The Survivors(83)

Chapter 29


Kieran opened his eyes in the night to find Mia already awake, her face lit up by her phone. They lay side by side and went through Bronte’s photos together, slowly examining each one. The beach, the shops, the seaweed, Liam, themselves. Each time they reached the end of the gallery, they scrolled back to the start and went through again. The process didn’t take long, there were only fifteen shots.

‘This can’t be all of them,’ Mia whispered at last. ‘They’re so … mundane.’

Kieran shook his head against the pillow. He’d been thinking the same thing. Mia stared into her phone, then clicked a button and the screen went blank.

‘I don’t like it that we’re in there,’ she said into the darkness.

She finally fell back into an uneasy sleep but Kieran lay awake for hours, closing his eyes at last only to be woken what felt like moments later by Audrey.

Ash had simply walked out of the Surf and Turf the night before without saying goodbye. He had stood apart while the rest of them pored over their screens, and the next time Kieran looked up he had gone. Olivia had tried calling, and eventually her phone had beeped with a text.

‘He’s at home.’ She reached for her bag and was gone, the door slamming behind her. Through the window, Kieran saw her turn in the direction of Ash’s place. Sean had barely said anything, other than to ask once more that they not show Renn the photos. Kieran and Mia had agreed, mainly because Kieran felt sure it made no difference either way. They had sat there for a bit longer, all glued to their phones, until eventually Sean had looked up, his face heavy.

‘You guys go, if you want to. I’m just going to sit here for a while.’

Their offers to stay had been turned down until it had become awkward, and at last they’d left him sitting alone with his thoughts in the near-empty Surf and Turf.

The morning had dawned with a flat blue sky and Mia was yawning as Kieran settled a fractious Audrey into the pram. Brian sat in his chair and watched them put their shoes on. Kieran could hear Verity tackling the remaining boxes in the kitchen.

‘Still nothing from Ash?’ Mia said, and Kieran checked his phone. He shook his head. He’d left a few messages. All had gone unanswered and Mia eventually texted Olivia.

‘Okay, she says Ash let her in last night, but didn’t come to bed,’ Mia said, reading the reply as they stepped outside. ‘When she woke up this morning, he’d slept on the couch and had already gone out.’

‘To work?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Right,’ Kieran said, starting down the road now. He stopped as he realised Mia wasn’t following. She was looking the other way, shading her eyes.

‘Let’s go the beach way,’ she said.

‘We’ve got the pram.’

‘We’ll carry her down then. Just a little way.’

‘Why?’ It would be the first time Mia had set foot properly on the sand since Saturday night, as far as he was aware.

‘I don’t know, really. I want to see the spot where Bronte took our photo. And the others.’

‘I’m pretty sure the cops have already done this,’ he said, nodding at the phone in her hand. ‘Traced her movements, or whatever. That’s got to be why Pendlebury was looking at The Survivors the other day, hasn’t it?’

‘Still.’ Mia shrugged. ‘Do you mind?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure there’ll be anything to see that we haven’t seen before.’

He was right, at least about the beach. They identified as accurately as they could where they had first seen Bronte, beachcombing and crouching in the surf to look at seaweed. Now there was nothing at all to distinguish that spot from the long stretch of sand on either side. Further along, though, above the tideline outside Fisherman’s Cottage, Kieran could still make out a shimmer as the wind ran through the plastic-wrapped bouquets. Mia stood near the surf, holding her hair in a fist as she followed his gaze.

‘Let’s go back to the road,’ was all she said.

Kieran couldn’t see the Nautilus Blue in dock as they neared the marina. On the off-chance, he knocked at the door of Ash’s and Sean’s beach house, but it was clear no-one was home.

‘Hopefully he’s at work at the cemetery or somewhere, licking his wounds,’ Mia said, but she was frowning.

‘Probably,’ Kieran said. ‘Knowing Ash.’

Although, really knowing Ash, Kieran thought, it was unlike him not to bounce straight back from something.

They walked on, past Lyn having a cigarette beside the delivery entrance of the Surf and Turf. Mia slowed a little further along, as they compared their position with the angle on Bronte’s photo of the streetscape.

‘Maybe this is stupid,’ Mia said as she found herself edging up against the dusty window of the newsagency to get the right line of sight.

‘Maybe.’ Kieran nodded up the street towards the residential end. ‘But at least we’re in good company.’

Pendlebury was leaning against a low wall, her computer tablet out again. She had been squinting from the screen to a sandstone cottage, but was now watching Mia hold her own phone out. They all looked at each other, then Pendlebury raised a hand and beckoned. A polite order, rather than an invitation.