Elin exchanges a glance with Steed. The missing phone. “Did she explain why she had the phone?”
“She said she spotted it the morning Bea was found, near the yoga pavilion. It was smashed up, the memory card missing. Jo was worried that if you found Bea’s phone, knew they’d met up that night . . .”
“We’d suspect her.”
“And I did,” Hana says, trembling so much that her voice comes out as an unintelligible rattle. “I practically accused her.”
“Do you know what she did with the memory card?” Steed says gently.
“She said she never found it. It’s still missing.”
Elin’s stomach clenches. Or the killer has it.
Hana briefly closes her eyes. “I thought Jo was lying, you know, that she might have actually had something to do with this . . .” A sob racks her body.
“I’m sorry,” Elin says quietly. “I know this is hard, but we have a few more questions: Are there any reasons you can think of why someone would be targeting Jo, the rest of your group? You haven’t been aware of anyone acting suspiciously?”
One by one, they shake their heads.
“And have any of you a connection to the island outside of this holiday? Do you know anything about the school that used to be here?”
Hana and Caleb give another round of negatives, but Maya nods. “My father’s friend worked at the old school, but it wasn’t for long. Said it was an awful place.” She hesitates. “I don’t know any more than that, I’m sorry. He didn’t give any details.”
Elin glances at Steed, disappointed. She wasn’t expecting a sudden breakthrough, but still . . .
“Thank you. Again, we’re so sorry for your loss. If you do think of anything else, we—” She breaks off, feeling her phone vibrate. Detective Johnson. Have emailed through files as requested. “Sorry, I’m going to have to leave this here.”
As they move away, Steed looks at her. “So what do you make of that?”
“Hard to say at this point. Most interesting is the memory card. Can you chase up the phone data application?”
“Of course.”
“While you do that, I’m going to take a minute. Johnson’s emailed through his files from the Creacher case.” She tugs loose two chairs from the stack in front of her. Steed helps her drag them over near the window, so they’re out of sight of the group. The dense expanse of woodland beyond is just visible. In the dim light it looks even more impenetrable.
Pulling out her notebook, Elin opens the first attachment. But she’s only just started reading when a muffled cry sounds out.
Caleb. He’s sitting on the floor, head in his hands.
“I’ll go,” Elin murmurs, standing back up.
By the time she reaches them, Maya has her arm around Caleb’s shoulders.
“Anything I can do?” Elin says softly.
Hana shakes her head, eyes still wet with tears. “I think he’s at breaking point. His dad died fairly recently. From what he’s said, it was pretty bad circumstances. I don’t think he’s really processed it yet. To have one loss on top of another like this, now Jo . . . it’s a lot.”
Elin nods, glancing around at the remaining guests and staff in the room. Most have finished eating and the activity has left a lull in which a palpable tension hovers; frantic fingers tapping on phones. Fevered conversation.
A pressure cooker. That’s what this feels like. A pressure cooker, ready to pop.
77
Johnson’s laboriously photographed the documents. High res, they’re too big for one email, so one long chain fills her in-box.
Steed glances over. “Phone data application is a go. Want a hand?”
“Please. I’ll forward some.” Elin opens the first few attachments: statements from the night Lois Wade went missing. The narrative is uniform: Lois Wade wasn’t on the island. Was never meant to be. No one saw her.
She skims the ones taken during the Creacher case. Camp leaders, teachers. The same story: how they woke to screams, what they found when they emerged from their tents. Creacher’s briefly mentioned; how they found him odd, noticed him watching the kids.
“Anything useful?”
Elin shakes her head. “Bit of a pattern . . . similar story. How about you?”
“Same.” Steed shakes his head. “Can’t get my head around the fact that no one was awake when the killer went for them. A school trip, you’d expect them all to be up.”
“Maybe the killer waited until they were sure the kids were all down,” she says, opening the teenagers’ statements. The narrative is the same as the adults’， but there’s raw emotion too; none of the contained formality of the adult accounts, somehow subconsciously absorbed from books or TV dramas. How a Statement Should Be Given 101.