26th November 2019
Night
As we drove back, the rain pounding against the windscreen was so loud Michael and I didn’t speak. Just before we entered the village, I could see blue lights ahead, their unmistakable hue cutting through the rain that hung like heavy mist in the night air. I was expecting Michael to stop as we approached the three police cars and ambulance which were parked in the entrance of the cemetery, but he didn’t. He slowed, looked at the commotion, just like anyone would, and continued.
‘Michael? Why?’
‘It won’t do us any good to stop.’
He was right – if we started to snoop around, the gossip would no doubt cast us in an unfavourable light. And we needed time to think, time to work out what we were going to do before the police started to look to us for answers we couldn’t give. As the cemetery disappeared behind us, we drew level with Chloe’s house. There was no light, no movement. But still, I couldn’t help but think Brenda was there watching.
‘Where are the others?’ he asked. I unlocked my phone and went to the group chat and posted the question. They were waiting for us, waiting to work out a good place to meet. Baz suggested we met at Holly’s, but she was adamant she didn’t want that kind of energy around her kids.
She was right, we didn’t.
This place. This fucking place.
Both Holly and I agreed.
‘Well, where are they?’ Michael asked impatiently, his eyes focused on the road ahead.
‘They’re going to the hut.’
He nodded, as if he knew that would be where we ended up. We passed the pub and turned right onto a residential road a few hundred yards from the lane that led towards it. Then, grabbing an umbrella from his boot, we walked onto the main road, turned right, and right again down the lane, making sure no one saw us.
Once inside the hut we used our phones to light the space and waited. There were a million thoughts going on in my head, and with it, a thousand more questions, but I didn’t speak, and neither did he. I watched him, his gaze barely lifting from the floor, completely lost in his thoughts. He must have felt my eyes on him as he finally flicked a glance at me. I saw a heaviness there, the same heaviness I felt.
Holly arrived first, calling out before she entered so we weren’t spooked, and shortly after that, Baz crawled through the hatch, his face pained, struggling to not crack and spill whatever he was thinking. And that was it. Just four of us.
‘Tell us what you know?’ Michael said to Baz, who slumped onto the coffee table. He didn’t respond. Instead he cradled his head in his hands, fighting a war inside his own head. ‘Baz!’
Baz snapped to attention, his expression confused – he was so deep in his own thoughts he hadn’t registered Michael’s question. ‘Tell us what you know.’
‘Where did you find it?’ Holly asked, and I couldn’t help noting how ‘it’ sounded so impersonal.
‘I went to Chloe’s grave. Earlier.’
‘Why?’ Holly questioned.
‘This whole thing about Jamie’s top and then Georgia… I thought about Chloe, and I realised I’d not been in so long. When I got there, it was on her gravestone.’
‘Shit!’ Holly whispered.
‘Fuck,’ Michael agreed. I didn’t say anything, but stood with my mouth agape, trying to understand exactly what this meant.
‘Baz, what do we do?’ Holly asked, her question greeted by silence. ‘What does this mean?’ she said, trying to force a conversation, a dialogue, a solution.
‘Neve,’ Baz said quietly. ‘Can I ask you again, how sure are you that you saw the Drifter?’
I had asked myself the same question. And now I knew a definitive answer. ‘Now, one hundred per cent.’
He nodded gravely.
‘Baz, what are you thinking?’ asked Holly, sounding startled by panic.
‘First Jamie, and now Georgia. He’s real, he’s back, and he’s picking us off one by one – and we all know why, don’t we?’
‘It can’t be…?’ said Holly, who hadn’t managed to catch up.
‘Holly,’ I started quietly, touching her arm, ‘he was there that night. He was there when Chloe went missing.’
Holly looked at me, shock and realisation setting in. She turned to Baz for reassurance, but he only exhaled loudly, his head back in the comfort of his hands once more. Next she snapped to Michael – I could almost hear her begging for us to be wrong – and Michael simply nodded towards her.
There could be no denying it now, no confusing what I had seen with something conjured from the back of my mind. The Drifter was back, and he was coming for us one by one.