“Oldest trick in the book reinvented,” Steed murmurs.
She nods, pulse picking up. Not a concealed base, but a side.
Jo’s watching her anxiously. “Have you found something?”
“Possibly.” Elin runs her hand along the bottom side seam, feeling the panel beneath give ever so slightly. Hooking her finger up, she lifts the panel to find a zipper hidden underneath. She tugs it backward and slides her hand into the side pocket.
Her fingertips touch plastic—a thin bag, the contents solid inside.
Tugging it down, she slides the bag out through the narrow opening. It’s transparent, so she can see what’s inside: three large rolls of cash, held together with an elastic band.
A picture is building. Slowly but surely.
“Do you know why Seth would have this much cash on him?” Elin holds up the bag.
“No.” Jo fiddles with one of the friendship bands looping her wrist. “He carries cash, but not like that.” On the last word, her voice trembles.
Elin turns to Steed. “Can you bag it and then take another look to make sure we haven’t missed anything?”
Nodding, he moves closer to the bag, pushes his hand inside the pocket, right up into the corner seam. A frown. “There’s something here, flush with the seam.”
He withdraws his hand. A glimmer of metal beneath the spotlights overhead.
Elin knows what it is even before he fully pulls it out.
A carabiner.
Why would Seth go out of his way to hide a carabiner?
Steed passes it to her. As she traces the loop of metal with her fingers, the hazy outline of a thought rises up and out of her subconscious.
“Was Seth planning on climbing while he was here?”
Jo shakes her head. “Not as far as I know.”
The back of Elin’s neck prickles as the thought fleshes out. Briefly closing her eyes, she’s suddenly back there, on the rocks, sun scorching her face as she’d stepped sideways . . .
That’s it, she thinks.
But the idea renders her mute.
Impossible. A leap of her imagination, surely?
Yet her mind starts putting other, disparate strands together—what Hana told her about someone leaving the lodge, her niggles about the CCTV . . .
She replays the image in her mind; what she’d seen and the assumption she’d made from that. Possibly the wrong assumption.
“Thanks for this,” she says to Jo, slipping the carabiner into an evidence bag. “I know it’s hard, us asking questions when you haven’t even had time to process the news.”
Jo nods, her eyes on the carabiner. “You’re finished?”
“Yes, but in light of what’s happened, I’m afraid I’m going to need you all to stay a little longer.”
“Of course. I—” Jo stops.
“What is it?” Elin’s thrown by the stricken expression on her face. Not only grief, but confusion.
“There is something, about Seth. What you asked before, if he’d behaved differently. Well, he had, but only because of what’s been happening. The past six months or so, he’s been getting emails. Nasty stuff.”
Steed glances at her, raising an eyebrow. “What about?” he asks.
“He wouldn’t show me, but I got the gist. Spoiled rich kid. Walking over people. Things about his father too. How he was a bully, had ruined people’s lives, stopped them moving on . . . random stuff. Seth didn’t make much of it, he’s had his fair share of people having a go, but even so, I could tell it had gotten to him.”
“Any idea who might have been sending them?”
A hesitation, as Elin knew there would be: there had to be a reason that Jo didn’t tell her this from the beginning.
“Please,” Elin says gently. “You need to be honest. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to find out what’s happened to Seth.”
Jo nods. “Part of me wondered . . . ,” she begins. “Part of me wondered if it might be Maya.” A flush has appeared on her neck and begun creeping up her cheeks.
“Maya?”
“Yes. Seth turned her down for a job a few months ago. It’s been messy. To be honest, it was a bad idea to suggest it, I shouldn’t have got involved.”
“But why would Maya feel so strongly about it?”
“Because of what happened. Maya got offered the job by one of the junior managers. We’re friends, so I went to him directly rather than to Seth. I knew what he’d say. Seth found out, pulled the whole thing, said it wasn’t a good idea to mix work and family. Maya . . . well, she lost her flat a few months later. Couldn’t make the rent.”