What We Saw

Chapter Twenty-Six

Gran and Granddad were there to pick me up from the hospital early the following day. I hadn’t slept much the night before. My head hurt from the crash and ached from the words in the crossword magazine.

Adam was quiet in the car as we made our way through the woodland and back towards the caravan site. He didn’t say anything, in fact, other than the odd grunt when Granddad tried to start conversation. Every now and then he’d turn to me, catching my eye to check that I knew what he was thinking. He was searching for reassurance that I had taken his word and looked at the Super Crossword. A part of me wished that I hadn’t, as important as the information inside it was. I just wanted this whole thing to be over. All of this mess. One way or another, it would be over by Friday.

I nodded at Adam and he nodded back, totally silent. He knew I knew.

As we approached the caravan site, we spotted a familiar figure on the horizon. As the beige jacket and walking stick came into view, I wanted to slide under the chair and vanish. My legs shook. I couldn’t do this right now. Not without knowing what was going on. Adam looked around the car, blinking fast.

Granddad slowed down as he spotted Donald in the distance.

Donald waved at us, signalling to pull up next to him. ‘Hello, you lot. How’s the soldier doing in the back there?’ he said, tapping his walking stick against the window. He crouched down to get a good look at me. I stayed still and battled with my instincts to force a smile. Adam sat, rigid, his back tall against the seat like a meerkat.

Donald started to say something, looking from Gran to me. Gran put a hand against his as it rested against the open window, shaking her head abruptly in both directions. Donald retreated and straightened his face in understanding. I knew what they were on about, and Adam must have known too. How could this man be so cool and so calm after everything he had done and was about to do? I wanted to tell Gran and Granddad everything, right at that moment. I let the scenario play out in my head: the crushing look across his face, Adam’s disbelief that I had spoken out. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. We were so close to solving things. And I didn’t know what the situation was with Emily. It could be dangerous to talk.

*

The silence around the dinner table that evening was unbearable. The chicken in front of me should have tasted brilliant after the hospital food, but instead it tasted more like cardboard. The thick gravy piled on top of the potato was so salty that it took the edge off of everything else. I definitely preferred my mum’s salt-free cooking now. I looked forward to eating at home again. My mum was quite good at coming up with foods, especially Sunday roasts. Except we didn’t really have them on a Sunday all that often. Saturday was a better day. And I didn’t like Yorkshire puddings, so I had more potato instead.

Adam toyed with his food, waiting for it to magically vanish from the plate. Gran and Granddad glanced up at each other every now and then, a look that hinted at the worry underneath. Adam wasn’t supposed to have told me about Emily I don’t think, so I had to play innocent and pretend that I didn’t know anything. They were probably looking for the right time to tell me, when I wasn’t at risk of ‘getting stressed.’ They were only looking out for me, but there were more important matters at hand right now. My friend—no, my girlfriend—had gone missing, and I only had two days left to find her before I was whisked home and transported back into the normal world. And there was all this about Emily’s dad being ‘mental.’ I needed to talk to Adam. Soon. I didn’t know if I could go about my normal life, my school life, carrying such a burden of knowledge. And I knew for certain that Adam would never, ever get over this if we didn’t get to the bottom of it one way or another.

It was after tea, when Carla did her usual job of scavenging, that Gran told Adam to have a chat with me. She put her hand on my shoulder and smiled. Was she so naïve that she thought that I’d genuinely not heard about what had happened, or was she playing the part, just in case? Better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. I followed Adam into our room, moving Carla out of the way as I passed.

I perched on the edge of my bed as Adam shut the door and put his ear to it, checking that Gran and Granddad weren’t listening. For a split second, I deliberated the idea that maybe I’d got everything all wrong. Maybe Adam wasn’t really being completely honest about Emily. Maybe he was exaggerating things like he always did.

‘So, you got my note, I’m hoping?’

‘Yeah… well no, I don’t… what do you mean she’s missing?’

Adam sat back against the wall and scanned the room, biting at his already worn down nails. ‘She’s gone, Liam. Just… gone. Vanished. Her mum and dad don’t know where she is or anything. She’s just gone.’

My skin tingled as the room began to spin around me. My body went heavy under the reality of it all. ‘When?’ I asked.

‘Day before yesterday. Day you went running off with your dad. Found out that night that she’d done a runner in her sleep.’ Adam emphasised those last words. I knew what he was implying: kidnap. And who was I to argue with the suggestion?

‘And what’s this about Emily’s dad being mental?’

Adam rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath. ‘He cornered me when I was messing around down by the wasteground. Told me if I knew anything about this I’d be dead meat.’

I felt a streak of guilt run down my spine. If I hadn’t run off with my dad that day, none of this would have happened. We could have solved it earlier. Time was running out. Donald was already gloating and thinking people weren’t suspecting him, considering himself off the hook. For once, I had to admit to myself that it was my own fault. Adam was in the right, and he knew it. But nothing I could say could change anything now.

‘What are we supposed to do, Adam?’

Adam didn’t answer. He stared back at me instead, almost taunting me to come up with something myself. It was the least I could do for the runner I’d staged, leaving him here all on his own.

I contemplated my options for a moment and hunted for inspiration in the mash of jelly that was my brain. My head ached. ‘Do Gran and Granddad know you’re telling me about this?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, I think they have an idea. Gran wasn’t too keen, but they knew you’d find out eventually. And y’know, they know you give a damn about her. So it’s like, only fair really. That you do know.’

Give a damn about her. I thought about how her hair tickled my face as we hugged. How her little hands shook as we touched each other’s fingers for the first time. I clutched my hands together, and told Adam the only rational thing that I could. ‘We go to the police.’

Adam blinked. ‘We can’t.’ He was completely still.

‘What do you mean, ‘we can’t?’ We have to, Adam, don’t you see? They’re going to be crawling the woods soon. We have to tell them about the body. About the ring and about everything before they find it. We have to point them in the right direction. Help them out.’

Adam’s kept his eyes fixed on mine. ‘This is our mystery, Liam. Not the police’s. Ours.’

I felt my throat closing up and hardening. For a second, I wanted to pound in his face, but I clutched my fist and resisted. ‘What the f*cking hell do you mean it’s ‘ours’? Adam, you little idiot—a girl has gone missing. Her dad’s mental. And we sit around and do nothing? We’ve seen the body of another girl—god knows how old or young she was. How can you be so stupid? We saw the bruises on Emily. We know stuff. Stuff that could help. When will you ram it into your stupid little head that we aren’t good enough to solve this ourselves? We aren’t police officers. We’re nobodies. Just two little idiots who stumbled across something we shouldn’t have and let it swallow us up and ruin our lives. We’re obsessed. We need to take a step back. If you don’t, I will.’

Adam didn’t even move a muscle. He merely stared at me. His look was adult-like, that of a concerned father. ‘I can’t let you do that, Liam,’ he said.

My body grew hotter inside. I felt crushed and small again, miniscule. ‘What do you mean, you can’t let me do that?’

Adam reached into his pocket, and pulled out a piece of crumpled paper. ‘I know you’re probably sick of reading, but you need to take a look at this.’ He handed it to me.

I unfolded it. It was a newspaper article. Something about banking. Another thing about somebody seeing a UFO.

My heart froze when I saw her.

I looked up at Adam. ‘Wait… is that—is that her?’

Adam nodded slowly.

I switched my gaze back towards the paper. The eyes. Her skin looked so soft compared to how she’d been when we’d seen her. ‘Search Goes On For Missing Girl.’ It was the girl off the news, all those nights ago. Beth Swanson. How had we overlooked something this big?

Adam pulled the paper out of my hand and folded his arms. My jaw dangled somewhere below me. I couldn’t think of what to say. My mind raced and the back of my neck ached from the crash.

‘Is it… are you sure?’ My hands trembled. I squinted at the picture. She looked the same. Or at least, she looked similar.

Adam shrugged. ‘Something still doesn’t really fit. The P.S. on the ring. What does that mean?’

I tried to picture the dead girl’s face on the girl in the paper, but it was different when you were looking at someone alive and smiling. ‘Still, it does seem too big to be a coincidence.’

Adam nodded in approval. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.

Adam took a deep breath and cleared his throat. ‘We’re going to go out into the woods. Tonight. We’re going to break into Donald’s shed, and we’re going to solve this thing once and for all, cuz.’