The Search Party

by Simon Lelic

  “Oh, please,” said Mason.

  “What?” said Abi.

  “First of all,” Mason answered, “it probably was one of us that Cora saw. And second, even if there is someone following us—and I’m not for one minute saying there is—but even if there is, it’s probably just . . . Lara Sweeney or something. One of those dickheads from the bridge. And the water was them getting their revenge.”

  Cora folded her arms. “I thought you said it was one of us,” she said. “I thought you said it was me.”

  “I’m not saying one thing or the other! What I’m saying is, either way, there’s no need to panic!”

  There was a silence. Abi wrapped her arms around her middle. Cora dumped her bag on the ground and frisked herself to find her packet of cigarettes. It took her three attempts to fire up her lighter.

  “Look,” I said, as Cora exhaled a cloud of smoke, “why don’t we just take a vote?”

  Mason scoffed.

  “It’s the fairest way,” I said. “Surely? And I don’t see how else we’re going to decide.”

  Abi nodded. Cora rolled a shoulder.

  “So,” I said. “Let’s start with who votes we go back. Raise your hand if you think we should call it a day.”

  Abi had her hand in the air almost before I’d finished speaking. Cora put her hand up, too, her cigarette between her fingers, and her arm hinging at the elbow.

  We looked at Luke. Even then, even though we were supposed to be voting, it somehow still came down to him.

  He focused on Mason. “For the record,” he said, “I never really thought you had anything to do with it. With Sadie, I mean. With what they said.”

  Mason was clearly waiting for whatever came next.

  “But the thing is,” said Luke, “I can’t stay out here. And it’s not because of the water, or because of whoever might be out there. It’s Dylan. He’s hurting, man. A lot. I feel bad enough for leaving him as it is. And you know my parents aren’t going to be looking after him.” He kicked a stone. “Not the way he needs.”

  I don’t think any of us were surprised. Luke hadn’t wanted to come with us in the first place. And when he mentioned Dylan, there wasn’t exactly much that we could say. Not even Mason.

  I watched as the others gathered up their stuff. When they started walking back the way we’d come, I lingered next to Mason in the clearing. I waited until the others were out of earshot.

  “It was always a long shot, Mase,” I said, trying to sound consoling. “And who knows, maybe the police have found something while we’ve been gone. Something that puts you in the clear.”

  Mason turned on me then, as though I’d just accused him of killing Sadie myself.

  “That was convenient for you, wasn’t it? You didn’t even have to vote.”

  He made to walk off and I pulled him back. “Mase, wait. What do you mean? I just . . .” Something in his expression made me let go of his arm.

  He sneered at me, and shook his head. “Don’t even bother trying to justify it. I know exactly what you did.”

  “LOOK AT THOSE leeches,” said Nicky, as Fleet maneuvered the car through the entrance gates.

  Fleet glanced out the driver’s-side window. Most of the news vans were either down by the river or up in the woods, the more respectable outlets having—at least on the face of it—honored police requests to show some consideration to the local community, and in particular to stay away from Sadie’s school. But there were always going to be a few hacks who pushed the boundaries. Literally, in this case—the school grounds were fenced off from the road, and three or four men were leaning against the wire mesh, cameras in one hand and cigarettes or vape sticks in the other. They’d noticed Fleet’s Insignia approaching the school gates, and one or two were tracking it through their telephoto lenses.

  “At least they’re getting wet,” said Fleet, taking in the rain. He was tempted to stop the car and shoo the photographers away, but he knew they’d only flock back again. Less like leeches then; more like pigeons. Plus they were wasting their time, anyway. No editor in their right mind would print a picture from a pap who’d doorstepped a school—would they?

  There was a visitor’s space free in an awkward corner, and once they were parked Fleet led the way inside the building. There’d been a few modernizations to the school over recent years, but the general layout didn’t appear to have changed since Fleet had been a pupil here himself. Harbor Park remained the only major secondary school in town. It wasn’t large by city standards, but if you lived within the parish, and unless your parents were rich enough to send you to one of the private schools in the surrounding countryside, this is where you were destined to serve your adolescence. Purely out of curiosity, Fleet had checked the school’s Ofsted rating, and hadn’t been surprised to discover that, according to the government’s inspectors, Harbor Park “required improvement.” It was tired, in other words, with the majority of investment flowing elsewhere—a fitting symbol of the town itself.

  The head teacher met them in the entrance hall. Ms. Andrews was a thin woman, tall and stooping. She had the look of a long-distance runner, Fleet thought, or perhaps of someone whose primary form of exercise was worrying. In many ways she reminded Fleet of Superintendent Burton, though the comparison did the head teacher a disservice. Rather than being a politician, Ms. Andrews struck Fleet as a genuine crusader, albeit a battle-weary one, only just about clinging to the diminishing possibility that she might one day make a difference.

  “Detective Inspector,” the head teacher offered by way of greeting. She nodded to Nicky as she took Fleet’s hand. They’d all met before, shortly after Sadie had gone missing, but this was the first time Fleet and Ms. Andrews had spoken since events in the woods, and the first time since the school had been back in session. The new term had begun two days before. Sadie would have been entering the sixth form, beginning her A levels—taking her first steps toward a boundless future.

  “I’m sorry we’re not meeting again under better circumstances, Ms. Andrews,” Fleet said, “but thank you for arranging this at short notice. Are they ready for us?”

  “They are,” the head teacher confirmed. “They’re in my office. And they’ve requested I sit in, if you don’t object?”

  “Not at all,” said Fleet, with a glance at Nicky.

  Ms. Andrews led them along the corridor. The smell of the place was disconcertingly familiar to Fleet, as though whatever had been used to clean the floors over the years had seeped into the parquet, and the same food as had been served twenty years ago would shortly be on offer for the pupils’ lunch. The pupils themselves were currently between lessons, and they eyed Fleet and Nicky warily as the head teacher escorted them through the building, but parted as Ms. Andrews forged a path. The children wore a version of the uniform Fleet had once worn himself, the gray jumpers and striped ties complemented now by a deep maroon blazer. The kids looked smarter than they had in Fleet’s day, there was no denying it. He tried to decide if they also appeared older, shrewder—or whether he was simply projecting what he’d come to believe after the time he’d spent in the company of Sadie’s friends.

  “After you,” said Ms. Andrews as they reached the door to her office. She held it open, and gestured Fleet and Nicky inside.

  Lara Sweeney was sitting demurely in a plastic chair, one of four that had been positioned on the visitors’ side of the head teacher’s desk. Beside her sat a man who couldn’t have been anything but the teenager’s father. From Lara’s perspective, the resemblance was unfortunate: they had the same beady eyes—too small and close together for the shape of their faces—as well as the same upturned nose. The man’s hair was darker than Lara’s, but only because the teenager’s had obviously been bleached.

  “Detective Inspector Fleet?” said Ms. Andrews, making the introductions. “This is Lara. And this is her father, Trevor Sweeney.”

>   The man hadn’t risen when Fleet and Nicky had walked in. And when Fleet offered out his hand, he could tell Sweeney gave half a moment’s thought to not shaking it.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sweeney,” Fleet said, endeavoring not to show his distaste as Sweeney took his hand with just his fingers. “You too, Lara. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Collins. Nicky, in fact. And you can call me Rob.”

  The head teacher signaled Fleet and Nicky into the two empty chairs, and then quietly took her own on the window side of the desk. Beyond the fence that enclosed the playground, it was just possible from where Fleet was sitting to see the edge of the woods—and, snaking its way toward the harbor, the depthless gray of the river.

  “What’s this about?” said Sweeney, getting straight to the point. “What do you want with my little girl?”

  Fleet couldn’t help but be distracted for a moment by his surroundings. The last time he’d been in this office, he would have been fifteen years old. Him and Thomas Murphy, his best mate at the time, who’d died five years later from a heroin overdose. So Fleet had heard, anyway. Fleet himself had been long gone by then. But him and Tom, standing with downcast eyes before the headmaster’s desk, nodding along to Mr. Sternway’s lecture about the dangers of failing to adhere to their teacher’s instructions when it came to mixing chemicals in the science lab, and trying—and failing—not to laugh. Sternway himself had retired the same year Fleet had left town, and though Fleet had never heard tell of the reason why, he’d often wondered if there hadn’t been a connection. Not with Fleet’s leaving per se, but with the reason he left. Perhaps Sternway blamed himself as much as Fleet did. Or perhaps he’d had as much as he could take. Of children. Of watching their innocence die.

  “It’s just routine, Mr. Sweeney,” said Fleet in response to the man’s question. “We’re hoping your daughter can help us with a few queries, that’s all.”

  “Is this to do with Sadie?” said Lara. Her eyebrows were arrowed and her forehead was creased. She reached and took her father’s hand. “It’s so awful, what’s happened to her. Just . . . so awful.”

  “For the moment, all we know about Sadie is that she’s missing,” Fleet replied. “Nothing more than that.”

  “No, I know, but . . . it’s upsetting. That’s all I meant.” Lara sniffed and lowered her head, and her father locked his eyes on Fleet’s.

  Fleet turned to Nicky. They’d agreed beforehand that it might seem less confrontational if their questions came from her, particularly as they’d learned from the head teacher that the girl’s father would be present.

  “Lara?” said Nicky. “I understand this is difficult for you.”

  The girl nodded, eyes downcast.

  “Were you and Sadie close, would you say?” Nicky asked her.

  Lara raised her head then. She looked at Nicky, and clearly sensed the insinuation in the DS’s question.

  “I knew her, obviously,” Lara answered. “Everybody knew Sadie.” She paused for a moment, then added, “She was like that, you see.”

  “Like that?”

  “Always keen to be the center of attention,” said Lara. She smiled, as though fondly.

  Nicky showed half a smile back. “I see.” The DS had her notebook open on her lap, and she scribbled something on the page.

  Lara waited. Her tie was neatly knotted and her blazer buttoned, with an exactness Fleet hadn’t spotted among any of the pupils out in the corridor. She’d dressed for the occasion, clearly.

  “From what we understand,” said the DS, “you were one of the last people to see Sadie’s friends before they went looking for her in the woods. Is that right?”

  Lara let out the lightest of exhalations, and turned toward her father.

  “I’m sorry, Lara,” Nicky said. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

  Lara’s father patted his daughter’s hand. “It’s OK, princess. You’re free to say whatever you want to. They can’t punish you for speaking your mind.”

  “It’s funny, that’s all,” said Lara. “The idea that Sadie’s friends went looking for her.”

  “You don’t think that’s what they were doing?”

  “You’ll have to ask them,” Lara answered. “All I’m saying is, if they were out there looking for Sadie, that suggests they didn’t already know where she was.”

  Nicky gazed back at her impassively. “Did they say anything that would make you think that? That they already knew where Sadie was?”

  “They didn’t tell me where she was buried, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Lara, and Fleet noticed the head teacher shift uncomfortably behind her desk. “But sometimes it’s not what people say, is it? It’s how they behave.”

  Nicky nodded. “Indeed,” she said, holding Lara in her gaze a fraction longer than was necessary. She looked at her notebook. “And how were they behaving, would you say? Did they seem . . . nervous? Upset? Agitated?”

  “Actually,” said Lara, with the assurance of a liar finally drawing on fact, “they were laughing. I remember being quite shocked.”

  Lara’s father gave a disapproving tut.

  “And once you’d got over your . . . shock,” said Nicky, “did you notice in which direction they headed?”

  “They ran off. In a hurry. I didn’t notice in which direction.”

  “So you didn’t follow them?” said Nicky, and Fleet watched Lara closely.

  “Follow them? Why would I follow them?”

  “From what we’ve gathered you were pretty upset. In the wake of an altercation that had allegedly taken place.”

  Lara’s mask slipped slightly. “There was no allegedly about it,” she said, bridling. “Mason Payne practically broke Ian’s nose. At the very least you should arrest him for that.”

  “Rest assured that any allegation of assault will be fully investigated. But in the meantime,” Nicky went on, “and just for clarity, you’re maintaining you didn’t pursue Sadie’s friends into the woods?”

  “Now wait just a minute,” said Sweeney, leaning forward. “What exactly are you insinuating? Are you trying to suggest my daughter had anything to do with what happened out there?” He gestured loosely at the window, toward the trees on the distant horizon. “From what I gather, a boy was killed.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Sweeney,” Nicky replied. “A boy was killed. And as much as this investigation is focused on Sadie, we’re also looking to establish exactly how that happened. As it stands, your daughter is the closest thing we have to an independent witness.”

  Sweeney smiled and shook his head. “You see?” he said to the head teacher. “This is exactly why I wanted you in here. Talk about independent witnesses . . .” He shook his head again. “Rest assured, officers, that if you start putting words in my daughter’s mouth, Miss Andrews will be there at your tribunal to back me up.”

  Fleet saw the head teacher stiffen slightly, whether at Sweeney’s presumption or his failure to use her preferred title, Fleet couldn’t have said.

  “Come now, Mr. Sweeney,” said Ms. Andrews. “I’m sure that’s not the police officers’ intention. Please try to remember that someone else’s daughter is missing. This is about the safety of our children, nothing more.”

  “I think we all know what this is about,” Sweeney said, glaring at Fleet. “He screws up. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about something that happened almost twenty years ago, and when he takes it out on a bunch of kids, one of them ends up dead. And now he’s looking to cover his arse by blaming my kid. Excuse my French, princess,” Sweeney added as an aside, once again patting his daughter’s hand.

  There was tension around Lara’s lips, as though she were suppressing a smile.

  “Please,” Fleet said, and he focused on Lara. “Answer the question my colleague asked you. Did you follow Sadie’s friends into the woods?”

 
Lara didn’t even blink. “No,” she said, turning to Nicky. “I didn’t follow them. Into the woods or anywhere else.”

  Nicky turned the pages in her notepad. She spun it so that Lara could read from it. SweeneyTodd2002 and Princess_69 were written and underlined on an otherwise empty page. “Do you recognize either of these Instagram handles, Lara?”

  Lara moved only her eyes. “Nope,” she said. “Should I?”

  “They don’t belong to you?” Nicky asked her.

  “If they did I probably would have recognized them,” said Lara. She exhaled as though suddenly bored, and examined one of her fingernails.

  Nicky kept her eyes locked on Lara. “Do you know who does own them?”

  “My daughter just said she doesn’t recognize them, Detective Sergeant. If she’s never seen them before, how is she supposed to know who owns them?”

  Nicky ignored the interjection. “Lara? Please answer the question.”

  “No, I don’t know who owns them,” said Lara. “Why? What does it matter?”

  “It matters because we believe that whoever owns these accounts was responsible for starting the rumors that were circulating about Sadie before she went missing. You are aware of those rumors, Lara?”

  Lara’s expression, when she looked at Nicky, was a challenge. “You mean the rumors that she was sleeping around? That rather than the goody two-shoes everyone thought she was, she was actually just a common slut?”

  “Lara!” exclaimed Ms. Andrews.

  Lara looked at the head teacher evenly. “The detective sergeant asked me if I was aware of the rumors, Ms. Andrews. I was only checking to see which rumors she meant.”

  “Yes, Lara,” said Nicky. “Those rumors. You’re clearly aware of them. And as I say, they seemed to have originated from these accounts.”

  Lara was looking at Nicky now with open contempt. “Seriously?” she said. “Sweeney Todd? Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to set up an account that could so easily be linked back to me?”