Chapter 27
Becca starts screaming and can’t seem to stop. I sit down heavily on a rock. When finally she quiets, Becca throws herself on the ground beside me. Her face is sickly pale. Jameson and Euan debate what to do in strained voices. One of them is going to have to climb down.
‘I’m a rock climber,’ Jameson says. ‘This is literally what I do in my spare time.’ His voice is flat, toneless in a way that concerns me.
He might be used to climbing but not without a rope and safety gear, and with a potentially – okay, likely – dead body at the other end.
The body of his childhood friend.
‘Nah.’ Euan pats Jameson on the shoulder. ‘You’re in no fit state to do it – he’s your best mate. Let me do it. You stay with Becca and Eilish, look after them.’
I recognise his attempt to placate Jameson and make him feel useful.
Jameson must sense that he’s being handled too.
But there’s truth in Euan’s words: Jameson isn’t in a fit state to make the climb safely.
He’s as much in shock as the rest of us: there’s his curiously emotionless tone, the way he’s trembling and trying to hide it.
He wants to be brave for the rest of us – okay, probably for me, but I can tell from his face, from the bleak look in his eyes, that he’s not okay.
The last thing we need is Jameson getting hurt too.
Euan has no connection to Alex. It will still be a horrendous job, but it’s different for him.
Becca is crying – loud, ugly sobs. I reach for her and we cling together, our differences put to one side for the moment.
We watch Euan start the careful, arduous climb down into the ravine.
He wraps his hands around tree branches slippery with snow, wedges his feet in the knotty roots of the heather bushes, testing his weight with each step.
Gradually, he disappears from view. Jameson stands at the edge, peering over and monitoring his progress.
‘The phone!’ Becca cries, breaking out of my embrace. ‘We need Euan’s phone. We have to call for help.’
Jameson nods and relays her words to Euan, but he’s made it a good way down the ravine now. Perhaps Jameson’s words are lost in the wind, or perhaps he and Euan make the decision it’s best for Euan to keep going and prioritise reaching Alex. I can’t see or hear properly from where I’m sitting.
Either way, we have to wait until he reappears. When I feel a bit steadier, I go and stand beside Jameson to see what’s going on, Becca huddled against my side. Her breath comes in short gasps, sour with panic and last night’s alcohol. ‘He’ll be okay,’ she repeats over and over, like a mantra.
I’m not so sure. I think we’re too late.
And a few minutes later, my fears are confirmed.
*
When Euan climbs back over the lip of the gully, his face is ashen, his mouth set in a grim line. He hauls himself onto the path and collapses on his back, ribs rising and falling with the effort of the climb. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he mutters.
Becca is sobbing again – a wretched, tortured sound that sets my nerves on edge.
Jameson puts an arm around her, but she thrashes in his embrace, breaking free and running off up the trail towards the top of the waterfall.
She plunges off the path in places, searching for a way down.
Euan jumps to his feet and hurries after her.
When Jameson and I reach them he is restraining her, his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back from the edge.
‘You can’t go down there, you’ll break your neck—’ He tails off with a wince.
‘We need to call for help,’ I say, surprising myself with how steady my voice sounds. I feel strangely clear-headed, able to focus on the practicalities. Like I’ve slipped into a mode where only operational matters prevail.
Or maybe I’m in shock.
‘He’s dead!’ Becca screams. ‘Alex is dead …’
‘Ssh.’ Euan hugs her tighter. ‘He’s been dead for hours, Becca. There’s nothing we can do for him now.’
‘Your phone,’ I say, holding out my hand to him. ‘We need the police.’
Euan nods and reaches into his pocket. He frowns and tries another pocket. Frantically he searches – his jacket seems to have an inordinate number of pockets but none of them yield his phone.
‘I … must have dropped it when I was climbing.’
Jameson goes to the edge, takes a deep breath before he looks.
I can’t bear to look down again and see poor Alex lying there on the rocks, bleeding and broken, but somehow Jameson steels himself to do it.
‘I can’t see a phone,’ he calls. His voice is unsteady.
‘The undergrowth is too dense. I want to go to him, wrap my arms around him, let him fall apart in my arms. Cry together.’
‘I’ll go back down,’ Euan says immediately. ‘Even if it’s damaged it might still be usable.’
Jameson shakes his head. ‘It’s too dangerous to risk climbing down again.
Plus, it’s going to be impossible to find in all that snow.
There’s no point risking your neck for a phone.
We can call from the house when we get back.
Like you said, there’s nothing we can do for Alex anyway.
’ There are tears in his eyes as he says it, and his voice cracks with pain.
Becca says hysterically, ‘We can’t just leave him here.’ She collapses in the snow at Euan’s feet, all the fight gone out of her.
Jameson blows out a breath. ‘Believe me, I don’t want to, Bex, but the weather’s closing in again, and it’ll be dark in a couple of hours.
We won’t be able to get him up without specialist equipment, and there’s a very real risk someone else gets hurt …
or worse.’ He catches my eye and shakes his head again, as if he can’t believe he’s saying this, about Alex of all people.
‘Oh God, Alex,’ he mutters and buries his face in his hands for a second.
He’s right though – there’s yet another murderous storm front massing to the east, and the wind thudding into me is icy.
The weather forecast Euan read out to us yesterday predicted no real reprieve until Saturday at the earliest. But the emergency services will do everything they can to reach us when we report what’s happened; they’ll have off-road vehicles and trained officers, and the necessary equipment to retrieve Alex’s …
body. They’ll be able to make it through, surely?
Jameson drags his hands away from his face and turns to Euan. ‘Are you … are you absolutely sure that he’s dead. If you’ve any doubt at all—’ The spark of hope in his voice is unbearable.
Euan grimaces, and I wonder what horror he faced down there, just how grisly his find was. Slowly he shakes his head.
The rest of us couldn’t watch his examination of Alex from above; we averted our eyes when he flipped Alex onto his back – afraid of what we’d see. ‘No doubt at all,’ Euan says with a shaky exhale.
‘Okay.’ Jameson nods. He’s composed again, the weight of everything settled securely on his shoulders. Taking charge, postponing the grief that’s waiting for him. I know all about that. ‘Then we have to head back to the house as quickly as possible, and alert the … police, I guess.’
No need for an ambulance, but they’ll have to send a doctor to confirm his death.
Becca leaps up with a last burst of energy. She leaps up the path like a startled deer, heading for the top of the falls. She balances precariously on the wide rocks that bridge the gap and make crossing the waterfall possible. Where Jameson and I crossed yesterday.
‘Bex!’ I scream, terrified she’ll slip and fall too. But she doesn’t listen. She crouches and examines the snow.
‘Come and look. You can see Alex’s prints continuing all the way up here. He stood right here—’ She spins on the spot, careful not to disturb the crust of snow that’s formed on the flat slabs of rock. ‘There are other prints too – just as fresh as Alex’s. Someone stood here with him.’
My heart starts to thud as foreboding fills every fibre of me.
Jameson and Euan stride up the path, and I trail after them.
We don’t step out onto the rocks, but I can see from the bank that Becca is right.
Alex’s footprints continue in a single trail as far as the rocks, but out there, above the thunderous falls, there’s another clear set of prints. Smaller prints.
Becca lands back on the bank in a bound. She stares at me with eyes wide. ‘They’re your prints, Eilish.’
I take an involuntary step back, and everyone glances down at the marks my boots have left in the snow as I do so. I borrowed outdoor gear from the Morrows yesterday, and again today. But my boots are my own. The dread that settles in my belly lands with the weight of a stone. I can’t breathe.
Muddy boot prints in my bedroom … my wet clothes. Oh no, no, no!
‘Eilish crossed the falls yesterday, with me,’ Jameson says quickly.
‘And yet your prints have been filled in, but hers haven’t?’
I look at Becca, certain that my guilt must be written all over my face. ‘What are you trying to say, exactly?’
‘I’m saying that last night Alex revealed the fact that you quite likely killed Genevieve, and now he’s dead too, and your footprints are all over the rock he fell from …’
‘Becca …’ Jameson groans. ‘Not again. Not now.’
I blink at her. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s like a nightmare, only I can’t seem to wake up. Am I really surrounded by people who think I’m on some sort of killing spree?
All the doubts and panic from last night rise to the surface, and I feel the blood rushing in my ears.
‘This is preposterous …’ I say, but I can’t explain why I was outside last night.
I can’t remember … The blood rushes harder and I wonder if I’m going to pass out. I’d welcome the oblivion, I think.
This is too much.
‘Look at the prints, Euan,’ Becca says. ‘They’re a match.’
Euan hesitates, but with an apologetic glance at me he obediently examines my tread patterns in the snow, then compares them to the prints in the place Alex last stood, high above the pounding water, that terrifying drop.