‘Sadie’s dead,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious she’s dead. It’s been obvious since the day she went missing!’
‘But … how can you be so sure?’ I asked him, whining like a little kid.
‘Because I know what the police do,’ said Mason. ‘Remember? They threw it all in my face. They even sat there and watched me cry.’ He adjusted his hand around the broken bottle, and I realised how badly he was bleeding. How much it must have hurt.
And not just the cut.
‘Plus,’ he went on, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, ‘if she were still alive she would have let me know. One way or another.’
Which, even given everything I was hearing, made me feel kind of sad. That he thought that. That he probably even believed it. He really loved her, you see. Far more than she could ever have loved him.
‘So was it you?’ said Abi. ‘All the stuff that’s been happening. The phones, the water, the noises we’ve been hearing in the woods …’
‘Don’t give me that,’ said Mason, rounding on her. ‘Don’t try and play all innocent. Why the fuck would I have messed with the water? The phones, maybe, if it had occurred to me, and if there’d been any reception out here in the first place. But I wanted you out here, remember? Why would I give you an excuse to go back? Which, by the way, is all any of you have been looking for since this started. So why don’t you tell me, Abi? Why were you so desperate to go home? What was it you were worried we would find?’
‘Nothing! I wasn’t worried about anything! It was me who found Sadie’s phone, remember?’
‘Too right I remember,’ said Mason. ‘I remember you falling over yourself to pick it up. Because it was sitting there as plain as day, and you knew that if you didn’t, either me or Luke would have. And then you wouldn’t have had a chance to delete whatever you needed to in order to remove any link to Sadie. But you forgot about the photo on the lock screen, didn’t you? The passcode, too. Unless you simply ran out of time. Or maybe you freaked out when you noticed the blood.’
‘No! That’s not what happened! Tell him, Fash! You saw me! I didn’t delete anything.’
I didn’t know what to say. I was still busy trying to come to terms with what was happening. With what Mason was doing.
‘What happened, Abi?’ Mason pressed. ‘Did you not know Sadie had the phone on her when you killed her? Did it slip out of her pocket when you were getting rid of her body? Or maybe … maybe it was never Sadie’s in the first place. Maybe you planted it deliberately – to fool the cops, to pull the search in the wrong direction. You bought the cheapest phone you could get, uploaded that photo, changed the code so it was the same as Sadie’s, and then – the finishing touch – applied just a dab of Sadie’s blood. Except it backfired. Just when everyone was about ready to give up, you accidentally gave us a reason to keep looking.’
‘Mason, listen to me,’ said Luke. ‘This is crazy! None of what you’re saying makes sense. Why would Abi want to hurt Sadie? Why would any of us?’
Mason ignored him. ‘Because you know that’s what the police think about Sadie’s bag, don’t you?’ He was looking at Abi, but it was obvious he was talking to us all. ‘That it was put by the river deliberately, to make it look like Sadie had fallen in. They think the killer put it there. They think I did!’
Abi went white. I guess we all did.
‘You’ve always been jealous of Sadie,’ Mason said to Abi. ‘Of how popular she was, of how pretty.’ He spat the word, and it was as though he were spitting at Abi. ‘Is that why you started all those rumours about her online? All those lies?’
Abi started shaking her head, faster and faster.
‘Except it didn’t work, did it?’ Mason went on. ‘It didn’t make you any less of a leper, and it didn’t make your dad suddenly love you as much as Sadie’s dad loved her. So what happened after that, Abi? Did Sadie find out? Did you argue? Did you kill her just to shut her up?’
Abi’s head was still moving from side to side. Her eyes were screwed up tight, but not enough to stop her tears.
‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Just stop! I didn’t. I never. Cora, please …’ She turned to her right, begging Cora for help.
‘Make up your mind, Mason,’ Cora said. ‘Was it me who killed Sadie? Or was it Abi? Or maybe it was actually Fash, which is what you seemed to be implying before. The truth is you haven’t got a clue, have you? You’re plucking theories out of thin air, seizing on anything that will deflect attention away from you.’
‘You’re right,’ Mason said to her, with a smile that was anything but. ‘Maybe it was you. Because Abi wasn’t the only one who was jealous of Sadie, was she?’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘I wouldn’t have wished this, you know,’ Mason said, in a voice I guessed was supposed to be Cora’s. ‘Maybe you didn’t know Sadie as well as you think you did.’ He sneered at her, and shook his head. ‘You think I don’t know how much you hated me and her being together? You think it wasn’t fucking obvious?’
Cora cracked something like a smile herself. And even though I hate to say it, and maybe it was just because of the light, but I’d never seen her looking so ugly. ‘You arrogant shit,’ she said. ‘You actually think I’d kill someone over you?’
‘And Fash,’ said Mason, ignoring Cora and turning to me. ‘You’re just as bad. We all saw exactly how much you fancied Sadie. So tell us, what happened? Did
