Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

'I, uh… There's something…' 'It's okay, Kaitlin.'

'Something you should know.' 'Okay.'

'About Megan.' A pause. A long one. 'I'm just sick of having to lie.'

More silence. For a moment, all I could hear was the slight crackle of her breath against the mouthpiece.

Then, finally, she spoke.

The Carvers' gates were closed when I pulled up outside. I'd tried calling ahead, but no one had answered. I locked the BMW, stepped up to the intercom and pressed the buzzer. They had a small camera embedded in the number pad. I looked into it. It was moving from left to right, then — as it got to me - stopped. A crackle on the intercom.

'What do you want?'

James Carver.

'I need to speak to you.'

'We've got nothing more to say to one another.'

'You're going to want to hear this.'

The camera hummed. This time, in its centre, I could see the lens open up. He was zooming in on me. I stared straight into the eye of it.

Then the gates buzzed open.

Carver met me at the door, but didn't offer me anything to drink. Didn't even ask me in. The two of them stood in the doorway, arms crossed, defensive, waiting for whatever I had to say. Carver was in front of his wife, protecting her, as if he thought I might try to start something.

'I got a call this morning,' I said, keeping my eyes fixed on him. 'From Kaitlin - Megan's friend. Did the police ever tell you what she said in her statement?'

'What's this got to do with anything?'

'Did they?'

Anger flared in his eyes. 'She was the last person to see Megan.' He paused, a flutter of sadness in among the irritation. 'That's it.'

For the first time, I glanced at Caroline. Her eyes were fixed on mine, but there wasn't any of the animosity of her husband.

'That's not it,' I said, glimpsing a little fear in her now.

'What are you talking about?'

'Before Megan disappeared, she confided in Kaitlin.'

'About what?' Carver said.

'And I think she might have confided in your wife as well.'

Carver's mouth dropped a little, as if he couldn't believe I had the balls to come into his home and insult his wife again. Then, when Caroline didn't respond, didn't even attempt to register her disgust, he looked over his shoulder at her.

'Caroline?' he said. 'What's going on?' She couldn't look at him.

'James,' I said, and waited for him to turn back to me. When he did, the anger had gone from his face. 'Megan was pregnant.'

Sona

Sona woke. Next to her, Mark was lying on his stomach, the sheet gathered at the small of his back, breathing so quietly she could barely hear him. On the floor, their clothes were scattered everywhere: a blouse, a skirt, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a jacket. Shoes at the door. Underwear still clinging to the ends of the duvet.

She sat up and caught sight of herself in the reflection of the mirror. Naked, and still a little conscious of it, even though they were nearly six months into their relationship. It was a feeling that was slowly starting to pass. Mark made her feel good about herself in a way few men had before. That didn't mean he complimented her a lot either, but she'd made allowances for that. He was incredibly shy, so different from the other men she'd known, and she liked that about him. She'd always had reactive men before. Men who told her she was beautiful and then ended up tearing her heart out. She found Mark's stillness — his sense of quiet — new, exciting and secure.

She headed to the bathroom and closed the door, looking at herself again in the mirror. In her twenties she'd done a little modelling and, as she'd passed into her thirties, she'd lost none of her looks. The blonde hair, blue eyes and high cheekbones could still turn heads, even if she saw changes elsewhere. Maybe a little more weight than she should have had. A few more lines at the corners of her eyes. Some of the definition around her stomach had gone. She'd be thirty-six in two days, and knew she had imperfections now. But she'd found a man who was able to look past all of it.

A man she was falling in love with.

They'd been driving for about twenty minutes when Mark told her she could remove the blindfold. Sona reached up and pulled the tie away. Her head throbbed slightly. She wasn't sure if it was the start of a headache, or the sudden switch from dark to light. Sun poured into the car as she looked around, and saw they were in a parking space on a narrow residential street. Identical terraced houses ran along either side of the road. Most hadn't been maintained with any sense of pride: paint blistered on windowsills, plants were dying in small concrete yards, broken gutters hung loose.

'It gets better,' Mark said, turning to her. 'Promise.'

'Where are we?'

'I used to come here sometimes.' He pointed a finger towards a small alleyway running between two houses further down. It was the only break in the buildings, on either side, for as far as they could see. To the woods down there.'

'Woods?'

Mark killed the engine.

'They used to make munitions in this area during the Second World War, at a factory further up the road. This whole place was once one of the centres of British industry. Now look at it…' He studied the houses opposite. When he turned back, he glanced at Sona and smiled. 'Oh shit, I've just turned into my dad.'

She laughed. He smiled, then reached down to the side of his seat. A second later, he brought out a single red rose. 'Happy birthday, Sona,' he said quietly.

She took the rose, a cream ribbon tied to the stem. Something moved across his face — as if he was on the verge of telling her something important.

He wants to tell me he loves me .

She waited for a moment, and when it didn't come, leaned into him and kissed him gently on the lips. 'Thank you, baby,' she said. When she drew away, she saw the same expression. 'Are you okay?'

He glanced towards the alleyway, then turned back to her.

'I just…' He paused. 'I'm just really…'

In love with you .

She smiled and squeezed his leg, kissing him on the cheek.

He nodded to the back seat. 'I hope you're hungry.'

She turned. She'd heard him sliding something into the back after he'd blindfolded her and guided her to the car. Now she could see it had been a hamper.

'Shall I take you to our picnic spot?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said, her voice trembling a little. 'I'd love that.'

Mark led her away from the car, carrying the picnic hamper. They turned into the alleyway and followed it until it opened up on to a concrete bed with a series of half-demolished brick walls across it. She realized then that it had once been a factory. To her left and right were more ruined walls, remnants of another age; some still just about standing, some nothing but piles of bricks and dust, grass and weeds crawling through the foundations.

Rubbish was dumped everywhere: beer bottles, drinks cans, crisp packets, sweet wrappers, dustbin liners full of rotting food. The smell was awful.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'It really Does get better.'

Ahead of them, carved like a mouth into a line of huge fir trees, was the entrance to the woods Mark had talked about. Everything was overgrown. As they moved past a warped, broken gate and along the path, trees leaned in over them, their foliage thick and dark. Grass was everywhere, sprouting up waist-high around the tree trunks, and breaking through the cracks in the gravel path. The further in they got, the less defined the trail became until, eventually, the gravel turned into hard mud.

'Everything's so thick,' she said.

'Yeah. Nothing ever seems to die here.'

Sona glanced right. Through a gap in the trees, she could make out huge letters on the side of another factory: munitions. There was row after row of smashed windows, jagged glass still in the frames, nothing inside but darkness.