Jessie – 5.53 a.m.
I remember why I came here now. I was trying to find Chloe. I had the app on my phone and I followed her signal, and it led me right here, to Cooper’s Wood, to the well.
What if Oscar’s hurt her, or worse? Killed her. Left her body in the woods, like he did Evan’s?
‘You have to tell the police. They have to find her,’ I tell Fiona.
‘Jessica, please try not to worry,’ she says, in that oh-so-measured way of hers. ‘I’ll let them know and they can … officers to Chloe’s address … she’s OK.’
I know keeping calm is what Fiona does, but shouldn’t she be at least a little bit more concerned that a young girl’s life might be at risk here? And from the possible killer of Evan Cullen?
‘You must tell them to hurry,’ I say. ‘Oscar’s dangerous. I think he might have been the one to put me down here. If he thought I was getting close to the truth, he might have done something to Chloe, then decided he needed to get rid of me too.’
It makes perfect sense. He lured me here, just like he did Evan. Only instead of pretending to be somebody else on the internet, he used Chloe’s phone.
‘Jessica, slow down. You’re … tired, confused …’
‘I am not confused. Why aren’t you listening to me?’
‘Jessica …’ The signal drops, Fiona’s voice reduced to a series of broken syllables, ‘… hard … you … Evan …’
‘Fiona?’
‘… the cold … you mustn’t … Focus on remembering … truth … to you, wants to hear.’
I can’t hear a bloody thing.
I check the phone’s screen, see the single bar of signal flickering on and off in the top right corner. Not this again. I know it’s a miracle that I have any sort of signal down here at all, but seeing as I do, why does it have to fail on me when I need it most?
I hold the phone up as high as I can and wave it back and forth, as if I can pluck some extra signal from the air.
I call out. ‘Fiona? Can you hear me?’
‘… essica?… can hear you, is … OK?’
A little better. I pull the phone down, and as I do, it beeps twice. I check the screen, see a notification slide in from the top, and my heart leaps.
‘Jessica, are you there?’
‘I’ve got a voicemail, from Martin,’ I tell her, thrilled to receive some contact from the outside world.
He must be going out of his mind, sitting there with the police, waiting for news of my rescue. He’s probably been trying to call me for ages.
‘… good for you,’ Fiona says. ‘I’m sure you can’t wait to hear … but it would be better to wait until we’ve got you out of there, then you’ll be able to speak to him properly.’
‘I want to listen to it now.’ I have to listen to it now. I need to hear his voice.
‘Jessica, we’ve talked about this … must stay on the call. We can’t afford to lose …’
‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘I can put you on hold …’ At least I think I can.
I bring up the phone’s keypad, and sure enough there’s a button that says Add Call. If I click on that, I can call my voicemail and keep Fiona on the line. That should work, shouldn’t it? I know it’s a risk, but it’s one I’m prepared to take to hear my husband’s voice for what could be the final time.
‘Jessica, don’t—’
‘I’ll be back,’ I tell her. I hit the Add Call button to put her on hold, then press 1 to dial my voicemail and a voice tells me I have a new message from four twenty-six this morning.
Do I want to play it now? Damn right, I do.
I press 1 again and Martin’s voice, breathless and a little stressed sounding, comes over the speaker, and what he tell me leaves me reeling. He’s driving to Westhaven because Dad didn’t bring Freya’s medication in from the car when I asked him to – no doubt he was distracted by the sight of Connor on his doorstep – but I mustn’t worry because he has her spare inhalers with him. He should be with her soon. He signs off: ‘Hope you’re OK. Call me as soon as you can and … I suppose I’ll see you when you get back. Love you, honey.’
Relief at hearing his voice is cancelled out by the news that Freya is without her medication. I remember now; she told me she’d taken her inhaler when I was putting her to bed, but she can’t have. I should have checked, should have made sure they were by her bedside table like I usually do …
And then it hits me.
I check the time on the phone’s screen. Martin left the voicemail an hour and a half ago, by which time he was already on the way to Westhaven. But Fiona told me the police carried out welfare checks on Freya and him, that they visited both Dad’s place, and our home in London. But Martin isn’t at home. He can’t be sitting with a police officer, nervously waiting for news of my rescue, because he’s on the road, and has been for hours. I suppose the police could have called him while he was driving, told him what’s happened over the phone – but that’s not what Fiona said. She was quite clear. She told me everything was fine, that Martin and Freya and Dad were all OK, which isn’t true either seeing as Freya is without her medication.
She’s lying to me. Why would she do that?
The voicemail hangs up, and as I try to make sense of what I’ve just heard, I hear Fiona’s voice, clear and unbroken. ‘Jessica? Are you still there? Is everything OK?’
‘Yes. I’m still here,’ I say, in a daze.
‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘I hope hearing your husband’s voice has helped you to feel a little better. Remember, the police are with him right now. They’ll make sure he’s OK.’
Another lie. What is going on here?
As she steers the conversation back to me, back to the unspoken truth that has resulted in someone putting me down here, I begin to wonder: what else has she lied about? Because the fact is, after hours of waiting for rescue, I’m still stuck down here, and even if the storm is raging up above, and the roads are flooded and blocked, they would have found a way to get to me by now, wouldn’t they?