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...

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