The Vanishing of Joni Blackwood

by Lisa Rookes

Genres: Horror; Gothic; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

The debris from the night before is scattered underneath the village tree and across the cobbles. Red wine stains the ground like blood. And Joni has vanished.

Joni Blackwood is my best friend. She was there for my first crush, stood beside me at my wedding, watched my daughter grow up. She's been there through the painful mess of the divorce, too. So when she suddenly goes missing on All Gallows' Eve, I'm first to raise the alarm.

People outside the village say she must have been sacrificed in some pagan ritual. But All Gallows' Eve isn't like that. We're just simple folk enjoying an annual bonfire to keep an old tradition alive. It's mulled cider and local mums running charity bake sales to be in with a chance of winning Gallows Queen. Joni wins every year.

My mum used to say this village was built on the roots of The Gallows Tree, that they're underneath the ground, under all of our houses. It used to scare me as a kid. Thick, snaking roots squirming under me. No matter how far you ran, they could tunnel after you. And when the bones of a small child are unearthed in the church graveyard, I have to wonder how many secrets are running through our village, like the roots of the tree. And I wonder if Joni can really outrun hers. And I wonder if I can really outrun mine.

The Vanishing of Joni Blackwood is an utterly compelling mystery with a twist you won't see coming. Perfect for fans of C J Tudor, Caroline Mitchell and Erin Kelly.

Release date: April 18, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 320

Sample

Joni’s breath is heady and sweet as she pulls me to her. The crook of her arm hooks the back of my neck and my face is pressed into her shoulder. She still smells of The Body Shop’s jasmine oil, twenty-five-odd years on.

Rogue embers from the fireworks lie dying on the ground and the promise of tomorrow’s regret begins to lay gently on the eyelashes and crowns of the village throng.

The cobbles are packed for All Gallows’ Eve and it’s always now, just as dusk is melting into night, that I look around our little Yorkshire village and wonder why anyone would want to be anywhere else. Thistleswaite isn’t chocolate-boxy by any means. I always joke that it’s a good thing we live in the North because the rain is the only thing that washes the grime from the steelworks away. But there’s something about this place.

I’ve been at every All Gallows’ Eve since I was born. There’s always a drama of some kind. It’s almost like the village needs it to keep going. I wonder what tonight will bring. I have a very strong feeling I’m going to be at the epicentre.

I feel eyes on me, but I don’t know if they are his.

‘You were meant to keep me off the red wine tonight. I’m drunk!’ I snake my arm around the small of Joni’s back. My face is warm and I smell the ashes and her perfume together.

‘Don’t bother with the fake laugh,’ she whispers, so close to my ear, I can feel the dampness in her breath. ‘He’s not watching.’

I feel crestfallen for a second. I both love and hate that she knows me so well. Just for once, I would love to keep a secret from her. When we were kids, she said she could tell when I was keeping secrets because the freckles on my nose went black. I believed her. I had no one to tell me otherwise.

‘Where’s Millie?’ I straighten up and scout the village square for her red hair. I’d wanted to call her Scarlett as soon as I saw those locks. She was born with a frosted ginger halo. But Kit said I was hanging onto our grunge days and needed something less slutty-sounding. He looked at Joni when he said that.

‘I think I saw her headed up the rec.’ Joni unscrews the cap of the bottle of red wedged under her arm. ‘Top-up.’

It’s a statement, not a question, and I hold my plastic glass out.

‘I don’t want her up there. It’s too dark.’ I look over my shoulder and down Gallowsgate. The children are running up and down, throwing firecrackers at the cobbles, and the gunfire noise of it makes me shudder. Whatever ends up happening tonight, I don’t want Millie anywhere near it.

‘She’s always there after dark.’ Joni empties the rest of the bottle between our plastic glasses. ‘Getting fingered, I should imagine, like we were at fifteen.’

‘Jesus, Joni! You, you mean.’ I swat her arm before realising my drink is in my hands and the wine sloshes all over her kimono. ‘Shit, sorry.’

‘Ah, it’ll wash. Anyway, you can’t really tell with this pattern.’

‘She’s not getting fingered. Anyway, by who? In this village? I mean, I may be middle-aged, but even I can see it’s slim pickings.’

‘True.’ Joni sniffs and looks up at the sky. ‘The stars are out. It’s really clear. Have you seen?’

‘I thought it was meant to rain tonight? They’ve covered the bonfire up in plastic sheeting for tomorrow.’

I crane my neck and realise how stiff my joints are, how high my shoulders are to my ears. There’s a loud and satisfying crack at the top of my spine that makes me feel sick and relieved in equal measure.

‘Ooh, I heard that,’ Joni winces at me. ‘Feeling tense, love?’

‘Can you blame me?’ I have another sip of wine. Joni’s right. The sky is like Perspex. The stars seem almost too low.

‘Remember when we used to climb out of your bedroom window and lie on the roof?’ Joni pulls me down to the kerb and starts rummaging in her bag for her cigs. Little Oscar from next-door-but-one runs past with hollow, black eyes and purplish-green cheeks, his ghoulish make-up streaked with sweat.

‘You did. I sat on the windowsill.’

Firecrackers explode by our feet and we shriek obligingly as the little ones, dressed up in hessian sacks and rags, laugh and jump up and down. Joni smiles at them. No one has a smile like Joni. It almost splits her face in two. White teeth and huge crimson lips, even without make-up. Not unlike a shark when you think about it.

‘Now off you fuck,’ she says quietly. Never the one for kids. Millie excepted.

‘God, I’m pissed.’ I rub my eyes. ‘I’m going to need that hog roast tomorrow.’

‘Could do with it now.’ Joni blows her cheeks out. ‘What time is the bonfire again? Two? Or three?’

‘Three for the food. Fire getting lit at two. God, I said I’d help collect all the scarecrows and take them up on Kit’s trailer. I’m really regretting that now.’

‘That sounds awkward,’ Joni grimaces. ‘Just get Millie to do it.’

‘Speaking of, I’d better go and find her.’ I make to get up, but Joni yanks me down.

‘Let her have fun. It’s All Gallows’ Eve.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.’ My eyes track a sinister-looking clown on stilts, teetering down the gate towards the fields. You can really only make out his silhouette – gangly, elongated. Knives for legs.

On the edge of the clumps of people, I can see him. Just by Crazy Dave’s Emporium van. He’s holding a pint and talking to Andy Shepard, the landlord of the Noose and Bough. God, he really is beautiful. The strings of fairy lights are casting a glow over the side of his face and, for a second, I wonder if everything is going to be all right. That I’ve made the right decision. Then he catches my eye and smiles and everything inside me squirms and squelches, and all I can see and hear is the pain in Kit’s eyes and his words.

Those words.

What have you done?

I take a long, long slug of my wine until it’s gone. I poke the hole in the back of my gum with my tongue and wince.

‘You OK?’ Joni says.

‘Yeah. Still hurts.’

‘Your tooth? It will do for a couple of days. You’ve done well not to get a black eye. I did when I had my wisdom tooth out, do you remember?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be you if there wasn’t a drama. Think if I put it under my pillow the tooth fairy might come? I’m so skint.’

‘Worth a try.’

There’s a horrible, head-splitting foghorn that makes us both drop our cups and clasp our hands to our ears. The smell of candyfloss and sausages is all around us. The sinister laughs of the Punch and Judy-style show stop abruptly, and everyone gets to their feet.

Andy is clambering on top of one of the outside pub tables, wearing a waistcoat like a complete dick.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!’ He doesn’t need a megaphone with that gob. He was always a bit of a try-hard at school. That’s what the lads used to call him anyway. The goalie. Useless up front apparently.

‘God love him, but he does make me cringe.’ Joni rolls her eyes and I smirk.

‘It is approaching the witching hour of All Gallows’ Eve,’ Andy bellows. His parents used to own the pub when we were younger. He may have been a try-hard, but we’d always get the crisps for free when they went out of date. ‘And as is tradition, our Gallows Queen is about to be crowned.’

A sleepy toddler rests his head on his dad’s shoulder, arms around his neck, legs clamped around his waist. I ache for Millie. ‘Koala, koala, koala,’ she used to say, her pudgy hands reaching up for mine. I glance down the cobbles, but I can’t see her. I can’t see the spindly shadows of the clown either. ‘I’m going to go and look for her,’ I say to Joni. Even I notice my words are slurred.

‘No, it’s my big moment.’ Joni slaps the top of my arm. ‘Just ring her.’

We get to our feet and some of the school mums turn and raise their eyebrows and grin at Joni. Except the one who moved here recently, who can’t due to the Botox.

‘As is tradition …’ Andy booms.

I press my phone to my ear, but it’s just ringing out. Millie is attached to that bastard thing every waking moment except for the one time I want to get hold of her.

Everyone is gathering together around the oak. The Gallows Tree. Centre of the village, a shoddy black metal fence circling it that tourists ignore and clamber over so they can have their picture taken next to it. The cobbles are uneven and ruptured under it. My mum used to say this village was built on its roots, that they are underneath the ground, under all of our houses. It used to scare me as a kid. Thick, waving, snaking roots squirming under me. No matter how far you ran, they could tunnel after you. I still shudder now.

Tom and Pete are plucking and twitching at their instruments on the makeshift stage. It may be about to turn midnight, but noise licence be damned. There’s not a single resident of the village who isn’t here.

Well. That’s not quite true. There’s one.

‘Now, we all know the story, but just in case, for any comer-iners who may not know the legend of the Gallows Tree, the boughs of the oak are famous for more than just the folk song. The song is inspired by the legend that a sacrifice must be made for the village to prosper, for the crops to grow. And on All Gallows’ Eve, traditionally, that sacrifice was hanged from the boughs. It was seen as a great honour to be chosen, and the young maidens would compete to be the Gallows Queen.’

‘Did they? Or is he getting mixed up with The Hunger Games?’ Joni looks at me, smirking.

Andy continues, ‘The last girl standing after the maypole dancing would earn the crown. Legend has it, they’d dance all night.’

‘Well, you’d make damn sure you didn’t win the maypole dance,’ Joni replies.

‘When has there ever been a dancing competition you would willingly lose?’ I point out.

‘One that ends in me hanging.’

‘Now, we’re not hanging anyone tonight …’ As if he heard, Andy pauses for dramatic effect and arches one brow in the same way he does every year, playing the villain in the village-hall pantomime. ‘But our nominated queens have been selected by the village elders. In this case, my dad and the village-hall trustees. And you’ll have seen in the village Focus newsletter, this year they are …’ Andy tugs on the noose nearest to him and reads out the tag. ‘Helen Cartwright. Nominated for her walking-to-school buddy scheme. Means we can all get off to work that little bit quicker. All hail Helen!’

Everyone applauds and raises a glass to Helen, all pointy-faced and sharp elbows. She smiles thinly from the edge of the crowd. Everyone knows she hasn’t won, so no one wastes too loud a clap.

‘And next …’ Andy tugs on the middle noose. ‘For her tireless efforts and dealings with the devil – sorry – our fearless parish council leader’ – sniggers ripple through the crowd – ‘to turn the red phone box into a children’s library, Ruth Walker.’

Again, more applause. Ruth’s more popular than Helen, so a couple of other school mums cheer, the ones who win prizes for their lemon curd and nut-free rocky road, and who all fancy the head teacher. I catch her eye and smile. She smiles back, even though she knows she has lost and knows I know it too, so it’s a pity smile. And we both hate me for it.

‘And last …’

Please don’t say ‘but by no means least’.

‘But by no means least! Nominated for leading the primary school in their victory at the Cross-Valley Choir Competition, Joni Blackwood.’

There are some catcalls and a wolf whistle. Joni laughs, flipping her middle finger at the noisy pack. She’s about the only one who could get away with that. Andy is much more traditional than he likes to let on and doesn’t usually tolerate profanities on his stage. But he has a thing for Joni. They all do.

I retry Millie. No answer.

‘The nooses have been hanging all week, and the good pub-goers have been voting in their masses.’

One of Andy’s glass collectors staggers up with a huge jar filled almost to the top with coppers and small silver pieces, the odd chunky pound. His fed-up-looking wife Emma follows out with another, and then a third is plonked next to it on the table.

‘Whoever’s jar contains the most money is declared our winner!’ Andy announces. ‘And before I announce our new Gallows Queen, can I just thank everyone who has chucked in their change. I can formally announce that in total we have raised over five hundred pounds for the playgroup’s new outdoor kitchen!’

I nudge Joni so we can share our usual scathing eye rolls, but her cheeks are flushed and her green eyes are getting glassy. In fact, she is only looking out of one eye, which is appearing bigger and bigger, and this usually means it’s time to leave.

Andy makes a big show of opening the envelope, but we all know what’s inside. I can’t be the only one to spot the odd note crumpled up in Joni’s jar.

‘And our Gallows Queen is …’ Everyone starts clapping and whooping before he gets to the end and Joni jumps up and down, wringing her hands like a little girl. She’s at the side of the stage before her name is even read out.

Even though I knew it was coming, I can’t help but smile as Joni bends her head for her cheap plastic crown and pink sash. Normally, Andy reads out the amount in each jar first. He hasn’t this time. So that must mean she’s won by a landslide and he doesn’t want to embarrass the others.

‘Well, this is kind of weird?’ He’s here. Suddenly. Right next to me. Jamie. ‘Aren’t May Queens usually kids?’

‘Not in this village.’ I glance up. He is so tall. Taller than me. I’m not used to it. ‘It seems wrong to vote for children to be sacrificed.’

‘Ah OK. Just spinster virgins then? Bit Wicker Man?’ He puts his arm around me and I feel all the eyes of the village on us, as if we are in some Ira Levin novel.

‘I think we both know Joni is no virgin. And does she count as a spinster when she is voluntarily single? I can’t believe you don’t remember this,’ I say.

‘Hey, I only lived here for two years. And, erm, we were otherwise occupied for one of those All Gallows’ Eves if I remember rightly?’

He must feel me stiffen because he lets his arm drop. I want to say something, apologise, but, as usual, I don’t need to.

‘It’s OK,’ he says quietly. ‘Maybe it was a bit soon for our first public outing.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say as Joni catches my eye from the front of the crowd and raises an eyebrow.

‘You OK?’ she mouths. I nod and give her a discreet thumbs up.

‘I just feel so awful Kit isn’t here. I shouldn’t have come. He always loved All Gallows’ Eve. I mean, he took the piss, of course. But he liked this kind of thing. The band. I should have just stayed at home. It’s just so awkward to know what to do now. Is this going to be my life? Only one of us at parents’ evenings? People having to choose between us all the time …’

‘Well, I guess it’s me that shouldn’t have come. Too raw. Sorry. I was being selfish.’

I can hear the hurt in his voice and I want to take it away. I want to get up on my tiptoes and pull him to me, his huge hands on my waist, his stubble sandpapering my cheek. But instead I look back over my shoulder for Millie. When I turn back, he bends down and kisses the top of my head.

‘I’ll call you in the morning, Cass.’

‘You’re leaving?’ I shiver, but I have no idea why, when the air is close and muggy.

‘It’s best, I think.’ The crinkles around his eyes deepen. ‘You’ve still got my phone, though.’

‘Oh yeah.’ I fish it out my back pocket and the intimacy of the fact I’ve been looking after it while his team lost in the tug of war is not lost on either of us. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘It’s just … I have no idea how to behave.’

‘We’ll work it out.’ He lifts my chin and I think he is going to kiss me and immediately I feel the little hairs all over me rise.

But instead he strokes my cheek, then turns and walks away, past the field I hope Millie is in. Towards the mills, where he left his car. Not outside mine. I watch him walk until he becomes part of the purple shadows. Drama averted. I breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realised how tense I’d been all night.

Joni is laughing while she readjusts the mic, mouthing something at one of the mums at the back of the crowd.

I catch Tom’s eye and offer a tentative smile, but he doesn’t return it. He just stares. For a few seconds, everything goes a bit cold. Then I feel warm hands snake over my shoulders and everything feels upside down until I see the fingernails are electric blue.

‘Where have you been?’ I turn around and Millie is grinning that mischievous smile she’s been offering up since she was a toddler, especially when she used to do a secret poo in a variety of unusual locations and watch me with Machiavellian eyes as I tried to hunt down the source of the stench. ‘What have you been up to?’ I try to block out Joni’s earlier comment as I see a grey-hooded youth who looks a lot like Andy’s son shoulder-barge his way through the groups of parents and friends with a sense of entitlement his dad never had. ‘Is that Chris?’

‘Dunno,’ Millie shrugs. ‘I’m starving, can we go yet?’ I stare at her pupils as she looks towards the stage. Joni is adjusting her silver plastic crown. ‘Ah, she won!’

‘Again.’ I put my arm around her and I am shocked when she doesn’t try to hiss and spit at me.

‘Never any doubt.’ Millie looks at me and smiles. Her freckles have started to come out. I can always tell because her nose is caked in concealer and looks three shades darker than the rest of her face. I wish she wouldn’t cake her face in so much crap.

Her eyes start to follow the boy in the hoodie, and we both watch as he walks round the back of the pub and hear the fire door open and slam. It is Chris. And it’s blatant that’s who she has been with. I decide it’s not worth poking the beast, though.

‘I really am tired.’ Millie lays her head on my shoulder and I smell the sickly notes of B-list celebrity body spray and weed.

Now is not the time.

‘Go home.’ I kiss the top of her head. ‘I’m going to watch the band and then …’ I have to mouth the rest of the words as Tom drops the bassline to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ and everyone cheers. ‘I’ll be straight home.’

‘OK.’ Millie yawns. I can see our house from here.

From the top of the village, the terraced houses lie squat, like a guard, in a circle around the bottom of Gallows Hill. ‘Flash your bedroom light when you get in,’ I say and she looks at me oddly.

‘Can I not just text you like a normal person?’

‘No, because you could be texting from anywhere,’ I point out.

‘I’ll send you a pic then.’ Millie shakes her head, climbs over a fence in the gap between two houses and drops into the field. It’s the shortest way home and I see her phone torch bobbing as she goes.

The short fear. That’s what I used to call it. On the way back from Joni’s when we were kids. No phones then and I never had batteries in my torch. But running over the fields in the dark, the moon swaying in the black smoky clouds over the treetops, listening out for the howls of the werewolves that I was always convinced were hot on my heels. Never rapists. I long for the days when the only monsters around were the ones in my dreams.

I smell rain in the air and feel as if the clouds are dropping down. I look up, but the sky is just black and thick and I can’t sense what is going to happen. But it feels as if thunder is gathering. The stars are shutting off one by one.

I watch for a few minutes before turning my eyes back to Joni at the microphone. Even with the faint red wine moustache, she is so beautiful. Her nose is slightly crooked. Her mouth hangs wide. It reminds me of the picture I took of her at last year’s street party. She is wearing the same kimono. The bird print one. The curve of her breasts in the black satin top underneath. The beads on her wrists. The friendship bracelets I have made for her. One every year. Until they wear thin and fray open. The Tanglewood midnight-blue parlour guitar across her middle.

This is the picture they use in the papers.

Because the next morning, the noose with Joni’s name on it sways in the wind, her plastic crown tied to it with the scarf from her hair.

The debris from the night before is scattered underneath the tree, across the cobbles, the uneven pavement. Crushed plastic cups. Red wine stains the flags like blood. Candyfloss sticks are strewn among the trailing bunting that has plunged from the trees in last night’s unexpected hailstorm.

And Joni has vanished.

It’s me who sounds the alarm. She always used to say no one would notice if she fell down the stairs, broke both legs and died staring at the cream cracker under the sofa. I pointed out that she messages me about twelve times a day. If I don’t know what she’s had for breakfast or what day of her menstrual cycle she’s on, I fear she’s been abducted by aliens.

So, as usual, I send her a WhatsApp when I wake up. We always do an autopsy of the night, before we’ve even got out of bed. It’s still early, though. And I’m not expecting a reply.

I lie in bed for a bit, stretching my fingers and toes to each corner of it. I haven’t got used to sleeping on my own yet. It’s been a few weeks now, but I’m still sleeping on the left side, although I must have rolled over in the night because Kit’s side is crumpled.

Outside the window, the blackbirds are gathering in the treetops and I watch for a while as they sway in the breeze; their nests look so fragile in the boughs but stay firm. I always loved leaving the curtains open, letting the moon be my night light, but Kit hated it and would close them tight with a flourish, as if he was making a point. No light cracking the thick dark anywhere. I used to lie awake, my eyes trying to make out the shapes against the walls, otherwise I’d feel like I was being swallowed up in a dark, inky abyss. Now I lie and watch the night turn to day. It’s only when the sky starts to soften that I let my swollen eyelids close and drift away.

I check my phone again, but still no blue ticks. Not that I was expecting any. So I climb out of bed and don’t bother to straighten the sheets. What’s the point? It’s only me in here, seeing it. Kit wants to see Millie tonight. We still haven’t figured out how it’s all working. At the moment, he is still crashing with Tom. I guess I should offer to leave for the night so he can be here with Millie. On familiar ground. Not fair to hang around and make it painful for everyone.

But then he’ll ask where I’m going and that makes it all feel worse somehow. I could lie and say I’m going to Joni’s. Or I could really just go to Joni’s. But the need for him is so strong. It’s almost strange now I’m allowed to see him. It still feels shady.

I think about him. Jamie. His fingers in the small of my back. The way he looks into my eyes. I know that sounds like a line from a book, but he really does. First one, then the other. Then back again. Like he is trying to memorise every line in my iris.

He wants me to leave the village. I know he does, deep down. The way he always did when we were kids. When he moved here with his dad, he was already seventeen. It wasn’t inbuilt, the pull to this place. He isn’t part of its roots, not the way I am.

I think about his flat in Leeds. At least, the pictures I’ve seen on Facebook. I’ve never actually been there. His wallmounted TV. Granite worktops. Appliances I don’t understand; vegetable spiralizers, I should think. Coffee pods. His shiny life. I picture him, lying on the sofa. His usual crash position, he tells me. Match of the Day on mute. Smiling as he types back to me on his pho. . .