The Weekend Escape, page 22
From the other room, Amanda asked, ‘What’s going on? Why are you shouting?’
‘It’s all right, sweetie,’ Juliet called. ‘Everything’s fine.’ She glared at Val and Lyndsey, even though her own voice had been the loudest. To Val, she said, ‘Do you want me to bring Amanda in here so you can tell her what you’ve been doing? I’m sure she’d love to know why you used her as a guinea pig.’
‘Your theory’s broken,’ Val said at last. ‘If I’d planned to use this weekend to run a poisoning experiment on you all, why would I have left it to chance that there’d be rodent poison conveniently available? If I were doing a test, I would’ve done it properly.’
‘Yeah? How would you have done it?’
Val pursed her lips, as if she were considering nothing more important than a hypothetical. ‘I’d have brought the poison with me,’ she said. ‘It’d be properly disguised, of course, since everyone seems quite content to go rifling in my bag when I’m not looking. I would’ve administered it early, probably on the same morning we arrived, so I could track the symptoms properly. Not all poisons work quickly.’
‘Jesus.’ Juliet drew back from her, aghast. ‘You’ve really thought about this.’
‘I’m thinking about it now, because you told me to. I’m trying to point out how unlikely your theory is. Do you have any other theories? Would you like to accuse Lyndsey as well, for example?’
Lyndsey quickly held up her hands. ‘Don’t look at me. I didn’t do anything.’
‘You were the one pouring drinks for Bobbie. You’re the only person she accepted a drink from yesterday evening.’
With a sickening lurch, Lyndsey realised that was true. She remembered Bobbie’s soft smile, the moment of connection over a tin mug with a splash of Baileys in it.
‘And you said you’d borrowed money off Bobbie,’ Juliet said. ‘You told us earlier you’d gone to her for money, and couldn’t pay it back.’
Lyndsey blinked. ‘Yeah, but it was only a few hundred quid. C’mon. I wouldn’t kill someone over that little money.’
Val raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s an acceptable figure for a murder?’ she wondered. ‘A thousand? Two, five, ten?’
‘Knock it off, Val. It’s not funny.’
‘You raised the possibility. Now we’re just haggling.’
‘Hey, I risked my life this afternoon. I almost drowned trying to raise the alarm. Do you think I would’ve done that if I were guilty of anything?’
‘Sure, maybe.’ Val didn’t seem fazed by the possibility. ‘A guilty conscience is a terrible thing.’
A loud knock at the door made them all start. For a moment, they just looked at each other, then Juliet broke away to open the door.
Marne stood in the doorway. ‘I found a spare lamp,’ she said. ‘No luck with the heater though – the only one I’ve got needs to be connected to a chimney, otherwise you’ll all suffocate. I brought some extra blankets instead.’
Her tone was grudging and borderline unfriendly, as if she’d only brought the supplies to them under duress. Lyndsey couldn’t blame her. There was a lot of bad feeling flying around.
Lyndsey stayed sitting at the table while Juliet took the blankets and the lamp into the bunkroom. She knew she should speak to Marne, say something reassuring, or even just smile to let her know the world wasn’t against her. But Lyndsey’s thoughts were in turmoil.
Did her friends really think she’d killed Bobbie, just to get out of a debt? It sounded crazy. Impossible. Two days ago, Lyndsey would’ve laughed at the idea. But now, with everything that’d happened, she was suddenly scared her friends would take it seriously. They would look at her and wonder, is she capable of murder?
Lyndsey lifted her gaze briefly. Across the table from her, Val was frowning to herself, her gaze fixed on the middle distance, her head tilted to one side. Lyndsey could almost see the cogs whirring in her brain.
For an irrational moment, Lyndsey hated Val. Why couldn’t she keep her stupid thoughts to herself?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SATURDAY
6:00pm
‘Come to join the loser party, have you?’ Sonia asked with a humourless smile. ‘Take a seat. Wrap a blanket round your knees like you’re a spinster aunt from the nineteen-hundreds.’
Outside, it felt like it was getting dark already, even though it was only six o’clock. The thunderous clouds and constant driving rain cast a perpetual twilight. Or maybe it was just that there were no external sources of light out there. Lyndsey had never fully appreciated what an important part streetlamps played in her everyday life. Right now, it felt like the light was going out of the world.
Sonia hadn’t moved from her comfy armchair in the front room of the observatory. She was wrapped up in a crocheted granny blanket. Looking at the bottle on the table, it seemed she’d been drinking steadily since the last time Lyndsey had seen her. Her face was pinched with exhaustion. Her eyes were dry, though. She’d given up crying for now.
Lyndsey flopped down into the spare armchair. Somewhere behind her, she heard Marne in the workroom, rummaging in a cupboard for something. A lamp on the table next to the wine bottle cast a warm, welcome light across the room. It hissed quietly to itself while filling the air with the not unpleasant smell of warm paraffin. The glass plates around the flame cast dancing shadows up the walls.
‘How’re things in the winners’ party?’ Sonia asked. ‘Is everyone feeling nice and smug over there?’
Lyndsey picked up the wine bottle. There was less than a glassful left. She set it back down and instead took the half-bottle of whisky out of her hoodie pocket. ‘Did Marne tell you what happened to the generator?’ she asked.
Sonia’s gaze slid away. ‘Yeah. Do we know who did it?’
‘No one’s admitting to it, if that’s what you mean.’
With a certain amount of effort, Sonia turned to face Lyndsey. ‘Who do you think did it?’ she asked.
‘That’s the big question, isn’t it?’ Lyndsey wondered if she should get a glass from the kitchen, but decided not to bother. She broke the seal on the whisky and drank straight from the bottle. ‘Marne had the key to the generator, except when Juliet had it, except when she left it in our kitchen, where just about any idiot could’ve picked it up. So—’ She took another swig. ‘Essentially, anyone had access. Including people outside our group. It sounds like anyone could’ve wandered in while we were out. It’s possible Amanda wouldn’t have noticed an intruder coming into the bunkhouse, if they did it quietly enough. After we broke the news to her about Bobbie, she just… It’s like she’s shut down. I’m worried about her.’
‘We’ve fucked this all up, haven’t we?’ Sonia muttered. ‘We should’ve just stayed inside and locked the doors. The boat will be here tomorrow. We should all … just stay in our own bunks and wait for someone to save us.’
‘If the boat can get here tomorrow,’ Lyndsey couldn’t help but say.
‘Urgh. Even if it can’t… Look.’ Sonia struggled to sit up. ‘Look. We’ve been out of contact for more than twenty-four hours now. That might work in our favour.’
‘What? How?’
‘If the boat can’t get here tomorrow, someone will try to contact us. And they’ll fail because—’ She gestured. ‘Broken radio. When we don’t respond, they’ll raise the alarm. I’ve been thinking about this. For all we know, that’s already happened. Someone’s already tried to check in with us, got no reply, and has called the coastguard.’
Lyndsey tried to quash the leap of hope she felt. ‘We shouldn’t pin our hopes on that,’ she said.
‘No, of course not. But, I’m saying, maybe we shouldn’t panic. We can just sit tight. Chances are, someone on the mainland will’ve already figured out there’s a problem. They’re not going to forget about us.’
Lyndsey had to smile. ‘When did you become an optimist?’
‘Ah, you know how it goes. Some of us are born optimistic. Some of us have optimism thrust upon us.’ Sonia tried to smile, but her lip quivered. ‘I’ve got to think that things will turn out all right. I’ve got to.’
The loss of the generator had rattled them all. It was more than just the unexpected darkness of the rooms, or the cold that Lyndsey could already feel pinching at her skin. It was the sense of vulnerability. Someone had cut off their power without anyone seeing who it was. They’d walked right up and done it. That was unnerving. Lyndsey couldn’t help but worry about what else they might’ve tampered with when no one was looking.
‘I think it was someone from our group who broke the generator,’ Lyndsey said. Just saying it aloud made her shiver. It felt like a betrayal of all her friends. ‘The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that an intruder would’ve been able to do it.’
‘But you just said—’
‘Yeah, I know. Someone could have taken the keys and the knife from our kitchen. But think about the risk that would involve. How could they be sure we were all going to be out of the bunkhouse for any length of time? For all they knew, we could’ve come back at any second and caught them in the act. And they couldn’t have known Amanda would definitely be asleep or zoned out. Or that Marne wouldn’t happen to spot them through the window. She’s got a pretty good view from her workbench.’
Sonia nodded slowly, as if she didn’t like this train of thought either. ‘I don’t think it was Marne who cut the power either,’ she said. ‘You saw how angry she is about this all. Plus, she’s got plenty of knives of her own. Why risk sneaking into our bunkhouse and taking one from there?’
‘Unless it was to make us suspect each other.’
‘Sure, but what are the chances that we would recognise a basic kitchen knife? It’s not the most memorable of items. Now, if one of us had brought a jewel-encrusted dagger, with a handle that only fit the palm of one person—’
‘You’re beginning to sound like Val. She’s been concocting elaborate theories as well.’
Sonia winced. ‘Am I still the most likely suspect?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Lyndsey said carefully. ‘Val’s making a list. I think we’re all on it.’
‘Pfft. Even you?’
Lyndsey didn’t answer.
With an effort, Sonia made a grab for the wine bottle and emptied the last inch of liquid into her tumbler. ‘I’d be surprised if you’re more of a suspect than me,’ she said, with an edge to her voice. ‘I’m the one who was having an affair. What did anyone else do that’s worse than that?’
Lyndsey didn’t know how to answer that. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Have you talked to Marne about this?’ she asked. Sonia wasn’t exactly keeping her voice down.
‘I gave her the bare-bones outline.’ Sonia made a face. ‘She was quite judgey about it as well, to be honest.’
‘So, you two have been talking? Has she forgiven you for accusing her of murder this afternoon?’
‘We were very emotional this afternoon. She understands that. But, yeah, I apologised. I shouldn’t have accused her.’ Sonia saw the sceptical look on Lyndsey’s face. ‘All right, I know,’ she said in a much quieter voice. ‘Maybe I’m wrong to trust her. I just really needed a friend to talk to. Someone who isn’t emotionally invested in my mistakes.’
You could’ve talked to me, Lyndsey thought, but she wasn’t sure how true that was. Like everyone else in the group, Lyndsey was sickened by the thought of Sonia having an affair with Bobbie’s husband. It made her realise that maybe her friends were capable of terrible things. She didn’t like that thought at all.
It also highlighted how little she knew about these people. At the start of the weekend, she’d worried that she’d drifted too far from her at-one-time best friends. They were different people with different lives now. Things would never be the same as they had been when they were teenagers. It was stupid to pretend otherwise.
Maybe Sonia was thinking the same thing, because she said, ‘It’s so weird, isn’t it? I’ve got out of the habit of talking like this. I mean, obviously I talk to people, every minute of every day, but never with any substance, y’know? The guys I work with … they don’t know a thing about me. I’ve got no compulsion to open up to any of them.’ She frowned to herself. ‘Maybe it’s just being here, in this fucked-up situation. Or maybe it’s more than that. You and me … we used to tell each other everything, right?’
‘To the point of over-sharing. Sure.’
‘It feels like we’ve taken a step back to that time. Friendships used to be easier, don’t you think?’ Sonia held up her glass so the lamplight refracted through the wine. ‘Or maybe I’m just drunk and emotional.’
‘Either or,’ Lyndsey agreed.
‘Anyway,’ Sonia said, with a note of finality, ‘I didn’t murder Bobbie. That’s the important thing here. I might be an awful friend, but that doesn’t mean I’d do something like this. And I’m pretty sure you didn’t either.’
‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’
‘I mean, I’d like to say I’m a hundred per cent sure for you, but we can never say that about anyone other than ourselves, can we?’ With a sour smile, Sonia raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’
Lyndsey hesitated, then lifted the bottle. ‘Cheers.’
‘Here’s to going home.’
They drank in silence for a minute. Outside, the wind drove pellets of rain against the windows.
‘You know what the most annoying thing is?’ Sonia said. ‘We’ve got an object that’s specifically designed for getting warning messages across the water.’
‘What, the radio?’
‘Bigger than that.’ Sonia made a loose gesture with one hand. ‘We have a whole lighthouse here on the island.’
‘Yeah, but it’s non-operational.’
‘Obviously. I’m just saying it’s frustrating. Me and Marne have been discussing it – whether there’s any way to flash an SOS from the top of the lighthouse. If we had a strong enough light source, or even if we built a campfire up there … I can guarantee that’s the sort of thing people would notice. If a passing ship spots it, they’ll definitely radio the coastguard.’
Lyndsey turned the idea over in her mind, looking for weak spots. There were a lot, not least the effort it would require to locate enough dry firewood, bring it to the lighthouse, and start a substantial blaze on the gallery deck, with the wind howling through there. It made her think of the word painted on the outer wall of the courtyard, from seventy years ago, when the lighthouse keeper needed to signal for help.
‘It might work,’ Lyndsey said. She kept her tone cautious, because she didn’t want to let hope into her heart just yet. ‘The offshore lighthouse is automated, so there’s no one there who’d see the fire, so it’d depend on whether there are any passing boats. And whether they’d be able to see it in this weather.’
‘Light travels better than you think. That’s why they use it for signalling. A lit match in the dark can be seen from two miles away.’
‘Wait,’ Lyndsey said then. ‘We don’t need to go to the lighthouse to send a signal. We could do it from the north harbour.’
‘We’ll never be able to light a signal fire there. Not in this weather.’
‘No, but we’ve got our headtorches. And this.’ Lyndsey grabbed the paraffin lamp from the table. ‘Even if it’s not fully dark yet, it might be bright enough. We can signal to the mainland.’
‘Do you think anyone will see it?’
Lyndsey checked the time. ‘There might still be someone at the Sound Café. I don’t know what time they close at the weekend. If they’ve got an evening event on, people might still be there. All we need is for one person to see us. They’ll raise the alarm.’
It looked like Sonia might shoot down the idea. She was likely remembering the failure they’d had with the banner, and with Lyndsey attempting to swim across the Sound.
‘It’s worth a try,’ Lyndsey said. She snatched up her half-bottle of whisky and stuffed it back into her hoodie pocket. ‘We’ll all go. More torches mean more chance of being seen. Right?’
Slowly, the light of hope dawned in Sonia’s eyes. ‘Right,’ she agreed. ‘We’ll all go.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SATURDAY
6:15pm
Lyndsey left Sonia to get her boots on and hurried back to the bunkhouse. For the first time in hours, she felt optimism nudge her brain. They could do this. They could get a signal out to the mainland.
Outside, the icy wind cut into her immediately. She pulled her hood down over her forehead and tucked her scarf up around her mouth. She’d taken off her gloves while talking to Sonia, but now tugged them back on. Just the sensation of the cold closing around her hands gave her flashbacks to being in the sea. She couldn’t bear to leave her skin exposed to the elements, not even for the thirty seconds it would take her to track up the path from the observatory and into the front garden of the bunkhouse.
The sun, still hidden behind the clouds, must’ve been heading for the horizon now. The whole island was etched in grey. Lyndsey thought she heard a rumble of thunder as she reached the front door of the bunkhouse.
The door was locked. Lyndsey tried the handle twice more. Through the kitchen window to her left she could see the glow of torchlight, so she knew people were still inside. She hammered on the door.
‘Hey! Let me in!’
There was a clack of the lock, then the door opened. Juliet stood inside as if to bar her way.
‘What’s the big idea?’ Lyndsey pushed past her. ‘Let me in, it’s freezing out there.’
‘We didn’t know who it was,’ Juliet said. ‘Don’t blame us for being cautious.’
To Lyndsey’s surprise, she found Amanda sitting at the table with Val, both of them wrapped up in the blankets Marne had provided. Another paraffin light sat on the table between them. They looked like they were on an Arctic expedition in November, not the northwest of England in August.
‘We’ve had an idea,’ Lyndsey told them. ‘We’re going to use the torches and the lamps to signal across the water. If we hurry, we might catch the café before it closes. I know our lights won’t be as effective in the daylight, but I’m worried if we leave it any later there won't be anyone there to see us. We should—’
