by Matt Hilton
Leah saw what had caught his attention. Tracks were evident in the carpet of fallen needles, deep scuffmarks in places, shallow troughs where somebody had kicked their way across the uneven forest floor.
‘Are we goin’ in there?’ he asked.
‘We have to,’ Effie said, ‘but not all of us. We’ll do it. Becks, go with Leah back to her cabin and check that Rob hasn’t gone back there.’ She looked at the group of youngsters. ‘I think its best you go with them to the cabin, okay?’
‘Somebody should go back to the camp.’ It was the other skinny youth who spoke up, his girlfriend nodding her head in agreement with him. ‘In case Rob shows up there,’ he went on. ‘Somebody should be there to explain to him what’s going on.’
The kid was frightened, and understandably concerned for his girlfriend too, and Leah knew why he’d made the suggestion: neither of them was comfortable with being out in the woods in the dark, terrified by the wild unknown. She felt sorry for them because she knew how disabling even an illogical fear could play on the mind. ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ she said.
Effie shook her head. ‘No. Everyone should stick together.’
‘It’s only a few hundred metres back along the trail,’ the young man argued. ‘It isn’t as if we’re going to get lost. Me and Jenna will go back together,’ he looked at the others, ‘and with any of you who want to come with us.’
Annie raised a hand, but was frowned at by Shelley, the major force in the trio of friends. ‘I’m going to the cabin with you guys,’ Shelley announced, to agreement from Hayley. Annie acquiesced with a grimace. That only left Harry.
‘I’ll go with Ben and Jenna,’ he announced. ‘I’m probably the only one who has any wilderness experience; I’ll make sure they get back safely.’
‘Wilderness training?’ Shelley laughed scornfully. ‘He got a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and thinks he’s ready for the S.A.S. All he did was go camping in the Brecon Beacons with some mates from college. They probably just drank beer and smoked weed.’
‘I completed all five sections,’ Harry replied angrily. ‘I earned my gold award.’
Shelley snickered again, but she was in the minority.
‘Earning a gold DofE award is no mean feat,’ Effie ascertained, because she too had been a participant of the youth award programme and was equally proud of her achievement. She suddenly viewed Harry as more than an over-weight, shortsighted youth. ‘I’m going to put you in charge, Harry. Go back to camp with Ben and Jenna and start breaking down the tents. I want to be ready to leave as soon as we find Robert.’
Harry couldn’t help a smug sneer at Shelley, who this time didn’t laugh in his face. She appeared mildly interested in the boy now, though she attempted to conceal her feelings with a snort and a toss of her hair: the gesture would have held more sentiment if her hair hadn’t been plastered down under a wooly hat.
Harry led Ben and Jenna back the way they’d just come. Leah watched them down the trail until they were vague silhouettes behind the faint glow of their torches. When she turned back, she watched Effie and Becks embrace very briefly before Dom urged the team leader off trail and into the woods. Becks waved the trio of girls to follow her, trusting Leah to fall in step at the rear. She’d prefer not to return to the cabin, hoped to be off the island at first opportunity, but going back served a purpose other than finding Rob. She should collect her laptop and other belongings, so there’d be no need to come back again. She jogged after the small group heading inland, even as Effie and Dom began calling Rob’s name as they searched.
Dawn broke while they were still under the trees. It was surprisingly bright in the glade, lancing yellow sunlight setting the roof of the cabin aglow. It looked magical. But Leah was reminded of the spooky enchanted woodland behind them, and now thought of the cabin as the domain of a wicked entity integral to the same grim fairytale. There was no sign of Rob, nor anybody else, and the distant calls of his seekers sounded hollow and ghostly by distance. She was reluctant to proceed, and the others picked up on her unease.
‘What’s wrong?’ Becks asked.
‘Rob isn’t here, but what if that loony has found a way inside?’
‘You locked up when you left, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Leah said, ‘but that hasn’t stopped him getting inside before. I think he must have a spare key.’ She briefly reminded Becks how things had been moved, and other items had gone missing, all while Leah had been positive she’d secured the cabin. She’d concluded that the stalker could have been visiting the island for years, perhaps even as a previous tenant of the cabin who hadn’t relinquished his key to McBride when his tenancy ended.
‘This used to be used by wildlife conservationists, didn’t it?’ asked Becks.
‘Marine biologists, I believe,’ said Leah. ‘They were apparently studying the colony of seals.’
‘Yeah,’ Becks said, ‘but they haven’t used it in ages. Their funding was pulled and the research station closed down. If memory serves, there was some kind of accident and one of them was killed…’
Leah stared at her, dumbstruck.
‘Chill out, Leah; she wasn’t murdered, she drowned, or was lost at sea or something.’
‘I…I wasn’t told about that when I booked.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting the place is haunted.’
Leah had briefly entertained the notion that she was being tormented by a poltergeist, but the idea seemed preposterous now. ‘It isn’t a ghost I’m afraid of. The guy who’s been stalking me—’
‘There are five of us,’ Becks cut her off. ‘Even if there is a nutter inside your cabin he won’t try anything while we’re all together.’
Leah glanced doubtfully at the three young girls all huddled together, watching them with huge eyes. ‘We don’t know that,’ she whispered to Becks.
‘We still have to check Rob isn’t here. You should grab your stuff while we’re inside. You don’t want to come back alone.’
‘I never want to see this place again,’ Leah admitted.
22
There was no indication that Rob had ever been at the cabin, but Becks made a search of each room regardless. She wasn’t looking for clues that Leah was a crazy woman — who’d cut Rob into small pieces and secreted him around the cabin — she was simply inquisitive. While she satisfied her curiosity, Leah hurriedly packed her belongings into the suitcase she’d recently struggled across land with, as well as placing her laptop and other items into her rucksack. When rushing to the camp earlier she hadn’t dressed in the most appropriate clothing, so now added her waterproof jacket and wooly hat. Making the sea crossing in a kayak was going to be a cold and wet experience.
She made a last perusal of her bedroom, then hauled her bags into the narrow hallway. The three younger women stood in the living room, each of them posted by Becks to watch the door, kitchen window and patio doors — should Rob appear, she said, but genuinely on the look out incase Leah’s stalker made a reappearance. Becks crouched down, studying the small cupboard that housed the radio charger in the bunkroom. She snapped her opposite thumbnail repeatedly along the woven bands on her wrist.
‘He stole the radio transmitter last night,’ Leah said, ‘so I’d have no way of calling the mainland.’
Becks stood and approached her. ‘Yeah, I heard you tell Effie about that earlier. It kind of makes sense if he intended isolating you, but what’s the deal with that bracelet you found?’
Leah dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the bracelet. She presented it to Becks. ‘Take a look. Like I said: I found this the first day I was on the island, back there somewhere—’ she waved a hand in the general direction of the crags to the south ‘—and brought it back here with me to clean up. I hung it on my computer screen the first night and it was gone the next morning. I tried to convince myself that I was being forgetful, and had misplaced it somewhere, but then the damn thing showed up again last night, but this time with my initials scratched into
it.’
Becks’s face paled as she inspected the bracelet, parchment white beneath the frame of her raven hair. ‘Those initials…not yours, the original ones.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘M.J.K.,’ Becks read, then looked at Leah for clarification.
The original inscription wasn’t totally obliterated, and when held at an angle the three initials were still easily read. Leah nodded in agreement.
Becks exhaled, even as her left hand grabbed at her spiky hair. ‘The marine biologist that went missing, her name was Mary Jayne Kenner.’
‘No way!’
‘It’s years ago now, but her disappearance was big news around here. Her name still occasionally pops up in conversation around Machrihanish; her disappearance is kind of like a local mystery that every man and his dog have a theory about.’
Studying the bracelet closer, Leah said, ‘Do you think this really was hers?’
‘What are the odds that somebody on the island had the same initials?’ Becks countered.
Leah’s hand went to her mouth. The blood drained from her face. ‘I also found bones,’ she croaked. ‘Remains.’
Impossibly Becks grew even paler.
‘I…I thought they belonged to a deer or a stray dog or something. Oh my God, Becks, you don’t think…?’
‘The bones could be animal remains,’ Becks said tentatively, ‘but how did Mary’s bracelet end up in the forest when she was supposed to have drowned at sea?’
‘Maybe she lost it long before she went missing. She could have been taking a walk and…’ Leah wasn’t convinced by her own argument.
‘It’s a possibility,’ Becks said, ‘but what’s the likelihood? Could you take me to where you found the bracelet?’
‘Why? We should find Rob and get the hell out of here. We can tell the police about finding this once we’re back on the mainland.’ Leah studied the initials again, but more so her own freshly inscribed in the gold. She shared a long glance with Becks. ‘You don’t think the stalker had something to do with Mary’s death, do you? What if scratching my initials is some kind of warning that I’m next?’
Becks’s eyebrows arched for her hairline. ‘I hope that’s only your author’s imagination getting away from you.’
‘Me too.’ Leah quickly pushed the bracelet into her pocket for safekeeping. Whatever Mary Jayne Kenner’s fate, the bracelet was evidence that should be handed to the police at first opportunity. ‘Come on, it’s time to go.’
‘Leave your suitcase,’ Becks suggested. ‘Just bring your rucksack. We can collect your other stuff on the way back.’
Leah shook her head. ‘I don’t want to go into the forest again.’
‘Understandable,’ Becks said, ‘but I’m hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Effie and Dom are searching the woods towards the camp; we should check that Rob isn’t back there nearer the crags. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to climb the crags and see if we can call the police from up there.’
‘What about the girls?’ Leah checked and spotted Shelley in the morning light spilling in through the kitchen window. She looked agitated by the goings on. ‘Maybe we should get them back to the camp first.’
‘I know you’re weirded out by all this, Leah, but there’s no need to be afraid…’
‘I’m not scared,’ Leah replied too quickly, ‘I just don’t want to put those young girls at risk.’
‘They’re better coming with us,’ Becks countered, ‘they can help us look for Rob. If we find him hurt, their extra hands will be needed. Plus, I can keep an eye on them if they’re with us. You saw the tension between Shelley and Harry, do you really think it’s best to leave them together at camp with no supervision?’
She had no argument, so Leah shrugged in defeat. She glanced again at Shelley. ‘What’s their story anyway? Were they an item?’
‘They were as loved up as Ben and Jenna when they first arrived at Machrihanish,’ Becks whispered, ‘but Shelley caught him ogling her friend Annie and is giving him hell for it.’ The reaction to Annie first electing to return to camp with Harry, Ben and Jenna, and being stared down by Shelley and Hayley made sense now. Becks chuckled. ‘Young love, eh? Never runs smoothly. They’ll probably work things out between them, but not while Shelley’s still mad at him. I don’t want things going nuclear at camp if we’re not there to separate them.’
Leah contained her opinion. Slightly older love didn’t run too smoothly either if her and Pete’s relationship was anything to measure it by. Sadly theirs had gone into meltdown and there was no hope of reconciliation. Her thoughts turned to Rob Cooper, and his chocolate coloured eyes. God! She hoped that Rob was safe. Yeah, she told herself, suck it up, Leah, and go help find the poor guy.
Shelley, Annie and Hayley all eyed them expectantly as Leah clumped into the living area with her suitcase. She set it down next to the table, even as the girls began questioning her about what was next. She looked back at Becks who hadn’t yet emerged from the hallway. Becks gestured her. Leah returned to the hall.
‘Was meaning to ask you something,’ said Becks. ‘That cupboard in the bunkroom, are those the only radio parts in the cabin?’
‘Yes. Discounting the top half of the radio that was stolen,’ Leah confirmed, and Becks hummed in thought.
‘That’s an old Motorola set. The guy you rented from told you it was there for emergencies?’
‘Yeah, he said it was a back-up because there was no mobile reception on the island.’
‘Well,’ Becks said, ‘it’s easy seeing he’s never had to use it, because those old radios are lucky if they have a range of a few hundred metres. There’s no way you could hail the mainland with one of those old walkie-talkies. You’d need a base station and antennae. I expected to see something like that in the cupboard, not just a battery charger. If you ask me that set-up was left behind by those marine biologists when they left. They probably used the walkies to communicate with each other when they were on the island or out at the seal colony.’
Perplexed Leah had a single theory. ‘Perhaps McBride thinks there’s enough range to reach a passing boat or something.’
Becks shrugged. ‘Maybe if you were standing on the beach you could hail a passing boat, but only if you happened to transmit on the correct channel at the right time. Those old things are barely a step up from two tin cans on a piece of string.’
‘So what was the point of anybody stealing it?’
‘Beats me,’ Becks said.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ Leah said, ‘I’m giving this place a scathing review on Trip Advisor when I get home.’
Becks chuckled at the inanity of her comment, and after a moment Leah realised how pathetic she must have sounded. She laughed too, though the situation lacked any brevity.
23
After gathering the trio of girls, Becks explained her plan to go deeper inland in search of Rob, and possible mobile phone reception. Leah left behind the suitcase — it contained items she could live without and were replaceable — but pulled the rucksack on and cinched it tight: at a push she could survive without her laptop and phone but they had become so integral to her career that she felt separation anxiety simply at the thought of leaving them behind. They walked towards the crags, Leah leading the way into the old growth forest. The subject of Mary Jayne Kenner’s mysterious disappearance wasn’t raised with the girls in earshot, although Becks urged Leah to take her to the location she’d found the bracelet. Leah wasn’t certain she could find the place again — it was difficult enough finding her path back to the cabin that same day, never mind retracing her steps again forty-eight hours later.
As they progressed they spread out in a line, each of them in constant view of the next as they sought fresh indications that Rob had been that way. They all called out his name. Distantly they occasionally heard the same name echoed back to them as Effie and Dom continued to holler for their friend. Not once did they receive an answer.
Surprisingly L
eah thought she recognised a few landmarks, a particular rock or stunted tree she was certain she’d seen two days earlier, and she led them unerringly towards the swampy ground and stagnant stream, before veering towards the rocky ground she’d previously traversed and onto spongy mulch. She even spotted indications in the forest floor where her feet had kicked through mounds of pine needles or trodden down ferns. Within minutes she halted and peered down at a natural depression in the landscape, and took a longer sweep of the surrounding forest. Yes, she was certain this was the place. She beckoned over Annie who was nearest her and asked that the girl stay put while she fetched Becks. Becks was about a hundred metres to the west, but easily heard when Leah called for her. As Becks strode towards her, she gathered up Shelley and Hayley, so all five of them rendezvoused where Annie waited.
‘I found the bracelet round here someplace, we should see where I dug it out of the ground,’ Leah began explaining, but nobody was looking at her. They gawped beyond her shoulder and Leah turned to see what had caught their attention. She took an involuntary step backwards, her mouth opening in silent question.
Thirty feet away a figure stood in the shadows before the wide bough of an ancient tree. He was slope shouldered, and bandy legged.
‘Rob?’ Becks croaked. ‘Is that you, Rob?’
The figure remained silent.
‘Robert?’ Becks tried again.
Leah recognised his clothing; it was the same coat, trousers and boots that Rob had worn to walk her back to her cabin the night before. Yet his shape didn’t conform to the tall, broad shouldered guy who’d accompanied her.
‘Robert,’ Becks called again, and began to walk towards the unresponsive figure. ‘What are you doing standing like that? Are you hurt?’
Leah caught a concerned glance from Shelley, and Leah knew what the girl was thinking. This is wrong! The warning whispered through her mind, and she reached out to stall Annie from following Becks. ‘Maybe we should just hold on a second,’ she cautioned, and it was good advice as the next second saw Becks stagger, almost go down on one knee before she scrambled towards Robert with a squawk of alarm.