Chapter 26
‘He has to be somewhere.’
‘Illuminating,’ Kimmy says cuttingly. ‘Thanks for stating the bloody obvious, Eilish.’
‘He’s in the house, I’m sure of it,’ Becca says, sounding like she’s trying to convince herself as much as any of us. ‘We just need to conduct a thorough search … Where is Euan – how fucking long does it take to get the bastard generator going?’ Her voice rises sharply in a rare loss of composure.
‘Euan said there were footprints …’ Kimmy says. ‘Leading out of the courtyard. He saw them when he came over to the house this morning.’
I picture the muddy boot prints on my bedroom carpet. Oh dear God, no! Don’t tell me I’ve dissociated again, gone wandering off in the night …
Becca rounds on her. ‘Alex wouldn’t go walking in the snow! Euan must be mistaken. Or maybe they’re from yesterday, when Jameson and Eilish went for their walk.’
‘Then there’d be two sets of prints and there’s only one, and there’s been a lot of snow since then—’
‘Kimmy!’ Becca snaps. ‘Stop being so bloody obtuse.’
Kimmy looks blank. ‘I’m not, quite the opposite in fact …’
‘Enough.’ Leo folds his arms across his chest. With his rumpled hair and an old T-shirt, he doesn’t live up to his usual sartorial standards.
It’s discomfiting, like the world has tipped on its axis.
‘This isn’t helping. Let’s check the house, then if we don’t find him …
’ He trails off. None of us want to think about what it might mean if Alex isn’t in the house.
If he went off in darkness in last night’s thunder-snow and gales—
We can’t even contemplate that. Not yet.
My personal struggles fade into the background in the light of this new calamity.
Leo takes charge initially and we let him – it’s easier not to argue, and honestly none of us knows what to do.
We are dispatched in pairs to search different floors.
Of course I end up with Jameson, allocated to the top storey of the house.
‘Are you okay, Eilish?’ Jameson murmurs to me as we head up the stairs together.
I nod, avoiding his gaze. ‘Let’s just find Alex.’
‘And then you’ll do another disappearing act,’ he says softly.
I inure myself to the hurt in his voice. I can’t deal with this – with him – right now. I just want to locate Alex, call my brother and put some distance between myself and Tarnmore and this whole mess. I have every right to do a disappearing act after how I was treated last night.
But Jameson doesn’t deserve my anger.
And maybe I don’t deserve his trust.
We search our allocated floor in silence, moving from room to room, checking cupboards and behind furniture like Alex might be playing some elaborate game of hide-and-seek.
Having something to do distracts me from the tumult of my thoughts, but I grow increasingly anxious when it becomes clear that our search is fruitless.
Back downstairs, we reconvene in the hall. Euan rejoins us and tells us he got the generator going. Becca flicks on every light in the hall as though by banishing any hint of darkness, she can make everything okay – because bad things only happen in the shadows, right?
No, they happen in the gleaming light of a summer’s day in the benign waters of a postcard-perfect loch.
They happen in the smoky light of a dancing bonfire in a dawn-streaked sea. They happen when evil seeps into the fault lines in and between people, where resentment grows.
They happen right in front of you, and sometimes you don’t even notice until it’s too late.
Becca opens a cupboard and presses buttons on the central heating, but nothing happens, and she loses patience for the task.
She swears in frustration. ‘I assume no one found Alex and is withholding the news to create a little suspense?’ she says with irritated sarcasm that masks what I know must be real fear.
I feel it too, the tug of foreboding in my belly.
We all shake our heads solemnly. Alex is not in the house. ‘The footprints,’ Euan says. ‘We need to get a move on if we want to be able to follow them …’
‘Why?’ But I already know – unconsciously, I must have felt the light shift again while we were searching.
I rush to the window and peer out, but there’s only grey beyond the glass.
The snow is falling steadily, every bit as heavily as before.
My heart plummets. I can’t lose another friend, but I don’t like his chances out there.
The fresh fall traps us, makes searching for Alex more difficult.
‘It doesn’t make sense for us all to go,’ Euan says. ‘We should leave a couple of people here. Only those who’re used to hillwalking in bad weather should head out. Jameson, you can handle the terrain, and I know what I’m doing … Anyone else?’
‘Eilish,’ Jameson says promptly, and I nod. Though I don’t fancy the idea of being out there in a blizzard, I’m fit enough to handle the conditions, and we need numbers. If Alex is injured and we have to somehow carry him home …
Plus, I think I’d go mad cooped up in the house waiting.
‘I’m coming too,’ Becca says, in a tone that brooks no argument. ‘Kimmy and Leo can stay here.’ Neither of them seems particularly perturbed about being left behind.
I can’t help but wonder if no one argued with my inclusion in the search party because they want to keep me close, under surveillance. Because they still don’t trust me.
‘Right,’ Euan says. ‘Hopefully, if we gain a bit of elevation, I should be able to get some reception to be able to keep in contact with you two. I’ve got none this morning. Leo – your phone’s connected to the Wi-Fi, right? Plus, you’ll have the landline if you need to ring for help—’
I open my mouth to speak, but Kimmy interjects first. ‘Shouldn’t we call for help now? Ring the emergency services, I mean, and report Alex missing?’
Euan pauses, considering. He looks at Becca. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘With the weather so crazy the emergency numbers will be inundated with calls, and we don’t really have anything to report …’
Euan nods. ‘I think she’s right. Give us an hour or so. Either we’ll let you know we’ve located him … or not. If we haven’t found him, or you haven’t heard from us for whatever reason, you can phone the police and report him missing.’
I open my mouth again and manage to interpolate this time. I tell them about the dead phone line.
Everyone stares. Maybe I imagine it, but it seems like there’s suspicion in their eyes when they look at me.
Euan says, aiming for a note of optimism, ‘Probably just the result of the power going down. The base unit was out of charge maybe? Now the power’s back up and running, it should be fine – worst case, you might need to reboot the router.
Meantime, Leo, can you give me your number so we can keep in touch?
Bex has lost her phone—’ He slants a look at her.
‘Again. So, it’ll be me you communicate with while we’re out and about.
Bear in mind, I’ll probably have to get out of the basin of the valley to get decent reception, which could take us a while, so don’t panic if you don’t hear anything right away. ’
Kimmy frowns. ‘Shouldn’t Jameson and Eilish take their phones too – the more phones you have with you, the better a chance of one of them picking up a bit of network, surely? Plus, you don’t need reception to call the emergency services, do you?’
I pull a face. ‘Mine’s dead – battery didn’t charge last night with the power out.’
‘Mine too,’ says Jameson glumly. I wonder if he also had a sleepless night – worrying about me, or castigating himself for almost falling for me again?
‘I wish I knew where mine was,’ Becca frets. ‘I had it last night, I was taking photos for Insta of us all dressed up—’
‘It’ll turn up,’ Euan says. ‘It always does. You lose it all the time.’
Leo finishes typing his number into Euan’s phone.
‘Anyway,’ Euan adds, ‘mine has decent charge in it. We’ll stick together.
’ He kisses Becca on the forehead. ‘We’re going to find him, don’t worry.
And then we’ll look for your phone.’ He’s calm and confident in a crisis.
Reassuring. We all seem content to defer to him – even Leo, who likes to be in charge.
‘Right, guys, meet you in the boot room in five minutes. I’m going to grab us some supplies.
Bex, can you check Alex’s room again and see if he’s taken his phone with him – and check if he took off his tux last night.
I’ll feel better if he’s not wandering around out there in a dinner jacket—’
‘I’ll feel better if he’s not out there at all,’ Becca says, but she heads towards the stairs.
‘Perhaps we should check the outbuildings,’ I say. ‘If he went out for a smoke and got disorientated in the snow, maybe he just crashed out in the first sheltered place he came too.’
Euan pauses. I’m not sure if he’s annoyed he didn’t think of that, or if he thinks I’m being an idiot because he clearly said the footsteps are heading away from the house. ‘I mean, it’s a good shout,’ he says. ‘Worth a look in case he turned back and I just didn’t see a second set of prints.’
‘We could check the outbuildings,’ Kimmy says. ‘Me and Leo. We can’t get lost looking in a couple of old barns, and it’ll give us something to do.’
‘Let’s all do it. We’ll split up to check them. Faster that way. I’ll take the stables—’ Euan quickly allocates us each an area of the immediate grounds to search. ‘Come on, get a move on.’ He bounds off to get ready.
He doesn’t say that Alex’s life might depend on our haste, but we all know it.
*