“Why is that?” Steed asks.
“I think they’d have assumed this trip was some kind of boast . . .” Jo shrugs. “He’s got form on that front, plus his attitude, it’s a bit laissez-faire.” She hesitates. “He acts like the clown, and it gets people’s backs up. It’s actually a front. Deep down, he’s insecure. His childhood was pretty shit, despite the money. His father wasn’t around much and he’s always found it a huge pressure, being Ronan’s son, all the expectation that comes with it.”
“In what sense?” Elin says carefully, aware that this lends weight to their theory that the drugs thing could be some kind of rebellion.
“People assume he’s ruthless, ambitious like Ronan, or some kind of wealthy dropout living off his dad’s money. Seth is”—she blinks, corrects herself—“was, better than either of those things. I think sometimes he tried too hard to make people like him, but it actually put people off.”
Steed nods. “Have you noticed any unusual behavior from Seth recently? Before you got here? During?”
“No. Nothing.”
But Elin picks up on something; a fleeting shadow of an emotion slips across her features. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Jo meets Elin’s gaze, then Steed’s, but it’s too direct, as if she’s overcompensating.
Elin looks at Steed, disconcerted.
She’s hiding something.
It feels wrong, that in the midst of grief someone could be calculating in any kind of way, but Elin knows that people’s survival instincts can trump anything. Jo’s concealing something, but she can’t probe now. Too soon.
Elin closes her notebook. “Would you mind if we take a quick look around your room? It might give us a better idea of why he was out in the water.”
“Of course,” Jo replies, standing up, and Elin catches it again: a faint shadow of an emotion, impossible to decipher.
42
This is ours.” Jo hovers in the doorway of the room, as if reluctant to go inside.
Elin can see why. Seth’s stuff is everywhere—shoes, sportswear, a pair of swim shorts slung over one of the chairs. She glances down at the large case on the bed, a smaller bag on the floor beside it.
“My bag.” Jo follows her gaze. “I started packing. We were planning to leave once you’d taken our statements.” She glances around. “Seth hadn’t got any of his things together. Always waits until the last minute.” Another strangled cry emerges and this time she can’t control it.
“We’ll be as quick as we can.” Awkwardly, Elin walks over to the desk, acutely aware of Jo quietly crying behind her, the sound muffled against her tissue. It’s the only part of the room that’s neat, with a water bottle, a glass, and a notepad on top of a white folder containing information about the hotel. To the left of the folder there’s an open laptop, the screen dark.
“The laptop’s mine.” Jo steps into the room. “Seth doesn’t use it.”
“Did he bring one?”
She shakes her head. “He was trying to have a week off work.”
“And his phone? Did he have it with him this morning?”
“I think so. Goes everywhere with him. We’re as bad as each other.” She gestures at the cable dangling from the wall. “It’d be here if it were anywhere.”
Wandering toward the bathroom, Elin puts her head around the door. The tangy citrus scent of the LUMEN toiletries lingers in the air, bubbles of foam still sticking to the floor of the shower. On the unit around the sink there’s a toiletry bag, and Elin quickly rummages through. Nothing controversial—aftershave, razor, spare blades.
Back in the room, Steed’s rooting through the wardrobe. Elin joins him, finding the hanging section half stripped of clothes. The ones left are clearly Seth’s—smarter shirts for evening, a few T-shirts.
Steed gestures to the top shelf. Two black holdalls, an expensive Finnish brand—a good, solid stainless-steel zipper, rip-proof fabric.
“Those are Seth’s,” Jo affirms, watching Steed pull them down. She’s still talking about him in the present tense and it rubs, a strange friction against how they saw him last: lying lifeless on the tarpaulin in the shack.
Placing the bags on the bed, Steed unzips the smaller one. “Only a few receipts.”
Elin picks up the larger one, immediately noticing something strange—the bag feels unbalanced, the right-hand side sagging slightly.
Searching through the interior and side pockets, Elin finds nothing until her eyes alight on the front two pockets; a larger, zippered one and a smaller Velcro one on top. With a growing sense of unease, she checks them—empty as expected; an optical illusion, designed to draw the gaze away from the additional width on this side of the bag.