Cora pulled at her bottom lip in thought. It was only then I spotted her mobile phone in her hand. ‘The police are on the way,’ she said. ‘I called them first. They told us not to touch anything till they get here.’
‘So … we should leave the tyres like that?’
‘I guess. Once they’ve, I don’t know, taken photos and everything, then we can probably get them fixed. I don’t know how long that’ll take.’
I had a sudden thought. ‘I’ll need to nip home anyway and empty my boot,’ I said. ‘Otherwise I won’t have room to fit two tyres.’
Cora nodded. She was looking at the trees again. ‘Okay. Dallin, can you wait with the car?’
‘What?’ Dallin looked like he wasn’t paying attention. ‘Why?’
‘Someone needs to be here when the police arrive. Can you do that?’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m going to keep searching.’
It took me a moment to understand. ‘You’re going back into the curraghs?’
‘How long will it take the police to get here?’ Cora asked. ‘And when they do, how many of us need to tell them what happened? I can keep searching the wetlands. I’ll do another small section and be back in an hour.’
‘On your own?’ Dallin said.
‘Why not?’ Cora had that same determined expression on her face. Her gaze was on the trees, and I could tell she was itching to be out there, searching, rather than standing around doing nothing.
Still, I felt it necessary to ask, ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t all wait? If someone deliberately damaged the car – I mean, what if they come back?’
‘I’ll be here,’ Dallin said. ‘You’re not the only one who can swing a punch, Rosie.’
My cheeks went red.
‘I can’t lose any more time,’ Cora said. ‘I need to keep looking.’
‘What if I go with you?’ I asked. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was worried about her, out there on her own. Especially if there was someone around who was crazy enough to cut her tyres.
But Cora shook her head. ‘I’ll do the next leg, you can empty the boot of your car, and Dallin will field the police. We’ll meet back in an hour, okay?’
It sounded like she didn’t want to argue further. ‘Alright,’ I agreed, reluctantly. ‘I can bring food too.’ I was thinking of the baked potatoes, going wrinkly in the oven where I’d left them. At least I’d had the presence of mind to turn it off before I ran out of the house.
Dallin had taken out his phone and was snapping photographs of the tyres. His frown deepened. ‘What should I tell the police?’ he asked. ‘About why we’re out here? Do I tell them about Simone?’
‘If you want,’ Cora said. She shouldered her backpack and picked up the maps. ‘They might think we’re barmy. Or there’s an outside chance they might believe us and offer to help.’
‘So long as we don’t get into trouble for tramping around off the main paths.’ Dallin leaned in to take a closer photo of the rear tyre. ‘I might say we’re looking for wallabies. Save some hassle.’
His words reminded me of Eloise. I remembered her gripping her hands as she said, what about the wildflowers?
Cora gave me a reassuring smile. ‘See you in an hour.’
‘Don’t get lost,’ I said, then wished I hadn’t.
I didn’t want to be left there with Dallin, not after our arguments, so I hurried to my car. When I glanced back, Cora was already pacing off the distance along the road, working out where next to go into the curraghs, and Dallin was looking at the photos he’d taken on his phone. Probably putting them straight on social media. It occurred to me I hadn’t had an opportunity to confront him about his stupid website.
One more thing for us to argue about later.
I drove back slowly along the rutted road, my thoughts swirling.
It was difficult to believe anyone would deliberately damage a stranger’s car. But, obviously, these things happened. There were always stories in The Courier about random, nasty acts of vandalism. Not all of them were in the towns. There’d been incidents in the plantations, out along the footpaths, and even at the ancient monuments like Cashtal yn Ard in Maughold. I never failed to wonder at a person who would walk a mile uphill just to deface something.
What was more upsetting, random violence or someone deliberately targeting Cora’s car?
I thought again of Eloise. She’d been unhappy, definitely, but unhappy enough to damage two tyres? It seemed unlikely. I couldn’t think of anyone who would do something like that.
At the end of the road I turned right onto the slightly smoother but no less narrow track. If the hedgerows hadn’t been in the way, I could’ve seen my house, but there was no direct route, unless I drove through two fields. The road looped round so I had to pretty much double-back on myself.
As I followed the road, I saw Nicole and Patrick’s farmhouse. It was a beautiful building, raised up from the surrounding land to dominate the gardens. At one time, the half-dozen fields behind the house had also belonged to Nicole’s family, but they’d been sold over the years to neighbouring farms. Nicole sometimes regretted it, she said, but only because if she’d sold the land now it would’ve been worth five times what her father got for it. Otherwise, she was happy with what she had – the house and its gardens.
I spotted Nicole out in the front garden, bent to weed a flower-bed. On impulse, I pulled into the layby in front of their house.
Nicole looked up and waved. ‘Hello, neighbour,’ she called. ‘What brings you out this way?’
I came as far as the garden gate and rested my arms on it. Nicole was right to be proud of her garden. Many times, I’d made an excuse to walk past the house, just so I could breathe it all in. My own garden looked shabby and ill-tended in comparison. I tried my best to plan my planting, but whatever I planted struggled to thrive, whilst things left behind by Mum grew and spread and crowded out my own attempts. The only bit I could control was the vegetable patch.
In contrast, Nicole must’ve planned her planting from the very start, yet made it look spontaneous and effortless. There was always something new to see. One set of flowers would leap up like fireworks and, as soon as they died down, another would sprout to take their place. I had extreme garden envy.
Nicole came to the gate with a smile on her face. She was a tall, willowy woman with delicate, slender fingers. Pianist fingers, Mum called them. There was a little crescent of dirt under each nail. Nicole pushed up the brim of her gardening hat, which had gone floppy from being washed too many times.
‘I hear you’ve got visitors,’ Nicole said. ‘Young Dallin’s found his way home at last, has he?’
‘Just for a visit, that’s right. How did you know?’
Nicole waved an airy hand. ‘Oh, the jungle-drums. As soon as there’s the slightest bit of skeet we’ll be on the phone to pass it along.’
So Dallin had guessed correctly; Mum had wasted no time telling everyone the news. ‘He’s come over with a friend,’ I said. ‘They’re camping at Ballaugh.’
‘I could never understand sleeping in a tent. I like my own bed, me.’ Nicole laughed. ‘Hardy lot, are they?’
It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why Cora hadn’t booked a hotel instead of the campsite. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of places to stay. ‘They wanted to be close to the curraghs, I guess.’
‘Oh, aye? Fans of the wallabies, are they?’
‘No, they’re here because—’ I faltered. It wasn’t a secret, was it? ‘I don’t suppose you remember, all those years ago, when I was ten and got lost in the curraghs?’
Nicole blinked, then laughed again. ‘Now that was a lot of years ago. I remember it well enough – your mum called us in a frightful panic, saying how you’d got yourself lost. She didn’t know what to do with herself. I told her it was the sort of things kids do all the time. Dallin disappeared from home a bunch of times and always came back as soon as his stomach got empty. But Opal was terrified somethi
ng had happened to you. Me and Patrick came out to look, but almost as soon as we got there, out you popped from the trees.’ She shook her head, still smiling. ‘I don’t know whether Opal wanted to keel over from relief or smack your legs for scaring her. Did you ever decide what possessed you to run off like that?’
‘I got lost.’ Even now, it annoyed me that no one really believed my story. ‘I didn’t want it to happen. I just lost my bearings. And I found a skeleton.’ I said the last bit quickly.
Nicole gave a tolerant smile. ‘I remember you saying, yes.’
‘It really happened.’
The smile faded a little. ‘I know,’ she said, although it didn’t sound like she meant it. ‘It was all a long time ago now though.’
‘That’s why Dallin’s brought his friend Cora here,’ I said. ‘She believes me. She thinks the skeleton is all that’s left of her sister.’
Nicole’s smile disappeared altogether now. ‘Rosie—’
‘I know it was a long time ago. But Cora’s sister went missing twenty years ago, and they think maybe she ended up here.’
‘Oh, Rosie,’ Nicole said. I’d always hated being called Rosie. ‘If there’d been anything to find, don’t you think the police would’ve found it? And if your friend has someone who went missing all that time ago, don’t you think the police would’ve investigated that too? They would’ve put out a nation-wide hunt. I know we’re slightly removed from the adjacent isle, but someone would’ve connected the dots …’
‘Everyone thought she’d run away,’ I said. I felt like I was channelling some of Cora’s stubbornness. ‘They looked for her, but not very hard. No one thought to search for her here.’
It all would’ve been so much easier if the police had found the skeleton, I realised with sudden clarity. They would’ve done DNA testing and linked it to Simone. Cora wouldn’t have had to go through all these years of not knowing.
Nicole shook her head gently. ‘And this – Cora, is it? – she’s basing this all on the story you told her? About the skeleton you found? Don’t you think – I’m not trying to be horrid here, Rosie, but don’t you think it’s a tad irresponsible of you, to let the poor girl go on believing this story?’
‘I didn’t—’
‘I’m not saying you did, not for a moment. But this Cora is obviously grieving for her sister, and that can do funny things to a person. It might be she’s not thinking straight. Perhaps it won’t do her any harm to go looking in the curraghs. But perhaps it will.’ Nicole shaded her eyes from the sun. ‘I’m surprised Dallin’s let her come all the way here. You’d think he would’ve set her straight.’
‘Dallin’s the one who told her about the curraghs in the first place.’
‘Really? That’s odd. He always tried to talk you down. I wonder when he changed his tune.’
It wasn’t something I’d thought about. I made a mental note to properly peruse his website when I got home. It’d seemed genuine enough to me, but what if it was secretly mocking me and my story? That sounded far more like Dallin.
‘Can I bring Cora round sometime?’ I asked. ‘She’d like to talk to everyone who lived here twenty years ago, in case they remember her sister coming through.’
Nicole sighed. Her gaze slipped sideways so she was examining an ox-eyed daisy that had sprouted its pushy flowers across the path. ‘You can come round, of course,’ she said. ‘Patrick’s out right now, but he’ll be home later, after tea. I don’t know what you hope we can tell you, though. What was the girl’s name?’
‘Simone.’ I gave her a vague description, based on the photo Cora had shown to Mum. ‘She would’ve been fifteen when she came here.’ If she came here.
Nicole pushed up her hat. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever known a Simone in my life. Except my half-brother Simon, but that’s a different story entirely. I doubt we can help her. Sorry.’
Which was pretty much what I figured. Except—
A noise distracted me. A police car, approaching from the south, had overshot the junction and reversed with a crunch of gears. Moments later, the car came up the road, driving more cautiously now. I waved them down.
The officer slowed and wound down her window. ‘Are you looking for the car with slashed tyres?’ I asked. ‘They’re near the curraghs car park. Take the next left then the first left after that. Go slowly, the road’s terrible.’ I didn’t want to be indirectly responsible for a police car ripping out its undercarriage.
‘Much obliged,’ the officer said. As she pulled away, I stepped back onto the verge. Her colleague in the passenger seat waved to me. I lifted a hand in response.
‘They’ve made good time,’ I said. ‘Barely twenty minutes from Douglas.’ It was an automatic observation. If someone’s driven all the way down from Douglas, you remark on how long it took them. It was as much second nature to us as commenting on the weather.
‘What did you say?’ Nicole asked. ‘A car’s had its tyres slashed?’
There was no point trying to hide the truth. Within no time, everyone would know there was a police car here, and soon afterwards, everyone would know why. That too was second nature for us.
I filled Nicole in on the basic details. Behind her surprise, she showed a certain amount of well-concealed glee at being the first to know. I could practically see her fingers itching to dial phone numbers.
‘That’s just terrible,’ she said. ‘Who would do a thing like that? And is this Dallin’s friend? The one that’s come all this way? That’s just dreadful.’
Cora probably wouldn’t thank me for telling the whole world her misfortunes. But experience had taught me that it helped to give people something. Nicole would pass the gossip to her network of friends, and she would also mention why Cora was here. Maybe that would be enough to nudge someone’s memory.
If there was anything to remember.
***
You were always sneaky, secretive. You hid everything from everyone, so often it became a habit. I learned to read your moods, as clearly as we read the sea-changes in our parents’ tempers, and knew when I could talk and when I couldn’t. I wanted to be just like you but I didn’t know how. I started to gather my own secrets, hoarding them close to my chest.
When you started sneaking out to see him, I knew at once. Or I felt like I did. I knew something was wrong, at least. Your moods rose and fell in new and frightening patterns. You went from happy to sullen and back again in the space of an hour. Our parents speculated when they thought I wasn’t listening.
‘What d’you reckon it is this time?’ Ma asked. ‘School or boys?’
‘Buggered if I know,’ Da said. I could hear him in the kitchen. ‘Could be anything. Those girls she hangs around with are a right bunch of sour-faced bitches. You should hear the way they talk about each other.’
But it wasn’t your friends. Not this time.
I put myself in your way one night when you tried to sneak out. You told me it was none of my business where you were going.
‘I could make it my business,’ I said, raising my chin like you did when you argued. ‘I could tell Ma.’
‘Don’t you dare.’ You reached for me and I flinched. But you smiled as you ruffled my hair. ‘You wouldn’t do that, now would you? It’s me and you against the world, Cor. Don’t forget that.’
Chapter 14
When I got home, I parked in the driveway and opened the boot. In all honesty, there wasn’t much in there, but I hadn’t wanted anyone to dump tyres on top of my stuff. On top of Beth’s stuff.
I took the two bags of clothes out of the boot. The bags were white and red, the lettering asking for clothing collections in aid of the Red Cross. I’d filled them several months ago. No, that wasn’t true – I’d started filling them several months ago. Then I’d taken the clothes out and re-ironed them, because what if the charity shop threw them away rather than spend time getting the creases out? I could just about accept giving them away for resale. I couldn’
t bear the thought of them getting binned.
So, I’d ironed and folded the clothes and started stacking the bags. It took me at least a month to fill them. Probably more. I kept putting it off. And then, once they were finally full of neat, ironed, saleable clothes, I’d tied them up and put them in the hall. I left them there for another couple of months. At last I moved them into the boot of my car. That was about six weeks ago.
None of this was deliberate. I understood perfectly that I had to get rid of Beth’s stuff. The clothes in the bag weren’t even her favourites – it was a literal mixed bag of her everyday, normal clothing. Generic. Boring, even. I’d taken them out of the drawers by the window. I hadn’t felt strong enough to tackle the big wardrobe, where she kept her best and favourite dresses. And yet, even this, the clearing out of two bags of not-special clothing, was still defeating me. It would’ve been incredibly simple to drive into Ramsey and drop it off at the charity shop.
I tried to ignore the twinge of relief I felt as I moved the bags back into the hallway of my house, one step further from being lost forever.
Apart from the two bags, there was nothing much else in the boot. I shoved the carjack back into the alcove at the side, where it refused to stay, then I slammed the boot shut.
Consciously or not, I drove slowly back to the curraghs, in no hurry to talk to the police, if they were still there. I’d had enough of talking to police officers to last me a lifetime. For a week after Mum’s accident, it’d seemed like every officer on the island wanted to talk to me.
As I came down the bumpy road to the car park, I encountered the police car coming in the opposite direction. I pulled into a passing place and waved as they went past.
Arriving at the car park, I found Cora had returned, in just as foul a mood as before. She’d got the carjack out of her boot and was lying down on the road, trying to figure out where exactly to place it. She must’ve come back early, because I hadn’t been gone an hour.
‘Where’s Dallin?’ I asked as I came over.
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