Rachel Bennett - Little Girls Tell Tales

‘How do you find those leads?’

‘Oh, y’know. Everywhere. Newspapers, websites, gossip, urban legends. I know where to look, and I’ve got friends online who’ll notify me if something new pops up. Like they did with your story about the curraghs.’ She favoured me with a smile. ‘It appeared on the forum about six months ago. I’m a regular on that board so I noticed it pretty quickly. As soon as I did, I thought, this could be it .’

I paused to catch my breath. The steady pace helped me avoid getting winded. Even so, my calf muscles ached from the unaccustomed exercise. Cora kept walking.

‘So, did you have to get time off work to come here?’ I asked as I started moving again.

‘Sort of,’ Cora said. She’d unfolded the map from her pocket and held it flat in front of her with the compass laid on top as she walked. ‘I work for a charity. They know my situation and they give me a lot of leeway.’

‘That’s good of them.’ I wondered whether she looked forward to a time when she could return to work without this search weighing on her mind. I thought about my own job.

‘They employ a lot of people who – who’re like me,’ Cora said. ‘Not my exact circumstances, obviously, but similar difficulties. Believe me, a lot of them are far higher maintenance than I am.’

‘What about Dallin?’ He was far enough behind me that I didn’t think he’d overhear. ‘Did he have trouble getting time off from work?’

‘Not as far as I know. He hasn’t mentioned anything.’

‘You guys must be good friends. Not everyone would drop everything to help a person out. Especially if it involved travelling across the country and wading around a marsh.’ I was fishing for information. I couldn’t help it.

Cora smiled. ‘We only met for the first time a few weeks ago. There was no way I would’ve asked him to do this. I was already booked on the ferry and ready to go. Then he announced he was coming with me. He said I could use his help when we got here, to find my way around and know who to talk to, stuff like that. Plus I think he wanted to see you.’

I stopped myself from making a nasty comment. There’d been more than enough opportunities for Dallin to come home. ‘What about your family?’ I asked instead. ‘Didn’t any of them want to come with you?’

‘I haven’t told them I’m here.’

‘You haven’t?’

Cora kept walking. It was difficult to be sure what she was thinking, since her eyes were alternating between watching the ground and checking her map and compass. ‘Simone kinda broke our family when she left,’ she said. ‘There were a whole bunch of arguments and fallings out, and half of us still aren’t talking to the other half.’ She brushed another tree trunk with her fingertips. ‘You know what families are like. Anyway, the upshot is, I don’t have a lot of people I can fall back on in times of need. The last time I told my parents I was going on one of these expeditions, it caused a huge argument. Mum thinks I’m wasting my time. Dad thinks I’m deliberately dredging up the past to cause fights. So, I’ve stopped telling them where I’m going.’

‘I would’ve thought they’d be keen to find out what happened to Simone.’

Another faint smile. ‘I would’ve thought so too.’

I wondered about Dallin. Possibly he was here because he’d genuinely wanted to help Cora. Helping out a friend, I could understand that. Helping a friend he’d only met a short while ago, on what was probably a wild goose chase that would take him away from home for a whole week? That didn’t sound like something Dallin would do on a whim.

They’re definitely more than just friends, I thought.

‘What about you?’ Cora asked, changing the subject. ‘What’re your family like?’

‘I don’t have very many people. My dad died when I was twenty.’ I skipped over what exactly had happened to him. I also skipped over Beth. I couldn’t face raising either subject right then. ‘So it’s just my dear brother Dallin, and our mum.’

Cora looked surprised. ‘His mum lives over here?’

‘In Ramsey. She’s got one of those new-build flats. It’s quite nice, but I know she misses her garden. She used to own the farmhouse where I live. Still does, technically.’

Cora’s brows knitted together. ‘Dallin didn’t say anything about her. He made it sound like you were the only family he’s got.’

I glanced over my shoulder, to where Dallin was plodding along some distance behind us, with his sullen gaze firmly on the ground. ‘Why would he say that?’ I wondered aloud.

‘We’ve only known each other a short while,’ Cora suggested. ‘He’s under no obligation to overshare with me.’

‘Hmm.’ I didn’t particularly want to speculate. It upset me that Dallin hadn’t mentioned Mum. Had they fallen out? On the rare occasions when Dallin’s name came up, Mum always sounded wistful, as she said how she wished he would get in contact more often.

I recalled my conversation with Dallin on the doorstep last night. It’d sounded like he didn’t intend to tell our mother he was on the island at all. The callous nature of that made something hot bubble inside my chest.

When was the last time you felt angry about anything? The thought surprised me. But it was true. There’d been plenty of anger – impotent, directionless, hopeless anger – throughout Beth’s illness, but in recent months a kind of dull funk had settled over my life. I didn’t feel angry or inconsolable anymore. In fact, I pretty much felt nothing. The tablets my doctor had prescribed probably contributed, smoothing out my emotions so I no longer had to deal with the horrific lows and occasional, sickening highs that’d plagued my life after Beth died.

So, I could look at this sudden bubble of anger towards Dallin with a strangely clinical detachment. The anger was brief and unformed and not even particularly strong – it faded almost as soon as it appeared. But it was something I hadn’t felt for a long time, and that was interesting.

A little further on, we reached the east edge of the curraghs. Cora made us walk ten paces south, then turn west to walk back to the road.

‘We just walked this section,’ Dallin complained. ‘There’s nothing here but mud.’

‘That’s how the plan goes,’ Cora said. ‘We cover each square metre. So far we’ve done this bit.’ She showed him on the map. ‘Now we’re doing this bit. If you want to make things smoother, walk next to one of us, not right at the back. That way we’ll cut down on the chances of missing something. Or, even better, go back in time three weeks to when we were discussing this exact point and put forward your arguments then.’

Dallin shifted the straps of his backpack. ‘Seems like we’re wasting a lot of time going over the same ground, that’s all.’

‘If it bothers you that much, I will happily put the maps into your hands.’ Cora presented the map to Dallin with a flourish, then hastily snatched it back. ‘Actually, no, that’s a lie, these are my maps and I love them. If it bothers you that much, you can go buy your own map and plot your own course.’

I looked out over the fields. There were clumps of bog myrtle growing here, and the air was perfumed with its distinctive smell. It made me think of Beth, who’d often brought home sprigs of the pungent leaves, insisting it would keep midges away in the evenings when she sat out in the garden.

Usually, I would’ve avoided dwelling on the memory. There were so many things that reminded me of Beth. Everything I did or said would contain some echo of another time. I’d learned not to focus too long on each memory as it surfaced, because they all had sharp edges, even the happy ones. Especially the happy ones.