Little Girls Tell Tales Page 6

A little further on, we reached the east edge of the curraghs. Cora made us walk ten paces south, then turn west to walk back to the road.

  ‘We just walked this section,’ Dallin complained. ‘There’s nothing here but mud.’

  ‘That’s how the plan goes,’ Cora said. ‘We cover each square metre. So far we’ve done this bit.’ She showed him on the map. ‘Now we’re doing this bit. If you want to make things smoother, walk next to one of us, not right at the back. That way we’ll cut down on the chances of missing something. Or, even better, go back in time three weeks to when we were discussing this exact point and put forward your arguments then.’

  Dallin shifted the straps of his backpack. ‘Seems like we’re wasting a lot of time going over the same ground, that’s all.’

  ‘If it bothers you that much, I will happily put the maps into your hands.’ Cora presented the map to Dallin with a flourish, then hastily snatched it back. ‘Actually, no, that’s a lie, these are my maps and I love them. If it bothers you that much, you can go buy your own map and plot your own course.’

  I looked out over the fields. There were clumps of bog myrtle growing here, and the air was perfumed with its distinctive smell. It made me think of Beth, who’d often brought home sprigs of the pungent leaves, insisting it would keep midges away in the evenings when she sat out in the garden.

  Usually, I would’ve avoided dwelling on the memory. There were so many things that reminded me of Beth. Everything I did or said would contain some echo of another time. I’d learned not to focus too long on each memory as it surfaced, because they all had sharp edges, even the happy ones. Especially the happy ones.

  But now, for a moment, I breathed deeply and remembered the times Beth had come home with pockets full of wild mushrooms or foraged leaves or pignuts, those knobbly ground-nuts which she would leave scattered on the draining board, still half-coated in mud.

  Beth had loved the curraghs, and they’d been good to her in return. Now, she was gone, but the land remained the same. This bog had been here long before me and Beth ever ventured into it, hand in hand, and it would be here long after all trace of us vanished from the earth. It was a permanent yet ever-changing place.

  Behind me, Cora and Dallin had come to some kind of peace. We set off walking back towards the road.

  I found myself at the back with Dallin. He was still in a huff, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket.

  ‘You agree with me, right?’ he said to me.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘We’re wasting time searching up here.’ Dallin gave a curt nod towards the fields which were visible through the thin trees to our right. ‘You weren’t anywhere near here when you found the body. Otherwise you would’ve said you could see the fields. So why’re we wasting our time?’

  I thought about it before I answered. ‘I said I couldn’t remember seeing the fields,’ I admitted. ‘But I also said I’d been everywhere in the curraghs since that day. And I can honestly say I’ve never been here, in this exact spot. It never occurred to me to search at the edges. So maybe Cora’s right – maybe she has to search everywhere, including the places that don’t seem likely. If she skips bits, she’ll always wonder if Simone’s remains were lying in one of these out-of-the-way spots where she didn’t think to look.’ I shrugged. ‘She needs to be sure. That involves checking everywhere.’

  Dallin grunted. ‘Still seems daft to me.’

  ‘You know what seems daft? The fact you’re here at all. It would’ve been much easier for you to just point Cora in the general direction of the Island and leave her to it. But you came all the way out here, in person. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to help.’ He tried and failed to sound sincere. ‘She’s a vulnerable person. I wanted to give her all the help I could. And I didn’t know if you would talk to her if I wasn’t there to smooth things over. If she’d turned up on your doorstep out of the blue, you might’ve turned her away.’

  ‘So why not call and explain the situation to me?’

  ‘I emailed.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. Last night I checked my emails from the last two months, plus the junk folder. You didn’t email me. And anyway, how much effort would it take for you to pick up the phone? It’s not like you don’t know the number; it’s the same as when you lived at home.’

  Dallin pushed a hand through his hair. ‘You’re mad at me.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was easy to admit. ‘I’ve every reason to be mad.’

  ‘Listen, if I’d known it was such a big deal for you to get prior warning I was coming here, then—’

  ‘That’s not why, and you know it.’ I slowed my pace. I didn’t want Cora to overhear this argument. ‘I can’t believe how much of a hypocrite you are. Talking about how Cora needs you and you can’t possibly let her down. What about me? What about Beth?’

  As I spoke, I realised this was the first time I’d said Beth’s name aloud in months. It rang in my ears. I wanted to snatch it back, like it was something private, not to be shared.

  Dallin kept walking. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to Beth,’ he muttered.

  ‘So am I.’ A bubble of hurt expanded in my chest. For a moment I was filled by it, unable to breathe. Gradually it subsided. But that moment reminded me of all the moments before it, when the slightest word could trigger something. The hurt was always there. I’d come to understand it would never fully go away.

  ‘I’m sorry I lost contact with you,’ Dallin said. ‘With both of you. I thought—’ The words seemed to tangle in this throat. ‘I thought you were fine, y’know? You were living your lives and I didn’t want to intrude.’

  ‘She was really upset you wouldn’t come to the wedding,’ I said. Each word felt like broken glass. I spoke carefully so I wouldn’t cut myself.

  ‘I was out of the country. I wanted to come, believe me.’

  I didn’t believe him. ‘You didn’t even reply to the invitation.’

  ‘I was travelling. By the time I got her email, it was too late. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What about the other messages? She tried to contact you after that, a bunch of times, after she got sick. Why the hell didn’t you reply?’

  Dallin let out a long breath. ‘Honestly? I didn’t realise how ill she was. If she’d come right out and told me, of course I would’ve come home.’

  ‘She didn’t want to spell it out in an email. You should’ve known that.’

  ‘Listen, in hindsight, you are completely right. I should’ve come home. But at the time? I thought – I don’t know. The way she danced around the issue. All those half-hints. I thought it was one of her games.’

  I almost choked in disbelief. ‘A game?’

  ‘I know how terrible that sounds. But that’s what she was like as a kid. She would say something crazy and see which friends would come running. That’s all I thought it was.’

  ‘How could you think that? Why would she lie about something so awful?’

  ‘I have no idea why she would do anything. Let’s be honest, I barely even knew her by then.’ Dallin kicked a tree stump in annoyance. ‘I didn’t know either of you, apparently.’

  I stopped walking and faced him directly. ‘Is that why you acted like a spoiled baby? Because you had a stupid childhood crush on your best friend and it turned out she wanted to be with me instead?’

  Dallin met my gaze briefly. ‘You never loved her like I did.’

  The anger that’d been absent from my life for so long rose up in me. I swung my arm and punched him in the jaw. It happened so fast I couldn’t believe I’d done it. One second I was standing there, the next, Dallin was reeling backwards. He put his foot down in a marshy puddle and almost overbalanced. If he hadn’t caught hold of a tree branch for support he would’ve fallen.

  ‘She was my wife,’ I said. My voice rose along with my anger. ‘Don’t you dare talk about her that way.’

  I shoved past him.

  Cora was staring at me with
shock on her face. I walked straight past her too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this.’

  It wasn’t possible to run in the thick bogland, but I hurried as fast as I could in the direction of the road.

  Chapter 7

  I had every intention of going straight home. I planned to lock the front door and refuse to answer my phone for at least a week, until Dallin had definitely left the island again.

  But my pace slowed as I made my way back to the road. My anger burned as hot as ever, but it was hard to maintain, out there in the peacefulness of the curraghs.

  Dallin had always been wrong about Beth. He’d never understood her. He saw the cool distance in her eyes and mistook it for aloofness. But I knew better. I’d seen the warmth and gentleness in Beth’s nature. The occasional small smile meant a thousand times more than the fake showiness that most people projected. When Beth smiled at me, she’d meant it.

  The simple fact was Dallin had let us all down. Beth had needed him as a friend; I’d needed him as a brother; Mum had needed him as a son. His absence at Beth’s funeral had been a gaping wound that refused to close.

  I understood how hard it would’ve been for him, especially coming just a few years after Dad died. It was awful for everyone. No one wanted to be there.

  And it hurt all the more to know that he could come home, when he wanted to. When someone like Cora wanted him to.

  I kept walking. Without Cora’s compass and GPS to keep me in a straight line, I drifted off course, heading south to skirt around a muddy ditch. I found my way onto a faint trail, and followed it as it wound its slow way through the marshland.

  By the time I reached the road, my anger had subsided into a heavy sort of sadness that weighed down on my stomach. The argument with Dallin had dredged up a whole load of feelings I didn’t want to deal with.

  The path I’d found led me out onto the road some distance from the car park. That was the trouble with the curraghs. Even if you thought you were going in the right direction, you could so easily get turned around.

  I went to my car, opened the passenger side door, and sat down to kick the mud off my boots. Despite my best efforts, I’d carried half the bog out with me.

  ‘Good morning,’ a cheery voice called from the other side of the road.

  I looked up in surprise. I’d been so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t spotted my neighbour, Eloise, approaching from up the road.

  ‘You’re out and about early,’ Eloise said. She was a tiny woman, less than five feet tall, with such dainty features I often wondered if she was some kind of wood-elf. Definitely there seemed something ethereal about her, not least the fact that she had to be at least forty but barely looked twenty. Her wispy hair was tied in a complicated, messy knot on top of her head. When I tried that, it looked like I was wearing a bird’s nest as a hat; on her it looked delightful.

  ‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ I said, which was as good an explanation as any for why I was outdoors.

  Eloise’s dog, a golden retriever called Butterscotch, came lolloping back up the road. He almost ran straight past Eloise but veered towards her when she called him. I could never figure out if the dog was losing his eyesight or if he was just exceptionally daft.

  ‘Lots of people here today,’ Eloise said with a nod towards Cora’s car. ‘Not sure what these folks are up to. I saw them setting off. Just struck straight out cross-country.’

  Which meant she’d almost certainly seen me with them. I sighed. ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘Don’t know what they were thinking,’ Eloise said. ‘There’s plenty of paths if they want to go for a walk. If I’d got down here fast enough I would’ve told them not to go off through the woods like that. Someone should tell them this is a nature reserve. The plants have a hard enough time without people trampling them.’

  I pulled off my boots and reached into the back seat in search of the slip-on shoes I wore for driving. ‘They’re looking for something,’ I said.

  ‘Oh dear. They didn’t lose their car keys, did they? Because it’s unlikely they’ll find them again, not out there.’

  I looked off at the trees. ‘Do you remember when I was a kid, and I found a skeleton out there?’

  ‘Oh, heavens. Yes, I remember you telling me. Or was it Opal who told me? One or the other. Anyway, I thought everyone had forgotten that by now.’

  ‘Apparently not.’ I put my muddy boots in the passenger footwell, on top of the plastic bags I used for shopping. ‘Someone’s come over from England because they heard the story and want to know if it’s true.’

  Eloise scrunched up her face. ‘They’re not expecting to find anything, are they?’

  ‘I told them there’s probably nothing to find. But they’re insistent they want to search the curraghs themselves.’

  Eloise’s eyes went wide. ‘They plan to trample around the entire wetlands like that? Don’t they realise the damage it’ll do?’

  I hadn’t really thought about that. I was always careful not to deliberately crush any plants when I was out walking, but would the others be as considerate? I thought of Dallin, stamping his annoyance through the curraghs.

  Butterscotch was wandering around the car with interest. When he bumped into me, he whuffed in surprise and delight at finding an unexpected friend. I absently scratched the top of his head.

  ‘Someone needs to tell them.’ Eloise twisted her fingers together in distress. ‘They probably don’t even realise the harm they’re causing. People just don’t think. They barge into places like this, dropping litter and snapping off saplings and scaring the birds. They don’t think.’

  I couldn’t imagine Cora being inconsiderate enough to drop litter. But Eloise wouldn’t know that. ‘You’re right,’ I said instead. ‘I’ll have a word when they come back.’

  ‘Are you sure? Perhaps I should go in after them.’

  Butterscotch abruptly spun around twice and went galloping off up the road in pursuit of something. After ten feet he either lost sight of it or forgot what he was doing. He jogged to a halt then sat down, his head cocked, his tail sweeping the ground.

  ‘I’ll wait for them,’ I said. ‘They should be out soon. They probably don’t realise they might damage stuff.’

  Eloise sniffed. ‘People are so inconsiderate.’

  She whistled to Butterscotch, who snapped out of his daydream to come bounding back towards her. Together they set off down the road.

  I fished my flask out of my backpack. I wished it contained something stronger than herbal tea.

  Ten minutes later, while I was still debating whether or not to drive off and leave them, Cora emerged from the trees. I must not have been paying attention, because it was like the woman simply appeared, stepping without warning from amongst the branches. Cora paused on the road as if momentarily disorientated. When she spotted me she looked relieved.

  She came down the road to my car. ‘I didn’t realise how close we were to the road,’ Cora said. ‘One minute we were in the trees, the next I was on tarmac. Surreal. I can see how someone could wander around without finding the road.’

  I nodded at her compass. ‘Bet you’re glad you brought that.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry, I should’ve gone with you. I didn’t want to leave you on your own, but—’

  ‘It’s okay.’ I understood; Cora’s search took priority over everything, especially people she’d just met. ‘I’m sorry you saw us arguing. Where’s Dallin?’

  ‘He’s behind,’ Cora said. ‘Stopped for a wild wee. Boys sure do love weeing in the outdoors.’

  ‘I might head home.’ I studied the ground at my feet. ‘I’m sorry. This is weird and difficult for me. I mean, I know it must be weird for you too. I just don’t know if I can cope with it. But I didn’t want to storm off without an explanation.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Cora said at once. ‘I understand. It was good of you to come at all.’ She glanced behind her but there was still no si
gn of Dallin. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was any bad feeling between you two.’

  Bad feeling. That was an interesting way of putting it. ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘You didn’t know.’

  ‘Dallin never said anything. He made it sound like everything was peachy. The way he told it, he’d spoken to you about us coming here, and you were completely on board.’

  I’d already given myself enough of a headache that afternoon over Dallin. ‘Did he say anything after I left?’

  ‘A little. He said it was just family stuff.’

  ‘That pretty much covers it,’ I admitted.

  Cora hesitated, then said, ‘He didn’t tell me about your wife. I’m so sorry to hear what happened to her.’

  It was unexpected, and it punched a hole in the protective layer I kept wrapped around me. For an instant, I couldn’t breathe. The whole world was airless. I closed my eyes until the feeling passed and my chest unlocked. ‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

  ‘If I’d known, we never would’ve come here. Well, I mean, I still would’ve come here to the wetlands, but I wouldn’t have pestered you about it. You’ve got enough on your plate without dealing with this too.’

  I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. But I saw now that, if Dallin had been honest with Cora about my situation, she would’ve stopped him turning up unannounced on my doorstep. It made me feel a little better to know it was Dallin who was insensitive, not Cora.

  ‘Honestly, it’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m just sorry I can’t help you.’

  ‘You’ve helped us loads already.’

  I wasn’t sure how true that was, but I appreciated her saying it. ‘How did you get on after I left? I take it you didn’t have any luck.’

  ‘We found some bones,’ Cora said. She unfolded her map and made an annotation in pencil to show where they’d searched so far that day. ‘Had a moment of excitement, but they were rabbit bones. I think. It certainly wasn’t a person.’ Cora shook her head. ‘I didn’t take into account how many animals must die and decompose out there. Half the bog is probably composted animal remains. Also, do you have poison ivy here?’