Chapter 27
I took my phone out to call Holly, but it was too noisy to talk so I headed to the exit.
Outside, I found Morag and Avril, both wrapped in quilted parkas, Avril with her vape in her hand, sending great clouds billowing into the air. They had been talking in low voices, stopping as soon as they saw me.
I didn’t know what to say to Avril. She looked miserable and had obviously been crying, her eyes pink and puffy, but I didn’t think I was supposed to know that Lewis had been her dad.
‘Are you not working tonight?’ I said to Morag, opting to avoid the big emotional topic for now.
‘I’m supposed to be. I don’t know if I can face it, though.’
She looked as unhappy as her daughter. Did she still carry a torch for Lewis? Maybe she was thinking about what might have been. Whatever, I guessed there must still be some emotional connection.
‘I need to find Holly and Miranda so I can help them find Jasmine.’
‘Her?’ Avril said. ‘She killed him.’
‘We don’t know that. Not for certain.’
‘Who else could have done it?’
Morag hung her head. ‘So much death around here. It’s too much. If it wasn’t for Mum …’
Avril snapped at her. ‘You always say you’re going to leave, but you never do. I’m getting out, though. The moment I finish school, I’m off.’
Morag lay an arm across her daughter’s shoulders, but Avril shrugged her off, taking a hard suck on her vape.
‘I wish you’d give that up,’ Morag said.
‘Why should I? At least I’m not like you. You were a druggie when you were my age.’ Morag shook her head, but Avril continued, trembling with emotion. ‘At least I haven’t been stupid enough to get myself knocked up. I wish I’d never been born.’
I expected Morag to tell Avril not to talk like that, but she seemed cowed, hanging her head, another person close to tears. I wanted to give her a hug but felt too awkward to even try. I wasn’t used to this – to another family airing their emotions in front of me.
‘Why did he hate me so much?’
‘He didn’t hate you, sweetheart.’
‘He just didn’t care.’ Avril put her vape in her pocket. ‘I’m going inside.’
She pushed her way into the pub.
Morag sighed. ‘Are you wondering what all that was about?’
‘I’m assuming she was talking about Lewis. Your mum told me. About him being Avril’s dad, I mean.’
‘Of course. I’m amazed the whole of Applecross doesn’t know.’ She let out another great sigh. ‘That was part of the arrangement. I would keep quiet about who the father was, not put his name on the birth certificate.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘I didn’t have much choice. I needed the money. Speaking of which, it turned up today, with a Christmas bonus and a note from Zack apologizing for the delay. He told me to buy Avril something nice.’ She shook her head. ‘Feeling guilty, I guess.’
Several more people passed us and went into the pub.
‘Do you need to go and start work?’
‘I should. But Mum has got all her other staff working there tonight. She’ll yell at me in the morning, but I honestly don’t feel up to it.’
‘I get it.’ My phone was still in my hand. ‘I need to try to find Holly. I want to help with the search for Jasmine.’
‘What are they doing? Driving around blindly?’
‘Probably.’ I paused. ‘My car is still at the caves. I don’t suppose you could give me a lift to pick it up?’
She hesitated.
‘Please. It’s not far from here.’
We both turned towards her red Fiat, which was parked in front of the row of houses.
‘All right. Fine. You’re persistent, aren’t you?’
We got into the car.
‘You know this place,’ I said after a minute. ‘Is there anywhere warm out there? Some place that she might have stumbled across. Empty houses? Business that are closed for the winter?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Please. Try to think.’
She did. ‘There’s a place close to the caves. The bothy.’
‘Bothy?’ I asked. I only vaguely knew the word.
‘It’s a shelter for hikers. A little stone building that’s open to anyone who needs it. It’s on a path a little further up the hill.’
That must have been the little house I thought I’d hallucinated when I’d first told Susan what had happened.
The snow was coming down so hard that Morag had to put the wipers on full. Even then it was hard to see, especially with no street lamps. In the beam of the headlights it was like we were driving into a full-on blizzard.
‘This really isn’t a good idea,’ Morag said. ‘And it’s not how I pictured myself spending Hogmanay.’
It was silent, apart from the swish of the wipers. Breaking that silence, I said, ‘I really appreciate you doing this. I’m surprised there aren’t more people out there looking.’
‘Huh. I’m not.’
‘The Grants really aren’t popular around here, are they?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Is it … because of what happened with your brother? With Jimmy? Do people blame the Grants for that? Holly told me that she and Lewis were there with you that night. New Year’s Eve, 2006, right?’
‘She’s told you about that night?’ She had her eyes on the road – what she could see of it, anyway – but turned her head towards me for a second, clearly surprised.
‘Only that the four of you went to the caves to drink and smoke some joints. She told me the police questioned them afterwards. But it was an accident, wasn’t it?’ Seeing her reaction, I said, ‘Sorry, I know this is painful for you. I should shut up.’
‘It’s fine. It was Jimmy’s fault. He drank way too much, smoked too much weed. Holly left because … well, she thought I’d done something to her.’
‘What was it?’
I was about to discover the source of the tension between Holly and Morag.
‘It was stupid. A dumb mistake. I gave her a pill. I thought it was molly but, well, I had two plastic bags in my pocket and I gave her a pill from the wrong one.’
‘What was it?’
‘One of my mum’s sleeping pills. I’d taken them from her bedside drawer, used them occasionally when I was too wound up to sleep.
Holly totally freaked out and immediately went home, saying she needed to get back before the tablet kicked in.
I told her to take my bike, because I thought Lewis would be able to drive me home. ’
Morag went on. ‘Then me and Lewis left, and Jimmy stayed behind, saying he was going to chill out for a while before heading home himself.’ There was a long pause, and I could tell she was back in the past. Nineteen years ago tonight.
‘I should have persuaded him to leave with us, but I don’t think he wanted to get in the way.
He knew I liked Lewis. Leaving him there was the biggest mistake I ever made. ’ A pause. ‘The second biggest.’
I stayed quiet, waiting to see if she would tell me the rest.