Fleet didn’t easily get spooked, but it was hard at this stage not to believe in omens. And there were five of them: Fleet, Nicky, a uniformed PC, the social worker and Luke. They were just the advance guard, and plenty of others were waiting to follow, but even so, the number felt significant.
From the way the rest of the group held their silence, Fleet could tell that the atmosphere was weighing on them just as heavily. Probably the only thing they were relishing less was the prospect of actually reaching their destination. Fleet glanced at Nicky, and she nodded. A small, tight movement that managed to also convey a grimace.
They crossed the bridge—the one the search party had crossed themselves, and where they’d had their encounter with Lara Sweeney. Then, the river had been low, but already it had been swelled by the rain, and the water flowed quick and cold.
It wasn’t far after that to the trees, and once they were under the canopy, the sound of their footsteps somehow gave the place more substance. They still couldn’t see more than twenty meters ahead, but out here they probably wouldn’t have been able to anyway.
Fleet looked at Luke, who raised an arm and quickly let it fall again.
They walked on, in the direction Luke had indicated. Fleet could only measure in time, but it was barely half an hour later—half an hour since they’d broached the tree line—that Luke abruptly called a halt.
“Are we here?” Fleet asked him. He glanced around. Trees, leaves, fallen branches. Nothing unusual. Nothing distinct from the landscape they’d already passed.
Luke shook his head. “No, it’s . . . further. Not much, but . . .”
“What’s wrong, Luke?” said Miss Jeffries, the social worker. “Do you need a rest?”
“No, I just . . .” He looked around, at the others in the group, before his eyes settled on Fleet. “Can it be just you?” he said. “Just you and me, I mean. For the next part.”
Fleet hesitated. Nothing they were doing was strictly by the book—although to be fair, the chapter on how to handle things in situations such as this hadn’t actually been written yet. But the boy hadn’t been charged. He wasn’t in cuffs. Meaning they had no way of restraining him if he chose to run, other than by force of numbers.
On the other hand, could he be considered a flight risk if he’d turned himself in? And Fleet could understand completely why the boy was so reluctant to have an audience. His shame was palpable, to the extent he’d refused even to see his parents when they’d finally arrived at the station.
“We’ll go ahead,” said Fleet at last. “Me, you and Miss Jeffries. How about that? The other officers will follow on behind.”
He looked at Nicky. Drop back, but not too far back was his silent instruction, and he could tell from the way she returned his gaze that she understood.
They walked on. Fleet had to moderate his pace to match Luke’s, whose footsteps were heavy through the leaves. But with Fleet’s colleagues distant enough now to be out of plain sight, and the social worker trailing slightly behind, it was obvious the boy felt marginally more comfortable than he had before.
“You were out here all this time?” Fleet said, glancing in Luke’s direction. The area they were walking in was in fact a long way from where the search party had ended up. They were tracking the bend of the river, and were only just past the point the original search for Sadie had begun, before it had veered toward the estuary. Nevertheless, Luke seemed to understand what Fleet had meant.
“It didn’t feel like I was out here very long,” he said. “To be honest, I kind of lost track of time. Was it two nights in the end?”
“It was three. Not including the time you were out here with your friends.”
Luke bobbed his head as he walked. Two nights, three, five—it was all the same to him.
“How did you stay hidden?” said Fleet. “Did you sleep in one of the barns?”
“I slept . . . I don’t know where I slept. In the barn one night, I think, after the search had packed up. And after that first day, when they . . . when they took Dylan away, nobody was really looking around the clearing. They were out deeper in the woods. At one point I climbed that tree near where you left the card. I must have sat up in the branches for hours. I just . . . I went where you lot weren’t. It wasn’t hard.”
Fleet didn’t imagine it would have been. He knew from recent experience that it was difficult enough finding something static in woodland such as this. A mobile phone, for example. A body. But if the thing you were searching for was capable of moving, and didn’t want to be found . . .
“Why didn’t you come in earlier? Or even stay with your friends?”
This time Luke shook his head. “I couldn’t. After it . . . happened, the others started panicking. Cora grabbed the phone from Mason and was trying to call for an ambulance. And then, when they realized there was nothing more they could do, they were all just slumped on the ground. Me, I . . . I was with Dylan. Trying to stop the bleeding.” Luke looked down at his palms. The social worker had helped him get clean at the station, and had found him a fresh set of clothes, but it was as though Luke could still see the blood. “But it was too late,” he went on. “I knew that, really. The others did, too. And I don’t blame them for what they
