Fiction: There are three disappearances. They could all be ‘crimes’, but only one ends in murder

Sept xx

It is autumn, apparently. The leaves will soon be changing colour. And then they’ll fall.

It is so different from India, where the leaves fall after winter, then come back in their new colours.

The first leaves are already beginning to appear on the paths we walk. There’s a bit more light on the forest floor. I’m beginning to see things I didn’t earlier.

There are painted lines on some of the trees. Red, green, occasionally white. What do they mean?

Are these trees marked for cutting down? Are they dead? Sick?

Is this some woodsman’s code? Or a student’s joke?

We share the forest with a little family. A young woman and her two children. She carries the smaller one still, while the other one runs and runs.

The mother has quiet eyes, but these past few days, now that she recognises me, she smiles.

I see them every day.

My dog knows them too, and she goes across to say hello. The children make such a fuss over her.

She dragged me into a small clearing today, after the family passed. She wanted me to follow.

There, in the clearing, was the bust of a man. It sat on a tree stump. It was cut out of wood.

I sat down on a dead tree while I waited for my dog to return. I heard a small bird scratching among the roots close to me, but I couldn’t see it. There were insects about my head and I could smell the damp earth.

The man was to my side. There were deep scores in his forehead and there was a bit of metal jammed into his wooden temple.

He was screaming.

Oct x

It is definitely autumn. I felt vaguely guilty about having the heat on earlier. Now, we need it.

The rain is freezing cold. Everywhere we look, people are wearing scarves and hats. Soon they’ll be wearing gloves.

We need hats and gloves. He can’t say the cold will only last two weeks.

Even he knows better than that.

Oct x

Our things arrived today.

I didn’t believe it would matter so much to me.

But it does.

To have these things again. These photos. These carpets.

These memories. It is like my house is full of friends again.

Just like home, he said. See?

No, I don’t see. But it is nice to have my friends back.

At least it will give me something to do. Putting everything away in the kitchen, the bathroom cabinets, the bookshelves we’ve bought here.

Up on the walls.

There’s no need to rush.

I’ve got all the time in the world.

Oct xx

The movers broke the glass in one frame. I can’t leave it as it is. It’s a watercolour.

I need a framer who will understand what I want, and be affordable. Where do I find a framer in this place?

Oct xx

I stopped for a coffee in a little bar up in the forest. It is in an old hunter’s cabin, up by itself on top of a hill.

I’ve met the woman who runs it. She’s lovely.

She speaks English.

Her father is Cuban.

He had come across for university as a young man. It was a different world, she laughed. We were smoking together in the sun. It was warm that day.

Fidel was still a hero, it was that long ago. And her father was a handsome man. It was no surprise her mother fell in love with him.

Did she see her father often?

Not really. I visit once every few years. We talk on the phone a lot. He doesn’t want to move back here?
Too cold.
Not today

I asked her whether there were still any wild animals in the woods.

Lots of deer. Rodents. A few pigs. That sort of thing.
No predators?
Not on four legs.

I’ve seen the hunters’ towers by the sides of the fields. The local farmers are permitted to kill a certain amount of deer and boar. They need to be culled anyway, with no natural predators to hunt them.

A stand in our local farmer’s market sells cured venison and boar sausage every weekend. It is delicious.

Were there ever bears or wolves?
Centuries ago. Now the only wolves around here drive station wagons.

My dog snoozed at her feet in the sun.

Have a drink next time. I run a bar, you know.
Done. I’ll help you stay in business.

Her laughter followed us down the hill.

We passed the little family again, the calm quiet mother, her wide-eyed children. They knelt to say hello to my dog. They speak more to my dog than they do to me.

The forest is in flame.

It is red, it is ochre, it is orange, the whole of it shot through with green. The leaves fall around me like snow.

There are more and more leaves on the ground. They don’t crunch underfoot. It is too wet for that.

How would a little animal know that a hunter was on its track?

My dog pulled me off the path. I wanted to go home, but she was insistent.

A dead rabbit lay under a tree.

Its neck had been torn open. I could have stooped to feel it, see if it was still warm. I could have waited to see whether whatever had killed it would come out of the shadows.

Come on, girl, I whispered to her. Let’s go.

Excerpted with permission from Into the Forest, Avtar Singh, Context/Westland.