Take Luke, for example. I feel bad now for even saying it, for even thinking it at the time, but my mind just started working by itself. And with Luke I was thinking, how would I feel? If I had a twin and my parents loved my sister more than me. If they spent all their time and attention and their money on her, and treated me like I was nothing more than the live-in help. Look after your brother, Luke. Go see what Dylan wants. For Christ’s sake will you tell your brother to be quiet?
You know that Dylan was an accident, right? Sadie’s parents only didn’t get rid of him because of their beliefs. Because they’re Catholic, basically. And Luke always said he was an accident as well. He was like the toy in the packet of cornflakes, he reckoned. The buy-one-get-one-free. He never acted like he blamed Sadie, though. What I always thought was, him and Dylan loved her just as much as she loved them. More even. And Luke and Sadie were twins, you know? They couldn’t read each other’s mind or anything, but they were closer than any brother and sister I’ve ever known. They hung out together for a start, and what brother and sister do you know who do that?
But the thing is, deep down, who knows what might have been going on in Luke’s head. Maybe there just comes a point. I mean, all brothers and sisters argue, right? And maybe, the calmer things are between them generally, the more explosive the fights turn out to be …
So, yeah, watching Luke forge ahead through the trees, swinging a stick he’d found from somewhere at the leaves, I started imagining him swinging something at Sadie. Just … snapping. Not necessarily on purpose. But for Sadie the result would have been the same.
And then there was Fash. He was walking behind Luke, not even trying to catch up. He kept looking over his shoulder. Maybe he was just being paranoid the way I was, because I kept checking to see where Abi was, too. But the more I watched him, the more it looked like he wanted to be on his own. He looked worried about something. Guilty. As though there was something that was playing on his mind.
And the other thing about Fash, the thing you probably don’t know about, is that he always had sort of a thing for Sadie. He would never have admitted it, obviously, and he’d deny it if you asked him about it now. Especially now. Jesus. But if you hung out with them both, and you paid attention, you noticed it more and more. Fash would watch her, just little glances, and then he’d look at Mason to see if he’d noticed. And when Sadie touched him, like on the arm or something – Sadie was always touching people on their arms – Fash would go all tense. Just for a second, as though he’d been touched by a wire and a little jolt of electricity had shot through his body. And OK, everybody had a thing for Sadie. But maybe, with everything else – with Fash’s mum, and all the shit he put up with on a daily basis – things were just building up. Like with Luke, I guess, except different. Like in that movie, the black-and-white one, the one Mason has a poster of on his wall. Where that bloke kills the woman in the shower. Which on the one hand sounds completely ridiculous, comparing Fash to a psycho with a knife …
Psycho. That’s what I meant.
But in a way that’s the whole point I’m trying to make. Nothing makes sense. None of it. Why would anyone want to kill Sadie, is what I’m saying. So why should one explanation seem more unlikely than any other?
And fucking Abi. I didn’t like her trailing along behind me. At least with Fash and Luke I could see them. And Abi was acting guiltiest of all. She didn’t want to be there, clearly. She didn’t want any of us to be there. I mean, she wasn’t even looking, for Christ’s sake. Every time I turned around, all I saw was her staring at her phone, shoving sunflower seeds into that gob of hers when she figured nobody was watching. Which was another clue. Because when Abi stuffs her face like that, it’s a sure sign she’s feeling nervous.
And Abi’s always been jealous of Sadie. Always. She would never have admitted it, obviously, but Sadie’s was the life she wished she had. She would have given anything to look the way Sadie did, for a start. To be blonde rather than brunette, to have blue eyes instead of plain brown. To be as popular as Sadie was, too. As talented. As loved, I guess, is the sad part, particularly when you think about Abi’s dad. So who knows? Maybe Abi had just had enough. Like, it must be exhausting trying to catch up all the time, so instead, maybe what she thought was, rather than trying to catch the leader I’ll knock the leader out of the race.
Shit.
I don’t know. The truth is I didn’t know then, and I’m not sure even now.
The ironic thing is, before the search party, I suspected Mason least of all. I’m not saying he didn’t have a temper, that he couldn’t be a bit full on. You only have to look at what happened on the bridge. But that was just … it was just everything boiling over, that was all, and anyway, Ian had it coming. That’s what I told myself at the time. Mason wasn’t dangerous, not the way people were making out. And that’s why I was walking beside him. Because, out of any of them, at that point, it was Mason I trusted most of all. More than Abi, more than Fash, more than Luke even.
Can you believe that? Given what happened?
I was
