Destroy Me by Karen Cole (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

find out what he knows. But that will have to wait. There’s something else I need to do first – something I should have done a long time ago. I start the engine and head through town towards the ring road. I drive slowly, blinded by the driving rain, past the petrol station and the garden centre until I reach South Baunton. Then I stop on the small stone bridge and look at Nessa’s house through my windscreen, the wipers swishing backwards and forwards. The house hasn’t changed much. There’s a slide and a playhouse in the front garden that weren’t there when Nessa lived here, but that’s about it. I shrink down in my seat as the garage doors swing open. A car rolls out and a woman drives past over the bridge. Then everything is quiet again and I picture myself as a teenager running round the side of the house down that gravel driveway, tears streaming down my face. I wish I could go back to that moment and warn my younger self. I would tell her to turn around and go back into the house. I would explain that what happened between Charlie and James wasn’t important – that it would mean nothing to me years later and that I was running towards a cataclysm that would scar my life and the lives of so many others for ever.

It’s too late. The past can’t be changed. There’s nothing to be done. Taking a deep breath, I turn the car around and drive back over the bridge. This time I follow the route I took seventeen years ago when I ran away from the party. As I drive, the rain eases and I bump over ruts and divots in the road, the low-hanging branches of trees brushing against my windscreen. I grip the wheel tightly as I get closer, fighting off a wave of panic.

I turn a bend in the road and suddenly, I’m back there – and it’s all exactly as it was: the tree with the twisted trunk, the wooden gate and the grass verge. I swerve into a lay-by and kill the engine. Sitting in the car for a few moments, I try to control my breathing. Then I get out and walk through the drizzle a short way up the road. When I reach the tree, I stand still, my heart hammering. I can’t turn my head. There’s the strong, superstitious sensation that someone is behind me. I’m afraid that if I turn, I’ll see her.

Ghosts don’t exist, I think. There’s no such thing as ghosts, I repeat to myself firmly, and clenching my fists, I swivel round swiftly. As though if I turn quickly enough, I might catch her – like that game ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ Or those moving statues in Doctor Who.

I breathe out slowly. There’s no one there, of course. Just the empty road and the tree shifting a little in a breeze. Out of nowhere, a car whizzes past, splashing through a puddle, kicking up spray. I step back, but too late to avoid being splattered with dirty water. I brush down my jeans, then I take the photo out of my bag – the printout from Dylan’s book bag. Raindrops land on the paper, creating dark grey spots that spread and wrinkle the page. But it matches exactly, as I knew it would: the tree, the gate, the long grass. The faded white lines.

In the distance, at the far end of a yellow corn field there’s a church spire and a small white house – the same house I saw with Charlie that night. It has never occurred to me before, but Daisy Foster must have lived there. Where else? There are no other buildings near by. Five-year-old girls don’t just appear out of nowhere in the middle of the night. I close my eyes, trying to block out the image of her small, startled face lit up in my headlights – her limp body lying on the hard, cold tarmac and the tiny, yellow shoe left on one foot.

‘What were you doing, Daisy? Why did you rush out in front of my car like that?’ I murmur aloud.

Then I remember the article I read online and think about the dog that dashed across the road immediately before the crash. She was chasing him, I think. Though what she was doing out and about at five in the morning in the first place is a mystery. Where were her parents? Who lets a five-year-old wander about alone like that? They have to take some of the blame. I’m not the only one responsible. The thought should be comforting, I suppose, but somehow it isn’t.

I glance back at the small white house. Who lives there now? Could Daisy’s parents still be there? Seized by a sudden idea, I get back in the car, turn on data roaming and Google house prices. Then I lock the car and head across the fields, retracing what I think must have been Daisy’s steps that morning. The corn has recently been cut and is wet from the rain. It’s full of crows pecking at the grain. Disturbed by my arrival, they rise into the air, a black cloud of thrashing wings, cawing loudly. It feels like an ominous sign. And as I get closer to the house, my courage wavers. What if I’m wrong? Or worse, what if I’m right and her parents still live in here? Are they the ones trying to frame me? What if I’m walking into a trap?

In the front yard there is a rusty old caravan with one wheel missing, balanced on a pile of bricks and a skip on the lawn full of random junk. A vicious-looking Alsatian runs up barking and snarling as I open the gate and I walk quickly up the overgrown pathway and press the bell. There’s no answer.

The windows are dark, smeared with grime and I can’t see in, but I sense movement inside. Maybe the doorbell