One of the Family

Chapter 18

I went straight out to the car.

Before starting the engine, I hesitated.

Should I call the police? I knew that was what people always said you should do in these situations, but what was I supposed to say?

I think my brother-in-law is planning to do something to his dad’s fiancée.

Why? I half-overheard a couple of cryptic conversations and he seems awfully keen to take her on a trip to the local caves.

It sounded flimsy. There was nothing that would make the police jump into their squad cars and race to the scene.

And wasn’t the nearest station two hours away in Inverness?

If Lewis really was planning to murder Jasmine, the corpse would be cold by the time they got here, and Susan, the only local cop, had hardly been friendly when I’d gone to see her, even if she had then sent me Emma Fox’s details.

I decided to check it out first and pray I was wrong, that Lewis really did like Jasmine, that this was nothing more than a fun excursion.

I should let Holly know where I was going, though, in case she came downstairs and wondered where I was.

I sent her a text. Hey. I’ve gone to the caves.

I paused. Should I tell her about my fears? I think your brother is about to kill your dad’s new wife. What if I was wrong? Again, I decided to leave it. Because despite the churning in my gut, there was still a part of me that refused to believe it was true. I wanted to be wrong.

I want to see this Serpent Stone for myself. xxx

I started the car. I wasn’t even 100 per cent sure where the caves were, just that they were in the hills somewhere in the direction of the big ruined house.

The sky had darkened while I had been figuring out what to do, snow and clouds blocking out the sun, and it was so cold in the car I could see my breath.

I sped down the hill, towards the village and the pub, then kept going in the direction Lewis and Jasmine had headed.

Halfway up the hill, I saw a man who had been propping up the bar in the pub earlier.

He appeared to be making his way home, head down, a little unsteady on his feet.

I pulled beside him and put the window down.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Could you tell me how to get to the caves? Where the Serpent Stone is?’

He scrutinized me. He had a nose like a purple Brussels sprout. ‘What do you want to go there for?’

‘Can you just tell me how to get there?’

He proceeded to give me a long explanation which boiled down to: drive straight and turn left at the electricity station.

I thanked him and drove on, going as fast as I dared on the bumpy, narrow mountain pass.

Lewis would have had plenty of time to carry out his plan.

I would almost certainly be too late to stop him, unless Jasmine had somehow figured out what he was doing and tried to get away.

Bought herself some time. I had to try anyway.

This was not the right time to admire the view, but here, driving inland, it was just as beautiful, in that craggy Highlands way, as it was on the coast road.

Greens and browns and greys, old wooden signposts with writing so faded it was impossible to read.

In two separate places, waterfalls poured down the crooked surfaces of the cliffs above me, and down on the coast I could see a sandy beach, the sea battering the shore.

I turned left as the drunk guy had instructed, and then I saw it, up ahead. A tiny car park, in which the only vehicle was Lewis’s Mercedes.

I pulled in behind it and got out of the car.

There was nothing to mark this spot out as a tourist attraction.

No signs, just the opening of a cave at the base of the grey rock face above me.

A dark opening which looked just about big enough to walk into.

Easy to miss, despite what the guy had said.

I knew the big house I kept seeing on the horizon was somewhere near here, but it was hidden by the cliff face.

I headed on foot along the path towards the cave.

Loose rocks and slippery patches of grass dotted the path like traps.

The sky was almost black now and, up here, exposed to the Scottish elements, the wind had a bite.

Now I was here I could picture poor Samir freezing to death even more clearly.

I could see it as if I were looking through a camera, framing it, reconstructing it.

I reached the entrance and hesitated for a moment.

Should I call inside? I decided it was better to just go ahead and try to find them.

Pray that Lewis hadn’t done it yet. It was, I thought, a good sign that his car was still here.

He hadn’t murdered her then headed back, pretending to tell everyone about the terrible accident that had happened.

I looked down at what I was wearing. Jeans and my wool coat. Hardly the right gear for going caving, but at least my Doc Martens were sturdy and had a good grip.

I went in.

Lewis hadn’t been lying about the caves being easy to traverse.

I’d watched horror films in which people rappel into caves wearing helmets with torches on, descending into the depths of the earth and commando-crawling through knee-high tunnels.

This was nothing like that. The passage was broad enough for two people to walk side by side, and if I reached up I could just about touch the ceiling.

I used the torch on my phone to light the way.

It was damp and musty, with a strange mineral smell.

It was also completely silent, apart from the faint sound of running water coming from somewhere ahead.

About twenty yards in, the passageway curved to the right and then forked.

Shit. Which way was I supposed to go? I chose right, figuring this route seemed to lead deeper into the earth.

Within a minute, I was confident I’d made the right choice because the ceiling was suddenly too low for me to walk forward.

Lewis had told Jasmine about this, hadn’t he?

Warned her there was one point you had to crawl through.

I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through the gap.

Halfway through, I experienced a flutter of panic, imagining the ceiling collapsing, or both sides of the passage pushing together, trapping me, crushing me.

That dreadful primal fear, making me paranoid, irrational.

What if I’d actually chosen the wrong path and I was about to plummet off a ledge?

What if I got stuck here? The passage was growing narrower and I had this horrible feeling that I might get stuck here, find myself going round in circles for ever, and that one day they would find my bones here.

I could see it all, my imagination running away with itself, chest tightening, breathing quickening …

But then, thank God, the ceiling sloped upwards so I could stand again, and moments later I emerged into a cavern.

I stopped, mouth agape, taking it in. I was standing in a huge, open area about ten metres high.

There was a ledge about six feet above me, with a hole in the rock face, presumably the entrance to another tunnel.

Water trickled down the far wall. And there, on the wall to the left, was the Serpent Stone.

It was smaller than I expected, about eighteen inches long.

It was simpler, too: an undulating line carved deeply into the rock, clearly intended to represent a snake – or serpent.

At one end, the tail curled into a spiral.

At the other, a tiny forked tongue. There was something mesmerizing about it, despite its simplicity.

Or perhaps because of its simplicity. It had been here thousands of years, and although I didn’t believe in magic or blessings, it did seem to exude some kind of power.

The power to stir the imagination, perhaps. It was almost hypnotic.

I snapped out of it after a few seconds, remembering why I was here.

The cavern was empty, with no exits apart from the small tunnel high above my head.

There was something else, too, something it took my dazed mind a second to figure out.

It wasn’t dark in here, and the light wasn’t only coming from my phone.

It took another couple of seconds to identify the light source.

There were two flashlights lying on the other side of the cavern, close to the wall that had water trickling down its face.

I hurried over. These were Lewis and Jasmine’s torches.

There was a bottle of water sitting beside them.

There was also Jasmine’s coat, and on top of the coat was Jasmine’s phone.

A metre beyond, in the direction of the water, was a drop, the floor suddenly disappearing. I moved towards it, slowly and carefully, and peered over the ledge, expecting to see the worst: Jasmine’s body, twisted and broken far below.

But when I looked, all I could see at first was water. A pool, about six yards across, black in the darkness. Water ran down the rock face into it, and I presumed there must be somewhere for water to exit at the same rate, otherwise this cavern would be flooded.

I grabbed one of the flashlights and pointed it at the pool.

There was something beneath the surface.

I rubbed my eyes. Was it just a single dark shape?

Suddenly, I was certain I knew what had happened.

Lewis had pushed Jasmine into this water, drowned her, and he must have exited the caves before I got here.

Maybe he’d been on his way out, heard me coming and hidden in the other passage that I’d passed.

I didn’t know why he’d left his flashlight behind – perhaps that was part of his cover story.

I panicked, had to get out to seek help; I wasn’t thinking.

Could there be a chance that Jasmine was still alive? And where was Lewis? His car had been parked outside and, unless there was another exit, he couldn’t have left since I’d got here.

I shone the torch left and right and saw that to the far left of the drop the rock sloped at a forty-five-degree angle.

I studied it for a moment. I knew I could slide down it, but would I be able to get back up?

Would the rock be too slippery? I had to give it a go.

If there was the slightest chance Jasmine might be alive …

I took my coat off and set my phone on the ledge, thinking it would be better to keep it dry – I had no signal here anyway so it was little use – then, gripping the torch, slid down the slope to the pool, using the heels of my boots to control my descent.

I reached the bottom, my soles touching the water, and shone the beam of the torch at the water again.

Oh Jasmine, I thought. I was too slow. I’m too late.

But I didn’t hesitate. I manoeuvred myself into the ice-cold water, gasping as it soaked through my clothes and hit my flesh.

It only came up to the bottom of my rib cage, so I could stand easily.

Stand and reach to grab the body in the water, to get hold of it and pull it up to the surface.

I had the torch tucked beneath my armpit and the light skittered around the pit, bouncing off the walls and the surface of the pool.

I managed to pull Jasmine’s head and shoulders above the water. I twisted my body so the torch’s beam shone directly at her face.

But it wasn’t Jasmine.

It was Lewis.