“Then he’ll wait there, and we’ll find him when we get back,” Dougie said firmly. “You’re not getting out of going, Darren.” Darren didn’t complain after that, although I did catch him casting dark looks at Dougie and mumbling under his breath. Things between him and Martin weren’t going to be any better after this.
There was only one path at this end of the beach. It wound along the rocky coastline before veering steeply up the hillside. At the top, it spat us back out onto the same road we’d driven in on. There seemed only one sensible direction for Martin to have taken: we followed the road back toward the dirt parking lot. The trip felt even longer on foot than it had squashed in the sweltering heat of the car. By the time we tripped down the sheer section running back down toward the beach, night had fallen.
We’d been gone for two hours, maybe more. At the parking lot next to our campsite, Darren’s rusting Volvo waited for us, along with the smell of rotting fish that the rain had done nothing to dampen. I barely noticed, however. I was staring intently at the beach, hunting for a flashlight beam or flicker of flames from the campfire to tell us Martin was back. There was nothing, just distant, milky-white moonlight reflecting on the water now that the clouds had finally moved on.
“Martin?” I called as I stumbled my way down the narrow path. There was no answer. “Martin, you there?”
Silence. My sneakers sank into the soft sand, grains spilling into my shoes to irritate my feet. I didn’t notice. Light played out in front of me as Dougie shined the flashlight left and right, scanning the area. There was no one there.
I shouted again anyway.
“Martin?” I could hear the panic in my voice now, tinged with guilt. I should have gone with him. He’d wanted me to. What had happened to him? My stomach twisted uneasily, and I hurried on ahead.
I stopped in the middle of the campsite, practically empty now that most of the gear was in the boys’ tent. The swirling breeze distorted the sound of three people murmuring quietly behind me. I turned to stare at them.
“He’s not here,” I said pointlessly.
Their faces all reflected the worry I felt eating away at my gut. Even Darren looked bothered.
“Where else could he be?” Dougie wondered, frowning thoughtfully.
“Maybe he’s fallen somewhere,” I suggested. “Broken his ankle or something and can’t walk?”
A horrible image of Martin huddled in a ditch, drenched and cold, flashed before my eyes. In front of me, Darren shook his head, shattering the picture.
“No, we walked the entire loop. We’d have seen him, or he’d have heard us, called out.”
“Maybe he’s unconscious—” I started. Darren cut me off.
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“Well, where is he, then?” My voice was sharp, biting. I saw Darren’s expression curdle in response.
“I don’t know,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. His muscles bulged menacingly. “Maybe… Maybe he left, hitched a ride up on the road.”
“Without telling any of us?” Dougie looked skeptical. I was too. Martin wouldn’t do that.
“He was upset,” Darren continued, warming to his idea. “He was raging at me”—not without cause, I thought—“and then neither of you would go walking with him. Maybe he just decided to disappear. Five’s a crowd and all that.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I argued feebly.
But maybe it was like that, at least for Martin. Darren’s words stabbed at the heart of the unease I already felt. What if that was exactly how he’d seen it? He’d been having a miserable time, clashing with Darren every five seconds. And then Dougie and I—who were supposed to be his friends—had let him storm off alone so we could go swimming together. Maybe he’d felt isolated, left out; maybe he’d decided to get out of the way.
Looking at it that way, Darren’s suggestion didn’t seem quite so unfeasible. I bit my lip, not wanting to admit it, ashamed of myself.
Dougie rescued me.
“Even if he did think that, I still don’t think he’d just leave. He wouldn’t have gotten into a car with total strangers. Plus, we walked all the way along that road, and not a single vehicle went past.”
“We didn’t see anyone,” Darren said. “But that doesn’t mean Martin didn’t.”
“And that one car just happened to be willing to stop and pick up a stranger?” Dougie argued back.
Darren shrugged. “It’s possible. Or maybe he went the other way, up to the turn. There was more traffic there.”
“Maybe.” Dougie’s voice was hard, disbelieving. “You really think he’d just abandon all his things, though?”
“Who says he did?” Darren asked.
We all looked at the boys’ tent. Then back at each other. “I’ll check.” Darren disappeared from the circle of the flashlight beam.
I heard the ripping sound of the tent flap being opened and then a rustling. A smaller light flared inside the canvas, whiter than the flashlight, like the glare from a cell phone. It danced and flickered as Darren searched the tent. We could have gone over too, but for some reason none of us moved. We just stood there, clustered round the firepit from the night before, waiting. The light in the tent went out and I shivered, though it wasn’t really cold. Agitated, I stuck my hand in my pocket and began to fiddle with the brooch. Finally Darren reappeared, pausing to zip the door and straighten the porch before he spoke.
“Well?” Dougie prompted, pinning him in the flashlight beam, tired of waiting.
Darren shrugged.
“He must have gone,” he said. “His bag’s missing, and all his clothes. The only things of his left are his sleeping bag and the air mattress pump.”
Dougie scowled, unconvinced. “And just when did he have time to come and get them?”
“That would be when we were out searching the countryside for him,” Darren shot back. “I told you Emma and I should stay. We could have stopped him, talked some sense into him.”
Dougie snorted, and I knew what he was thinking. Darren would have been more likely to help Martin pack and offer him a lift up to the road. Frustrated, Dougie ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up on end in disarray. “Dammit,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this.”
Neither could I. We’d driven Martin away. Darren with his drinking and his temper, but it was Dougie and I who had pushed him out. I swallowed painfully, feeling sick at myself.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We should go get him,” Dougie replied at once.
I blinked, then nodded. Of course that was what we should do. Only…
“How?” Darren’s voice was acerbic.
“What?” Dougie looked more annoyed than confused. “How are we meant to go and get him? We’ve no idea where he is; in fact he’s probably halfway home. We haven’t got any signal on our phones. Are you suggesting we hike all over Dumfriesshire?”
“We’ll take the Volvo,” Dougie spat back as if it was obvious.
“You driving, then? I’m over the limit.”
Dougie frowned at that, and so did I. Darren hadn’t had a chance to have a drink in hours. Just how much had he consumed earlier? Or was this just a convenient excuse?
It was a good one, though. If Darren couldn’t drive, then looking for Martin was out, at least for tonight.
“Look.” Darren’s tone changed, became more ingratiating. “We can’t do anything tonight. Let’s just stay here and then, in the morning, we’ll drive to where we can get a signal, and you can call him and figure this out. He’ll be home safe with his mommy. Guaranteed. I promise to drive you up tomorrow.”
Dougie considered that. “First thing?” he asked.
“First thing.”
I didn’t like the idea of waiting all night. Despite Darren’s plan, the lead in my stomach refused to shift. Maybe
it was the darkness. It was pitch-black on the beach aside from the dimming light of the flashlight, in need of new batteries, and the watery glow of the moon. I agreed readily when Darren suggested trying to get a fire going. Didn’t even complain when he dragged out the whiskey. I needed something to warm my insides.
I tried to shut out the thought in the back of my mind that whispered that Martin wasn’t halfway back to Glasgow, chatting merrily in the back seat of someone’s car, but was somewhere much darker, much colder. Somewhere alone.
Eleven
The fire took a while to catch. Most of the wood we’d collected was damp, and the breeze kept snuffing out any flames we managed to coax to life. Eventually, though, with the help of a little bottle of lighter fluid that Darren produced from the car, we got it going. It had an immediate effect on the atmosphere. Radiating warmth, it banished the shadows outside the circle. We were still quiet, though—still subdued. For a while, the silence was kept at bay only by the crackling of burning wood and the hiss and spit of the burgers Dougie was cooking on his tiny grill. We were all starving, having missed dinner in the search for Martin.
Every time she got up to go into the darkness to pee, or dart into the tent for a sweater or a brush, or to fetch a drink, Emma shifted her chair a little farther away from me, a little closer to Darren. I didn’t see him move as much as an inch, but somehow his chair also migrated away from Dougie’s, until I looked up and saw there was a clear divide: Darren and Emma on one side of the fire, Dougie and me on the other.
To be honest, I wasn’t particularly bothered, but I did worry—as I watched them intertwine fingers, Emma giggling and Darren winking at her, a lascivious leer about his grin—that they would use Martin’s disappearance as an excuse to pair up, to push me and Dougie into being a “couple.”
Had Dougie noticed? I looked at him slyly out of the corner of my eye, saw he was staring in my direction. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He just kept looking at me.
“What?” I eventually asked. He shrugged.
“Nothing.”
There was a pause, then I asked, “Do you really think Martin hitched out of here?”
Another pause before Dougie finally nodded. “Yes,” he said.
And it was probably true. It wasn’t hard to believe that Martin had wanted to escape, possibly badly enough that he’d ask strangers for a ride. I felt bad about it, knowing part of that was my fault, but I was also pretty annoyed with him by now. He must have known we would worry. Would it have been so hard to leave a note? Maybe it was part of our punishment. I could imagine his self-righteous, aggrieved expression as he marched away up the hill without looking back. Muttering that we deserved it.
I let the resentment build up, because that made it easier to convince myself there was no need to worry. But…
“I just… What if we call tomorrow and he doesn’t answer?” I said. “Or he does answer and he’s in a ditch somewhere, been there all night, and—”
“He won’t be, Heather.” Dougie cut me off. I let him, because talking about it was bringing that horrible, uneasy feeling back again. I took a deep breath, looked around for a safe topic of conversation. There was only one real option.
“Emma and Darren look pretty cozy.”
“Yeah.” Dougie gazed across the flames at them, faces just a foot apart, grinning at each other. “Yeah, I think he really likes her.”
“Wonder why,” I murmured, finishing the thought I could see lingering on his lips.
Dougie laughed. “Well, Darren’s no picnic,” he said quietly. “He can be a dick.”
I grimaced my agreement, not really wanting to say it aloud. “Guess they’re perfect for each other, then,” I offered, smiling wryly.
“Guess so.” Dougie smiled back.
We didn’t speak for a while after that, and for the first time, I felt perfectly comfortable just sitting there quietly beside Dougie, doing nothing more than watching the flames.
“All right, kiddos, bedtime.” Darren’s voice startled me. I raised my eyebrows at him, confused. That was very sensible for Darren. It couldn’t be much past midnight, and he’d hardly had anything to drink. Maybe the Martin thing had actually unsettled him. Maybe he had feelings after all.
As he stood up, though, I saw a bulge up his sleeve that was suspiciously cylindrical, and my eyes narrowed. What was he up to?
But I was tired so I readily agreed, dragging myself up and heading in the direction of my tent. I yanked on my pajamas, then stood, undecided. I needed to pee, but it was dark and my sleeping bag was calling to me, a little damp on the cover but mercifully dry inside. I knew if I crawled in it, however, that I’d just have to get up and go in the middle of the night. Grumbling audibly, I stamped my way outside.
Uncomfortable lingering in the dark, I was back in record time. Emma was already inside, because a light was glowing and the door was closed. I bent to unzip it, then paused, shocked, in the entrance.
Darren waved at me from inside the tent, sprawled nonchalantly across the double air mattress.
“Hi, gorgeous.” He winked cheekily.
“What are you doing in here?” I demanded, too surprised to be polite.
Emma appeared from out of nowhere to stand at my side. “Darren’s sleeping in here,” she said breezily. I gaped at her, aghast. I thought I saw a slight sheepishness in her eyes, but then she stepped past me and turned to block my way. “Where the hell am I meant to sleep?” I ground out.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She winked coyly at me. “Somewhere else.”
“Emma, don’t do this to me,” I said, but it was already done. Ignoring me, Emma crawled into the tent, turned, and reached out to zip the tent closed.
“You’ll thank me for this later,” Darren called as I was shut out.
My mouth dropped as I registered what he meant. Not only was she shutting me out of our tent, but she’d told Darren about my feelings for Dougie. Darren, who couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything. I gritted my teeth against the swear words rising up in my throat.
Then my shoulders slumped. There was no way I was up for a confrontation with Darren tonight, so I turned to contemplate my only other option. Like a condemned man to the gallows, I walked hesitantly toward the other blob of glowing light. The boys’ tent. Dougie’s tent.
I stopped just short and hesitated, squirming from foot to foot, too mortified to announce myself. I would have liked to knock, but canvas made that impossible. Instead I cleared my throat, and after sending a final frustrating and pleading glance toward Emma and Darren inside my tent, I took a deep breath.
“Dougie?” I croaked as quietly as I could manage. I didn’t want Darren or Emma to hear.
He didn’t answer, but I heard shuffling from inside, and a moment later his head appeared.
“Hey,” he greeted me. “What’s up?”
He wasn’t aware of Darren and my “friend’s” treachery, then.
The words wouldn’t come out, and I watched as his face grew more confused, then amused.
“Can I sleep in here?” I mumbled eventually, dying on the spot.
The confusion was back. “What’s wrong with your tent?”
“There’s a Darren in it,” I admitted.
“Oh.” He laughed, looking across to the other tent. “Oh. That’s where he is.”
But he stepped back and opened the flap further so I could crawl inside. I stumbled and tripped my way in, feeling awkward, and all but fell down into the back corner of the tent where the mess was thinnest. As Dougie closed us in, his bare back to me, again I drank in the sleekness of his muscles, shifting under his skin as he moved, but I made myself pull my stare away as he turned back to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tugging a T-shirt over his head and felt both uncomfortable and chagrined.
“Okay.” He settled down into a deep-red
sleeping bag and smiled at me. I felt a little better. “Blue or green?” He pointed to the other two bags. I looked at them, just to avoid looking at him. The space was too small, the paper-thin walls of the tent claustrophobic.
“Which one is Darren’s?” I asked, striving unsuccessfully for nonchalance.
“Blue.”
“Then I’ll take green.”
I pulled the sea-green bag over, started to fold myself inside. I planned to escape this awkward torture by falling asleep as quickly as possible. I knew Emma would be disappointed in me, that she’d call me a chicken in the morning, tell me I’d wasted an opportunity. I just hoped to God we wouldn’t hear any noises floating over from the direction of the other tent. Surely she’d spare me that much.
“It gets pretty cold in here,” Dougie warned as I rolled over to lie down on the far edge of the huge air mattress. It was much bigger than the one in our tent, a king-size, maybe. “It’s the height of the ceiling. The space is too big to collect warmth.”
“Okay,” I said, directing my stare in front of me, where Darren’s rumpled blue bag marked his absence. I was already cold. Martin’s sleeping bag wasn’t as thick as mine, the shiny, shell-suit feel of the fabric cooler than my fluffy cotton lining. I buried down deeper so that my nose wasn’t sticking out in the frigid air with only my eyes peeking at Dougie. It still felt too much. I closed them, then wondered if he’d continued to watch me. I tried to quietly rotate, planning on turning my back on him, hoping I’d feel a little less self-conscious that way, but he spoke and I froze.
“I’m cold,” he said, sighing.
My eyes flew open, staring at the roof of the tent. “Mmm,” I mumbled in agreement.
“We should huddle up,” he said matter-of-factly. He smiled as I turned to eye him warily. “You know, like penguins.”
Penguins? More like two very uncomfortable people. Or at least one very uncomfortable person. One hopeful-but-pathetically-chicken, very uncomfortable person. But he was looking at me, waiting, that half smile still lingering on his lips. Not sure what else to do—I both wanted and really didn’t want to do as he suggested—I started to wriggle like an oversize worm across the tent. The air mattress sloped down toward Dougie’s weight and I tumbled the final foot, my arms pinned at my side in the bag, helpless to stop me. Dougie had to catch me to keep my momentum from throwing us both against the side of the tent. I still face-planted into his chest, getting a whiff of whatever body spray he used, trapped in the fabric of his shirt. It smelled amazing. Not that I was able to concentrate on that.
The Last Witness Page 9
