“Duo,” Nicky added, and she raised an eyebrow.
Fleet stood. He looked up, around, and then back down at the base of the chestnut tree.
“If it had been here before, the search teams would almost certainly have bagged it,” Nicky said. “Meaning they either missed it, or one of the PCs dropped it themselves . . .”
“Not likely,” put in Fleet.
“Or,” Nicky concluded, “someone else dropped it after the search teams had already cleared the area.”
Fleet tapped his fingers against his thigh, thinking of the feeling he’d had of being watched; of Sadie’s friends wondering whether they were being followed . . .
“Should we call someone?” said Nicky. But even as she asked, Fleet could tell she was thinking the same thing he was. And say what? Show them what? If the pay-as-you-go wasn’t going to change Burton’s mind, a piece of litter was hardly going to do it.
Fleet looked around once more, and had to fight an urge to call out into the trees. He knew it would be pointless. Worse than that, it would be like trying to entice a deer with a rifle shot.
Are you out there? he wondered. Are you watching right now?
Nicky was busy transferring the Snickers wrapper into a clear plastic evidence bag.
“Have you got another one of those?” Fleet asked her, as he fished inside his own jacket pockets. He took out one of his business cards and a pen.
“Sure,” said Nicky, frowning slightly. She passed him a spare evidence bag.
There was an old tree stump close by, and Fleet turned to it. He bent down, and for a second allowed the pen to hover before he started to write. Then he slid the business card into the evidence bag, and placed it on top of the stump in what he hoped was clear view.
Nicky was watching the whole time, her frown deepening.
“I haven’t got a better idea,” said Fleet, shrugging. “Have you?”
MASON
NO ONE COULD argue after that. After it started raining, I mean. There were no more excuses, no more petty reasons to give up and go home. Which didn’t stop them looking for one—I could see it in their eyes—and I suppose I should have realized they’d come up with something eventually, but in the meantime, what exactly could they say?
“If I were you I’d get out your water bottle,” I told Abi, who was staring at me like I’d summoned the rain myself, just to keep her out there. “You never know how long it’s going to last.”
Which, after a minute, is what she did. It’s what we all did. We opened our mouths, too, tipping our heads back and shutting our eyes. It was a proper end-of-summer downpour, thick and heavy, so there was no problem catching the drops. They were big as berries, bursting in your mouth the moment they hit the back of your throat. I swear to God, they even tasted sweet. I’d been so focused on being pissed-off at Abi’s moaning, I’d forgotten how thirsty I was myself. I even started grinning. I couldn’t help it. And when I’d had my fill, I looked around, and I realized the others were grinning, too. Cora, at least. Fash, as well. Abi was still gobbling up raindrops, her eyes screwed tight and her hair plastered to her forehead, but even Luke twitched a smile when he caught my eye. His hair was stuck to his head, too, the rain all running into his eyes, but it was like, no one cared, you know? Just the opposite. After the heat, and the dust, and fucking everything since the start of the summer, all any of us felt at that moment was relief.
“Jesus,” said Fash. He had to shout to get anyone to hear him, because the rain was coming down that heavily. “When was the last time it actually rained? And like this.”
I spread my hands and raised my head again. It was like that scene in that old prison movie. The Shawshank Redemption. Have you seen it? There’s this bit, when Andy Dufresne crawls through the tunnel of shit, and then he gets out the other side and he realizes he’s free, finally, and the rain, it’s coming down in ropes, just like it was out there in the woods, and the guy, Andy, who’s completely innocent, by the way, he takes off his shirt and he spreads his arms and he’s standing there like he’s Jesus Christ or something, like it’s an actual religious experience he’s having. Which I guess is exactly what it is.
But my point is, that was me. Just for a minute. It was as though the rain was washing away all the shit that had stuck to me as well. The shit people had thrown at me since Sadie went missing. The shit you started.
And then it hit me. Because with Andy, in the film, it’s the beginning of the end. You know, just before he disappears to go and live on a desert island, or on a beach in Mexico or wherever. Me, I was still in the same old place, still stuck in the middle of a nightmare with no prospect of ever waking up. It only took me about thirty seconds to remember that. To realize that the rain wasn’t actually going to wash away anything.
“Dude,” said a voice at my shoulder. I hadn’t noticed Fash move up beside me. “Are you, like, crying?” he said. He spoke quietly, and he’d turned his back on the others, who were busy filling up their water bottles. His hand moved toward my shoulder, like he meant to comfort me or something, and I shrugged it away. Right at that moment, Fash was the last person I wanted trying to make me feel better. And anyway, what did he think he was going to say? Because what I’d realized was, whatever happened from that point on, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Not that my life had ever exactly been
