Not Sadie.
And not myself either, I suppose.
But Mum made me realise it’s too late for any of that. So I’ll tell you, I will – I promised my mum I would. Except you have to believe me when I say to you, I had nothing to do with what happened to Sadie. I swear it. On my mother’s life. It’s just … I mean … the truth is, I may know a bit more about what happened than I made out.
And Mason. I knew a bit more about what he was doing, too. At least, I thought I did. But when he stood up in that cave, clasping that broken bottle, I realised I didn’t know as much as I’d assumed.
‘What the hell, Mason?’ said Luke, who had got to his feet first. None of the rest of us were very far behind. The whiskey had gone right to my head, so when I stood up I almost fell over again.
‘This isn’t fucking funny, Mason,’ said one of the girls. Cora, I think.
‘Do you see me laughing?’ said Mason, pointing the bottle like a gun. ‘Now answer me. Who was it? Was it you, Cora? Is that why you’ve been acting like such a bitch?’
‘Was what me? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about Sadie! As you well know!’
Cora made a sound like there was something caught in her throat. ‘You’re … what? You’re seriously suggesting that one of us killed her? That I did?’
‘Or maybe it was you, Abi,’ said Mason, turning. ‘Or you, Fash.’
‘Me?’ I said. ‘You think I had something to do with it? What happened to … to searching? To trying to find out the truth?’
‘What the fuck do you think we’re doing right now?’ he spat at me. ‘Although, while we’re on the subject, maybe you can explain why you were so eager to help me in the first place. Were you worried about what I’d find if I went without you? Is that why you walked straight past Sadie’s phone?’
‘But I … I didn’t see it! Honestly, I …’
‘Help him?’ Cora said. ‘Help him do what? What the hell is Mason talking about, Fash?’
I was standing there shaking my head. I couldn’t believe what Mason was doing. ‘You lied to me,’ I said to him. ‘You told me you wanted to search for Sadie! That’s why you had me round everybody up. To form a search party. That’s what you said!’
Because that’s the thing. That’s what I lied about before. One of the things I lied about, anyway. I told you the search party was my idea, that I hadn’t seen Mason since the day Sadie went missing. But that’s not true. He came to me, you see. On day three, I guess it was. After he’d been at the station with you lot all day, and people around town had started talking. More than talking. By that point, everyone had pretty much decided. You know, that Sadie was dead, and that Mason was the one who’d killed her. And his dad had accused him as well. Well, not accused him exactly. What he did was punch him in the stomach. He’d come home from the pub and apparently he’d been getting a load of grief from all the regulars, so come kicking-out time he’d stumbled home, and he’d dragged Mason from his bed, and he told him if he didn’t own up, he’d throttle him and chuck his body in the river – the way everyone was saying Mason had done to Sadie. And when Mason denied it, that’s when his dad put a fist in his gut. Which he’s done before when he’s been drunk, but this time, apparently, his dad had no intention of stopping there. He made to hit Mason again, with a poker this time, but according to Mason he was so far gone that when he raised the poker he staggered backwards, and that’s how Mason got out of the house. He barged his way past, and out the front door, and he ran until he reached the river. And that night, when he was out there on his own, that’s when he came up with the idea. To form a search party, is what he told me when he came to me the next day. And what he said was he needed my help, because there was no way the others would agree if he asked them, not when they probably all thought he was guilty, too. He even suggested what I should say to them: that the police were looking in the wrong place, and that we knew the woods better than anyone – all the lines Cora had noticed him using himself.
But it was a trick. A lie to get me to do his dirty work. He just wanted us all together, away from help and off our guard. Somewhere he could watch us, test us, trap us.
‘You need to hear this, Luke,’ said Mason, still brandishing the bottle, and blood dripping from his hand. ‘You need to listen to what they’ve got to say for themselves.’
‘Mason, Jesus,’ said Luke. ‘Put that down, will you? You’re … you’re bleeding. And you’re going to get someone hurt!’
Cora was looking from me to Mason, and back again. ‘You tricked us?’ she said to me. ‘You and Mason were planning this from the start?’
‘No! I wasn’t planning anything, I swear it! Mason came to me asking for my help. What exactly was I supposed to do?’
‘But … the search party,’ said Abi. ‘Does that mean we were never really looking? That the search party was never really real? What about Sadie? About her being hurt, lying out here in the woods somewhere …’
Even in the dark, Mason’s expression was plain enough. Disgust, ridicule, revulsion: you name it, it
