“Yeah, I found him. But when I heard the others coming, I just shoved Dylan off into the trees, told him to stay out of sight. I . . . I didn’t have time to think. I just . . . I had this idea that . . . I don’t know. That maybe it might actually help. You know, that if we all came home swearing we’d heard someone following us, and that if I said that person had attacked me, then maybe you lot would have to believe us. You’d think that maybe someone else had killed Sadie. Not Mason, not . . . not me.”
Fleet gestured to the bandage on Luke’s forehead. “What did you use? A branch? A tree trunk?”
“I hit my head against a tree, scraped it on the bark afterward to make sure it would bleed.”
Fleet winced inwardly. A fist or two to the ribs, in comparison, didn’t seem that bad. “That must have hurt,” he said.
Luke shrugged.
“And the knife?” said Fleet. “How did Dylan get hold of the knife?” This time when Fleet looked Luke’s way, he could see tears starting to build in the boy’s eyes.
“I should have kept it. I found it while I was searching for Mason’s phone. But at that point I didn’t know Dylan was out there. And I didn’t want to take the chance that Mason might find it in my bag. So I tossed it away. As far as I could.”
I found it, Dylan had told the others outside the barn. It’s mine now. Maybe he’d even been watching when Luke had hurled it into the trees.
Fleet dropped his eyes.
“Why did he even have to bring it?” said Luke, suddenly angry. “The knife, that stupid bottle . . . what the hell was Mason even thinking?”
Seeing the boy upset, Miss Jeffries edged closer and laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. He gave a start, as though he’d forgotten the social worker was even behind him.
They walked on, and for a while nobody spoke. Fleet stole a glance to check that Nicky and the PC were still with them, and spotted their yellow jackets weaving between the trees.
“We’re not far now,” said Luke, after another minute or two. “Up ahead of us is the stream. That way, over there—if you walk far enough you’ll reach the place we spent the first night. And in the other direction, that way—that’s where Abi found Sadie’s phone.”
Luke didn’t alter his course. He led them straight on, toward a point midway between the spots he’d indicated.
“You walked right past it?” said Fleet. “When you were out here with the others?”
“Twice,” said Luke, his voice heavy. “Once before we found the phone, once when we turned around again.”
And no one saw. They were right there, searching, and still not one of them saw.
“What happened, Luke?” Fleet said. “With Sadie. Are you ready to tell me?”
“I . . . I killed her. I said to you already. Why do you need to know how?”
Fleet didn’t respond. He knew Luke didn’t really require an answer.
“She . . .” Luke started to say, but then he stalled.
“She was running away,” Fleet prompted. “Did you see her go? Did you try to stop her?”
Luke continued walking for a moment, as though he hadn’t heard Fleet speaking. But then he nodded, quick and fierce.
“I woke up,” he said. “In the night. I wake up most nights. And when I do, I go to the bathroom, and on my way I check on Dylan. He has nightmares, you see. Not every night, but Dad gets cross if Dylan disturbs him and Mum. So I try to . . . I make sure Dylan’s OK.” He caught himself. “I used to, I mean. That’s what I used to do.”
“Dylan’s bedroom is next to yours?” said Fleet. He didn’t really have to ask. He knew the layout of Luke’s house so well, he could probably have found the bathroom from one of the bedrooms in the middle of the night himself.
“All three of our bedrooms are together. Mine, Dylan’s and Sadie’s. The landing is kind of square. The bathroom’s opposite my room. My parents’ bedroom is up in the loft.”
“So you woke up. The night it happened. Did you get as far as checking on your brother?”
“No, I . . . I noticed Sadie’s door was open before I could.”
“Her door was open,” Fleet echoed, and Luke’s eyes flicked his way.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”
“So you looked in Sadie’s room instead?”
“Uh-huh. But she was gone. Her bed hadn’t even been slept in. And her curtains were open. When I looked out of the window, I saw her. Squeezing through a gap in the fence at the bottom of our garden.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“Nothing. For a minute. But then, I don’t know. I just had this feeling.”
“A feeling?”
“Like . . . a bad feeling.”
“So you followed her?”
“I grabbed some shoes, put on a coat. By the time I had, I was almost too late. When I finally got outside, she was already at the end of our street. And she didn’t turn left, toward Mason’s house, which is where I thought she might be heading. She went right. Toward the river.”
“Did you call out to her?”
“No, because . . . because it was so late. Like, two in the morning. And also I . . . I wanted to see where she was going. Which, after the river, turned out to be the woods.”
Fleet was watching Luke carefully. “How long were you following her, Luke?”
“Not that long. Or maybe . . . maybe longer than I thought. But she walked quickly. In the end I had to run to close the gap. Again I almost lost her, because of the trees this time, but when we got . . .” Luke looked around, gestured loosely to a point somewhere behind them. “Here, pretty much. That’s when she heard me coming after her.”
“And what happened then? Did you argue?”
Once again Luke fell silent. Once again he could only nod. And then he abruptly stopped walking.
“It’s just ahead,” he said.
Fleet came to a halt by Luke’s side. He looked, but could see nothing through the fog except
