6 October
Now that we’re out of the city and into the wild, there are fewer vehicles to contend with but the roads have become way harder to navigate. My headlights illuminate one tight bend after another.
Izzy has Scott’s phone on her lap. Paranoia has driven us to wrap both of the handset’s cameras and the mouthpiece with several layers of duct tape, in case Scott really has been keeping tabs on us. We have, of course, kept the screen visible. “Next left,” she says, consulting Google Maps.
“I’ve really missed driving on ridiculous missions with you, Izz.”
“Focus on the road.”
I am way out of Izzy’s good books. You can practically hear her teeth grind. On her express instructions, I’m going slow, despite having gulped down two strong coffees on the way. I’d argued that I’d drunk far less of the vodka than Izzy, but she rightly beat me down until I agreed to approach our journey like a Sunday driver. Even then, if we get pulled over, my career will be over. On the face of it, then, this is far from the most ingenious plan, but I know I wouldn’t sleep tonight without having found Scott. Especially now that we have a pretty specific idea of where he might be.
I’d been so focused on the actual content of Scott’s phone – the words, the media – that GPS tracking never even occurred to me. Yet, as Izzy reminded me, a phone seizes every given opportunity to store the locations visited by its user.
“Left down here,” she says. “No, not this one, the next one. And slow down.”
When we’d opened the list of places Scott had been, not only could we see his footprints across Brighton, Hove and beyond, but each journey bore an ever-so-handy date marker. Before disappearing from the flat and leaving his phone behind, the last place Scott travelled to, on 30 September, was out here in the sticks. In Pulborough, roughly north-west of Brighton, Scott had seemingly visited a spot beside a prehistoric hill fort called Chanctonbury Ring.
Comfortingly, Wikipedia informs us that the Chanctonbury Ring was supposedly created by the Devil himself. Oh yeah, can’t get enough of that, especially seeing as it’s almost midnight. But apparently, as long as we don’t run seven times anti-clockwise around the clump of trees up on that looming peak, we’ll be all right.
A turn-off sign bears the words CHANCTONBURY RING. As I swing left into the lane, I can’t help also noticing the “dead end” sign.
This lane is little more than one vehicle wide. Rustic homes flash past, most of them with handmade signs out front, telling visitors to stay well clear of their property. Shotguns spring to mind.
The effort required to persuade Izzy to let me come here has stolen vengeful wind from my sails, leaving me drained and edgy. Now that we’re here in the thick of the countryside, and potentially heading straight for Scott’s hidey-hole, everything feels all the more real. When Izzy wasn’t looking, I smuggled the hammer along with me, hiding it under my jacket, but what might I actually do with the thing? And weaponry aside, what am I actually going to say to Scott if I find him?
Dear God: if you really do exist, somewhere up there in all these thick, black clouds, please let Scott be a sad little pervert who hasn’t actually hurt anyone, let alone murdered them. Please let him cower before me and beg to be forgiven, so that I may comprehend the full extent of his weakness.
“I’ve no idea how long this road will carry on for,” Izzy says. “The map gets seriously vague from this point.”
“Do these even qualify as roads? They’re more like lanes.”
“You’re skating on thin ice as it is, Collins, without bringing pedantry into the equation.” She peers out through the windscreen. “Ah, okay… here’s the end of the line.”
When I had Google Street View, I would see unfamiliar destinations long before I physically reached them. And yet here’s Izzy and me, parking up at a dead-end turnstile that Street View cameras failed to document. Walking into a territory where even robot cameras didn’t fancy going? Oh yeah, baby, where do I sign?
My headlights blast through the turnstile, then smear themselves weakly across the united front of trees the footpath leads into.
“How much battery’s left on Scott’s phone?” I ask. “Wish we’d thought to bring an actual torch.”
“Did we have an actual torch?”
“No.”
“That’ll be why, then. The phone’s on thirty-three per cent, but let me ask, one more time – what exactly is your plan?”
“All I’m going to do is creep over to this place, this house, whatever… and take a look. Scott’s moving boxes might still be piled up inside for me to see…”
“Mmm, yes, wouldn’t that be convenient. And then what?”
“Nothing. We’ll just know this is the right place.”
The back of my skull aches. Am I telling Izzy the truth? Tonight, will it really be enough to just know?
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
He probably doesn’t, as a rule. But what if the Pope mobile breaks down?
Izzy regards the turnstile like it’s a gallows pole. “Can you really picture Scott living out here?”
“Good question, Loyd Grossman. I’ve no idea. But unless the GPS stuff is way out, he’s been here for some reason. He might secretly be a dogger. I mean, how accurate does this stuff tend to be?”
Izzy throws her hands up and speaks through gritted teeth. “I’ve known it to be scarily accurate and scarily inaccurate. Look, why can’t we come back here tomorrow in daylight? You know I fucking hate this. Especially as I can’t come with you.”
Izzy, bless her, she wouldn’t even make it over the turnstile. Which suits me fine, because I categorically refuse to place the girl in further danger. This very much feels like a trip I need to make alone. “Tomorrow morning, I’m back at work. And—”
“Yeah, you’re back at work if you don’t get murdered.”
My stomach cartwheels at “murdered”, but I conjure my lightest and most reassuring laugh. “I’m not going to get murdered, Izz! For all we know, Scott might not even be capable of that.”
“You reckon he is, though, don’t you. And I might be coming round to the idea. Then again, it’s late and we’re in the middle of nowhere and I’m really tired.”
“First sign of a problem and I’ll be back here like shit through a goose. All you have to do is keep one eye open and get ready to start the engine. This bank’s full o’ cash, Mugsy, I’m tellin’ ya.”
My crap heist gag, and even crapper Noo Yawk accent, only succeed in making Izzy more doomstruck. “You know who can generally carry out this kind of investigation without getting killed? The police.”
“True, but they also need a bulletproof reason to visit.”
Izzy shudders. “Don’t mention bullets. Is there owt I can say that’ll stop you doing this?”
“No, honey.”
“Why not, Kate?”
“Well, because… because, I mean…”
Clutch at those straws. Go on, grab one.
“… what if Scott’s kidnapped people, Izz? What if it’s a Silence of the Lambs type deal? He might have people trapped in a hole out here, telling them to… to… uh, what’s that line in the movie?”
“Put the lotion in the basket,” she sighs.
“Lotion! Yes. Police investigations take too long. And like I said, we’d need a really bulletpr—Sorry, watertight case for them to come and investigate Buffalo Bill. The lambs are screaming, Clarice.”
Even Izzy’s seatbelt sounds harsh as she clunks it open. “Okay, okay, I get it, you wanna be the big dead hero. Put Scott’s phone on vibrate. If a car turns up or something, I’ll text you.”
“Got it. Love you.”
“Jesus, Kate, don’t say that. You never normally say you love me unless I say it first. Makes it sound like the last thing you’ll ever do.”
“Nope, the last thing I’ll ever do is walk into these trees.”
“Right. Best you be fucking off, then.”