I add 260486. It doesn’t work.
I try to get myself into Ellen’s mindset. What other date could be linked to Pharos Hill? Other than the date of the ceremony, I can’t think of a single one.
‘Last go,’ I say. I type PharosHill. ‘Any suggestions for what comes next?’
‘Try the year of the ceremony, just the year,’ Tony suggests. ‘2013. People tend to use years, not actual dates.’
I tag 2013 onto PharosHill.
‘Oh my God,’ breathes Ruby. ‘It’s worked!’
‘It’s almost as if she wanted you to be able to access her emails,’ Harry remarks. He lapses into silence and stares at the screen. Because the inbox contains only messages from me.
My heart thumps dully in my chest. I don’t want to open the sent messages but I know that I have to. I click on the box, praying it will be empty. But there they are, in all their glory, each and every one of Layla’s messages to me.
The silence in the room is absolute.
I run a hand through my hair. ‘Fuck.’
‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ Ruby says quietly.
I look at the screen again. ‘No. This isn’t the Ellen I know. She’s one of the sanest people I’ve ever come across.’ I twist in the chair, search out Harry. ‘You know her, Harry. Do you think she could do something like this?’
‘Not really, no,’ he admits. ‘But how well did we actually know her? She had a troubled past, losing her mother, then Layla, then her father. Who knows how that affected her?’
‘We already worked out that whoever was behind the dolls and the emails was unbalanced,’ Ruby reminds me.
‘Yes, but to do something like this? I mean, why?’
‘I don’t know – revenge for Layla’s disappearance?’
‘Could be,’ Tony says. ‘In a warped kind of way. As in – you were responsible for her losing her sister.’
‘But I paid the price!’ I say, furious. ‘I already paid the price! Why make me go through it all again?’
‘To test you?’ Ruby says.
‘We’ll be in the kitchen.’ Harry puts a hand on my shoulder. They leave and I sit there in the office of a woman who in the space of a few minutes has become a complete stranger.
It’s a struggle to put aside my emotions but I don’t want them to cloud my judgement. I look at the emails again, thinking about what Harry said, about Ellen choosing a password that was easy to crack, as if she wanted me to find them. Because otherwise, she would have deleted them before she left. It’s why she unplugged her computer, to get me to look. So if she wanted me to find them, why? Because she was proud of what she’d done and wanted me to know how clever she’d been? Or out of kindness, so that I wouldn’t be left hanging? Was that why she left the doll on the landing upstairs, which led to me discovering the dolls in the chest? It seems she wanted me to know it was her all along.
Hopelessness hits me in the gut like a physical force. It’s hard enough to accept not only that the relative happiness I’d found with Ellen has gone, but that it was based on a lie. If Ellen had wanted to hurt me, there’s no better way she could have chosen. And that’s hard too, because it doesn’t equate with the Ellen I knew. We had lived and loved together for a little over a year, just as I had lived with and loved Layla for a little over a year. Is it significant that I was with each sister for approximately the same amount of time? Was that the real timing issue? We – Tony, Harry, Ruby and I – presumed that it was the wedding announcement that had triggered the beginning of the ‘Layla is alive’ campaign. Maybe the two were linked – once Ellen had got me to propose to her, it was time to wind up our relationship. Even though she had in a way manipulated it, had she seen my marriage proposal as a betrayal of her sister? It would mean that our whole relationship had been some kind of test, and one I’d failed miserably. But to be that loyal to a sister, to go to such lengths, seems extraordinary.
A flash of anger ignites in my brain. I need to find Ellen. So where has she gone? Abroad? Not if she has Peggy with her. To the cottage in St Mary’s? Or somewhere else, somewhere she thinks I won’t be able to find her? If she left as soon as I went tearing off to St Mary’s, she could be halfway up the country by now. She wouldn’t have gone south, it wouldn’t be far enough away. She must have had a destination in mind, she wouldn’t be driving around aimlessly, not in the middle of the night. Is she in a hotel, sleeping the sleep of an innocent while I’m condemned to hell? On impulse, I pull her keyboard towards me and bring up her search history, hoping to find a link to Booking.com or some other accommodation website. There isn’t, but there’s a link to a CalMac Ferries website. I open it quickly and find they run services between the mainland and the Scottish Isles. And when I look further, I find the timetable for services between Ullapool and Stornoway, on Lewis.
‘Harry!’ I yell.
‘You OK?’ he asks, coming through in a hurry.
‘What’s the quickest way of getting to Lewis?’ I ask urgently. ‘Is there a flight or something?’
‘I have no idea. I don’t even know if there’s an airport on Lewis. Why do you want to go there?’
‘Because that’s where Ellen’s gone. She was looking up the ferry crossings, so she’ll have driven up, or got the train part of the way. But there has to be a quicker way.’ I go onto Google and type in: flights to Lewis. ‘Yes – there’s an airport at Stornoway. I can fly to Glasgow and take another plane from there.’
I start looking up flights, aware of Harry hovering uncertainly behind me.
‘What time is it now?’ I ask. ‘There’s a flight that leaves for Glasgow from Birmingham at eleven forty – can I make it?’
‘Maybe,’ Harry says reluctantly. ‘It’s only eight thirty. But even if Ellen is there, are you sure it’s a good idea to go charging up to see her?’
‘Definitely! I need to speak to her, I want to know why, why she set up this whole charade to make me believe Layla was alive. I want to ask her how she could be so damn cruel!’
‘So why not wait a few days? There’s no rush, is there? Why don’t we see what Tony says?’
‘No.’ I shake my head vehemently. I turn my attention back to the screen. ‘If I don’t make the Glasgow flight there’s another at twelve forty, to Edinburgh.’
‘You might not get a ticket for today,’ Harry warns, as if he’s hoping I won’t.
‘Then I’ll charter a plane,’ I say fiercely. ‘I’m going, Harry, and nobody is going to stop me.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘No – hold on, there’s a ticket for the Glasgow flight, just let me get it.’ It takes a while to complete the transaction and when I’ve finished, I raise my head and find him watching me. ‘Thanks, Harry, but I’m going on my own.’
‘Then at least let me drive you to the airport.’
I hesitate, then realise I’m too wound up to drive. ‘Thanks. But we can’t tell Ruby and Tony where I’m going, OK?’
The look of resignation on his face tells me he was hoping they’d be able to dissuade me but he nods his agreement. We go through to the kitchen where Ruby and Tony are sitting, their hands clasped around mugs of hot coffee, as if bracing themselves for the coming storm.
‘Good idea,’ Ruby says encouragingly, when we tell her we’re going for a drive to clear our heads, and Harry and I both know she’ll kill him when she finds out the truth.
I don’t even take a change of clothes with me. I don’t intend staying on Lewis. I’m going for one reason, and one reason only.
FIFTY-SEVEN