And I remember thinking, We should have gone around. Just that, over and over: we should have gone around. Not that there was another bridge within half a mile—nothing but the old pipeline bridge on the edge of the woods, which we wouldn’t have been able to cross, even if we’d been stupid enough to try. But from teasing Lara about her nose, I couldn’t believe what was suddenly happening. I guess none of us could. That’s why nobody moved to stop it, until Mason made to throw Ian into the river.
Ian was fighting back by this point, landing some punches of his own. But you could see that first punch had left him dazed, and even though he was bigger than Mason, Mason was stronger. Or maybe not stronger. It was his rage that was letting him win, that was all. And as Ian was swinging his arms, Mason ducked his head and started driving Ian toward the railing. And suddenly the water down below didn’t seem to be flowing so slowly after all.
“Mason, don’t!”
By the time I yelled, Mason had Ian up against the handrail. Ian was still swinging his arms, but Mason had a hand up under his chin, and was forcing him over the side.
I rushed forward. We all did. And for a minute it was one big scuffle, all of us trying to pull the two of them apart. Luke took an elbow to the face, and someone’s heel came down on my foot, so hard I figured they must have broken my toe.
But in the end we managed to get between them. Luke and Fash dragged Mason off. Lara was clucking over Ian, who’d dropped to his knees. There was blood all dripping from his nose, and he looked as angry as Mason did. About the fact he’d just been beaten up by a kid a year younger than him, probably, and about what his mates would say when word got around.
“Are you crazy?” Abi yelled at Mason. “You could have killed him! He could have drowned!”
Which was the moment Mason finally stopped struggling, as though it had dawned on him what he’d been trying to do. Because Abi was right. If Mason had managed to throw Ian into the water, Ian would have gone under. No question. He was dazed from that punch, like I said, and it was a three-meter drop to the water’s surface.
“I wasn’t going to do it,” Mason growled. “I was just trying to scare him, that’s all.” He wriggled until Fash and Luke let him go.
Ian was staggering to his feet. “You . . . you psycho. That’s what you are. A fucking psycho!” He kept touching the top of his lip, looking at the blood that came away on his hands.
“Come on,” said Luke, pulling Mason away, toward the other side of the bridge. “Mason, come on. Let’s just go.”
Mason allowed himself to be led. Ian was yelling all sorts of stuff by this point, but Mason didn’t even look back.
I did, though. Me, Fash and Abi had fallen into step behind Mason and Luke, sort of on autopilot. We were in shock, I guess—stunned—but even so I couldn’t help turning around. And that’s when I caught Lara’s eye. She was crying, but by now she looked almost as angry as Ian did.
“You’ll pay for that!” she yelled. “All of you! Just you wait and see!”
FLEET SAT IN his car staring at the familiar green door. It was long overdue a fresh coat of paint. It clearly hadn’t been touched in the time since Fleet had last seen it, other than by the abrasive sea air. Not a lot about the rest of the house appeared to have changed either. It was a bungalow much like the others in the close—roomier inside than it appeared, with a heavy, concrete-tile roof that made the building look like a neckless man wearing a hat made of lead. The only real change was that the weathered paintwork suggested the man had developed a skin condition. It was no wonder he didn’t look happy.
Fleet had parked his Insignia at the entrance to the street: close enough that he could see the building clearly; far enough—he hoped—that he wouldn’t be spotted from one of the windows. He adjusted his seat to create space between him and the steering wheel, and for a moment he reclined and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the rain. Then he reached to gather the folders that were piled in the passenger-side footwell.
What have we got? he’d asked Nicky, and though she hadn’t given him the answer he’d been hoping for, she’d summed it up neatly enough. In short, they had nothing. Or not nothing. What they had was worse than nothing, because everything they did have seemed to point in different directions, to the extent that they still didn’t know what kind of case they were working, at least in terms of Sadie. Although perhaps, as of this morning, that had changed. From a missing-persons inquiry, there seemed no question they’d progressed now to murder.
In truth there’d never really been any doubt—not in Fleet’s mind, anyway. He’d hoped with all his heart that Sadie had simply run away, and for a while he’d almost allowed himself to believe it. Everyone who’d known her had claimed it would have been out of character, but Fleet knew all too well what growing up in this place could do to you. The small-town atmosphere was so oppressive, the distant horizons felt like walls, the open skies like a ceiling that was pressing in. And that Sadie was such an overachiever—grade-A student, top billing in the school productions, and what must have felt like the expectations of an
