Chapter 28
A long silence follows the crash, during which no one moves. Jameson is the first to break the spell. He drops to his knees and begins to scoop up the broken glass. Euan drags a hand over his face, shaking his head from side to side. ‘Seriously, Bex, you slept with him?’
Kimmy’s dark eyes sparkle – no one with a heart could be enjoying the obvious pain spreading across Euan’s face, but she seems to be.
‘Wait.’ Her pretty smile is calculating, a spark of excitement in her eyes.
‘Eilish – are you suggesting Euan killed Alex? That’s an interesting theory.
Naughty-naughty, Becca, isn’t there some saying about not shitting where you sleep? ’
She’s vile.
But I’m not much better. There was no need for me to reveal Becca’s secret like that. I swallow hard. I don’t know what’s happened to me: flinging accusations about, hurting people without compunction.
But I want this theory to be true. I want to throw Euan under the bus because …
better him than me, right? In a small voice, I say, ‘He sleeps in a different building to the rest of us, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to sneak out.
If he’d found out that Alex and Bex had …
well, maybe he’d be mad enough to …’ I trail off.
There are holes in my hypothesis – like how Euan got Alex up to the falls in the first place, when there was only that one set of prints most of the way, and how he found out about Alex and Becca since I didn’t tell and no one else was there that night …
Still, I suppose anyone could have followed Alex’s prints the way he suggested I did. On the way back to the house, Alex’s trail was already fading, the fresh snow papering over the cracks in the story, forever obliterating any evidence of who might have been up there with him last night.
Euan and Becca are staring at each other, barely hearing me.
In fact, no one is really listening to me – I suppose it is a bit of a stretch.
People get betrayed all the time without flying into murderous rages.
And following – or luring – someone several miles across rough terrain to a convenient waterfall is hardly a crime of passion committed in the moment.
It’s a desperate crime, much more suited to the motive of a murderer seeking to silence their accuser.
‘I didn’t sleep with Alex,’ Becca asserts, with a fervour that rings with truth even though I know she’s lying. Her eyes shine bright with tears. ‘If you must know, it wasn’t Alex in my room that night. It was … Leo.’
I stare – wait, what? ‘It was definitely Alex; I saw his hoodie, the blue St Andrews one with white writing.’
Leo has gone deathly pale again. He’s frozen, oblivious to the wine pooling about his feet, and Jameson still crouching there picking up the pieces of glass from the floor.
Unaware of Kimmy staring at him with cold-eyed rage.
‘Becca,’ Leo groans, and Euan transfers his gaze to him with an intensity that is, frankly, quite frightening.
Becca wrings her hands. ‘It was Leo that Eilish saw, but nothing happened, I swear. He came to my room to … we were chatting, that’s all. I mean, we might have had a teeny, tiny drunken kiss but that’s it—’
‘Christ, Bex.’ Leo tears a hand through his hair again. Kimmy and Euan both look capable of murder in that moment.
‘You tried it on with my girlfriend? You overprivileged, pretentious wankstain—’ Euan takes a step towards Leo, and Leo almost falls over the armchair trying to back away. Kimmy is shooting daggers at her fiancé, her face contorted with rage.
‘The hoodie,’ I say again – I don’t like when the pieces of the puzzle won’t fit.
‘It was hanging on the banister,’ Leo says, impatient with me for labouring a point that – in the greater scheme – is insignificant.
‘I was cold, so I picked it up and put it on when I was going upstairs. That’s all.
’ He turns to Kimmy, hands spread. ‘I’m sorry, Kim, I swear it will never happen again.
It was a moment of madness, just one kiss, I—’
Kimmy draws herself up, spine snapping straight. She lifts her chin. ‘You,’ she says, in a glacial tone, ‘will keep.’ I anticipate an epic fight breaking out between them later. She turns to Becca. ‘And you’re not even worth my anger. Slut!’
She looks at me next and I baulk at her fury.
‘Nice try, Eilish, but it sounds like your pathetic attempt to throw suspicion on someone else has fallen flat. Which brings us back to the mountain of evidence that you killed Genevieve and the likelihood that you pushed Alex off that waterfall last night to shut him up.’
‘Evidence,’ I scoff. ‘Hardly. Plus, Alex had already told you all what he thought I did to Gen …’
‘The rest of us were prepared to put it down to drunken speculation and believe we all got carried away last night. But Alex wouldn’t have done that, would he? He was like a dog with a bone. He orchestrated this whole weekend with the sole purpose of accusing you. Isn’t that right, Becca?’
Becca looks like a shade of her former self, but she nods weakly. ‘He did want us to … have it out.’
Jameson holds up a hand. He’s clutching a pile of broken glass and there’s a small cut around the base of his thumb, a dribble of blood running down the inside of his wrist. For all his reluctance to interrupt, his tone when he does is uncompromising, hoarse with grief.
‘Do you think we might refocus on the fact that our friend just died.’
We are suitably rebuked. Only Kimmy seems unaffected, as she picks up her wineglass and takes another deliberate, decadent sip, crossing her legs carelessly.
‘We need to call the police,’ Jameson continues.
‘Euan and I are going to go upstairs now and check the landline, see if we can figure out why it won’t work.
Right, Euan?’ Euan sighs, but nods, dragging his gaze away from his teary girlfriend and the guy he’d like to punch.
Jameson continues, ‘Leo, you’re going to clean up this mess.
Becca, put the kettle on – I think we could all do with a hot drink – and Kimmy …
’ His brow folds. ‘Actually, I don’t care what you do. Sit there and get drunk if you want.’
‘What about me?’ I whisper. There’s something reassuring about being told what to do. I want him to make my decisions for me too.
Jameson lifts his cut hand to his mouth and sucks the bleeding gash. ‘I’d put money on the fact that you bring a first aid kit everywhere you go, Eilish. I could do with an alcohol wipe and a plaster.’
I nod. He’s right – there’s a first aid kit in my bag upstairs.
We scatter as he commands.
*
By the time I reach my room to fetch the first aid kit and bring it back to Jameson, my limbs are shuddering with shock again, tremors running through me as the adrenaline wears off.
I thrust open the door and stumble inside, falling onto the bed where I indulge myself in a bout of weeping.
I cry violently for several minutes, my hands fisted in the bedcovers.
Alex is dead.
Alex is dead …
And we’ve left him out there in the cold only to come back here and squabble like children. I sniff, wipe my nose on the back of my hand, and sit up. Suddenly, the carnage of my room comes back into focus. I have to get rid of the evidence.
None of this – the mud, the socks, the wrist-warmers – can be seen by the others without reinforcing the suspicion stacked against me.
My dream returns again with cruel timing.
Running from room to room at Tarnmore, searching for something and growing increasingly frantic … Out in the snow and wind, disorientated and filled with rising terror—
Chasing or being chased.
Except, it no longer feels like a dream. More like a recollection resurfacing, pulled on a relentless tide of memory.
My breath comes fast, and I am dizzy. I push my head between my knees and breathe slowly and steadily. No. No. No.
‘No.’
The last is moaned aloud, shattering the expectant silence of the cold room. I have to face the possibility that I blanked out again.
That I somehow coaxed Alex out of the house and up to the falls last night.
And pushed him.
Darkness corrodes the corners of my vision. It takes me several minutes of deep breathing to realise I’m not going to faint. I somehow manage to get ahold of myself, but before I can decide what I’m going to do, there’s a resounding knock at the door.
I spring up, run to the door as the handle is slowly turning. ‘Eilish?’ It’s Jameson’s voice.
He can’t come in here.
I open the door a crack, kicking at the curling rug, and immediately dart out, pulling the door to behind me, lest he spot my muddied sheets, the dried footprints on the carpet.
Jameson is the only person who seems to believe that I couldn’t have harmed either Gen or Alex, and I can’t bear to disabuse him of his conviction.
I can’t bear to lose his support.
Jameson steps back. ‘Oh, um, hi. Did you find the first aid kit?’ He’s clearly been crying, and doesn’t try to hide the fact. Another pang of grief strikes my heart.
Or is it guilt? It’s hard to tell. My emotions are like a tangle of briars.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean … no, but I can go grab it now.’
He looks past me. ‘Shall I come in …?’
‘No!’ I back up, pressing my body to the door, guarding it. ‘I’ll get the first aid kit and bring it with us.’
He nods. His voice softens. ‘Eilish, are you okay? It’s been a tough twenty-four hours.’
‘It has,’ I agree. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m okay.’ That much, at least, is true. ‘I’m not sure any of us are okay. Did you and Euan manage to get the router working?’
His expression turns bleak. ‘No. The line is completely dead. Nothing is working. No phone, no internet. There’s no way for us to get in touch with the police.
When you grab the first aid kit, get your phone too, will you?
We’re going to try everyone’s phones again, just to make sure.
See if any of us can make an emergency call.
And if we can’t get a signal maybe a couple of us will head out and try to find some reception. ’
‘Okay.’ I wait for Jameson to move away from my door, but he doesn’t. ‘I’ll, um, just grab those things.’ I squeeze myself through a ridiculously small gap in the door and close it firmly in Jameson’s face. I wish I could lock it, but I can’t.
What is he thinking? I shouldn’t care what Jameson thinks of me at this point; I have far more important things to worry about.
Like the fact I might be capable of killing two people and blanking my actions from my mind.
The fact that I might not just be standard issue traumatised, but truly, next-level fucked up.
I move fast, scared that Jameson will come in despite the fact that I couldn’t have made my feelings on him entering my room clearer. I rummage in my suitcase for the first aid kit, then reach for my dead phone on the bedside table.
It’s not there.
It was definitely there this morning, plugged in. I checked it when I realised the power was out. The electricity has been on for hours, thanks to the generator, so it should be well-charged by now. But not only is it not charged, it’s not here.
Frowning, I grab a dry jumper from the foot of the bed and dart out of the room again. ‘I have the first aid kit, but my phone is missing.’
Jameson gives me a strange look. ‘Missing?’
‘It was there this morning.’
He frowns. ‘Let’s stop by my room and get mine.’
I pull my jumper over my head, and we hurry along the hall to Jameson’s bedroom.
He invites me in and, hesitantly, I accept.
His room is neat and tidy, nothing out of place.
I think of the mess left behind in my room.
Jameson’s bed is made, hotel-perfect, and I hesitate on the edge of the comforter.
I open the kit, take out a wipe and a plaster.
‘Give me your hand,’ I instruct Jameson, but when I look up, he’s staring blankly at his bedside table. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My phone isn’t there either.’
My heart sinks. It’s too confusing to contemplate the absence of both of our phones, so I concentrate on the job at hand.
‘Give me your hand.’ This time he complies, and I clean and bandage the cut, trying not to think about how right it feels to touch him, how he’s so close to me that I can smell washing powder and the light, woodsy scent of his skin.
I focus on his cut hand, not meeting his eyes.
‘Thanks,’ Jameson says gruffly, when I’m done. ‘I don’t understand where our phones could be.’
‘I know.’ The knot of dread is tied around my guts again, my belly squirming.
I zip up the first aid kit and chuck the rubbish in the bin.
‘Let’s go downstairs. Kimmy and Leo still have their phones, and ours must be somewhere.
It’s a good idea to go out and try to find reception.
We could head down the track, maybe. Surely by the time we reach the main road we’ll get a signal. ’
By the time we get downstairs, we might find Leo or Kimmy has been able to call 999 already – mobile phones can contact the emergency services even when there’s no reception, right?
I’m not sure. Kimmy said so, but I’m not sure what happens if all the networks are down.
I don’t know if it’s going to work in such extreme weather conditions as these.
Still, we have a back-up plan. If a couple of us head down the track to the main road, surely we’ll be able to get through somehow.
‘It might be dangerous,’ Jameson says softly. ‘It scares me, going out in that again. It’s dark now – perhaps we’d better wait for the morning.’
I don’t think I can make it through another night. I shake my head, vehement. It rattles me to hear Jameson admit to fear.
‘Alex—’ I say.
‘Yeah. I know.’ He slides his unbandaged hand into mine. ‘You’re right. We’ll have to risk it.’