The Hollows(57)

‘Frankie, we should get back—’

‘Dad! Listen to me!’ She yelled it. ‘Sorry, but just come with me. Let me show you.’

I followed her across the field, back down the path towards the barbecue. The music grew louder as we got closer. There was a small group of people standing behind where the food was being served. One of them was Greg, chatting to Vivian and another woman in a Hollow Falls polo. Beside Greg, with unhappy, sulky faces, stood two teenagers.

‘That’s them,’ Frankie whispered. ‘Buddy and Darlene.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. They haven’t spotted me but I’ve been following them.’

I waited.

‘They’ve been here with Greg for the past five or ten minutes. I heard him introduce them to those women. Guess what he said?’

‘What?’

‘“Meet my kids”.’

I stared at her, then turned back to look at Buddy and Darlene and Greg.

He was their dad.

‘It must have been him,’ Frankie whispered. ‘The man in the crow mask. It was Greg.’





Chapter 30


Greg hadn’t seen us staring at him. He was too busy chatting with Vivian and the other woman. Instinctively, I took a step towards him, but Frankie caught my arm.

‘Dad,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know we know.’

I stopped. She was right. He was surrounded by people. If I marched up to him and accused him of creeping around the woods wearing a mask, of being involved in a rock-throwing attack on my daughter, he would act like I was crazy. It would sound crazy.

‘I always thought there was something weird about him,’ Frankie said. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

I thought about what Frankie had seen, twice now. The crow, the goat and the fox. I had thought that perhaps the crow was Everett, but Greg – who hadn’t been missing for two decades – was a far more likely candidate. What exactly were they up to? Was Greg involved in the teenagers’ revenge plot against Frankie and Ryan? Was that what this was all about? Greg joining his children in taking vengeance against two kids who had bad-mouthed his hometown on social media?

It made little sense. I could understand a pair of teenagers doing that. But a grown man? One who was the manager of the local resort? Surely not.

There had to be something else going on.

Something connected to the murders?

I thought about the symbols painted in Eric Daniels’ blood. The pagan symbols. Were Greg and his family pagans? Were the masks part of some sort of weird ritual?

Had Greg been involved in the murder of those teachers?

‘Dad,’ Frankie said. ‘We should go. Let’s take Ryan with us, go to the police.’

For a moment I was confused, still lost in my thoughts. Tell them we think Greg might have been involved in a murder committed twenty years ago? No, she meant the threats, the rock-throwing, the dead rabbit, the break-in that had killed Donna.

‘Wait,’ I said. I needed to think.

However crazy it seemed, there was something big here. Much bigger than what we knew Buddy and Darlene had done. I was sure of it. Before, I had intended to tell the police about what had happened with the teens, then leave and let them get on with it. But now . . . I felt like I was close to something. A revelation about this place and its twisted history.

‘Dad,’ Frankie prompted again. Greg was still chatting with Vivian. He seemed cheery and less sweaty than usual. Buddy and Darlene stood, sullen and bored, beside him.

What would the police say if I went to them with my new suspicions?

Greg was the manager here. That made him a respected member of the community. He could easily say that I was imagining everything or making it up. There was absolutely no evidence that Donna hadn’t misplaced that bottle of pills herself. And without Ryan’s photos, we had no proof that the masked figures existed.

Did we have anything? Any proof of wrongdoing at all? All we had were the Instagram messages, which could be retrieved by logging in to Frankie’s Instagram account on any phone. They had been sent from anonymous accounts, but at least it was evidence of something. It might be enough to make the police talk to us.

‘Do you remember the Wi-Fi password?’ I said.

Frankie nodded. ‘Hollow321. Capital H.’

It was the kind of weak password I would come up with. ‘Great. Show me where you got a signal.’

It wasn’t far; just on the other side of the reception building. We hid beside the dumpsters and I typed in the password. My phone didn’t have much charge and it took a while to connect to the signal, but soon I was on.

I downloaded Instagram, which took far longer than it should have because of the poor broadband connection, then handed my phone to Frankie so she could log in. She fumbled the password then tried again, successfully.

‘Oh, what?’ she said.

She handed me the phone.

‘They’ve all been deleted.’

‘You’re kidding.’

But she was right. Her inbox was empty.

‘They must have found my phone when I dropped it, and unlocked it.’

‘Is your passcode easy to guess?’ I asked.

She frowned. ‘It’s my date of birth.’