The Search Party

by Simon Lelic

  Luke shook his head. “No, it’s . . . further. Not much, but . . .”

  “What’s wrong, Luke?” said Miss Jeffries, the social worker. “Do you need a rest?”

  “No, I just . . .” He looked around, at the others in the group, before his eyes settled on Fleet. “Can it be just you?” he said. “Just you and me, I mean. For the next part.”

  Fleet hesitated. Nothing they were doing was strictly by the book—although to be fair, the chapter on how to handle things in situations such as this hadn’t actually been written yet. But the boy hadn’t been charged. He wasn’t in cuffs. Meaning they had no way of restraining him if he chose to run, other than by force of numbers.

  On the other hand, could he be considered a flight risk if he’d turned himself in? And Fleet could understand completely why the boy was so reluctant to have an audience. His shame was palpable, to the extent he’d refused even to see his parents when they’d finally arrived at the station.

  “We’ll go ahead,” said Fleet at last. “Me, you and Miss Jeffries. How about that? The other officers will follow on behind.”

  He looked at Nicky. Drop back, but not too far back was his silent instruction, and he could tell from the way she returned his gaze that she understood.

  They walked on. Fleet had to moderate his pace to match Luke’s, whose footsteps were heavy through the leaves. But with Fleet’s colleagues distant enough now to be out of plain sight, and the social worker trailing slightly behind, it was obvious the boy felt marginally more comfortable than he had before.

  “You were out here all this time?” Fleet said, glancing in Luke’s direction. The area they were walking in was in fact a long way from where the search party had ended up. They were tracking the bend of the river, and were only just past the point the original search for Sadie had begun, before it had veered toward the estuary. Nevertheless, Luke seemed to understand what Fleet had meant.

  “It didn’t feel like I was out here very long,” he said. “To be honest, I kind of lost track of time. Was it two nights in the end?”

  “It was three. Not including the time you were out here with your friends.”

  Luke bobbed his head as he walked. Two nights, three, five—it was all the same to him.

  “How did you stay hidden?” said Fleet. “Did you sleep in one of the barns?”

  “I slept . . . I don’t know where I slept. In the barn one night, I think, after the search had packed up. And after that first day, when they . . . when they took Dylan away, nobody was really looking around the clearing. They were out deeper in the woods. At one point I climbed that tree near where you left the card. I must have sat up in the branches for hours. I just . . . I went where you lot weren’t. It wasn’t hard.”

  Fleet didn’t imagine it would have been. He knew from recent experience that it was difficult enough finding something static in woodland such as this. A mobile phone, for example. A body. But if the thing you were searching for was capable of moving, and didn’t want to be found . . .

  “Why didn’t you come in earlier? Or even stay with your friends?”

  This time Luke shook his head. “I couldn’t. After it . . . happened, the others started panicking. Cora grabbed the phone from Mason and was trying to call for an ambulance. And then, when they realized there was nothing more they could do, they were all just slumped on the ground. Me, I . . . I was with Dylan. Trying to stop the bleeding.” Luke looked down at his palms. The social worker had helped him get clean at the station, and had found him a fresh set of clothes, but it was as though Luke could still see the blood. “But it was too late,” he went on. “I knew that, really. The others did, too. And I don’t blame them for what they were whispering about after. I told you, they were scared. That’s all. But I couldn’t just sit there and listen. Not after what had happened to Dylan. Not when I knew what I knew.”

  “What were they whispering about?”

  “Just what I said to you already. About what they’d say when the police arrived. They knew that if anyone told you the truth—about Sadie, about the search party, about all the secrets they’d kept hidden—they’d all be in even worse trouble than they were already. And nobody was willing to take the chance. Mason, in particular. I guess that’s why he told the others to keep quiet, why he tried so hard to frighten them.”

  “What did he say to them?”

  “He told them you’d twist things, the way he said you had with him. He told them no one would believe them, not after all this time—that not only would they be blamed for Dylan, they’d be blamed for Sadie, too. The important thing, he said, was to stick to the story. We were looking for Sadie. Dylan followed us. And after that there was an argument and somehow Dylan got hurt. If we all said we couldn’t remember how it happened, nobody would get blamed, and nobody would be able to prove it wasn’t an accident.”

  “And what did you think when you heard the others talking like that?”

  “I didn’t think. I couldn’t. That’s why I left. When the others weren’t looking, I just . . . I ran. Into the woods. I couldn’t face . . .”

  He left the sentence unfinished. Not for the first time, Fleet felt a rush of sympathy for the boy.

  “So they didn’t realize it was you? The water that first night, the missing phones. They didn’t know that you were the one who’d been trying to drive them back?”

  Luke shook his head. “Cora still blamed Mason. For everything—including Sadie. She seemed to think he’d genuinely lost it. That he’d shown he was capable of anything, and that everything that had happened was all part of his messed-up game. Abi probably thought so, too, although she still had a bee in her bonnet about Cora. And the pregnancy thing . . . I think she had her doubts about Fash by the end of it as well.”

  “And Fash? Mason? What did they think?”

  Luke rolled a shoulder. “Maybe Fash figured Dylan was the one who messed with the water, but he probably assumed it was just a prank. As for what happened to Sadie . . . You know what Fash is like. He doesn’t want to believe the worst of anyone. After finding out that Sadie might have been pregnant, I think more than anyone he blamed himself. That was partly why he was so keen to help Mason in the first place, I reckon—because he felt so guilty from the start.”

  The woods were thickening, and for a moment they had to walk in single file. But then the trees parted again, and Fleet was back at Luke’s side.

  “I don’t think Mason realized the truth either,” the boy went on. “From what he was saying, the way he kept glancing at the others, as far as he was concerned, nobody was in the clear. Not for the water, not for the phones. And not for Sadie either. To be honest, I don’t think Mason understood anything more by the end of it than he had on the day we set out.”

  Fleet suppressed a sigh. Such a waste. All of it. It was all such a waste.

  For virtually the first time since they’d started talking, Luke glanced Fleet’s way. “I tried to stop them, you know,” he said. “From forming the search party in the first place. I mean, I don’t think anyone actually wanted to come out here—other than Mason, obviously—but I suppose they felt they had no choice.”

  “Because the others were going,” said Fleet. “Because they would look all the guiltier if they refused.”

  Luke nodded.

  “But Mason . . .” said Fleet. “When we were speaking at the station, you said you didn’t want him out here in particular. You kicked up a fuss when the others suggested asking him, called him a psychopath. Why was that?”

  “Because you suspected him already. Everyone did. And if he went traipsing through the woods, spreading his, like, DNA or whatever all around . . . And if the others accidentally . . . if they . . . if somehow . . .”

  “If they found her,” Fleet said, finishing the thought, “you realized how it would look. So you were trying to protect him. That’s why you didn’t want Mason
to go.”

  “I didn’t want any of them to go. But when I tried to dissuade them, they told me they’d go without me. So then I didn’t have a choice.”

  “What about Dylan?” said Fleet. “When did you realize he’d followed you?”

  Luke dropped his head. “Too late,” he said. “Just . . . too late.”

  Fleet thought he knew something of the way the boy was feeling. Not least because, when it came to Dylan, he and his colleagues had messed up, too. They’d made the mistake of assuming exactly what Dylan’s parents had—that Luke had taken Dylan with him. That Dylan had been part of what had turned out to be the search party from the start.

  “I should have realized earlier,” Luke said. “Like, when Abi said she’d heard something. Or when Cora said she’d seen someone in the night. But I assumed they were imagining things. The fact that they all seemed so freaked-out was what gave me the idea in the first place.”

  “To scare them, you mean,” said Fleet. “To try to drive them back.”

  “It was only when we got to the cave that I started to wonder. No, that’s not true. I suspected before then, but it was at the cave that I finally realized. That’s why I went rushing off into the trees. To try to find Dylan before the others did. To send him home. To tell him he wasn’t being any help.”

  “And you did. You found him.” Fleet thought of the voices Cora had spoken about, of how a young boy’s voice might easily have been confused with a girl’s. Home, help, hurry . . .

  “Yeah, I found him. But when I heard the others coming, I just shoved Dylan off into the trees, told him to stay out of sight. I . . . I didn’t have time to think. I just . . . I had this idea that . . . I don’t know. That maybe it might actually help. You know, that if we all came home swearing we’d heard someone following us, and that if I said that person had attacked me, then maybe you lot would have to believe us. You’d think that maybe someone else had killed Sadie. Not Mason, not . . . not me.”

  Fleet gestured to the bandage on Luke’s forehead. “What did you use? A branch? A tree trunk?”

  “I hit my head against a tree, scraped it on the bark afterward to make sure it would bleed.”

  Fleet winced inwardly. A fist or two to the ribs, in comparison, didn’t seem that bad. “That must have hurt,” he said.

  Luke shrugged.

  “And the knife?” said Fleet. “How did Dylan get hold of the knife?” This time when Fleet looked Luke’s way, he could see tears starting to build in the boy’s eyes.

  “I should have kept it. I found it while I was searching for Mason’s phone. But at that point I didn’t know Dylan was out there. And I didn’t want to take the chance that Mason might find it in my bag. So I tossed it away. As far as I could.”

  I found it, Dylan had told the others outside the barn. It’s mine now. Maybe he’d even been watching when Luke had hurled it into the trees.

  Fleet dropped his eyes.

  “Why did he even have to bring it?” said Luke, suddenly angry. “The knife, that stupid bottle . . . what the hell was Mason even thinking?”

  Seeing the boy upset, Miss Jeffries edged closer and laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. He gave a start, as though he’d forgotten the social worker was even behind him.

  They walked on, and for a while nobody spoke. Fleet stole a glance to check that Nicky and the PC were still with them, and spotted their yellow jackets weaving between the trees.

  “We’re not far now,” said Luke, after another minute or two. “Up ahead of us is the stream. That way, over there—if you walk far enough you’ll reach the place we spent the first night. And in the other direction, that way—that’s where Abi found Sadie’s phone.”

  Luke didn’t alter his course. He led them straight on, toward a point midway between the spots he’d indicated.

  “You walked right past it?” said Fleet. “When you were out here with the others?”

  “Twice,” said Luke, his voice heavy. “Once before we found the phone, once when we turned around again.”

  And no one saw. They were right there, searching, and still not one of them saw.

  “What happened, Luke?” Fleet said. “With Sadie. Are you ready to tell me?”

  “I . . . I killed her. I said to you already. Why do you need to know how?”

  Fleet didn’t respond. He knew Luke didn’t really require an answer.

  “She . . .” Luke started to say, but then he stalled.

  “She was running away,” Fleet prompted. “Did you see her go? Did you try to stop her?”

  Luke continued walking for a moment, as though he hadn’t heard Fleet speaking. But then he nodded, quick and fierce.

  “I woke up,” he said. “In the night. I wake up most nights. And when I do, I go to the bathroom, and on my way I check on Dylan. He has nightmares, you see. Not every night, but Dad gets cross if Dylan disturbs him and Mum. So I try to . . . I make sure Dylan’s OK.” He caught himself. “I used to, I mean. That’s what I used to do.”

  “Dylan’s bedroom is next to yours?” said Fleet. He didn’t really have to ask. He knew the layout of Luke’s house so well, he could probably have found the bathroom from one of the bedrooms in the middle of the night himself.

  “All three of our bedrooms are together. Mine, Dylan’s and Sadie’s. The landing is kind of square. The bathroom’s opposite my room. My parents’ bedroom is up in the loft.”

  “So you woke up. The night it happened. Did you get as far as checking on your brother?”

  “No, I . . . I noticed Sadie’s door was open before I could.”

  “Her door was open,” Fleet echoed, and Luke’s eyes flicked his way.

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

  “So you looked in Sadie’s room instead?”

  “Uh-huh. But she was gone. Her bed hadn’t even been slept in. And her curtains were open. When I looked out of the window, I saw her. Squeezing through a gap in the fence at the bottom of our garden.”

  “And what did you do after that?”

  “Nothing. For a minute. But then, I don’t know. I just had this feeling.”

  “A feeling?”

  “Like . . . a bad feeling.”

  “So you followed her?”

  “I grabbed some shoes, put on a coat. By the time I had, I was almost too late. When I finally got outside, she was already at the end of our street. And she didn’t turn left, toward Mason’s house, which is where I thought she might be heading. She went right. Toward the river.”

  “Did you call out to her?”

  “No, because . . . because it was so late. Like, two in the morning. And also I . . . I wanted to see where she was going. Which, after the river, turned out to be the woods.”

  Fleet was watching Luke carefully. “How long were you following her, Luke?”

  “Not that long. Or maybe . . . maybe longer than I thought. But she walked quickly. In the end I had to run to close the gap. Again I almost lost her, because of the trees this time, but when we got . . .” Luke looked around, gestured loosely to a point somewhere behind them. “Here, pretty much. That’s when she heard me coming after her.”

  “And what happened then? Did you argue?”

  Once again Luke fell silent. Once again he could only nod. And then he abruptly stopped walking.

  “It’s just ahead,” he said.

  Fleet came to a halt by Luke’s side. He looked, but could see nothing through the fog except the trees. He could hear the stream, but he couldn’t see it. Unless the sound of the water was the river itself, which couldn’t have been far away either.

  “There’s a . . . a tree,” said Luke. “Just over there. An oak, I think. But it’s old. Dying, maybe. And there’s a hollow. When we were younger, playing out here, I used to hide there.”

  Fleet tracked the line from Luke’s finger. There was ind
eed an old oak tree farther on. It bore no leaves. And unless it was a trick of Fleet’s imagination, its trunk appeared darker than those around it.

  “Luke,” said Fleet, carefully. “Before I go on, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  Luke’s head snapped Fleet’s way—and just that slight movement was enough. It confirmed everything Fleet had already guessed. I hope I’m wrong, he’d told Holly, but now he didn’t know which outcome would have been better. That he had got it wrong, and Luke had done everything he claimed he had? Or that Luke was lying—still—and that the truth was the only alternative explanation there was left.

  “What do you mean?” said Luke, looking as afraid now as he had since the moment he turned up at the station. “I . . . I killed her,” he said. “We argued, and I got angry, and when Sadie turned to leave—to walk out on us, on me and Dylan—I . . . I picked up a rock. I threw it. Hard. And it hit her. On the back of the head. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t want her to die, but she . . . she . . .” His voice trailed off. He was staring at Fleet, pleading with his eyes, but he’d registered the expression Fleet was offering back.

  “What?” Luke said. “Why don’t you . . .” He turned to the social worker, then back to Fleet. He shook his head, as though to clear it—or perhaps in denial of the unspoken accusation. “That’s why I’m here,” he went on, insistent now. “To tell you. To admit it.” He gestured ahead of him. “To show you! And then, when you see, you’ll be able to let my friends go.” Even as he spoke, the tears that had been building in his eyes began to fall. “Please,” he said. “Please. Why can’t it be that? Why can’t it be what I told you? What difference does it make to anyone now?”

  Fleet sighed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so weary. “It wasn’t Sadie’s door you found open, was it, Luke?” he said, gently.

  The boy let out a sound then, like wet fingers on a windowpane. His chin dropped toward his chest, and his shoulders began to heave. Miss Jeffries stepped forward, but Fleet raised a hand to hold her back.

  “It’s OK, Luke,” he said. “Really, it’s OK. I know you meant well. But I also know you wouldn’t have let Mason shoulder the blame for as long as he did if it was really you who killed Sadie, not unless there was someone else you were trying to protect.”