The Search Party

by Simon Lelic

  It was a reasonable point, and obviously one Fleet had considered himself. On the other hand, Lara seemed exactly the type of person who would want everyone to know what she was saying, and the Instagram handles might well have been a way of conveying her identity while at the same time shielding her from potential repercussions.

  Nicky leaned forward in her chair. “Have you heard of the term ‘defamation,’ Lara? Are you aware that it is a civil offense to spread lies about a person’s character that end up doing them harm?”

  “Now hold on!” Lara’s father interrupted. “Lara just said she had nothing to do with those accounts. Talk about defamation!”

  “And anyway,” said Lara, unperturbed, “it isn’t an offense if it’s true.” She looked at Fleet. “That’s right, isn’t it, Rob?”

  Nicky frowned. “Are you saying you know why the rumors started?”

  Lara rolled her eyes as she turned her head. “What I’m saying is, someone clearly knows.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, from what you’re saying, whoever owns those accounts.”

  For the first time since the conversation had begun, Nicky showed her impatience. “So you don’t know what the rumors were based on? And you had nothing to do with spreading any stories about Sadie? Like this one, the post that started it all from what we can gather . . .” Nicky flipped a page in her notebook and read aloud. “FACT: Sadie Saunders spreads her legs for strangers. Witnessed with my own eyes. #SadieSlut #PoorMason. And this . . .” Nicky pulled out her phone and showed Lara the photo that was on the screen: a picture taken in the dark of someone who may or may not have been Sadie, with her eyes closed and her mouth open, and a blob that might have been the back of somebody’s head obscuring her shoulder. The second figure in particular was so blurred it might have been anyone, but the nature of the act they were supposedly engaged in was clear enough. It was an image that had spawned a dozen memes.

  “I might have shared a few posts,” Lara said. “But it’s like I said, it’s not an offense if it’s true.”

  “But how can you make that judgment?” Nicky pressed. “If you didn’t start the rumors, and you don’t know what they were based on, how do you know they weren’t lies?”

  “Because I saw her face.”

  Nicky blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I saw her face,” Lara repeated. “Sadie’s. When I showed her.”

  “When you showed her?”

  Lara lifted a shoulder, then let it fall. “I just felt so bad for her, you know? When I saw the posts for the first time. And from the way Sadie was strutting around, acting the way she always did, it was obvious that she didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t seem to realize that everyone else was laughing behind her back. So I did what I figured was the decent thing.”

  “You showed her,” said Nicky, and Lara nodded.

  “The posts, the memes, the replies. We were in the shopping center, which is where everyone had been hanging out in the holidays. It was pretty busy, so unfortunately quite a few people saw. But I called out to her and suggested she come over, and when she did I showed her on my phone.”

  Nicky stole a glance at Fleet. Lara noticed, and switched her attention to him.

  “And that’s how I know, you see,” she said. “I could tell from her face. Because it wasn’t anger I saw in her expression, or outrage, or anything like that.” Lara folded her arms, and came close to showing a smile. “What I saw, when I looked at her, was guilt.”

  MASON

  FIRST OFF, I want to make clear, I had nothing to do with what we found.

  You can ask any of them. They’ll tell you. It wasn’t even me who was leading the way, meaning I couldn’t have had anything to do with it.

  Seriously. Ask them whether I was out in front. And then come back and tell me what they said.

  Whatever, man. Ask them or don’t. It’s your investigation. But me personally? If I need to I can sit here all day.

  ABI

  I DON’T KNOW. I guess . . . Luke maybe? Because he was the one with Dylan’s compass. Unless that was later, after we got lost. Not lost exactly, but . . . turned around.

  Maybe it was Cora who was out in front. It could have been Cora.

  Why? What does it matter?

  Although I keep wondering what would have happened if we’d just kept walking. Or what wouldn’t have. You know? If I hadn’t seen it. Or if I’d just kept my big mouth shut. Or even if it hadn’t started raining. Which sounds stupid, probably, but that was important, too. Particularly to what happened after.

  Because that’s the thing. We almost made it out. All of us, I mean.

  Almost.

  But in the end, Mason got his way.

  CORA

  MASON? HE WAS at the back, obviously. Sulking, fuming, whatever. Basically acting like a dick. Luke was next, still swinging that branch he’d picked up the day before. And then, ahead of Luke, it was—

  You know what? I’ve just figured out why you’re asking.

  Jesus.

  You think Mason put it there, don’t you?

  That night, while the rest of us were sleeping. That he had it with him all along and he used it to keep us out there in the woods. But you’re wondering how we would have found it if Mason wasn’t leading the way. Except that’s bullshit because I can tell you exactly who was out in front. I remember because they started off behind me and then pushed past me in a hurry, like they were on a mission or something.

  Fash. I’m talking about Fash. And if it was Fash leading the way, then that basically proves your theory.

  What do you mean, you don’t understand? Fash hasn’t told you yet? About him and Mason?

  Seriously? He’s still covering for him? Even after everything that’s happened?

  No fucking way. I’m not getting involved in that shit. If you want to know, then you’re going to have to ask him yourself.

  FASH

  I AM BEING honest! I have been! There’s nothing I’m not telling you, I swear to God, I—

  Mason? What about Mason? Did he say something? I thought . . . I mean, he told me that it didn’t . . .

  Nothing. Nothing.

  Look, I . . . I need to think. OK? Just give me some time to think.

  No, I know, but . . .

  Where’s my mum? I’d like to talk to my mum.

  Please. Please.

  I just want my mum.

  MASON

  WELL? WHAT DID they say?

  See? I told you. I was nowhere near when they found it. They all said that, right? Every one of them?

  So there you go then. Except . . . why are you looking at me like that? Don’t tell me you still don’t believe me?

  Jesus H. Christ.

  You don’t, do you? You still think I’m lying.

  Fash? I’m not following you. So what if Fash was out in front when they found it? How does that prove anything, other than exactly what I’ve been trying to—

  Oh.

  Oh, I get it.

  Ha.

  I see now.

  He blabbed, didn’t he?

  No, wait. I bet it was Cora. Cora and her mouth. Which I swear is just fucking typical. She knows it’s completely irrelevant, that it has nothing to do with what happened, but even so she can’t let it go.

  So what did she say exactly? Just so I know what I’m being accused of. I mean, I have that right, don’t I?

  Wait, what? No, that’s . . . You don’t know, do you? You’re just . . . you’re judging me and you don’t know the full story. I mean, do you even know what it is we found?

  ABI

  MY PHONE.

  That’s what we found.

  Except . . . except it wasn’t. What I mean is . . . or rather, what I thought was . . .

  Right. Right.

  F
rom the beginning.

  So we left the clearing. And the idea was we go home. Because of the water situation and also because it was a stupid idea in the first place. The search party, I mean. The only thing we’d managed to achieve was to argue, and basically to give ourselves the creeps. In fact, it was worse than that, because it was obvious even then that something wasn’t right. It’s like, I know I heard something out in the woods that time, and that it wasn’t some stupid bear. Or a wolf for that matter. And somebody must have taken our phones, right? And drunk all our water?

  But anyway, we were walking along, and nobody was really talking. We were going single file, Fash up in front, then—

  Fash. That’s who was leading. I remember now, because I remember the look on his face when he passed me. What I figured was, he must have had an argument with Mason back in the clearing.

  After Fash, it was Cora, then me, then . . . Luke, I think? Mason was definitely at the rear.

  We were following the stream, which cut diagonally back toward the river. If I’d had my phone I could have seen how far we’d come the day before, but I guessed that, because we’d been weaving back and forth, we couldn’t have been more than five miles from the footbridge. The stream met the river farther north, but Fash reckoned it would only take us half as long to get there, just because the way was clearer, and we wouldn’t need to hack through the trees.

  Personally, I didn’t really care which route we took. I just wanted to get home. The sound of the stream was like mental torture, and something weird was going on with the weather. It was still hot, but it had got darker, as though we’d gone the footbridge way after all, right through the middle of the forest. Which was strange, because last time I’d noticed, we’d been walking in sunlight. But when I looked up I saw the sky had turned white. Not white, like, fluffy-cloud white. White like . . . like frosted glass. And even though I was sweating, for some reason it made me shiver.

  I felt bad for Sadie, though. Because basically what we were doing was giving up, and I didn’t want to leave her all alone. Which is what it felt like we were doing. So I kept looking, is my point. The others didn’t, obviously, otherwise they would have spotted it first.

  “You guys,” I called. “Wait up!”

  Cora was just in front of me, and she turned.

  “Abi?” said Fash, from up ahead. I’d started down the bank toward the stream. It was dry, but it was still slippery, and I had to grab at the tree roots to stop myself falling in. “Seriously, Abi,” said Fash. “We’ll be out in three or four hours. We can get a bottle of water or something then. If you drink the stream water you’ll get ill. Didn’t you hear what Luke said before?”

  I didn’t answer because I was trying to concentrate. And I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure.

  Mason had caught up by then, and I heard his voice from up on the path. “What’s she doing?” he said.

  “Going for a swim, it looks like,” said Cora. And there was the sound of her sparking up a cigarette.

  “Abi . . .” called Luke, like a warning, but when I got down level with the water, I surprised them all by hopping to the other side.

  “Look!” I said. “There! Do you see?”

  There was a pause while the others looked where I was pointing.

  “Is that . . .” said Fash.

  “It’s my phone!” I said. “I’m sure it is.”

  I recognized it from the cover, you see. It was lying there, right beside the stream, right on the edge of the water, like whoever had taken it had dropped it without knowing, and it had slid from the path down the bank. And the cover was bright pink, so it stood out like . . . like a bright pink thing lying in a patch of mud, I guess.

  There were some rocks on the path side of the stream, which is why I’d jumped to the other side, and I had to lean across the water to pick it up. I remember I was grinning . . . right up until the point I felt it in my hand.

  “No, wait, this is just . . . shit,” I said, because I’d realized the phone wasn’t mine after all. It was just some cheap-arse Nokia. A smartphone, but the sort I wouldn’t be seen dead with.

  “What’s the problem?” said Fash, who was standing nearest. He’d started down the bank himself, and when he got close to the rocks, he held out a hand to help me back to the other side.

  “It’s a phone,” I told him, “but it isn’t mine.” I held it up for him to see. When I did, I realized the case was different, too. It was the same color as mine, but there was also a pattern on it, like little daisies.

  “So whose is it?” said Fash. “Is it Cora’s?”

  But Cora had a Samsung, and obviously she would never have put it in a pink cover. And I knew for a fact it didn’t belong to any of the boys.

  “I don’t know, I . . .” It had taken me a second to work out where the HOME button was, but when I pressed it, the screen lit up. And I swear to God, when I saw what was on it, I almost dropped the phone in the water.

  “Abi?” said Fash, when he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”

  For a moment I didn’t answer. But when he said my name again, I turned the phone toward him.

  There was a photograph, you see. On the lock screen. You’ve probably got one on yours. Like, of your family or something. Your kids. Me, I’ve got a picture I took at the start of the summer, of the six of us sitting on the beach, that time we went down to the dunes. I used a selfie stick, but even so, we’re all crushed together. I’m on one side next to Cora, and the boys are in a bundle on the other. Sadie’s in the middle, laughing her head off. I love that photo because it reminds me of Sadie when she was happy.

  And that’s what gave me such a shock. Because the thing was, on the phone—on this Nokia I’d found in the middle of the forest, lying in the mud by the stream—the lock screen was the very same photo.

  What I saw when I turned it on was a picture of us.

  CORA

  NOBODY SAID ANYTHING for a good half a minute. After the two of them had climbed back up the bank, I mean, and Abi had showed us the phone. She just held it in her palm in the middle of the circle, sort of balanced, like she didn’t really want to touch it. The way she would have held something dead.

  “It was seriously just right there?” I asked. “Just lying there down by the stream?”

  “Yes, it was just right there,” Abi answered, as though for the hundredth time, even though it was the first question anyone had asked her. “You heard me call out when I spotted it. You saw me go over and pick it up.”

  “I know, I . . . I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to work out how it might have got there, that’s all. Whose it . . . whose it could be.”

  Abi gave a shiver. “Here,” she said. “Somebody else take it. Please.”

  I lifted it from her hand, and she turned away.

  I looked at the photo again, remembering the moment it had been taken. It was right after we’d got down to the beach. The sun was still up, and Mason had just opened the first bottle of wine.

  “Can I see?” said Luke. I hadn’t noticed him move behind my shoulder.

  I nodded and silently passed it to him. When he held the screen up in front of him, his face went the color of bone.

  “It’s Sadie’s,” said Mason. “It’s got to be.”

  “What?” I said.

  “It has to be hers,” Mason insisted. “It’s nobody else’s, right? And she was the only other person who had a copy of that photo.”

  Which wasn’t necessarily true. I mean, Abi had sent the picture to all of us right after she’d taken it, but that didn’t mean none of us had forwarded it on. And obviously Abi had posted it on Instagram. She puts her cornflakes on Instagram, for Christ’s sake.

  Plus, the other thing was, Sadie had an iPhone like Abi’s, and you’d already found it down by the river. Right? With her wallet and her house keys? So, really, we c
ouldn’t be sure whose it was.

  “Hold on,” said Fash, voicing what I’d been thinking. “We shouldn’t go jumping to conclusions.”

  Luke had started tapping at the phone screen. The rest of us watched him to see what he was doing. All of a sudden his legs went from under him, and he dropped arse-first onto the ground.

  “Luke?” said Fash. “What’s the matter?”

  Luke was just staring at the phone, one hand covering his mouth.

  I tried to see what he was looking at, but Mason took the phone from Luke’s hand. His jaw tightened, and he turned the screen toward us. At first I couldn’t work out what the problem was. There was just a bunch of apps showing on the home screen, and the same photo we’d already seen in the background.

  And then I realized. He’d unlocked it. Luke had. Meaning he must have entered the code.

  “Zero-eight-zero-eight,” said Luke, which was all he needed to say. It was Dylan’s birthday, the code Sadie used for everything. Her phone, her bank card, anything that needed a PIN.

  Mason was looking at the screen. After a moment or two tapping and swiping, his eyebrows joined at the middle.

  “There’s nothing on it,” he said. “No photos, no contacts, no messages. Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” said Abi, angling herself to try to see.

  “Literally,” said Mason, “there’s nothing. Just the apps that would have come loaded on the phone.”

  “So what does that mean?” Abi asked, looking to me now.

  Mason turned the phone over in his hand, and then he was the one to go white. “What’s that?” he said, pointing.

  We all looked closer. I swallowed.

  “That’s just . . . It’s mud,” said Fash. “Isn’t it?” There was a stain on the corner of the cover, and he reached out with his finger, as though he meant to wipe it away.

  I grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t touch it.”