The Weekend Escape, page 9
It would’ve been easy for someone to hide in the tangle of gorse, brambles, and nettles that had flourished, sheltered from the harsh wind, inside the courtyard. Lyndsey crouched to peer into the heart of a couple of gorse bushes. The mass of prickles and stingers convinced her that no one in their right mind would go in there, no matter how desperate they were for shelter.
The access door to the lighthouse was closed and padlocked. Juliet had done that when she came to pick up the bags they’d left. Sonia gave the padlock a tug to make sure it was secure.
‘She’s not been here,’ Sonia said.
Hope was leaking out of Lyndsey with every passing moment. Had she really believed Bobbie would’ve come back to the lighthouse? Maybe not, but Lyndsey had clung to that idea anyway, because she needed to believe Bobbie was somewhere safe and dry and unhurt.
Together, Lyndsey and Sonia left the lighthouse and followed the path up along the clifftops, heading east. With nothing to block the wind, the cold cut into them. The rain increased from a drizzle. Off to their right was the harbour, where they’d arrived yesterday. The waves were breaking over the concrete dock.
Lyndsey glanced back at the abandoned lighthouse. From this angle, she could see the outer wall of the courtyard that faced the sea. She remembered the old story Juliet had told them, from the days when both this lighthouse and the one offshore on Chicken Rock were still occupied. The lighthouse keeper’s wife gave birth during a storm, but there was no way to contact the mainland, so the keeper wrote the word BABY in five-foot-high letters on the courtyard wall, so the other lighthouse would see it and radio for help. The word was still just about visible, white against the grey stone wall, but only if you knew to look for it. Lyndsey opted not to point it out to Sonia right then.
‘Hell of a lonely place to live,’ Sonia said. She had to raise her voice above the wind. ‘Don’t know how Marne deals with it.’
‘If someone was paying me, I think I could learn to cope. Right now, I’d accept a position as caretaker of the moon, if there was a steady wage.’
Sonia squinted at her. ‘What’s wrong with your current job?’
The only person who knew the full extent of Lyndsey’s situation was Bobbie, and Lyndsey had been reluctant to tell even her. ‘It’s non-existent,’ she admitted. ‘I got fired.’
‘What? When?’
‘February.’
‘February? Why the hell didn’t you say anything?’
‘I’ve not seen you since then.’ That was true. Lyndsey had used every excuse in the book to avoid going out with her friends that year. ‘And I didn’t put it on Facebook in case my mum saw.’
‘You haven’t told your mum?’
‘I’ve hardly told anyone. It’s not the sort of thing I want to broadcast, y’know?’ Lyndsey had always been fiercely independent. Ever since she’d lied about her age to get a paper round job, just so she could afford trainers that weren’t falling apart, she’d supported herself. She hated to even admit when she was struggling, let alone ask anyone for help. Bobbie had found out more or less by accident, when she’d spotted Lyndsey coming out of the job centre.
‘So…’ Sonia asked, ‘if you’ve not been working, what the hell have you been doing?’
Lyndsey didn’t have an answer. How could she describe the weight that’d settled onto her shoulders over the last few months? ‘Nothing, I guess,’ she muttered at last.
‘You should’ve said. We could’ve helped you find something. What about bar work? The pubs are always looking for casual staff.’
‘I can’t. I’ve got a Pub Watch ban.’
Sonia turned to her, incredulous. ‘Oh, hell. What did you do?’
‘Does it matter?’ Lyndsey really didn’t want to get into this. ‘There was an incident at the Rovers. The door staff told me to leave and I argued the toss. I know I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Anyway, they barred me. And, y’know, all the landlords are friends, so if you get barred from one place you get barred from them all…’
‘Wow. That’s rough.’
‘So, I can’t work on any licensed premises at the moment, and that apparently includes Tescos and Marksies and just about every other shop you can think of…’ Lyndsey trailed off, then added, ‘Don’t you dare tell Juliet. I don’t need her berating me. She’s only just stopped lecturing me about how I wasted my life by not going to university.’
‘All right, but in return you can’t tell her I’m only here because I wanted to duck out of a godawful wedding.’
‘Deal.’
The path led them up onto the clifftops. Each gust of wind tried to shove them off their feet. Above their heads, gulls screeched and circled. Sonia flinched away as one bird wheeled close past her head.
‘Is it nesting season?’ Sonia asked. ‘Should we even be here?’
‘I think they nest in spring. And the warden would’ve warned us if there were places we should keep away from.’ Still, Lyndsey eyed the circling seabirds cautiously. She had no wish to be divebombed by an angry gull. ‘They’re definitely mad about something, aren’t they?’ Their shrieking sounded almost human.
‘Seagulls are always mad. It’s their default setting. I saw one kill a pigeon once. Speared it right out of the sky. They’re nature’s sociopaths.’
‘That’s unfair. I’m sure some of them are nice.’
‘And some of them are jerks. What’s your point?’
The path petered out into a wide patch of scrubby grass. Lyndsey and Sonia tracked their way down to the edge of the field, where the grass gave way to ragged stone. The cliffs dropped off sharply down to the sea. Here, the noise of the surf was a constant, booming roar.
A little way offshore, a natural column of rock rose, unsupported, for almost two hundred feet. This was the Bear Post, one of the main reasons why the island was a top destination for climbers. Chiselled away from the limestone cliffs by millennia of tidal action, it was a formidable but attainable challenge. The group had seen it from the fishing boat yesterday, and Lyndsey had immediately recognised it from a handful of travel documentaries. It’d also featured in at least one movie. In person, it looked a lot more dramatic. If events hadn’t conspired against them, the group would’ve been climbing the Bear Post on Sunday morning, the last adventure of the weekend before the boat picked them up. Part of the challenge would’ve been getting there at exactly the right time, when the tide was low enough to walk out to the tower, then returning before the tide turned and cut them off. More than one previous group of climbers had mistimed it and had to be rescued by boat.
At present, there was only a narrow, treacherous strip of rock leading to the Bear Post. Once the tide came in, even that would vanish. Lyndsey walked a little closer to the edge so she could see the waves washing over the slick rocks.
If Bobbie had been wearing a darker jacket, Lyndsey might’ve never spotted her. They were picking their way along the rocky slope at the clifftop, trying to watch their footing and the gulls and everything else all at once. Lyndsey leaned out over the cliff edge again, and her attention was snagged by a flutter of something bright blue that didn’t fit with the grey-black rock. It was on a shelf of stone that jutted out from the cliff-face, some six feet below the grassy edge where Lyndsey stood. At first, she thought it was a piece of plastic tarp caught under a rock. It was only when she leaned out a little further she saw the familiar, sickening outline of a person.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘There.’
Without even pausing, Sonia pushed past her and scrambled down to the ledge.
‘Be careful!’
The rock was wet and Lyndsey almost lost her footing as she followed Sonia. She had to pick her way down. The shelf itself was at least ten feet wide, but Lyndsey was still keenly aware that if she slipped off it, there was nothing to catch her except more rocks and – if she fell far enough – the ocean. Sonia stepped along the shelf with the agility of a mountain goat. A seagull startled and took flight with a cry of annoyance.
Sonia dropped to her knees next to the fallen figure. Bobbie. It was definitely Bobbie. Lyndsey’s heart stuttered in her chest. She ran the last few feet to reach her.
Bobbie lay on her side. Her hands were clutched like claws against her chest. The rain had flattened the red curls of her hair against her skull. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing.
‘Bobbie?’ Lyndsey’s voice came out as a whisper. Like she was afraid to rouse the woman. She put a hand on Bobbie’s shoulder. There was a sheen of water on her jacket. ‘Bobbie?’
Despite the pressure of Lyndsey’s hand, Bobbie didn’t move. It was like she was frozen in place. With hesitant fingers, Lyndsey reached down and touched Bobbie’s face, brushing aside a wet curl of hair. Bobbie’s skin was like ice. Her lips were drawn back in a rictus to show clenched teeth. There was white foam on her lips and around her mouth, although the drizzle that morning was already washing it away.
‘Get her onto her back,’ Lyndsey said. In her panicked mind, she was trying to remember the CPR techniques she’d been taught in the First Aid at Work course, two years ago. Roll the casualty onto their back. That was the first step. She remembered that, at least.
‘Lyndsey—’ Sonia said.
Lyndsey refused to listen. All the helpful advice and acronyms of the first aid course had gone out of her mind. Check her breathing. Tilt her head back. Chest compressions. Yell for help. Where the hell was Val and her encyclopaedic knowledge when they needed her?
Grabbing Bobbie’s shoulders, Lyndsey attempted to roll her. Bobbie moved like a plank of wood. Her hands remained clutched tight against her chest. When Lyndsey tried to tilt the woman’s head back to open the airway, the jaw refused to move. It was like she’d been left in a freezer overnight. The thought made a sob build in Lyndsey’s chest.
‘She’s dead,’ Sonia said, dully. ‘Lyndsey, she’s been dead for hours.’
Lyndsey put her ear down close to Bobbie’s blue lips, listening in vain for a breath, watching the stationary chest in case it spontaneously hitched. Nothing. She put her fingers on Bobbie’s neck, in search of a pulse, and felt nothing but the unyielding solidness of dead flesh.
Her mind freewheeled for several moments. Check her breathing, tilt her head back… She’d done those things, to no avail… Yell for help…
‘Help!’ Her voice was swallowed by the drizzle. Lyndsey kept yelling until her voice cracked. Then she doubled over as grief choked her.
Sonia had barely moved, as if she too were frozen. Her hands were pressed tightly together like she couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally touching the body. ‘What the hell happened to her?’ she asked. Her voice was flat. ‘Did she fall?’
The ledge Bobbie lay on was less than six feet below the edge of the rocky slope. If she’d fallen, she couldn’t have fallen far. There were no rips or scuffs on her jacket to suggest she’d rolled down the slope. But it didn’t have to be a big fall. Just a few feet could break a skull… Lyndsey shuddered, remembering Amanda’s accident yesterday. If Bobbie had landed badly, she might’ve twisted an ankle or even broken her leg, then she’d be stuck here, exposed to the elements. Waiting for a rescue that never came.
‘Try your phone,’ Lyndsey said. She was already fumbling in her pocket for her own. Maybe by some miracle, one of them could get reception…
Neither of them could. Sonia kept trying, her fingers hitting each contact in her phone numbly, like she was on autopilot. Lyndsey didn’t know much about the effects of shock, but she could tell Sonia wasn’t in a position to think rationally.
‘We have to get help,’ Lyndsey said.
That seemed to get Sonia’s attention. ‘Our phones are useless.’
‘I mean the others. We have to get Juliet. She’ll—’ Lyndsey wanted to say, she’ll know what to do, but how true was that really? Would Juliet have any idea how to handle this awful situation?
Sonia’s gaze slipped back to Bobbie. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked again. ‘Why is she out here?’
Lyndsey closed her eyes. If Bobbie really had left the bunkhouse well before seven o’clock that morning, like they suspected, she could’ve been lying here for three hours, or even more. That was a long time to be outside in the bitter cold. Had Bobbie shouted for help? Had she laid here, shivering, hoping in vain for her friends to notice she was missing?
Lyndsey wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. She couldn’t stop looking at poor Bobbie, those hands curled up like claws, teeth bared like an animal. She’d died in pain, that much was obvious. In pain and alone. There were crescents of dirt underneath her fingernails.
‘Come on.’ Lyndsey staggered to her feet. The world tilted for an instant. ‘We need to get the others.’
‘One of us should stay with her.’
‘There’s nothing we can do, Sonia.’
Slowly, Sonia raised her gaze to the sky. A number of seagulls wheeled overhead, adding their angry cries to the noise of the sea. ‘We need to keep the birds away,’ she said.
With a sickening lurch, Lyndsey realised she was right. She remembered the gull that’d taken flight just as they’d arrived. How long would it be before the rest of the flock got enough courage to take advantage of the body? She thought of Sonia’s comment earlier, about how vicious the birds could be when they were hungry, and shuddered again.
‘I’ll stay with her,’ Lyndsey said. The idea of sitting on that exposed ledge next to the body of her dead friend horrified her, but she’d rather do it herself than ask Sonia to.
To her surprise, Sonia shook her head. ‘I’ll stay,’ she said. ‘You fetch the others. Juliet should be heading back to the bunkhouse soon.’
Lyndsey nodded. She couldn’t find the words to argue. And, a guilty part of her realised, she was relieved not to stay. She couldn’t cope with staring at Bobbie’s slack face for a moment longer.
So, with barely a backwards glance, Lyndsey heaved herself up the rocks and set off at a run back to the bunkhouse.
Chapter Ten
SATURDAY
9:45am
By the time she got back, Lyndsey was dishevelled and distraught. She’d tried to run all the way, but a debilitating stitch in her side had slowed her down. The last stretch had been completed at a hobbling limp. Her breath hitched in her chest.
She reached the bunkhouse and shoved open the door.
‘Lyndsey! What’s wrong with you?’
It was Val who came bustling up from her chair in the kitchen to catch Lyndsey in her arms. Lyndsey clung to the big woman, unable to stop crying. She realised she didn’t have the slightest clue how to tell the others what’d happened.
‘Here, sit down,’ Val said. She pulled a chair out from the table. ‘Tell me what the problem is.’
In between gulping sobs, Lyndsey got out the whole story.
There was a stunned silence when she’d finished.
‘That—’ Val swallowed; tried again to speak. ‘That’s not possible. You must be wrong.’
‘I’m not. I’m sorry.’ Lyndsey didn’t know why she was apologising. But she couldn’t help it. She wiped her face with the neckline of her hoodie. ‘I know what I saw.’
Val passed her a wadded square of kitchen roll that she’d grabbed from somewhere. ‘She can’t be dead,’ she said, stubbornly. ‘Did you check?’
‘Of course we did,’ Lyndsey snapped. ‘D’you think I’d chase all the way back here if I wasn’t sure?’
‘No. No, of course not.’ Val sat back down. The news had stunned her, like a sharp blow to the head. ‘I can’t believe Bobbie snuck past us all,’ she said then. ‘What the hell was she thinking?’
‘I need to talk to Marne,’ Lyndsey said. ‘The radio—’ She stood up too quickly and almost fell. She had to catch herself against the edge of the table.
‘Let me check if she’s back yet,’ Val said. ‘I haven’t seen her come home, but she might’ve got past me. You stay here.’
There was a sour taste in Lyndsey’s mouth as she slumped into her seat. What would they do if the radio was still broken? The thought pinballed around her head and made her feel sick. ‘I should go and look for Juliet…’ she started to say.
‘No. Definitely not.’ Val picked up a grey jacket from the hooks, then put it back when she realised it was Amanda’s. She grabbed her own and started pulling it on. ‘If you go out looking for her, chances are we’ll end up with folk separated across the island, all searching for each other. Much better to stay put. She’ll be back soon.’
Lyndsey tried to think of an argument, but her thoughts were scattered. She remembered Sonia’s blank face as she stared at Bobbie. That was how Lyndsey felt now. Like the shock had just caught up with her.
As Val disappeared outside, closing the front door behind her, Lyndsey glanced around the silent bunkhouse. In her bed, Amanda was still dozing. She hadn’t so much as stirred when Lyndsey came in. For an irrational moment, Lyndsey was jealous. She wanted nothing more than the blissful ignorance of deep sleep.
With that thought in mind, Lyndsey went to her bunk and dug one of the bottles out of her bag. She couldn’t remember if they’d finished off the first bottle last night, so she grabbed a new one instead. In the kitchen, she rinsed out her mug, then poured a large measure of vodka and drank it in one. Her hands barely shook as she poured a second.
She wished she’d thought to ask Val for something stronger. Who knew what else Val had in her bag of tricks? There had to be something to take away the sick feeling of horror that filled Lyndsey’s chest and stomach.
The urge sent her into the bunkroom before she could think twice about it. Val’s bag was sitting in the middle of the lower bunk. Lyndsey patted the side pockets until she found one that crinkled. Unzipping it revealed a tightly-packed wodge of medication packets. It shocked Lyndsey to see how many there were. Val often joked about her body rattling from all the tablets she had to take for her arthritis, but did she really need this many for a single weekend?
