“Maybe later,” he says. “Could be some nice background for the film. A nice detail. But I don’t think it’s worth using in the preliminary pitches.”
“No,” I agree, relieved to have had my own suspicions confirmed. “I’ll let the others know. We can always have an early lunch and take another look at the schedule.”
I snap my walkie-talkie out of my belt and lift it to my lips.
“Alice here,” I say, pressing the talk button. “Emmy, are you there?”
I hear my words echo robotically from the walkie-talkie in Robert’s pocket. I release the button and wait, but nothing comes.
“Emmy,” I repeat. “This is Alice. Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
“Emmy?” I ask again.
“Could be the walls,” says Robert, squinting up at them. “They seem to work in here, between the three of us, but maybe the signal can’t get outside? That can happen sometimes.”
I nod, even if my worry doesn’t quite want to give in. It sounds plausible enough.
We walk back to the front door, and as soon as I have one foot on the porch I try calling her again.
“Emmy,” I say. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
Nothing—nothing but the weak, melodic murmur of the line.
I swallow.
“Could she have put it down somewhere?” I ask Robert.
I’m hoping he’ll shrug and tell me not to worry in his steady, humming voice, but he doesn’t. A line has appeared between his eyebrows, and he pulls his own walkie-talkie out of his pocket.
“Emmy?” he says.
No reply.
“Do you think something happened?” Max asks, giving voice to what we’re all thinking.
I shake my head, trying to convince myself when I say: “I’m sure it’s nothing, it’s just—I mean, they’ve been acting up ever since we got here. It’s probably like the phone signal.”
I look at Robert. His eyes meet mine, and I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing.
“I think we should head back,” he says quietly, and I nod.
“OK,” I say. “There’s nothing more to see here, anyway.”
I should really stay behind to get some more shots of the exterior, but the sudden clump in my belly makes me shove my phone back into my pocket and start walking briskly back toward the square. It’s only when the straps start to chafe against my face that I realize I’m still wearing my respirator mask. I pull it down sharply.
We pass a road sign. It’s rusted and paper-thin, and only parts of the name are visible.
SO TREET
I hear Max panting behind me, jogging to keep up. The road we’re on turns in toward the main road, and the square appears before us. The well-trodden, overgrown country road turns into a cobbled street.
“Where—” I say, stopping still. Then I start to run.
One of the vans has gone. It’s the first thing I see—the asymmetry makes it stick out like a sore thumb: suddenly there’s only one where once there were two.
“Emmy!” I hear Robert call out, his voice cracking slightly on the last syllable.
No reply.
I slow down as we reach the square and look around, in the vain hope that they’ve just moved it.
“Where the fuck are they?” Max asks behind me.
Robert runs over to the other van and tears the door open. I manage a few split seconds of hope before I see there’s nobody in there.
When he turns around, the naked fear in his once so calm and collected exterior makes him look like someone else. His freckles blaze against his pale skin.
“Where are they?” he asks me helplessly.
I look around at the empty square. At the heather between the cobblestones, the white stucco walls of the village hall, the wide-open school doors.
“Shit,” I splutter, wiping my forehead. What an idiot. I should have seen this coming.
“Emmy must have taken Tone to the hospital,” I say.
Robert looks baffled, but relief has already started to smooth out the desperation between his eyebrows.
My jaw is tensed, but I’m trying not to let my anger come through. I can’t lose control. Not now.
“Without saying anything?” Max asks.
“They probably tried to,” says Robert, sounding more confident with every word. “But if the walls blocked the walkie-talkie signal…”
“We know they didn’t,” says Max. “I don’t think—”
“They were probably in a hurry,” I say, interrupting him.
My anger is wrestling with my relief and bad conscience.
Gutless, so damn gutless. I’ve thought many things of Emmy in my time, but never that.
At the same time, she’s always been blessed with a winner’s mentality. For her, it’s goals over everything else. She wanted to get Tone to a hospital, and I wasn’t playing ball. So she put herself in a position where I’m out of the way. Simple.
But who knows, maybe it’s a good thing. I can’t deny I was worried. And, much as I try not to let it, the odd thought had crossed my mind.
Is she still taking her meds?
We can do this without Tone, I tell myself. We can shoot without her. We can get enough material to keep the project afloat without her. What does it matter if she goes home a few days early? She won’t like it, but it’s better that way. She can be with us for the real shoot instead.
When I first hear the sound, I don’t understand what it is, but then I look up at the road. Out of the corners of my eyes I see Max and Robert do the same.
It’s the sound of an engine.
When the van appears on the other side of the square it looks almost animated, so out of place against the still backdrop that it seems to belong to another time entirely. Which, I suppose, it does.
I see Emmy in the driver’s seat. She turns the wheel and slows even more, so that the van’s jostle over the broken cobblestones turns into a slow trot. She pulls up and maneuvers in perfectly next to the other van, then undoes her seat belt.
“OK,” she says as she slips out of the van. “I’m sorry. I can explain. I…”
She looks at us and then around. Her eyes land on the other van
