver door of the fridge and stooped to grope inside it.

‘Oh.’ The list sat there. On the table. Out in the open.

‘What time are you going in?’ Plastic lunch box in hand, Josh straightened and looked over at her. Already his T-shirt was dirtied with dust and grime, his jeans spattered with paint.

‘Umm.’ Beth pushed a hand through her damp hair. He’d asked her a question. A direct one. A simple one. Yet it was taking a herculean effort to think of anything other than the list on the table. Had he seen it yet? Would he see it? ‘Six.’ She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m on close tonight, so not in until six.’

‘Right, okay.’ Josh nodded. His. . .