Suspended
The quiet, calm and beautiful village of Grewelthorpe situated in North Yorkshire, England was not all Nicole Granger had wanted it to be. Having recently moved there from Tain, Scotland she had big expectations considering she had come from a quite busy town, with a few people who were in her opinion anyway past their time and hardly any services buses. She stood in the hall way of her new house and began to question why she moved here with her dad but she didn’t need to think about it very long before remembering that they had moved because of her mother’s sudden death. The death had come as a shock to the 16 year old that had always looked at her mother as a taller version of her with the long, curly, red hair and the slim figure. The only differences were their height and that now she was alive and her mother was dead.
Her first night in the new but old, dark, dull and dreary but she managed to get a decent night’s sleep. She got up off the mattress that was lying on the floor because her dad had not had time to make the bed frames she saw her dad was still sleeping so she went and got changed into her running gear. After scribbling down a note for her dad saying that she had gone to the woods up the road and was going for a run for when he awoke. She locked the door behind her and started jogging up to the woods. Passing the old brick houses, Nicole thought about her mother and whether her mother would have liked it here. As she was thinking about her mum she had not realised that she had already ran into the woods and was following the Squirrel Trail.
Running past the trees and down the twisting, tight road that soon led to a clearing, Nicole found a good sized tree, where she would be able to get a good view and think about the recent events that had happened in her life that looked easy enough to climb. As Nicole started to carefully climb the tree she decided that she had reached the highest point that she was willing to, she looked down and saw that she was roughly about seven meters off the ground but then when looking up saw she could easily climb higher. It was then that she saw them. The pair of legs hanging down that she had not seen before as they were surrounded by the leaves of the tree. She wanted to climb higher and see who it was but instead she just shouted, “Hello?” there was no reply, she shouted up a further three times but when there was no reply she thought about just leaving them but thought better of it and started to climb further upward.
When she reached the branch adjacent from the suspended feet Nicole shouted up again hoping this time she would get a reply but when she looked up Nicole was not expecting to see what she did. A body.
Nicole started to quiver with fear and slowly began to make her way back down from the tree and onto the crisp leaves that lay under it. Looking back up the tree she could not see the suspended body. Nicole turned and began to run toward the village, racing past the signposts of information on the wildlife and the memorial benches, her feet were drenched from the morning dew and there was mud all over her jogging trousers but this did not bother her she just wanted to tell someone.
When she reached the village Nicole took out her keys with her trembling hands and tried to direct them into the keyhole this was difficult with her quivering hands but when she did manage to get them to slot in Nicole wasted no time in turning them round.
Charging into the living room of the house she grabbed her mobile and dialled 999 and asked for the police. She woke her dad and told him about what she’d found. Straight away the colour dropped from her dads face he was as white as a ghost. Nicole sat down shaking with fear of what she had seen but she knew she would have to pull herself together in order to give a statement to the police. After having a quick wash and getting changed Nicole was still pretty shaken up but she had no time for that as there was a knock at the door. Nicole stood and looked at the door for a few seconds before realising that she should get the door.
She invited in the 2 police men and led them into the living room where had dad was waiting for them at their table. Nicole offered them drinks but they both declined so she sat down, the officers introduced themselves as Chief Inspector James Morrison and Constable Aaron Turner.
Nicole reported what she had discovered and started to consider why someone would want to kill themselves. Could it be they were not comfortable with who they were? Or could it possibly be that they are running away from something? But her thought process was interrupted when the officers asked her to take them to the body. Nicole agreed and put on her coat and walked toward the wood.
As they approached the sight Nicole said that she did not want to go any further but directed the officers to the clearing and described the tree. With that she turned round and left the police to their investigation hoping they would discover who it was and why they did it. She walked into the village and saw a herd of police vehicles and watched as they walked into the woods.
