Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(49)

‘If someone has eaten them, just say.’

Beth could feel the weight of their collective gaze. She dropped her eyes and stared at the ground.

‘All right.’ Jill shook her head and turned to Alice. ‘Go and see if you can find a signal.’

Alice went, nothing to say for once. She had gone from shocked to defensive then back again, poring over the map and tapping the face of the compass. They had been walking west, she was sure of it. Her protestations had been greeted mostly with a stunned silence. It was hard to argue with the setting sun.

The group watched her walk off, her phone clutched in her hand. Jill opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but couldn’t think what. She kicked the tent bags with the toe of her boot. ‘See if you can work something out with these,’ she said to Lauren, then turned and followed Alice.

Beth listened as Lauren suggested ways to use the guy ropes to stretch the tent canvasses between the trees, forming a makeshift roof. Lauren tried to demonstrate, pulling the ropes one-handed as she pressed the peeling plaster against her forehead, but eventually had to give up. She stood back, her hairline a matted, bloodied mess in the torchlight as she pointed Beth and Bree to one trunk then another. Beth’s fingers grew stiff in the night air. It would have been a hard task even in daylight and she was glad for her heavy torch with the powerful beam.

At last, they were finished. The canvasses stretched between the trees, already sagging a little in the middle. It wasn’t raining, yet, but Beth thought she could feel a storm in the air. That test was still to come.

At various spots along the darkened path, Beth could see Alice appear and disappear. She stood in a blue halo of artificial light and turned in circles and reached to the sky, like a desperate dance.

Beth pulled her sleeping bag out of her pack, sighing at the damp patch at the foot end. She tried to work out the most sheltered spot but it seemed pointless. All options were crap. She lay the sleeping bag out under the nearest canvas, then stood and watched her sister mess around, debating where to lay her own bag. Normally Bree would have wanted to be as close to Alice as possible. It was interesting, Beth thought to herself, how fast the wheel could turn.

Nearby, Lauren was sitting on her pack, fiddling with the compass.

‘Is it broken?’ Beth said.

There was no reply at first, then a sigh. ‘I don’t think so. But you have to use it properly for it to work. Everyone naturally veers off course over distances. I knew Alice wasn’t checking it enough.’

Beth wrapped her arms around herself, bouncing up and down on her heels a little. She was shivering.

‘Should we try to start a fire? My lighter has dried out.’

Lauren looked over in the dark. The fresh plaster on her forehead was already coming loose. There was only one more in the first aid kit, Beth knew.

‘We’re not supposed to out here.’

‘Would anyone know?’

‘We would know if it got out of control.’

‘In this weather?’

She saw the shadow of Lauren’s shoulders shrug. ‘Beth, it’s above my pay grade to make decisions like that. Ask Jill.’

Beth could just make out Jill in the pinprick glow of Alice’s phone. They had gone a fair way searching for a signal. That didn’t bode well.

She popped a cigarette in her mouth and wandered away from the shelter. The tiny flame flicked up from the lighter, destroying her night vision, but she didn’t care. The familiar taste flooded her mouth as she inhaled, and for the first time in hours she felt like she could breathe properly.

Beth stood and smoked, warming her lungs, her eyes and ears slowly attuning to the night as she stared out into the bush. Beyond the grey trunks of the nearest gum trees, the darkness was absolute. She could see nothing, then felt a prickle as she realised the same would not be true the other way round. The glow from her cigarette would be obvious at the very least, and torches lit up the camp behind her. Anything out there would be able to see her as clear as day. She jumped as she heard something crack far away in the blackness. Don’t be stupid. It was an animal. Something nocturnal. And harmless. A possum, probably.

Nevertheless, she sucked in the last of her cigarette and turned back to camp. As she did, three heads looked towards her. Jill, Alice and Lauren. She could see no sign of Bree. The trio was huddled together, holding something between them. For a minute Beth thought it was the compass, but as she walked closer she realised it was not. It was a cheese sandwich covered in plastic wrap. Jill had an apple in her hand.

‘Where did you find them? Are they from lunch?’ Beth said. The rumble from her stomach was audible.

‘They were with the backpacks,’ Jill said.

‘Whose backpack?’ Beth looked at the pile. The bags lay in disarray, spewing belongings from when they had pooled their resources in the growing dark. She saw their faces and realisation dawned slow and cold. ‘Well, it wasn’t mine.’

There was no reply.

‘It wasn’t. I ate my lunch. You saw me.’

‘We didn’t,’ Alice said. ‘You were up the path having a cigarette.’

Beth stared at her in the dark. ‘Trying to put me in the doghouse won’t get you out of it, you know.’

‘Both of you, stop it,’ Jill snapped. ‘Beth, if you didn’t eat your lunch, it is technically still your lunch. But we did say we’d all pool what we had –’