It was just before seven in the morning when Lexi jumped into Maggie’s car, and after a passionate farewell, she followed Nate through the darkness to cross the causeway. He had no choice but to go back to work, to finish his contract, and she was insistent that she wanted to reach the inn with enough time to see Isla for herself, to collect her and to get back across the causeway before the tide came back in. It was a plan she and Nate had come up with, knowing that with Maggie still being in hospital, Becca might need to go back and, hopefully, would get to bring Maggie home.
Pulling into the car park beside Nate, she felt herself blush as he jumped out of his car and pulled her into a hold. ‘I’ll be back at the weekend, OK? First thing Saturday.’ He repeatedly pressed his lips against hers, smiled, then eagerly looked over her shoulder and towards the hotel. ‘Did you say that this Becca took your car?’
‘Yes, she…’ Lexi scanned the car park. ‘I thought it’d be easier, because of Isla’s seat.’
‘Right…’ Looking concerned, Nate began to stride up and down the cars, checked each one, shook his head. ‘But it isn’t here.’
‘What do you mean it isn’t here?’ Lexi began to panic, paced up and down the car park behind him. ‘She… she has to be here. Harry booked the room. He told me they were staying here last night. I… I trusted they would be.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And it’s only just seven o’clock, there’s no way Isla would be up yet, not unless…’ She paused. Every scenario flooded her mind. She felt a surge of acid rise and fall in her throat as she considered what was happening. Isla wasn’t where she’d thought, she was with a woman she barely knew, and immediately she grabbed at her phone, rang Becca’s number, waited for the response that didn’t come and screamed out loud as she heard the voicemail kick in. ‘Why… why isn’t she answering?’ Feeling the panic drive through her, she tried to think logically. Tried to come up with any excuse rather than the one that dominated her thoughts. That the killer could have found them, killed them both, left their bodies out there in the weather, waiting to be found. It was a thought she couldn’t bear. She felt the strength leave her legs and with a determined effort she went back to Maggie’s car, leaned against it, tried to come up with another answer, another reason why Isla wasn’t here. There had to be a simple explanation. Another reason why they’d left the room early; maybe they’d had a call from the hospital, gone back to see Maggie. Feeling a sense of relief, she nodded. Thought lovingly of Maggie, one of the only other women she trusted with her daughter. ‘That’s what it will be. They’ll have gone back to the hospital. I bet Maggie was demanding to come home. That’s why Becca isn’t answering the phone.’
Raking his hand through his hair, Nate anxiously pulled his phone from his pocket, checked the time and bit down on his lip. ‘Are you sure? ’Cause if not, I’ll give the lads a quick call. Tell them I can’t get back to the site.’ He sighed, stared at the phone. ‘As you say, Isla comes first.’
Shaking her head, she took his hands in hers. ‘I’ll find her.’
He moved uneasily around the car park, constantly looking, checking, pursing his lips thoughtfully. ‘She can’t be far away, can she?’
Lexi took in a deep breath, gave him her most confident smile. ‘Seriously, go to work. Finish the contract, come back Saturday and we’ll spend the weekend, all of us together.’ She reached up, kissed him firmly on the lips. Tried to hide the fear, the worry, the deep-seated sickness she felt as she said the words. ‘Nate, there has to be a perfectly good explanation. No one disappears with a noisy two-year-old, do they?’ She did her best to sound positive, fell into his arms. Held him close. ‘So, why don’t you get off. And as soon as I see her and we’re back on the island, I’ll phone you and get her to FaceTime you. How about that?’ She paused, gave him a half-smile. ‘You do know how to FaceTime, don’t you?’
Letting him go was something Lexi soon regretted as she cast her eye around the bar of the Lindisfarne Inn, stared at the numerous residents who all sat, eagerly tucking into their breakfast, and as she’d feared, none of them were Becca or Isla.
‘As I said, Miss, er… Jakes. She didn’t check in.’ The receptionist sat back in her chair, and annoyingly tapped a pen against her teeth. ‘I’ve got her down as a no-show.’
Quizzically, Lexi took a step back, felt her legs weaken as once again she searched the dining tables in the hope that Becca would appear or that Isla would jump up energetically, run into her arms and plant her distinctive fairy kisses all over her face.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ The woman swivelled in her chair, turned to her computer screen, began drumming her fingers on the desk, as though tapping them would solve the problem sooner. Scrolling through a spreadsheet, she lifted her eyebrows, then sat back in her chair, waiting.
‘Actually. Yes… yes, there is something you can check.’ Lexi held a finger in the air, laughed as a thought came to mind. ‘The room. It was booked under a different name. My friend, Harry Miller. He booked the room, and he paid for it.’ She stepped forward enthusiastically, leaned over reception so far her feet lost contact with the floor in the hope that she’d be able to read the screen for herself. ‘Is it there? Can you see it?’
‘Yes, I see it. I have the booking, as you say it was booked by a Mr Miller. It was room number eleven; he asked for a ground-floor room because of the child.’ She paused, looked up. ‘And as I’ve said before, the room is empty. The keys were never collected. Your friends, they didn’t turn up.’
Feeling her stomach turn, Lexi took a step back, felt the floor move beneath her feet. Falling out of the reception, she stumbled awkwardly. Pushed the door open, and almost slipped down the rain-soaked step. Holding tightly to the wooden banister, she glanced across to the other side of the car park, scanned the rooms. ‘Room eleven. She said room eleven… she has to be there.’ Running across the tarmac, she banged on the door. ‘Isla, Isla, it’s Mummy. Isla…’ She held her breath, listened for any sound that might indicate that her daughter was inside, waited for a split second, then banged again. ‘Isla, where are you? Becca, open the damned door.’ Spinning around, she once again began to search the car park, looked at each car in turn, hoped her car, the car that Becca had taken, would miraculously appear and, without warning, her mind spun violently around her; she felt her breakfast lurch in her stomach and with no other option, she ran to the bushes and expelled the food.
Leaning against Maggie’s four-by-four, Lexi rummaged around in her bag. It was full of all the usual things a mother would carry, including a packet of baby wipes, which she tugged from the pack and wiped her mouth with. Then, with shaking hands, she pulled open the car door, sat down and searched in her bag for her mobile.
‘You heard what I said, Harry. Your goddamned girlfriend, she isn’t here.’ With the phone held to her ear and her mind racing, Lexi paced up and down the car park, kept checking cars, checking number plates, felt sure she’d somehow missed the car. ‘And if she isn’t here, I want to know where the hell she is. I’ve tried phoning her, repeatedly. Damn call keeps going to her voicemail.’ Again, she spun on the spot. Closed her eyes to see images of Isla’s face, her cheeky smile, the red silk scarf. ‘Oh my God, Harry, what if…’ She couldn’t say the words, couldn’t even consider the thought. Tried to understand why she’d phoned Harry rather than Nate. ‘And don’t tell me to calm down; my daughter is missing. She’s with Becca. She’s supposed to be at the hotel, and she isn’t and right now, I… I want to know where the hell she is.’ She growled the words, kicked out at the kerb as she turned in the seat of Maggie’s car and started the engine.
Turning left out of the car park, and towards the A1, she missed a junction she’d crossed a million times before and cursed as a wagon shot across her path, and the near miss made her hit the brakes, take a breath and study the road ahead.
‘No, Harry, I’m sure she didn’t drive past me. It was dark, but there was barely anyone on the causeway and I think I’d have known my own damned car, wouldn’t I?’ She paused, kept her eyes on the road. Felt the pressure build up inside her; it was like a pressure cooker about to explode, a volcanic reaction that wouldn’t go away, not until she had her daughter back in her arms. ‘The only thing I can think of is that she could have gone back to the hospital. But that could mean Maggie took a turn for the worse?’ Again, the bile rose and fell. ‘What if…’ A sudden thought crossed her mind, and she knew that the only reason doctors would have called her back was if Maggie was in danger, if she were about to lose her life. ‘Oh, Harry…’ A deathly image flashed before her eyes.
‘Lexi, please. Don’t even think it. Now, think carefully. We need to phone the hospital. Which hospital did they take her to?’
In panic, Lexi searched her memory. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask… I was so worried about Isla and her being stuck at the wrong side of the tide. I didn’t ask where they’d gone.’ She paused, screwed her eyes up tightly together. Revving the car, Lexi lifted a hand, tapped her palm repeatedly against her forehead. ‘I’m so stupid.’
‘Don’t torture yourself, Lex. You’re not stupid…’ Harry whispered thoughtfully. ‘You’re a good person, a good mum.’
Good or not, she felt like a failure. Maggie had been the one person who’d been there for most of her life. She’d been a parent, a mentor, a friend. She’d been the one to hold her, care for her when there was no one else to do it and, what was more, she’d even taken her in as an adult, along with her daughter, her kitten and her newly acquired fiancé. And now, now she was sick, and Lexi hadn’t even asked which hospital they’d gone to.
‘Berwick… or… or Cramlington maybe, I’d say either would have been a possibility?’ Harry questioned. ‘Try and remember, did Becca mention either?’
Trying to think, Lexi stared up at the sky, at the clouds that had begun to form in shades of grey and roll towards the island, with the promise of a storm coming with them. ‘I don’t know.’ She considered her options, looked left, then right, tried to think back to the conversation they’d had. ‘Come on, Harry, you need to help me out here, I’m at the junction of the A1 and I don’t know which way to go.’ Waiting for the answer that didn’t immediately come, Lexi could taste the silence. It was deafening, lasted for what felt like hours and in the end Lexi screamed into the phone. ‘Harry, for God’s sake, say something, anything…’
‘I’ll try and phone her. See if she answers,’ he said sulkily. ‘She normally does. Seems a bit odd that she didn’t, so as you say she’s probably inside the hospital. Maybe she had to turn her phone off.’ Again, he went quiet. ‘Why don’t I come across to the mainland. Before the causeway closes. You could go to one hospital. I could go to the other.’
‘Harry… yes, anything… I just need you to do something.’
Again, the phone went silent. The only thing she could hear was his breathing, the slow, rhythmic sound that filled the phone, played with her senses. ‘I wanted to do something last night, Lex. I wanted to kiss you, to love you. To show you how I’ve always felt about you.’ There was the sound of a door slamming. An engine revved. ‘Lex, I know you ran from the island a few years ago because you didn’t think I’d commit. But it’s different now, I’m older, wiser, I know how I feel about you. Yet, last night, I had to stand there and watch you run after him, all the time knowing you’d go back to Maggie’s, to spend the night with him, to make love to him…’ He paused. ‘Do you know how that made me feel, Lex? Do you have any idea?’
‘Harry, please. It’s really not the time for big announcements, is it?’
His voice went distant; the car’s Bluetooth took over as he put his call to hands-free. ‘It’s hardly an announcement; you must know how I feel about you and if you don’t, ask yourself this. Why did you phone me, Lex, and not Nate?’
Hearing the blast of a horn behind her, Lexi jumped forward. Pulled Maggie’s car onto the A1, headed towards Berwick. Tried to comprehend Harry’s words, the way she’d run out the night before, left him behind without a second thought. ‘Harry, you know I’d have never purposely hurt you.’ She took in a breath, tried to calm the erratic booming that erupted from her chest. ‘But you have to let this go, Harry. Nate, he’s good to me, and last night…’ She paused, didn’t know whether or not to continue, but knew she’d have to tell him at some point. ‘He asked me to marry him, Harry, and I said yes.’ Again, she paused, fixed her jaw. ‘But do you know what? None of that matters. Not you, not me, not Nate. Right now, I need to find my daughter. Because, right now, she’s the only thing I care about.’ She took a breath, knew she was being cruel, but couldn’t think of anything but Isla. ‘And I phoned you first because I thought you cared. I thought you’d help me because I need to know she’s safe. And if you cared about either of us, you’d want to know she were safe too.’
‘Is that so?’ Harry yelled, making her hit the brakes and swerve the car as rapid images flashed through her mind. All she could see were red scarves, chess pieces and her father’s dark, sunken eyes.
‘Harry. Please. I’m sorry you’re hurt but I’m so scared. Someone killed my mother. They crept up behind her and strangled her with a scarf. They came to my house, made sure I knew they were out there, that they were close. They knew where I lived. And now… now Becca has disappeared, and she’s taken Isla with her and so help me God, Harry. If I don’t find her… or if something happened to Isla, it’ll kill me too.’