Perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps his instinct—that Mason’s involvement was, at most, only part of the story—was leading him astray. And perhaps, in terms of the dive teams, it didn’t matter either. Because as Fleet’s eyes swept the final stretch of river, there was one thing he was suddenly sure of. If the divers were still hoping to find Sadie, they were looking in the wrong place.
FASH
I HAD NO idea how much time we’d already wasted. Rounding up the others, all the stuff with Lara by the bridge, not to mention the detour we took after that to make sure she didn’t see where we were heading. By the time we made it into the woods, it was already gone lunchtime, and it was only when we started to think about what we were going to eat that we realized we hadn’t brought any proper food with us.
It was my fault, I suppose. Seeing as I was the one to get everyone together. I should have . . . I don’t know. Been more prepared. That’s what the others thought, anyway.
“What do you mean, you didn’t bring anything?” said Cora, when someone suggested we stop for lunch. Abi, I think, even though we’d only just got started. We can’t have been more than half a mile into the forest, although to be fair it definitely felt like farther. We’d lost sight of the outside world a hundred meters in, and the canopy above us was like a ceiling. The forest is mainly beeches and oaks, and the leaves were already turning coppery. Some had even started falling, but the foliage on the branches was still so thick you wouldn’t have known that it was sunny.
“I just . . . I didn’t bring any,” I answered. “I guess I forgot. I brought a blanket,” I added, hoping that might help make up for it.
“Oh, great,” said Cora. “A blanket. Just what we need in this heat. I don’t suppose you brought a scarf, too, did you? And maybe a thick winter coat?”
Cora gets crabby when she’s hungry. She’s crabby most of the time, if I’m honest, but when she hasn’t eaten it goes up a notch. Several notches. And I could tell she was still rattled by what had happened on the bridge. We all were, I think. That feeling we’d had when we’d been laughing after Mason’s house—that sense of togetherness, just like it used to be between us before Sadie went missing—had pretty much evaporated, and it got worse the moment we stepped into the woods. It was the reality of it, I think. The realization that we were actually doing this, and remembering why we were out there in the first place.
And anyway, to be fair to Cora, she had a point. We were all standing there in shorts and T-shirts, apart from Mason in his Doc Martens, and I could feel the sweat beneath the shoulder straps of my rucksack. So maybe a blanket shouldn’t have been first on my list. I just thought—to lie on. That’s all.
“Seriously,” said Abi, “we really haven’t got any food? What are we going to eat?”
“We could kill a bear,” said Mason. “Eat that.”
Which didn’t help with the Abi situation at all. She looked at Mason wide-eyed, and he just stared back at her, flexing his knuckles. I guess those punches he’d landed had started to hurt.
“Shit,” said Cora. “Some search party we turned out to be. We might as well just turn around now.”
Mason shot me this look.
“Wait,” I said. “Have we really not got anything? I think I . . .” I slipped my rucksack off my back and crouched down next to it. “I did! Look.” I pulled a Snickers bar out of the front pocket. I’d bought it a couple of weeks before, after football training, but it had been too hot to eat it at the time.
“One Snickers bar,” said Cora. “Whoop-de-doo.”
“It’s a Duo,” I countered. I didn’t mention it had melted in the heat.
“I brought Pringles,” chipped in Abi. “They were for snacking, but . . . Well.” She sucked in her tummy, smoothed her hands down the rear of her shorts. “Maybe limited rations would be good for us.”
“You’re not fat, Abi,” said Cora, rolling her eyes toward Mason.
“What? Who said I was?”
“Lara Sweeney did. She called you a piggy. And you haven’t stopped thinking about it since.”
“She called us both piggies, actually,” said Abi. “And anyway, I wasn’t even listening.”
Another eye roll from Cora.
“What flavor?” said Mason.
“Huh?” said Abi.
“What flavor Pringles?”
“Does it matter?” said Luke.
“Well, if they’re barbecue I’d rather eat my own vomit.”
Cora snorted. “The more for the rest of us,” she said.
“They’re salt-and-vinegar,” said Abi. “Obvs. Barbecue make your fingers smell of cat’s poo.”
There were nods of agreement. Personally, I’d have taken barbecue over salt-and-vinegar any day of the week. But at least they weren’t sour-cream-and-onion.
“So, one tube of salt-and-vinegar Pringles,” said Cora, “one Snickers bar—”
“Duo,” I said.
“Duo,” she conceded. “Is that it? Has anyone got anything else? What about water? Did everybody at least bring a bottle of water?”
We had, all of us. Which was something. And it turned out that, as well as Pringles, Abi had also brought nuts. And sunflower seeds. And a massive bar of Dairy Milk chocolate. All for snacks, she said, which is why she didn’t mention them at first when we were talking about food. Mason had Rizla, rolling tobacco and Fruit Pastilles. Luke had a sharing bag of Doritos and half a packet of Jelly Babies he’d saved from the cinema and had meant to give to Dylan. Cora had cigarettes and gum.
So the food situation wasn’t even that bad, either.
“What else has everybody got?” said Cora. “I mean, aside from the midnight feast and Fash’s blanket.”
